The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  ‘Then, as I really mean to ride towards Hatherfield this morning,’ observed the Earl, ‘I shall no doubt be besieged with demands for new roofs and chimney-stacks. What shall I say to my importunate tenants, Theo?’

  ‘Why, that they must carry their complaints to your agent! Do you indeed mean to go there? I had abandoned hope of bringing you to a sense of your obligations! Mind, now, that you don’t deny old Yelden the gratification of receiving a visit from you! He has been asking me for ever when he may hope to see you. You have no more devoted a pensioner, I daresay! He swears it was he who taught you to climb your first tree!’

  ‘So he did, indeed! I will certainly visit him,’ Gervase promised.

  Martin, who had become engaged in conversation with the Chaplain, seemed not to be paying any heed to this interchange; nor, unless some direct enquiry obliged him to do so, did he again address his brother while the meal lasted. He strolled away, when the party rose from the table; and, upon Mr Clowne’s excusing himself, Theo looked shrewdly at his cousin, and said: ‘Now what’s amiss?’

  The Earl raised his brows. ‘Why do you ask me that? Do I seem to you to be out of humour?’

  ‘No, but it’s easy to see that Martin has taken one of his pets.’

  ‘Oh, must there be a reason for his pets? I had not thought it! Are you very busy today? Go with me to Hatherfield!’

  ‘Willingly. I shall be glad to see what damage may have been done to the saplings in the new plantation, Cheringham way. I daresay we may meet Hayle there, and I must have a word with him about fencing. You might care to talk to him yourself!’

  ‘Pray hold me excused! I know nothing of fencing, and should infallibly betray my ignorance. It will not do for my bailiff to hold me cheap!’

  His cousin laughed, but shook his head at him. He went off to transact some trifling matter of business, but in less than twenty minutes he rejoined the Earl, and they set forward on their ride.

  The most direct route to the village of Hatherfield lay through the Home Park and across a stream to Cheringham Spinney. The ground on either side of the stream was marshy, and a long wooden bridge had been thrown across it by the Earl’s grandfather. No more than a footbridge, it was not wide enough to permit of two horsemen riding abreast across it. After the storm, the stream was a miniature torrent, with evidences of the night’s havoc swirling on its churned-up flood. The nervous chestnut Gervase was riding jibbed at the bridge, but, after a little tussle with his rider, stepped delicately on to the wooden planks. ‘You would not do for a campaign, my friend!’ Gervase chided him gently, patting his sweating neck. ‘Courage, now!’

  ‘Take care, Gervase!’ Theo ejaculated, hard on his heels, but reining back. ‘Gervase, stop!’

  ‘Why, what is it?’ Gervase said, obediently halting, and looking over his shoulder.

  ‘It won’t hold! Back!’ Theo said, backing his own horse off the bridge. He dismounted quickly, thrust his bridle into the Earl’s hand, and went squelching through the boggy ground to the edge of the swollen stream. ‘I thought as much!’ he called. ‘One of the supports is scarcely standing! Good God, what a merciful thing that Hayle was speaking to me about the supports only five days ago, and I recalled it in time! One of those great branches must have been hurled against it: it is cracked almost right through!’

  ‘No wonder, then, that Orthes refused to face it!’ said Gervase. ‘Poor fellow, I maligned you, didn’t I? You are wiser by far than your master, and would have spared him an ignominious wetting!’

  ‘A wetting!’ Theo exclaimed, coming back to dry ground. ‘You might think yourself fortunate to escape with no worse than that! There are boulders in the stream-bed: if you had ridden this way alone, and been stunned perhaps – ! I blame myself: I should have had this bridge attended to when Hayle first spoke to me of it! My dear Gervase, it is very well to laugh, but you might have sustained an ugly injury – if not a fatal injury! Now what are we to do?’

  ‘Ford the stream, of course. Orthes won’t like it, so this well-mannered roan of yours shall give him a lead.’

  Theo took the bridle from him again, and remounted. ‘Very well, but take care how you go! The water has risen so much that you can’t perceive the rocks – and, I assure you, there are several!’

  Though the muddied water did indeed hide the rocks, it was not very deep, scarcely rising above the horses’ knees. Gervase was obliged to acknowledge, however, that a fall from the bridge might have resulted in a broken limb or a concussion, for the boulders were numerous, making it necessary for them to pick their way very slowly across the stream. Once Orthes stumbled, but his master held him together, and the passage was accomplished in safety. ‘An adventurous ride!’ remarked Gervase merrily. ‘I am glad you were with me, Theo. A tumble into this dirty water would not have suited me at all. And what my poor Turvey will have to say to my boots when he sees them I shudder to think of! Ah, now, behold the guardian of the bridge – a trifle late, but you can see how zealous!’

  He pointed with his riding-whip down the rough track that lay before them to where a ruddy-cheeked urchin in a smock and frieze breeches was striding importantly towards them with a red handkerchief attached to a hazel-wand carried in the manner of a standard before him.

  ‘Well, Ensign, and who may you be?’ the Earl enquired, smiling down at the boy. ‘Horatius, I fancy!’

  ‘That’s Parson,’ disclaimed the urchin. ‘I’m nobbut Tom Scrooby, come to mind the bridge, and see no one don’t come acrost, your honour, because it’s clean busted.’ His round eyes, having thoroughly taken in the Earl, travelled to Theo. He pulled his sandy forelock. ‘Mr Martin said as how he would tell Mr Hayle, sir, and Father said when he come home that I could mind the bridge till Mr Hayle come down to see it.’

  ‘Mr Martin – !’ Theo checked himself. ‘Very well! See you mind it carefully, Tom! Mr Hayle will be here presently.’

  The Earl flicked a shilling to Master Scrooby, and set his horse in motion down the ride. Orthes was encouraged to break into an easy canter, but in a moment or two the roan caught up with him. Theo said in his quiet way: ‘You had better tell me what it is that troubles you, Gervase. If you are thinking that Martin should have warned you, I daresay he might not have heard you say that you would ride to Hatherfield this morning.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘No,’ said Theo bluntly.

  ‘Nor do I think it. Do you know, I am becoming a little tired of Martin? Perhaps he would be happier at Studham after all. Or, at any rate, I should be.’

  His cousin rode on beside him in silence, frowning slightly. After a pause, the Earl said: ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘That he would be happier there? No. That doesn’t signify, however. If you wish him to leave Stanyon, so be it! It will mean a breach, for he will not leave without making a deal of noise. Lady St Erth, too, will not be silent, nor will she remain at Stanyon. What reason will you give for banishing Martin when he and she publish their wrongs to the rest of our relations?’

  The Earl let Orthes drop to a walk. ‘Must I give any?’

  ‘Unless you wish it to be thought that you have acted from caprice, or – which perhaps might be said by those who do not know you well – from rancour.’

  There was a pause. ‘How very longheaded you are, Theo!’ Gervase complained. ‘You are quite right, of course. But what is the boy about? Does he hope to drive me away from Stanyon? He cannot be so big a clodpole!’

  Theo shrugged. ‘There is no saying what he may hope. But you cannot, I believe, shut your doors to him merely because he fenced once with the button off his foil, and did not warn you that a bridge was unsafe.’

  ‘Ah, there is a little more than that!’ Gervase said.

  ‘What more?’

  Gervase hesitated. ‘Why, I did not mean to tell you this, but I woke last night to the conviction that someone was in m