"Well, it won"t take you long to get on your legs again," said Mervyn, looking admiringly at the perfect picture she presented. "What shall we do with you to-day? Go for a long drive--or what? Well, I don"t know.
The old shandradan I brought you here in isn"t too snug for a convalescing invalid, and it"s the best I"ve got. But first we"ll have breakfast." And he hailed Judy, with an order to hurry on that repast.
"Oh, that be hanged for a yarn, Uncle Seward. I"m not a convalescing anything. I"ve convalesced already, in this splendid air and surroundings. Let"s go out somewhere. Do let"s."
She had clasped both hands round his arm and the blue eyes were sparkling with antic.i.p.ation.
"All right. You shall be Queen of the May, to-day at any rate. But I think we mustn"t overdo it at the start. We"ll lunch early, and then start on a rambling round of exploration--equipped with plenty of wraps."
"And we may get another ripping sunset like yesterday," she exclaimed.
"You are extraordinarily fond of Nature"s effects, child. What else appeals to you?"
"Old stones?"
"What?"
"Old stones. Ruined castles--churches--Roman remains--everything of that kind."
Mervyn emitted a long and expressive whistle.
"Good Lord! but you"ve come to the right shop for that," he said. "Why this countryside just grows them. All sorts of old mouldy monuments, in musty places, just choking with dry rot. Eh? That what you mean?"
"That"s just what I do mean."
"Oh Lord?"
He was looking at her, quizzically ruthful. He foresaw himself being dragged into all sorts of weird places; h.o.a.ry old churches, whose interiors would suggest the last purpose on earth to that for which they had been constructed, and reeking of dry rot--half an ancient arch in the middle of a field which would require wading through a swamp to get at--and so on. But while he looked at her he was conscious that if she had expressed a wish to get a relic chipped out of the moon, he would probably have given serious thought to the feasibility of that achievement.
"But that sort of thing"s all so infernally ugly," he said.
"Is it? Ugly? Old Norman architecture ugly! What next?"
Mervyn whistled again.
"I don"t know anything about Norman, or any other architecture," he said, with a laugh. "I only know that when I run into any Johnnies who do, or think they do--they fight like the devil over it, and vote each other cra.s.s ignoramuses. How"s that?"
"Oh, I don"t know. Let"s go and look at something of the kind this afternoon. Shall we?"
"No, my child. Not if I know it. You wait till you"re clean through this ailment of yours before I sanction you going into any damp old vault to look at gargoyles."
Melian went off into a rippling peal.
"Gargoyles don"t live in vaults, Uncle Seward. They live on roofs, and towers."
"Do they? Well, wherever they live, G.o.d"s good open English country is going to be the thing for you to-day, anyhow."
"All safe. The other will keep."
Mervyn dawdled over breakfast, absolutely contrary to his wont. His wont was to play with it; now he ate it. This bright presence turned a normally gloomy necessity into a fairy feast.
"Come and let"s potter round a bit," he said, soon after they had done.
"Rather."
Melian swung on her large hooded cloak, and they went up the step path to the sluice. The sheen of ice lay before them, running up in a far triangle to the distance of the woods.
"By the way, do you know how to skate?" said Mervyn.
"Yes, but I"m not great at it, and it makes my ankles horribly stiff."
"Well, I sometimes take a turn or two, just to keep in practice. But it"s awful slow work all alone. If you like, dear, I"ll get you a pair from Clancehurst and you can take a turn with me."
"It wouldn"t be worth while I think," she answered. "In point of fact I"m feeling rather too much of a worm for hard exercise just now, and the ice will probably vanish any day."
They wandered on, over the crisp frozen woodland path, and then he pointed out the scene of the stranger"s immersion and rescue. Melian looked at it with vivid interest.
"It must have been a lively undertaking, Uncle Seward," she commented.
"And that you should only just have heard his call for help? And then-- him dying afterwards. Poor man, I wonder who he was."
"So do I--did rather--for you can"t go on wondering for ever. But that idiot, Nashby, has still more than a suspicion that I murdered him. By the way, Melian, you remember I said there were reasons why I couldn"t come up to Town to fetch you; well, there it is. I"ve been practically under police supervision ever since. If I had gone up to London they"d have concluded I"d bolted, and started all Scotland Yard on the spot.
How"s that?"
"How"s that? They must be idiots."
"Yes. That"s near the "bull." But Nashby, though an excellent county police inspector, imagines himself a very real Sherlock Holmes whose light is hidden in a bushel called Clancehurst; consequently there being no earthly motive for me making away with the stranger, therefore I must have made away with him--according to Nashby."
"But, Uncle Seward. Do you really mean to say you"re suspected of murdering the man?"
"Well, more than half--by Nashby. I don"t know that any one else shares his opinion. In fact, I don"t think they do. Look. Here"s the place where I hauled him out."
They had come near the head of the pond. In the weeks of frost that had supervened there were still traces in the ice of that midnight tragedy.
Melian looked at them with wide eyed wonderment.
"Come along," said Mervyn extending a hand. "It"s quite safe--from seven to nine inches thick. We can walk all over it now, can even walk back on it instead of through the wood."
And they did; but first they went up it to where it narrowed to its head, where the feeding stream trickled in. Two wild ducks rose with alarmed quacking, and winnowed away at a surprising velocity over the tree-tops.
"There"d have been a good chance if I"d got a gun," remarked Mervyn. "I come along at dusk sometimes and bag a brace. Old Sir John Tullibard up at the Hall gave me a sort of carte blanche to shoot anything in that line, and told the keeper to cut me in when the pheasants wanted thinning down. He"s a decent old chap, but isn"t at home much. To put it nakedly he"s a regular absentee landlord, but his people seem snug enough."
"The Hall? What sort of place is it? What"s it called?"
Mervyn laughed.
"Why I do believe you"re scenting old stones already. Well, it"s rather a jolly old place, Plane House it"s called. Old Tullibard"s my landlord."
"Good. We must have a look over Plane House."
"Easy enough. If the old man comes over we"ll go and dine there. I do that when he is here, but that"s not often. He"s an old Indian too, though we weren"t in the same part. Now he prefers hanging out on the Riviera. I don"t. Old England"s good enough for me. Look at this for instance."