Collected works of j s f.., p.314
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 314
“I’m going up to town this evening — seven o’clock train,” answered Collingwood, watching her keenly. “All my business is finished now — for the present.”
“But — you’ll be coming back?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” he said. “I may come back — after a while.”
“When you do come back,” she went on, a little hurriedly, “will you come and see us again? I — it’s difficult to explain — but I do wish Harper knew more men — the right sort of men. Do you understand?”
“You mean — he needs more company?”
“More company of the right kind. He doesn’t know many nice men. And he has so little to occupy him. He’s no head for business — my mother attends to all that — and he doesn’t care much about sport — and when he goes into Barford he only hangs about the club, and, I’m afraid, at two or three of the hotels there, and — it’s not good for him.”
“Can’t you get him interested in anything?” suggested Collingwood. “Is there nothing that he cares about?”
“He never did care about anything,” replied Nesta with a sigh. “He’s apathetic! He just moves along. Sometimes I think he was born half asleep, and he’s never been really awakened. Pity, isn’t it?”
“Considering everything — a great pity,” agreed Collingwood. “But — he’s provided for.”
Nesta gave him a swift glance.
“It might have been a good deal better for him if he hadn’t been provided for!” she said. “He’d have just had to do something, then. But — if you come back, you’ll come here sometimes?”
“Of course!” answered Collingwood. “And if I come back, it will probably be to stop here. Mr. Eldrick says there’s a lot of work going begging in Barford — for a smart young barrister well up in commercial law. Perhaps I may try to come up to his standard — I’m certainly young, but I don’t know whether I’m smart.”
“Better come and try,” she said, smiling. “Don’t forget that I’ve seen you look the part, anyway — your wig and gown suited you very well.”
“Theatrical properties,” he replied, laughing. “The wig was too small, and the gown too long. Well — we’ll see. But in the meantime, I’m going away for four months — to India.”
“To India — four months!” she exclaimed. “That sounds nice.”
“Legal business,” said Collingwood. “I shall be back about the end of April — and then I shall probably come down here again, and seriously consider Eldrick’s suggestion. I’m very much inclined to take it.”
“Then — you’d leave London?” she asked.
“I’ve little to leave there,” replied Collingwood. “My father and mother are dead, and I’ve no brothers, no sisters — no very near relations. Sounds lonely, doesn’t it?”
“One can feel lonely when one has relations,” said Nesta.
“Are you saying that from — experience?” he asked.
“I often wish I had more to do,” she answered frankly. “What’s the use of denying it? I’ve next to nothing to do, here. I liked my work at the hospital — I was busy all day. Here — —”
“If I were you,” interrupted Collingwood, “I’d set to work nursing in another fashion. Look after your brother! Get him going at something — even if it’s playing golf. Play with him! It would do him — and you — all the good in the world if you got thoroughly infatuated with even a game. Don’t you see?”
“You mean — anything is better than nothing,” she replied. “All right — I’ll try that, anyway. For — I’m anxious about Harper. All this money! — and no occupation!”
Collingwood, who was sitting near the windows, looked out across the park and into the valley beyond.
“I should have thought that a man who had come into an estate like this would have found plenty of occupation,” he remarked. “What is there, beside the house and this park?”
Nesta, who had busied herself with some fancy-work since Collingwood’s entrance, laid it down and came to the windows. She pointed to certain roofs and gables in the valley.
“There’s the whole village of Normandale,” she said. “A busy place, no doubt, but it’s all Harper’s — he’s lord of the manor. He’s patron of the living, too. It’s all his — farms, cottages, everything. And the woods, and the park, and this house, and a stretch of the moors, as well. Of course, he ought to find a lot to do — but he doesn’t. Perhaps because my mother does everything. She really is a business woman.”
Collingwood looked out over the area which Nesta had indicated. Harper Mallathorpe, he calculated, must be possessed of some three or four thousand acres.
“A fine property!” he said. “He’s a very fortunate fellow!”
Just then this very fortunate fellow came in. His face, dull enough as he entered, lighted up at sight of a visitor, and fell again when Collingwood explained that his visit was a mere flying one, and that he was returning to London that night. Collingwood led him on to the project which he had mentioned at his previous visit — the making of golf links in the park, and pointed out, as a devotee of the sport, what a fine course could be made. Before he left he had succeeded in arousing like interest in Harper — he promised to go into the matter, and to employ a man whom Collingwood recommended as an expert in laying out golf courses.
“You’ll have got your greens in something like order by this time next year, if you start operations soon,” said Collingwood. “And then, if I settle down at Barford, I’ll come out now and then, if you’ll let me.”
“Let you!” exclaimed Harper. “By Jove! — we’re only too glad to have anybody out here — aren’t we, Nesta?”
“We shall always be glad to see Mr. Collingwood,” said Nesta.
Collingwood went away with that last intimation warm in his memory. He had an idea that the girl meant what she said — and for a moment he was sorry that he was going to India. He might have settled down at Barford there and then, and — but at that he laughed at himself.
“A young woman with several thousands a year of her own!” he said. “Of course, she’ll marry some big pot in the county. They feel a little lonely, those two, just now, because everything’s new to them, and they’re new to their changed circumstances. But when I get back — ah! — I guess they’ll have got plenty of people around them.”
And he determined, being a young man of sense, not to think any more — for already he had thought a good deal of Nesta Mallathorpe, until he returned from his Indian travels. Let him attend to his business, and leave possibilities until they came nearer.
“All the same.” he mused, as he drew near the town again, “I’m pretty sure I shall come back here next spring — I feel like it.”
He called in at Eldrick’s office on his way to the hotel, to take some documents which had been preparing for him. It was then late in the afternoon, and no one but Pratt was there — Pratt, indeed, had been waiting until Collingwood called.
“Going back to town, Mr. Collingwood?” asked Pratt as he handed over a big envelope. “When shall we have the pleasure of seeing you again, sir?”
Something in the clerk’s tone made Collingwood think — he could not tell why — that Pratt was fishing for information. And — also for reasons which he could not explain — Collingwood had taken a curious dislike to Pratt, and was not inclined to give him any confidence.
“I don’t know,” he answered, a little icily. “I am leaving for India next week.”
He bade the clerk a formal farewell and went off, and Pratt locked the office door and slowly followed him downstairs.
“To India!” he said to himself, watching the young barrister’s retreating figure. “To India, eh? For a time — or for — what?”
Anyway, that was good news, Pratt had seen in Collingwood a possible rival.
CHAPTER X
THE FOOT-BRIDGE
COLLINGWOOD’S RETURN TO London was made on a Friday evening: next day he began the final preparations for his departure to India on the following Thursday. He was looking forward to his journey and his stay in India with keen expectation. He would have the society of a particularly clever and brilliant man; they were to break their journey in Italy and in Egypt; he would enjoy exceptional facilities for seeing the native life of India; he would gain valuable experience. It was a chance at which any young man would have jumped, and Collingwood had been greatly envied when it was known that Sir John Standridge had offered it to him. And yet he was conscious that if he could have done precisely what he desired, he would have stayed longer at Barford, in order to see more of Nesta Mallathorpe. Already it seemed a long time to the coming spring, when he would be back — and free to go North again.
But Collingwood was fated to go North once more much sooner than he had dreamed of. As he sat at breakfast in his rooms on the Monday morning after his departure from Barford, turning over his newspaper with no particular aim or interest, his attention was suddenly and sharply arrested by a headline. Even that headline might not have led him to read what lay beneath. But in the same instant in which he saw it he also saw a name — Mallathorpe. In the next he knew that heavy trouble had fallen on Normandale Grange, the very day after he had left it.
This is what Collingwood read as he sat, coffee-cup in one hand, newspaper in the other — staring at the lines of unleaded type:
TRAGIC FATE OF YOUNG YORKSHIRE SQUIRE
“A fatal accident, of a particularly sad and disturbing nature, occurred near Barford, Yorkshire, on Saturday. About four o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Linford Pratt, managing clerk to Messrs. Eldrick & Pascoe, Solicitors, of Barford, who was crossing the grounds of Normandale Grange on his way to a business appointment, discovered the dead body of Mr. H. J. Mallathorpe, the owner of the Normandale Estate, lying in a roadway which at that point is spanned, forty feet above, by a narrow foot-bridge. The latter is an ancient construction of wood, and there is no doubt that it was in extremely bad repair, and had given way when the unfortunate young gentleman, who was out shooting in his park, stepped upon it. Mr. Mallathorpe, who was only twenty-four years of age, succeeded to the Normandale estates, one of the finest properties in the neighbourhood of Barford, about two years ago, under somewhat romantic — and also tragic — circumstances, their previous owner, his uncle, Mr. John Mallathorpe, a well-known Barford manufacturer, meeting a sudden death by the falling of his mill chimney — a catastrophe which also caused the deaths of several of his employees. Mr. John Mallathorpe died intestate, and the estate at Normandale passed to the young gentleman who met such a sad fate on Saturday afternoon. Mr. H.J. Mallathorpe was unmarried, and it is understood that Normandale (which includes the village of that name, the advowson of the living, and about four thousand acres of land) now becomes the property of his sister, Miss Nesta Mallathorpe.”
Collingwood set down his cup, and dropped the newspaper. He was but half way through his breakfast, but all his appetite had vanished. All that he was conscious of was that here was trouble and grief for a girl in whom — it was useless to deny it — he had already begun to take a warm interest. And suddenly he started from his chair and snatched up a railway guide. As he turned over its pages, he thought rapidly. The preparations for his journey to India were almost finished — what was not done he could do in a few hours. He had no further appointment with Sir John Standridge until nine o’clock on Thursday morning, when he was to meet him at the train for Dover and Paris. Monday — Tuesday — Wednesday — he had three days — ample time to hurry down to Normandale, to do what he could to help there, and to get back in time to make his own last arrangements. He glanced at his watch — he had forty minutes in which to catch an express from King’s Cross to Barford. Without further delay he picked up a suit-case which was already packed and set out for the station.
He was in Barford soon after two o’clock — in Eldrick’s office by half-past two. Eldrick shook his head at sight of him.
“I can guess what’s brought you down, Collingwood,” he said. “Good of you, of course — I don’t think they’ve many friends out there.”
“I can scarcely call myself that — yet,” answered Collingwood. “But — I thought I might be of some use. I’ll drive out there presently. But first — how was it?”
Eldrick shook his head.
“Don’t know much more than what the papers say,” he answered. “There’s an old foot-bridge there that spans a road in the park — road cut through a ravine. They say it was absolutely rotten, and the poor chap’s weight was evidently too much for it. And there was a drop of forty feet into a hard road. Extraordinary thing that nobody on the estate seems to have known of the dangerous condition of that bridge! — but they say it was little used — simply a link between one plantation and another. However; — it’s done, now. Our clerk — Pratt, you know — found the body. Hadn’t been dead five minutes, Pratt says.”
“What was Pratt doing there?” asked Collingwood.
“Oh, business of his own,” replied Eldrick. “Not ours. There was an advertisement in Saturday’s papers which set out that a steward was wanted for the Normandale estate, and Pratt mentioned it to me in the morning that he thought of applying for the job if we’d give him a good testimonial. I suppose he’d gone out there to see about the preliminaries. Anyway, he was walking through the park when he found young Mallathorpe’s body. I understand he made himself very useful, too, and I’ve sent him out there again today, to do anything he can — smart chap, Pratt!”
“Possibly, then, there is nothing I can do,” remarked Collingwood.
“I should say you’ll do a lot by merely going there,” answered Eldrick. “As I said just now, they’ve few friends, and no relations, and I hear that Mrs. Mallathorpe is absolutely knocked over. Go, by all means — a bit of sympathy goes a long way on these occasions. I say! — what a regular transformation an affair of this sort produces. Do you know, that young fellow, just like his uncle, had not made any will! Fact! — I had it from Robson, their solicitor, this very morning. The whole of the estate comes to the sister, of course — she and the mother will share the personal property. By that lad’s death, Nesta Mallathorpe becomes one of the wealthiest young women in Yorkshire!”
Collingwood made no reply to this communication. But as he drove off to Normandale Grange, it was fresh in his mind. And it was not very pleasant to him. One of the wealthiest young women in Yorkshire! — and he was already realizing that he would like to make Nesta Mallathorpe his wife: it was because he felt what he did for her that he had rushed down to do anything he could that would be of help. Supposing — only supposing — that people — anybody — said that he was fortune-hunting! Somewhat unduly sensitive, proud, almost to a fault, he felt his cheek redden at the thought, and for a moment he wished that old John Mallathorpe’s wealth had never passed to his niece. But then he sneered at himself for his presumption.
“Ass!” he said. “She’s never even thought of me — in that way, most likely! Anyway, I’m a stupid fool for thinking of these things at present.”
But he knew, within a few minutes of entering the big, desolate-looking house, that Nesta had been thinking of him. She came to him in the room where they had first met, and quietly gave him her hand.
“I was not surprised when they told me you were here,” she said. “I was thinking about you — or, rather, expecting to hear from you.”
“I came at once,” answered Collingwood, who had kept her hand in his. “I — well, I couldn’t stop away. I thought, perhaps, I could do something — be of some use.”
“It’s a great deal of use to have just — come,” she said. “Thank you! But — I suppose you’ll have to go?”
“Not for two days, anyway,” he replied. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know that you can actually do anything,” she answered. “Everything is being done. Mr. Eldrick sent his clerk, Mr. Pratt — who found Harper — he’s been most kind and useful. He — and our own solicitor — are making all arrangements. There’s got to be an inquest. No — I don’t know that you can do actual things. But — while you’re here — you can look in when you like. My mother is very ill — she has scarcely spoken since Saturday.”
“I’ll tell you what I will do,” said Collingwood determinedly. “I noticed in coming through the village just now that there’s quite a decent inn there. I’ll go down and arrange to stay there until Wednesday evening — then I shall be close by — if you should need me.”
He saw by her look of quick appreciation and relief that this suggestion pleased her. She pressed his hand and withdrew her own. “Thank you again!” she said. “Do you know — I can’t quite explain — I should be glad if you were close at hand? Everybody has been very kind — but I do feel that there is nobody I can talk to. If you arrange this, will you come in again this evening?”
“I shall arrange it,” answered Collingwood. “I’ll see to it now. Tell your people I am to be brought in whenever I call. And — I’ll be close by whenever you want me.”
It seemed little to say, little to do, but he left her feeling that he was being of some use. And as he went off to make his arrangements at the inn he encountered Pratt, who was talking to the butler in the outer hall.
The clerk looked at Collingwood with an unconcern and a composure which he was able to assume because he had already heard of his presence in the house. Inwardly, he was malignantly angry that the young barrister was there, but his voice was suave, and polite enough when he spoke.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Collingwood,” he said quietly. “Very sad occasion on which we meet again, sir. Come to offer your sympathy, Mr. Collingwood, of course — very kind of you.”
“I came,” answered Collingwood, who was not inclined to bandy phrases with Pratt, “to see if I could be of any practical use.”
“Just so, sir,” said Pratt. “Mr. Eldrick sent me here for the same purpose. There’s really not much to do — beyond the necessary arrangements, which are already pretty forward. Going back to town, sir?” he went on, following Collingwood out to his motor-car, which stood waiting in the drive.
