Part 36 (1/2)

”My father's name was Basil,” Harding explained, and taking up another photograph he placed it with its back beside the inscription in the book. It was autographed: _Janet Harding_.

”I imagine it was sent to him with the book, perhaps when he was at school,” Harding resumed. ”You will note that the hand is the same.”

This was obvious. The writing had a distinctive character, and Beatrice examined the faded portrait carefully. It was full length, and showed a lady in old-fas.h.i.+oned dress with an unmistakable stamp of dignity and elegance. The face had grown very faint, but on holding it to the light she thought she could perceive an elusive likeness to Hester Harding.

”This lady must have been your grandmother,” she remarked.

”Yes,” said Harding. ”I have another picture which seems to make the chain complete.”

He took it from the box and beckoned Beatrice to the window before he gave it to her, for the photograph was very indistinct. Still, the front of an English country house built in the Georgian style could be made out, with a few figures on the broad steps to the terrace. In the center stood the lady whose portrait Beatrice had seen, though she was recognizable rather by her figure and fine carriage than her features.

She had her hand upon the shoulder of a boy in Eton dress.

”That,” said Harding, ”was my father.”

Beatrice signified by a movement of her head that she had heard, for she was strongly interested in the back-ground of the picture. The wide lawn with its conventionally cut border of shrubbery stretched beyond the old-fas.h.i.+oned house until it ended at the edge of a lake, across which rounded ma.s.ses of trees rolled up the side of a hill. All this was familiar; it reminded her of summer afternoons in England two or three years ago. Surely she had walked along that terrace then! She could remember the gleaming water, the solid, dark contour of the beechwood on the hill, and the calm beauty of the sunlit landscape that she glimpsed between ma.s.sive scattered oaks. Then she started as she distinguished the tower of a church in the faded distance, its spires rising among the tall beech-trees.

”But this is certainly Ash Garth!” she cried.

”I never heard its name,” Harding answered quietly.

Beatrice sat down with the photograph in her hand. Her curiosity was strongly roused, and she had a half disturbing sense of satisfaction.

”It looks as if your father had lived there,” she said.

”Yes; I think it must have been his home.”

”But the owner of Ash Garth is Basil Morel! It is a beautiful place. You come down from the bleak moorland into a valley through which a river winds, and the house stands among the beechwoods at the foot of the hill.”

”The picture shows something of the kind,” agreed Harding, watching her with a reserved smile.

Beatrice hesitated.

”Perhaps I could find out what became of your father's people and where they are now.”

”I don't want to know. I have shown you these things in confidence; I'd rather not have them talked about.”

”But you must see what they might mean to you!” Beatrice exclaimed in surprise.

He moved from the window and stood facing her with an air of pride.

”They mean nothing at all to me. My father was obviously an exile, disowned by his English relatives. If he had done anything to deserve this, I don't want to learn it, but I can't think that's so. It was more likely a family quarrel. Anyway, I'm quite content to leave my relatives alone. Besides, I promised something of the kind.”

He told her about the money he had received, and she listened with keen interest.

”But did he never tell you anything about his English life?”

”No,” said Harding. ”I'm not sure that my mother knew, though Hester thinks she meant to tell us something in her last illness. My father was a reserved man. I think he felt his banishment and it took the heart out of him. He was not a good farmer, not the stuff the pioneers are made of, and I believe he only worked his land for my mother's sake, while it was she who really managed things until I grew up. She was a brave, determined woman, and kept him on his feet.”