Part 9 (2/2)

”I'll look in for five minutes after Barry has tucked him up.

Have you been introduced to Barry yet? He's quite a character.”

”So I should imagine. He came in to cart Bernard off, and did something clumsy, or Bernard said he did, and Bernard cuffed his head for him. Barry didn't seem to mind much. Why does he stay?

Is it devotion?”

”He stays because your cousin pays him twice what he would get anywhere else. No, I shouldn't call Barry devoted. But he does his work well, and it isn't anybody's job.”

”I believe you,” Lawrence muttered.

”Warm tonight, isn't it? No, thanks, I won't have anything to drink-- I've only just finished supper. By the by, let me apologize for my absence this afternoon. I was most awfully sorry to miss you, but I never got away from Countisford till after half past five, and my mare cast a shoe on the way back.

Then I tried to get her shod in Liddiard St. Agnes, which is one of those idyllic villages that people write books about, and there I found an Odd-fellows' fete in full swing. The village blacksmith was altogether too harmonious for business, so not being able to cuff his head, like your cousin, I was obliged to walk home.

”Really'? Have a cigar if you won't have anything else.” Val accepted one, and in default of a match Lawrence made him light it from his own. He was entirely at his ease, though the situation struck him as bizarre, but he did not believe that Val was at ease, no, not for all his natural manner and fertility in commonplace. Lawrence was faintly sorry for the poor devil, but only faintly: after all, an awkward interview once in ten years was a low price to pay for that night which Lawrence never had forgotten and never would forget. He had an excellent memory, photographic and phonographic, a gift that wise men covet for themselves but deprecate in their friends.

Lawrence was no Pharisee, but he was not a Samaritan either. He had deliberately set himself to pull up any stray weeds of moral scruple that lingered in a mind stripped bare of Christian ethic, a task harder than some realize, since thousands of men who have no faith in Christ practise virtues that were not known for virtues by the Western world before Christ came to it. But every man is his own special pleader, and Lawrence, whose theory was that one man is as good as another, retained a good hearty prejudice against certain forms of moral failure, and excused it on the ground that it was rather a taste than a principle. He looked directly into Stafford's eyes as the red glow of the cigar flamed and faded between the two heads so close together, and in his own eyes there was the same point of smiling ironic cruelty that Isabel had read in them--the same as Stafford himself had read in them not so many years ago. But apparently Stafford read nothing in them now.

”Sit down, won't you? you've had a f.a.gging day.” Lawrence indicated the chairs left on the lawn. ”Hear me beginning to play the host! As a matter of fact, you must know your way about the place far better than I do. Although we're cousins, Bernard and I have seen next to nothing of each other since we were boys at school. You, Val, must know him better than any one except his wife. I want you to tell me about him. I'm in dangerous country and I need a map.”

”I should be inclined to vary the metaphor a little and call him an uncharted sea,” Val smiled as he threw one leg over the other and settled himself among his cus.h.i.+ons. He was dead tired, having been up since six in the morning and on his feet or in the saddle all day. ”But I'm at your service, subject always to the proviso that I'm Bernard's agent, which makes my position rather delicate. What is it you want to know?”

Since it was whether Clowes behaved decently to his wife, Lawrence s.h.i.+fted in his chair and flicked the ash from his cigar.

”Imprimis, whether Bernard has a trout rod I can borrow. I didn't know there was any fis.h.i.+ng to be had or I'd have brought my own.”

”You can have mine: I scarcely ever touch a line now. Certainly not in hay-harvest! I'll send it down for you the first thing--”

Was it possible that he was as insouciant as he professed to be?

”Oh, thanks very much,” Hyde cut in swiftly, but I couldn't borrow yours. I'll find out if Clowes can't lend me one.”

”As you please.” Stafford left it at that and pa.s.sed on. ”But I don't fancy Bernard has ever thrown a line in his life, he is too energetic to make a fisherman. By the way, I suppose you won't be staying any length of time at Wanhope?”

Lawrence smiled, the wish was father to the thought: that was more like the Val of old times!

”That depends--mainly on my cousin, to be frank: I suspect he'll soon get sick of having a third person in the house.”

”Oh, probably. But you needn't take any notice of that.”

Lawrence looked up in surprise. ”But, perhaps, that is none of my business. Or will you let me give you one warning, since you've asked for a map? Don't be too prompt to take Bernard at his word. He may be very rude to you and yet not want you to go.

He sacks Barry every few weeks. In fact now I come to think of it I'm under notice myself, for last time I saw him he told me to look out for another job. He said what he wanted was a practical man who knew a little about farming.”

”And you stay on? Quite right, if it suits your book.”

Unconsciously putting the worst construction on everything Val said or did, Lawrence's conclusion was that probably Val, an amateur farmer, was paid, like Barry, twice what he was worth in the market. ”But it wouldn't suit mine. However, I don't imagine Bernard will try it on with me. I'm not Barry. If he hits me I shall hit him back.”

”Oh, will you?” returned Val, invisibly amused. ”I'm not sure that wouldn't be a good plan. It has at least the merit of originality. All the same I'm afraid Mrs. Clowes wouldn't like it, she is a standing obstacle in the way of drastic measures.”

”But why do you want me to stay?” Lawrence asked more and more surprised.

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