Rose came back with the flowers in a box. Mark thought, “I can’t leave her like this, half-way through a proposal, damn it.” He said coolly, “Come and meet your father. You don’t take enough exercise.”
“I live in a state of almost perpetual motion,” she rejoined, “and I’m not suitably shod or dressed for the river path.”
Mrs. Cartarette gave a little laugh. “Poor Mark!” she murmured. “But in any case, Rose, here comes your father.”
Colonel Cartarette had emerged from a spinney half-way down the hill and was climbing up through the rough grass below the lawn. He was followed by his spaniel Skip, an old, obedient dog. The evening light had faded to a bleached greyness. Stivered grass, trees, lawns, flowers and the mildly curving thread of the shadowed trout stream joined in an announcement of oncoming night. Through this setting Colonel Cartarette moved as if he were an expression both of its substance and its spirit. It was as if from the remote past, through a quiet progression of dusks, his figure had come up from the valley of the Chyne.
When he saw the group by the lawn he lifted his hand in greeting. Mark went down to meet him. Rose, aware of her stepmother’s heightened curiosity, watched him with profound misgiving.
Colonel Cartarette was a native of Swevenings. His instincts were those of a countryman and he had never quite lost his air of belonging to the soil. His tastes, however, were for the arts and his talents for the conduct of government services in foreign places. This odd assortment of elements had set no particular mark upon their host. It was not until he spoke that something of his personality appeared.
“Good evening, Mark,” he called as soon as they were within comfortable earshot of each other. “My dear chap, what do you think! I’ve damned near bagged the Old ’Un.”
“No!” Mark shouted with appropriate enthusiasm.
“I assure you! The old ’Un! below the bridge in his ustial lurk, you know. I could see him.…”
And as he panted up the hill, the Colonel completed his classic tale of a magnificent strike, a Homeric struggle and a broken cast. Mark, in spite of his own preoccupations, listened with interest. The Old ’Un was famous in Swevenings: a trout of magnitude and cunning, the despair and desire of every rod in the district.
“…so I lost him,” the Colonel ended, opening his eyes very wide and at the same time grinning for sympathy at Mark. “What a thing! By Jove, if I’d got him I really believe old Phinn would have murdered me.”
“Are you still at war, sir?”
“Afraid so. The chap’s impossible, you know. Good God, he’s accused me in so many words of poaching. Mad! How’s your grandfather?”
Mark said, “He’s failing pretty rapidly, I’m afraid. There’s nothing we can do. It’s on his account I’m here, sir.” And he delivered his message.
“I’ll come at once,” the Colonel said. “Better drive round. Just give me a minute or two to clean up. Come round with me, won’t you?”
But Mark felt suddenly that he could not face another encounter with Rose and said he would go home at once by the river path and would prepare his grandfather for the Colonel’s arrival.
He stood for a moment looking back through the dusk towards the house. He saw Rose gather up the full skirt of her house-coat and run across the lawn, and he saw her father set down his creel and rod, take off his hat and wait for her, his bald head gleaming. She joined her hands behind his neck and kissed him. They went on towards the house arm-in-arm. Mrs. Cartarette’s hammock had begun to swing to and fro.
Mark turned away and walked quickly down into the valley and across Bottom Bridge.
The Old ’Un, with Colonel Cartarette’s cast in his jaw, lurked tranquilly under the bridge.
CHAPTER II
Nunspardon
Sir Harold Lacklander watched Nurse Kettle as she moved about his room. Mark had given him something that had reduced his nightmare of discomfort and for the moment he seemed to enjoy the tragic self-importance that is the prerogative of the very ill. He preferred Nurse Kettle to the day-nurse. She was, after all, a native of the neighbouring village of Chyning, and this gave him the same satisfaction as the knowledge that the flowers on his table came out of the Nunspardon conservatories.
He knew now that he was dying. His grandson had not told him in so many words, but he had read the fact of death in the boy’s face and in the behaviour of his own wife and son. Seven years ago he had been furious when Mark wished to become a doctor: a Lacklander and the only grandson. He had made it as difficult as he could for Mark. But he was glad now to have the Lacklander nose bending over him and the Lacklander hands doing the things doctors seemed to think necessary. He would have taken a sort of pleasure in the eminence to which approaching death had raised him if he had not been tormented by the most grievous of all ills. He had a sense of guilt upon him.
“Long time,” he said. He used as few words as possible because with every one he uttered it was as if he squandered a measure of his dwindling capital. Nurse Kettle placed herself where he could see and hear her easily and said, “Doctor Mark says the Colonel will be here quite soon. He’s been fishing.”
“Luck?”
“I don’t know. He’ll tell you.”
“Old ’n.”
“Ah,” said Nurse Kettle comfortably, “they won’t catch him in a hurry.”
The wraith of a chuckle drifted up from the bed and was followed by an anxious sigh. She looked closely at the face that seemed during that day to have receded from its own bones.
“All right?” she asked.
The lacklustre eyes searched hers. “Papers?” the voice asked.
“I found them just where you said. They’re on the table over there.”
“Here.”
“If it makes you feel more comfortable.” She moved into the shadows at the far end of the great room and returned carrying a package, tied and sealed, which she put on his bedside table.
“Memoirs,” he whispered.
“Fancy,” said Nurse Kettle. “There must be a deal of work in them. I think it’s lovely to be an author. And now I’m going to leave you to have a little rest.”
She bent down and looked at him. He stared back anxiously. She nodded and smiled and then moved away and took up an illustrated paper. For a time there were no sounds in the great bedroom but the breathing of the patient and the rustle of a turned page.
The door opened. Nurse Kettle stood up and put her hands behind her back as Mark Lacklander came into the room. He was followed by Colonel Cartarette.
“All right, Nurse?” Mark asked quietly.
“Pretty much,” she murmured. “Fretting. He’ll be glad to see the Colonel.”
“I’ll just have a word with him first.”
He walked down the room to the enormous bed. His grandfather stared anxiously up at him and Mark, taking the restless old hand in his, said at once, “Here’s the Colonel, Grandfather. You’re quite ready for him, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Now.”
“Right.” Mark kept his fingers on his grandfather’s wrist. Colonel Cartarette straightened his shoulders and joined him.
“Hullo, Cartarette,” said Sir Harold so loudly and clearly that Nurse Kettle made a little exclamation. “Nice of you to come.”
“Hullo, sir,” said the Colonel, who was by twenty-five years the younger. “Sorry you’re feeling so cheap. Mark says you want to see me.”
“Yes.” The eyes turned towards the bedside table. “Those things,” he said. “Take them, will you? Now.”
“They’re the memoirs,” Mark said.
“Do you want me to read them?” Cartarette asked, stooping over the bed.