The Coldstone Read online

  “How many stones are there? I can see two. Is that all there are?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  He swung round impatiently.

  “Why? How long have you been here? I thought Mr. Leveridge said—”

  “I’ve been here thirty years, sir—housekeeper for fifteen.”

  Her face relaxed a little. Pride in her long service was evident.

  Anthony gave a short, half stifled laugh.

  “Thirty years! And you don’t know how many stones there are?”

  “No, sir. Will you be having this room, may I ask, sir?”

  “Never been up to have a look at them?” He ignored the question of the room. He was puzzled and intrigued.

  “No, sir. About the room, sir—”

  He walked to the window and stared out. Straight maroon curtains framed the green fields that were his—green fields all on the slant of the hill. He wondered if he could farm the land and make it pay. He had always wanted to farm really. He looked at the two grey stones, like grey sheep feeding on the green slope a long way off—two of them. And Mrs. Hutchins didn’t know if there were any more. She had been here thirty years, and she didn’t know.

  He turned, smiling; and when he smiled he looked like a schoolboy.

  “And how long has Lane been here?”

  “Forty years. Shall I have this bed made up, sir?”

  “No—I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll have this room.”

  “It’s the best room.”

  “I don’t think I should ever feel as if it were mine. Is there another room that looks up the hill? I’d like that.”

  He thought that Sir Jervis had liked it too; he could lie in bed and look across the brass knobs of the foot-rail at the green fields that climbed the hill, and the grey stones that broke the green.

  They went along the passage, through a door, up a step, and down three more. Anthony began to wonder how long it would take him to find his way about the house.

  Then Mrs. Hutchins flung open a thick oak door.

  “It’s one of the old rooms, sir, if you don’t mind that.”

  He had to bend his head a little, because the doorposts were not quite six foot. The room pleased him immediately. It had panelling to about his own height, and then clean whitewash crossed with timber. Two heavy beams ran overhead, and all the narrow end of the room looked through a long casement at the green, tilted fields. The bed was a four-poster stripped of its curtains, the fluted posts as bare and graceful as winter trees. On the floor a faded Persian carpet, and the bare oak boards polished and blackened by the passing feet of many generations.

  “I’ll have this room,” said Anthony with decision.

  CHAPTER THREE

  An hour later he stepped across the village street to pay his respects to the Miss Colstones. The Ladies’ House had a little square paved garden in front of it; there was a low stone wall, and a high stone gate. The house itself crossed the back of the garden and sent out two wings that enclosed it. There was a square bed of scarlet geraniums in each corner of the paved place, and a round bed, with a large lavender bush and an incongruous edging of lobelia, in the middle. The path led up to the round bed, divided in two to encircle it, and then ran straight up to a worn grey step and a dark green door.

  Anthony was shown into a white panelled room with a glass door open to a miniature lawn. On either side of the door there were casement windows very deeply recessed. He stood in the middle of the pale flowered carpet and looked about him. The furniture exhibited a pleasing mixture of periods. There were three gimcrack gilt Empire chairs, some dignified oak, a round table with a wreath of flowers inlaid upon its edge and a marvellous erection of wax fruit under a glass shade standing in the middle of it, flanked by photograph albums with gold clasps and edges. One of the albums was bound in crimson plush, and the other in faded red morocco. Over the fireplace a lady in a ruff looked sadly at her own long thin fingers, her hair drawn tightly back beneath a jewelled cap, her eyebrows raised in strained interrogation.

  The door opened, and there came in a little lady, very point device, with pretty white hair rolled back over a cushion, and scraps of old lace at the neck and wrists of her mourning gown. She had a wisp of a white Shetland shawl about her shoulders. Her eyes were a clear pale blue, her cheeks round and pink, her mouth the cupid’s bow of a Victorian book of beauty. She had pretty little hands and pretty little feet, and a fluttered manner that was pretty too in its suggestion of timid welcome. The small outstretched hand trembled just perceptibly.

  Anthony took it, and found it cold.

  He said, “How do you do, Miss Colstone?”

  “Oh, not Miss Colstone! Indeed I hope you will call us Cousin. And I am not Miss Colstone—I am Miss Arabel—your Cousin Arabel. Agatha is Miss Colstone, and—won’t you sit down?”

  He chose one of the stronger chairs, moving it nearer to the frail gilt sofa with its faded brocade cushions which made Miss Arabel’s cashmere look so dead a black.

  She gazed at him earnestly and said,

  “You are not at all like dear Papa. Did you have a pleasant journey? We would have sent to meet you, but we have no carriage. Have you come alone?”

  “I’m expecting a friend to-morrow.”

  “That will be pleasant for you. It is a big house to be alone in.”

  “I feel as if it would take me ages to find my way about in it. Do you know if there’s a plan of the house at all?”

  “A plan?”

  “Yes. I’d like to get it into my head.”

  “I—don’t know.” She looked a little alarmed. “Oh, here is Agatha.”

  Miss Agatha Colstone came in through the open door from the garden. She wore a wide straw hat tied under her ample chin with a bit of rusty black ribbon. Her skirt was short, her shoes very sensible. She held a garden fork. The hand she offered Anthony had obviously been weeding.

  “There!” she said in a deep voice. “I’ve finished that border, thank goodness! So you’re young Anthony. Let me have a look at you. Who are you like?”

  “He isn’t like poor Papa,” said Miss Arabel rather plaintively.

  “Why should he be?”

  “Must I be like someone?” said Anthony with a twinkle.

  Miss Agatha fixed her rather prominent eyes upon him. They were brown and round like little bullseyes, but not unfriendly.

  “H’m—I can’t see any likeness.”

  Then she sat down, fanned herself with the fork, and began to ask him all the questions that Miss Arabel had already asked. For the second time, he had had a pleasant journey, and a friend was coming to stay with him. Then, with relief, to new ground. The friend’s name was West—about his own age—he hadn’t seen him for four years because he had been in India—they used to be great pals—he was a junior master at Marfield.

  Miss Agatha was a vigorous questioner. She elicited in a swift competent manner that Anthony was twenty-six, disengaged, a golfer, a fair shot, six foot in his socks, and of no particular brand of politics. This appeared to shock her a good deal. Sir Jervis had obviously ranked politics with religion—and the greater of these was politics.

  Anthony hastened to change the subject. He wanted to talk about Stonegate. But Miss Agatha did not.

  “Your father died—”

  “When I was three. I hardly remember him or my mother. Her people brought me up—an aunt and her husband. He farmed his own land. I think I’d have gone in for farming if he’d lived; but he died when I was sixteen. My aunt wanted me to go into the army. She said farming was no good without capital.”

  “Quite right.”

  “I was wondering—” He broke off. He didn’t want to embark on plans. The word sent him back to the question he had asked Miss Arabel. “I suppose there are plans somewhere—of the house and everything? I want to know my way about. And perhaps you can tell me what’s my best way up to the field where the Stones are. I thought I’d walk up and have a look. Fancy—I asked Mrs.
Hutchins about them, and she couldn’t tell me how many there were. She said she’d never even been to have a look at them. Isn’t it amazing?”

  Miss Agatha had been fidgeting with the dusty fork, to the detriment of her black serge skirt. When Anthony said “Amazing,” she dropped the fork and stooped frowning to pick it up again. Miss Arabel said “Oh!” in a helpless, fluttered sort of way.

  “She couldn’t even tell me how many stones there were,” pursued Anthony cheerfully. “And by the way, of course you can tell me all about them. I’m fearfully interested. How many are there?”

  There was one of those silences that follow the worst kind of faux pas. He had dropped a brick—most undoubtedly he had dropped a brick. He would have liked to drop a few more, noisily, with a crash; to heave, say, the plush photograph album through the left-hand casement window; or to catch Miss Arabel round the waist and swing her across the room to the latest tango.

  He smiled charmingly at Miss Agatha’s blank frown and repeated his question.

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know,” said Miss Agatha. Her voice was deep and reluctant, heavy with things unsaid.

  She got up, moved to the window, and pitched her weeding fork out on to the lawn. Then she came back, untying the strings of her hat. Miss Arabel sat quite still. She looked frightened. Her plump little hands clasped one another in her black cashmere lap.

  Agatha Colstone removed her hat and began to fan herself with it—it certainly made a better fan than the fork. She sat on the edge of a solid mahogany chair with claw-and-ball feet. Her iron grey hair was drawn almost as tightly away from her face as that of the lady with the ruff. The back of her head was covered with flat rigid plaits. She looked angry and nervous. She said, in a loud voice that shook a little,

  “We don’t talk about the Stones.”

  Anthony felt better. The brick had at least broken the awful hush.

  “Why don’t you talk about them?” He nerved himself and added, “Cousin Agatha?”

  Miss Arabel made a little fluttered movement. She said, “Poor Papa—” and then stopped as if that explained everything.

  “I don’t understand,” said Anthony. He understood very well that the old ladies were trying to hush him up; but he felt very resolute about not being hushed. He looked at Miss Agatha with a sparkle in his eyes.

  “What’s the matter with the Stones? Don’t you think I’d better know and have done with it? After all, if I’m going to live here—”

  Miss Agatha let her hat fall on to the floor. She spoke in a slow, considering manner:

  “I cannot tell you how many stones there are, because, like Mrs. Hutchins, I have never been to look at them. Everyone does not take the same interest in these things that you seem to. And if you wish for an additional reason, I can give it you very simply. The village people have some foolish superstitions connected with the Stones, and my father did not wish us to become associated with them in any way.” She shut her mouth firmly.

  Miss Arabel said, “Dear Papa—” and then stopped again because Miss Agatha turned a forbidding eye upon her.

  Anthony felt pleasantly stimulated. He had drawn her to the extent of admitting that there were superstitions in connection with the Stones. He wanted very badly to know what they were. He thought he would ask, and risk a snubbing.

  “What sort of superstitions? It sounds awfully interesting.”

  “I am afraid I can’t tell you, Anthony.” She rose to her feet. “And now, I think, we will change the subject. Perhaps you would care to see the garden. I hope Mrs. Hutchins is making you comfortable. She is a valuable servant, and so is Lane.”

  They passed out on to the sunny lawn.

  When Anthony had taken his leave, Miss Agatha waited until she heard the front door shut. Then she turned to Miss Arabel and said,

  “Well?”

  “He is very agreeable, Agatha.”

  Miss Agatha said “H’m!”

  “And very good-looking.”

  Miss Agatha said “H’m!” again.

  There was a pause. Then Miss Agatha spoke in a forced, jerky voice:

  “Susan Bowyer has got that girl here again.”

  A faint colour came into Miss Arabel’s face.

  “That girl Susan?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is very awkward, Agatha,” said Miss Arabel. “What will people say?”

  Miss Agatha drew herself up.

  “What can they say? She’s Robert’s granddaughter—Robert Bowyer’s grand-daughter—she’s Susan Bowyer. There isn’t anything that anyone can say. Why shouldn’t Susan have her son Robert’s grand-daughter to stay with her?”

  “It is very awkward,” said Miss Arabel.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Anthony went up the hill with the feeling of adventure strong in him. The Stones appeared to be the subject of some extraordinary taboo. Miss Agatha was round about seventy years of age; she had lived seventy odd years in this delightful, benighted, mediævally rustic spot—and she had never bothered to cross three fields and look at the Stones. Mrs. Hutchins had also lived here all her life—Miss Arabel had informed him that her father had been sexton for some vast number of years. The “Mrs.” was apparently in the nature of a brevet. She also had never troubled to climb these gently tilted fields. Going to see the Stones wasn’t done in Ford St. Mary; you didn’t go and see them, and you didn’t talk about them. The villagers entertained vain superstitions about them. Now he wondered a good deal whether Sir Jervis had not entertained them too.

  He crossed the last field and came to an apparently impenetrable hedge. There was no pathway, and there was no stile; there was nothing you could climb over or under.

  Anthony began to break a way through the hedge with the oddest sense of guilt. He had to go on reminding himself that it was his own hedge and his own field. He felt exactly as if he were eight years old, breaking into an orchard to steal plums. In the end he pushed his way through a tangle of sloe and thorn, and got clear of the hedge with a jagged tear in his coat and a scratch on the cheek from a blackberry trail. There was going to be a jolly good crop of blackberries here if the weather held. He disentangled another trail from his left ankle and looked about him.

  The field was almost waist-high in flowering grass, hemlock and sorrel, with a few late moon-daisies and patches of purple thistle. The other fields had been mown, and had their second crop of grass drying off in the sun. It was scarcely knee-high. But this field had not been touched. Its hedges closed it in like prison walls. There was no way into it except the way that he had broken for himself.

  He looked about him and saw the Stones, two of them, separated by almost the whole width of the field, the nearer one not twenty feet away, a tall, misshapen monolith of roughened grey stone stained with orange fungus. He walked up to it, wondering whether it had been one of a pair like the great uprights of Stonehenge. There was no sign of anything but this one pillar. He judged it to be about fifteen feet high, narrower than the stones at Stonehenge.

  He cut across the field diagonally towards the other monolith. It did not seem to be quite so tall, and it leaned sideways a little, like the leaning tower of Pisa. The grass and the sorrel were up to his waist as he walked. Everything smelt very sweet. There was red clover amongst the grass, and camomile. The sun was going slowly down the hazy slope of the sky. Everything was very still, and hot, and sweet. The only sound was the swishing of the ripened grass as he pushed through it.

  And then all of a sudden the grass came to an end and he saw the third Stone. It lay flat in a bare space. First the long grass ceased, then the short, sparse, weedy straggle. The Stone lay flat, and for a yard all round it there was not so much as a green blade.

  Anthony came out on to the open place and looked down at the Stone. It was not quite so big as the others. It was wider, flatter. It was sunk, so that only a hand’s breadth of its worn grey sides showed above the earth. It looked as if it had been laid there. He wondered
whether it had been laid there, or whether it had fallen hundreds of years ago. The place gave him a curious feeling.

  He walked all round the Stone, and just as he came to the east side of it, he saw the marks upon its surface. The low sun caught a faint, worn tracery. Right in the middle of the Stone there was something that looked like interlaced triangles. It was very much rubbed and worn; two of the points were gone. But there it was. He wondered who had done it, and how long ago; and he wondered what it meant.

  He looked up towards the other standing Stone, and saw a man’s face watching him. The Stone was up in the left-hand corner of the field, not half a dozen yards from the hedge. The man’s face looked out of the hedge. He must have forced his way into the middle of it and pushed his head between two branches of leafy elder, for only his head was visible—a head with smooth black hair, pale oval face, and black staring eyes. The eyes were fixed on Anthony, but the moment that Anthony’s own eyes met them the head vanished. One minute it was there, and the next minute it wasn’t there. It was all so very sudden that just for a moment Anthony wasn’t sure whether his imagination had been playing him tricks.

  He pelted off up the field, reached the hedge, and parted the elder branches. There was no one there. There was nothing to be seen in the field beyond except some placidly cropping sheep. The grass was short, thanks to the sheep, but there were four hedges. Anthony was blowed if he was going to scramble through another thickset hedge to search for the gentleman with the staring eyes. He had a look at the standing Stone, and then walked back across the field to the gap he had made in the lower hedge.

  As he walked, he couldn’t help thinking about the face. It was odd. Why was it odd? There wasn’t anything odd about it. Someone was having a look through the hedge—and why not? On the other hand, why? It wasn’t a village lad. Now how on earth could he be sure of that? He didn’t know. But he was sure. He began to produce reasons. The fellow had a sort of high-brow look, well brushed, well shaved. He kept seeing the pale oval face with the smooth lip and chin and the black hair brushed away from the pale high forehead. Well, anyone can look through a hedge. So they can—but they needn’t glare. This fellow had most undoubtedly glared. No, glared wasn’t really strong enough. “He looked as if I was poison—rank bad poison.” Very surprising to be looked at like that. Anthony gave it up.