Shaking her head over this, she ushered his lordship up the shallow steps to the front-door, and then into a parlour overlooking the carriage-sweep. She almost overwhelmed him with apologies for not having the drawing-room prepared for his reception, with promises of instant refreshment, and with solicitous enquiries after the state of his health. He got rid of her only by accepting her offer of home-brewed ale; and when he had drunk this she showed so marked a disposition to linger that he announced his intention of strolling out to look round the demesne.
It was fully an hour before Theo returned to the house. He came striding from the stables, and met his cousin on his leisurely way back from the shrubbery. At sight of that slim, elegant figure, still wearing a caped driving-coat, but with fair head uncovered, he called out: ‘Gervase! My dear fellow!’ and hurried towards the Earl. ‘I had no notion you meant to come to Evesleigh!’ he said. ‘If that fool of mine had had a grain of sense he would have fetched me an hour ago!’
‘He would have done so, but I thought very likely he would miss you, and so told him not to go,’ replied the Earl.
‘Ay, that’s what he has just said to me. Has Mrs Allenby looked after you? Why are you wandering about the garden? You should rather be resting in the parlour!’
‘Oh, I am wandering in the garden because she looked after me only too well!’
Theo smiled. ‘I daresay! But come inside now! I will protect you from her, I promise you.’
The answering smile was perfunctory; Theo said, with a glance at the Earl’s face: ‘You are fagged to death, Gervase! And no wonder!’
‘No, not as bad as that,’ Gervase said, mounting the stone steps beside him. ‘I am really very much harder to kill than any of you can be brought to believe.’
‘I know well you bear a charmed life, but to be taxing your strength in such a way as this – !’ Theo flung open the door into the parlour. ‘Go in! Let me speak two words to Allenby, and I’ll be with you!’
When he returned to the parlour, some ten minutes later, he found the Earl seated in a chair on one side of the old draw-table, which was littered with papers and ledgers. He shut the door, saying: ‘Mrs Allenby is so much vexed that she had no word of your coming that nothing I can say will console her. You mean to remain here for the night, I hope?’
‘No, I am returning to Stanyon.’ The Earl tossed back on to the table a paper he had been reading. ‘I never knew, until I came home, how much work you did, Theo. I have you to thank for it that I find my inheritance in such good order, haven’t I?’
‘Why, yes!’ Theo admitted. ‘But you did not drive ten miles to tell me that! My dear Gervase, what can have possessed you to behave with such imprudence? When I left Stanyon you had not quitted your room, and here you are, without even Chard to bear you company!’
‘I wanted to see you, and alone.’
Theo looked at him with knit brows. ‘Something has happened since I left Stanyon? Is that it?’
‘No, nothing has happened, except that I have regained my strength and my wits. My head still ached abominably when I saw you last, Theo. I found it difficult to think, and impossible to act. I was in doubt, too – or perhaps only trying to believe there was doubt. It is of very little consequence.’
‘If you wanted me, why could you not have sent me word to come to you?’ Theo said roughly. ‘To have driven all this way, and alone, was madness! I wish you may not have cause to regret such foolhardiness!’
‘There are those who could tell you that my wounds heal quickly. Sit down, Theo!’
/> His cousin cast himself into the chair on the other side of the table, but said: ‘And what if you had met with another accident on your way here? Good God, you must know the risks you run!’
‘I am not afraid of being ambushed today,’ replied the Earl. ‘Martin went to Grantham, and Chard with him. Even if he has by now returned to Stanyon, Chard is still watching him. He won’t let him out of his sight until he sees me safe home again.’ He paused, and for a moment or two there was silence, broken only by the sound of a horse’s hooves somewhere in the distance, and the measured ticking of the clock on the mantelshelf. ‘So, you see, Theo, I had nothing to fear in driving over to see you.’
The sound of hooves was growing momently more distinct; the Earl slightly turned his head, listening.
‘Well! I am glad to know you took that precaution at least!’ said Theo. ‘But who is watching Hickling? Did you think of that?’
‘Why, no!’ replied Gervase. ‘Hickling is certainly devoted to Martin, but I hardly think he would commit murder to oblige him!’
He rose from his chair as he spoke, and walked to the window. The hooves were pounding up the carriage-sweep. ‘What is it?’ Theo asked. ‘Has Chard come to look for you?’
The Earl’s right hand had been hidden in the pocket of his driving-coat. He withdrew it, and his cousin saw that it held a silver-mounted pistol. ‘No,’ he said, in an odd voice, ‘but I seem to have been out in my reckoning! I am no longer safe from the strange accidents that befall me.’
‘Good God, Gervase, what do you mean? Who is it?’ exclaimed Theo, starting up.
‘It is Martin,’ said the Earl, turning, so that he faced the room, his back against the wall.
‘Martin! But, my dear Gervase, he would never –’
Theo broke off, silenced by a lifted finger. Martin’s voice could be heard in the hall, fiercely interrogating Allenby.
‘How rash! how witless of him!’ sighed the Earl.
Hasty footsteps were crossing the hall; the door burst open, and Martin came impetuously into the room, and slammed the door shut again with one careless, backward thrust of his hand.