john lee touched his hat, while grace rose and welcomed her father, who, still dominated by his idea, proved in a very amiable mood.
"you grow fast—you'll be as tall as your grandmother at this rate. not that you are like her," he said to the lad. john smiled and touched his hat again.
malherb scanned the finely built youngster, and thought of his dead son. there was a resemblance, as grace recently remarked to john himself, and the father, who had a picture of noel malherb painted lifelike upon memory, now perceived this similitude. for a moment he stared in silence, then turned to grace.
"i seek your mother. has she gone to visit lady tyrwhitt?"
"yes, she is at tor royal, father. indeed, she should be on her way home again by this time."
"then we'll walk along to meet her. and you, john lee, tell that old witch up there i'm not asleep. i shall have my amphora yet; and the reckoning, when it does come, will mean a halter for her."
"your servant, sir; an' i'll be sure to speak the message."
as they proceeded together, grace put a petition to her father, and he was about to decline it, but bethought him. the idea entirely turned upon grace herself, and he had no desire to cross her will in minor matters, though she still differed from him upon the great question of her own future.
"father," she said, "i ought to have a groom."
"why, that boy we have left is as good as a groom to you."
"in a way. but i feel there should be a little more distinction about the matter. in truth, john lee's pony can't live with my beautiful 'c?sar' and if he was better mounted he could show me the country that you and i are going to hunt in the winter. 'twould be well for me to ride over it, and you are too busy to take me. now lee, if he had a horse and a livery—and how wonderfully well he rides."
"that's true. i had observed it. better far than any man i have seen on the moor—excepting sir thomas tyrwhitt and myself. a splendid natural seat."
"let him be my servant and look after your hacks and the hunters. but only if you can afford it. i know you have had to spend a great deal lately."
"yes, yes; we must spend to get; and dartmoor wants a good deal of cash down in advance on a bargain. but i think i generally get the worth of my money. well—he shall come. i like a livery or two about me, and poor kekewich will never cut much of a figure in his. the boy is a fine up-standing boy, and civil. you shall have him. he may help me too—in the direction of the malherb amphora."
"thank you, thank you! was there ever such a kind father?"
"i've only got you now," he said. "i'm not a talker, and it is a vile thing to see a man of quality show his feelings; but between father and daughter affection is natural, and may even be declared in reason. you're the apple of my eye."
"how well i know it!"
she kissed him and, occupied with his idea, he took her hand. thus they walked along until mrs. malherb appeared on her homeward way from tor royal. she sat behind richard beer on a pillion, for she was fearful of horses, and never rode alone.
annabel described an émeute at the war prison.
"it seems," she said, "that the poor americans are the chief danger there. they were sent up from the hulks at plymouth, because they were always escaping from them; and now more than one has got clean away in a disturbance. they think that these desperate men will presently be recaptured, or else lose their lives in the lonely desert wastes towards cranmere pool. they may, however, by good fortune get into touch with their fellow-countrymen on parole at ashburton or tavistock, and so make to the coast and escape to france from dartmouth or tor quay."
"if i should meet a runaway!" cried grace.
"you would ride him down, i should hope, unless he yielded and followed you," said her father.
mrs. malherb nearly dropped richard's pillion-belt and fell to the ground.
"la! what sport for a young maid!" she cried.
that night after they had gone to rest, the master placed his great inspiration before annabel, and her eyes grew round in the darkness. the blind was up, for malherb allowed the daylight to waken him, and the seasons regulated the hour of his rising. now mrs. malherb watched a star cross the eastern-facing casement; but only her eyes perceived that distant sun, for her mind was occupied with a closer matter.
"i have hit upon a thought which shows how i may still work to some purpose here and not make a place for strangers to enjoy when we are gone," he said. "a malherb shall have all——"
"you cannot mean that you will forgive your nephews!" cried his wife in amazement.
"'nephews'! no. curse the pack of 'em—curs that disgrace the name. they're not even honest. and 'twas not i that quarrelled with them, but they with me. i am fifty-one. in a year i shall be fifty-two, and grace will be marriageable. eighteen's a very proper age. my grand-aunt, sibella, was a famous beauty at sixteen, wedded with the duke of sampford on her seventeenth birthday, had a daughter upon her eighteenth, and was a grandmother when she was thirty-seven. by the time grace is nineteen she will be the mother of a son."
"good gracious, my love, how you run on!"
"not at all. i'm simply stating the probable course of nature. a son, i say; and that son comes to us. when the lad is one-and-twenty i shall be but seventy or so. what is that? nowadays, such a man as i am is merely middle-aged at seventy. we have the lad for our own. he must be given to us. by god, it shall be a condition of the match! and he shall be called malherb, and shall found a line of 'em here instead of my boy, who is dead and gone. 'tis but a jump of a generation."
the stars at the window laughed in their courses and tumbled before mrs. malherb's eyes. her husband abounded in fantastic projects, but this scheme was egregious even for him. she felt the futility of it, not the humour. one objection specially beat upon her mother's heart, and that she uttered—
"you couldn't expect grace to give up her first baby, my dear."
"why not? why not? not to me? not to her own father? 'slife! who should be better able than i to make a man of a young fellow? he would be my personal companion. he would be brought up from the cradle with this place in his eyes. he would understand that he was a malherb and all that that means. 'tis a very proper idea and, if the girl's not a fool, she'll be the first to see it. whether she sees it or not, however, don't matter a button."
"for god's sake say no such thing to her!"
"am i likely to? do credit me with some understanding. all the same, it will have to be. my heart's on it. the high traditions of the family—norcot will assent readily, i have little doubt. i can twist him round my finger."
"i fear grace cares less and less for him."
"i know better. even you will allow me some knowledge of human nature. her indifference is assumed. she is deeply interested in him."
"deeply interested? yes; in how to escape him."
"be that as it may, within six weeks of her eighteenth birthday she'll be mrs. peter norcot; and her son will be called maurice malherb and come hither as soon as he is weaned. if ever i meant anything in my life, i mean that."
"the way you order human destinies!"
"it is the province of the strong man so to do," he answered calmly. "my son cannot fill my shoes, because he has fallen for his country; but my grandson can and shall. the rest of them may be norcot's; the first is mine."
"to count your grandchildren before they are born!" murmured mrs. malherb.
"no such thing at all. go to sleep, and don't be foolish. i do not count them. that is heaven's work. i merely reserve the eldest to myself. the action may not be usual, but that weighs very little with me. i speak in a spirit both scientific and religious; and it shall be so, if the devil himself said 'no!' so there's an end on it."
he turned over, and in ten minutes snored; but for long hours annabel watched the twinkling sky, and marvelled as to what manner of planet reigned in heaven and lighted earth at the moment when her husband first drew breath.
