The Coldstone

by Patricia Wentworth

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  The Coldstone

  Patricia Wentworth

  PROLOGUE

  Sir Jervis Colstone lay in his bed propped up with pillows and looked across the room and out of the window. He was close upon a hundred years old, and the world was slipping away from him. He looked out of the window, and who can say what he saw? What other eyes might have seen was a green picture of tilted fields running slantwise up a hill. The June grass stood high in the fields, and high above the June grass of the midmost field two tall grey stones stood pointing up to the blue June sky. Perhaps Sir Jervis saw more than just two stones. Perhaps he saw a great full circle, and in the midst of the circle a stone of ancient sacrifice. Perhaps he saw a pillar of fire and smoke that went up into a midnight sky. Perhaps he saw other things.

  He stirred, shifted his right hand in a groping fashion, and said,

  “Susan—”

  The old woman who sat at the bed foot leaned forward and put her hand on his. She was older than he by three months. Her black eyes were indomitably alive and courageous. She wore a decent black gown, a black silk cap, and a little black apron with pockets. A handkerchief lay in her lap; but she had not wept, nor would she weep. She touched his hand and said,

  “Jervis—”

  He said, “Safe—” and then, with a sudden energy, “You’ll not tell him.”

  Old Mrs. Bowyer patted the big bony hand. All the Colstones ran to bone—big men, hard to move.

  “You’ll not tell him,” he repeated, stumbling a little over the words.

  Old Mrs. Bowyer’s look deepened.

  “And what am I not to tell him, my dear?”

  “Not—anything.”

  “He’s your own flesh and blood—he’ll be Colstone when you’re gone. There’ve been a plenty of Anthonys afore him, haven’t there?”

  He gave an impatient groan.

  “Don’t—trust—anyone. Don’t—tell—anything.” A pause, and then, “Promise.”

  Susan Bowyer patted his hand again.

  “Don’t you fret, my dear.”

  She felt the hand twitch. The wraith of the old passionate frown darkened his face.

  “Promise.”

  Perhaps he saw her shake her head. Perhaps he only saw the picture which filled his mind. Perhaps he saw the tilted fields and the two grey, watching stones.

  The door opened and Nurse Collins came in, very bright and neat.

  “He’s been talking all the time, I suppose—never stops, and not a word of sense. It’s a pity you troubled to come, really. There—just listen to him!”

  The frown had deepened. A rapid mutter came from the pale parted lips—words, sentences, but all in confusion, as if the thread on which they were strung had snapped and left them spilt abroad.

  “No use your staying.” Nurse Collins was brisk and patronizing. “The daughters will be back in a minute, though there’s nothing they can do. He won’t know them any more than he knows you.”

  Old Mrs. Bowyer’s black eyes rested on her with an odd sparkle somewhere deep down in them.

  “What some folks knows is worth knowing,” she said.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Anthony Colstone sat forward in his chair. He looked at Mr. Leveridge with a kind of alert sparkle in his eyes.

  “What?” he said.

  Mr. Leveridge prepared to repeat what he had just said. A solicitor becomes accustomed to repeating himself. He coughed, set a sheet of blotting paper straight, and said, raising his voice a little,

  “Sir Jervis desired that you should give a solemn undertaking.”

  Anthony slapped his knee.

  “But the thing’s absurd!”

  “Well—” said Mr. Leveridge.

  “Absurd! Look here—I never expected to come into the place. Why, I hardly knew of its existence—never heard it talked of—never thought about it. But if I’ve come in for it—well, I have come in for it. And the first thing you ask me to do is to give a solemn undertaking that I won’t do this and I won’t do that—all for no reason at all.” He fixed a fleeting glance, half merry, half appealing, upon the solicitor’s square, guarded face. “I say—it isn’t reasonable—is it? I mean you do think it a bit thick yourself to have a condition like that tacked on to a place.”

  The square, guarded face did not respond at all; the eyes remained dull and a trifle superior, the mouth hard and indifferent. Anthony remembered interviews with his headmaster, and felt abashed and then angry because he had let old Leveridge make him feel like a schoolboy. He reminded him of Roberts at his prep school.

  Leveridge was speaking. He said drily,

  “It is not a condition. As I was telling you, Sir Jervis counted on seeing you, and when he realized that you could scarcely reach England in time, he sent for me—”

  “Yes?”

  Mr. Leveridge had paused. He did not immediately respond to this eager prompting. He lifted the pencil, balanced it, set it down again.

  “You realize, of course, that the property was entirely at Sir Jervis’ disposal. There has never been any entail. He could have left everything to his daughters if he had wished to do so, or—”

  “Why didn’t he? I’m only—what sort of relation am I? I’m hanged if I know. Something pretty far away, isn’t it?”

  “You are the great-grandson of Sir Jervis’ uncle, Ambrose Colstone.”

  Anthony held his head.

  “Ambrose Colstone was the younger brother of James Colstone, Sir Jervis’ father. Sir Jervis leaves two daughters, Miss Agatha and Miss Arabel Colstone. Ambrose had a son, James, who was your grandfather.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “As I was saying, Sir Jervis could have left everything to his daughters.”

  “Then why didn’t he? It seems a bit unnatural.”

  “Well”—again that pause—“he had not a great opinion of women, and the old ladies—”

  “Oh, they’re old?”

  “Well, oldish—round about seventy. Sir Jervis was just on a hundred. They are a very long-lived family. Well, Mr. Colstone, Sir Jervis has left you everything. In return, he expected this pledge from you. At the last he would, I think, have made it a condition, but there was not time. I assured him that I would put the matter to you as strongly as possible.”

  Anthony felt himself stiffening a little. He was having his duty pointed out to him; a superior eye directed him towards it; he was being pushed. He stiffened. No one likes being pushed. He said,

  “Why was he so keen about it?”

  Mr. Leveridge looked at a picture on the wall.

  “Sir Jervis disliked changes of any sort. He had a very strong feeling for the place and everything belonging to it. The property is a very old one, you know. Parts of the house are very old. I have heard Sir Jervis say—” He broke off with a slight frown.

  Anthony had a sense of something withheld. He felt irked and out of his depth.

  “Yes, but you can’t tie and bind people like that—it’s not reasonable.” He too paused, and then said, “If there’s no reason, I won’t bind myself. And if there is a reason, I should like to know what it is.”

  Mr. Leveridge withdrew his gaze from the picture, let it fall a thought weightily upon this young Colstone, and found something that gave him food for thought. He had seen, up to now, just a good-looking young soldier, boyish for his twenty-six years; now, all of a sudden, he looked older and spoke as if he were sure of himself. There was no likeness to Sir Jervis, but he was much mistaken if there were not something of the same stubborn strain.

  He said, “I can’t give you any reason. Sir Jervis expecte
d the undertaking to be given. I don’t think he would have left you the property if you had refused to give it. I can’t say any more than that—it’s not my place to say any more. I assured him that I would put it to you as strongly as possible. I can do no more than that.”

  Anthony fixed a steady gaze on his face. Damping old blighter this. Awfully like Roberts.

  “But there must be a reason,” he said.

  “Sir Jervis had the greatest possible dislike of intrusion.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “The Stones are of interest from the archæological standpoint, I believe. I think Sir Jervis had a horror of possible excavations. He once said something on those lines. I think he had an idea that the whole place would be turned upside down—natural features obliterated or spoiled—tourists too. He would never show the house, you know.”

  “It’s a ring of stones—like Stonehenge?”

  “Oh, nothing as important as Stonehenge. They call it the Coldstone Ring, but there are only one or two stones, I believe—that is, there are only one or two remaining so far as I know. I have never seen them myself.”

  “And I’m to give an undertaking that I won’t move them, or allow them to be moved?”

  “For any purpose whatsoever.”

  “Come to that, why should anyone want to move them?”

  Mr. Leveridge’s faint air of superiority became less faint.

  “The local archæological society will certainly apply to you for permission to excavate. At intervals they have approached Sir Jervis, with, I may say, most unfortunate results. He had not been on speaking terms with Lord Haverton for more than ten years in consequence of the last attempt. Lord Haverton is the president of the society. He will probably approach you. Sir Jervis feared it, I know, and desired you to be safeguarded by a definite promise.”

  Anthony Colstone squared his shoulders and threw back his head.

  “That’s treating me as if I were a child! I think the whole thing’s damned unreasonable.” He flushed a little and went on more quietly, “I never expected to come into the place. I always understood that there’d been no end of a family quarrel—though I don’t know what it was about.”

  “Your great-great-grandfather, Mr. Jervis Colstone was, I believe, very much annoyed with your great-grandfather, Ambrose, on account of his refusal to enter the army—he was the second son, and the second son invariably entered the army. Mr. Ambrose Colstone not only refused to do so, but further incensed his father by taking up art as a profession.”

  Anthony burst out laughing.

  “He painted some of the worst pictures in England! It’s the only thing I knew about him till now. You see, my father died when I was three, and my mother a year later; but the aunt who brought me up—my mother’s aunt—kept the whole collection of mouldy old pictures because she said they were heirlooms.”

  “Er—yes. Well, that was the reason for the breach. Sir Jervis carried on the feeling about it—he carried it on very strongly. You know, of course, that he served with distinction in the Crimea, and was awarded the K.C.B. for his services during the Mutiny. It was when you entered the army that he made the will under which you inherit. By the way, I suppose you mean to send in your papers?”

  “Oh—I don’t know. I’ve got eight months’ leave. I thought I’d go down and have a look round.”

  “Sir Jervis hoped you would go into Parliament. He himself left the army and went into Parliament when his father died.”

  Exasperation mounted in Anthony. He was to do this, and he was not to do that. He had been left the property because he had pleased Sir Jervis by going into the army; and now he was to leave the service and take up politics because Sir Jervis had left the service and taken up politics about a hundred years ago.

  “I shan’t decide anything at present.”

  “Unless you have private means—”

  “I haven’t.”

  “You may find the place too expensive to keep up. Sir Jervis found it difficult, and now, what with the death duties and a charge on the estate of eight hundred a year for Sir Jervis’ daughters—”

  “I won’t decide anything till I’ve had a look round. By the way, the old ladies, the Miss Colstones—I thought of running down to-morrow. They won’t mind, will they?”

  “You won’t find them at Stonegate. They were anxious to move as soon as possible.”

  “I say, that’s rather beastly for them, isn’t it?”

  “It was their own wish. You will find them very pleasantly installed in what is called The Ladies’ House. And they particularly desired me to say that they were looking forward to making your acquaintance.”

  Anthony got up.

  “That’s awfully nice of them. What are their names again?”

  “Miss Agatha, and Miss Arabel. Their grandmother, a Miss Langholme, claimed descent from the Lady Arabella Stuart. They are very proud of the fact, especially Miss Arabel. And—about this undertaking, Mr. Colstone—you are not inclined to give it?”

  “Not without a reason,” said Anthony.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Anthony Colstone went down to see his new possession next day.

  The station was Wrane, but he had to drive seven miles to reach Ford St. Mary; at first through low-lying pasture land dotted with an occasional farm; then up into hilly country, open, arid, lonely to a degree he would hardly have believed possible; and then down once more to where a little river moved between pollarded trees, with the village of Ford St. Mary straggling beside it on the hither side.

  A sharp bend hid everything. They passed into a black shade of over-arching trees. It was strange to be in bright sunlight one moment, and then to lose it. The wood was very thick, and full of a dense undergrowth. Another turn, and they were out of it, running between high banks that hid the view. Then the first house—a cottage, crooked with age, asleep under its heavy thatch, with a neglected garden full of knee-high weeds.

  Something pricked him sharply. If this was Ford St. Mary, he was on his own ground. The fields across the river were his—this old cottage his. The secret pride of possession flared up into an intense flame. He had always wanted land; but not till this moment had he known what it would feel like to look at water, and fields, and trees, and say, “These are mine.”

  He pulled up his thoughts with a jerk. He wasn’t going to let the place knock him off his feet. He tried to see it all dispassionately. More cottages, all thatched; some with bright gardens—hollyhocks, marigolds, snapdragon, and climbing roses, with a sultry drowsy August sunshine over all. Then the village street, and a high stone wall rising sheer on the right; no house visible, only the long towering wall. In the middle of it a heavy oak door flanked by stone pillars, and between the pillars a shield with an almost obliterated device.

  The taxi stopped. Anthony put his head out.

  “Can’t one drive in?”

  He got a shake of the head; and opening the door, he jumped out and rang the bell.

  It wasn’t in the least like what he had expected. He had thought that there would be an entrance gate and a drive; a park perhaps; big grounds. This high blank wall challenged his imagination. It made the place seem like a castle. He liked it.

  Then the heavy door opened and he saw that a glazed passage led from it to the real door of the house. There were a few plants in tubs, things with striped leaves, a palm or two, some gawky geraniums. He stared past them through the glass, trying to get a view of the house, and had a confused impression of grey stone and formal windows. Somehow he had expected something older—gables, old beams, something more in line with those thatched and timbered cottages.

  The butler, Lane, met him at the door—a pale, stoutish man, just perceptibly nervous. Behind him, Mrs. Hutchins, the housekeeper—large, rubicund, jolly. Behind them, the house—his house. He desired ardently to get rid of them and to make its acquaintance.

  The grey stone front was like a mask; it hid beauty. The eighteenth century had built on to and
covered up the original Elizabethan Stonegate. The old hall remained, rising to the height of the second storey, with a stair that swept nobly up to a carved gallery. The great chimney measured ten feet across. On the dark panelling hung pictures almost as dark.

  He went up the stair and along the gallery, Mrs. Hutchins a little in advance, talking about which room he would have, and what a hot day it was—“Though to be sure, sir, you’d make nothing of that, coming from India. And if you please to mind the step. Built everything with steps up and down in the old days, and I’m sure I don’t know why. There’s another one here, sir—up this time—and then just a half step down again.”

  She flung open a door and stood aside for him to enter.

  “This was Sir Jervis’ room, sir.”

  Anthony came into it with a sense of intrusion. It was a fine room with three large windows, and paper, not panelling. The whole room had a surprisingly modern air; the furniture Victorian mahogany, the paper very faded and hideous beyond belief—olive green whorls on a ground of yellow ochre; the bed a plain old-fashioned brass affair of the same period as the huge dark wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. Two of the windows looked upon a green lawn set with cedar trees. The high stone wall lay on the left. It had fruit trees trained against it, and a narrow border at its foot, somewhat empty and neglected.

  Anthony walked to the other window. It looked to the hilly country through which he had come; a patch of dark trees on the right—the wood where he had lost the sun; fields all on the slant; not many trees; hedges; cows grazing. And straight in the line from where he stood something grey that caught his eye.

  He turned quickly to Mrs. Hutchins.

  “Are those the Stones?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked round at her quickly. She had been so voluble—and now only two words, and her mouth set as if she didn’t mean to open it again. He had thought her a jolly old thing, but as he looked round she seemed formidable, and her little grey eyes cold; the whole of her big red face was like a slammed door. He looked back at the hillside.