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CHAPTER VI
THE STORM BREAKS

Armathwaite's face, as he strode through Elmdale, was hardly that of a man who had found there the quiet and solitude he had stipulated for when in treaty with Walker & Son. Its stern and harassed aspect was seen and commented on by a score of people. Though most of the inhabitants were busy in the fields, there were watchers in plenty peering from each farm and cottage. Already the village held in common the scanty stock of information possessed by the Jacksons concerning the Grange's new tenant, because mother and daughter were far too shrewd to provoke discussion by withholding the facts stated by the house agent. They knew that every urchin who could toddle had peeped through gate and hedges that morning; they were more alive than Armathwaite himself to the risk Miss Meg ran of being seen if she went outside the house, front or back, for ten seconds. The best way to disarm gossip was to answer as best they might the four questions put by every inquirer: Who is he? Where does he come from? Is he married? How long will he stop?

Singularly enough, in a land of variable weather, Elmdale at this time was bathed in brilliant sunshine from morn till eve. The ripening crops, the green uplands, the moor, with its gorse just fading and its heather showing the first faint flush of purple, were steeped in the "great peacefulness of light" so dear to Ruskin. If one searched the earth it would be hard to find a nook where sorrow and evil were less likely to dree their weird; yet, Armathwaite expected to meet those grim sisters stalking through the ancient house when he saw an empty dog-cart and an open door; he seldom erred in such forecasts, and his divination was not at fault now.

As he entered the hall, he heard the girl's voice, clear and crisp and scornful.

"How dare you say such things to me! How dare you! My father is alive and well. If he were here now – "

James Walker chuckled.

"Tell that to the Marines," he began. The remainder of the sentence died on his lips when Armathwaite's tall form appeared in the doorway.

"You here, Mr. Walker?" said the Anglo-Indian calmly. Then, noting Marguérite Ogilvey's white face and distraught eyes, he assumed a mystified air, and cried:

"Hullo, Meg, what's gone wrong?"

She flew to him instantly, clasping his arm, and the confident touch of her fingers thrilled him to the core.

"Oh, Bob, I'm so glad you've come back," she almost sobbed. "That – that nasty little man has been telling such horrid fibs. He says – he says – Oh, Bob, won't you send him away?"

At that moment the mental equilibrium of James Walker, junior (his father was also James) was badly shaken. It oscillated violently in one direction when he noted the manner of address these two adopted the one to the other. It swung to another extreme on hearing himself described as "a nasty little man" by a girl for whom a long-dormant calf love had quickened in his veins when Tom Bland announced that "Meg Garth, or her ghost," was at the Grange that day. It positively wobbled when Armathwaite threw a protecting arm round the desired one's shoulders. So he listened, open-mouthed, when Armathwaite spoke.

"Sorry I wasn't at home, Meg, dear, when Mr. Walker arrived – or he wouldn't have troubled you," the mysterious stranger was saying. There was an unpleasant glint in the steely glance that accompanied the next words:

"Now, Mr. Walker, come outside, and explain your business."

But Walker was no country bumpkin, to be overawed and silenced by a man of superior social status. He was puzzled, and stung, stung beyond hope of cure. Yet he was not afraid. Certain qualities of sharpness and cuteness warned him that if he controlled his temper, and did not bluster, he held the whip hand in a situation of which the true inwardness was still hidden.

"My business is not with you, Mr. Armathwaite," he said, with the utmost civility his tongue was capable of. "I heard of Miss Garth's arrival, and came to see her. It's not my fault if she's vexed at what I've said. I meant no offense. I only told the truth."

"I have reason to believe that you forced yourself into Miss Garth's presence;" and, in repeating the name, Armathwaite pressed the girl's shoulder gently as an intimation that no good purpose would be served by any correction in that respect. "Again, and for the last time, I request you to leave her."

"There's no last time about it," said Walker, who was watching Marguérite's wan and terror-stricken face. "I had a perfect right to call on Meg Garth. She daren't pretend she doesn't know me, and a false name can't humbug me, or Tom Bland, for that matter."

"I know you only too well," broke in the girl with a vehemence that brought a momentary rush of color to her cheeks. "You annoyed me for two years, and I'm sorry now I didn't complain to my father about your ridiculous oglings and shilling boxes of chocolates, which I gave to the village children."

She struck harder than she knew. Walker bridled like an annoyed turkey-cock. Armathwaite pressed Marguérite's shoulder a second time, and withdrew his hand.

"If your ungracious admirer won't leave you, Meg, you had better leave him," he said, smiling into her woebegone face. "Go into the drawing-room, or join Mrs. Jackson. I'll deal with Mr. Walker."

He held the door open, purposely blotting Walker out of sight, and the girl obeyed. She went out bravely enough, but he caught a smothered sob as she passed towards the kitchen. There also, he was bitterly aware, danger lurked in other guise, though the two well-disposed women might perchance have the wit to discredit Walker's revelations, whatever they were.

Closing the door, which swung half open again without his knowledge, he turned an inquiring and most unfriendly eye on the unwanted visitor.

"I hope you are ashamed of yourself," he said quietly.

If Walker had understood mankind better, he would not have misinterpreted that suave utterance by imagining, as he did, that it betokened fear of exposure. Unhappily, he strutted, and slapped a gaitered leg with a switch he carried in place of a whip.

"Ashamed of nothing," he answered truculently. "I admit being sweet on the girl. What is there to be ashamed of in that, I'd like to know?"

"It's distinctly to your credit, in some ways," said Armathwaite. "I should have expected your tastes to run rather to barmaids, with an ultimate vote in favor of the daughter of a well-to-do butcher. I dislike class distinctions, Walker. Too often they savor of snobbery; but, in this instance, I am obliged to remind you that my cousin is a lady."

"Oh, is that it? Cousins, are you? I wish you'd told me sooner."

"Why?"

"It might have saved this bit of bother, anyhow."

"I don't think that any well-meant explanations on my part could cure you of an impertinent nature, Walker."

"Dash it all, Mr. Armathwaite, why couldn't I visit Meg? I've seen and spoken to her scores of times."

"But, even in Nuttonby, one does not thrust one's presence on a lady uninvited."

Walker laughed. He could stand any amount of reproof as to his manners, because he rather prided himself on a swaggering disregard of other people's feelings.

"We don't stand on ceremony in Yorkshire," he said jauntily. "I opened the door, and actually heard her voice. There was no sense in Betty Jackson sayin' Miss Garth wasn't here, and I told her so pretty plainly. Then, out she came. What would you have done, in my shoes? Now, I ask you, sir, as man to man."

"I would have striven not to insult her so grossly that she should be moved to tears."

"But I didn't. Don't you believe it. I was pleasant as could be. She behaved like a regular little spit-fire. Turned on me as though she'd been waitin' for the chance. I can stand a lot, but I'm jiggered if I'd let her tell me she'd complain to her father, and have him take away the agency of the property from our firm, when her father is buried these two years in Bellerby churchyard. Why, she must think I'm dotty."

Armathwaite moistened his lips with his tongue.

"You enlightened her ignorance, I presume?" he inquired blandly.

"I didn't know what she was gettin' at, but I asked her plump and plain who the 'Stephen Garth' was who hanged himself in this very house, and has his name and the date of his death on the stone over his grave… It strikes me that even you don't know the facts, Mr. Armathwaite. If her father is alive, who was the man who committed suicide?.. And, by jing, did he commit suicide?"

James Walker's theorizing ended suddenly.

"You poisonous little rat!" murmured Armathwaite, and seized him. Walker was young and active, and by no means a weakling or cowardly, but he resembled a jackal in the grip of a tiger when the hands closed on him which had choked the life out of Nas'r-ulla Khan, chief cut-throat of the Usman Khel. There was no struggle. He was flung face downwards on the table until the door was thrown wide. Then he was bundled neck and crop out of the house, and kicked along the twenty yards of curving path to the gate.

There Armathwaite released him, a limp and profane object.

"Now, go to Nuttonby, and stop there!" was the parting injunction he received. His bitterest humiliation lay in the knowledge that Marguérite Garth and Betty Jackson, hearing the racket, had rushed to hall and door, and were gloating over his discomfiture. A drop of bitterest gall was added by his assailant's subsequent behavior, for Armathwaite turned his back on him, and sauntered slowly to the house, seemingly quite assured that there would be no counter-attack. And, indeed, James Walker retained sufficient sense in his frenzied brain to realize that he had no earthly chance in a physical struggle with this demon of a man. So he climbed into the dog-cart, though not with his wonted agility, and drove away to Nuttonby without ever a backward glance.

But he vowed vengeance, vowed it with all the intensity of a mean and stubborn nature. He had visions, at first, of a successful action for assault and battery; but, as his rage moderated, he saw certain difficulties in the way. His only witnesses would be hostile, and it was even questionable if a bench of magistrates would convict Armathwaite when it was shown that he, Walker, had virtually forced an entry into the house, and refused to leave when requested.

But he could strike more subtly and vindictively through the authorities. Marguérite Garth had said that Stephen Garth was living, and Robert Armathwaite – that compound of iron knuckles and whip-cord muscles – had tacitly endorsed the statement. If that was true, who was the man buried in Stephen Garth's name and identity in the churchyard at Bellerby? He had a vague recollection of some difference of opinion between the coroner and a doctor at the inquest. He must refresh his memory by consulting a file of the Nuttonby Gazette. In any event, he could stir a hornets' nest into furious activity and search the innermost recesses of the Grange with anguish-laden darts. Curse Meg Garth and her cousin! He'd teach both of 'em, that he would! If they thought that James Walker was done with because he had been flouted and ill-used, they were jolly well mistaken, see if they weren't!

Marguérite Ogilvey was as tender-hearted a girl as ever breathed, but it needed super-human qualities – qualities that no woman could possibly possess and have red blood in her veins – to restrain the fierce joy which thrilled her being when she saw her persecutor driven forth with contumely. Betty Jackson, the village maid, was delighted but shocked; Marguérite, the educated and well-bred young lady, rejoiced candidly.

"You've done just what I would have done if I were a strong man like you!" she cried tremulously, when Armathwaite faced her at the door. There was a light in her eyes which he gave no heed to at the moment – the light which comes into the eyes of woman when she is defended by her chosen mate – but he attributed it to excitement, and hastened to calm her.

"I may have acted rashly," he said; "but I couldn't help it. Sometimes, one has to take the law into one's own hands. Surely, this is one of the occasions."

"He'll keep clear of Elmdale for a bit," chortled Betty. "P'raps he thinks no one saw you kickin' him except ourselves. He's wrong! Half the village knows it! Old Mrs. Bolland nearly fell out of an upstairs window with cranin' her neck to see what was goin' on, an' there's little Johnnie Headlam runnin' down the ten-acre field now to tell Mr. Burt an' his men all about it."

The girl had thoughtlessly blurted out a fact of far-reaching import. Armathwaite swung on his heel, and found gaping faces at every cottage backwindow, and above every hedge. Sleepy Elmdale had waked. Its usually deserted street was pullulating with child life. The sharp Walkers were somewhat too sharp on the land agency side of their business, and were cordially hated in consequence. The bouncing of Walker, junior, had not made him popular; his trouncing would provide a joyous epic for many a day. As for Marguérite Ogilvey's presence in the house, it was known far and wide already. She had been recognized by dozens of people. Elmdale, which might have figured as Goldsmith's deserted village five minutes earlier, was now a thriving place, all eyes and cackling tongues.

Armathwaite had lost sight of that highly probable outcome of his action, nor did it trouble him greatly. The major happening, which he had striven so valiantly to avert, had come about through no fault of his; these minor issues were trivial and might be disregarded. In an earthquake the crumbling of a few bricks more or less is a matter of small account. He knew that when Marguérite Ogilvey had almost forgotten the downfall of Walker she would remember its immediate cause the more poignantly.

"Hadn't we better go indoors till the weather is cooler?" he said, and the sound of his calm voice, no less than the smile he managed to summon in aid, relaxed the tension.

"Please, miss, shall I make a fresh pot of tea?" inquired Betty when the door was closed. There spoke the true Yorkshire breed. Let the heavens fall, but don't miss a meal.

"No," said Marguérite, holding her open hands pressed close to eyes and cheeks.

"Yes," said Armathwaite – "that is, if Miss Meg has not had her tea."

Betty nodded, and hastened into the drawing-room, where, it appeared, tea was awaiting Armathwaite's return when Walker arrived on the scene. She emerged, carrying a tea-pot, and went to the kitchen. Marguérite was now crying silently. When the man caught her arm, meaning to lead her gently into the drawing-room, she broke into a very tempest of weeping, just as a child yields to an abandonment of grief when most assured of sympathy and protection.

He took her to a chair, but did not attempt to pacify her. For one thing, he had a man's belief that a woman's hyper-sensitive nervous system may find benefit in what is known as "a good cry;" for another, he was not sorry to have a brief respite during which to collect and criticize his own ideas. He did not even try to conceal from himself the ugly fact that James Walker had put into one or two sentences of concentrated venom all that was known to him (Armathwaite) concerning the death in the house, and even a little more, because he had not learnt previously that Stephen Garth was buried at Bellerby. Nor did he permit himself to under-rate Marguérite's intelligence. Her heedless vivacity, and the occasional use of school-girl slang in her speech, were the mere externals of a thoughtful and well-stored mind. There was not the least chance that she would miss any phase of the tragedy which had puzzled and almost bewildered him by its vagueness and mystery. She would recall his own perplexed questions of the previous night. In all likelihood the Jacksons, mother and daughter, had said things which fuller knowledge would clothe with sinister significance. Walker's open-mouthed brutality had left nothing to the imagination. When Marguérite Ogilvey spoke, Armathwaite felt that he would be called on to deal with the most difficult problem he had ever tackled.

When Betty came with a replenished tea-pot she would have attempted to soothe the girl's convulsive sobbing had not Armathwaite intervened.

"Leave Miss Meg to me," he said. "She's going to stop crying in a minute, and vow that she looks a perfect fright, and must really go to her room and bathe her eyes. And I'm going to tell her that a handkerchief dipped in a teaspoonful of milk and dabbed on red eyes is more refreshing and healing than a bucketful of cold water. Then we'll have tea, and eke a stroll on the moor, and perchance Providence will send us a quiet hour in which to look at facts squarely in the face, whereupon some of us will know just where we are, and the world will not be quite so topsy-turvy as it appears at this moment."

Betty gathered that the "master's" harangue was not meant for her, and withdrew, whereupon Marguérite dropped her hands and lifted her swimming eyes to Armathwaite's grave and kindly face.

"Is that milk recipe of yours really intended for use?" she inquired, with a piteous attempt at a smile.

"The whole program has been carefully planned on the most up-to-date and utilitarian lines," he answered.

"Did you hurt Walker?" was her next rather unexpected question, while pouring some milk into a saucer.

"Yes."

"I'm glad."

"How many boxes of chocolates did he send you?"

"About half a dozen."

"Then I kicked him at least once for each box – gave good measure, too."

"It's horrid and un-Christian – still, I'm glad. Do you take sugar and cream?"

"Of course."

"Why of course? Some people don't."

"I'm an emphatic person in my likes and dislikes, so I talk that way."

"I don't know what I should have done if you were not here."

"You are too charitable. It is my being here that has caused all the worry."

"No, I cannot take that view. There are happenings in life which, at the hour, seem to be the outcome of mere chance, but one realizes later that they were inevitable as autumn after spring."

"What a libel on our English climate," he laughed. "Is there no summer, then? What about this present glorious revel of sunshine? Charles the Second, who never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one, remarked one day that, in his opinion, England possessed the best climate in the world, because no day was too hot or too cold to prevent a man from going out of doors. I've seen more of the world, geographically speaking, than his kingship, yet I agree with him."

"My father – " she began, but choked suddenly.

"Tell me this, Meg: how long is it since you last saw your father?" he demanded, well knowing the futility of any attempt to divert her mind from a topic which must surely occupy it to the exclusion of all else.

"Just a week ago," she faltered.

"Good! I need not insist, then, that our young friend in the red waistcoat is mistaken when he says that your father occupies a grave in Bellerby churchyard! Of course, I'm not pretending that you and I are not faced with a strange problem. With your permission, I propose that we solve it together. I'll keep nothing back. You, on your part, must answer such questions as I think necessary – unless, that is, you feel I am trespassing unduly into the private affairs of your family. I'm not well posted in the turns and twists of English country life, but I am quite certain of two things – first, the mystery attached to this house must be dissipated now, because the police authorities will insist on it; second, if they beat me, and you suffer, they'll have achieved something that no set of officials has succeeded in doing hitherto. Now, I want you to believe that, and to act in the assumption that God is in heaven, and all is well with the world."

The girl smiled through her tears, and strove gallantly to eat one of the cheese-cakes for which Mrs. Jackson was renowned.

"Bob," she said, after a little while, "will you tell me why you came to Elmdale?"

"I wanted peace and solitude, plus some trout-fishing."

"Yet you speak of engaging in some terrible combat against the law on my account."

"Aren't you rather jumping at conclusions? Circumstances have conspired to build a bogey. A ghost which all Elmdale has seen in the hall resolves itself, on inquiry, into a shadow cast by a stained-glass window. Certain murderous-sounding thumps which I heard last night materialize into a charming young lady. Why shouldn't a death which took place in this house two years since prove equally susceptible of a simple explanation? No, we're not going to convert ourselves into a committee of two until you have taken one more cup of tea, one more cake, or two slices of bread and butter. Then you'll put on a hat, and I'll light a pipe, and we'll climb up to the moor. On the way I'll impart every scrap of information I've gathered thus far, and, when you have considered the situation in such light as I am able to cast on it, you will decide whether or not you are justified in telling me something of your recent history. Is it a bargain?"

Armathwaite was only talking for the sake of keeping the girl's mind from brooding on the extraordinary facts thrust on her by Walker. He was sure she would treat a phenomenal set of affairs more rationally if she heard the story from his own lips. He would have liked, if possible, to have glanced over the report of the inquest in the newspaper promised by Betty, but decided that Marguérite Ogilvey must not be left to her own thoughts one instant longer than was absolutely necessary.

Examination of the newspaper was deferred, therefore. When the girl ran downstairs to join him she had tied some scrap of blue veil over her hat in such wise that her face was screened in profile, so, as they breasted the hill together, he could hardly judge of the effect of the curious story he had to relate. He omitted nothing, minimized no detail. From the moment of his entry into the office of Walker & Son, at Nuttonby, he gave a full and lucid narrative. Rather losing sight of his own altruism in his eagerness to show how essential it was that they should meet attack with the confidence engendered by being prepared for all possible developments, he was not aware of the wondering glances which Marguérite shot at him with increasing frequency.

At last, he made an end. They had walked a mile or more, he talking steadily and the girl listening, only interposing a word now and again to show that she followed what he was saying, when he saw a man seated by the roadside at a little distance. The road dipped sharply at this point. They had crossed the first of a series of undulations which formed the great plateau of the moor, and Elmdale and its pastures were completely hidden.

"Shall we turn back?" he said. "This fellow in front looks like a weary tourist, but I fancy you don't want to meet anyone just now, and I haven't noticed a branch path through the heather."

Marguérite was gazing curiously at the bent figure. Her eyes held the expression of one who sees something familiar while the other senses refuse to be convinced. Armathwaite, by reason of the veil, could not see that half-startled, wholly skeptical look, but her attitude was enough.

"Do you think you know that chap?" he said.

Perhaps, in that quiet moorland, his voice carried farther than he imagined. Be that as it may, the tired one raised his drooping head, and looked their way.

"Why, it is – it must be!" cried Marguérite excitedly, though no man could guess whether she was pleased or annoyed.

"There can be no doubt about it," agreed Armathwaite.

"But, don't you see, he's waving to us? It's Percy Whittaker! Has he dropped from the skies?"

"With a bump, I should guess," said Armathwaite.

But inwardly he raged. Were these complications never to cease? That dejected figure was eloquent of fate. Somehow, its worn and nerveless aspect was menacing.

Yet, he laughed, being one who flaunted fortune in that way.

"If it really is Percy, let's go and cheer him up," he said. "He looks as though he needed comforting."