THE FORBIDDEN BUZZARDS
“Is matchmaking at all in your line?”
Hugo Peterby asked the question with a certain amount of personalinterest.
“I don’t specialise in it,” said Clovis; “it’s all right while you’redoing it, but the after-effects are sometimes so disconcerting—the mutereproachful looks of the people you’ve aided and abetted in matrimonialexperiments. It’s as bad as selling a man a horse with half a dozenlatent vices and watching him discover them piecemeal in the course ofthe hunting season. I suppose you’re thinking of the Coulterneb girl.She’s certainly jolly, and quite all right as far as looks go, and Ibelieve a certain amount of money adheres to her. What I don’t see ishow you will ever manage to propose to her. In all the time I’ve knownher I don’t remember her to have stopped talking for three consecutiveminutes. You’ll have to race her six times round the grass paddock for abet, and then blurt your proposal out before she’s got her wind back.The paddock is laid up for hay, but if you’re really in love with her youwon’t let a consideration of that sort stop you, especially as it’s notyour hay.”
“I think I could manage the proposing part right enough,” said Hugo, “ifI could count on being left alone with her for four or five hours. Thetrouble is that I’m not likely to get anything like that amount of grace.That fellow Lanner is showing signs of interesting himself in the samequarter. He’s quite heartbreakingly rich and is rather a swell in hisway; in fact, our hostess is obviously a bit flattered at having himhere. If she gets wind of the fact that he’s inclined to be attracted byBetty Coulterneb she’ll think it a splendid match and throw them intoeach other’s arms all day long, and then where will my opportunities comein? My one anxiety is to keep him out of the girl’s way as much aspossible, and if you could help me—”
“If you want me to trot Lanner round the countryside, inspecting allegedRoman remains and studying local methods of bee culture and crop raising,I’m afraid I can’t oblige you,” said Clovis. “You see, he’s takensomething like an aversion to me since the other night in thesmoking-room.”
“What happened in the smoking-room?”
“He trotted out some well-worn chestnut as the latest thing in goodstories, and I remarked, quite innocently, that I never could rememberwhether it was George II. or James II. who was so fond of that particularstory, and now he regards me with politely-draped dislike. I’ll do mybest for you, if the opportunity arises, but it will have to be in aroundabout, impersonal manner.”
* * * * *
“It’s so nice having Mr. Lanner here,” confided Mrs. Olston to Clovis thenext afternoon; “he’s always been engaged when I’ve asked him before.Such a nice man; he really ought to be married to some nice girl.Between you and me, I have an idea that he came down here for a certainreason.”
“I’ve had much the same idea,” said Clovis, lowering his voice; “in fact,I’m almost certain of it.”
“You mean he’s attracted by—” began Mrs. Olston eagerly.
“I mean he’s here for what he can get,” said Clovis.
“For what he can _get_?” said the hostess with a touch of indignation inher voice; “what do you mean? He’s a very rich man. What should he wantto get here?”
“He has one ruling passion,” said Clovis, “and there’s something he canget here that is not to be had for love nor for money anywhere else inthe country, as far as I know.”
“But what? Whatever do you mean? What is his ruling passion?”
“Egg-collecting,” said Clovis. “He has agents all over the world gettingrare eggs for him, and his collection is one of the finest in Europe; buthis great ambition is to collect his treasures personally. He stops atno expense nor trouble to achieve that end.”
“Good heavens! The buzzards, the rough-legged buzzards!” exclaimed Mrs.Olston; “you don’t think he’s going to raid their nest?”
“What do you think yourself?” asked Clovis; “the only pair ofrough-legged buzzards known to breed in this country are nesting in yourwoods. Very few people know about them, but as a member of the leaguefor protecting rare birds that information would be at his disposal. Icame down in the train with him, and I noticed that a bulky volume ofDresser’s ‘Birds of Europe’ was one of the requisites that he had packedin his travelling-kit. It was the volume dealing with short-winged hawksand buzzards.”
Clovis believed that if a lie was worth telling it was worth tellingwell.
“This is appalling,” said Mrs. Olston; “my husband would never forgive meif anything happened to those birds. They’ve been seen about the woodsfor the last year or two, but this is the first time they’ve nested. Asyou say, they are almost the only pair known to be breeding in the wholeof Great Britain; and now their nest is going to be harried by a gueststaying under my roof. I must do something to stop it. Do you think ifI appealed to him—”
Clovis laughed.
“There is a story going about, which I fancy is true in most of itsdetails, of something that happened not long ago somewhere on the coastof the Sea of Marmora, in which our friend had a hand. A Syriannightjar, or some such bird, was known to be breeding in the olivegardens of a rich Armenian, who for some reason or other wouldn’t allowLanner to go in and take the eggs, though he offered cash down for thepermission. The Armenian was found beaten nearly to death a day or twolater, and his fences levelled. It was assumed to be a case of Mussulmanaggression, and noted as such in all the Consular reports, but the eggsare in the Lanner collection. No, I don’t think I should appeal to hisbetter feelings if I were you.”
“I must do something,” said Mrs. Olston tearfully; “my husband’s partingwords when he went off to Norway were an injunction to see that thosebirds were not disturbed, and he’s asked about them every time he’swritten. Do suggest something.”
“I was going to suggest picketing,” said Clovis.
“Picketing! You mean setting guards round the birds?”
“No; round Lanner. He can’t find his way through those woods by night,and you could arrange that you or Evelyn or Jack or the German governessshould be by his side in relays all day long. A fellow guest he couldget rid of, but he couldn’t very well shake off members of the household,and even the most determined collector would hardly go climbing afterforbidden buzzards’ eggs with a German governess hanging round his neck,so to speak.”
Lanner, who had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecutinghis courtship of the Coulterneb girl, found presently that his chances ofgetting her to himself for ten minutes even were non-existent. If thegirl was ever alone he never was. His hostess had changed suddenly, asfar as he was concerned, from the desirable type that lets her guests donothing in the way that best pleases them, to the sort that drags themover the ground like so many harrows. She showed him the herb garden andthe greenhouses, the village church, some water-colour sketches that hersister had done in Corsica, and the place where it was hoped that celerywould grow later in the year.
He was shown all the Aylesbury ducklings and the row of wooden hiveswhere there would have been bees if there had not been bee disease. Hewas also taken to the end of a long lane and shown a distant moundwhereon local tradition reported that the Danes had once pitched a camp.And when his hostess had to desert him temporarily for other duties hewould find Evelyn walking solemnly by his side. Evelyn was fourteen andtalked chiefly about good and evil, and of how much one might accomplishin the way of regenerating the world if one was thoroughly determined todo one’s utmost. It was generally rather a relief when she was displacedby Jack, who was nine years old, and talked exclusively about the BalkanWar without throwing any fresh light on its political or militaryhistory. The German governess told Lanner more about Schiller than hehad ever heard in his life about any one person; it was perhaps his ownfault for having told her that he was not interested in Goethe. When thegoverness went off picket duty the hostess was again on hand with anot-to-be-gainsa
id invitation to visit the cottage of an old woman whoremembered Charles James Fox; the woman had been dead for two or threeyears, but the cottage was still there. Lanner was called back to townearlier than he had originally intended.
Hugo did not bring off his affair with Betty Coulterneb. Whether sherefused him or whether, as was more generally supposed, he did not get achance of saying three consecutive words, has never been exactlyascertained. Anyhow, she is still the jolly Coulterneb girl.
The buzzards successfully reared two young ones, which were shot by alocal hairdresser.