Helena's Path

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  Helena's Path

  _By_

  ANTHONY HOPE

  AUTHOR OF DOUBLE HARNESS TRISTRAM OF BLENT ETC.

 

  GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

  1912

  _Copyright, 1907, by Anthony Hope Hawkins_

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I AMBROSE, LORD LYNBOROUGH 3

  II LARGELY TOPOGRAPHICAL 15

  III OF LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS 33

  IV THE MESSAGE OF A PADLOCK 52

  V THE BEGINNING OF WAR 70

  VI EXERCISE BEFORE BREAKFAST 90

  VII ANOTHER WEDGE! 110

  VIII THE MARCHESA MOVES 127

  IX LYNBOROUGH DROPS A CATCH 148

  X IN THE LAST RESORT 171

  XI AN ARMISTICE 186

  XII AN EMBASSAGE 206

  XIII THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST 223

  HELENA'S PATH

  _Chapter One_

  AMBROSE, LORD LYNBOROUGH

  Common opinion said that Lord Lynborough ought never to have had apeerage and forty thousand a year; he ought to have had a pound a weekand a back bedroom in Bloomsbury. Then he would have become an eminentman; as it was, he turned out only a singularly erratic individual.

  So much for common opinion. Let no more be heard of its dull utilitarianjudgements! There are plenty of eminent men--at the moment, it isbelieved, no less than seventy Cabinet and ex-Cabinet Ministers (orthereabouts)--to say nothing of Bishops, Judges, and the BritishAcademy,--and all this in a nook of the world! (And the world too is apoint!) Lynborough was something much more uncommon; it is not, however,quite easy to say what. Let the question be postponed; perhaps the storyitself will answer it.

  He started life--or was started in it--in a series of surroundings ofunimpeachable orthodoxy--Eton, Christ Church, the Grenadier Guards. Heleft each of these schools of mental culture and bodily discipline, notunder a cloud--that metaphor would be ludicrously inept--but in anexplosion. That, having been thus shot out of the first, he managed toenter the second--that, having been shot out of the second, he walkedplacidly into the third--that, having been shot out of the third, hesuffered no apparent damage from his repeated propulsions--these arematters explicable only by a secret knowledge of British institutions.His father was strong, his mother came of stock even stronger; hehimself--Ambrose Caverly as he then was--was very popular, andextraordinarily handsome in his unusual outlandish style.

  His father being still alive--and, though devoted to him, by nowapprehensive of his doings--his means were for the next few yearslimited. Yet he contrived to employ himself. He took a soup-kitchen andran it; he took a yacht and sank it; he took a public-house, ruined it,and got himself severely fined for watering the beer in the Temperanceinterest. This injustice rankled in him deeply, and seems to havepermanently influenced his development. For a time he forsookthe world and joined a sect of persons who called themselves"Theo-philanthropists"--and surely no man could call himself much morethan that? Returning to mundane affairs, he refused to pay his rates,stood for Parliament in the Socialist interest, and, being defeated,declared himself a practical follower of Count Tolstoi. His fatheradvising a short holiday, he went off and narrowly escaped being shotsomewhere in the Balkans, owing to his having taken too keen an interestin local politics. (He ought to have been shot; he was clear--and evenvehement--on that point in a letter which he wrote to _The Times_.) Thenhe sent for Leonard Stabb, disappeared in company with that gentleman,and was no more seen for some years.

  He could always send for Stabb, so faithful was that learned student'saffection for him. A few years Ambrose Caverly's senior, Stabb hademerged late and painfully from a humble origin and a local grammarschool, had gone up to Oxford as a non-collegiate man, had gained afirst-class and a fellowship, and had settled down to a life ofresearch. Early in his career he became known by the sobriquet of"Cromlech Stabb"--even his unlearned friends would call him "Cromlech"oftener than by any other name. His elaborate monograph on cromlechs hadearned him the title; subsequently he extended his researches to otherrelics of ancient religions--or ancient forms of religion, as he alwayspreferred to put it; "there being," he would add, with the simplicity oferudition beaming through his spectacles on any auditor, orthodox orother, "of course, only one religion." He was a very large stout man;his spectacles were large too. He was very strong, but by no meansmobile. Ambrose's father regarded Stabb's companionship as a certainsafeguard to his heir. The validity of this idea is doubtful. Studentshave so much curiosity--and so many diverse scenes and various types ofhumanity can minister to that appetite of the mind.

  Occasional rumors about Ambrose Caverly reached his native shores; hewas heard of in Morocco, located in Spain, familiar in North and inSouth America. Once he was not heard of for a year; his father andfriends concluded that he must be dead--or in prison. Happily the latterexplanation proved correct. Once more he and the law had come tologgerheads; when he emerged from confinement he swore never to employon his own account an instrument so hateful.

  "A gentleman should fight his own battles, Cromlech," he cried to hisfriend. "I did no more than put a bullet in his arm--in a fairencounter--and he let me go to prison!"

  "Monstrous!" Stabb agreed with a smile. He had passed the year in adirty little inn by the prison gate--among scoundrels, but fortunatelyin the vicinity of some mounds distinctly prehistoric.

  Old Lord Lynborough's death occurred suddenly and unexpectedly, at amoment when Ambrose and his companion could not be found. They weresomewhere in Peru--Stabb among the Incas, Ambrose probably in lessancient company. It was six months before the news reached them.

  "I must go home and take up my responsibilities, Cromlech," said the newLord Lynborough.

  "You really think you'd better?" queried Stabb doubtfully.

  "It was my father's wish."

  "Oh, well--! But you'll be thought odd over there, Ambrose."

  "Odd? I odd? What the deuce is there odd about me, Cromlech?"

  "Everything." The investigator stuck his cheroot back in his mouth.

  Lynborough considered dispassionately--as he fain would hope. "I don'tsee it."

  That was the difficulty. Stabb was well aware of it. A man who is odd,and knows it, may be proud, but he will be careful; he may swagger, buthe will take precautions. Lynborough had no idea that he was odd; hefollowed his nature--in all its impulses and in all its whims--withequal fidelity and simplicity. This is not to say that he was neveramused at himself; every intelligent observer is amused at himselfpretty often; but he did not doubt merely because he was amused. He tookhis entertainment over his own doings as a bonus life offered. A greatsincerity of action and of feeling was his predominant characteristic.

  "Besides, if I'm odd," he went on with a laugh, "it won't be noticed.I'm going to bury myself at Scarsmoor for a couple of years at least.I'm thinking of writing an autobiography. You'll come with me,Cromlech?"

  "I must be totally undisturbed," Stabb stipulated. "I've a great deal ofmaterial to get into shape."

  "There'll be nobody there but myself--and a secretary, I daresay."

  "A secretary? What's that for?"

  "To write the book, of course."

  "Oh, I see," said Stabb, smiling in a slow fat fashion. "You won't writeyour autobiography y
ourself?"

  "Not unless I find it very engrossing."

  "Well, I'll come," said Stabb.

  So home they came--an unusual-looking pair--Stabb with his toweringbulky frame, his big goggles, his huge head with its scanty black locksencircling a face like a harvest moon--Lynborough, tall, too, but leanas a lath, with tiny feet and hands, a rare elegance of carriage, acrown of chestnut hair, a long straight nose, a waving mustache, a chinpointed like a needle and scarcely thickened to the eye by theclose-cropped, short, pointed beard he wore. His bright hazel eyesgleamed out from his face with an attractive restlessness that caughtaway a stranger's first attention even from the rare beauty of the linesof his head and face; it was regularity over-refined, sharpened almostto an outline of itself. But his appearance tempted him to no excessesof costume; he had always despised that facile path to a barreneccentricity. On every occasion he wore what all men of breeding werewearing, yet invested the prescribed costume with the individuality ofhis character: this, it seems, is as near as the secret of dressing wellcan be tracked.

  His manner was not always deemed so free from affectation; it was,perhaps, a little more self-conscious; it was touched with a foreigncourtliness, and he employed, on occasions of any ceremony or inintercourse with ladies, a certain formality of speech; it was said ofhim by an observant woman that he seemed to be thinking in a languagemore ornate and picturesque than his tongue employed. He was content tosay the apt thing, not striving after wit; he was more prone to hide ajoke than to tell it; he would ignore a victory and laugh at a defeat;yet he followed up the one and never sat down under the other, unless itwere inflicted by one he loved. He liked to puzzle, but took noconscious pains to amuse.

  Thus he returned to his "responsibilities." Cromlech Stabb was wonderingwhat that dignified word would prove to describe.