The Markenmore Mystery. J. S. Fletcher
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blurred and indistinct shapes, and beyond them, a mile away, the lights of the village began to twinkle in the darkness. At that he turned towards the door—and then suddenly stopped. Somewhere behind him, a man, taking long rapid strides, was advancing across the lawn beneath the terrace.
There was a powerful lamp just within the big doorway: its rays spread fanwise across the terrace and over the steps which led to the lawn. As Braxfield lingered, wondering who it was that approached (for visitors of any sort were rare at Markenmore Court in those days) a tall figure strode into this arc of light and moved hurriedly up the steps, making for the door—the figure of a big, athletic man, whose evening clothes were only partly concealed by a light, unbuttoned overcoat. That he had not come far seemed evident from the fact that he was bareheaded; he looked, indeed, like a man who has hastily risen from his own dinner-table to hurry to a neighbour’s house. Yet the butler gave voice to a sharp, surprised exclamation at the sight of him.
“God bless my life and soul!” he said, as he started out of the shadow in which he was standing. “Mr. John Harborough? Welcome back, sir—I’d no idea you were home again.”
The man thus accosted, now in the full glare of the lamp, turned a bronzed face and a pair of keen, dark, deep-set eyes on the round cheeks and well-filled figure of the old butler. He stretched out his right hand, laughing.
“Hello, Braxfield!” he said cheerily, in the tone of one who greets an ancient acquaintance. “That you? Still going it as strong as ever, eh? You don’t look a day older.”
“Men don’t alter much at my age, sir,” replied Braxfield, shaking the offered hand respectfully. “That comes a bit later, Mr. Harborough. But—you’re really back, sir? I hadn’t heard of it—still, we don’t hear very much our way, now—quieter than ever at Markenmore Court, sir.”
“I only got home this afternoon, Braxfield,” answered Harborough. “And just as I was finishing my dinner I heard that Sir Anthony was ill, so I came straight across to hear about him? Is it serious?”
“Well, sir, he’s been a bit bad this last day or two,” said Braxfield. “He varies—of course, it’s now a good two years since he ever left his room. Between you and me, Mr. Harborough, he might go any time—any time. So the doctors say, sir.”
“Who’s here?” asked Harborough, glancing at the lighted windows in front.
“Nobody but Mr. Harry and Miss Valencia,” replied the butler. “Mr. Guy—ah, we haven’t seen him at Markenmore for—aye, it must be quite seven years. He went off—why, just about the time that you did, Mr. Harborough, and he’s never been back—never once! I don’t know where he is—I don’t believe they do, either.”
“Um!” said Harborough. “Harry, now—he was a boy when I went away, and Valencia—she was a slip of a girl.”
“Aye, sir,” said Braxfield, “but Mr. Harry’s now a young man of three-and-twenty, and Miss Valencia—she’s a young lady of well over nineteen. You’ve been away a long time, sir! But come in, Mr. Harborough, come in!—glad to see you at Markenmore again, sir.”
Harborough followed the old butler inside the house, and through the ancient stone hall, ornamented with deers’ antlers, foxes’ masks, old muskets, and other trophies of the chase and of country life, to a room which he remembered well enough—one which the family now used as a usual gathering-place. There was a bright fire of logs in the hearth; Braxfield pulled up a chair to it.
“Never use the drawing-room nowadays, Mr. Harborough,” he whispered confidentially. “This room does for everything—dining-room, sitting-room, and so on. Not as well off as we used to be, sir—eh? But—we’ve still a glass of rare good port wine for old friends! Can I get you anything, Mr. Harborough?—say the word, sir!”
“Nothing, nothing, Braxfield, thank you,” replied Harborough. He looked round and nodded at various objects. “I remember it all,” he murmured. “Nothing changed! Well, tell the young folks I’m here, Braxfield.”
He stood up by the mantelpiece—a heavily-built, finely-carved piece of old oak—when the butler had gone, and looked once more round the room. He had known that room when he was a boy, nearly thirty years before: it was then the breakfast and morning-room, and the most comfortable place in the big, rambling house. It was comfortable now, with its old furniture, old pictures, old books—everything in it suggested the antiquity of the family to whom it belonged. But in spite of the comfort, homely and sufficient, Harborough’s sharp eyes and acute perceptions noticed an atmosphere which he summed up in one word, Decay!—its evidences were all around him. Everything was wearing out, slowly, no doubt, but surely.
He looked up suddenly from the threadbare carpet on which he stood to see the door open, and a girl enter and come towards him with outstretched hand—a tall, lissome-figured girl, dark as all the Markenmores were, handsome, and somehow, in a way he could not immediately define, suggestive of life and spirit. She was a young beauty, and her freshness was all the more striking in those ancient surroundings: it struck Harborough so much, indeed, that he became tongue-tied, and held her hand and stared incredulously at her for a full minute before he found a word.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed at last, looking down at her, tall as she was, from his six-foot-two of feet and inches-. “Are—are you Valencia?”
“Nobody else—that I’m aware of!” she answered, with a laugh. “Didn’t you know me? I knew you.”
“Ah!” said Harborough. “I was already an oldish sort of chap when I went away!—nearly thirty. But you, then, you were——”
“Thirteen,” she broke in, with another laugh. “All legs and wings, I suppose. And so you have really come home again?”
She pointed to a chair, dropping into one herself, and Harborough sat down too, and continued to look at her, still marvelling that what he remembered as a somewhat plain and awkward child should have been transformed into this bright young creature.
“Only today,” he answered; “and as soon as I heard of your father’s illness I came straight across to enquire.”
“Thank you,” she said simply. “But I don’t think he is worse than he has been for a long time. He has bad days, of course—he was not so well yesterday—that’s no doubt why you came to hear anything. He is very old now, you know—and very feeble.”
“If there’s anything I can do?” suggested Harborough. “You see—I’ve come home for good. Nearly seven years of wandering.”
“You must have seen a great deal,” said Valencia.
“No end,” assented Harborough. “In all corners of the globe! But—I thought I’d never seen anything half so attractive as my own old house when I reached it, today! And I’m not going to leave it again. Settle down, you know.”
“Greycloister is a beautiful place,” said Valencia. “I have often walked through your park during your absence—and wondered how you could leave it so long.”
“I had reasons,” said Harborough. “However, here I am again, and very glad to see everybody once more. I’ve brought home a tremendous collection of all sorts of things—I hope you’ll come across and see them, soon?”
“Delighted!” replied Valencia. “I suppose you’ll make a sort of museum?”
“Give a lot of ’em away, I think,” said Harborough. “No end of things from one place or another. But—bless me, is this Harry?”
The door had opened again, and a young man had come quietly into the room. He was tall, thin, dark; he wore spectacles, and had a shy, reserved look about him that suggested the student. He smiled slightly as he shook hands with the visitor, but said nothing.
“Harry to be sure,” assented Valencia. “Changed, no doubt, as much as—as I have. Still—you remember him?”
“I