Hugh Marden, having stabled his horse and washed the blood from his face, strolled thoughtfully, and a little furtively, across the garden of Maiden Holt, towards the spot he most favoured: a lower lawn hidden from the house by trees and commanding on its west side a sweeping view of downs and sky. His upper lip was swollen and bleeding, and at every five or six paces he stopped in his walk to dab at the wound with a handkerchief. He was in some little pain, and his head buzzed, but he was too angry and confused in mind to pay much heed to his physical condition. On any less equivocal occasion he would perhaps have allowed his mother to lave the bruised lip, and she, as she had done a hundred times in his childhood, would have scolded him (but without conviction) for running into danger yet again. But he could not face, at this moment, either her kindness or her inevitable questions. And, until he had had time to invent an explanation, his sisters were even more to be avoided. The elder, Ann, being his friend, would perhaps be hurt if he refused her his confidence; and this was emphatically a story he did not wish her to hear, despite her proved capacity for keeping a secret. As for Clare, she was a mere child to him, being but seventeen, and his junior by four years. So, anxious not to be intercepted or called back, he hurried out of sight of the house and made for the lower lawn, and in particular for the little arbour his father had had built there ten years ago. He had all but entered this place when he observed that it was already occupied. Lying back in the chair, with eyes closed and features seraphically at rest, was old Brother Raphe. A book lay on the small rustic table within reach of his hand should he elect to sit up; and a dove, which for the last few weeks had adopted him for companion whenever he was outside the house, sat perched on his shoulder. Man and bird, in such a setting, presented a spectacle almost fantastically serene to the startled eyes of this young man, who half-smiled at the irony of the contrast it suggested to him. There was a momentary bitterness in his smile, but the bitterness quickly passed, leaving only wonder and affection, tinged delicately, as always, with amusement. No one could see Brother Raphe without an impulse to smile: it was not that he was a figure of fun—though if you chose to see him so he would have led the laughter—but that when he was most happy he had the air of sharing his happiness with you as though it had been an exquisite and beatific joke, as perhaps it is; and even in moments of gravity or grief the light in him burned steadfastly. He was now nearing his eightieth year, and made no secret of enjoying the fact that at last, after years of suspicion and disfavour, all the village was his friend. The new vicar, unlike Parson Croup, found nothing to disapprove of in him, and much to be grateful for; and these two, despite a great disparity in years, and despite their being in opposite ecclesiastical camps, were often together, quarrelling amiably on points of doctrine, playing chess, capping each other’s quotations from the ancients, and discussing local politics. Until recent years he had been much seen in the village, but now he was grown feeble and never went beyond the confines of Maiden Holt.
But the young man wasted no time in contemplating the sight before him. He gave one glance, made an alarmed grimace (which hurt him confoundedly), and turned away. His steps were noiseless on the grass.
‘Well, Hugh?’
Young Marden hesitated. He was in no mood for talk, as we know, and for an instant he entertained the notion of pretending not to have heard that suave voice. But his posture, his pause, had betrayed him.
He glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Hullo, sir! You awake? Hope I didn’t wake you.’ He waved airily and was for going on his way.
‘I wasn’t asleep, my boy. Or, if I was, twas only a cat-sleep. Come, don’t run away. You’re not in a hurry, are you?’
Seeing no help for it, Hugh now turned fairly round; but still he thought to keep ten feet of greensward between himself and this genial inquisitor, hoping that so, perhaps, his swollen face would escape notice.
‘Well . . .’ he said, as if nicely considering this question whether or not he were in a hurry. ‘Well, I had thought, as a matter of fact, of putting in an hour’s pistol practice. But . . . anything I can do for you first, sir?’
‘No, Hugh, no. Except tell me how you came by that bruise of yours.’