IV
THE POOL
Very early in the morning Howard woke to hear the faint twittering of the birds begin in bush and ivy. It was at first just a fitful, drowsy chirp, a call "are you there? are you there?" until, when all the sparrows were in full cry, a thrush struck boldly in, like a solo marching out above a humming accompaniment of strings. That was a delicious hour, when the mind, still unsated of sleep, played softly with happy, homelike thoughts. He slept again, but the sweet mood lasted; his breakfast was served to him in solitude in a little panelled parlour off the Hall; and in the fresh April morning, with the sunlight lying on the lawn and lighting up the old worn detail of the carved cornices, he recovered for a time the boyish sense of ecstasy of the first morning at home after the return from school. While he was breakfasting, a scribbled note from Jack was brought in.
"Just heard you arrived last night; it's an awful bore, but I have to go away to-day—an old engagement made, I need hardly say, FOR me and not BY me; I shall turn up to-morrow about this time. No WORK, I think. A day of calm resolution and looking forward manfully to the future! My father and sister are going to dine at the Manor to-night. I shall be awfully interested to hear what you think of them. He has been looking up some things to talk about, and I can tell you, you'll have a dose. Maud is frightened to death.—Yours
"Jack.
"P.S.—I advise you to begin COUNTING at once."
A little later, Miss Merry turned up, to ask Howard if he would care to look round the house. "Mrs. Graves would like," she said, "to show it you herself, but she is easily tired, and can't stand about much." They went round together, and Howard was surprised to find that it was not nearly as large a house as it looked. Much space was agreeably wasted in corridors and passages, and there were huge attics with great timbered supports, needed to sustain the heavy stone tiling, which had never been converted into living rooms. There was the hall, which took up a considerable part of one side; out of this, towards the road, opened the little parlour where he had breakfasted, and above it was a library full of books, with its oriel overhanging the road, and two windows looking into the garden. Then there was the big drawing-room. Upstairs there were but a half a dozen bedrooms. The offices and the servants' bedrooms were in the wing on the road. There was but little furniture in the house. Mr. Graves had had a preference for large bare rooms; and such furniture as there was, was all for use and not for ornament, so that there was a refreshing lack of any aesthetic pose about it. There were but few pictures, but most of the rooms were panelled and needed no other ornament. There was a refreshing sense of space everywhere, and Howard thought that he had never seen a house he liked so well. Miss Merry chirped away, retailing little bits of history. Howard now for the first time learned that Mr. Graves had retired early from business with a considerable fortune, and being fond of books and leisure, and rather delicate in health, had established himself in the house, which had taken his fancy. There were some fifteen hundred acres of land attached, divided up into several small farms.
Miss Merry was filled with a reverential sort of adoration of Mrs. Graves; "the most wonderful person, I assure you! I always feel she is rather thrown away in this remote place."
"But she likes it?" said Howard.
"Yes, she likes everything," said Miss Merry. "She makes everyone feel happy: she says very little, but you feel somehow that all is right if she is there. It's a great privilege, Mr. Kennedy, to be with her; I feel that more and more every day."
This artless praise pleased Howard. When he was left alone he got out his papers; but he found himself restless in a pleasant way; he strolled through the garden. It was a singular place, of great extent; the lawn was carefully kept, but behind the screen of shrubs the garden extended far up the valley beside the river in a sort of wilderness; and he could see by the clumps of trees and the grassy mounds that it must have once been a great formal pleasaunce, which had been allowed to follow its own devices; at the far end of it, beside the stream, there was a long flagged terrace, with a stone balustrade looking down upon the stream, and beyond that the woods closed in. He left the garden and followed the stream up the valley; the downs here drew in and became steeper, till he came at last to one of the most lovely places he thought he had ever set eyes upon. The stream ended suddenly in a great clear pool, among a clump of old sycamores; the water rose brimming out of the earth, and he could see the sand fountains rising and falling at the bottom of the basin; by the side of it was a broad stone seat, with carved back and ends. There was not a house in sight; beyond there was only the green valley-end running up into the down, which was here densely covered with thickets. It was perfectly still; and the only sound was the liquid springing of the water in the pool, and the birds singing in the bushes. Howard had a sudden sense that the place held a significance for him. Had he been there before, in some dream or vision? He could not tell; but it was strangely familiar to him. Even so the trees had leaned together, and the clear ripples pulsed upon the bank. Something strange and beautiful had befallen him there. What was it? The mind could not unravel the secret.
He sat there long in the sun, his eyes fixed upon the pool, in a blissful content that was beyond thought. Then he slowly retraced his steps, full of an intense inner happiness.