CHAPTER XXII
THE DAY: MORNING
The appointment of a regular light-keeper at Scarthey, intended to release René and old Margery from their exile, had been delayed so as to suit the arrangement which was to leave for a time the island domain of Sir Adrian at the disposal of Captain Jack. Meanwhile Moggie's presence greatly mitigated the severity of her husband's separation from his master.
On his side the sailor was in radiant spirits. All worked as he could wish, and Sir Adrian's marriage, besides being a source of unselfish satisfaction, was, with regard to his own prospects, an unexpected help; for, his expedition concluded, he would now be able in the most natural manner to make his appearance at Pulwick, an honoured guest of the master, under the pride of his own name. And for the rest, hope unfolded warm-coloured visions indeed.
During the weeks which had elapsed since Sir Adrian's departure, Captain Jack's visits to the island had been fitful and more or less secret—He always came and left at night. But as it was understood that the place was his to be used and enjoyed as he thought best, neither his sudden appearances with the usual heavy travelling-bag, nor his long absences excited any disturbance in the arcadian life led by René between his buxom young wife and the old mother—as the good-humoured husband now termed the scolding dame.
A little sleeping closet had been prepared and allotted to the use of the peripatetic guest in one of the disused rooms when René's own accommodation under the light tower had been enlarged for the new requirements of his matrimonial status. And so Monsieur the Captain (in René's inveterate outlandish phraseology) found his liberty of action complete. Both the women's curiosity was allayed, and all tendency to prying into the young stranger's mysterious purposes amid their seclusion condemned beforehand, by René's statement: that Monsieur the Captain was a trusted friend of the master—one indeed (and here the informant thought fit to stretch a point, if but slightly) to whom the Lord of Pulwick was indebted, in bygone days, for life and freedom.
Except when weather-bound, a state of things which at that time of year occurred not unfrequently, René journeyed daily as far as the Hall, ostensibly to report progress and take possible orders, but really to gratify himself with the knowledge that all was well with the master.
About the breakfast hour, upon this 15th of March, as Sir Adrian was discussing with the bailiff sundry matters of importance to the estate, a tap came to the door, which he recognised at once as the Frenchman's own long accustomed mode of self-announcement.
Since he had assumed the reins of government, the whilom recluse had discovered that the management of such a wide property was indeed no sinecure; and moreover—as his brother, who certainly understood such matters in a thoroughly practical manner, had warned him—that a person of his own philosophical, over-benevolent and abstracted turn of mind, was singularly ill-fitted for the task. But a strong sense of duty and a determination to act by it will carry a man a long way. He had little time for dreaming and this was perhaps a providential dispensation, for Sir Adrian's musings had now lost much of the grave placidity born of his long, peaceful residence in his Thelema of Scarthey. The task was long and arduous; on sundry occasions he was forced to consult his predecessor on the arcana of landed estate government, which he did with much simplicity, thereby giving Mr. Landale, not only inwardly mocking satisfaction, but several opportunities for the display of his self-effacing loyalty and superior capacities.
The business of this day was of sufficiently grave moment to make interruption unwelcome—being nothing less than requests from a number of tenants to the "Good Sir Adrian," "the real master come to his own again"—for a substantial reduction of rent; a step towards which the master's heart inclined, but which his sober reason condemned as preposterous. But René's countenance, as he entered, betrayed news of such import that Sir Adrian instantly adjourned the matter on hand, and, when the bailiff had retired, anxiously turned to the new-comer, who stood in the doorway mopping his steaming brow.