Maybe my tones confirmed the suspicions he had formed when I came scrambling over the wall. He said drily, “You mean more than your words, John. The encounter should warn you not to walk in the wood, or yet ride down to the coast with my son. Mayhap, Oliver is no more than a decoy”—his lips curling.
“I do not think it of my cousin,” I said.
“Oh, I’m happy to have your assurance, John. You look to find a friend in Oliver. And yet I should not think it, John. My lad’s well enough, but rough, uncouth; I fear he does me poor credit. How he passes his days I know not. He’s dissolute; you’ve observed him with the bottle.”
He broke off, as wearying of the theme; he looked languidly over the sunlit garden to the ivied walls, “Here’s the very wreck and ruin of a great house, John!” he sighed. “I have a notion—nay, since your coming I have it not—of shaping order out of chaos. Here in this garden, with a book on such a sunlit afternoon; but here, with delightful arbours, trim walks and plots of flowers,—a fountain playing silver! Mark that old fountain, John—the form of it, the seamaids who support the sea-green shells; the fountain’s dry; the lovely shapes of bronze corroded. Or the designs on this pale marble: see where the moss grows green in these delicate designs of Italy. The sun-dial where the sparrows chirp—why, here’s an enchanted garden, John, where time stands still, as in the old wives’ tale. Ay, see the hedge of thorns grows all about the castle! Time stands still! Nay, ah nay! I’d picture, John, the garden in the days when the second Charles was King of England. Why, I have looked from my window of a summer night, and I have seen the ghosts walk in the garden, as it was, and I have known the beauty and the colour and the laughter of this garden and this house, as once they were. I have thought of the beauty of Craike House restored, the greatness of our race—ah me! Here am I, penniless son of—Mr. Edward Craike; penniless parent of—Oliver! I’d tell my hope to you, John Craike, that, if you win, you yet may care to carry out my own ambition.”
He had spoken earnestly; while his fine, melancholy voice sounded, I did believe him,—knowing him for a rogue. His mood did not endure. He laughed, and eyeing me, he said, “So you’ve progressed, my friend, in the favour of your grandfather. So you’re a master in the house, and his retainers take their orders from you as from himself!”
“He did no more than insure me against insolence,” I answered uneasily. “You’re well served, my uncle!”
“Oh, I am!” he conceded. “To be sure, the woman Barwise came raging to me that morning. They’re servile to you, nephew, are they not? Thinking my father not yet in his dotage! And yet he is so near to breaking.” His eyes held mine; he said quietly, “Nephew, I’ve a proposal to you, more than truce—alliance. Liking you!”
“As you’ve surely proved, sir!”
“Yet hear me out,” he said. “You stand in favour with your grandfather. But you’re no fool; what should you say would happen, were the old man’s wits to go wandering, or were he to die, suddenly, as old men die, if they be fortunate? How should you fare at the hands of all these rogues, John?”
“Or at your hands?” I muttered.