The Coldstone

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The Coldstone

Patricia Wentworth

PROLOGUE

Sir Jervis Colstone lay in his bed propped up with pillows and looked across the room and out of the window. He was close upon a hundred years old, and the world was slipping away from him. He looked out of the window, and who can say what he saw? What other eyes might have seen was a green picture of tilted fields running slantwise up a hill. The June grass stood high in the fields, and high above the June grass of the midmost field two tall grey stones stood pointing up to the blue June sky. Perhaps Sir Jervis saw more than just two stones. Perhaps he saw a great full circle, and in the midst of the circle a stone of ancient sacrifice. Perhaps he saw a pillar of fire and smoke that went up into a midnight sky. Perhaps he saw other things.

He stirred, shifted his right hand in a groping fashion, and said,

“Susan—”

The old woman who sat at the bed foot leaned forward and put her hand on his. She was older than he by three months. Her black eyes were indomitably alive and courageous. She wore a decent black gown, a black silk cap, and a little black apron with pockets. A handkerchief lay in her lap; but she had not wept, nor would she weep. She touched his hand and said,

“Jervis—”

He said, “Safe—” and then, with a sudden energy, “You'll not tell him.”

Old Mrs. Bowyer patted the big bony hand. All the Colstones ran to bone—big men, hard to move.

“You'll not tell him,” he repeated, stumbling a little over the words.

Old Mrs. Bowyer's look deepened.

“And what am I not to tell him, my dear?”

“Not—anything.”

“He's your own flesh and blood—he'll be Colstone when you're gone. There've been a plenty of Anthonys afore him, haven't there?”

He gave an impatient groan.

“Don't—trust—anyone. Don't—tell—anything.” A pause, and then,
“Promise.
”

Susan Bowyer patted his hand again.

“Don't you fret, my dear.”

She felt the hand twitch. The wraith of the old passionate frown darkened his face.

“Promise.”

Perhaps he saw her shake her head. Perhaps he only saw the picture which filled his mind. Perhaps he saw the tilted fields and the two grey, watching stones.

The door opened and Nurse Collins came in, very bright and neat.

“He's been talking all the time, I suppose—never stops, and not a word of sense. It's a pity you troubled to come, really. There—just listen to him!”

The frown had deepened. A rapid mutter came from the pale parted lips—words, sentences, but all in confusion, as if the thread on which they were strung had snapped and left them spilt abroad.

“No use your staying.” Nurse Collins was brisk and patronizing. “The daughters will be back in a minute, though there's nothing they can do. He won't know them any more than he knows you.”

Old Mrs. Bowyer's black eyes rested on her with an odd sparkle somewhere deep down in them.

“What some folks knows is worth knowing,” she said.

CHAPTER ONE

Anthony Colstone sat forward in his chair. He looked at Mr. Leveridge with a kind of alert sparkle in his eyes.

“
What?
” he said.

Mr. Leveridge prepared to repeat what he had just said. A solicitor becomes accustomed to repeating himself. He coughed, set a sheet of blotting paper straight, and said, raising his voice a little,

“Sir Jervis desired that you should give a solemn undertaking.”

Anthony slapped his knee.

“But the thing's absurd!”

“Well—” said Mr. Leveridge.

“Absurd! Look here—I never expected to come into the place. Why, I hardly knew of its existence—never heard it talked of—never thought about it. But if I've come in for it—well, I
have
come in for it. And the first thing you ask me to do is to give a solemn undertaking that I won't do this and I won't do that—all for no reason at all.” He fixed a fleeting glance, half merry, half appealing, upon the solicitor's square, guarded face. “I say—it isn't reasonable—is it? I mean you do think it a bit thick yourself to have a condition like that tacked on to a place.”

The square, guarded face did not respond at all; the eyes remained dull and a trifle superior, the mouth hard and indifferent. Anthony remembered interviews with his headmaster, and felt abashed and then angry because he had let old Leveridge make him feel like a schoolboy. He reminded him of Roberts at his prep school.

Leveridge was speaking. He said drily,

“It is not a condition. As I was telling you, Sir Jervis counted on seeing you, and when he realized that you could scarcely reach England in time, he sent for me—”

“Yes?”

Mr. Leveridge had paused. He did not immediately respond to this eager prompting. He lifted the pencil, balanced it, set it down again.

“You realize, of course, that the property was entirely at Sir Jervis' disposal. There has never been any entail. He could have left everything to his daughters if he had wished to do so, or—”

“Why didn't he? I'm only—what sort of relation am I? I'm hanged if I know. Something pretty far away, isn't it?”

“You are the great-grandson of Sir Jervis' uncle, Ambrose Colstone.”

Anthony held his head.

“Ambrose Colstone was the younger brother of James Colstone, Sir Jervis' father. Sir Jervis leaves two daughters, Miss Agatha and Miss Arabel Colstone. Ambrose had a son, James, who was your grandfather.”

“Yes, I know.”

“As I was saying, Sir Jervis could have left everything to his daughters.”

“Then why didn't he? It seems a bit unnatural.”

“Well”—again that pause—“he had not a great opinion of women, and the old ladies—”

“Oh, they're old?”

“Well, oldish—round about seventy. Sir Jervis was just on a hundred. They are a very long-lived family. Well, Mr. Colstone, Sir Jervis has left you everything. In return, he expected this pledge from you. At the last he would, I think, have made it a condition, but there was not time. I assured him that I would put the matter to you as strongly as possible.”

Anthony felt himself stiffening a little. He was having his duty pointed out to him; a superior eye directed him towards it; he was being pushed. He stiffened. No one likes being pushed. He said,

“Why was he so keen about it?”

Mr. Leveridge looked at a picture on the wall.

“Sir Jervis disliked changes of any sort. He had a very strong feeling for the place and everything belonging to it. The property is a very old one, you know. Parts of the house are very old. I have heard Sir Jervis say—” He broke off with a slight frown.

Anthony had a sense of something withheld. He felt irked and out of his depth.

“Yes, but you can't tie and bind people like that—it's not reasonable.” He too paused, and then said, “If there's no reason, I won't bind myself. And if there is a reason, I should like to know what it is.”

Mr. Leveridge withdrew his gaze from the picture, let it fall a thought weightily upon this young Colstone, and found something that gave him food for thought. He had seen, up to now, just a good-looking young soldier, boyish for his twenty-six years; now, all of a sudden, he looked older and spoke as if he were sure of himself. There was no likeness to Sir Jervis, but he was much mistaken if there were not something of the same stubborn strain.

He said, “I can't give you any reason. Sir Jervis expected the undertaking to be given. I don't think he would have left you the property if you had refused to give it. I can't say any more than that—it's not my place to say any more. I assured him that I would put it to you as strongly as possible. I can do no more than that.”

Anthony fixed a steady gaze on his face. Damping old blighter this. Awfully like Roberts.

“But there must be a reason,” he said.

“Sir Jervis had the greatest possible dislike of intrusion.”

“I don't follow you.”

“The Stones are of interest from the archæological standpoint, I believe. I think Sir Jervis had a horror of possible excavations. He once said something on those lines. I think he had an idea that the whole place would be turned upside down—natural features obliterated or spoiled—tourists too. He would never show the house, you know.”

“It's a ring of stones—like Stonehenge?”

“Oh, nothing as important as Stonehenge. They call it the Coldstone Ring, but there are only one or two stones, I believe—that is, there are only one or two remaining so far as I know. I have never seen them myself.”

“And I'm to give an undertaking that I won't move them, or allow them to be moved?”

“For any purpose whatsoever.”

“Come to that, why should anyone want to move them?”

Mr. Leveridge's faint air of superiority became less faint.

“The local archæological society will certainly apply to you for permission to excavate. At intervals they have approached Sir Jervis, with, I may say, most unfortunate results. He had not been on speaking terms with Lord Haverton for more than ten years in consequence of the last attempt. Lord Haverton is the president of the society. He will probably approach you. Sir Jervis feared it, I know, and desired you to be safeguarded by a definite promise.”

Anthony Colstone squared his shoulders and threw back his head.

“That's treating me as if I were a child! I think the whole thing's damned unreasonable.” He flushed a little and went on more quietly, “I never expected to come into the place. I always understood that there'd been no end of a family quarrel—though I don't know what it was about.”

“Your great-great-grandfather, Mr. Jervis Colstone was, I believe, very much annoyed with your great-grandfather, Ambrose, on account of his refusal to enter the army—he was the second son, and the second son invariably entered the army. Mr. Ambrose Colstone not only refused to do so, but further incensed his father by taking up art as a profession.”