Mr. Marx's Secret Part 18

"I can manage him alone, I think; and the sight of you upsets him. Will you follow us down?"

Mr. Marx advanced a step or two, his eyes flashing with anger. Then suddenly he turned his back upon us, and, without a word, walked rapidly away. I raised my prisoner, and half carried, half dragged him back to the farm.

In a few hours the doctor from Rothland had arrived and speedily set the broken bones. He seemed much interested in the case and made a careful examination.

"Do you think he has been a lunatic long?" I asked.

The doctor shook his head.

"On the contrary," he replied, "I should say his madness has come on quite recently--the effect of some severe shock probably. If he is treated properly there is no doubt that he will regain his reason."

In a few days the lunatic was p.r.o.nounced well enough in health to be moved; and as all inquiries and advertis.e.m.e.nts about him proved fruitless, he was consigned to the county asylum at Torchester.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MY GUARDIAN.

On the third day after my adventure in the park Mr. Ravenor called to see me. He came in splashed from head to foot and had evidently ridden a long distance and fast. I offered him a chair and some refreshment, for he looked pale and tired, but he declined both, and walked slowly up and down the room, his hands grasping a long riding-whip behind his back.

"I can only give you a minute or two now, Morton," he said, with some slight return of his former brusque _hauteur_; "I am expecting visitors from London to-night and must get back to receive them. But there is something I must say to you. You will be surprised to hear that your mother has left you a considerable property?"

I was very much surprised.

"Are you quite sure of this, Mr. Ravenor?" I ventured to ask. "My mother always spoke to me as though we were poor."

"I do not make mistakes," he answered, pausing in his walk and looking down upon me from his great height with knitted brows and piercing eyes, "least of all in matters of such importance. How much the exact sum will amount to I cannot tell yet, but it is more than twenty thousand pounds, so you will be able to choose your own profession. What will it be, I wonder--the Bar, the Army, the Church, agriculture? Come, you are a boy of imagination and have never been in love. You must have had day-dreams of some sort. Whither have they led you?"

"Not to any of the professions which you have mentioned," I answered promptly.

"Then where? Tell me. I am curious to know."

"My ideas have always been very vague," I said slowly. "I should like to live quite away from any town, to read a good deal, and to spend the rest of my time out of doors; and then, perhaps, after a time, I might try to think something out and put it into words."

"In short, you would like to be an author," Mr. Ravenor broke in, with a slight smile.

"Yes; but I should not want to write to amuse people, or to become famous," I went on, encouraged by Mr. Ravenor's gravity. "I should like to make people think. I should like to make them turn aside from the groove of their daily life and realise that the world is full of greater and higher things than mere material prosperity. Men seem to me to find their daily work and pleasure too absorbing. They think of themselves and others only as individuals, never as limbs of a great common humanity with a mighty destiny. The world grows narrower and narrower for them as they grow older, instead of broader and broader. It is because they neglect the use of their imagination--at least, so it seems to me."

"Have you read Hibbet's little pamphlets?" Mr. Ravenor asked.

"Both of them," I answered. "I like his ideas."

"Have your clothes come from Torchester?" he inquired, with apparent irrelevance.

"Yes; they came last week," I told him, wondering.

"Very well; put on your dress-suit and come up to the Castle at eight o'clock to-night. You shall dine with me and meet Hibbet."

Meet Sir Richard Hibbet! Dine at the same table! My cheeks flushed and my heart beat fast. Life was opening out for me.

"Yes; he and Marris and Williams, the publisher, you know, are all staying at the Castle. There will be some more of them down to-night.

Don't be late. I will find time, if I can, to have some talk with you, for I want you to go to Dr. Randall's next week."

He nodded and took his departure. I watched him mount his horse and gallop away across the open park. Then I started for a solitary walk, to ponder my altered prospects.

CHAPTER XXIV.

MY FIRST DINNER PARTY.

At a quarter to eight I stood in the great hall of Ravenor Castle. On my first visit its vastness and gloom had somewhat chilled me; now it was altogether different. A small army of servants in picturesque livery and with powdered hair were moving noiselessly about. Soft lights were burning on many brackets, dispelling the deep shades which had hung somewhat drearily about; and there was a fragrant perfume of flowers and a pleasant sense of warmth in the air. I began to understand at once the stories I had heard of the luxury and magnificence with which Mr. Ravenor entertained his guests on the rare occasions when he threw open his doors.

Mr. Ravenor was in his private rooms, I was told, and his own groom of the chambers, who had been summoned to take my name, ushered me, after a moment's hesitation, into the library. I walked to the fire, for I was cold, probably through being unused to wearing such thin clothes; and, standing there with my hands behind my back, looked around with a feeling almost of awe at the vast collection of books with which I was surrounded.

"And who are you, please?"

I started and looked in the direction from which the voice--a sweet, childish treble--came. Seated demurely in the centre of a large armchair, with tumbled hair, and a book upon her lap, was a very young lady. Her clear blue eyes were fixed calmly but inquiringly upon me, as though expecting an immediate answer, and there was a slight frown upon her forehead. Altogether, for such a diminutive maiden, she appeared rather formidable.

"I didn't know that you were there," I said, in explanation of my start.

"My name is Morton--Philip Morton."

She looked me over gravely and critically, and succeeded in making me feel uncomfortable. Apparently, however, the examination ended in my favour, for the frown disappeared and she closed her book.

"Philip is pretty," she said condescendingly. "I don't think much of Morton. I rather like Philip, though."

"I--I'm glad of that," I answered lamely. It was very ridiculous, but I could think of nothing else to say. I wanted to say something brilliant, but it wouldn't come; so I stood still and looked at her and got rather red in the face.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked.

"Haven't the least idea," I admitted.

She leaned her small, delicate head upon her hand and began swaying her feet slowly backwards and forwards.

"I am Lady Beatrice Cecilia--my mother is Lady Silchester," she said. "Do you think it is a pretty name?"

"Very," I answered, biting my lip; "much prettier than mine."

"Do you know, I think you are a nice boy!" she proceeded. "I rather like you."

"I'm so glad!" I answered, feeling unreasonably delighted. "I'm sure that I like you," I added fervently.

"It's very good of you to say so, when you've only just seen me," she remarked; "but you can't be quite sure. You don't know anything about me, you see. I might be dreadfully disagreeable."

"But I'm sure you're not," I answered, feeling that I was getting on.