The Gateless Barrier Part 4

"Look here," he said, "either you are talking great nonsense, or there is something uncommonly serious at the bottom of all this, of which I ought to be informed. Tell me plainly, what are you afraid of?"

"There, there are lights all night."

"Certainly there are. The electric light is left on. It is a fancy of my uncle's--and not an unreasonable one in time of illness. If your fears take their rise in nothing worse than that, why--" Laurence shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh! but--but--" Mr. Beal's voice sunk to a whisper, and his pale eyes looked piteously upon his guest from behind his spectacles. "It is commonly reported there is a female in the house----"

Laurence shook his head.--"Oh, no, pardon me," he said. "That is a mistake. There are only men-servants in the house. That I know. No lady has stayed at Stoke Rivers--so my uncle informed me--since my mother stayed there with me when I was quite a small boy."

"But--but," poor Walter Beal almost wailed, "I don't mean any lady visitor. The--the Scarlet Woman--you know. I understand the keepers have frequently seen her at night at the windows downstairs. And I believe I saw her once this winter myself----"

"Saw her yourself?"

"Yes; I had been to call and inquire for Mr. Rivers. It was dusk, and I was much alarmed at going; but I would not permit myself to neglect a duty. I was going back up the avenue, when I saw a person in a red dress coming out from the bow-window. I--I--I--I--did not wait--"

Laurence had risen. He stood for a moment speechless. Then a sudden gladness took him. The sun was bright outside there, but the yew-trees waved their dusky arms quaintly, making little shadows dance and flit upon the churchyard gra.s.s.

"No--I see. You ran away," he said. "Well, Mr. Beal, perhaps that was the very best thing under the circ.u.mstances that you could have done.--You can't make up your mind to dine with me? All right, I'll come and see you then. We'll let the parish know you and I are on excellent terms anyhow. I should be glad to have a talk with you about the schools and charities. And, of course, if Mr. Rivers should soften and express any willingness to receive your ministrations I'll not fail to let you know."

On reaching the house, Laurence went straight down the corridor, pulled aside the tapestry curtain, and entered the room beyond. As yesterday, it was fresher in atmosphere than the rest of the interior. The furniture, the knick-knacks, even the little frill in the open work-box were stationary, untouched, precisely in the same position as last night. Again Laurence examined the room carefully. Very certainly there was no exit from it save the door or the bay-window, and no human being in it save himself.

IX

That afternoon Captain Bellingham called at Stoke Rivers. He was a large, fair, fresh-coloured man of about five-and-thirty--extremely well-groomed, addicted to field-sports, and an arrant gossip. This last characteristic was much in evidence during his visit. He gossiped of London, of New York, of Suss.e.x, displaying a vast amount of knowledge of other people's affairs.

"Well, my dear fellow, it's uncommonly pleasant to forgather with you again. Those presents your wife sent my small daughter were princely.

Sibyl will write to her. The child has a regular Yankee eye for value--and, I tell you, she was impressed. My wife was awfully disappointed at missing you yesterday. She's frightfully gone on Mrs.

Rivers. I think she wants to have a look at you to satisfy herself that you're living up to your high privileges in that quarter. Come over to-morrow, can't you, and dine and sleep?"

Laurence explained that his evenings were bespoken.

"Ah, really--by the way, how is the old gentleman? Making headway towards--don't you know? Rather depressing business for you waiting on like this. Pity you can't come and dine and sleep, it would make a little break for you. I've never seen him, you know, but I hear he is rather a formidable, old person. My wife intends asking you a number of questions about him. Of course, you must know there are a whole lot of queer stories current."

"So I hear," Laurence said.

"Oh, it's not for you to hear; it's for you to tell," Jack Bellingham answered, his eyes twinkling. "Why, my dear fellow, your arrival is the excitement of the hour. The whole neighbourhood is sitting on the edge of its respective chairs just bursting for information about Stoke Rivers. You wait a little. I warn you, you're going to be handed round like a plate of cake at an old maid's tea-party; and my wife, in right of her relationship to Mrs. Rivers, means to have the first slice. She means to walk in, collar you, and then skilfully and economically retail you to her whole local acquaintance. To tell the truth, I've been rather worried about Louise lately. She has an idea--I've noticed nothing to justify it myself--that she has rather missed fire down here.

She's taken that awfully to heart, you know. And I think she looks to you to give her her opportunity. She thinks if she gets possession of you and all these queer stories, she'll make the running--all the other women will be nowhere, you know."

Laurence laughed. He felt slightly embarra.s.sed.

"But what the d.i.c.kens is it all about?" he said.

"That's for you to tell us," Captain Bellingham repeated. "Perhaps you'll be rather glad of an audience in a day or two. Anyhow, come over and see my wife as soon as you can. She's great on spook-hunting, psychical research, all that sort of thing. So give her the first chance. Let her have a postcard in the morning. She'll be brokenhearted if she misses you again."

Laurence partook of another solitary dinner, admirably cooked and served, in company with the dancing, Etruscan figures, and the musky-scented orchids. Again, when the meal was finished, he went upstairs through the steady light and close, dry atmosphere to that stately and sombre sickroom. The last twenty-four hours had been very full of disquieting episodes and suggestions.

"I am inclined to reverse the order of proceedings to-night," he said to himself, "and cross-question my uncle, instead of letting him cross-question me. After all, that'll fit in to his scheme of observation well enough. My questions, no doubt, will be indicative of the depths of my native ignorance and the poverty of my powers. They'll enable him to draw conclusions. Conclusions!" he added, smiling--"a sufficiently fatuous occupation, when one thinks of the limited amount of evidence obtainable and the breadth of the inquiry?"

On the stairhead his uncle's valet, a thin, wiry man, long-armed, grey of hair and of skin, met him, and preceded him silently along the corridor. Laurence's relations with servants, and other persons in an inferior position to his own, were usually of a kindly and cordial sort.

Such persons told him of their affairs; they admired and trusted him.

But the servants in this house, though caring for his comfort with scrupulous forethought and punctuality, remained, so far, impossible of approach. They seemed to him like so many machines, incapable of hopes or fears, affections, even of sins, inhuman in their rigidity and silence. Now the valet announced him, and stood aside to let him pa.s.s, with a perfection of drill and an absence of individuality so complete, that it was to Laurence quite actively unpleasant. Immediately after, he met the hungry glance of those coldly brilliant eyes, looking out of the face fixed in outline, transparent, as the crystal skull lying on the table close by. And this house, so full of beings but half alive, of paralysed activities, defective or one-sided development, seemed to the young man, for the moment, terrible. The country churchyard, in which the wind sang, and the sunshine played among the graves with flitting, beckoning shadows, was gay by comparison. No wonder the place had an evil reputation, and that people invented weird stories about it.

A sensation of loneliness, such as he had not known since early childhood, came over Laurence. Almost involuntarily he made an effort towards closer, more sympathetic, intercourse with his host.

"How are you this evening, sir?" he asked. "Better, I hope. It has been a wonderfully charming day."

"I am glad to learn you have found it so. Weather has always appeared to me an accident, unworthy, save in its scientific aspects, of attention.

Yet I understand that it exercises strong influence on certain temperaments--emotional temperaments, I apprehend, undisciplined by reason. That the weather to-day has affected you agreeably is matter for congratulation, since it will have helped to mitigate the tedium of a small portion of this period of waiting."

"Oh! there's not much tedium," Laurence answered. He looked across at the elder man smiling very pleasantly.--"I'm beginning to find things here a little too dramatic, if anything. You were good enough to tell me that you found me interesting last night, sir. I only wish I could be half as interesting to you, as you, and your house, and the whole state of affairs here is to me."

"You find it distinctly interesting?" Mr. Rivers inquired, but whether in approval or disapproval Laurence could not determine.

"Unquestionably," he answered. "The house is cram full of treasures. And there are unexpected influences in it, which get hold of one's imagination. It stands alone in my experience, unlike any place I have ever known."

The elder man sunk further back against the pillows, and, with one long, thin hand, drew the violet, fur-lined dressing-gown closer across his knees as though cold.

"Indeed. Have I divorced myself and my surroundings so completely from the ordinary habits of my contemporaries?"

"You've been strong enough to follow your own tastes and lead your own life, and that has produced something unique, something as finished as it is apart. Of course, this provokes a lot of criticism. Other people, I observe, recognise that it is unique too."

"Other people?" Mr. Rivers said loftily. "I have never entertained."

"Exactly," Laurence answered. "That's where part of the uniqueness comes in. We mostly herd together like sheep in a pen, and can't be easy unless we're rubbing sides."--He paused a moment. "Your refusal to rub sides causes great searchings of heart, I a.s.sure you. The poor, little parson here, for instance, is tormented by the idea that it is his duty to the Almighty, and to the Church of England, and to his own abnormally developed conscience, to raid you and do a little spiritual gardening in the neglected flower-beds of your soul."

"My soul is my own," Mr. Rivers observed. "That is, if the term soul is, strictly speaking, admissible. Conscious consciousness is all that I can predicate of my other than physical existence."

"The little parson's point of view is quite different. He is by no means backward in predication. He is quite sure you have a soul; but whether it is your own, or whether it doesn't belong to him as curate-in-charge of Stoke Rivers, he is not at all sure. He has strong leanings to the latter belief, I fancy."

"These are puerilities."

"The average man is puerile," Laurence a.s.serted cheerfully. "We carted away Woman last night, sir, you remember, in deference to your slight prejudice against her--though I still maintain she is by no means foreign to our inquiry. But I really can't consent to the carting away of puerility too, or you will never get hold of the average man at all.

Forbid his affections and his inept.i.tudes both, and you don't leave the poor wretch a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, the little parson is not the only person a good deal worked up by the unique character of your habits and surroundings. These give rise, indirectly, to surprising legends."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, indeed. I think they would amuse you. And in connection with all this, sir, there are one or two questions I should most uncommonly like to ask you."

"You may do so," Mr. Rivers said. His nephew's rapid speech and breezy manner made him slightly breathless. He was unaccustomed to be treated in this light and airy fashion. He moved uneasily in his chair, as one who tries to avoid a draught. Laurence observing this, repented of his purpose.

"I don't tire you, sir, do I?" he asked kindly.

"Exhaustion is a consequence of the failure of the will. My will is still obedient to my mind, and my body to my will."

Laurence looked at him with a certain admiration. He was true to his creed, such as it was, and his pride had, consequently, rather a superb quality.