CHAPTER VIII.
AN ABODE OF MYSTERY.
For the first time in my life I was on my way to Ravenor Castle, summoned there by a brief, imperious note from Mr. Ravenor. Often had I looked longingly from the distant hills of the park upon its grey, rugged towers and mighty battlements; but I had never dared to clamber over the high wall into the inner grounds, nor even to make my way up the servants"
drive to win a closer acquaintance with it.
One reason why I had abstained from doing what, on the face of it, would seem a very natural thing to do, was a solemn promise to my mother, extracted from me almost as soon as I was able to get about by myself, never to pa.s.s within that great boundary-wall which completely encircled the inner grounds and wardens of the castle. But, apart from that, the thing would have been impossible for me, in any case.
I have already said that Mr. Ravenor bore the character of being a remarkably eccentric man. Perhaps one of the most striking manifestations of this eccentricity lay in the rigid seclusion in which he chose to live while at the Castle, and the extraordinary precautions which he had taken to prevent all intruders and visitors of every sort from obtaining access to him.
From the outer part there was indeed no attempt to exclude anyone belonging to the neighbourhood who chose to ramble about there, and in Mr. Ravenor"s absence visitors who had obtained permission from the steward were occasionally permitted to drive through; but to the grounds and the Castle itself access was simply an impossibility. Had Ravenor Castle been the abode of a sovereign, and the country around in possession of a hostile people, the precautions could scarcely have been more rigorous.
The high stone wall, which encircled the Castle and gardens for a circuit of three-quarters of a mile, effectually shut them off from the outside world. The postern-gates with which it was pierced were of solid iron, and the locks which secured them were said to have been fashioned by a Hindoo whom Mr. Ravenor had once brought home with him from India, and to be perfectly unique in their design and workmanship. The two main carriage entrances, about half a mile apart, were remarkable for nothing but the fine proportions of the towering iron gates; but they were always kept jealously locked and barred, and the fate of the uninvited guest who presented himself there was inevitable. There was no admittance.
The afternoon was drawing towards a close when I turned the last corner of the winding avenue and approached the entrance. It had been a wild, bl.u.s.tering day; but just before I started from home the wind had dropped and a watery sun, feebly piercing the ma.s.ses of heavy clouds with which the sky was strewn, was shining down, with a wan, unnatural glow, upon the clumps of fir-trees on either side of the way and the ma.s.sive, frowning towers of the Castle close above me.
Under foot and around me everything was wet. With the faintest stir of the dying breeze showers of raindrops fell from shrubs and trees, and at every step my feet sank into the soft, soaked gravel, or sent the moisture bubbling up from the layers of rotten leaves and twigs which the morning"s gale had scattered along the road.
It was an afternoon to damp anyone"s spirits; and it was perhaps to the influence of the weather that I owed the sudden sinking of heart and courage which came over me as I slackened my pace before the grim-looking lodges and barred gate. I had started from home, notwithstanding my mother"s white face and nervous, trembling manner, in a state of pleasurable excitement.
I was about to penetrate into a mystery which had been the curiosity of my boyhood; I was to become one of those favoured few who had been permitted to pa.s.s within the portals of Ravenor Castle; and, more than that, I was about to visit there as the guest of a man whose marvellous reputation, personality, and career had kindled within me an almost pa.s.sionate reverence--a man who had long been the object of my devoted, although boyish and unreasonable, hero-worship. Yet, though it would seem that I had everything to gain and nothing to fear or lose from the coming interview, no sooner had I arrived within sight of my destination than my spirits sank to zero.
A woman would have called it a presentiment and have accepted it with mute despair. To me it seemed only an unreasonable reaction from my previous state of suppressed excitement--a feeling to be crushed at any cost, lest I should stand, with gloomy, unthankful face, before the man in whose power it lay to raise me from my present distasteful position and prospects. So I threw my head back and quickened my steps, keeping resolutely before me in my thoughts all that I had ventured to hope from my forthcoming interview; and by the time I stood before the great iron gates and stretched out my hand to ring the bell, the depression had almost pa.s.sed away, and the eagerness which I felt was, no doubt, fully reflected m my countenance.
I had no need to ring. My last quick footstep had fallen upon a harder substance than the gravel upon which I had been walking, and the contact of my feet with it made my presence known in a manner which surprised me not a little. There was a shrill ringing from the lodge door on my right, and almost simultaneously it opened and a servant came out in the dark Ravenor livery.
"Will you be so good, sir, as to step off the planking?" he said.
I moved a yard or two backwards, and the bell--it was an electric bell, of course--instantly ceased. It was my first experience of any such means of communication, and I stood for a moment looking down in some bewilderment.
"Your name and business, sir?" the man inquired respectfully. "Did you wish to see Mr. Clemson?" Mr. Clemson was the steward.
"My name is Morton, and my business is with Mr. Ravenor," I answered. "I want to see him."
"I am afraid that Mr. Ravenor will not be able to see you, sir," he said.
"Have you an appointment?"
"Yes; for five o"clock," I answered. And the words had scarcely left my lips before the first stroke of the hour boomed out from the great Castle clock. Perhaps, more than anything else could have done, that sound brought home to me the realisation of where I was. Hour after hour, all through my life, from the depths of Rothland Wood, from the home meadows, or in my long rambles over the far-away Barnwood Hills, I had heard those deep, throbbing chimes; sometimes faint and low, when the wind bore the sound away from me, sometimes harsh and piercing in the storm, and often as dear and distinct as though only a sheet of water stretched between us. And now I stood almost within a stone"s throw of them, and marvelled no longer that the deep, resounding notes should travel so far over hill and moor that I had never yet been able to wander out of hearing of them.
The man accepted my explanation after a moment"s hesitation, and, standing aside from the doorway out of which he had issued, motioned me to enter. I did so and received a fresh surprise. Instead of finding myself in the home of one of the servants of the estate, which would have seemed the natural thing, I found myself in a most luxuriously furnished waiting-room, hung with mirrors and oak-framed paintings upon a dark panelled wall. My feet sank into a thick carpet, and I subsided, a little dazed, into a low, crimson velvet chair, and found beside me a table covered with magazines.
The man followed me into the room, and, as he pa.s.sed on his way to its upper end, he wheeled towards me a smaller table on which were decanters and gla.s.ses and a long box of cigarettes. Scarcely glancing at them, I watched him unlock a tall cupboard and half vanish inside it.
He remained there for a s.p.a.ce of almost five minutes. Then he stepped out, carefully locked it and advanced towards me. I fancied that there was a shade more respect in his manner and certainly some surprise.
"Mr. Ravenor"s servant will be here in a few minutes, sir, to show you the way to the Castle."
I thought that I could have found it very well by myself, but, of course, I could not say so. I occupied myself by examining the contents of the room, and struggled for a few moments between a feeling of strong curiosity and a natural disinclination to ask questions of a servant, especially one whose manner seemed so little to invite them. Finally the former conquered.
"How did you find that out without leaving this room?" I asked.
He pointed to the cupboard.
"We have a telephone there in connection with the Castle, sir," he explained. Then he busied himself arranging some papers on a table at the other end of the apartment, with the obvious air of not desiring to be questioned further.
The explanation was so simple that I smiled. I began to realise the very insufficient causes which had given rise to the stories which were always floating about concerning the mystery in which the master of Ravenor Castle chose to dwell. What more natural than that a man of liberal education, with a pa.s.sion for absolute solitude, should seek to insure it by some such means as these, by the application of very simple scientific devices, common enough in a city, but unheard of in our quiet country neighbourhood?
I was kept waiting for about a quarter of an hour. Then the door was opened noiselessly from without and a tall, dark man, clean-shaven and dressed in black, relieved by an immaculate white tie, entered and looked at me. I rose to my feet and threw down the magazine which I had been pretending to read.
"You are Mr. Morton?" he inquired, in a subdued tone, glancing steadily at me the while with somewhat puzzled, criticising gaze, which, perhaps unreasonably, annoyed me extremely. It was an annoyance which I took pains not to show, however, for something about the personality of the man impressed me. His manner, though studiously respectful, was not without a certain quiet dignity, and his thin oval face--thin almost to emaciation--had in it more than a suspicion of refinement. My first glance, whilst I was undergoing his brief scrutiny, a.s.sured me that this was no ordinary servant.
"That is my name," I answered. "You have come to take me to Mr. Ravenor?"
"If you will be so good as to follow me, sir."
I took up my cap and did so, taking long, swinging strides up the steep ascent, hoping thereby to gain his side and ask him a few questions about the place. But he prevented this by hurrying on when I was close behind him; so, after the third attempt I gave it up, and contented myself by looking around me as much as I could, and making the most of the short walk.
On one side of the drive--I had been along few highways as wide--was a tall yew hedge, which shut out little from my view, for the thick black pine-wood which overtopped and formed so striking a background to the grand old Castle had never been thinned in this direction, and stretched away in a wide, irregular belt, skirting the long line of out-buildings to the hills and beyond. But on the right hand only a low ring-fence separated us from the grounds immediately in front of the Castle, which a sudden bend in the sharply winding road brought into full view.
My absolute ignorance of architecture forbids my attempting to describe it, save in its general effect. I remember even now what that effect was upon me when I stood for the first time almost at its foot. At a distance its frowning battlements and worn grey turrets had a majestic appearance; but, standing as I did then, within a few hundred yards of its vast, imposing front, and almost under the shadow of its walls and towers, its effect was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I almost held my breath as I gazed upon it and the terrace lawns, sloping away below, smooth-shaven, velvetty, the very perfection of English turf.
Not that I had much time to look about me. On the contrary, my conductor never once slackened his pace, and when I involuntarily paused for a moment, with eyes riveted upon the magnificent pile before me, he looked round sharply and beckoned me impatiently to proceed.
"Mr. Ravenor is not used to be kept waiting, sir," he remarked, "and will be expecting us."
I pulled myself together with an effort and followed him more closely. We pa.s.sed under a bridge of solid masonry, moss-encrusted, and indented with the storms of ages and the ruder marks of battering-ram and cannon, across a wide, circular courtyard protected by ma.s.sive iron gates, which rolled slowly open before us with many ponderous creakings and gratings, as though reluctant to admit a stranger, into a great, white, stone-paved hall, dimly lighted, yet sufficiently so to enable me to perceive the long rows of armoured warriors which lined the walls, and the lances and spears and shields which flashed above their heads.
We pa.s.sed straight across it, our footsteps awakening clattering echoes as they fell on the polished flags, through a door on the opposite side, into a room which nearly took my breath away. From the high, vaulted ceiling to the floor, on every side of the apartment, were books--nothing but books.
Two men--one old, the other of about my own age--looked up from a table as we entered and paused in their work, which seemed to be cataloguing; but my guide pa.s.sed them without remark or notice, and walked straight across the room to where a crimson curtain, hanging down in thick folds, concealed a black oak door. Here he knocked, and I waited by his side until the answer came in that clear, low tone, which, though I had heard it but once or twice before, I could have recognised in a thousand. Then my guide turned the handle and, silently motioning me to enter, left me.
CHAPTER IX.
MR. MARX.
At first I had eyes only for the dark figure seated a few yards away from me at a small writing-table drawn into the centre of the room. He was bending low over his desk and never even raised his eyes or ceased writing at my entrance. Before him on the table, and scattered around his chair on the floor, were many sheets of white foolscap covered with his broad, firm handwriting, some with the ink scarcely dry upon them; and while I stood before him he impatiently swept another one from his desk and, without waiting to see it flutter to the ground, began a fresh sheet.
A gla.s.s of water, a few dry biscuits, and a little pile of books--some turned face-downwards--were by his side. Nothing else was on the table, save a great pile of unused paper, a watch detached from its chain, and a heavily-shaded lamp, which threw a ghastly light upon his white, worn face, and his dry, brilliant eyes, under which were faintly engraven the dark rims of the student.
I watched him for a while, fascinated. Then, as he took not the slightest notice of me, my eyes began to wander round the room. It was hexagonal and, on every side save one, lined from the floor to the high ceiling with books. The furniture was all of black oak, as also were the bookshelves, and the carpet and hangings were of a deep olive-green. The mantelpiece and inlaid grate were of black marble, faintly relieved with gold, and within the polished bars of the grate a small fire was burning.
There was nothing cheerful about the apartment; on the contrary, it struck me as being, though magnificent, sombre and heavy, wrapped as it was in the gloom of a dismal twilight, which the flickering fire and the shaded lamp failed to pierce. From the high French windows, I could catch a glimpse of a long stretch of soddened lawn, beyond which everything was shrouded in the semi-obscurity of the fast-falling dusk, deepened by the grey, cloudy sky. But I chose, after my first glance around the room, to keep my eyes fixed upon the man who sat writing before me, the man in whom already I felt an interest so strong as to deaden all the curiosity which I might otherwise have felt as to my surroundings.
At last he seemed conscious of my presence. Lifting his eyes, to give them a momentary rest, he encountered my fixed gaze. For a moment he looked at me in a puzzled manner, as though wondering how I came there.
Then his expression changed and, putting down his pen, he pushed his papers away from him.