CHAPTER VI
It was only after he had shown her around the picture gallery on thefollowing Sunday afternoon that Claire properly appreciated HenryBallaston. She listened to his last little dissertation--stiff perhapsand a trifle pedantic, and yet in its way eloquent--as to a supposedRomney, with something more than interest, almost enthusiasm. Here was aman who spoke from his heart of things he loved, and a man whom no onein the world, meeting him casually, would have suspected of possessingsuch a thing as a heart.
"Tell me what first made you love these things so," she begged.
She had seated herself upon the huge divan at the end of the galleryfrom which, in the afternoon light, was a wonderful view on one side ofthe great oil paintings which lined the staircase, and on the other,through the wide-flung mullioned windows, a curiously beautiful vignetteof the park with its beech and oak trees, and beyond, at the top of theslope, the famous home covert.
"I have had no other life," he told her calmly. "At Eton I developed notastes either for athletics or affairs. At Oxford they spoke of theChurch. The suggestion was repugnant to me. I had some inclinationstowards Roman Catholicism, but the Ballastons have always been aProtestant family. I considered the army and discarded the idea. All thetime, wherever I was, I wanted to come back to Ballaston. In the end Icame back. The old librarian here had just died, and somehow or other Idrifted into his place. That was twenty-seven years ago and it seemsalmost like yesterday."
"A wonderful life!" she murmured.
"It would have suited few other men," he rejoined. "It has suited me. Ihave activities out of doors as well as within. There is scarcely a treein the park, for instance, whose history I could not tell you, nor anacre of the gardens I have not watched through the winter and summer; Ihave helped to protect the fruits and flowers from the frosts, and triedmy best to gather in the sunshine for them. Indoors, of course," he wenton, after a moment's pause, "has been the scene of my real labours, iflabours they can be called. I have catalogued the pictures and thechina, the armour and the various curios, after a style of my own, withthe history, so far as possible, of each of the masters, the date and acopy of such criticisms as have appeared in the press. The catalogues,you observe, are all written by hand."
She pored over the vellum-bound manuscript book which he had beencarrying, turning the pages, and glancing at the extracts written withgreat care in a stiff, clerkly handwriting.
"Why, this must have taken you ages," she exclaimed.
"There are thirty-two similar volumes," he confided. "The compilation ofthose alone took me four or five years. I am very fortunate in mytastes, because, you see, I am not an ordinary custodian. I was bornwith these pictures, these Titians, and Corots and Murillos on the lowerstaircase, and those others, just as great but with lesser names, thathang upon the left-hand side of the galleries. On rainy days I havewalked from end to end and seen something different each day and eachday of each year. That is how, I suppose, affection for a home and itstreasures grows. That is how, at any rate, in me has grown up a greatlove for this house and all that it contains. It will never be mine--Ido not wish that it should, but I have my share in it. I am a Ballastonand even if I were turned away--and neither Bertram nor Gregory would dothat--I think that my spirit would still haunt these staircases."
"You make one realise," she sighed, "how we waste our lives caring forindifferent things."
"The choice is always with us," he reminded her gently. "In youth,however, there are other tastes and inclinations which it is as well forus to gratify. For instance, I see they have commenced to play tennis,and Lady Annistair is looking towards the house. Shall we go down?"
"Not yet," she begged. "I am loving being just here. Tell me some more,please."
"You are very sympathetic," he acknowledged, "and you see I am disposedto take advantage of you. Sometimes indeed it is a relief to talk ofone's hobby. Bertram loves his home and the traditions of his familyalmost as I do, but he has lived outside, moved in the great places.They are a sentiment to him, whereas they are a religion to me. AndGregory too--he is a little like that. It is only natural. To me no sortof career has ever appealed. I suppose that is why I have filled my lifewith this one thing. To-day we have only spoken of and looked at thepictures, but there are other treasures. Every Ballaston for manygenerations has collected china. One day I must show you our collection.There is something more to be appreciated there than its mereappearance. I will show you what design can really come to mean, whatage can do to colouring. Then you will laugh at me, perhaps, but I amalmost as foolish about our cellars. I have watched the laying down ofall our clarets mid sherries and ports and Madeiras. Season by season Ihave given away or disposed of all of every vintage that disappointed.That is why every one in the county speaks of the Ballaston cellars. Icannot, alas, bring the new things which make life so easy and luxuriousto Ballaston. We have no electric light or heating, and I am afraid youwould laugh at our bathrooms. But there are some of our bedchamberswhich are wonderful. King James' room, for instance, with the rosewoodbedstead and original damask, and the tapestries which were sent fromthe Palace, has scarcely ever been touched."
"Let me ask you something," she begged. "May I? You will not think itimpertinent?"
"Ask me what you will, by all means, my dear young lady," he answered."You have come here quite unexpectedly, but you have captured all ourhearts. It will please me to tell you anything you care to know."
"Tell me then--there isn't really any fear that all this may have togo?"
His face was suddenly the face of an old man. The primness of it, theself-control, the sphinx-like mouth, all seemed to fall away together.It was an old man looking at death.
"I cannot answer that question," he confessed, and even his voice wasdifferent, metallic and toneless. "Bertram entered life with greatideas, and unfortunately his wife, who was a gracious and charming lady,and who would have been a great heiress, died when Gregory was born.Then Gregory grew up very much in the same fashion as his father. Thewar came and no Ballaston ever knew how to save money, or to savehimself at other people's expense. We are in terrible financial straits,and all the time there have been fresh mortgages. I myself am not anexpert at business, but I have spent weary days and weeks thinking andadding up and wondering. Unless there is money soon, it seems to me thatthe lands must all go, and the house be sold up."
"It would break your hearts," she said softly.
"It would be death," he answered. "If I could save Ballaston," he wenton, a little added strength in his voice, a glow, although a steely one,kindling in his eyes, "I would commit any crime on earth. I would kill,I would murder, I would destroy, I would plunge my soul into immortalmisery to save the vandals from the auction rooms in London from comingand laying their hands upon the pictures and china and trees, or thefurniture, and tramping about the rooms where history has been made.Sometimes lately I have awakened in the night and found myself cryingout with fear, found great drops of sweat upon my body, and it hasn'tbeen a knife at my throat or any horror of that sort, but men withcatalogues, little Jew men with pince-nez, peering at the pictures; fat,coarse-looking men floundering through the rooms and looking at thehall-marks of my china through magnifying glasses."
He paused suddenly. When he spoke again he was a different being.
"My dear young lady," he apologised, "I beg your pardon. It is not oftenthat I let myself go like this. In fact, to tell you the truth, it hasnever happened before. Will you excuse me if I hurry you downstairs now?I know that they are waiting, and I must not monopolise you."
She rose to her feet, still silent, curiously indisposed for speech,feeling in her youth and inexperience that deep though her sympathy andeven her understanding, she still had no words to offer.
"You see how one gets," he concluded, as they descended the stairs,"through dwelling on one subject and one subject only. I am a man withone idea, but for that idea I am willing to live; for that idea I wouldbe quite
willing to die.--Here is my nephew Reginald--a little angrywith me, I fear, as the others will be, for having kept you so long."
A tall, fair boy, Gregory's younger cousin, who had come over fromAnnistair with his mother, met them in the hall disconsolately.
"I say," he complained, "I think Uncle Henry has been most unfair. Weare all waiting to play tennis with you, Miss Endacott. No one will playanother set until you come. Gregory is fuming, the tea is cold, andMother is quite convinced that you have fallen down an oubliette--thereis one somewhere about the place, you know. You're in disgrace, UncleHenry, I can tell you!"
They all strolled out on to the lawn, and Claire made her apologies atthe tea table.
"Please remember my transatlantic weaknesses," she begged. "A house likethis is more wonderful than any museum. It is just illuminating.--Notea, thanks. Some lemonade and one of those cakes."
Sir Bertram, who had been playing a single at tennis, shook his racketat his brother.
"Henry," he declared, "you are sent to Coventry. I appointed you showmanwith considerable self-sacrifice, and gave you half an hour. You havebeen away for an hour and a quarter."
"And we haven't finished yet," Claire insisted. "I have had the mostinteresting afternoon of my life. I don't believe there is another houselike Ballaston in the world."
"Did you bring home any treasures from China, Gregory?" his cousin askedhim. "What is that horrible-looking wooden Image in Uncle Henry's room?"
"That's about the only treasure I did bring home," was the somewhat grimreply. "Worth about a million, I believe, if you knew how to handlehim."
"A most unprepossessing-looking object, my dear Gregory," his auntobserved. "It may be valuable--I hope for your sake it is, if you didn'tgive much for it--but as an ornament it is absolutely repulsive."
"Just what it is meant to be," Gregory confided. "It typifies materialfortune cut adrift from all redeeming inspiration. Material fortune isthe one thing which we do not associate with this house."
"Don't get gloomy, Greg," his cousin drawled. "Here comes my belovedsister at last. Let's have a four. Aren't you going to play, UncleBertram?"
"The elders," Sir Bertram replied, "are going to watch your prowess thisset."
"A jeer!" Gregory exclaimed. "Don't ever let my father take advantage ofyou that way, Miss Endacott. He can give me fifteen and owe fifteen andbeat me when he feels like it."
They trooped back on to the tennis lawn, played, sat about under thecedar trees, talked and gossiped until nearly seven o'clock. Claireexcused herself from playing in the last set and found a chair nearwhere Henry Ballaston was seated.
"I haven't thanked you half enough for this afternoon," she saidgratefully.
"I am afraid you must have found me very prolix," he rejoined. "You mustexcuse an old man with one idea."
"I think the man with one idea," she answered, "is the most satisfactoryperson in the world. As a rule he makes something of it.--You spoke thisafternoon for a moment of Sir Bertram's wife. Tell me more about her."
"My dear, there is not a great deal to tell," he replied. "She was alittle younger than Bertram, very beautiful, and devotedly attached tohim. She was the daughter of the Earl of Rutland, who has an estate onthe other side of the county. She died when Gregory was born. If she hadlived eighteen months longer, she would have inherited a fortune ofnearly three quarters of a million pounds. It was very unfortunate."
"Was Sir Bertram very much in love with her?"
"Very much indeed. In fact, so far as I know, he has only lookedseriously at one other woman since, and she too has come under theshadow of a tragedy. We are not a fortunate family, Miss Endacott."
"That may come," she ventured reassuringly. "The treasure of the Imagemay materialise after all. Somehow or other, I believe that it will."
"My dear," he said, "it is a very fantastic story for a simple-mindedman to believe, but if there's truth in it--if there should be truth init, then I must confess that I am moved by the same spirit whichprompted my brother to conceive the expedition and Gregory to risk hislife in carrying it out. If the jewels are there, no superstition, noconfused sense of morality, no fear even of being branded as awrong-doer, would stop me for one moment from taking them. In thismatter I sympathise with the more bellicose side of my family."
There was something almost threatening in his words. His eyes were heldby an approaching figure. She looked towards the ring-fence whichbordered the park. Mr. Endacott had just passed through a little gateand was advancing towards them. In his rather sombre attire and droopingblack felt hat, he presented a strange appearance; an appearance halfgrotesque, half sinister. With expressionless face, he shook hands withSir Bertram, who came forward to meet him. Although the sun was stillvery powerful, his cheeks were colourless, he showed no sign of unusualwarmth.
"I regret my tardiness," he said, in reply to some polite speech fromhis host. "I became absorbed in some work. I failed to notice the hour."
Sir Bertram led him away to be introduced to his sister. Claire wassuddenly aware that her companion had lapsed into speechlessness. Hiseyes had followed the newcomer's every movement. They were fixed uponhim now in a curious, set gaze. There was an expression in his eyes andabout his mouth, which, for a moment, made her shiver.
"Mr. Ballaston!" she exclaimed.
He did not appear to hear her. Instead, he seemed to be mutteringsomething to himself. She saw his lips move but heard no sound.
"Mr. Ballaston!" she repeated.
He was himself again. He rose to his feet.
"I beg your pardon," he apologised. "I permitted my attention to wander.The coming of your uncle reminds me of a task which I still have toperform."
He left her with a little bow, and turning towards the house, stiff,formal, precise, keeping always in the middle of the path and ascendingthe grey stone steps with measured tread, disappeared a few momentslater through the wide-flung oak doors. She watched him until he was outof sight, unaccountably disturbed. Then Gregory came and claimed her.There was to be still another set of tennis.
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