He shook his head slowly.
“I cannot tell you to-day,” he said. “It is a matter upon which I should have to consult others.”
A sudden thought struck me.
“May I ask at whose suggestion you thought of me?” I asked.
“It was Colonel Ray who pointed out certain necessary qualifications which you possess,” the Duke answered. “I shall report to him, and to some others, the result of our conversation, and I presume you have no objection to my making such inquiries as I think necessary concerning you?”
“None whatever,” I answered.
The Duke rose to his feet. I took up my cap.
“If Colonel Ray is in,” I said, “and it is not inconvenient, I should be glad to see him for a moment.”
“Colonel Ray left unexpectedly by the first train this morning,” the Duke answered, looking at me keenly.
I gave no sign, but my heart sank.
“If it is anything important I can give you his address,” he remarked.
“Thank you,” I answered, “it is of no consequence.”
There was a moment’s silence. It seemed to me that the Duke was watching me with peculiar intentness.
“Ray stayed with you late last night,” he remarked.
“Colonel Ray was very kind,” I answered.
“By-the-bye,” he said, “I hear that some stranger lost his life in the storm last night. You found the body, did you not?”
“Yes,” I answered. “There was a great deal of wreckage on the shore this morning.”
The Duke nodded.
“It was no one belonging to the neighbourhood, I understand?” he asked.
“The man was a stranger to all of us,” I answered.
The Duke stood with knitted brows. He seemed on the point of asking me some other question, but apparently he abandoned the idea. He nodded again and rang the bell. I was dismissed.
VI. LADY ANGELA GIVES ME SOME ADVICE
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Rowchester was a curious medley of a house, a mixture of farmhouse, mansion, and castle, added to apparently in every generation by men with varying ideas of architecture. The front was low and irregular, and a grey stone terrace ran the entire length, with several rows of steps leading down into the garden. On one of these, as I emerged from the house, Lady Angela was standing talking to a gardener. She turned round at the sound of my footsteps, and came at once towards me.
She was bareheaded, and looked as straight and slim as a dart. I fancied that she could be no more than eighteen, her figure and face were so girlish. The quiet composure of her manner, however, and the subdued yet graceful ease of her movements, were so suggestive of the “great lady,” that it was hard to believe that she was indeed little more than a schoolgirl.
“I hope that you are better, Mr. Ducaine,” she said.
“Thank you, Lady Angela, I have quite recovered,” I answered.
She looked at me critically.
“I can assure you,” she said, “that you look a very different person. You gave us quite a fright last night.”
“I am ashamed to have been so much trouble,” I answered. “Such a thing has never happened to me before.”
“You must take more care of yourself,” she said gravely. “I hope that my father has expressed himself properly about the lecture.”
“His Grace has been very kind,” I answered. “He has promised me the free use of the hall at any time.”
“Of course,” she said. “I hope that you will give your lecture soon. I am looking forward very much to hearing it. This always seems to me such a quaint, fascinating corner of the world that I love to read and hear all that people have to say about it.”
“You are very kind,” I said; “but if you come I am afraid you will be bored. The notes which I have put together are prepared for the comprehension of the village people.”
“So much the better,” she declared. “I prefer anything which does not make too great a strain upon the intellect. Besides, it is the very simplicity of this country which makes it so beautiful.”
“Yet it is a land,” I remarked, “of elusive charms.”
“Sometimes, unless they are pointed out,” she replied, “by one who has the eye and ear for nature, these are the hardest to appreciate. Only the other evening I was standing upon the cliffs, and I thought what a dreary waste of marshes and sands the place was, and then a single gleam of late sunshine seemed to transform everything. There is hidden colour everywhere if one looks closely enough, and I suppose it is true that the most beautiful things in the world are those which remain just below the surface—a little invisible until one searches for them. By-the-bye, Mr. Ducaine,” she added, “if you are on your way home I can show you a path which will save you nearly half the distance.”
“You are very kind, Lady Angela,” I answered. “Cannot I find it, though, without taking you out of your way?”
She smiled.
“You might,” she said, “but I walk down to the cliffs every afternoon. I was just starting when you came. It is quite a regular pilgrimage with me. All day long we hear the sea, but except from the upper windows we have no clear view of it. This is the path.”
We crossed the Park together. All the while she talked to me easily and naturally of the country around, the great antiquity of its landmarks, the survival of many ancient customs and almost obsolete forms of speech. At last we came to a small plantation, through which we emerged on to the cliffs. Here, to my surprise, we came upon a quaintly shaped grey stone cottage almost hidden by the trees. I had passed on the sands below many times without seeing it.
“Rather a strange situation for a house, is it not?” Lady Angela remarked. “My grandfather built it for an old pensioner, but I do not think that it has been occupied for some time.”
“It is marvellously hidden,” I said. “I never had the least idea that there was a house here at all.”
We stood now on the edge of the cliff, and she pointed downwards.
“There is a little path there, you see, leading to the sands,” she said. “It saves you quite half the distance to your cottage if you do not mind a scramble. You must take care just at first. So many of the stones are loose.”
I understood that I was dismissed, and I thanked her and turned away. But she almost immediately called me back.
“Mr. Ducaine!”
“Lady Angela?”
Her dark eyes were fixed curiously upon my face. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind. I had a fancy that when she spoke again it would be without that deliberation—almost restraint—which seemed to accord a little strangely with the girlishness of her appearance and actual years. She stood on the extreme edge of the cliff, her slim straight figure outlined to angularity against the sky. She remained so long without speech that I had time to note all these things. The sunshine, breaking through the thin-topped pine trees, lay everywhere about us; a little brown feathered bird, scarcely a dozen yards away, sang to us so lustily that the soft feathers around his throat stood out like a ruff. Down below the sea came rushing on to the shingles.
“Mr. Ducaine,” she said at last, “did my father make you any offer of employment this afternoon?”
It was a direct, almost a blunt question. I was taken by surprise, but I answered her without hesitation.
“He made me no definite offer,” I said. “At the same time he asked me a great many questions, for which he must have had some reason, and he gave me the idea that, subject to the approval of some others, he was thinking of me in connection with some post.”
“Colonel Ray was telling me,” she said, “how unfortunate you have been with your pupils. I wonder—don’t you think perhaps that you might get some others?”
“I have tried,” I answered. “So far I have not been lucky. At present, too, I scarcely see how I could expect to get any, for I have nowhere to put them. I had to give up the lease of the Grange, and there is no house round here which I could afford
to take.”
Some portion of her delicate assurance had certainly deserted her. Her manner was almost nervous.
“If you could possibly find the pupils,” she said, hesitatingly, “I should like to ask you a favour. The Manor Farm on the other side of the village is my own, and I should so like it occupied. I would let it to you furnished for ten pounds a year. There is a man and his wife living there now as caretakers. They would be able to look after you.”
“You are very kind,” I said again, “but I am afraid that I could not take advantage of such an offer.”
“Why not?”
“I have no claim upon you or your father,” I answered. “We are almost strangers, are we not? I might accept and be grateful for employment, but this is charity.”
“A very conventional reply, Mr. Ducaine,” she remarked, with faint sarcasm. “I gave you credit for a larger view of things.”
I found her still inexplicable. She was evidently annoyed, and yet she did not seem to wish me to be. There was a cloud upon her face and a nervousness in her manner which I wholly failed to understand.
“If I were to tell you,” she said, raising her eyes suddenly to mine, “that your acceptance of my offer would be a favour—would put me under a real obligation to you?”
“I should still have to remind you,” I declared, “that as yet I have no pupils, and it takes time to get them. Further, I have arrived at that position when immediate employment, if it is only as a breaker of stones upon the road, is a necessity to me.”
She sighed.
“My father will offer you a post,” she said slowly.
“Now you are a real Samaritan, Lady Angela,” I declared. “I only hope that it may be so.”
Her face reflected none of my enthusiasm.
“You jump at conclusions,” she said, coldly. “How do you know that the post will be one which you will be able to fill?”
“If your father offers it to me,” I answered, confidently, “he must take the risk of that.”
I was surprised at her speech-perhaps a little nettled. I was an “Honours” man, an exceptional linguist, and twenty-five. It did not seem likely to me that there was any post which the Duke might offer which, on the score of ability, at any rate, I should not be competent to fill.
“He will offer it you,” she said, looking steadily downwards on to the sands below, “and you will accept it. I am sorry!”
“Sorry!” I exclaimed.
“Very. If I could find you those pupils I would,” she continued. “If I could persuade you to lay aside for once the pride which a man seems to think a part of his natural equipment, it would make me very happy. I—”
“Stop,” I interrupted. “You must explain this, Lady Angela.”
She shook her head.
“Explain is just what I cannot,” she said, sadly. “That is what I can never do.”
I was completely bewildered now. She was looking seaward, her face steadily averted from mine. As to her attitude towards me, I could make nothing of it. I could not even decide whether it was friendly or inimical. Did she want this post for some one else? If so, surely her influence with her father would be strong enough to secure it. She had spoken to me kindly enough. The faint air of reserve that she seemed to carry with her everywhere, which, coupled with a certain quietness of deportment, appeared to most of the people around to indicate pride, had for these few minutes, at any rate, been lifted. She had come down from the clouds, and spoken to me as any other woman to any other man. And now she had wound up by throwing me into a state of hopeless bewilderment.
“Lady Angela,” I said, “I think that you owe me some explanation. If you can assure me that it is in any way against your wishes, if you will give me the shadow of a reason why I should refuse what has not yet been offered to me—well, I will do it. I will do it even if I must starve.”
A little forced smile parted her lips. She looked at me kindly.
“I have said a great deal more than I meant to, Mr. Ducaine. I think that it would have been better if I had left most of it unsaid. You must go your own way. I only wanted to guard you against disappointment.”
“Disappointment! You think, after all, then—”
“No, that is not what I meant,” she interrupted. “I am sure that you will be offered the post, and I am sure that you will not hesitate to accept it. But nevertheless I think that it will bring with it great disappointments. I will tell you this. Already three young men whom I knew very well have held this post, and each in turn has been dismissed. They have lost the confidence of their employers, and though each, I believe, was ambitious and meant to make a career, they have now a black mark against their name.”
“You are very mysterious, Lady Angela,” I said, doubtfully.
“It is of necessity,” she answered. “Perhaps I take rather a morbid view of things, but one of them was the brother of a great friend of mine, and they fear that he has lost his reason. There are peculiar and painful difficulties in connection with this post, Mr. Ducaine, and I think it only fair to give you this warning.”
“You are very kind,” I said. “I only wish that the whole thing was clearer to me.”
She smiled a little sadly.
“At least,” she said, “let me give you one word of advice. You will be brought into contact with many people whose integrity will seem to you a positive and certain thing. Nevertheless, treat every one alike. Trust no one. Absolutely no one, Mr. Ducaine. It is your only chance. Now go.”
Her gesture of dismissal was almost imperative. I scrambled down the path and gained the sands. When I looked up she was still standing there. The wind blew her skirts around her slim young limbs, and her hair was streaming behind her. Her face seemed like a piece of delicate oval statuary, her steady eyes seemed fixed upon some point where the clouds and sea meet. She took no heed of, she did not even see, my gesture of farewell. I left her there inscrutable, a child with the face of a Sphinx. She had set me a riddle which I could not solve.
VII. COLONEL RAY’S RING
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The ring lay on the table between us. Colonel Ray had not yet taken it up. In grim silence he listened to my faltering words. When I finished he smiled upon me as one might upon a child that needed humouring.
“So,” he said, slipping the ring upon his finger, “you have saved me from the hangman. What remains? Your reward, eh?”
“It may seem to you,” I answered hotly, “a fitting subject for jokes. I am sorry that my sense of humour is not in touch with yours. You are a great traveller, and you have shaken death by the hand before. For me it is a new thing. The man’s face haunts me! I cannot sleep or rest for thinking of it—as I have seen it dead, and as I saw it alive pressed against my window that night. Who was he? What did he want with me?”
“How do you know,” Ray asked, “that he wanted anything from you?”
“He looked in at my window.”
“He might have seen me enter.”
Then I told him what I had meant to keep secret.
“He asked for me in the village. He was directed to my cottage.”
Ray had been filling his pipe. His fingers paused in their task. He looked at me steadily.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“The person to whom he spoke in the village told me so.”
“Then why did that person not appear at the inquest?”
“Because I asked her not to,” I told him. “If she had given evidence the verdict must have been a different one.”
“It seems to me,” he said quietly, “that you have acted foolishly. If that young woman, whoever she may be, chooses to tell the truth later on you will be in an awkward position.”
“If she had told the truth yesterday,” I answered, “the position would have been quite awkward enough. Let that go! I want to know who that man was, what he wanted with me.”
Colonel Ray shrugged his shoulders.
“My young friend,” he sai
d, “have you come from Braster to ask that question?”
“To give you the ring and to ask you that question.”
“How do you know that the ring is mine?”
“I saw it on your finger when you were giving me wine.”
“Then you believe,” he said, “that I killed him?”
“It is no concern of mine,” I cried hoarsely. “I do not want to know. I do not want to hear. But I tell you that the man’s face haunts me. He asked for me in the village. I feel that he came to Rowchester to see me. And he is dead. Whatever he came to say or to tell me will be buried with him. Who was he? Tell me that?”
Ray smoked on for a few moments reflectively.
“Sit down, sit down!” he said gruffly, “and do abandon that tragical aspect. The creature was not worth all this agitation. He lived like a dog, and he died like one.”
“It is true, then?” I murmured.
“If you insist upon knowing,” Ray said coolly, “I killed him! There are insects upon which one’s foot falls, reptiles which one removes from the earth without a vestige of a qualm, with a certain sense of relief. He was of this order.”
“He was a human being,” I answered.
“He was none the better for that,” Ray declared. “I have known animals of finer disposition.”
“You at least,” I said fiercely, “were not his judge. You struck him in the dark, too. It was a cowardly action.”
Ray turned his head. Then I saw that around his neck was a circular bandage.
“If it interests you to know it,” he remarked drily, “I was not the assailant. But for the fact that I was warned it might have been my body which you came across on the sands. I started a second too soon for our friend—and our exchange of compliments sent him to eternity.”
“It was in self-defence, then?”
“Scarcely that. He would have run away if he could. I decided otherwise.”
“Tell me who he was,” I insisted.
Ray shook his head.
“Better for you not to know,” he remarked reflectively. “Much better.”
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