What were they debating in such secrecy? I asked myself and then, “Perhaps I had been mistaken after all?” I clung to the possibility, though I had little faith in it. At all events, this night I should make sure — one way or another I should make sure.
After the weariest span, the door was opened. I could not see it because of the turn of the staircase. I stood, in fact, just under the door; but I could see on the wall facing me, at the point where the stairs turned a bright disk of light suddenly appear, such as a lamp will throw. The visitor would pass by that disk; he would intercept the rays of the lamp; those rays would burn upon his face. I leaned forward, holding my breath; the steps above me cracked as a man descended them. I heard a short “good night,” but it was Mr. Herbert who spoke; and then the door was closed again and the disk vanished from the wall I could have cursed aloud, so bent was I upon discovering this visitor; but the footsteps descended towards me in the dark, and I drew myself back into my corner.
As they passed me I felt a sudden flap of wind across my face, as though the man was moving his hands in the air to guide him, and I reckoned that the hand was waved within an inch of my nose. A few seconds later and the street-door opened. The sound brought home to me all the folly of my mistake. If I had only waited outside, in that alley, say, where he himself had crept, I should have seen him — I should have known him! Now I must needs wait where I stood until he was clean out of reach, I counted a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred and then in my turn I slipped down the stairs and out of the house. The night was not over-clear, and I could perceive no one in the street. I strained my ears until they ached, and it seemed to me that I heard a light tip-toe tread very faint, diminishing up the hill. I ran in its direction with as little noise as I might. But I heard my spurs clink-clinking even as his had done, only ten times louder.
I stooped and loosed them from my feet. Then I ran on again; it seemed to me that the footsteps grew louder. I turned the corner at the head of the street. In front of me there was a blur of light; the blur defined itself into four moving points of flame as I approached, and, or ever I was aware of it, I had plumped full into my Lord Derwentwater, who was walking homewards behind his torch-bearers to the lake.
“Come, my man,” said he, “what manners are these?”
“The manners of a man in a desperate hurry,” says I, “and so good night to you, my lord;” and I moved on one side.
“Lawrence Clavering!” he cried out and caught me by the arm. “The very man I would be speaking with.”
“But to-morrow, my lord — to-morrow.”
“Nay, to-night. You come so pat upon my wish that I must needs believe God sent you;” and the deep gravity of his tone was the very counterpart of his words. I stopped, undecided, and listened. But I could no longer hear the faintest echo of those stealthy footsteps.
“Then there is something new afoot,” said I.
“Something new, indeed,” says he, “though I take it, it concerns no one but you.” And he bade his footmen go forward. “A minute ago a man passed me on this road, his cloak was drawn about his face, his hat thrust down upon his ears, but the light of my torches flickered into his eyes, and I knew the man.”
“It was doubtless my steward,” I blurted out. “He was in Keswick to-day.”
“Your steward?” he asked in wonderment “Your steward? No, I should not pester you with news about your steward. It was young Jervas Rookley.”
“Well,” said I, “what of him, my lord? I have nothing to fear from Jervas Rookley.”
“You think that?”
“I know it,” I answered, a trifle unsteadily. “At all events, there is solid reason why I should have no grounds for fear.” For I bethought me that I had loyally kept faith with him.
Lord Derwentwater stood for a moment silent.
“Walk a step with me,” he said, and holding my arm he continued, “I would not meddle in your private concerns, Mr. Clavering, but I know Jervas Rookley, and it will be a very ill day for you when you hear his step across the threshold of Blackladies.”
I felt a chill slip into my veins, for if he spoke truth and his words fitted so aptly with my suspicions that I could not disbelieve them — why, that day was long become irrevocable. However, I sought to laugh the matter off.
“A very ill day indeed, for on that day I lose Blackladies to the Crown.”
“The danger will come from Jervas Rookley himself.”
“Then it will be man to man.”
We were now come within a few paces of the footmen, so that the flare of their torches lighted up our faces fitfully. My companion stopped.
“I have known men, Lawrence,” he said, “who went down to their graves in the winter of their years — children — all the more lovable for that, maybe,” for an instant his grip tightened about my arm, “but none the less children, and I have known others who were greybeards in their teens.”
He paused and looked at me doubtfully, as though he would say more.
“You will be wary of this man. He can have little friendliness for you and it will be no common motive that can bring him back to these parts. You will be wary of him, Lawrence?”
So much I readily promised, and again he stood shifting from one foot to the other, balanced, uneasily, betwixt speech and silence. But all he said was, again —
“You will be wary of him, Lawrence,” and so with a grasp of the hand moved off.
I watched him going, and as the torches dwindled to candle-flames and, from candle-flames to sparks, a great desire grew in me to run after him and disclose all that I knew of Jervas Rookley. The desire grew almost to a passion. Had I spoken then, doubtless he would have spoken then, and so, much would have been saved me. But I had given my word to hold this estate in trust, and ignorance or the assumption of ignorance was the condition of my keeping it. The torches vanished in the darkness. I walked back to the inn and mounted my horse. As I rode out of the courtyard, I saw, far away down the street and close to the lake’s edge, four stars, as it were, burning. There was still time. I turned my horse; but I had given my word, and I spurred him to a gallop up the Castle Hill and rode down Borrowdale to Blackladies.
CHAPTER VII.
A DISPUTE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
BUT AS I rode, this warning I had received swelled in importance; it became magnified to a menace, and my desire to speak changed into an overmastering regret that I had not spoken. I had kept my word loyally to — well, to Ashlock, since so I still must term him, even in my thoughts — nay, was still keeping it the while he played false with me. That he trusted me to keep it I was assured by the memory of his words and looks on that night when he had talked of my picture in the hall. Why, then, should he play false? There was but one man who might be able to enlighten me upon the point — Lord Derwentwater — and to that one man my lips were closed, I was, moreover, disturbed too by the knowledge that I had planned to travel to Grasmere on the following day, and be absent there until the night, thus leaving Rookley a free hand. It was late when I turned out of Borrowdale, but I noticed that there was a light still burning in the steward’s office. I rode into the courtyard of the stables, and, leaving my horse there, walked to the front of the house. One or two of the attic windows still showed bright, and the ground floor was dimly lit. But somehow the house smote on me as strangely desolate and dark.
Luke Blacket was waiting to let me in, and whether it was that my strained fancies tricked me into discovering a mute hostility upon his face, but it broke in upon me with a full significance that all the servants, down to the lowest scullion, must be in the secret, and were leagued against me. I saw myself entering a trap, and so piercing a sense of loneliness invaded me, that I plumbed to the very bottom of despondency. I stood in the doorway gazing across the valley. The hills stood sentinel leaguering me about, the voices of innumerable freshets sounded chilly in my ears, as though their laughter had something of a heedless cruelty; my whole nature cried out for a companion,
and with so urgent a demand that I bethought me of the light shining in the steward’s office. It would be Aron without a doubt, sitting late over the books. I went down the passage and opened the door.
Aron rose hastily to his feet, and began some apology.
“Mr. Ashlock,” he said, “requested me — —” But I cut him short, weary for one honest word of truth.
“That will do, Aron. I have no wish to disturb you;” and I threw myself on to a couch which was ranged against the wall. “I am very tired,” said I, and lay with my eyes closed.
Aron’s pen stopped scratching. He sat for a second without moving. Then he came over to the couch, and, or ever I was aware of it, began pulling off my boots.
I opened my eyes and started up. In his old, worn face there was a look of friendliness which at that moment cheered me inexpressibly.
“Nay,” said I, “you are too old a servant, Aron, to offer help of that kind, and I too young a master to accept it. Let it be!”
He straightened his back, and the friendliness increased upon his face. He glanced quickly about the room, and stepped softly to my side.
“Master Lawrence,” he began, in much the tone a nurse may use to a child, and then, “sir, I mean, I beg your pardon.” In a trice he was the formal, precise servant again.
“Nay,” said I, “I know not but what I like the first title the better.”
“It was a liberty,” said he, with his face grown rigid.
“And the privilege of an old servant,” I replied. “But that is just the point. You are not my servant, except in name,” and I turned my head petulantly away.
The next moment his mouth was at my ear.
“Master Lawrence,” he said, in a voice which was very low, “Master Lawrence, were I you, I would not ride again to Keswick.”
I started up. Aron flushed so that the bald top of his head grew red, hopped back to his table, bit his pen, and set to writing at an indescribable rate, as though he was sensible he had said too much.
I leaned upon my elbow and looked at him. So I had a friend in the household, after all! I hugged the thought close to me. Had he any precise knowledge which prompted the advice? I wondered. But I could not ask him, and for this reason amongst others — I was too grateful for this proof of his goodwill to provoke him to a further indiscretion. But as I looked at him, I recalled something which I had noticed whilst riding about the estate. I suppose it was his scribbling at the papers put it into my head, but once it had come there, I thought vaguely that it might be of relevance.
“Aron,” I said, “this plumbago? It is a valuable product?”
He looked at me startled.
“Yes,” said he.
“The mine is opened once in five years?”
“Yes.”
“And on that side of the mountain which faces Borrowdale?”
“Yes.”
And with each assent his uneasiness increased.
“But there’s a ravine runs back by the flank of the mountain, and on the mountain-side there I saw a small lateral shaft.”
“It is closed now, and has been for long,” he interrupted eagerly.
“But it was open once,” I persisted. “The place is secret. Who opened it?”
“It was opened during Sir John Rookley’s life,” he answered, evading the question.
“No doubt; but by whom?”
He shuffled his feet beneath the table.
I repeated the question.
“By whom?”
“By Mr. Jervas,” he answered reluctantly.
“With Sir John’s knowledge and consent?”
Aron glanced at me with an almost piteous expression.
“Sir John knew of it”
“But before it was opened, or afterwards?”
The answer was slow in coming, but it came at last.
“Afterwards.”
“Then I take it,” I resumed, “that Mr. Jervas Rookley robbed his father?”
I spoke in a loud tone, and Aron started from his seat, his eyes drawn towards the door. I rose from the sofa and opened it; there was no one in the passage, but I left the door open. When I turned back again I saw that Aron was looking at me in some perplexity, as if he wondered whether I knew.
“But his father forgave him,” he said gently.
“Very true,” said I, fixing my eyes steadily upon him; “and besides, it is hardly fair to rake up the misdeeds of a man who is so very far away.”
I spoke the words very slowly one by one. Aron’s mouth dropped; a paper which he had been holding in his hand fluttered to the floor. The perplexity in his eyes changed into a blank bewilderment, and from bewilderment to fear.
“You know, sir?” he whispered, nodding his head once or twice in a way that was grotesque. “Then you know?”
“I know this, Aron,” I interrupted hastily. “I hold the estate of Blackladies upon this condition: that I do not knowingly part with a farthing of its revenue to Mr. Jervas Rookley. You know that? You know that if I fail to fulfil that condition the estate goes to the Crown?”
Aron nodded.
“But this you do not know,” I continued. “When Ashlock came to me in Paris, and told me that Mr. Jervas was disinherited because he was a Jacobite, I refused to supplant him, being a Jacobite myself. It was my steward who persuaded me, and by this argument: that when King James came to his throne, the will might easily be set aside. I accepted Blackladies upon those terms — as a trust for Mr. Jervas. But to keep that trust I must fulfil the conditions of the will. I must not knowingly do aught for Mr. Rookley. The condition should be easy, for I have never been presented to Mr. Jervas. I have not so much as seen a portrait of him” — and at this Aron started a little; “he might be living in my house as one of my servants. I might even suspect which was he; but I should have no proof. I should not know.”
Aron gazed at me with wondering eyes.
“You hold Blackladies in trust for Mr. Jervas?” he asked, and I gathered from the tone of the question that my steward had thought fit to keep that knowledge to himself.
“And hope to do so until it can be restored to him. But,” I urged, “I am in no great favour with the Whigs in these parts, and if they could prove I knowingly supported Mr. Jervas, they would not, I fancy, miss the occasion. My attorney, for instance, is a Whig and the attorney of Whigs, and they tell me strangely enough that Mr. Jervas Rookley has been seen in Keswick.”
Aron, however, seemed to be thinking of something totally apart. He said again, and with the same wonderment —
“You hold Blackladies in trust for Mr. Jervas?”
“That is so,” said I, “but it need not keep us out of bed.” And I walked into the passage.
Aron lifted up the lamp and very politely led the way to my door. There he stopped and came into the room with me.
“Sir,” said he, setting down the lamp, “you will pardon me one more question?”
“It is another privilege of the old servant,” I answered with a yawn.
“You were poor when Mr. Ashlock came to you in Paris?”
“Penniless,” said I, and I began kicking off my boots lazily.
“Then God knows,” he cried, “I would you were Sir John Rookley’s son;” and with that he plumped down on his knees and drew off my boots. And this time I suffered him to do it.
I had not done with him, however, even for that night. For an hour or so later, when I was asleep in bed, some one shook me by the shoulder. I looked with blinking eyes at the flame of a candle held an inch from my nose. Behind the candle was Aron, with a coat buttoned up to his chin as though he had thrown it over his nightgear.
“Aron,” I said plaintively, “the question will keep till to-morrow.”
“It is no question, sir, and to-morrow I shall be in Newlands,” he said gravely. “I know nothing — only, were I you, I would not ride again to Keswick.”
“Well, I shall not ride there to-morrow, at all events,” I said, “since to-morrow I leav
e for Grasmere.”
But on the morrow I did ride thither after all. For I woke up the next morning with one thought fixed in my mind, as though it had taken definite shape there the while I lay asleep. I must discover Rookley’s business with Anthony Herbert. The matter was too urgent for delay. My resolve to sit no more for my portrait, my journey to Grasmere I set on one side; and while I was yet at breakfast I ordered a horse to be saddled. The fellow hurried off upon the errand, and I seemed to detect, not merely in his bearing but in the bearing of all who had attended me that morning, a new deference and alertness in their service; and I wondered whether Aron had shared with them his recent knowledge of my purpose.
As I rode down the drive I chanced to look back to the house, and I saw Aron on the steps, shaking his head dolefully, but I kept on my way.
Mr. Herbert received me with the air of a man that seeks to master an excitement. He worked fitfully, with fitful intervals of talk, and I remarked a deep-seated fire in his eyes, and a tremulous wavering of the lips. His manner kept me watchful, but never a hint did he drop of any design between my steward and himself. On the contrary, his conversation was all in praise of his wife, and the great store and reliance he set on her. I listened to it for some while, deeming it not altogether extravagant; but after a little I began again to fall back upon my old question, “What end could my steward serve by playing me false?” and again, “In what respect could Herbert help him?”
In the midst of these speculations, an incident occurred which struck them clean out of my mind. I was attracted first of all by something which Herbert was saying.
“It is out of the fashion,” he said, with a sneer, “for a man to care for his wife, and ludicrous to own to it. But it is one of the few privileges of an artist, however poor he be, that he need take no stock of fashions; and for my part, Mr. Clavering, I love my wife.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 223