IV.The Bidding Feast“Pendleton!” I exclaimed, “the Honourable Crofts Pendleton!”“Eh?”“Hail, fellow well met! Thisisa lark!”The man was nonplussed. It had always been, at least for me, one of his chief charms when we were in the same college, the haziness and obstruction of mind that were so queerly assorted with his solidity of physique. Now, eight years between, he was bulkier than ever and (I was willing to wager) yet more detached from reality in his mental operations.He was scratching his fine mane of hair now, irresolute. And he really had reason to be confused while we confronted each other in the dimly-lit porch. For I presented such a scotched and scrambled appearance as never before, mould-mud-and-sweat-clotted, unrecognizable no doubt even to my most accustomed friends. Why should he not be startled when in this gear and guise I greeted him with burbling cheer?He looked so dumbly helpless that I had to laugh.“Man, man, do you mean to say that you don’t remember me by my voice?”“Your voice?” repeated Pendleton. “Yes, it sounds familiar” (he was lying), “but somehow I can’t—”I kept chuckling, and he looked hurt; so I said, “Of course you can’t. I’m Bannerlee, Alfred Bannerlee.”The announcement drove him back a pace. “No!”“Emphatically yes.”He was studying me intently now, quite rapt. “But how on earth did you find your way up the Vale? It must be full of stinking fog down there in New Aidenn.”“I camedownthe Vale!” I announced. “There’s a thimbleful of mist up in the north, too.”“Downthe Vale! You say you came down the Vale!” Then suddenly realization and recognition of me burst upon him for the first time, and he reached for my hand and gave it a good pumping, grasped my elbow, and took me inside. “My dear man, my dear fellow, you must have had a sickening time. Delighted to have you with us. By gad! How on earth did you ever find this nook in the woods?”“I’m an antiquarian, you know, a nomad. I might better ask how you did the same,” I rejoined. “And, er, are you the butler?”“No. Of course not. I’m the host. Why, what do you mean?” He stared at me with the old uncertainty.“You answered my knock with remarkable alacrity.”“Oh, I was just at the door, going to open it anyhow. I was on my way to my room when I heard you out there.” He gestured toward the drive. “I imagined you’d want to be let right in.”“But, my dear Crofts, you didn’t know who I was.”“Oh, yes, I did. That is, I thought I did. Oh, there’s a fine state of confusion here. You see, we’ve been waiting for Sir Brooke Mortimer since before dinner. And as he’s not sent word, we’re still waiting for him.”“Oh?” I said.“Yes,” said he.We were standing just inside the hall, which contained some of the finest screen panelling I have seen. I guessed, rightly, that it was Henry VIII. work. A multitude of little heads peered out from the wall beneath coats-of-arms, and the foliated edges of the wood were as delicate as lace. There was a settle standing on the left-hand side, where the ceiling sloped down sharply, evidently beneath a winding stair.Pendleton seemed struck by a sudden thought. “You’d like to change, perhaps?”“My dear man! If you’ll fit me out! I shall perish otherwise. As I am, I’d rather not see people.”“Well—would you mind waiting here a moment? I’ll fetch Blenkinson. Not long. There’s a good fellow.”He was gone, and I sat me down on the restful settle with some gyrating thoughts to compose.But before I had time to set one thought beside another, a new man in evening dress came breezing nonchalantly past me to the door, which he opened and peered out of, to close it in a moment with a small shiver. It had grown chilly out-of-doors during the latter hour of my odyssey. Turning, he beheld me in my recess.“Hello,” he exclaimed mildly. “So youhavecome. No news of him?”He was, I now think, one of the most deceptive-appearing persons I have ever encountered, of a type emphatically British, but the extreme of his type. He was the nonpareil for unobtrusiveness and lack of distinction; without even the stamp of vulgarity, he was ordinary and unnoticeable to the last degree. I have never seen a man who appeared to possess so many properties of a vacuum. His age, perhaps, was somewhere about the third decade. He was of no particular height (actually about five feet seven) or weight (about ten stone ten), and his face was all that was commonplace. A pair of futilely brown moustaches divided it into upper and lower portions, in the superior of which pastel-grey eyes kept an unblinking but unobservant watch; below, his mouth and jaw were neither strong nor weak. His complexion was pale but not to excessive sallowness, and his brownish hair, rather thin, was faintly flecked with grey. His dinner coat fitted exceptionally well.“Yes, I have come,” I answered, “but I’m not sure I’m the ‘you’ you mean.”“Why, you’re Hughes, the keeper, aren’t you?”“No, I’m just a friend of Pendleton’s.”“Oh, is that so?”He was not cloudy and remote like Crofts Pendleton; rather I thought I detected even a trace of the sardonic in his tone, and I must have flushed at the remembrance of my rough and woebegone attire.“I don’t look the part, I admit.”“Well, no, you don’t.” He held out his hand with a cordiality surprising to me. “Belvoir’s my name—Ted Belvoir. It’s B-e-l-v-o-i-r, you know.”“Bannerlee’s mine. B-a-n-n—”“Oh, that’s all right. I spelled mine out on account of these Americans. They think it’s funny to pronounce it ‘Beaver!’ ”“Americans!”“Why, you must be quite a stranger here. Didn’t you know—”“I know nothing. I am indeed an utter stranger, save for being acquainted with Pendleton. You see that I’m rather the worse for wear; well, I’ve been running and scrambling and climbing all over Aidenn Forest to-day, and to cap the climax I fell into this Vale and blundered upon this house.”“All over Aidenn Forest?”“Yes, I am an antiquary of sorts.”“Now, that’s very interesting, very interesting. Why, you may have—have you seen anyone?” There was a glimmer of excitement in his pale eyes.Now suddenly it occurred to me that reticence might be useful in this mansion whereof I knew so little and that little full of perplexity.“Why, what sort of person?”“Oh, a gentleman prowling at a loose end.”“I should say not,” I assured him, “unless he was mightily transmogrified.”“Well, that delays us again.”“I suppose the man you mean is, er, Sir Brooke Mortimer.”“Yes.” His eyes widened. “Now, how did you know that?”“Pendleton told me before he went to fetch the butler.”“That’s the man, that’s the man. Irritating, isn’t it? Hughes and some of the other servants have gone in search. That’s why our host takes so long to get Blenkinson, who must be busy.”“You don’t tell me the servants have gone out to scour for him!”“He’s such an irregular blighter, you know. May have tried to walk it from New Aidenn or even from somewhere else on the line. They’re going to telephone down when the station-master comes for the evening train. You see, he wasn’t due on any particular train, but they expected him to send word ahead. So they’re in a pretty pass.”“What’s the man look like?”“Oh, a little, piddling sort of minnikin. Wearing a couple of pairs of glasses, most likely, and sure to be smoking an offensive cigar. Speaks with a lisp when he gets excited—sometimes when he isn’t. You couldn’t have seen him?”“No,” I avouched. “Neither to-day nor any other day.” I had already resolved, by the by, to tell no stranger about the men I had seen. I wanted to be believed.I refrained from asking why Sir Brooke’s presence was so necessary for the comfort of all, but my new acquaintance evidently saw the question in my face, for he answered it in a manner to provoke my curiosity yet further. “He’s going to propose the health of the bride, y’know.”A third personage came round from the other side of the stairs, and the blood in my veins gave a little leap when I recognized the white-haired man whose suspicious behaviour I had overlooked in the dim room with the tower windows. His gaze was inquiring, as if he had come to see whose the voices were, and when he saw my unaccustomed face, he gave a cluck, as if to say, “I know whoyouare,” and demanded peremptorily:“Are you the missing idiot?”I said, “Perhaps.”His little dark eyes sparkled. “Then you’re not—no, I see you’re not. You haven’t, by the way, seen a lost sheep of a knight outside?”“No.”Somehow Belvoir had melted away upon the coming of this gentleman; now the old fellow, with his eyes pursuing the other down the hall out of my view, snapped, “So much the better. We have at least one crazy man here already.”“Indeed! What is his name?” I asked with much enjoyment, expecting to hear Belvoir identified, for I judged that no love was lost between these two.“Cosgrove!”“Oh! I haven’t heard of him, I believe.”“Well, you will.”He was gone!I listened to his waning footsteps down the hall for only a brace of seconds before I had made a hasty, rash decision. I would see, before anyone else, what was the state of affairs inside the room where I had witnessed this old fellow’s dubious practices. I edged around the curve of the stair, saw him moving briskly away at the other end of the wainscoted and carpeted passage, which was quite broad enough to be called a good-sized gallery. There were two doors on the right, four on the left (counting one by the stair-foot, where the corridor broadened almost into a room), and one away at the far end, which last must lead into the conservatory. A collection of portraits, large and small, hung over and between the doors, although, since the hall was wholly enclosed by rooms, they must never be seen save by artificial light.By the time I had comprehended so much, the old gentleman had disappeared through the farthest door at the left. An entrance behind the stairs I judged to lead into the library where the light was blazing, perhaps as a beacon for Sir Brooke. The room I sought must lie beyond the door facing the stair-foot. I felt like a burglarious person while I opened it and stole into darkness, taking out my electric-torch. And the moment afterward I felt like a fool.The yellow cone of light played on walls hung with trophies and weapons of every age and sort. I saw the old candle-bracket by the window, and the closed doors leading to rooms on each side, as well as to the open. Standing where the “men” had been were two hollow suits of armour, complete in plate and chain.So the old codger’s only crime must have been a little harmless fussing about. Still, why had he chosen near-darkness when there was, as now I saw, an electric switch beside the door? Perhaps the switch was out of order; I had not the courage to try it and see. Almost, but not quite, I acquitted the white-haired gentleman of evil design.I lost no time in returning to my station in the hall. I was on the settle, and had almost decided that Crofts Pendleton had forgotten me when he appeared apologetically, with the butler, carrying a loaded tray, at his heels.“If it’s compatible with bathing, I got Blenkinson to put some dishes together. Dinner’s just over.”“My dear Crofts, you’re too thoughtful.”“Very seldom, I assure you,” he smiled.“Certainly, I’d like to break the edge of appetite, anyhow.”“Then we’ll go up to my room.”Blenkinson, with impeccable whiskers, looked as if he might be the Master of University College. With the tray, he followed us up the circular stairs, whose well reached into the dim heights of the second storey. A room on the right of the first landing was Pendleton’s.“Hullo, it’s dark! I expected Ludlow had come up. He complained of feeling seedy.”The long corridor of this floor, which I later found to lead to the door of the landing of the outside stairs at the north end of the building, was invisible until Pendleton touched a button on the wall.“Ludlow? Is he the tufted individual, hawk-like?”“Why, yes. Have you seen him?”“We have conversed slightly. He’s downstairs.”“He must be feeling better,” murmured Crofts. Yet somehow I distrusted that his Lordship had suffered even a little twinge.Now Blenkinson withdrew discreetly as a Dean, after examining each dish on the tray and giving every cover an approving caress.“May I ask a question?”“Blaze away.”“Aren’t things a little out of order here, to-night? Or are there no ladies present?”“There are ladies, plenty of ’em. But what do you mean?”“Why are the men prowling around the House? Where are the ladies? Don’t they customarily leave the men at the board?”“Oh, yes, usually.” There was a light in his eyes that caused me to expect something quite illogical and characteristic. “But here it’s the other way round.”“What?”“Here the men leave the table to the ladies. It’s the local custom.”It had come, the sublimely ridiculous. But still—I ventured: “Then most of your guests are Welsh folk?”“Not one; all English and American. But ‘When in Rome,’ you know, Bannerlee. I like to pay tribute to themoresof the place. That’s a word of Belvoir’s; you know what I mean.”In anyone but Crofts Pendleton I should have held such deference to the manners of the parish or the borough or the shire to be a gesture of mock. But mockery was out of the question in that face of perfect guilelessness. So innocent and susceptible were those big features that I had a momentary impulse to tell him that there appeared to be “goings-on” in the House. But I forbore.So, beginning to lay aside my reeking clothes, I asked him the nature of the party, and if it were in celebration of a particular occasion, and in so doing I met point-blank another of his vague notions, disassociated from the working of any ordinary mind.“A very special occasion indeed,” he declared. “We are having a wedding party—that is, there’s going to be a wedding party; to-night it’s a Bidding Feast.”“Bidding Feast?”“Yes,” said Crofts, evincing much pleasure in his revelation. “It accords with the folk custom. You look oddly. Haven’t you heard of it?”“Not sufficiently, I fear.”“It’s very old, very old, to help the married-pair-to-be to set up housekeeping.”“Then I am amiss in not knowing something of it, having turned desultory antiquarian since we were last together. Tell me about it.”He seemed shy and apologetic. “Of course we don’t go into all of it—the donations of bread and cheese and sugar and such, or promissory notes (they’ve been recognized as legal obligations in the courts, you know). We haven’t had any of that, or selling cakes and ale for the enrichment of the couple. These are wealthy people. And we’ve dispensed with the ‘inviter.’ ”“Oh, you have?” I asked ironically. “What, perchance, is he?”“A professional in the business exclusively. He tramps the country for several days ahead and bids the householders with a set of humorous doggerel verses, or printed ballad. I’ve several works describing it all in the library downstairs. It used to be a universal thing in Wales, but it’s almost a dead-letter now.” He looked as if he were about to sigh.“And you say that you’re reviving it for a couple who are not Welsh?”“Welsh? Of course they’re not Welsh. Paula Lebetwood’s an American, and Sean Cosgrove—well, he’s an Irishman.”“One hopes so. And how goes the Feast?”“We’re being terribly festive! Under the circumstances, you know. . . .”Here was the maddest, one might say the most pitiful, of Pendleton’s fancies. A Welsh Bidding Feast for setting up a couple in housekeeping—only minus the Welsh folk, minus the donations, minus the cakes and ale, minus the “inviter,” minus about everything, in fact, except the good intentions of the host! A ghost of a Bidding Feast.“Surely, Crofts,” I remarked, “if you are trying to revive the good old Welsh customs, you might suggest a bundling party.”He went red, but was too good-natured to take offence. “Nonsense, man. Don’t mention it. Why, it’s an immoral thing. Sermons used to be preached against it.”“But under the circumstances!” I repeated his phrase. “Morality is a question of local custom, isn’t it? Themores, you know.”“Mores?Oh, you sound like Belvoir, who’s been getting everybody in a stew.” He overlooked his own introduction of the word.“Well, I shan’t propose it, my dear man. I know that I should be mobbed, without a Welshman in the Vale to protect me.”A flicker of movement crossed his features, and his voice was constrained, even grave. “Without a Welshman?—well, I don’t know.”“You’re aggrieved, Crofts. What’s the matter?”“This place is full of wild-eyed superstitions,” he declared, beginning to pace the length of the room. “We have a few Welsh servants—they keep the place up while it’s unoccupied—and they’re agog with the Gwyllion and the Tylwyth Teg. They’re stirring up the rest with tales of the haggish fairies and dwarfs and goblins that seem to infect this locality.”“Well,” I laughed, yet with a pinch of queerness in thinking of the near-apparition who had occurred on the ledge-path, “as long as nobody has met his own funeral and the dames and peers of elfin-land keep outside the walls—”“But that’s just it!” he cried vexatiously. “There’sbeenan invasion. The women have made me put all their best jewellery in the strong-box, and still they’re fretting.”I paused in the act of drying my back. “You don’t mean—”“The worst visitant of all is in our midst, and unless we dispose of him our nerves will be in tatters!” Then he lapsed into sudden contrition for his vehemence. “Of course I’m not such a fool as to believe any of it.”“The supernatural, you mean?”“That’s why I said I’m not so sure we haven’t a Welshman in our midst. He must be at the bottom of it all. Confound it, somebody must be.”“Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”“Parson Lolly,” answered Pendleton, with slightly bated breath, and I remember that I was impressed into silence for a moment.“ParsonLolly?”“So he is called.”“And who may the Parson be?”“A legend, just a damned legend.”“And a Welshman too?”“That’s it!” he exclaimed with an eager gesture. “Don’t you see it must be so, or else there’s hell let loose in this valley? It must be a man, must be, must be! Only—” He checked himself.“Well?”“No man can do the things Parson Lolly is said to do.”I made a complete break in my toilet and scrutinized my friend, who was visibly shaken. He said, “It’s no use trying to describe how it feels to be a host in the midst of such a hullabaloo. It’s the very devil. And I can’tdoanything to stop it. Helplessness is a terrible thing.”“Now tell me some of this nonsense,” I urged. “And first of all, why ‘Parson’? It’s creepy.”“It certainly is,” he agreed. “That designation adds oddness, sinister, too, to the whole portrait of him.”“What else is there in his portrait?”“He’s old, several hundred years old at the most conservative estimate of the servants. His business is general mischief and bedevilment and, I surmise, thievery.”“What does he look like?”“He has the face of a demon, red with hell-fire, and streaked with smoke. He has the likeness of a man otherwise, but he wears a great flowing robe of black; there’s where the ‘Parson’ part comes in, I suppose. The robe is vaster than any prelate’s of earth, though there again you have the sinister touch. He—he flies in it, Bannerlee, like an enormous crow! He’s been seen flying away over the Bach Hill.”“How far is Bach Hill from here?”“About two miles.”I resumed my dressing, and simulated a laugh, for it would not do to seem too much impressed with this fol-de-rol. Pendleton maintained his appearance of dead seriousness.“I wonder if there’s anything else. Oh, yes—his voice.”“Voice?” My question must have been sharp.“It’s a young voice and an old voice in one. He’s been heard, Bannerlee.” Pendleton licked his lips. “I’ve heard him myself.”“You must leave this, Crofts,” I admonished, dimly aware that I was cribbing from literature. “You’re letting your imagination make sport of you, of course; but, tell me, what’s been the spring of all your troubles? What’s actually happened here?”His mood had shifted. “No, let’s change the subject. This is no way to receive a guest, with omens and warnings.”“But, good heavens, you only make it worse when you stop at the warnings. I want to hear some of the facts.”“You really do?”“This is absurd. Of course I do.”But Crofts’ mind was then in an unwilling state as regarded retailing the misdeeds of the Parson. He became sketchy. At first there had been annoyances among the servants, the overturning of pots and skillets, the displacement of articles, some so thoroughly removed that they never would be found. For the past forty-eight hours these trifles had been throwing the kitchen into an uproar, but one more serious thing had occurred the previous evening in the presence of the guests who had already arrived. All Pendleton would tell me of this outrage was that it had to do with the smashing of the conservatory window, and that then the voice of the Parson had been heard by everyone.“It makes me feel sometimes, for a minute or two, that there may be something in it,” he muttered finally. “Why isn’t it possible that someone has found a method of flying with a minimum of mechanical aid? It will happen sooner or later.”“When I see him taking off, I’ll believe—not otherwise.”“That’s the sensible thing to say—very sensible.”Now in the course of this long conversation I had disencumbered myself of my damp-heavy explorer’s gear, had cavorted in the bath between the rooms of Pendleton and his wife, had donned his dressing-gown and shaved with his razor, had covered myself with one of his old business suits, now “uncomfortably snug” for his frame, but flappingly loose for mine. The food I had reserved until after the bath; although the things were now cool, I took half a cupful of coffee and sampled the leg of a duck. I resolved to confide one thing to Pendleton now; perhaps it would bring him some relief. So, swiftly explaining my movements in Aidenn Forest that day, I related my adventures with the man on the ledge-path, and hinted that he might be at the root of the mischief.“What time was that?”“Over two hours ago, I suppose.”He shook his head, wistfully. “No, I wish it was as simple as you suggest. But the Parson was making trouble among the servants only an hour before you came.”I thought of the menagerie-keeper, yet somehow he didn’t fit into this situation.“I’m sorry, Crofts. Still, you mustn’t let such antics disturb you.”“I won’t, I won’t,” he promised, but I thought his protest a little feverish.While we went downstairs I gave him the best imitation I could of the stranger’s cry on the ledge-path, and asked him if he believed it was Welsh.“No,” he said, with the gravity of conviction, “no, that’s certainly not Welsh.”Bless his simple heart! I believe he knows no more Cumraeg than I.We moved along the galley-passage, and nighed the third left-hand entrance.Now, just as we were about to enter, while we heard the voices of festivity inside, he turned to me suddenly.“I’m sending the boy to your village beyond the hills to-morrow morning—whatever-its-name-is—for your things. You’re to be one of us, of course.”“My dear Crofts, I hate to intrude.”“No intrusion. And there are other equal strangers among us. Will you stay on for a couple of days?”“I’d be delighted.”“Then I’ll announce you as one of us.”We joined the Bidding Feast.I motioned my host to precede me into the midst of the party. Now it so happened that we entered with none to observe us, for this door opened beneath an old musicians’ gallery.We had no sooner entered this shady spot than I placed my hand on Pendleton’s sleeve and put finger to lips, and stood to take in the scene in silence. The head of a cat, with ears singularly set back, made a rest for the hand at the pillared foot of the winding balustrade to the gallery. It had given me a moment’s shock at first, but now I set my fingers along that smooth nose and peered covertly from the concealment of the little staircase. The Bidding Feast, save for floral and evergreen festoons about the Hall, had all the look of two tables of ordinary auction bridge.But I hardly did more than give a secret glance at the guests before surveying the extent and features of the Hall itself. Flat-ceilinged, its wooden roof supported by braced thirty-foot timbers, a room regular in its right-angularity, it nevertheless gave the impression of spaciousness. It was two storeys in height, full forty feet in length, and obviously of great age, perhaps a bulwark of war, for its ashlar masonry was undisguised by arras, woodwork, or plaster. Somehow, save for the chimney-piece in the wall beyond which the conservatory lay, a fireplace which was massive without being cumbrous, the appointments of the room seemed to me inept. All the Tudor furniture was gone, and in its stead was a collection of mahogany and walnut pieces from the lion-mask period—and later—looking frail and prettified in that ancient stronghold of defence. The woven-backed chairs, the spindly animal-legs of the tables with their claw-feet, the spider’s web marqueterie decorations, were to my mind strongly out of keeping. The waxed floor was in part covered by old English “Turky” carpets. Altogether a medley of anachronisms was the Hall of the Moth, but its walls a-frown and towering chimney-place lent nevertheless a thrill of antique grandeur.A plan of the ground floor of Highglen House. The front door is at the bottom of the plan, opening into a narrow corridor leading through the middle of the house, as well as a winding staircase to the next floor. Large doors immediately to the left of the front door connect to a library in the bottom left corner of the building. Above the library is the armoury. The armoury has doors on all sides, including one to the outside. Above the armoury is a large room labelled “Hall of the Moth”. The door between the armoury and the Hall of the Moth is underneath a raised platform labelled “Musicians’ Gallery”. Both the Hall of the Moth and the central corridor have doors to the conservatory, which runs along the top of the plan, and has a large window along most of the top wall. The right-hand side of the plan is mostly taken up by the dining-room, which the conservatory connects to directly. Below the dining-room are the kitchen and pantries.Two of the eight card-players I recognized, of course, Lord Ludlow and Belvoir, who were opposed to each other at the nearer table, where the deal had just been made. Lord Ludlow, who was facing me, lifted his cards from the table, arching his brows above the pince-nez which now clung to his sharp-wedged nose. Satisfaction gleamed from all quarters of his countenance.“Youhaven’t the right kind of face for cards,” I thought; then a notion made me mutter, “Or, I wonder?” The old dissembler!I was impressed by the vague familiarity of the back of Lord Ludlow’s partner, and guessed her to be the hostess of the Bidding Feast. I had known Alberta Pendleton in the early days, and had seen that stately back preceding me up the aisle at her wedding. It had taken on added dignity, if anything, in the intervening years, and I expected, rightly, that her delicate beauty (Pendleton had been ungodly lucky) would have ripened into greater loveliness.Belvoir, on her right, was opposite a woman I intuitively knew must be his wife, for she might have been his widow. It was not only that she looked older than she was, and gave that impression, for she was gowned in black relieved by grey, and that her cheek was pale, having a worn softness, or that her composed voice, rather full and sweet, seemed full of twilight memories; she had the half-experienced, half-expectant air which bereft females wear. And indeed I supposed it could hardly be otherwise for her, married as she was to a man who seemed without a trace of colour, without a morsel of flesh to him, or a drop of blood, the acme of innocuousness.At the far table three men were playing with one woman, whose back was turned to me. Facing her, and me, sat a bright-eyed, youngish fellow with short black hair, a face almost crimson-red, and on his right and left respectively a dandified-looking chap with waxed moustaches, and a good solid individual of immobile swarthy countenance, the image of a substantial, dependable Englishman. This ponderous person was dealing with a regular, unhurried motion that recalled to me the grinding of the mills of God.“A pretty kettle of fish!” I murmured to myself, and added to Crofts, “A variegated lot, old fellow! So many different tempers and purposeful minds reduced to the same dead level by the permutations of fifty-two pasteboard slips. Saddening, Crofts, saddening.”“All intimates, one way or another,” he whispered. “Good friends, mind you, but you’ll find them fighting half the time.”“They certainly look engrossed in the game.”“Ah, but that’s a pretence. They keep up a very brave front, but any trifling disturbance would set them wild.”“You don’t say so.”“I tell you, man, there’s something foul and fearful in this damned Vale. I half regret—well, come on. You’ve got to meet them sometime. They’ve all heard about you.”
“Pendleton!” I exclaimed, “the Honourable Crofts Pendleton!”
“Eh?”
“Hail, fellow well met! Thisisa lark!”
The man was nonplussed. It had always been, at least for me, one of his chief charms when we were in the same college, the haziness and obstruction of mind that were so queerly assorted with his solidity of physique. Now, eight years between, he was bulkier than ever and (I was willing to wager) yet more detached from reality in his mental operations.
He was scratching his fine mane of hair now, irresolute. And he really had reason to be confused while we confronted each other in the dimly-lit porch. For I presented such a scotched and scrambled appearance as never before, mould-mud-and-sweat-clotted, unrecognizable no doubt even to my most accustomed friends. Why should he not be startled when in this gear and guise I greeted him with burbling cheer?
He looked so dumbly helpless that I had to laugh.
“Man, man, do you mean to say that you don’t remember me by my voice?”
“Your voice?” repeated Pendleton. “Yes, it sounds familiar” (he was lying), “but somehow I can’t—”
I kept chuckling, and he looked hurt; so I said, “Of course you can’t. I’m Bannerlee, Alfred Bannerlee.”
The announcement drove him back a pace. “No!”
“Emphatically yes.”
He was studying me intently now, quite rapt. “But how on earth did you find your way up the Vale? It must be full of stinking fog down there in New Aidenn.”
“I camedownthe Vale!” I announced. “There’s a thimbleful of mist up in the north, too.”
“Downthe Vale! You say you came down the Vale!” Then suddenly realization and recognition of me burst upon him for the first time, and he reached for my hand and gave it a good pumping, grasped my elbow, and took me inside. “My dear man, my dear fellow, you must have had a sickening time. Delighted to have you with us. By gad! How on earth did you ever find this nook in the woods?”
“I’m an antiquarian, you know, a nomad. I might better ask how you did the same,” I rejoined. “And, er, are you the butler?”
“No. Of course not. I’m the host. Why, what do you mean?” He stared at me with the old uncertainty.
“You answered my knock with remarkable alacrity.”
“Oh, I was just at the door, going to open it anyhow. I was on my way to my room when I heard you out there.” He gestured toward the drive. “I imagined you’d want to be let right in.”
“But, my dear Crofts, you didn’t know who I was.”
“Oh, yes, I did. That is, I thought I did. Oh, there’s a fine state of confusion here. You see, we’ve been waiting for Sir Brooke Mortimer since before dinner. And as he’s not sent word, we’re still waiting for him.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yes,” said he.
We were standing just inside the hall, which contained some of the finest screen panelling I have seen. I guessed, rightly, that it was Henry VIII. work. A multitude of little heads peered out from the wall beneath coats-of-arms, and the foliated edges of the wood were as delicate as lace. There was a settle standing on the left-hand side, where the ceiling sloped down sharply, evidently beneath a winding stair.
Pendleton seemed struck by a sudden thought. “You’d like to change, perhaps?”
“My dear man! If you’ll fit me out! I shall perish otherwise. As I am, I’d rather not see people.”
“Well—would you mind waiting here a moment? I’ll fetch Blenkinson. Not long. There’s a good fellow.”
He was gone, and I sat me down on the restful settle with some gyrating thoughts to compose.
But before I had time to set one thought beside another, a new man in evening dress came breezing nonchalantly past me to the door, which he opened and peered out of, to close it in a moment with a small shiver. It had grown chilly out-of-doors during the latter hour of my odyssey. Turning, he beheld me in my recess.
“Hello,” he exclaimed mildly. “So youhavecome. No news of him?”
He was, I now think, one of the most deceptive-appearing persons I have ever encountered, of a type emphatically British, but the extreme of his type. He was the nonpareil for unobtrusiveness and lack of distinction; without even the stamp of vulgarity, he was ordinary and unnoticeable to the last degree. I have never seen a man who appeared to possess so many properties of a vacuum. His age, perhaps, was somewhere about the third decade. He was of no particular height (actually about five feet seven) or weight (about ten stone ten), and his face was all that was commonplace. A pair of futilely brown moustaches divided it into upper and lower portions, in the superior of which pastel-grey eyes kept an unblinking but unobservant watch; below, his mouth and jaw were neither strong nor weak. His complexion was pale but not to excessive sallowness, and his brownish hair, rather thin, was faintly flecked with grey. His dinner coat fitted exceptionally well.
“Yes, I have come,” I answered, “but I’m not sure I’m the ‘you’ you mean.”
“Why, you’re Hughes, the keeper, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m just a friend of Pendleton’s.”
“Oh, is that so?”
He was not cloudy and remote like Crofts Pendleton; rather I thought I detected even a trace of the sardonic in his tone, and I must have flushed at the remembrance of my rough and woebegone attire.
“I don’t look the part, I admit.”
“Well, no, you don’t.” He held out his hand with a cordiality surprising to me. “Belvoir’s my name—Ted Belvoir. It’s B-e-l-v-o-i-r, you know.”
“Bannerlee’s mine. B-a-n-n—”
“Oh, that’s all right. I spelled mine out on account of these Americans. They think it’s funny to pronounce it ‘Beaver!’ ”
“Americans!”
“Why, you must be quite a stranger here. Didn’t you know—”
“I know nothing. I am indeed an utter stranger, save for being acquainted with Pendleton. You see that I’m rather the worse for wear; well, I’ve been running and scrambling and climbing all over Aidenn Forest to-day, and to cap the climax I fell into this Vale and blundered upon this house.”
“All over Aidenn Forest?”
“Yes, I am an antiquary of sorts.”
“Now, that’s very interesting, very interesting. Why, you may have—have you seen anyone?” There was a glimmer of excitement in his pale eyes.
Now suddenly it occurred to me that reticence might be useful in this mansion whereof I knew so little and that little full of perplexity.
“Why, what sort of person?”
“Oh, a gentleman prowling at a loose end.”
“I should say not,” I assured him, “unless he was mightily transmogrified.”
“Well, that delays us again.”
“I suppose the man you mean is, er, Sir Brooke Mortimer.”
“Yes.” His eyes widened. “Now, how did you know that?”
“Pendleton told me before he went to fetch the butler.”
“That’s the man, that’s the man. Irritating, isn’t it? Hughes and some of the other servants have gone in search. That’s why our host takes so long to get Blenkinson, who must be busy.”
“You don’t tell me the servants have gone out to scour for him!”
“He’s such an irregular blighter, you know. May have tried to walk it from New Aidenn or even from somewhere else on the line. They’re going to telephone down when the station-master comes for the evening train. You see, he wasn’t due on any particular train, but they expected him to send word ahead. So they’re in a pretty pass.”
“What’s the man look like?”
“Oh, a little, piddling sort of minnikin. Wearing a couple of pairs of glasses, most likely, and sure to be smoking an offensive cigar. Speaks with a lisp when he gets excited—sometimes when he isn’t. You couldn’t have seen him?”
“No,” I avouched. “Neither to-day nor any other day.” I had already resolved, by the by, to tell no stranger about the men I had seen. I wanted to be believed.
I refrained from asking why Sir Brooke’s presence was so necessary for the comfort of all, but my new acquaintance evidently saw the question in my face, for he answered it in a manner to provoke my curiosity yet further. “He’s going to propose the health of the bride, y’know.”
A third personage came round from the other side of the stairs, and the blood in my veins gave a little leap when I recognized the white-haired man whose suspicious behaviour I had overlooked in the dim room with the tower windows. His gaze was inquiring, as if he had come to see whose the voices were, and when he saw my unaccustomed face, he gave a cluck, as if to say, “I know whoyouare,” and demanded peremptorily:
“Are you the missing idiot?”
I said, “Perhaps.”
His little dark eyes sparkled. “Then you’re not—no, I see you’re not. You haven’t, by the way, seen a lost sheep of a knight outside?”
“No.”
Somehow Belvoir had melted away upon the coming of this gentleman; now the old fellow, with his eyes pursuing the other down the hall out of my view, snapped, “So much the better. We have at least one crazy man here already.”
“Indeed! What is his name?” I asked with much enjoyment, expecting to hear Belvoir identified, for I judged that no love was lost between these two.
“Cosgrove!”
“Oh! I haven’t heard of him, I believe.”
“Well, you will.”
He was gone!
I listened to his waning footsteps down the hall for only a brace of seconds before I had made a hasty, rash decision. I would see, before anyone else, what was the state of affairs inside the room where I had witnessed this old fellow’s dubious practices. I edged around the curve of the stair, saw him moving briskly away at the other end of the wainscoted and carpeted passage, which was quite broad enough to be called a good-sized gallery. There were two doors on the right, four on the left (counting one by the stair-foot, where the corridor broadened almost into a room), and one away at the far end, which last must lead into the conservatory. A collection of portraits, large and small, hung over and between the doors, although, since the hall was wholly enclosed by rooms, they must never be seen save by artificial light.
By the time I had comprehended so much, the old gentleman had disappeared through the farthest door at the left. An entrance behind the stairs I judged to lead into the library where the light was blazing, perhaps as a beacon for Sir Brooke. The room I sought must lie beyond the door facing the stair-foot. I felt like a burglarious person while I opened it and stole into darkness, taking out my electric-torch. And the moment afterward I felt like a fool.
The yellow cone of light played on walls hung with trophies and weapons of every age and sort. I saw the old candle-bracket by the window, and the closed doors leading to rooms on each side, as well as to the open. Standing where the “men” had been were two hollow suits of armour, complete in plate and chain.
So the old codger’s only crime must have been a little harmless fussing about. Still, why had he chosen near-darkness when there was, as now I saw, an electric switch beside the door? Perhaps the switch was out of order; I had not the courage to try it and see. Almost, but not quite, I acquitted the white-haired gentleman of evil design.
I lost no time in returning to my station in the hall. I was on the settle, and had almost decided that Crofts Pendleton had forgotten me when he appeared apologetically, with the butler, carrying a loaded tray, at his heels.
“If it’s compatible with bathing, I got Blenkinson to put some dishes together. Dinner’s just over.”
“My dear Crofts, you’re too thoughtful.”
“Very seldom, I assure you,” he smiled.
“Certainly, I’d like to break the edge of appetite, anyhow.”
“Then we’ll go up to my room.”
Blenkinson, with impeccable whiskers, looked as if he might be the Master of University College. With the tray, he followed us up the circular stairs, whose well reached into the dim heights of the second storey. A room on the right of the first landing was Pendleton’s.
“Hullo, it’s dark! I expected Ludlow had come up. He complained of feeling seedy.”
The long corridor of this floor, which I later found to lead to the door of the landing of the outside stairs at the north end of the building, was invisible until Pendleton touched a button on the wall.
“Ludlow? Is he the tufted individual, hawk-like?”
“Why, yes. Have you seen him?”
“We have conversed slightly. He’s downstairs.”
“He must be feeling better,” murmured Crofts. Yet somehow I distrusted that his Lordship had suffered even a little twinge.
Now Blenkinson withdrew discreetly as a Dean, after examining each dish on the tray and giving every cover an approving caress.
“May I ask a question?”
“Blaze away.”
“Aren’t things a little out of order here, to-night? Or are there no ladies present?”
“There are ladies, plenty of ’em. But what do you mean?”
“Why are the men prowling around the House? Where are the ladies? Don’t they customarily leave the men at the board?”
“Oh, yes, usually.” There was a light in his eyes that caused me to expect something quite illogical and characteristic. “But here it’s the other way round.”
“What?”
“Here the men leave the table to the ladies. It’s the local custom.”
It had come, the sublimely ridiculous. But still—I ventured: “Then most of your guests are Welsh folk?”
“Not one; all English and American. But ‘When in Rome,’ you know, Bannerlee. I like to pay tribute to themoresof the place. That’s a word of Belvoir’s; you know what I mean.”
In anyone but Crofts Pendleton I should have held such deference to the manners of the parish or the borough or the shire to be a gesture of mock. But mockery was out of the question in that face of perfect guilelessness. So innocent and susceptible were those big features that I had a momentary impulse to tell him that there appeared to be “goings-on” in the House. But I forbore.
So, beginning to lay aside my reeking clothes, I asked him the nature of the party, and if it were in celebration of a particular occasion, and in so doing I met point-blank another of his vague notions, disassociated from the working of any ordinary mind.
“A very special occasion indeed,” he declared. “We are having a wedding party—that is, there’s going to be a wedding party; to-night it’s a Bidding Feast.”
“Bidding Feast?”
“Yes,” said Crofts, evincing much pleasure in his revelation. “It accords with the folk custom. You look oddly. Haven’t you heard of it?”
“Not sufficiently, I fear.”
“It’s very old, very old, to help the married-pair-to-be to set up housekeeping.”
“Then I am amiss in not knowing something of it, having turned desultory antiquarian since we were last together. Tell me about it.”
He seemed shy and apologetic. “Of course we don’t go into all of it—the donations of bread and cheese and sugar and such, or promissory notes (they’ve been recognized as legal obligations in the courts, you know). We haven’t had any of that, or selling cakes and ale for the enrichment of the couple. These are wealthy people. And we’ve dispensed with the ‘inviter.’ ”
“Oh, you have?” I asked ironically. “What, perchance, is he?”
“A professional in the business exclusively. He tramps the country for several days ahead and bids the householders with a set of humorous doggerel verses, or printed ballad. I’ve several works describing it all in the library downstairs. It used to be a universal thing in Wales, but it’s almost a dead-letter now.” He looked as if he were about to sigh.
“And you say that you’re reviving it for a couple who are not Welsh?”
“Welsh? Of course they’re not Welsh. Paula Lebetwood’s an American, and Sean Cosgrove—well, he’s an Irishman.”
“One hopes so. And how goes the Feast?”
“We’re being terribly festive! Under the circumstances, you know. . . .”
Here was the maddest, one might say the most pitiful, of Pendleton’s fancies. A Welsh Bidding Feast for setting up a couple in housekeeping—only minus the Welsh folk, minus the donations, minus the cakes and ale, minus the “inviter,” minus about everything, in fact, except the good intentions of the host! A ghost of a Bidding Feast.
“Surely, Crofts,” I remarked, “if you are trying to revive the good old Welsh customs, you might suggest a bundling party.”
He went red, but was too good-natured to take offence. “Nonsense, man. Don’t mention it. Why, it’s an immoral thing. Sermons used to be preached against it.”
“But under the circumstances!” I repeated his phrase. “Morality is a question of local custom, isn’t it? Themores, you know.”
“Mores?Oh, you sound like Belvoir, who’s been getting everybody in a stew.” He overlooked his own introduction of the word.
“Well, I shan’t propose it, my dear man. I know that I should be mobbed, without a Welshman in the Vale to protect me.”
A flicker of movement crossed his features, and his voice was constrained, even grave. “Without a Welshman?—well, I don’t know.”
“You’re aggrieved, Crofts. What’s the matter?”
“This place is full of wild-eyed superstitions,” he declared, beginning to pace the length of the room. “We have a few Welsh servants—they keep the place up while it’s unoccupied—and they’re agog with the Gwyllion and the Tylwyth Teg. They’re stirring up the rest with tales of the haggish fairies and dwarfs and goblins that seem to infect this locality.”
“Well,” I laughed, yet with a pinch of queerness in thinking of the near-apparition who had occurred on the ledge-path, “as long as nobody has met his own funeral and the dames and peers of elfin-land keep outside the walls—”
“But that’s just it!” he cried vexatiously. “There’sbeenan invasion. The women have made me put all their best jewellery in the strong-box, and still they’re fretting.”
I paused in the act of drying my back. “You don’t mean—”
“The worst visitant of all is in our midst, and unless we dispose of him our nerves will be in tatters!” Then he lapsed into sudden contrition for his vehemence. “Of course I’m not such a fool as to believe any of it.”
“The supernatural, you mean?”
“That’s why I said I’m not so sure we haven’t a Welshman in our midst. He must be at the bottom of it all. Confound it, somebody must be.”
“Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”
“Parson Lolly,” answered Pendleton, with slightly bated breath, and I remember that I was impressed into silence for a moment.
“ParsonLolly?”
“So he is called.”
“And who may the Parson be?”
“A legend, just a damned legend.”
“And a Welshman too?”
“That’s it!” he exclaimed with an eager gesture. “Don’t you see it must be so, or else there’s hell let loose in this valley? It must be a man, must be, must be! Only—” He checked himself.
“Well?”
“No man can do the things Parson Lolly is said to do.”
I made a complete break in my toilet and scrutinized my friend, who was visibly shaken. He said, “It’s no use trying to describe how it feels to be a host in the midst of such a hullabaloo. It’s the very devil. And I can’tdoanything to stop it. Helplessness is a terrible thing.”
“Now tell me some of this nonsense,” I urged. “And first of all, why ‘Parson’? It’s creepy.”
“It certainly is,” he agreed. “That designation adds oddness, sinister, too, to the whole portrait of him.”
“What else is there in his portrait?”
“He’s old, several hundred years old at the most conservative estimate of the servants. His business is general mischief and bedevilment and, I surmise, thievery.”
“What does he look like?”
“He has the face of a demon, red with hell-fire, and streaked with smoke. He has the likeness of a man otherwise, but he wears a great flowing robe of black; there’s where the ‘Parson’ part comes in, I suppose. The robe is vaster than any prelate’s of earth, though there again you have the sinister touch. He—he flies in it, Bannerlee, like an enormous crow! He’s been seen flying away over the Bach Hill.”
“How far is Bach Hill from here?”
“About two miles.”
I resumed my dressing, and simulated a laugh, for it would not do to seem too much impressed with this fol-de-rol. Pendleton maintained his appearance of dead seriousness.
“I wonder if there’s anything else. Oh, yes—his voice.”
“Voice?” My question must have been sharp.
“It’s a young voice and an old voice in one. He’s been heard, Bannerlee.” Pendleton licked his lips. “I’ve heard him myself.”
“You must leave this, Crofts,” I admonished, dimly aware that I was cribbing from literature. “You’re letting your imagination make sport of you, of course; but, tell me, what’s been the spring of all your troubles? What’s actually happened here?”
His mood had shifted. “No, let’s change the subject. This is no way to receive a guest, with omens and warnings.”
“But, good heavens, you only make it worse when you stop at the warnings. I want to hear some of the facts.”
“You really do?”
“This is absurd. Of course I do.”
But Crofts’ mind was then in an unwilling state as regarded retailing the misdeeds of the Parson. He became sketchy. At first there had been annoyances among the servants, the overturning of pots and skillets, the displacement of articles, some so thoroughly removed that they never would be found. For the past forty-eight hours these trifles had been throwing the kitchen into an uproar, but one more serious thing had occurred the previous evening in the presence of the guests who had already arrived. All Pendleton would tell me of this outrage was that it had to do with the smashing of the conservatory window, and that then the voice of the Parson had been heard by everyone.
“It makes me feel sometimes, for a minute or two, that there may be something in it,” he muttered finally. “Why isn’t it possible that someone has found a method of flying with a minimum of mechanical aid? It will happen sooner or later.”
“When I see him taking off, I’ll believe—not otherwise.”
“That’s the sensible thing to say—very sensible.”
Now in the course of this long conversation I had disencumbered myself of my damp-heavy explorer’s gear, had cavorted in the bath between the rooms of Pendleton and his wife, had donned his dressing-gown and shaved with his razor, had covered myself with one of his old business suits, now “uncomfortably snug” for his frame, but flappingly loose for mine. The food I had reserved until after the bath; although the things were now cool, I took half a cupful of coffee and sampled the leg of a duck. I resolved to confide one thing to Pendleton now; perhaps it would bring him some relief. So, swiftly explaining my movements in Aidenn Forest that day, I related my adventures with the man on the ledge-path, and hinted that he might be at the root of the mischief.
“What time was that?”
“Over two hours ago, I suppose.”
He shook his head, wistfully. “No, I wish it was as simple as you suggest. But the Parson was making trouble among the servants only an hour before you came.”
I thought of the menagerie-keeper, yet somehow he didn’t fit into this situation.
“I’m sorry, Crofts. Still, you mustn’t let such antics disturb you.”
“I won’t, I won’t,” he promised, but I thought his protest a little feverish.
While we went downstairs I gave him the best imitation I could of the stranger’s cry on the ledge-path, and asked him if he believed it was Welsh.
“No,” he said, with the gravity of conviction, “no, that’s certainly not Welsh.”
Bless his simple heart! I believe he knows no more Cumraeg than I.
We moved along the galley-passage, and nighed the third left-hand entrance.
Now, just as we were about to enter, while we heard the voices of festivity inside, he turned to me suddenly.
“I’m sending the boy to your village beyond the hills to-morrow morning—whatever-its-name-is—for your things. You’re to be one of us, of course.”
“My dear Crofts, I hate to intrude.”
“No intrusion. And there are other equal strangers among us. Will you stay on for a couple of days?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“Then I’ll announce you as one of us.”
We joined the Bidding Feast.
I motioned my host to precede me into the midst of the party. Now it so happened that we entered with none to observe us, for this door opened beneath an old musicians’ gallery.
We had no sooner entered this shady spot than I placed my hand on Pendleton’s sleeve and put finger to lips, and stood to take in the scene in silence. The head of a cat, with ears singularly set back, made a rest for the hand at the pillared foot of the winding balustrade to the gallery. It had given me a moment’s shock at first, but now I set my fingers along that smooth nose and peered covertly from the concealment of the little staircase. The Bidding Feast, save for floral and evergreen festoons about the Hall, had all the look of two tables of ordinary auction bridge.
But I hardly did more than give a secret glance at the guests before surveying the extent and features of the Hall itself. Flat-ceilinged, its wooden roof supported by braced thirty-foot timbers, a room regular in its right-angularity, it nevertheless gave the impression of spaciousness. It was two storeys in height, full forty feet in length, and obviously of great age, perhaps a bulwark of war, for its ashlar masonry was undisguised by arras, woodwork, or plaster. Somehow, save for the chimney-piece in the wall beyond which the conservatory lay, a fireplace which was massive without being cumbrous, the appointments of the room seemed to me inept. All the Tudor furniture was gone, and in its stead was a collection of mahogany and walnut pieces from the lion-mask period—and later—looking frail and prettified in that ancient stronghold of defence. The woven-backed chairs, the spindly animal-legs of the tables with their claw-feet, the spider’s web marqueterie decorations, were to my mind strongly out of keeping. The waxed floor was in part covered by old English “Turky” carpets. Altogether a medley of anachronisms was the Hall of the Moth, but its walls a-frown and towering chimney-place lent nevertheless a thrill of antique grandeur.
A plan of the ground floor of Highglen House. The front door is at the bottom of the plan, opening into a narrow corridor leading through the middle of the house, as well as a winding staircase to the next floor. Large doors immediately to the left of the front door connect to a library in the bottom left corner of the building. Above the library is the armoury. The armoury has doors on all sides, including one to the outside. Above the armoury is a large room labelled “Hall of the Moth”. The door between the armoury and the Hall of the Moth is underneath a raised platform labelled “Musicians’ Gallery”. Both the Hall of the Moth and the central corridor have doors to the conservatory, which runs along the top of the plan, and has a large window along most of the top wall. The right-hand side of the plan is mostly taken up by the dining-room, which the conservatory connects to directly. Below the dining-room are the kitchen and pantries.
Two of the eight card-players I recognized, of course, Lord Ludlow and Belvoir, who were opposed to each other at the nearer table, where the deal had just been made. Lord Ludlow, who was facing me, lifted his cards from the table, arching his brows above the pince-nez which now clung to his sharp-wedged nose. Satisfaction gleamed from all quarters of his countenance.
“Youhaven’t the right kind of face for cards,” I thought; then a notion made me mutter, “Or, I wonder?” The old dissembler!
I was impressed by the vague familiarity of the back of Lord Ludlow’s partner, and guessed her to be the hostess of the Bidding Feast. I had known Alberta Pendleton in the early days, and had seen that stately back preceding me up the aisle at her wedding. It had taken on added dignity, if anything, in the intervening years, and I expected, rightly, that her delicate beauty (Pendleton had been ungodly lucky) would have ripened into greater loveliness.
Belvoir, on her right, was opposite a woman I intuitively knew must be his wife, for she might have been his widow. It was not only that she looked older than she was, and gave that impression, for she was gowned in black relieved by grey, and that her cheek was pale, having a worn softness, or that her composed voice, rather full and sweet, seemed full of twilight memories; she had the half-experienced, half-expectant air which bereft females wear. And indeed I supposed it could hardly be otherwise for her, married as she was to a man who seemed without a trace of colour, without a morsel of flesh to him, or a drop of blood, the acme of innocuousness.
At the far table three men were playing with one woman, whose back was turned to me. Facing her, and me, sat a bright-eyed, youngish fellow with short black hair, a face almost crimson-red, and on his right and left respectively a dandified-looking chap with waxed moustaches, and a good solid individual of immobile swarthy countenance, the image of a substantial, dependable Englishman. This ponderous person was dealing with a regular, unhurried motion that recalled to me the grinding of the mills of God.
“A pretty kettle of fish!” I murmured to myself, and added to Crofts, “A variegated lot, old fellow! So many different tempers and purposeful minds reduced to the same dead level by the permutations of fifty-two pasteboard slips. Saddening, Crofts, saddening.”
“All intimates, one way or another,” he whispered. “Good friends, mind you, but you’ll find them fighting half the time.”
“They certainly look engrossed in the game.”
“Ah, but that’s a pretence. They keep up a very brave front, but any trifling disturbance would set them wild.”
“You don’t say so.”
“I tell you, man, there’s something foul and fearful in this damned Vale. I half regret—well, come on. You’ve got to meet them sometime. They’ve all heard about you.”