My interview with him was a very short one indeed. He led the way into the study in which I had first seen him and, closing the door, turned round and faced me upon the hearthrug. The room was dimly lit, but where he stood the fast-dying fire cast a faint glow around his tall, straight figure, and showed me a face cold and resolute as marble, but not unkind.
“Philip Morton,” he said slowly, “it has occurred to me that in wishing you to go to Lincolnshire, I may have been influenced to a certain extent by selfish considerations. If you have the slightest preference for a public school——”
I knew instinctively whence that idea had come and I interrupted him.
“Nothing should induce me to go anywhere else but to Dr. Randall’s!” I exclaimed firmly.
“In that case,” he continued, “I wish you to leave tomorrow. You will be ready?”
I assented at once.
“I, too, am leaving here—it may be for a very long while,” he went on. “In two months’ time I hope to start for Persia, and between now and then my movements will be uncertain. I cannot settle down here. It is useless.”
A great weariness shone out of his dark blue eyes and he stifled a sigh. Some thought or memory coloured with regret had flashed across his mind; but what it was I could not tell.
“You remember your mother’s letter to you and her dying request?” he continued, in a changed tone. “I cannot explain it now, although I must remind you of it. This packet”—and he passed me a large, sealed envelope—“contains a chequebook, the address of the lawyer who will manage your affairs, and a letter which you will not open unless you have certain news and proof of my death. You will find that you are, comparatively speaking, rich. How this comes about I cannot tell you now, and you must remember your mother’s dying injunction not to seek to find out until the time comes, when you will know everything. At present, I can only assure you that the money is yours by right, that it is not a gift, and that no one else has any claim to it. That is all I can say upon the subject. Are you satisfied?”
Curiosity seemed a mean thing to me as I listened to my guardian’s words and looked into his sad, stern face. All the old fascination which I had felt from the first in his presence was strong upon me that night. Whatever he had bidden me to do I should have done it. And so I answered:
“I am satisfied. What you tell me is mine I will take and ask no questions.”
“That is well,” he said quietly. “And now, one word about your future, Philip, for to-morrow you will take up some of the responsibilities of early manhood. A great man once said that the best adviser of youth was the man whose own life had been a failure. If this be anything more than a paradox, then there can be no one better fitted for that post than I. Already the flavour of life has become like dead ashes between my teeth; and the fault is my own. Mr. Marris was talking a great deal of nonsense in the drawing-room before dinner this evening. I want to say just one or two words to you on the same subject, and remember that I speak as an outsider, impersonally.
“Before I was twenty-one years old, I had studied in most of the schools of modern philosophy, and had thrown off my religion like an old rag. I was inflated with a sense of my own intellectual superiority over other men. It was philosophy which taught men to live, I declared, and philosophy which taught them to die. With that motto before me, I carefully set myself to annihilate every vestige of faith with which I had ever been endowed. I succeeded—too well. It is dead; and sometimes I fear that it will never reawaken. And what am I? As miserable a man as ever drew breath upon this earth. It seems to me as though I had crushed a part of my very life and the sore will rankle for ever.
“There is a part of man’s nature, Philip—that is to say, of such men as I have been and you will be—the sympathetic, emotional, reverential part, which cries out for some belief in a higher, an infinite Power, for some sort of religion which it can cling to and entwine with every action of daily life. You must satisfy that craving if you desire to know happiness. For me there is no such knowledge. I have deliberately committed spiritual suicide; I have torn up faith by the roots and have made a void in my heart, which nothing else can ever fill. Frankly, I tell you, Philip, that there are times when religion of any sort seems to me no better than a fairy-tale. It need not seem so to you. Shape out for yourself any form of belief—that of the Christian is as good as any other—and resolutely cling to it. It is my advice to you—mine who believe in no God and no future state. Follow it and farewell!”
He held out his hand and clasped mine for a moment. I would have spoken, but before I could find words he had disappeared through a curtained door into his inner apartment. So I turned away and went.
It was about five o’clock on as dreary an afternoon as I ever remember, when the slow train, which crawls always at a most miserable pace from Peterborough across the eastern counties, deposited me at Little Drayton. Besides the station-master there were but two people on the wet platform—one a porter, who made for my bags with almost wolflike alacrity after a moment’s amazed stare, at me, presumably at the rare advent of a passenger with luggage; the other was a thin, dark young man, clad in a light mackintosh with very large checks, and smoking a long cigar. Whilst I was collecting my things he came leisurely up and accosted me.
“Your name Morton?” he inquired, without removing his cigar from his teeth.
I assented.
“Have you come down to meet me?” I asked.
“Yes; old Randall’s gone out to dinner, so he asked Cis and me to come and fetch you. Cart’s outside; but we can’t take all the luggage. Just look out what you want, will you, and we’ll send for the rest to-morrow.”
I selected a portmanteau and followed him out of the station. A light, four-wheeled brown cart was waiting, drawn by a pair of small, clever-looking cobs, altogether a very smart turnout.
“Pitch that bag in behind, porter,” ordered my new acquaintance. “Now, then, Mr. Morton, if you’re ready we’ll be off. Your train’s half an hour late, and Cis will be wondering what’s become of us.”
“Is Cis Mr. Ravenor’s nephew, Silchester?” I asked, as I clambered up beside him.
“Oh, yes! By the bye, I ought to have introduced myself, oughtn’t I? My name is de Cartienne—Leonard de Cartienne.”
“And are you Dr. Randall’s other pupil?” I inquired.
“Yes; I’m doing a grind there. Beastly slow it is, too. You’ll be sorry you’ve come, I can tell you, before very long.”
Looking around me, I was inclined to think that that was not improbable. It was too dark to see far, but what I could see was anything but promising. The country was perfectly flat, dreary, and barren, and the view was unbroken by tree, or hedge, or hill. By the side of the road was a small canal, over the sullen waters of which, and across the road, brooded spectral-like clouds of mist. The rain still fell rapidly, and the wheels of our cart ran noiselessly in the sandy, paste-like mud.
“Ghastly night, isn’t it?” remarked my companion, breaking the silence again.
“Rather!” I assented vigorously. “What a flat, ugly country, too! I never saw anything like it.”
“Beastly country! beastly place altogether!” de Cartienne agreed. “I’m jolly sick of it, I can tell you! Steady, Brandy! steady, sir!” giving the near animal a cut with the whip.
“What do you call your horses?” I asked curiously.
“Brandy and Soda. Jolly neat name for a pair. Don’t you think so?”
“Uncommon, at any rate,” I answered ambiguously. “Didn’t you say that we were to call for Silchester somewhere?”
“Mean Cis? Oh, yes; we’ve got to pick him up at the Rose and Crown.”
“A hotel?”
“Well, hardly. Fact is,” de Cartienne continued, dropping his voice a little, and glancing behind to see whether the groom was listening—“fact is, Cis is a bit inclined to make a fool of himself. There’s a pretty girl at this place and he puts in an uncommon lot of time there. Awfully pretty girl she is, really,” he added confidentially. “Won’t stand any nonsense, either. The place is only a pub., after all, but everyone who goes there has to behave himself. She won’t have a lot of fellows dangling about after her, though she might have the whole town if she liked. Makes her all the more dangerous, I think.”
“And Lord Silchester——”
“Hang the ‘lord’!” interrupted my companion, whipping his horses.
“Well, Silchester, then! I suppose he admires her very much?”
“Admires her! I should think he does! He’s awful spoons on her! It’s quite sickening the way they go on sometimes. There’s a regular stew on there to-night, though, tremendous scene.”
“What about?”
“Well, it seems that Milly’s father—he’s the landlord of the place, you know—left home about a month ago, saying he was going up to London on some business. He was expected back in a fortnight or three weeks; but he’s never turned up and he hasn’t written. So at last Milly sent up to the place where he always stops in town and also to some friends whom he was going to see. This morning a reply comes from both of them. Nothing has been seen or heard of him at all. Of course, Milly imagines the worst at once, goes off into hysterics, and, when we called this evening on our way down, was half out of her mind.”
“And so Silchester stopped with her to console her?”
“Exactly,” assented de Cartienne, with a queer smile. “Shouldn’t wonder if he succeeded, either!”
We entered the street of an old-fashioned, straggling town, the glimmering lights of which had been in sight for some time. de Cartienne, sitting forward a little, devoted his whole attention to the horses, for the stones were wet and slippery, and Brandy seemed to shy at everything and anything which presented itself, from the little pools of water glistening in the lamplight, which lay in the hollows of the road, down to his own shadow. I looked round curiously. The old-fashioned market-place, the quaintly built houses, the dimly lit shops, and little knots of gaping rustics, whom our rapid approach scattered right and left, were, at any rate, more interesting and pleasanter to look upon than the damp, miserable country outside. Suddenly we pulled up with a jerk outside a small, but clean-looking inn, and the groom leaped down from behind and made his way to the horses’ heads.
“Take them up the street a little, John,” said de Cartienne, as he descended. “No need to advertise Cis’s folly to the whole town,” he added, in a lower tone. “Come on, Morton, we’ll go and rout him out.”
I stepped across the wet pavement after him and, stooping low down, crossed the threshold of the “Rose and Crown.” We passed by a room in which several labouring men were drinking mugs of beer, and entered the bar, in which a rosy-cheeked country damsel was exchanging noisy and not too choice badinage with one or two young men who hung about her. From here another door led into an inner room and at this de Cartienne somewhat ostentatiously knocked. There was a second’s pause; then a clear, pleasant voice sang out “Come in!” and we entered.
It was a small, cosy room, not ill-furnished, and with a cheerful fire burning in the grate. Leaning against the mantelpiece, with his face towards us, was Cis, whose likeness to Lady Beatrice was so remarkable that I liked him heartily before we had exchanged a word. Standing by his side, with her head suspiciously near his shoulder, was a very fair girl, with nice figure and complexion and large blue eyes. Her face was certainly pretty, but it was not of a very high type of prettiness. The features, although regular of their sort, were not in any way refined orspirituelle, nor was there anything in her expression to redeem her from the mediocrity of good looks.
Still, she was undoubtedly a nice-looking girl, quite pretty enough to be the belle of a country place, and, on the whole, I was rather relieved to find her attractions of so ordinary a kind. There could scarcely be anything dangerous, I thought, in this good-humoured doll’s face; she did not appear to have the daring or character to lead her boyish admirer over the borders of a spooning sentimentality. At any rate, that was not written in her face. A blunt physiognomist would probably have declared that there was not enough of the devil in her to fire the blood even of an impetuous, generous boy and urge him on to recklessness. It seemed so to me and I was glad of it.
Just at present there were traces of tears in her face and a generally woe-begone expression. Her companion, too, looked upset and sympathetic; but he glanced up with a bright smile when we entered.
“You’re Philip Morton, I suppose?” he exclaimed, holding out his hand. “Glad to see you! Heard of you from my uncle, you know!” I shook hands with him and he introduced me formally to the young woman at his side, calling her Miss Hart. Then he turned to me again.
“I quite meant to have been at the station to meet you,” he said; “but we called here first and I—I was detained.”
“It’s of no consequence at all,” I assured him. “Mr. de Cartienne was there.”
“And Mr. de Cartienne having had to wait half an hour in the rain at that infernal old shed they call a station, requires a little refreshment,” chimed in the person named. “Will the fair Millicent condescend, or shall I ring?”
She rose and, crossing the room, opened the door into the bar.
“Brandy-and-soda for me,” ordered de Cartienne. “Cis is drinking whisky, I see, so he’ll have another one, and we’ll have a large bottle of Apollinaris between us. Morton, what’ll you have?”
I decided upon claret and hot water, never having tasted spirits. de Cartienne made a wry face, but ordered it without remark.
“I say, Morton, I don’t know what you’ll think of us shacking about in a public-house like this, and bringing you here, your first night, too!” exclaimed Silchester, dragging his chair up to mine. “Bad form, isn’t it? But it is so dull in the evenings and Milly’s no end of a nice girl. No one could help liking her. Besides, she’s in dreadful trouble just now,” he continued, dropping his voice. “Her father has disappeared suddenly. Awfully mysterious affair and no mistake. We can’t make head or tail of it.”
“It is uncommonly queer,” admitted de Cartienne, who was lounging against the wall beside us. “I should have said that he’d gone off on the spree somewhere, but he couldn’t have kept it up so long as this.”
“Besides, he’d only a few pounds with him,” Cecil remarked.
“Seems almost as though he’d come to grief in some way,” I said.
“I daren’t tell Milly, but I don’t know what else to think,” Cecil acknowledged.
A wild idea flashed for a moment into my mind, only to die away again almost as rapidly. It was too utterly improbable. Nevertheless, I asked Cecil a question with some curiosity:
“What sort of looking man was he?”
Cecil and de Cartienne both began to describe him at once, and, as de Cartienne modified or contradicted everything Cecil said, I was soon in a state of complete bewilderment as to the personality of the missing man. It seemed that he was short, and of medium height; that he was fair, and inclined to be dark, stout and thin, pale and ruddy. Milly put in a word or two now and then; and, what with de Cartienne dissenting from everything she said, and Cecil, a little perplexed, siding first with one and then with the other, the description naturally failed to carry to my mind the slightest impression of Mr. Hart’s appearance. At last, rather impatiently, I stopped them.
“I’m afraid I am guilty of a somewhat unreasonable curiosity,” I said, “for I haven’t any real reason for asking; but haven’t you a photograph of your father, Miss Hart? I can’t follow the description at all.”
I happened to be looking towards de Cartienne while I made my request, and suddenly, from no apparent cause, I saw him start, and a strange look came into his face. At first I thought he must be ill; but, seeing my eyes fixed upon him, he seemed to recover himself instantly, though he was still deadly pale.
“Why, what the mischief are you staring at, Morton?” asked Cecil.
“Oh, nothing!” I answered. “I thought that de Cartienne was ill, that’s all.”
Cecil glanced at him curiously.
“By George! he does look rather white about the gills, doesn’t he? Say, old chap, are you ill?”
de Cartienne shook his head.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” he said carelessly. “Don’t all stare at me as though I were some sort of natural curiosity, please. I feel a bit queer, but it’s passing off. I think, if Miss Milly will allow me, I’ll go and sit down in the other room by myself for a few minutes.”
“I’ll come with you!” exclaimed Cecil, springing up. “Poor old chap!”
“No, don’t, please!” protested de Cartienne. “I would rather be alone; I would indeed. I shall be all right directly.”
He quitted the room by another door, and we three were left alone. Cecil and Miss Milly began a conversation in a low tone, and I, feeling somewhatde trop, took up a local newspaper and affected to be engaged in its contents. After a few minutes, however, Cecil remembered my existence.
“By the bye, Milly,” he said, “Morton was asking you whether you had not a photograph of your father. There’s one in the sitting-room, isn’t there?”
She nodded.
“Well, we’ll go and look at it and see how Leonard is. He looked uncommonly seedy, didn’t he? Come along, Morton.”
We crossed a narrow passage and entered a small parlour. Miss Hart walked up to the mantelpiece and Cecil and I remained looking round.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed. “Leonard isn’t here; I wonder where——”
He was interrupted by a cry of blank surprise from Miss Hart.
“What’s the matter now? How you startled me, Milly!” he exclaimed, hurrying to her side. “What is it?”
“Why, the photograph!”
“What about it?”
“It’s gone!”
We all three stood and looked at one another for a moment, Milly Hart with her finger still pointing to the vacant place where the photograph had been. Then Cecil broke into a short laugh.
“We’re looking very tragical about it,” he said lightly. “Mysterious joint disappearance of Leonard de Cartienne and a photograph of Mr. Hart. Now, if it had been a photograph of a pretty girl instead of a middle-aged man, we might have connected the two. Hallo!”
He broke off in his speech and turned round. Standing in the doorway, looking at us, was Leonard de Cartienne, with a slight smile on his thin lips.
“Behold the missing link—I mean man!” exclaimed Cecil. “Good old Leonard! Do you know, you gave us quite a fright. We expected to find you here and the room was empty. Are you better?”
“Yes, thanks! I’m all right now,” he answered. “I’ve been out in the yard and had a blow. What’s Milly looking so scared about? And what was it I heard you say about a photograph?”
“Father’s likeness has gone,” she explained, turning round with tears in her eyes. “It was there on the mantelpiece this afternoon and now, when we came in to look at it, it has gone!”
“I should think that, if it really has disappeared,” de Cartienne remarked incredulously, “the servant must have moved it. Ask her.”
Miss Hart rang the bell and in the meantime we looked about the room. It was all in vain. We could find no trace of it, nor could the servant who answered the summons give us any information. She had seen it in its usual place early in the morning when she had been dusting. Since then she had not entered the room.
“Deuced queer thing!” declared Cecil, when at last we had relinquished the search. “Deuced queer!” he repeated meditatively, with his hands thrust deep down in his trousers’ pockets and his eyes resting idly upon de Cartienne’s face. “But we can’t do anything more, that’s certain. We really must be off, Milly. We’ve been here almost an hour already, and Brandy and Soda must be getting restless, and you must be famished, I’m sure, Morton. Come along! Good-bye, Milly! Keep your spirits up, old girl! The governor’ll be bound to turn up again in a day or two. And don’t you worry about the photograph. It must be somewhere.”
“But it isn’t!” she declared tearfully. “We’ve looked everywhere! Oh, what shall I do?”
Cecil assumed a most lugubrious expression and looked down sympathetically into her tear-stained face. She certainly was uncommonly pretty.
“You go on, you fellows,” he said. “I’ll be out in a minute. I’ll drive, Leonard. Don’t think you’re quite up to it.”
de Cartienne nudged my arm and we went off together and made our way up the street to the inn, under the covered archway of which the trap was drawn up. In a few minutes Cecil joined us.
“Hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” he said, as he lighted a cigarette and clambered up to the box-seat. “No, you come in front, Morton. That’s right. Very odd about that photograph, isn’t it? It’s gone and no mistake. We’ve been having another look round.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed de Cartienne impatiently. “What a fuss about a trifle! A girl has no memory at all! I expect she moved it herself. Bet you it turns up by the morning.”
“I think not,” Cecil replied quietly, as he gathered up the reins. “Now then, hold on behind!”
We rattled off down the street and out into the open country again at a pace which precluded any conversation. The low hedges and stunted trees by the roadside seemed to fly past us, and a sudden turn, which almost jerked me from my seat, brought us in sight of a wide semi-circle of twinkling lights, which seemed to stretch right across the horizon.
“What are they?” I asked, pointing forward.
“Those? Oh, fishing-smacks!” answered Cecil.
“Is that the sea, then?” I asked eagerly.
He burst out laughing.
“Why, what else do you suppose it is?” he exclaimed. “Can’t you hear it?”
I bent my head and listened. The faint night breeze was just sufficient to carry to our ears the dull, monotonous roar of an incoming tide.
“Not a very cheerful row, is it?” observed Cecil.
“Cheerful! I call it the most infernally miserable sound I ever heard!” growled de Cartienne, from the back seat, “enough to give a fellow the horrors any day!”
“See that bright light close ahead?” said Cecil, pointing with his whip. “That’s Borden Tower, where we hang out, you know. We shall be there in a minute or two.”
“Perhaps!” growled de Cartienne from behind, making a nervous clutch at the side of the trap, “Cis, my dear fellow, you’re not driving a fire-engine, and there’s nothing to be gained by this confounded hurry. George! I was nearly out that time.”
We had turned round a sharp corner into a winding drive, devoid of trees, and planted only with stunted shrubs. On one side, between us and the shore, was a long, irregular plantation of small fir trees, through which the night wind was moaning with a sound not unlike the more distant roar of the sea. Directly in front loomed a high dark building, standing out with almost startling abruptness against a void of sky and moor.
“Here we are!” exclaimed Cecil, pulling up with a flourish before the front entrance. “John, help down the poor, nervous invalid behind, and take Brandy and Soda round to the stable at once. They’re too hot to stand still in this damp air a second.”
We passed across a large but somewhat dreary hall into a warm, comfortable dining-room. A bright fire was blazing in the grate, and a table in the centre of the room was very tastefully laid for dinner.
“Make yourself at home, Morton!” exclaimed Cecil, standing on the hearthrug and stretching out a numbed hand to the blaze. “Draw an easy-chair up to the fire while James unpacks your traps and sees to your room. Leonard, ring the bell, there’s a good fellow, and let them know we’re ready for dinner.”
“Thanks; I think I’ll go upstairs at once,” I remarked.
“All right! Here’s James; he’ll show you your room. One servant between three of us now. Good old James! I say, Morton, no swallow-tails, you know.”
I nodded and followed the man, who was waiting in the doorway, to my room.
After my bare-floored, low-ceilinged attic at the farm, the apartment into which I was ushered seemed a very temple of luxury. There was a soft carpet upon the floor, many easy chairs, an Oriental divan, mirrors, and solid, handsomely carved furniture. Leading out of it on one side was a bath-room and on the other a small, cosy sitting-room, or study.
“Is there anything more I can do for you, sir?” inquired the man, after he had poured out my hot water and set out the contents of my portmanteau.
I shook my head and dismissed him. After a very brief toilet I hastened downstairs.
The dinner was remarkably good and I was very hungry; but I found time to notice two things. The first was that Cecil drank a great deal more wine than at his age was good for him; and the second, that de Cartienne, who drank very little himself, concealed that fact as far as he was able and passed the bottle continually to Cecil. This did not much surprise me, for I had already formed my own opinion of de Cartienne.
After dinner the man who waited upon us brought in some coffee and withdrew. Cecil, whose cheeks were a little flushed, and whose eyes were sparkling with more than ordinary brightness, rose and stretched himself.
“I say, Leonard,” he exclaimed, “let’s adjourn to your room and have a hand at cards! Shall we?”
de Cartienne shrugged his shoulders, but did not offer to move.
“I’m not particularly keen on cards to-night,” he remarked, with a yawn. “I believe, if you had your own way, you’d play from morning to night.”
“Oh, hang it all, there’s nothing else to be done!” Cecil answered. “If we stay down here we can’t smoke, and we shall have old Grumps back bothering presently.”
“I forgot we couldn’t smoke,” de Cartienne said, rising. “Come along, then!”
“You don’t mind, Morton, do you?” Cecil asked, turning towards me. “It’s awfully cosy up in Len’s room.”
“Certainly not,” I answered, finishing my coffee. “I’ll come, but I can’t play.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter! You can watch us for a bit, and you’ll soon pick it up. Hi, James!” Cecil sang out, as that worthy showed himself at the door for a minute, “bring us up some whisky and half a dozen bottles of seltzer water into Mr. de Cartienne’s room, will you? Look sharp, there’s a good fellow!”
de Cartienne’s rooms, especially his study, were furnished far more luxuriously than mine and in excellent taste. The walls and chimney-piece were covered with charming little sketches, a few foreign prints, photographs, and dainty little trifles of bric-a-brac. Except for the photographs, some of which were a littlerisque, it was more like a lady’s boudoir than a man’s sitting-room.
de Cartienne and Cecil seated themselves at a small round table and began to play almost immediately. I drew an easy chair up to the fire, and closed my eyes as though I intended going to sleep. As a matter of fact, I meant to watch the game, and closely, too. But Fate decided otherwise. I was really very sleepy, and, though I struggled against it, I was obliged to yield in the end. I fell asleep, and it must have been nearly two hours before I was awakened by a touch on my arm.
“Wake up, Morton, old chap! It’s time we were off to our rooms.”
I sat up and looked at my watch. It was past midnight.
Cecil was leaning against the table, with his hands in his pockets, looking pale and weary, but exultant.
“I’ve been in rare luck to-night!” he exclaimed. “Won a couple of ponies from poor old Len, and a whole hatful of I O U’s. Here they go!” And he swept a little pile of crumpled papers into the fire.
I glanced at de Cartienne to see how losing had affected him. Not in the ordinary way, at any rate. He was sitting back in his chair, with his arms crossed, a cigarette between his teeth and an inscrutable smile upon his thin lips. Somehow I did not like his expression. There was something a little too closely approaching contempt in it as he watched Cecil’s action and listened to the exultant ring in his tone—something which seemed to express a latent power to reverse the result with ease at any time he thought proper.
It was rushing to conclusions, no doubt; but as I glanced from Cecil’s boyish, handsome face, a trifle dissipated just now, but open and candid, to the pale, sallow countenance, the large black eyes, and cynical, callous expression of his friend, it seemed to me that I was looking from the face of the tempted to the face of the tempter. The one seemed like the evil genius of the other.
I awoke on the following morning with that vague, peculiar sense of having entered upon an altogether new phase of life. By degrees my semi-somnolent faculties reasserted themselves and I remembered where I was. My new life had indeed begun in earnest.
I sprang out of bed and pulled up the blind. It was a very strange prospect I looked out upon, after the luxuriant hilly scenery of the home where I had lived all my life. Before me was a flat, uncultivated common, dotted here and there with a few stunted gorse-bushes and numerous sand-heaps. Farther away a long stretch of shingle sloped down to the foam-crested sea which, under the grey, sunless sky of the early winter’s morning, had a dull, forbidding appearance. Though it was not an inviting prospect, there was something attractive in its novelty, and, dropping the blind, I hastened into the bath-room and began dressing.
It was past eight o’clock when I got downstairs, but I saw no one about, so I let myself out by the front door and walked down the drive. The grounds were small and soon explored, and, having exhausted them, I passed through a wicket-gate into a little plantation of pine-trees and thence out on to the common. Then, for the first time in my life, I felt a strong sea-breeze, and, with my cap in my hand and my face turned seawards, I stood for a few moments thoroughly enjoying it.
“Glad to see that you’re an early riser, Mr. Morton. It’s a habit which, I’m sorry to say, my other pupils have not acquired.”
I turned round with a start. A tall, thin man, somewhat past middle age, with iron-grey hair and thin, regular features, was standing by my side. His eyes were the eyes of a visionary and a poet, and his worn, thoughtful face bore the unmistakable stamp of the student. I liked his appearance, careless and dishevelled though it was in point of attire, and knowing that this must be Dr. Randall, I felt a keen sense of relief.
For, bearing in mind the evident habits and last night’s occupation of Silchester and de Cartienne, I had begun to wonder somewhat apprehensively what manner of man the master of such pupils might be. Now I felt sure that the idea which had first occurred to me had been the correct one, and that the doings of the night before were carried on altogether under the rose. The man James had all the appearance of a servant whom it would be easy to bribe. This without doubt had been done.
“Perhaps they haven’t lived all their lives in the country, sir, as I have,” I answered. “I have always been used to getting up early.”
“So you are my new pupil?” he said. “Well, Mr. Morton, I’m very pleased to see you, and I have an idea that we shall get on very well together. I was going to walk down to the sea. Will you come with me?”
I followed him along the tortuous path to the shore, and on the way he questioned me about my acquirements, putting me through a sort ofvivâ-voceexamination, the result of which appeared to satisfy him.
“This is quite a pleasant surprise to me,” he said, as we turned back to the house. “You are almost as advanced as de Cartienne and far more so than Silchester. I suppose you mean to matriculate?”
I told him that I thought so, but he scarcely seemed to hear. Apparently his mind had wandered to some other subject and for nearly a quarter of an hour he remained absorbed. I learned afterwards that this was a habit of his.
With a start he came to himself, and, apologising for his absent-mindedness, led the way back to the house and into the breakfast-room. The cloth was laid for four and the urn was hissing upon the table; but there was no one else down.
“Is neither Lord Silchester nor Mr. de Cartienne up yet, James?” inquired Dr. Randall.
James believed not, but would ascertain. In a few moments he returned.
“Lord Silchester desires me to say that he was reading late last night, sir, and has overslept himself; but he will be down as soon as possible,” James announced solemnly.
Remembering that James had been in attendance upon us in de Cartienne’s rooms last night, I thought that this was rather cool. But it was no concern of mine and I held my peace.
Dr. Randall frowned slightly and looked vexed.
“It appears to me that Silchester does most of his reading at night,” he remarked. “I could wish that the results of it were a little more apparent. And Mr. de Cartienne, James? Has he overslept himself, too?”
“Mr. de Cartienne will be here immediately, sir,” the man announced.
We began breakfast. When we were about half-way through the meal, the door opened and de Cartienne appeared. He cast an apprehensive glance at me, and then, seeing that Dr. Randall greeted him as usual, looked relieved.
Presently the doctor left the table, bidding us join him in the study in half an hour. Directly the door had closed de Cartienne leaned back in his chair and laughed softly to himself.
“Whatever made you get up so early?” he asked, looking at me curiously. “Gave me quite a turn when I heard that you were down and alone with Grumps; and Cis was in an awful funk. We were afraid that you might let out something about last night—accidentally, of course; and then there would have been the deuce to pay and no mistake. James, take my plate and bring me a brandy-and-soda. Take care the doctor doesn’t see you.”
“Whose servant is James?” I asked, as he disappeared—“yours or the doctor’s?”
“The doctor imagines that he’s his, I suppose; but he gets a lot more from Cis and me than Grumps pays him,” de Cartienne explained carelessly. “I knew him before he came here, and got him to apply for the situation by promising to double his wages.”
“And the advantages?” I asked.
“Obvious enough, I should think. You’ve seen some of them already, and you’ll see some more before you’ve been here long.”
“I daresay. Perhaps it would be as well for me to tell you, de Cartienne, that what I have seen I don’t like.”
“Very likely not,” he answered carelessly. “I thought directly I saw you that you were a bit of a prig—I beg your pardon, I should say, rather strait-laced. Still, I don’t suppose you’ll think it worth your while to interfere. You can go your way and Cis and I can go ours.”
“That would make it a little dull for me,” I said slowly. “Perhaps I am not quite so strait-laced as you seem to think. I suppose you would teach me how to play cards, if I desired to learn?”
“Oh, certainly! And how to use this also,” he remarked, drawing a latchkey from his pocket and swinging it carelessly backwards and forwards.
“I think I will learn, then,” I answered. “After all, this place would be ghastly dull if I didn’t do as you fellows do.”
He looked at me searchingly out of his keen dark eyes, but I sipped my coffee leisurely and seemed to be quite unconscious of his scrutiny. Apparently he was satisfied, for I saw the hard lines of his mouth relax a little and he smiled—a disagreeable smile of contemptuous triumph.
“I’ve no doubt you’ll prove an apt pupil,” he remarked. “Have you finished? If so, we’ll go and have a cigarette in my room before we start work with Grumps.”
“Does the doctor allow smoking?” I asked.
“To tell you the truth, Morton, we’ve never asked him. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over, you know. We go on that principle, and smoke in our rooms with the doors shut and windows open. Come along!”
In less than a week’s time I was master of the state of affairs at Borden Tower. Dr. Randall, with the best possible intentions, was the worst possible man that could have been chosen for the guardianship of two such pupils as Lord Silchester and Leonard de Cartienne. He was a scholar and a pedant, utterly unsuspicious and ignorant of the ways of the world, himself so truthful and honourable that he could scarcely have imagined deceit possible in others, and certainly not in his own wards. Of the servants, James and his wife were the only ones in authority, and they were the tools of de Cartienne.
The latter I could not quite understand. The only thing about him perfectly clear was that he was just the worst companion possible for Silchester. For the rest, he was so clever that his presence here at all as a pupil seemed unnecessary. He appeared to be rich and he took a deep interest of some sort in Cecil. Seemingly it was a friendly interest, but of that I did not feel assured. At any rate, it was an injurious association for Cecil, and I determined to do everything in my power to counteract it.
To strike at once, to attempt to show him the folly of the courses into which he was being led, I saw would be futile. I must have time and opportunity. Any violent measures in such a case would be worse than useless. My only course, obnoxious though it was, was to join them in their pursuits and try to gain some sort of influence over Cecil, while I kept him as far as possible from falling into further mischief.
Accordingly, on the first evening after my arrival at Borden Tower, I was initiated into the mysteries of poker and Prussian bank, and on subsequent occasions I either joined them or looked on. The result in the main was pretty much as I had expected. de Cartienne won always when the stakes were very large, and Lord Silchester when they were scarcely worth having.
The earlier part of the day was by far the pleasanter to me. In the morning we worked with Dr. Randall; in the afternoon we always walked or rode—in either case, a visit to the “Rose and Crown” was an invariable part of the programme—and in the evening, after dinner, we were supposed to read until ten o’clock, although the manner in which we really spent that portion of the day was far less profitable.
I had intended paying a special visit to Miss Milly Hart on my own account; but either by accident or design—at the time I was not sure which—de Cartienne always seemed to frustrate my plans. Even to myself I would not acknowledge that I had any other motive save pure curiosity; but I was still determined by some means or other to see a photograph of the missing Mr. Hart. The strange disappearance of the one in the sitting-room at the inn—it had never been found—puzzled me, and whenever I caught myself thinking of the incident, it was always in connection with Leonard de Cartienne. It seemed very absurd, when I considered the matter calmly, but nevertheless I could not escape from it. It haunted me, as ideas sometimes will.
One afternoon, about two months after my arrival at Borden Towers, Cecil and I were reading together in the study—or, rather, I was endeavouring to encourage one of his rare fits of industry by helping him through a stiff page of Livy—when the door opened suddenly and de Cartienne entered with an open telegram in his hand. Seeing me, he stopped short and frowned.
“Hallo, Len! What’s up?” Cecil exclaimed. “What have you got there? A telegram?”
de Cartienne nodded and, after a moment’s hesitation, handed it over.
“It’s from Fothergill,” he explained. “He is coming over to-night, and wants us to dine with him.”
“Should like to awfully,” Cecil said, “but I don’t see how we can. Old Grumps wouldn’t let us go, of course, and I don’t see how we can manage it without his knowing.”
“Don’t you? Well, I do,” de Cartienne remarked drily. “Grumps is going over to Belscombe this evening to take the chair at the literary society there. He’ll have to dine at six and leave at a quarter to seven. I know that, because I heard him give his orders. That will leave us plenty of time to get down into the town by eight o’clock; and we shall be all right for coming back, of course.”
“That’s capital!” declared Cecil, shutting up his Livy with a bang. “We will have our revenge on old Fothergill to-night. Just what I’ve been looking forward to.”
de Cartienne shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I fancy. Fothergill is a bit too good for us. I shan’t be very keen on cards to-night, I can tell you. I lost more money than I cared about last time he was here.”