CHAPTER LV. THE MYSTERY OF MR. MARX.
It was twenty minutes to eight when we arrived at Mellborough, and, as wehad not sent word on, there was no carriage to meet us, nor, as ithappened, any spare vehicle. After a brief word or two with thestationmaster, we decided to walk down into the town and order a fly.
When we reached the house, the butler stepped forward, his ruddy faceblanched and his voice shaking.
"Thank God you are come, sir! The man you left here, he's gone a ravinglunatic, and he's shut himself up there, and got your revolvers out, andswears that no one shall enter the room till you come."
"There's someone with him," my father said quickly.
The man's face seemed literally shrunken up with horror.
"It's awful, sir; I've been near once, and I'll never get over it as longas I live. He's got some poor wretch there, killing him by inches,torturing him like a cat does a mouse. He's been shrieking for help forhours, and we can do nothing. The poor creature must be nearly dead now.Ah, there it is again, sir! Four of our men have been shot trying to getto him. Listen! Oh, why does he not die!"
A low, faint cry, full of a most heart-stirring anguish, floated out fromthe library window. It was the most awful sound I have ever heard in mylife. Following close upon it, drowning its faint echo, came the loudmocking laugh of the torturer, ringing out harsh and mirthless in hideouscontrast.
A deep, audible shudder passed through the little group of bystanders.Then my father, without a word, started forward across the lawn towardsthe window and I followed close behind. It seemed to me that everyonemust be holding their breath, the silence was so intense. The wind haddropped for a moment, and the moon shone faintly down through a cloud ofmist upon the white, eager faces, filled now with a new anxiety.
A few swift steps brought us to the window. A lamp was burning upon thewriting-table and the interior of the room was clearly visible. On thefloor a little distance from the window was a dark shape which, as wedrew nearer, we could see to be the prostrate figure of a man. Walking upand down in front of it, with short, uneven steps, was Francis, his hairand dress in wild disorder and his whole appearance betokening that hehad recently been engaged in a desperate struggle.
Suddenly he turned round and saw us. With a wild cry of rage he rushed tothe window, the glass of which was completely wrecked, and glared at usthreateningly through the framework.
"Away! away!" he shrieked, "or there will be more trouble! I must stayhere, I must wait till he comes! Let me be, I tell you!"
The revolver, which he clenched in his right hand, was raised andlevelled. It was a dreadful moment.
"It is I, Mr. Ravenor," my father answered calmly. "Don't you know me,Francis?"
Again the moon broke through the clouds and shone with a faint light uponmy father's pale, stern face. Francis recognised him at once. He threwhis hands high over his head in a wild gesture of welcome and flung openthe window. My father walked steadily forward into the room and Ifollowed him. Francis, trembling with eagerness, stood between us.
"See," he cried, pointing downwards, "is it not well done? See! Let metell you about it. Quick! quick! He came! It was twilight! He was at thecabinet there. I stole out of the darkness. I flung my arms around him.He struggled. Ah, how he struggled; but it was all no use. Ha! ha! ha! Iwas too strong for him. I held him tighter and tighter, till I nearlystrangled him, and he gasped and gurgled and moaned. Oh! it was fine tosee him. Then I found a cord in the drawer there and I bound him, andwhile I fastened the knots I laughed and I talked to him. I talked aboutthat night in the storm when he threw his father"--he pointed a long,quivering finger at me--"threw him into the slate quarry, and about thatday when he came to the Castle gate and brought me to the plantation, andsuddenly caught me by the throat till he thought he had strangled me, andbeat me on the head. Ah, how my head has burned ever since, ever since,ever since! Ah, Milly, come to me! Milly, I am on fire! My head is onfire! Ah, ah!"
The foam burst out from between his pallid, quivering lips, and his eyes,red and burning, suddenly closed. A ghastly change crept over hisblood-stained, pallid face. He sank backwards and fell heavily upon thefloor.
We scarcely noticed him, for our eyes were bent elsewhere. The horror ofthat sight lived with me afterwards for many years, a haunting shadowover my life--disturbing even its sweetest moments, a hideous, maddeningmemory. I am not going to attempt to describe it. No words could expressthe horror of it. Such things are not to be written about.
Even my father's iron nerve seemed to give way for a moment, and he stoodby my side trembling, with his head buried in his hands. Then he sank onhis knees and loosened the cords.
"Thank God he is dead," he murmured fervently, as he felt the cold bodyand lifeless pulse, and cleared away the last fragments of disguise fromthe head and face. "You had better call Mr. Carrol in, Philip."
Even as he spoke, a little awed group was silently filling the room,Carrol and his sergeant amongst them. But after all they were cheated oftheir task, for out in the moonlight John Francis lay stark, the madnessgone from his white, still face, and the calm of death reigning thereinstead.
CHAPTER LVI. THE END OF IT.
We were together, my father and I, under the shade of a little cluster ofolive trees high up among the mountains. Far away below us the Campagnastretched to the foot of the dim hills steeped in blue which surround theEternal City, towards which we had been gazing in a silence which hadbeen for long unbroken. It was I at last who spoke, pointing downwards towhere the bare grey stone walls of a small monastic building rose withalmost startling abruptness from a narrow ledge of sward overhanging theprecipice.
"Is this to be the end, then, father?" I cried bitterly; "thisprison-house?"
He turned towards me with a look upon his face which I had grown tohate--a look calm and gentle enough, but full of resolution as unchangingas the mountains which towered above us.
"It must be so, Philip," he said, quietly. "Is it well, think you, that Ishould return again into the life which I am weary of, when all that Idesire lies here ready to my hand? Peace and rest--I want nothing more."
"And why cannot you find them in England--at Ravenor with me?" I criedeagerly. "And your work, too--it could be done again. We would live alonethere and bury ourselves from the world and everyone in it. I could helpyou. I could be your amanuensis. I should like that better than anything.Remember how all the papers lamented the cruel destruction of yourmanuscripts, and how everyone hoped that you would rewrite them. Oh, youmust not do this thing, father--you must not! You have no right to cutyourself off from the world--no right!" I re-echoed passionately.
He shook his head slowly, but alas! with no sign of yielding.
"Philip," he said quietly, "it troubles me to hear you plead like this invain, for so it must ever be. I am happy now; happy in the recollectionof the time we have spent together. Happy, too, in the thought that I canend my days in peace, with no disturbing ghosts of the past to rise upand haunt me!"
I was silent and kept my face turned away towards the mountains, for Iwould not have had him see my weakness. Soon he spoke again, and thistime there was a vein of sadness in his tone.
"The time has come for us to part for awhile, Philip. There is one thingmore which I would say to you. It concerns Cecil."
"Cecil?" I echoed vaguely.
"Yes."
"All his life he has been brought up to consider himself my heir. Now, ofcourse, things will be very different with him. He is weak and easilyled. I should like to think that you were friends; and if you have anopportunity of helping him in any way you will not neglect it."
"I will not," I promised. "Cecil and I will always be friends."
We descended the steep hillside path and stood together almost on thethreshold of the little monastery. Then my father held out his hand tome, and a soft, sweet light shone for a moment in his dark bl
ue eyes.
"Farewell, Philip," he said--"farewell. God bless you." And while I wasreturning the grasp of his closed fingers and struggling to keep down arising lump in my throat, he passed away from me silently, like a figurein a dream, and the thick, nail-studded door opened and was closed behindhim.
Then I set my face towards Rome, with blurred eyesight and a bitter senseof loss at my heart. I was going back to England to take possession of agreat inheritance, but there was no joy in the thought, only anunutterable, intolerable loneliness which weighed down my heart andspirits and filled me with deep depression.
Cecil met me in London, and we went to Ravenor together. It was a strangesensation to me to enter the Castle as its virtual owner, to wander fromroom to room, from gallery to gallery, and know that it was all mine, andthat the long line of Ravenors who frowned and smiled upon me from theirdark, worm-eaten frames were my ancestors. At first it seemedpleasant--pleasant, at least, in a measure,--but when I stood in thelibrary and passed on into that little chamber the memories connectedwith them swept in upon me with such irresistible force that I was gladto send Cecil away for a while.
For some time I lived quite alone, save for Cecil's frequent visits,keeping aloof from the people who lived near, and making but fewacquaintances. The days I spent either on horseback or with my gun, oroften tramping many miles over the open country with a book in my pocket,after the fashion of the days of my boyhood. The nights I had nodifficulty about whatever. With such a library as my father's to help me,my love of reading became almost a part of myself.
There was one person who viewed this change with profounddissatisfaction, and who at last broke into open protest.
"I say, Phil, you know it won't do," Cecil declared one night, when I hadtried to steal away into the library on some pretext. "A young fellow ofyour age, with eighty thousand a year, has no business to shut himself upwith a lot of musty books and dream away his time like an old hermit.People are asking about you everywhere, and I'm getting tired ofexplaining what a rum sort of chap you are. It won't do, really."
"Well," I answered, "what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to come back to town with me and put up with my people a bit.The mater is very keen about it; in fact, she says that she shall comedown here in the autumn if you don't come."
I leaned back in my chair and a day-dream rose up before me.
"What is your sister like now, Cis?" I asked suddenly.
"Trixie! Oh, she's turned out pretty well, I think!" he answeredcomplacently. "What friends you two used to be, by the by!"
We said no more about the matter then, but on the following morning Ireceived two letters, one from Lady Silchester and the other from LordLangerdale, both urging me to pay at least a short visit to London andperform social duties, which naturally seemed of more importance to themthan to me. I read them through carefully and made up my mind at once.But Lord Langerdale's letter had stirred up some old memories, and I didnot tell Cecil my decision immediately.
"You are about town a good deal, Cecil. Do you ever see anything ofLeonard de Cartienne?" I asked.
Cecil shook his head.
"No, nor am I ever likely to," he answered. "I have heard of him, though,by a strange fluke."
"What is he doing?"
"Got a commission in the Turkish army. Queer thing I heard the other dayfrom a man I used to know very well once. He's secretary at the Embassynow at Constantinople, and he asked me whether I ever came across him.Seems he isn't particularly popular out there."
"He's a bad lot," I remarked.
"Jolly sure of it," Cecil assented. "No one but a blackguard would havebehaved as he did to poor little Milly. But about London, Phil?"
"I will go," I said. "If you like we will leave here to-morrow."
Lady Silchester received us very kindly, and Beatrice, though full of thedistractions of her first season, seemed even better pleased to see us.It was strange how much I found in the tall slim girl, whom everyone wasquoting as the beauty of the season, to remind me of the quaint,old-fashioned child whose imperious manner and naive talk had so charmedme a few years ago. There were the same wealth of ruddy golden hair, thesame delicate features, and the same dainty little mannerisms. Everyoneadmired Lady Beatrice, and so did I.
My stay in London lasted till the end of the season. I made my orthodox_debut_ into Society under the wing of Lord Langerdale, and divided mytime pretty well between my aunt and uncle and the house in CadoganSquare. When at last it was all over, Lord and Lady Langerdale, LadySilchester, Cecil, and Beatrice returned to Ravenor as my guests.
I am not writing a love story. I cannot trace the growth of my love forBeatrice, for it seemed to come upon me with a rush; and yet, when Iwondered how it came, it seemed to me that it must have been always so.Those long summer days at Ravenor were the sweetest I had ever known. Ilost all count of time. Hours and days and weeks seemed all blended in anexquisite dream, from which, unlike all others, the awakening was at oncethe culmination and the happiest part. For one night we came back hand inhand from wandering about on the terraces under a starlit sky, and agreat joy was gliding through my veins and throbbing in my heart.
Need I say what had happened? Beatrice was mine, my own, and I was veryhappy.
"Come to me when you are married--both of you," was my father's message;and we went, Alas, for the cloud which so soon dimmed our newbornhappiness! We arrived in time--only just in time--to stand by hisdeath-bed.
How the scene comes back to me! The door and windows of his littlechamber were thrown wide open and the soft, languorous breeze, heavy withthe odour of wild flowers, stole in and played upon his wasted face.
What a countenance it was! Passion-scarred, yet chastened and softened bykeen physical pain; the burning blue eyes fixed steadily, yet with asweet, steadfast light, upon the dim horizon--beautiful after the highesttype of spiritual beauty. Twilight stole down from the hills, and then wegently folded his arms upon his breast, and the watchers outside, knowingwell what such an action meant, wiped the tears from their eyes andslowly wended their way homewards.
Then, later, the solemn chant of the monks in pious procession broke thestillness of the mountain night. But such a death was scarcely death. Atleast, it was death robbed of all its terrors; unutterably sad, yetunutterably sweet. There was truth beyond expression in the simple wordsrudely carved upon the wooden cross which, amid a score or two of othersin a sheltered nook down in the valley, stands at the foot of his narrowgrave--
"He Sought Peace, and Found It."
So may it be with us!
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious typographical errors in spelling and punctuation werecorrected without comment.
Capitalization of the name "de Cartienne" was made consistent.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends