CHAPTER IV. OF A YOUNG MAN WITH A GREY HEAD
If I had any personal soreness on account of this family snub, it was avery passing emotion, and one which was soon effaced from my mind.
It chanced that on the very next day after the episode I had occasionto pass that way, and stopped to have another look at the obnoxiousplacard. I was standing staring at it and wondering what could haveinduced our neighbours to take such an outrageous step, when I becamesuddenly aware of a sweet, girlish face which peeped out at me frombetween the bars of the gate, and of a white hand which eagerly beckonedme to approach. As I advanced to her I saw that it was the same younglady whom I had seen in the carriage.
"Mr. West," she said, in a quick whisper, glancing from side to side asshe spoke in a nervous, hasty manner, "I wish to apologise to you forthe indignity to which you and your family were subjected yesterday.My brother was in the avenue and saw it all, but he is powerless tointerfere. I assure you, Mr. West, that if that hateful thing," pointingup at the placard, "has given you any annoyance, it has given my brotherand myself far more."
"Why, Miss Heatherstone," said I, putting the matter off with a laugh,"Britain is a free country, and if a man chooses to warn off visitorsfrom his premises there is no reason why he should not."
"It is nothing less than brutal," she broke out, with a petulantstamp of the foot. "To think that your sister, too, should have such anunprovoked insult offered to her! I am ready to sink with shame at thevery thought."
"Pray do not give yourself one moment's uneasiness upon the subject,"said I earnestly, for I was grieved at her evident distress. "I am surethat your father has some reason unknown to us for taking this step."
"Heaven knows he has!" she answered, with ineffable sadness in hervoice, "and yet I think it would be more manly to face a danger thanto fly from it. However, he knows best, and it is impossible for us tojudge. But who is this?" she exclaimed, anxiously, peering up the darkavenue. "Oh, it is my brother Mordaunt. Mordaunt," she said, as theyoung man approached us, "I have been apologising to Mr. West for whathappened yesterday, in your name as well as my own."
"I am very, very glad to have the opportunity of doing it in person,"said he courteously. "I only wish that I could see your sister and yourfather as well as yourself, to tell them how sorry I am. I think youhad better run up to the house, little one, for it's getting neartiffin-time. No--don't you go Mr. West. I want to have a word with you."
Miss Heatherstone waved her hand to me with a bright smile, and trippedup the avenue, while her brother unbolted the gate, and, passingthrough, closed it again, locking it upon the outside.
"I'll have a stroll down the road with you, if you have no objection.Have a manilla." He drew a couple of cheroots from his pocket andhanded one to me. "You'll find they are not bad," he said. "I became aconnoisseur in tobacco when I was in India. I hope I am not interferingwith your business in coming along with you?"
"Not at all," I answered, "I am very glad to have your company."
"I'll tell you a secret," said my companion. "This is the first timethat I have been outside the grounds since we have been down here."
"And your sister?"
"She has never been out, either," he answered. "I have given thegovernor the slip to-day, but he wouldn't half like it if he knew. It'sa whim of his that we should keep ourselves entirely to ourselves. Atleast, some people would call it a whim, for my own part I have reasonto believe that he has solid grounds for all that he does--thoughperhaps in this matter he may be a little too exacting."
"You must surely find it very lonely," said I. "Couldn't you manage toslip down at times and have a smoke with me? That house over yonder isBranksome."
"Indeed, you are very kind," he answered, with sparkling eyes. "I shoulddearly like to run over now and again. With the exception of IsraelStakes, our old coachman and gardener, I have not a soul that I canspeak to."
"And your sister--she must feel it even more," said I, thinking in myheart that my new acquaintance made rather too much of his own troublesand too little of those of his companion.
"Yes; poor Gabriel feels it, no doubt," he answered carelessly, "butit's a more unnatural thing for a young man of my age to be cooped up inthis way than for a woman. Look at me, now. I am three-and-twenty nextMarch, and yet I have never been to a university, nor to a school forthat matter. I am as complete an ignoramus as any of these clodhoppers.It seems strange to you, no doubt, and yet it is so. Now, don't youthink I deserve a better fate?"
He stopped as he spoke, and faced round to me, throwing his palmsforward in appeal.
As I looked at him, with the sun shining upon his face, he certainly didseem a strange bird to be cooped up in such a cage. Tall and muscular,with a keen, dark face, and sharp, finely cut features, he might havestepped out of a canvas of Murillo or Velasquez. There were latentenergy and power in his firm-set mouth, his square eyebrows, and thewhole pose of his elastic, well-knit figure.
"There is the learning to be got from books and the learning to be gotfrom experience," said I sententiously. "If you have less of your shareof the one, perhaps you have more of the other. I cannot believe youhave spent all your life in mere idleness and pleasure."
"Pleasure!" he cried. "Pleasure! Look at this!" He pulled off his hat,and I saw that his black hair was all decked and dashed with streaks ofgrey. "Do you imagine that this came from pleasure?" he asked, with abitter laugh.
"You must have had some great shock," I said, astonished at the sight,"some terrible illness in your youth. Or perhaps it arises from a morechronic cause--a constant gnawing anxiety. I have known men as young asyou whose hair was as grey."
"Poor brutes!" he muttered. "I pity them."
"If you can manage to slip down to Branksome at times," I said, "perhapsyou could bring Miss Heatherstone with you. I know that my father and mysister would be delighted to see her, and a change, if only for an houror two, might do her good."
"It would be rather hard for us both to get away together," he answered."However, if I see a chance I shall bring her down. It might bemanaged some afternoon perhaps, for the old man indulges in a siestaoccasionally."
We had reached the head of the winding lane which branches off from thehigh road and leads to the laird's house, so my companion pulled up.
"I must go back," he said abruptly, "or they will miss me. It's verykind of you, West, to take this interest in us. I am very grateful toyou, and so will Gabriel be when she hears of your kind invitation.It's a real heaping of coals of fire after that infernal placard of myfather's."
He shook my hand and set off down the road, but he came running after mepresently, calling me to stop.
"I was just thinking," he said, "that you must consider us a greatmystery up there at Cloomber. I dare say you have come to look uponit as a private lunatic asylum, and I can't blame you. If you areinterested in the matter, I feel it is unfriendly upon my part not tosatisfy your curiosity, but I have promised my father to be silent aboutit. And indeed if I were to tell you all that I know you might notbe very much the wiser after all. I would have you understand this,however--that my father is as sane as you or I, and that he has verygood reasons for living the life which he does. I may add that his wishto remain secluded does not arise from any unworthy or dishonourablemotives, but merely from the instinct of self-preservation."
"He is in danger, then?" I ejaculated.
"Yes; he is in constant danger."
"But why does he not apply to the magistrates for protection?" I asked."If he is afraid of any one, he has only to name him and they will bindhim over to keep the peace."
"My dear West," said young Heatherstone, "the danger with whichmy father is threatened is one that cannot be averted by any humanintervention. It is none the less very real, and possibly veryimminent."
"You don't mean to assert that it is supernatural," I saidincredulously.
"Well, hardly that, either," he answered with hesitation. "There," hecontinued, "I have said rathe
r more than I should, but I know that youwill not abuse my confidence. Good-bye!"
He took to his heels and was soon out of sight round a curve in thecountry road.
A danger which was real and imminent, not to be averted by human means,and yet hardly supernatural--here was a conundrum indeed!
I had come to look upon the inhabitants of the Hall as mere eccentrics,but after what young Mordaunt Heatherstone had just told me, I couldno longer doubt that some dark and sinister meaning underlay all theiractions. The more I pondered over the problem, the more unanswerable didit appear, and yet I could not get the matter out of my thoughts.
The lonely, isolated Hall, and the strange, impending catastrophe whichhung over its inmates, appealed forcibly to my imagination. All thatevening, and late into the night, I sat moodily by the fire, ponderingover what I had heard, and revolving in my mind the various incidentswhich might furnish me with some clue to the mystery.