On the following morning Amos Goodhare, for the first time since his
dismissal, visited Llancader Castle. He asked modestly whether he
could see Mademoiselle de Laval, having, from his knowledge of the
habits of the place, been able to choose the hour when she was resting
in her own sitting-room before beginning the day’s labors.
He was shown up to this apartment, where the lady received him very
graciously. Amos took care to let her think that his visit was
prompted by an overwhelming wish to know whether the recent damp
weather had affected her rheumatism, and it was not until he had
listened sympathetically to an exhaustive list of her “symptoms,” that
he enquired after the family. Then he asked, confidentially, whether
there was any truth in a report he had heard that Lady Marion was
engaged to the eldest son of the late Captain Pennant. To this,
Mademoiselle de Laval replied with horror on her face that the very
mention of his name was forbidden in the household.
Amos Goodhare’s face immediately underwent a change, and expressed the
deepest anxiety. In answer to her questions he then very reluctantly
confessed that Lady Marion and Rees Pennant were in the habit of
meeting late in the evening. Mademoiselle was much alarmed, but at
first inclined to be incredulous.
“Very well,” said Amos quietly. “I would not take the trouble to prove
what I say if I did not feel so much admiration for you and so much
grateful interest in his lordship’s family. But find out whether Lady
Marion was in the house last night between eight and nine. What would
happen to you if anything were to go wrong with one of the young
ladies? It goes to my heart to think of the cruel injustice which
might be done to a lady of such talents and accomplishments as
yourself.”
He did not prolong the interview after that; for he had succeeded in
thoroughly alarming her, and he felt sure that in future Rees would be
able to pursue his researches without interruption from Lady Marion.
Rees went to the old castle very early that morning. It was a pouring
wet day, and he had to tell the custodian that he had left something
in the ruins the evening before in order to account for his appearance
there in weather which no sane person, without some strong reason,
would have chosen for a ramble among the mouldering stones.
Breathless with anxiety, he crossed the two courts, and entered the
vault with streams of water pouring down his mackintosh. The rain had
done him good service; not only had it prevented Mrs. Crow’s boys from
wandering among the ruins, but it washed down in torrents from the
upper chambers, and rushing through the exposed grating, carried with
it a quantity of the earth which had accumulated above. Rees could see
the stone steps underneath, and with fiery energy he dug away spadeful
after spadeful, until at last the grating, loosened in its place,
shook under his feet. A few more frenzied efforts, and he was able to
raise it half a dozen inches. He could scarcely restrain a cry of joy,
which, however, speedily changed to a groan of disappointment.
The grating was kept down by no hinges; it was more than two feet
wide, of clumsy, old-fashioned workmanship, though of much later date
than the last rebuilding of the castle in the fourteenth century. With
great difficulty Rees raised it, tearing the flesh off his hands as he
did so on the iron bars, which were caked with a hard deposit of rust.
He had taken the precaution of bringing in his pocket a candle and
matches. Striking a light he descended about a dozen rough and much
worn stone steps in a sort of well hewn out of the solid rock. He had
to move very carefully, as the steps were steep and unevenly covered
with earth which the late rains had converted into mud; while the rude
walls were too slimy with damp for the irregularities of their surface
to afford him any hold.
The air down here was cold; it chilled his heated body and made his
teeth chatter. Taking a couple of steps rather more quickly than the
rest in his excitement and impatience, his right foot suddenly
splashed into water. Drawing it back hastily, he peered into the
darkness at his feet, and saw that what he had taken for the entrance
to a subterranean passage was apparently nothing more nor less than an
old, long disused well.
With a moan of anger and bitter disappointment, he sat down, with his
feet on the lowest dry step, while a cold perspiration made him shiver
from head to foot, and at the same time his forehead burned, and his
mouth was so parched that, as he drew breath, he emitted a choking
cough. He felt as if the hidden gold had been wrenched out of his
eagerly clutching fingers, the gold which was to have supported his
mother, showered presents on Deborah, restored his prestige as the
genius of his family, and perhaps made him an earl’s son-in-law--for
somehow that first idea of making known the discovery to the earl had,
under the fire of Goodhare’s discourses, melted quite away.
He had brought his spade with him, and he sat holding it idly in his
hand, and not heeding the fact that the rain-water from above was all
the while trickling down the steps, making his seat not only damp but
dangerous. Suddenly he slipped, and the spade in his hand scraped the
ground at the bottom of the water.
It could not be very deep then! Perhaps it was not a well at all!
His excitement returning, he drew the spade slowly and carefully from
left to right, stirring the foul mud at the bottom of the stagnant
water, and causing noxious odours to rise from it. The water was not
more than a foot and a half deep. The evil smells were so overpowering
that he felt himself turn sick, and had to go back up a half a dozen
steps to get fresh air and to recover himself.
When he redescended he found that the water had gone down a little. At
first he thought this might only be his fancy, so by the faint light
of his dwindling candle-end he watched. Surely enough, the water-line
on the shiny wall seemed to emerge higher and higher above the foul
black liquid, and Rees could hear the quick drip drip of water below
him. Again he sounded with his spade even more carefully than before.
Close under the bottom step one corner of the implement got caught in
a hole, which proved to be round and about seven inches in diameter.
As Rees passed the spade backwards and forwards, he heard a rushing
sound, and the water began to go down much more rapidly. This small
hole, he thought, must be the top of a drain-pipe which had become
choked with obstacles which the spade removed.
He glanced at his candle--there was not half an inch of it left. Would
that water never go down? With frantic impatience he dragged his spade
to and fro from wall to wall. Work as hard as he would, he had not
time. The candle-end, which he held in his left hand and glanced at
anxiously, grew hot between his fingers; then the wick fell over,
burning him so that he had to shake it off hastily on to the wet step,
where it went out with a faint little hiss and splutter.
“Hang it!” almost shouted Rees, forgetting his caution, forgetting
everything in his frantic impatience.
“Hallo!” cried a voice above, which sounded hollow in the rocky
cavity.
Rees could have bitten his tongue out. He leaned against the uneven
and slippery wall, shivering with alarm and disappointment. Had he
fatally betrayed himself? Who was the intruder? All that he could tell
as yet was that it was the voice of a young man. Rees kept quite still
and silent, hoping against hope that the man would not see the opening
in the floor of the vaulted chamber. The day was so dark that this was
just possible. But the hope was vain. Rees heard footsteps, and then
another exclamation as the tiny light of a match appeared for a few
moments at the opening in the floor above him and then went out.
At that moment his foot slipped, making a slight noise.
“Who’s there?” cried the voice above. “Not Rees, not Rees Pennant? For
God’s sake, answer?”
Rees recognised the voice by this time. It was that of Sep Jocelyn,
one of his most devoted admirers and friends.
This Sep was a short and rather thick-set fair man, without hair on
his face, who was five-and-thirty, but looked ten years younger until
you examined quite closely the little thread-like wrinkles which
crossed and recrossed his face in all directions, and the white
streaks in his thick fair hair. While still very young, he had been
left an orphan with command of money; as usual in such cases, he had
been ruined in character and fortune in the most commonplace way--by
bad women, worse men, and drink. At three-and-thirty he had been
discovered in abject circumstances by an old aunt, the widow of an
admiral, who had carried him off with her to her house in Carstow,
where she could still keep up some show of state on an extremely
limited income.
Here she tried hard to regenerate him, and as far as that could be
done, she succeeded. That is to say, he became entirely respectable,
lived soberly, went to church, and was a most submissive,
affectionate, and good-humored companion to his aunt, of pleasant, if
somewhat effeminate manners. But at heart he was blasé and cynical,
with a surprised feeling that any one could be so misguided as to
bestow on him so much attention and kindness, which he certainly was
not worth. And yet he was grateful, in a certain way, making due
allowance for the facts that his aunt had wanted a companion, and that
she belonged to the sex which has a fondness for the reclamation of
ne’er-do-weels. Belonging to that class of men who, incapable of
leading, have an instinct of attaching themselves where they will be
led, he had become the devoted satellite of Rees Pennant, whose
handsome face and dashing manner fascinated and enchained him.
Rees, who made the not unnatural mistake of rating Sep’s devotion
higher than it was worth, felt intensely relieved on learning who his
discoverer was. In an instant he made up his mind to confide in him.
Knowing, as he did, that he must have help to prosecute his researches
further, it seemed, indeed, that no better assistant could be
obtained.
“S-h!” he hissed, and creeping up three or four of the rough steps as
quickly and quietly as he could, he asked in an eager whisper, “Who is
with you?”
“Little Jack, Mrs. Crow’s boy. He’s outside. I told him not to come
down; the room above us is ankle deep in mud. What are you doing down
there? What a pickle you’re in!”
“I’m clean to what I shall be before I’ve done,” said he, in a low
voice, as he crept up the remaining steps, replaced the grating with
Sep’s help, and taking off his waistcoat, laid it upon the bars and
shovelled a layer of earth on to it.
Then, silencing all his companion’s questions until they should be
above ground, he seized his arm and hurried him upstairs, where they
found little Jack making mud-pies in the outer doorway. In a few
words, and with an air of the deepest confidence, Rees then told Sep
the story of the MS., the supposed lost treasure, of his discoveries
and his hopes. Sep was desperately interested, ready to hazard his own
limbs, if needful, to help his friend’s researches, although he knew
by this confidence Rees was only making a virtue of necessity.
They decided that, as Sep had not the same right of entry as Rees,
some way must be found to draw him up over the castle walls. Sep, who,
on hearing his friend had gone into the castle, had braved torrents of
rain and huge stretches of mud to meet him, was ready to submit even
to this.
They left the ruins together, and meeting Goodhare, who was, as usual,
on the watch outside, Rees introduced him as a confidant, and related
his discoveries. Amos could scarcely conceal his rage and
disappointment--rage that a new hand should be engaged in the work, to
take his share of the hoped-for spoil; disappointment at the result of
the discovery on which Rees counted so much.
“What on earth possesses you, Pennant, to imagine that any good can
come of your finding an old blocked-up drain?” he asked scornfully.
Rees, exhausted by excitement and manual labour of an unaccustomed
kind, and flushed by a sense of achievement, was incensed by the
question and by this familiar manner of address.
“The feeling which possesses me,” he answered promptly, “is
indignation that I should associate myself in any work with an
impudent and lazy rascal, who waits outside for the result of other
people’s labor.”
Instead of resenting this insolence, Goodhare listened with his head
bent down, as if with remorse, and made full and ample apology for his
impatience.
But when he had turned to go back to his library, after a most
affectionate and respectful farewell to Rees, and a cordial one to the
new associate in the enterprise, Sep linked his arm within that of his
friend, and suggested, in his mincing voice and manner:
“I say, Rees, you made a mistake with that old boy just now. You
didn’t notice his face as he hung his head down. Now, if you were to
call me a humbug, a liar, and a thief, I should forget it, knowing
that we’re friends for all that. But this old fox remembers. I know he
hates me, but through thick and thin I’m going to treat him like a
brother.”
“Well, I don’t pretend I can hide my feelings,” said Rees, in a tone
of large generosity.
“It’s necessary, though, when one’s not quite acting on the square.”
“What do you mean, Sep?” and Rees turned on him quite fiercely. “Do
you think I’m such a skunk as not to give Lord St. Austell what
belongs to him, shamefully as he has treated me?”
“Oh, no, no, Rees, I forgot for the moment,” answered Sep.
And he looked up into his friend’s handsome face with amused
curiosity. Did Rees really believe in his own integrity still?