THE CHÂTEAU
The road to the château took its devious way through the little
town--out into the green foothill beyond. Two lumbering, wooden wheeled
carts, none too clean, each drawn by four perspiring men, served as
conveyances by which the arrivals were to make the journey to their new
home. Mr. Bowles informed his lordship that horses were not submitted to
the indignity of drawing carts. The lamented Mr. Skaggs had driven his
own Arab steeds to certain fashionable traps, but the natives never
thought of doing such a thing.
Lady Deppingham's pert little nose lifted itself in disgust as she was
joggled through the town behind the grunting substitutes for horseflesh.
She sat beside her husband in the foremost cart. Mr. Bowles, very tired,
but quite resplendent, walked dutifully beside one wheel; Mr. Saunders
took his post at the other. It might have been noticed that the latter
cut a very different figure from that which he displayed on his first
invasion of the street earlier in the day. The servants came along
behind in the second cart. Far ahead, like hounds in full cry, toiled
the unwilling luggage bearers. From the windows and doorways of every
house, from the bazaars and cafés, from the side streets and
mosque-approaches, the gaze of the sullen populace fastened itself upon
the little procession. The town seemed ominously silent. Deppingham
looked again and again at the red coat on the sloping shoulders of their
guardian, and marvelled not a little at the vastness of the British
dominion. He recalled his red hunting coat in one of the bags ahead, and
mentally resolved to wear it on all occasions--perhaps going so far as
to cut off its tails if necessary.
At last they came to the end of the sunlit street and plunged into the
shady road that ascended the slope through what seemed to be an
absolutely unbroken though gorgeous jungle. The cool green depths looked
most alluring to the sun-baked travellers; they could almost imagine
that they heard the dripping of fountains, the gurgling of rivulets, so
like paradise was the prospect ahead. Lady Agnes could not restrain her
cries of delighted amazement.
"It's like this all over the island, your ladyship," volunteered Mr.
Bowles, mopping his brow in a most unmilitary way. "Except at the mines
and back there in the town."
"Where are the mines?" asked Deppingham.
"The company's biggest mines are seven or eight miles eastward, as the
crow flies, quite at the other side of the island. It's very rocky over
there and there's no place for a landing from the sea. Everything is
brought overland to Aratat and placed in the vaults of the bank. Four
times a year the rubies and sapphires are shipped to the brokers in
London and Paris and Vienna. It's quite a neat and regular arrangement,
sir."
"But I should think the confounded natives would steal everything they
got their hands on."
"What would be the use, sir? They couldn't dispose of a single gem on
the island, and nothing is taken away from here except in the company's
chests. Besides, my lord, these people are not thieves. They are
absolutely honest. Smugglers have tried to bribe them, and the smugglers
have never lived to tell of it. They may kill people occasionally, but
they are quite honest, believe me. And, in any event, are they not a
part of the great corporation? They have their share in the working of
the mines and in the profits. Mr. Wyckholme and Mr. Skaggs were honest
with them and they have been just as honest in return."
"Sounds very attractive," muttered Deppingham sceptically.
"I should think they'd be terribly tempted," said Lady Agnes. "They look
so wretchedly poor."
"They _are_ a bit out at the knees," said her husband, with a great
laugh.
"My lady," said Bowles, "there are but four poor men on the island:
myself and the three Englishmen who operate the bank. There isn't a poor
man, woman or child among the natives. This is truly a land of rich men.
The superintendent of the mines is a white man--a German--and the three
foremen are Boers. They work on shares just as the natives do and save
even more, I think. The clerical force is entirely native. There were
but ten white men here before you came, including two Greeks. There are
no beggars. Perhaps you noticed that no one was asking for alms as you
came up."
"'Gad, I should say we did," exclaimed Deppingham ruefully. "There
wasn't even a finger held out to us. But is this a holiday on the
island?"
"A holiday, my lord?"
"Yes. No one seems to be at work."
"Oh? I see. Being part owners the natives have decided that four hours
constitutes a day's work. They pay themselves accordingly, as it were.
No one works after midday, sir."
"I say, wouldn't this be a paradise for the English workingman?" said
Deppingham. "That's the kind of a day's labor they'd like. Do you mean
to say that these fellows trudge eight miles to work every morning and
back again at noon?"
"Certainly not, sir. They ride their thoroughbred horses to work and
ride them back again. It's much better than omnibuses or horse cars, I'd
say, sir--as I remember them."
"You take my breath away," said the other, lapsing into a stunned
silence.
The road had become so steep and laborious by this time that Bowles was
very glad to forego the pleasure of talking. He fell back, with Mr.
Saunders, and ultimately both of them climbed into the already
overloaded second cart, adding much to the brown man's burden. After
regaining his breath to some extent, the obliging Mr. Bowles, now being
among what he called the lower classes, surreptitiously removed the
tight-fitting red jacket, and proceeded to give the inquisitive lawyer's
clerk all the late news of the island.
The inhabitants of Japat, standing upon their rights as part owners of
the mines and as prospective heirs to the entire fortune of Messrs.
Skaggs and Wyckholme, had been prompt to protect themselves in a legal
sense. They had leagued themselves together as one interest and had
engaged the services of eminent solicitors in London, who were to
represent them in the final settlement of the estate. London was to be
the battle ground in the coming conflict. A committee of three had
journeyed to England to put the matter in the hands of these lawyers and
were now returning to the island with a representative of the firm, who
was coming out to stand guard, so to speak. Von Blitz, the German
superintendent, was the master mind in the native contingent. It was he
who planned and developed the course of action. The absent committee was
composed of Ben Adi, Abdallah Ben Sabbat and Rasula, the Aratat lawyer.
They were truly wise men from the East--old, shrewd, crafty and begotten
of Mahomet.
The mines continued to be operated as usual, pending the arrival of the
executors' representative, who, as we know, was now on the ground in the
person of Thomas Saunders. The fact that he also served as legal adviser
to Lady Deppingham was not of sufficient moment to disturb the
arrangements on either side. Every one realised that he could have no
opportunity to exercise a prejudice, if he dared to have one. Saunders
blinked his eyes nervously when Bowles made this pointed observation.
As for the American heir, Robert Browne, he had not yet arrived. He was
coming by steamer from the west, according to report, and was probably
on the _Boswell_, Sumatra to Madagascar, due off Aratat in two or three
days. Mr. Bowles jocosely inferred that it should be a very happy family
at the château, with the English and American heirs ever ready to heave
things at one another, regardless of propriety or the glassware.
"The islanders," said Mr. Bowles, lighting a cigarette, "it looks to me,
have all the best of the situation. They get the property whether they
marry or not, while the original beneficiaries have to marry each other
or get off the island at the end of the year. Most of the islanders have
got three or four wives already. I daresay the legators took that into
consideration when they devised the will. Von Blitz, the German, has
three and is talking of another."
"You mean to say that they can have as many wives as they choose?"
demanded Saunders, wrinkling his brow.
"Yes, just so long as they don't choose anybody else's."
Saunders was buried in thought for a long time, then he exclaimed,
unconsciously aloud:
"My word!"
"Eh?" queried Bowles, arousing himself.
"I didn't say anything," retorted Saunders, looking up into the tree
tops.
In the course of an hour--a soft, sleepy hour, too, despite the wondrous
novelty of the scene and the situation--the travellers came into view of
the now famous château.
Standing out against the sky, fully a mile ahead, was the home to which
they were coming. The château, beautiful as a picture, lifted itself
like a dream castle above all that was earthly and sordid; it smiled
down from its lofty terrace and glistened in the sunset glow, like the
jewel that had been its godmother. Long and low, scolloped by its
gables, parapets and budding towers, the vast building gleamed red
against the blue sky from one point of view and still redder against the
green mountain from another. Soft, rich reds--not the red of blood, but
of the unpolished ruby--seemed to melt softly in the eye as one gazed
upward in simple wonder. The dream house of two lonely old men who had
no place where they could spend their money!
According to its own records, the château, fashioned quite closely after
a famous structure in France, was designed and built by La Marche, the
ill-fated French architect who was lost at sea in the wreck of the
_Vendome_. Three years and more than seven hundred thousand pounds
sterling, or to make it seem more prodigious, nearly eighteen million
francs, were consumed in its building. An army of skilled artisans had
come out from France and Austria to make this quixotic dream a reality
before the two old men should go into their dreamless sleep; to say
nothing of the slaving, faithful islanders who laboured for love in the
great undertaking. Specially chartered ships had carried material and
men to the island--and had carried the men away again, for not one of
them remained behind after the completion of the job.
There was not a contrivance or a convenience known to modern
architecture that was not included in the construction of this
latter-day shadow of antiquity.
It was, to step on ahead of the story as politely as possible, fully a
week before Lord and Lady Deppingham realised all that their new home
meant in the way of scientific improvement and, one might say, research.
It was so spacious, so comprehensive of domain, so elaborate, that one
must have been weeks in becoming acquainted with its fastnesses, if that
word may be employed. To what uses Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme
could have put this vast, though splendid waste, the imagination cannot
grasp. Apartments fit for a king abounded; suites which took one back to
the luxuries of Marie Antoinette were common; banquet halls, ball rooms,
reception halls, a chapel, and even a crypt were to be found if one
undertook a voyage of discovery. Perhaps it is safe to say that none of
these was ever used by the original owners, with the exception of the
crypt; John Wyckholme reposed there, alone in his dignity, undisturbed
by so little as the ghost of a tradition.
The terrace, wide and beautiful, was the work of a famous landscape
gardener. Engineers had come out from England to install the most
complete water and power plant imaginable. Not only did they bring water
up from the sea, but they turned the course of a clear mountain stream
so that it virtually ran through the pipes and faucets of the vast
establishment. The fountains rivalled in beauty those at Versailles,
though not so extensive; the artificial lake, while not built in a
night, as one other that history mentions, was quite as attractive.
Water mains ran through miles of the tropical forest and, no matter how
great the drouth, the natives kept the verdure green and fresh with a
constancy that no real wage-earner could have exercised. As to the
stables, they might have aroused envy in the soul of any sporting
monarch.
It was a palace, but they had called it a château, because Skaggs
stubbornly professed to be democratic. The word palace meant more to him
than château, although opinions could not have mattered much on the
island of Japat. Inasmuch as he had not, to his dying day, solved the
manifold mysteries of the structure, it is not surprising that he never
developed sufficient confidence to call it other than "the place."
Now and then, officers from some British man-of-war stopped off for
entertainment in the château, and it was only on such occasions that
Skaggs realised what a gorgeously beautiful home it was that he lived
in. He had seen Windsor Castle in his youth, but never had he seen
anything so magnificent as the crystal chandelier in his own hallway
when it was fully lighted for the benefit of the rarely present guests.
On the occasion of his first view of the chandelier in its complete
glory, it is said that he walked blindly against an Italian table of
solid marble and was in bed for eleven days with a bruised hip. The
polished floors grew to be a horror to him. He could not enumerate the
times their priceless rugs had slipped aimlessly away from him, leaving
him floundering in profane wrath upon the glazed surface. The bare
thought of crossing the great ballroom was enough to send him into a
perspiration. He became so used to walking stiff-legged on the hardwood
floors that it grew to be a habit which would not relax. The servants
were authority for the report, that no earlier than the day before his
death, he slipped and fell in the dining-room, and thereupon swore that
he would have Portland cement floors put in before Christmas.
Lord and Lady Deppingham, being first in the field, at once proceeded to
settle themselves in the choicest rooms--a Henry the Sixth suite which
looked out on the sea and the town as well. It is said that Wyckholme
slept there twice, while Skaggs looked in perhaps half a dozen
times--when he was lost in the building, and trying to find his way back
to familiar haunts.
There was not a sign of a servant about the house or grounds. The men
whom Bowles had engaged, carried the luggage to the rooms which Lady
Deppingham selected, and then vanished as if into space. They escaped
while the new tenants were gorging their astonished, bewildered eyes
with the splendors of the apartment.
"We'll have to make the best of it," sighed Deppingham in response to
his wife's lamentations. "I daresay, Antoine and the maids can get our
things into some sort of shape, my dear. What say to a little stroll
about the grounds while they are doing it? By Jove, it would be exciting
if we were to find a ruby or two. Saunders says they are as common as
strawberries in July."
Mr. Bowles, who had resumed his coat of red, joined them in the stroll
about the gardens, pointing out objects of certain interest and telling
the cost of each to the penny.
"I can't conduct you through the château," he apologised as they were
returning after the short tour. "They can't close the bank until I set
the balance sheet, sir, and it's now two hours past closing time. It
doesn't matter, however, my lord," he added hastily, "we enjoy anything
in the shape of a diversion."
"See here, Mr.--er--old chap, what are we to do about servants? We can't
get on without them, you know."
"Oh, the horses are being well cared for in the valley, sir. You needn't
worry a bit--"
"Horses! What we want, is to be cared for ourselves. Damn the horses,"
roared his lordship.
"They say these Americans are a wonderful people, my lord," ventured Mr.
Bowles. "I daresay when Mr. and Mrs. Browne arrive, they'll have some
way of--"
"Browne!" cried her ladyship. "This very evening I shall give orders
concerning the rooms they are to occupy. And that reminds me: I must
look the place over thoroughly before they arrive. I suppose, however,
that the rooms we have taken _are_ the best?"
"The choicest, my lady," said Bowles, bowing.
"See here, Mr.--er--old chap, don't you think you can induce the
servants to come back to us? By Jove, I'll make it worth your while. The
place surely must need cleaning up a bit. It's some months since the
old--since Mr. Skaggs died." He always said "Skaggs" after a scornful
pause and in a tone as disdainfully nasal as it was possible for him to
produce.
"Not at all, my lord. The servants did not leave the place until your
steamer was sighted this morning. It's as clean as a pin."
"This morning?"
"Yes, my lord. They would not desert the château until they were sure
you were on board. They were extraordinarily faithful."
"I don't see it that way, leaving us like this. What's to become of the
place? Can't I get an injunction, or whatever you call it?"
"What _are_ we to do?" wailed Lady Agnes, sitting down suddenly upon the
edge of a fountain.
"You see, my lady, they take the position that you have no right here,"
volunteered Bowles.
"How absurd! I am heir to every foot of this island--"
"They are very foolish about it I'm sure. They've got the ridiculous
idea into their noddles that you can't be the heiress unless Lord
Deppingham passes away inside of a year, and--"
"I'm damned if I do!" roared the perspiring obstacle. "I'm not so
obliging as that, let me tell you. If it comes to that, what sort of an
ass do they think I'd be to come away out here to pass away? London's
good enough for any man to die in."
"You are not going to die, Deppy," said his wife consolingly. "Unless
you starve to death," she supplemented with an expressive moue.
"I daresay you'll find a quantity of tinned meats and vegetables in the
storehouse, my lady. You can't starve until the supply gives out.
American tinned meats," vouchsafed Mr. Bowles with his best English
grimace.
"Come along, Aggy," said her liege lord resignedly. "Let's have a look
about the place."
Mr. Saunders met them at the grand entrance. He announced that four of
the native servants had been found, dead drunk, in the wine cellar.
"They can't move, sir. We thought they were dead."
"Keep 'em in that condition, for the good Lord's sake," exclaimed
Deppingham. "We'll make sure of four servants, even if we have to keep
'em drunk for six months."
"Good day, your lordship--my lady," said Bowles, edging away. "Perhaps I
can intercede for you when their solicitor comes on. He's due to-morrow,
I hear. It is possible that he may advise at least a score of the
servants to return."
"Send him up to me as soon as he lands," commanded Deppingham calmly.
"Very good, sir," said Mr. Bowles.