BON REPOS.
On a certain fine morning towards the end of May, Captain Ducie took
train at Euston Square, and late the same afternoon was set down at
Windermere. A fly conveyed himself and his portmanteau to the edge of
the lake. Singling out one from the tiny fleet of pleasure boats always
to be found at the Bowness landing-stage, Captain Ducie seated himself
in the stern and lighted his cigar. The boatman's sinewy arms soon
pulled him out into the middle of the lake, when the head of the little
craft was set for Bon Repos.
The sun was dipping to the western hills. In his wake he had left a rack
of torn and fiery cloud, as though he had rent his garments in wrath and
cast them from him. Soft, grey mists and purple shadows were beginning
to strike upward from the vales, but on the great shoulders of
Fairfield, and on the scarred fronts of other giants further away, the
sunshine lingered lovingly. It was like the hand of Childhood caressing
the rugged brows of Age.
With that glorious panorama which crowns the head of the lake before his
eyes, with the rhythmic beat of the oars and the soft pulsing of the
water in his ears, with the blue smoke-rings of his cigar rising like
visible aspirations through the evening air, an unwonted peace, a soft
brooding quietude, began to settle down upon the Captain's world-worn
spirit; and through the stillness came a faint whisper, like his
mother's voice speaking from the far-off years of childhood, recalling
to his memory things once known, but too long forgotten; lessons too
long despised, but with a vital truth underlying them which he seemed
never to have realised till now. Suddenly the boat's keel grazed the
shingly strand, and there before him, half shrouded in the shadows of
evening, was Bon Repos.
A genuine north-country house, strong, rugged and homely-looking,
despite its Gallic cognomen. It was built of the rough grey stone of the
district, and roofed with large blue slates. It stood at the head of a
small lawn that sloped gently up from the lake. Immediately behind the
house a precipitous hill, covered with a thick growth of underwood and
young trees, swept upward to a considerable height. A narrow, winding
lane, the only carriage approach to the house, wound round the base of
this hill, and joined the high road a quarter of a mile away. The house
was only two stories high, but was large enough to have accommodated a
numerous and well-to-do family. The windows were all set in a framework
of plain stone, but on the lower floor some of them had been modernised,
the small, square, bluish panes having given place to polished plate
glass, of which two panes only were needed for each window. But this was
an innovation that had not spread far. The lawn was bordered with a
tasteful diversity of shrubs and flowers, while here and there the
tender fingers of some climbing plant seemed trying to smoothe away a
wrinkle in the rugged front of the old house.
Captain Ducie walked up the gravelled pathway that led from the lake to
the house, the boatman with his portmanteau bringing up the rear. Before
he could touch either bell or knocker, the door was noiselessly opened,
and a coloured servant, in a suit of plain black, greeted him with a
respectful bow.
"Captain Ducie, sir, if I am not misinformed?"
"I am Captain Ducie."
"Sir, you are expected. Your rooms are ready. Dinner will be served in
half-an-hour from now. My master will meet you when you come
downstairs."
The portmanteau having been brought in, and the boatman paid and
dismissed, said the coloured servant: "I will show you to your rooms, if
you will allow me to do so. The man appointed to wait upon you will
follow with your luggage in a minute or two."
He led the way, and Ducie followed in silence.
The tired Captain gave a sigh of relief and gratitude, and flung himself
into an easy-chair as the door closed behind his conductor. His two
rooms were _en suite_, and while as replete with comfort as the most
thorough-going Englishman need desire, had yet about them a touch of
lightness and elegance that smacked of a taste that had been educated on
the Continent, and was unfettered by insular prejudices.
"At Stapleton I had a loft that was hardly fit for a groom to sleep in;
here I have two rooms that a cardinal might feel proud to occupy. Vive
la Russie!"
M. Platzoff was waiting at the foot of the staircase when Ducie went
down. A cordial greeting passed between the two, and the host at once
led the way to the dining-room. Platzoff in his suit of black and white
cravat, with his cadaverous face, blue-black hair and chin-tuft, and the
elaborate curl on the top of his forehead, looked, at the first glance,
more like a ghastly undertaker's man than the host of an English country
house.
But a second glance would have shown you his embroidered linen and the
flashing gems on his fingers; and you could not be long with him without
being made aware that you were in the company of a thorough man of the
world--of one who had travelled much and observed much; of one whose
correspondents kept him au courant with all the chief topics of the day.
He knew, and could tell you, the secret history of the last new opera;
how much had been paid for it, what it had cost to produce, and all
about the great green-room cabal against the new prima donna. He knew
what amount of originality could be safely claimed for the last new
drama that was taking the town by storm, and how many times the same
story had been hashed up before. He had read the last French novel of
any note, and could favour you with a few personal reminiscences of its
author not generally known. As regarded political knowledge--if all his
statements were to be trusted--he was informed as to much that was going
on behind the great drop-scene. He knew how the wires were pulled that
moved the puppets who danced in public, especially those wires which
were pulled in Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg. Before Ducie had been
six hours at Bon Repos he knew more about political intrigues at home
and abroad than he had ever dreamt of in the whole course of his
previous life.
The dining-room at Bon Repos was a long low-ceilinged apartment,
panelled with black oak, and fitted up in a rich and sombre style that
was yet very different from the dull, heavy formality that obtains among
three-fourths of the dining-rooms in English country houses. Indeed,
throughout the appointments and fittings of Bon Repos there was a touch
of something Oriental grafted on to French taste, combined with a
thorough knowledge and appreciation of insular comfort. From the
dining-room windows a lovely stretch of the lake could be seen
glimmering in the starlight, and our two friends sat this evening over
their wine by the wide open sash, gazing out into the delicious night.
Behind them, in the room, two or three candles were burning in silver
sconces; but at the window they were sitting in that sort of half light
which seems exactly suited for confidential talk. Captain Ducie took
advantage of it after a time to ask his host a question which he would
perhaps have scarcely cared to put by broad daylight.
"Have you heard any news of your lost manuscript?"
"None whatever," answered Platzoff. "Neither do I expect, after this
lapse of time, to hear anything further concerning it. It has probably
never been found, or if found, has (as you suggested at 'The Golden
Griffin') fallen into the hands of someone too ignorant, or too
incurious, to master the secret of the cipher."
"It has been much in my thoughts since I saw you last," said Ducie. "Was
the MS. in your own writing, may I ask?"
"It was in my own writing," answered the Russian. "It was a confidential
communication intended for the eye of my dearest friend, and for his eye
only. It was unfinished when I lost it. I had been staying a few days at
one of your English spas when I joined you in the train on the day of
the accident. The MS., as far as it went, had all been written before I
left home; but I took it with me in my despatch-box, together with other
private papers, although I knew that I could not add a single line to it
while I should be from home. I have wished a thousand times since that I
had left it behind me."
"I have heard of people to whom cryptography is a favourite study," said
the Captain; "people who pride themselves on their ability to master the
most difficult cipher ever invented. Let us hope that your MS. has not
fallen into the hands of one of these clever individuals."
Platzoff shrugged his shoulders. "Let us hope so, indeed," he said.
"But I will not believe in any such untoward event. Too long a time has
elapsed since the loss for me not to have heard something respecting the
MS., had it been found by anyone who knew how to make use of it.
Besides, I would defy the most clever reader of cryptography to master
my MS. without--Ah, Bah! where's the use of talking about it? Should not
you like some tobacco? Daylight's last tint has vanished, and there is a
chill air sweeping down from the hills."
As they left the window, Platzoff added: "One of the most annoying
features connected with my loss arises from the fact that all my labour
will have to be gone through again--and very tedious work it is. I am
now engaged on a second MS., which is, as nearly as I can make it, a
copy of the first one; and it is a task which must be done by myself
alone. To have even one confidant would be to stultify the whole affair.
Another glass of claret, and then I will introduce you to my sanctum."
The coloured man who had opened the door for Captain Ducie had been in
and out of the dining-room several times. He was evidently a favourite
servant. Platzoff had addressed him as Cleon, and Ducie had now a
question or two to ask concerning him.
Cleon was a mulatto, tall, agile and strong. Not bad-looking by any
means, but carrying with him unmistakable traces of the negro blood in
his veins. His hair was that of a genuine African--crisp and black, and
was one mass of short curls; but except for a certain fulness of the
lips his features were of the ordinary Caucasian type. He wore no beard,
but a thin, straight line of black moustache. His complexion was yellow,
but a different yellow from that of his master--dusky, passionate,
lava-like; suggestive of fiery depths below. His eyes, too, glowed with
a smothered fire that seemed as if it might blaze out at any moment, and
there was in them an expression of snake-like treachery that made
Captain Ducie shudder involuntarily, as though he had seen some
loathsome reptile, the first time he looked steadily into their
half-veiled depths. One look into each other's eyes was sufficient for
both these men.
"Monsieur Cleon and I are born enemies, and he knows it as well as I
do," murmured Ducie to himself, after the first secret signal of
defiance had passed between the two. "Well, I never was afraid of any
man in my life, and I'm not going to begin by being afraid of a valet."
With that he shrugged his shoulders, and turned his back contemptuously
on the mulatto.
Cleon, in his suit of black and white tie, with his quiet, stealthy
movements and unobtrusive attentions, would have been pronounced good
style as a gentleman's gentleman in the grandest of Belgravian mansions.
Had he suddenly come into a fortune, and gone into society where his
antecedents were unknown, five-sixths of his male associates would have
pronounced him "a deuced gentlemanly fellow." The remaining one-sixth
might have held a somewhat different opinion.
"That coloured fellow seems to be a great favourite with you," remarked
Ducie, as Cleon left the room.
"And well he may be," answered Platzoff. "On two separate occasions I
owed my life to him. Once in South America, when a couple of brigands
had me at their mercy and were about to try the temper of their knives
on my throat. He potted them both one after the other. On the second
occasion he rescued me from a tiger in the jungle, who was desirous of
dining _à la Russe_. I have not made a favourite of Cleon without having
my reasons for so doing."
"He seems to me a shrewd fellow, and one who understands his business."
"Cleon is not destitute of ability. When I settled at Bon Repos I made
him major-domo of my small establishment, but he still retains his old
position as my body-servant. I offered long ago to release him; but he
will not allow any third person to come between himself and me, and I
should not feel comfortable under the attentions of anyone else."
Platzoff opened the door as he ceased speaking and led the way to the
smoking room.
As you lifted the curtain and went in, it was like passing at one step
from Europe to the East--from the banks of Windermere to the shores of
the Bosphorus. It was a circular apartment with a low cushioned divan
running completely round it, except where broken by the two doorways,
curtained with hangings of dark brown. The floor was an arabesque of
different-coloured tiles, covered here and there with a tiny square of
bright-hued Persian carpet. The walls were panelled with stamped leather
to the height of six feet from the ground; above the panelling they were
painted of a delicate cream colour with here and there a maxim or
apophthegm from the Koran, in the Arabic character, picked out in
different colours. From the ceiling a silver lamp swung on chains of
silver. In the centre of the room was a marble table on which were pipes
and hookahs, cigars and tobaccos of various kinds. Smaller tables were
placed here and there close to the divan for the convenience of smokers.
Platzoff having asked Ducie to excuse him for five minutes, passed
through the second doorway, and left the Captain to an undisturbed
survey of the room. He came back in a few minutes, but so transformed in
outward appearance that Ducie scarcely knew him. He had left the room in
the full evening costume of an English gentleman: he came back in the
turban and flowing robes of a follower of the Prophet. But however
comfortable his Eastern habit might be, M. Platzoff lacked the quiet
dignity and grave repose of your genuine Turkish gentleman.
"I am going to smoke one of these hookahs; let me recommend you to try
another," said Platzoff as he squatted himself cross-legged on the
divan.
He touched a tiny gong, and Cleon entered.
"Select a hookah for Monsieur Ducie, and prepare it."
So Cleon, having chosen a pipe, tipped it with a new amber mouthpiece,
charged the bowl with fragrant Turkish tobacco, handed the stem to
Ducie, and then applied the light. The same service was next performed
for his master. Then he withdrew, but only to reappear a minute or two
later with coffee served up in the Oriental fashion--black and strong,
without sugar or cream.
"This is one of my little smoke-nights," said Platzoff as soon as they
were alone. "Last night was one of my big smoke-nights."
"You speak a language I do not understand."
"I call those occasions on which I smoke opium my big smoke-nights."
"Can it be true that you are an opium smoker?" said Ducie.
"It can be and is quite true that I am addicted to that so-called
pernicious habit. To me it is one of the few good things this world has
to offer. Opium is the key that unlocks the golden gates of Dreamland.
To its disciples alone is revealed the true secret of subjective
happiness. But we will talk more of this at some future time."