RALPH RAVENSPUR'S CONCEIT
"I should like to know why you wanted the ivory picture?"
It was Geoffrey who asked the question. He and Ralph Ravenspur were
moving along the lanes that led up to the cliffs. They were deep lanes,
with overhanging edges on either side--lanes where it was not easy for
two conveyances to pass.
"I dare say you would," Ralph replied. "But not at present. In due
course you must know everything. Geoffrey, you are fond of novel
reading?"
"Yes, especially books of the Gaboriau type. And yet, in all my reading,
I never knew a more thrilling mystery than that of the ivory portrait."
"You had a good look at it, then?"
"Of course I did. The likeness to Marion was amazing. It might have been
her own photograph on the ivory. It was the same, yet not the
same--Marion transformed to an avenging fury."
"An ancestress of hers, no doubt?"
"Of course. The idea of it being Marion herself is out of the question."
"That you may dismiss at once," Ralph said. "The age of the medallion
proves that and Marion is an angel."
"She is. Uncle Ralph, I am fearfully puzzled. What can Marion's queer
ancestors and all that kind of thing have to do with our family terror?"
Ralph declined to say, beyond the fact that there was a connection. A
horseman was coming pounding down the lane and he stepped aside
instinctively.
"Jessop," he murmured, "I can tell by the trot of his horse."
Jessop, one of the farmers on the estate, it was. Geoffrey regarded his
companion admiringly. He seemed to be able to dispense with eyes
altogether. A long course of training in woodcraft stood him in good
stead now. The apple-cheeked farmer pulled up so as to pass the squires
at a walking pace.
"Morning, Jessop," Geoffrey cried cheerfully. "Where are you going
dressed in your best. And what are you doing with that feminine-looking
box?"
The big man grinned sheepishly.
"Riding into town," he explained. "Fact is, missus and myself have got a
lodger, a great lady, who's taken our drawing-room and two bedrooms.
They do say it's going to be the fashion for the 'quality' to spend
their holidays right in t'country. It's a rare help to us these hard
times."
Ralph Ravenspur turned round suddenly upon his nephew.
"Is it a fact?" he demanded. "Is it as Jessop says?"
"I believe so," Geoffrey replied. "I know that for the last five years
the influx of visitors along this lonely coast has been steadily
growing. It seems to have become quite the thing for good-class people
to take cottages and farmhouses miles away from everywhere, but I have
not heard of any of our tenants having them before."
"I be the first here, sir," Jessop replied. "The lady came over and said
she had been recommended to come to us. Not as I wanted her at first,
but six guineas a week for two months ain't to be despised. But the lady
has a power of parcels to be fetched and carried, surely. That's why I'm
off to town."
Jessop touched his hat and rode on. For a time Ralph was silent.
"It's some time since I last visited an English watering-place," he
said, "and Scarborough was the spot in question. We had a furnished
house there one season, a good house, well furnished, and beautifully
situated. We paid eight pounds a week for it, and it was considered to
be a lot of money. Don't you think that Jessop's lodger must be a very
extravagant kind of woman?"
Geoffrey laughed. Like most young men born to the purple, he had a light
estimate of the value of money.
"Now you come to think of it, perhaps so," he said. "Over at Brigg, the
farmers fancy they do well if they get ten shillings a room for the
week."
Again Ralph was thoughtful. He and his companion came up out of the
lane, and then it dawned upon Geoffrey that the other had turned, not
towards the cliffs as arranged, but inland in the direction of Jessop's
farm.
There was a long, deep lane to the west side of the stone farmhouse,
into which Ralph turned. From a gap in the hedge a peep into the garden
could be obtained. There was a trim lawn bordered by old-fashioned
flowers, two bay windows led from the house to the garden. These bay
windows led from the show rooms of the house, rooms never opened except
on state occasions. The house might have been made fit for anybody with
very little alteration.
Ralph sat down on the grass and slowly filled an aged black pipe.
"I'm going to smoke here while you see Mrs. Jessop. I have a fancy to
find out all about this fashionable lady who buries herself in the
country like this. Call it curiosity if you like, but do as I ask you.
If you can see the lady so much the better."
Geoffrey agreed cheerfully. A moment or two later and he was gossiping
with the buxom farmer's wife in the kitchen, a glass of amber,
home-brewed ale before him. He was a favorite with the tenantry, and
none the less beloved because of the cloud that was hanging over him.
"It does one's eyes good to see you again, Mr. Geoffrey," Mrs. Jessop
cried. "And you so cheerful and bright, and all, dear, dear! I'm main
sorry I can't ask you in the parlor, but we've got a lodger."
"So Jessop told me. Not that I don't feel far more comfortable here. And
what may your distinguished visitor be like, Mrs. Jessop?"
"Dark and handsome. And dressed over so. Might be a princess, who had
just slipped off her throne. And clever. She had books and books, some
in languages that look like Chinese puzzles."
"Some great society dame, no doubt."
"I shouldn't be surprised, Mr. Geoffrey. But not English, I should
fancy, though she speaks the language as well as you or I. And simple,
too. Just tea and toast for breakfast with a little meat and rice for
luncheon and dinner with stewed fruit. And she never drinks anything but
water. What she spends a week in food wouldn't keep one of our laborers.
And she had pounds' worth of hot-house flowers sent from York every
day."
Mrs. Jessop paused. There was a rustling of something rich, and a lady
entered the kitchen. Geoffrey rose instantly from the table upon which
he had been seated.
He saw a tall woman who might have been anything between thirty and
fifty years of age, a woman of great beauty. It was the hard, commanding
style of beauty that men call regal. She might have been a queen, but
for the faint suggestion of the adventuress about her. To Geoffrey's bow
she made the slightest possible haughty recognition.
"I'm going out, Mrs. Jessop," she said. "I shall be back to luncheon. If
a telegram should happen to come for me, I shall be along the cliffs
between here and Beauhaven."
She flashed out of the kitchen all rustling and gleaming, and leaving
the faint suggestion of some intoxicating perfume behind her. And yet,
notwithstanding her proud indifference, it seemed to Geoffrey that she
had regarded him with more than passing interest just for the moment.
"She is very beautiful," he said. "She is a total stranger to me, and
yet she reminds me of somebody else, somebody whose name I can't recall,
but who is totally different. It is a strange sort of feeling that I
cannot explain."
"She's interested for all her haughtiness," said Mrs. Jessop. "I'm sure
if she has asked me one question about your family, she has asked a
thousand."
Geoffrey strolled away round the house. There was a short cut to the
place where Ralph was seated, and this short cut lay along the lawn.
Geoffrey's feet made no noise. As he passed the window of the
sitting-room he looked in.
The place was full of flowers, white flowers everywhere. There were
azaleas and geraniums and carnations, with delicate foliage of tender
green, thousands of blooms, arranged wherever a specimen glass or a bowl
could go.
Standing with his back to the window, a man was arranging them. And the
man was a Hindoo, or other Eastern, one of the men Geoffrey had seen
going through that queer incantation on the cliffs. Strange, more than
strange, that Mrs. Jessop had said nothing of him.
Geoffrey prudently slipped away before he had been seen. He found his
uncle doggedly smoking under the hedge. He looked like patience
personified.
"Well," he said, "have you anything wonderful to relate?"
"Pretty well," Geoffrey replied. "To begin with, I have actually seen
the lady."
"Ah! But go on. Tell me everything, everything mind, to the minutest
detail."
Geoffrey proceeded to explain. Whether he was interesting his listener
or not he could not tell, for Ralph had assumed his most wooden
expression; indeed, a casual spectator would have said that he was not
paying the slightest attention. Then he began to ask questions, in a
languid way, but Geoffrey could see that they were all to the point.
"I should not be surprised," he said, "if the man you saw in the house
was one of the men you saw on the cliffs. Mrs. Jessop said nothing about
him, because she knew nothing. So he was arranging the lady's flowers.
What flowers?"
"Azaleas and carnations and geraniums. Nothing else."
"Well, there may be worse taste, if there can be bad taste with flowers.
Any color?"
"Yes, they were all white. I was a little surprised at that, considering
that the lady was so dark and Eastern-looking."
"Of course you ascertained her name?"
"Indeed, I did nothing of the kind. I forgot all about it. But I had a
good look at her, and the description I gave you is quite correct.
Uncle, I don't want to seem unduly curious, but I fancy you expected to
find this lady here."
Ralph rose to his feet slowly, and knocked out the ashes of his pipe. He
turned his face toward the castle.
"I am not altogether surprised," he said.
Not another word was said for some time. Ralph appeared to be deeply
cogitating, so deeply that Geoffrey asked of what he was thinking.
"I was thinking," Ralph said slowly, yet drily, and with the same dense
manner, "that a pair of dark, gold-rimmed glasses would improve my
personal appearance."