AN ABODE OF MYSTERY.
For the first time in my life I was on my way to Ravenor Castle, summoned
there by a brief, imperious note from Mr. Ravenor. Often had I looked
longingly from the distant hills of the park upon its grey, rugged towers
and mighty battlements; but I had never dared to clamber over the high
wall into the inner grounds, nor even to make my way up the servants'
drive to win a closer acquaintance with it.
One reason why I had abstained from doing what, on the face of it, would
seem a very natural thing to do, was a solemn promise to my mother,
extracted from me almost as soon as I was able to get about by myself,
never to pass within that great boundary-wall which completely encircled
the inner grounds and wardens of the castle. But, apart from that, the
thing would have been impossible for me, in any case.
I have already said that Mr. Ravenor bore the character of being a
remarkably eccentric man. Perhaps one of the most striking manifestations
of this eccentricity lay in the rigid seclusion in which he chose to live
while at the Castle, and the extraordinary precautions which he had taken
to prevent all intruders and visitors of every sort from obtaining access
to him.
From the outer part there was indeed no attempt to exclude anyone
belonging to the neighbourhood who chose to ramble about there, and in
Mr. Ravenor's absence visitors who had obtained permission from the
steward were occasionally permitted to drive through; but to the grounds
and the Castle itself access was simply an impossibility. Had Ravenor
Castle been the abode of a sovereign, and the country around in
possession of a hostile people, the precautions could scarcely have been
more rigorous.
The high stone wall, which encircled the Castle and gardens for a circuit
of three-quarters of a mile, effectually shut them off from the outside
world. The postern-gates with which it was pierced were of solid iron,
and the locks which secured them were said to have been fashioned by a
Hindoo whom Mr. Ravenor had once brought home with him from India, and to
be perfectly unique in their design and workmanship. The two main
carriage entrances, about half a mile apart, were remarkable for nothing
but the fine proportions of the towering iron gates; but they were always
kept jealously locked and barred, and the fate of the uninvited guest who
presented himself there was inevitable. There was no admittance.
The afternoon was drawing towards a close when I turned the last corner
of the winding avenue and approached the entrance. It had been a wild,
blustering day; but just before I started from home the wind had dropped
and a watery sun, feebly piercing the masses of heavy clouds with which
the sky was strewn, was shining down, with a wan, unnatural glow, upon
the clumps of fir-trees on either side of the way and the massive,
frowning towers of the Castle close above me.
Under foot and around me everything was wet. With the faintest stir of
the dying breeze showers of raindrops fell from shrubs and trees, and at
every step my feet sank into the soft, soaked gravel, or sent the
moisture bubbling up from the layers of rotten leaves and twigs which the
morning's gale had scattered along the road.
It was an afternoon to damp anyone's spirits; and it was perhaps to the
influence of the weather that I owed the sudden sinking of heart and
courage which came over me as I slackened my pace before the grim-looking
lodges and barred gate. I had started from home, notwithstanding my
mother's white face and nervous, trembling manner, in a state of
pleasurable excitement.
I was about to penetrate into a mystery which had been the curiosity of
my boyhood; I was to become one of those favoured few who had been
permitted to pass within the portals of Ravenor Castle; and, more than
that, I was about to visit there as the guest of a man whose marvellous
reputation, personality, and career had kindled within me an almost
passionate reverence--a man who had long been the object of my devoted,
although boyish and unreasonable, hero-worship. Yet, though it would seem
that I had everything to gain and nothing to fear or lose from the coming
interview, no sooner had I arrived within sight of my destination than my
spirits sank to zero.
A woman would have called it a presentiment and have accepted it with
mute despair. To me it seemed only an unreasonable reaction from my
previous state of suppressed excitement--a feeling to be crushed at any
cost, lest I should stand, with gloomy, unthankful face, before the man
in whose power it lay to raise me from my present distasteful position
and prospects. So I threw my head back and quickened my steps, keeping
resolutely before me in my thoughts all that I had ventured to hope from
my forthcoming interview; and by the time I stood before the great iron
gates and stretched out my hand to ring the bell, the depression had
almost passed away, and the eagerness which I felt was, no doubt, fully
reflected m my countenance.
I had no need to ring. My last quick footstep had fallen upon a harder
substance than the gravel upon which I had been walking, and the contact
of my feet with it made my presence known in a manner which surprised me
not a little. There was a shrill ringing from the lodge door on my right,
and almost simultaneously it opened and a servant came out in the dark
Ravenor livery.
"Will you be so good, sir, as to step off the planking?" he said.
I moved a yard or two backwards, and the bell--it was an electric bell,
of course--instantly ceased. It was my first experience of any such means
of communication, and I stood for a moment looking down in some
bewilderment.
"Your name and business, sir?" the man inquired respectfully. "Did you
wish to see Mr. Clemson?" Mr. Clemson was the steward.
"My name is Morton, and my business is with Mr. Ravenor," I answered. "I
want to see him."
"I am afraid that Mr. Ravenor will not be able to see you, sir," he said.
"Have you an appointment?"
"Yes; for five o'clock," I answered. And the words had scarcely left my
lips before the first stroke of the hour boomed out from the great Castle
clock. Perhaps, more than anything else could have done, that sound
brought home to me the realisation of where I was. Hour after hour, all
through my life, from the depths of Rothland Wood, from the home meadows,
or in my long rambles over the far-away Barnwood Hills, I had heard those
deep, throbbing chimes; sometimes faint and low, when the wind bore the
sound away from me, sometimes harsh and piercing in the storm, and often
as dear and distinct as though only a sheet of water stretched between
us. And now I stood almost within a stone's throw of them, and marvelled
no longer that the deep, resounding notes should travel so far over hill
and moor that I had never yet been able to wander out of hearing of them.
The man accepted my explanation after a moment's hesitation, and,
standing aside from the doorway out of which he had issued, motioned me
to enter. I did so and received a fresh surprise. Instead of finding
myself in the home of one of the servants of the estate, which would have
seemed the natural thing, I found myself in a most luxuriously furnished
waiting-room, hung with mirrors and oak-framed paintings upon a dark
panelled wall. My feet sank into a thick carpet, and I subsided, a little
dazed, into a low, crimson velvet chair, and found beside me a table
covered with magazines.
The man followed me into the room, and, as he passed on his way to its
upper end, he wheeled towards me a smaller table on which were decanters
and glasses and a long box of cigarettes. Scarcely glancing at them, I
watched him unlock a tall cupboard and half vanish inside it.
He remained there for a space of almost five minutes. Then he stepped
out, carefully locked it and advanced towards me. I fancied that there
was a shade more respect in his manner and certainly some surprise.
"Mr. Ravenor's servant will be here in a few minutes, sir, to show you
the way to the Castle."
I thought that I could have found it very well by myself, but, of course,
I could not say so. I occupied myself by examining the contents of the
room, and struggled for a few moments between a feeling of strong
curiosity and a natural disinclination to ask questions of a servant,
especially one whose manner seemed so little to invite them. Finally the
former conquered.
"How did you find that out without leaving this room?" I asked.
He pointed to the cupboard.
"We have a telephone there in connection with the Castle, sir," he
explained. Then he busied himself arranging some papers on a table at the
other end of the apartment, with the obvious air of not desiring to be
questioned further.
The explanation was so simple that I smiled. I began to realise the very
insufficient causes which had given rise to the stories which were always
floating about concerning the mystery in which the master of Ravenor
Castle chose to dwell. What more natural than that a man of liberal
education, with a passion for absolute solitude, should seek to insure it
by some such means as these, by the application of very simple scientific
devices, common enough in a city, but unheard of in our quiet country
neighbourhood?
I was kept waiting for about a quarter of an hour. Then the door was
opened noiselessly from without and a tall, dark man, clean-shaven and
dressed in black, relieved by an immaculate white tie, entered and looked
at me. I rose to my feet and threw down the magazine which I had been
pretending to read.
"You are Mr. Morton?" he inquired, in a subdued tone, glancing steadily
at me the while with somewhat puzzled, criticising gaze, which, perhaps
unreasonably, annoyed me extremely. It was an annoyance which I took
pains not to show, however, for something about the personality of the
man impressed me. His manner, though studiously respectful, was not
without a certain quiet dignity, and his thin oval face--thin almost to
emaciation--had in it more than a suspicion of refinement. My first
glance, whilst I was undergoing his brief scrutiny, assured me that this
was no ordinary servant.
"That is my name," I answered. "You have come to take me to Mr. Ravenor?"
"If you will be so good as to follow me, sir."
I took up my cap and did so, taking long, swinging strides up the steep
ascent, hoping thereby to gain his side and ask him a few questions about
the place. But he prevented this by hurrying on when I was close behind
him; so, after the third attempt I gave it up, and contented myself by
looking around me as much as I could, and making the most of the short
walk.
On one side of the drive--I had been along few highways as wide--was a
tall yew hedge, which shut out little from my view, for the thick black
pine-wood which overtopped and formed so striking a background to the
grand old Castle had never been thinned in this direction, and stretched
away in a wide, irregular belt, skirting the long line of out-buildings
to the hills and beyond. But on the right hand only a low ring-fence
separated us from the grounds immediately in front of the Castle, which a
sudden bend in the sharply winding road brought into full view.
My absolute ignorance of architecture forbids my attempting to describe
it, save in its general effect. I remember even now what that effect was
upon me when I stood for the first time almost at its foot. At a distance
its frowning battlements and worn grey turrets had a majestic appearance;
but, standing as I did then, within a few hundred yards of its vast,
imposing front, and almost under the shadow of its walls and towers, its
effect was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
I almost held my breath as I gazed upon it and the terrace lawns, sloping
away below, smooth-shaven, velvetty, the very perfection of English turf.
Not that I had much time to look about me. On the contrary, my conductor
never once slackened his pace, and when I involuntarily paused for a
moment, with eyes riveted upon the magnificent pile before me, he looked
round sharply and beckoned me impatiently to proceed.
"Mr. Ravenor is not used to be kept waiting, sir," he remarked, "and will
be expecting us."
I pulled myself together with an effort and followed him more closely. We
passed under a bridge of solid masonry, moss-encrusted, and indented with
the storms of ages and the ruder marks of battering-ram and cannon,
across a wide, circular courtyard protected by massive iron gates, which
rolled slowly open before us with many ponderous creakings and gratings,
as though reluctant to admit a stranger, into a great, white, stone-paved
hall, dimly lighted, yet sufficiently so to enable me to perceive the
long rows of armoured warriors which lined the walls, and the lances and
spears and shields which flashed above their heads.
We passed straight across it, our footsteps awakening clattering echoes
as they fell on the polished flags, through a door on the opposite side,
into a room which nearly took my breath away. From the high, vaulted
ceiling to the floor, on every side of the apartment, were books--nothing
but books.
Two men--one old, the other of about my own age--looked up from a table
as we entered and paused in their work, which seemed to be cataloguing;
but my guide passed them without remark or notice, and walked straight
across the room to where a crimson curtain, hanging down in thick folds,
concealed a black oak door. Here he knocked, and I waited by his side
until the answer came in that clear, low tone, which, though I had heard
it but once or twice before, I could have recognised in a thousand. Then
my guide turned the handle and, silently motioning me to enter, left me.