LITTIMER CASTLE
If you had asked the first five people on the Littimer Estate what they
thought of the lord of the soil you would have had a different answer
from every one. One woman would have said that a kinder and better man
never lived; her neighbour would have declared Lord Littimer to be as
hard as the nether millstone. Farmer George would rate him a jolly good
fellow, and tell how he would sit in the kitchen over a mug of ale;
whilst Farmer John swore at his landlord as a hard-fisted, grasping miser
devoid of the bowels of compassion.
At the end of an hour you would be utterly bewildered, not knowing what
to believe, and prepared to set the whole village down as a lot of
gossips who seemed to mind everything but its own business. And,
perhaps, Lord Littimer might come riding through on his big black horse,
small, lithe, brown as mahogany, and with an eye piercing as a
diamond-drill. One day he looked almost boyishly young, there would be a
smile on his tanned face. And then another day he would be bent in the
saddle, huddled up, wizened, an old, old man, crushed with the weight of
years and sorrow.
In sooth he was a man of moods and contradictions, changeable as an April
sky, and none the less quick-tempered and hard because he knew that
everybody was terribly afraid of him. And he had a tongue, too, a
lashing, cutting tongue that burnt and blistered. Sometimes he would be
quite meek and angry under the reproaches of the vicar, and yet the same
day history records it that he got off his horse and administered a sound
thrashing to the village poacher. Sometimes he got the best of the vicar,
and sometimes that worthy man scored. They were good friends, these two,
though the vicar never swerved in his fealty to Lady Littimer, whose
cause he always championed. But nobody seemed to know anything about that
dark scandal. They knew that there had been a dreadful scene at the
castle seven years before, and that Lady Littimer and her son had left
never to return. Lady Littimer was in a madhouse somewhere, they said,
and the son was a wanderer on the face of the earth. And when Lord
Littimer died every penny of the property, the castle included, would go
to her ladyship's nephew, Mr. Reginald Henson.
In spite of the great cloud that hung over the family Lord Littimer did
not seem to have changed. He was just a little more caustic than ever,
his tongue a little sharper. The servants could have told a different
story, a story of dark moods and days when the bitterness of the shadow
of death lay on the face of their master. Few men could carry their grief
better, and because Littimer carried his grief so well he suffered the
more. We shall see what the sorrow was in time.
There are few more beautiful places in England than Littimer Castle.
The house stood on a kind of natural plateau with many woods behind, a
trout stream ran clean past the big flight of steps leading to the hall,
below were terrace after terrace of hanging gardens, and to the left a
sloping, ragged drop of 200ft into the sea. To the right lay a
magnificently-timbered park, with a herd of real wild deer--perhaps the
only herd of this kind in the country. When the sun shone on the grey
walls they looked as if they had been painted by some cunning hand, so
softly were the greys and reds and blues blended.
Inside the place was a veritable art gallery. There were hundreds of
pictures and engravings there. All round the grand staircase ran a long,
deep corridor, filled with pictures. There were alcoves here fitted up as
sitting-rooms, and in most of them some gem or another was hung. When the
full flood of electric light was turned on at night the effect was almost
dazzling. There were few pictures in the gallery without a history.
Lord Littimer had many hobbies, but not one that interested him like
this. There were hundreds of rare birds shot by him in different parts
of the world; the corridors and floors were covered by skins, the spoil
of his rifle; here and there a stuffed bear pranced startlingly; but
the pictures and prints were the great amusement of his lordship's
lonely life.
He passed along the corridor now towards the great oriel window at the
end. A brilliant sunlight filled the place with shafts of golden and blue
and purple as it came filtered through the stained glass. At a table in
the window a girl sat working a typewriter. She might have passed for
beautiful, only her hair was banded down in hideously Puritan fashion on
each side of her delicate, oval face, her eyes were shielded by
spectacles. But they were lovely, steady, courageous blue eyes, as
Littimer did not fail to observe. Also he had not failed to note that his
new secretary could do very well without the glasses.
The typewriter and secretary business was a new whim of Littimer's. He
wanted an assistant to catalogue and classify his pictures and prints,
and he had told the vicar so. He wanted a girl who wasn't a fool, a girl
who could amuse him and wouldn't be afraid of him, and he thought he
would have an American. To which the vicar responded that the whole
thing was nonsense, but he had heard of a Boston girl in England who had
a passion for that kind of thing and who was looking for a situation of
the kind in a genuine old house for a year or so. The vicar added that
he had not seen the young lady, but he could obtain her address. A reply
came in due course, a reply that so pleased the impetuous Earl that he
engaged the applicant on the spot. And now she had been just two hours
in the house.
"Well," Littimer cried, "and how have you been getting on?"
Miss Christabel Lee looked up, smilingly.
"I am getting on very well indeed," she said. "You see, I have made a
study of this kind of thing all my lifetime, and most of your pictures
are like old friends to me. Do you know, I fancy that you and I are going
to manage very well together?"
"Oh, do you? They say I am pretty formidable at times."
"I shan't mind that a bit. You see, my father was a man with a
villainous temper. But a woman can always get the better of a
bad-tempered man unless he happens to be one of the lower classes who
uses his boots. If he is a gentleman you have him utterly at your mercy.
Have you a sharp tongue?"
"I flatter myself I can be pretty blistering on occasions," Littimer
said, grimly.
"How delightful! So can I. You and I will have some famous battles later
on. Only I warn you that I never lose my temper, which gives me a
tremendous advantage. I haven't been very well lately, so you must be
nice to me for a week or two."
Littimer smiled and nodded. The grim lord of the castle was not
accustomed to this kind of thing, and he was telling himself that he
rather liked it.
"And now show me the Rembrandt," Miss Lee said, impatiently.
Littimer led the way to a distant alcove lighted from the side by a
latticed window. There was only one picture in the excellent light there,
and that was the famous Rembrandt engraving. Littimer's eyes lighted up
quite lovingly as they rested upon it. The Florentine frame was hung so
low that Miss Lee could bring her face on a level with it.
"This is the picture that was stolen from you?" she asked.
"Yes, that's the thing that there was all the fuss about. It made a great
stir at the time. But I don't expect that it will happen again."
"Why not?" Miss Lee asked. "When an attempt of that sort is made it is
usually followed by another, sometimes after the lapse of years. Anybody
getting through that window could easily get the frame from its two nails
and take out the paper."
"Do you think so?" Littimer asked, uneasily.
"I am certain of it. Take my advice and make it secure. The panels behind
are hard wood--thick black oak. Lord Littimer, I am going to get four
brass-headed stays and drive them through some of the open ornamental
work into the panel so as to make the picture quite secure. It is an iron
frame, I suppose."
"Wrought-iron, gilt," said Littimer. "Yes, one could easily drive four
brass-headed stays through the open work and make the thing safe. I'll
have it seen to."
But Miss Lee insisted that there was no time like the present. She had
discovered that Littimer had an excellent carpenter's shop on the
premises; indeed, she admitted to being no mean performer with the lathe
herself. She flitted down the stairs light as thistledown.
"A charming girl!" Littimer said, cynically. "I wonder why she came to
this dull hole? A quarrel with her young man, perhaps. If I were a young
man myself I might--But women are all the same. I should be a happier man
if I had never trusted one. If--"
The face darkened; a heavy scowl lined his brows as he paced up and
down. Christabel came back presently with hammer and some brass-headed
stays in her hand.
"Don't utterly destroy the frame," Littimer said, resignedly. "It is
reputed to be Quentin Matsy's work, and I had it cut to its present
fashion. I'll go to the end of the gallery till the execution's over."
"On the contrary," Miss Lee said, firmly, "you will stay where you
are told."
A little to his own surprise Littimer remained. He saw the nails driven
firmly in and finished off with a punch so that there might be no danger
of hammering the exquisitely wrought frame. Miss Lee stood regarding her
work with a suggestion of pride.
"There," she said, "I flatter myself a carpenter could have done
no better."
"You don't know our typical carpenter," Littimer said. "Here is Tredwell
with a telegram. For Miss Lee? I hope it isn't an intimation that some
relative has died and left you a fortune. At least, if it is, you mustn't
go until we've had one of those quarrels you promised me."
Christabel glanced at the telegram and slipped it into her pocket. There
were just a few words in the telegram that would have been
unintelligible to the ordinary understanding. The girl did not even
comprehend, but Littimer's eyes were upon her, and the cipher had to
keep for a time. Littimer walked away at an intimation that his steward
desired to see him.
Instantly the girl's manner changed. She glanced at the Rembrandt with a
shrewd smile that meant something beyond a mere act of prudence well
done. Then she went down to the library and began an eager search for a
certain book. She found it at length, the "David Copperfield" in the
"Charles Dickens" edition of the great novelist's works. For the next
hour or so she was flitting over the pages with the cipher telegram
spread out before her. A little later and the few jumbled, meaningless
words were coded out into a lengthy message. Christabel read them over a
few times, then with the aid of a vesta she reduced the whole thing,
telegram and all, to tinder, which she carefully crushed and flung out of
the window.
She looked away down the terrace, she glanced at the dappled deer
knee-deep in the bracken, she caught a glimpse of the smiling sea, and
her face saddened for a moment.
"How lovely it all is," she murmured. "How exquisitely beautiful and how
utterly sad! And to think that if I possessed the magician's wand for a
moment I could make everything smile again. He is a good man--a better
man than anybody takes him to be. Under his placid, cynical surface he
conceals a deal of suffering. Well, we shall see."
She replaced the "Copperfield" on the shelf and turned to go again.
In the hall she met Lord Littimer dressed for riding. He smiled as
she passed.
"Au revoir till dinner-time," he said. "I've got to go and see a tenant.
Oh, yes, I shall certainly expect the pleasure of your company to dinner.
And now that the Rembrandt--"
"It is safe for the afternoon," Christabel laughed. "It is generally
when the family are dining that the burglar has his busy time. A
pleasant ride to you."