THE MORNING TIDE
Miss Raven had already described Mr. Cazalette to me, by inference, as
a queer, snuffy bald-pated old man, but this summary synopsis of his
exterior features failed to do justice to a remarkable original. There
was something supremely odd about him. I thought, at first, that my
impression of oddity might be derived from his clothes--he wore a
strangely-cut dress-coat of blue cloth, with gold buttons, a buff
waistcoat, and a frilled shirt--but I soon came to the conclusion that
he would be queer and uncommon in any garments. About Mr. Cazalette
there was an atmosphere--and it was decidedly one of mystery. First
and last, he looked uncanny.
Mr. Raven introduced us with a sort of old-world formality (I soon
discovered, as regards him, that he was so far unaware that a vast
gulf lay between the manners and customs of society as they are
nowadays and as they were when he left England for India in the
'seventies: he was essentially mid-Victorian) and in order to keep up
to it, I saluted Mr. Cazalette with great respect and expressed myself
as feeling highly honoured by meeting one so famous as my
fellow-guest. Somewhat to my surprise, Mr. Cazalette's tightly-locked
lips relaxed into what was plainly a humorous smile, and he favoured
me with a knowing look that was almost a wink.
"Aye, well," he said, "you're just about as well known in your own
line, Middlebrook, as I am in mine, and between the pair of us I've no
doubt we'll be able to reduce chaos into order. But we'll not talk
shop at this hour of the day--there's more welcome matters at hand."
He put his snuff box and his gaudy handkerchief out of sight, and
looked at his host and hostess with another knowing glance, reminding
me somehow of a wicked old condor which I had sometimes seen at the
Zoological Gardens, eyeing the keeper who approached with its meal.
"Mr. Cazalette," remarked Miss Raven, with an informing glance at me,
"never, on principle, touches bite or sup between breakfast and
dinner--and he has no great love of breakfast."
"I'm a disciple of the justly famed and great man, Abernethy,"
observed Mr. Cazalette. "I'd never have lived to my age nor kept my
energy at what, thank Heaven, it is, if I hadn't been. D'ye know how
old I am, Middlebrook?"
"I really don't, Mr. Cazalette," I replied.
"Well I'm eighty years of age," he answered with a grin. "And I'm
intending to be a hundred! And on my hundredth birthday, I'll give a
party, and I'll dance with the sprightliest lassie that's there, and
if I'm not as lively as she is I'll be sore out of my calculations."
"A truly wonderful young man!" exclaimed Mr. Raven. "I veritably
believe he feels--and is--younger than myself--and I'm twenty years
his junior."
So I had now discovered certain facts about Mr. Cazalette. He was an
octogenarian. He was uncannily active. He had an almost imp-like
desire to live--and to dance when he ought to have been wrapped in
blankets and saying his last prayers. And a few minutes later, when we
were seated round our host's table, I discovered another fact--Mr.
Cazalette was one of those men to whom dinner is the event of the day,
and who regard conversation--on their own part, at any rate--as a
wicked disturbance of sacred rites. As the meal progressed (and Mr.
Raven's cook proved to be an unusually clever and good one) I was
astonished at Mr. Cazalette's gastronomic powers and at his love of
mad dishes: indeed, I never saw a man eat so much, nor with such
hearty appreciation of his food, nor in such a concentrated silence.
Nevertheless, that he kept his ears wide open to what was being said
around him, I soon discovered. I was telling Mr. Raven and his niece
of my adventure of the afternoon, and suddenly I observed that Mr.
Cazalette, on the other side of the round table at which we sat, had
stopped eating, and that, knife and fork still in his queer, claw-like
hands, he was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning
eyes full of a strange, absorbed interest. I paused--involuntarily.
"Go on!" said he. "Did you mention the name Netherfield just then?"
"I did," said I. "Netherfield."
"Well, continue with your tale," he said. "I'm listening. I'm a
silent man when I'm busy with my meat and drink, but I've a fine pair
of ears."
He began to ply knife and fork again, and I went on with my story,
continuing it until the parting with Salter Quick. When I came to
that, the footman who stood behind Mr. Cazalette's chair was just
removing his last plate, and the old man leaned back a little and
favoured the three of us with a look.
"Aye, well," he said, "and that's an interesting story, Middlebrook,
and it tempts me to break my rule and talk a bit. It was some
churchyard this fellow was seeking?"
"A churchyard--in this neighbourhood," I replied. "Or--churchyards."
"Where there were graves with the name Netherfield on their stones or
slabs or monuments," he continued.
"Aye--just so. And those men he foregathered with at the inn, they'd
never heard of anything at that point, nor elsewhere?"
"Neither there nor elsewhere," I assented.
"Then if there is such a place," said he, "it'll be one of those
disused burial-grounds of which there are examples here in the north,
and not a few."
"You know of some?" suggested Mr. Raven.
"I've seen such places," answered Mr. Cazalette. "Betwixt here--the
sea-coast--and the Cheviots, westward, there's a good many spots that
Goldsmith might have drawn upon for his deserted village. The folks
go--the bit of a church falls into ruins--its graveyard gets choked
with weeds--the stones are covered with moss and lichen--the monuments
fall and are obscured by the grass--underneath the grass and the weed
many an old family name lies hidden. And what'll that man be wanting
to find any name at all for, I'd like to know!"
"The queer thing to me," observed Mr. Raven, "is that two men should
be wanting to find it at the same time."
"That looks as if there were some very good reason why it should be
found, doesn't it?" remarked his niece. "Anyway, it all sounds very
queer--you've brought mystery with you, Mr. Middlebrook! Can't you
suggest anything, Mr. Cazalette? I'm sure you're good at solving
problems."
But just then Mr. Cazalette's particular servant put a fresh dish in
front of him--a curry, the peculiar aroma of which evidently aroused
his epicurean instinct. Instead of responding to Miss Raven's
invitation he relapsed into silence, and picked up another fork.
When dinner was over I excused myself from sitting with the two elder
men over their wine--Mr. Cazalette, whom by that time I, of course,
knew for a Scotchman, turned out to have an old-fashioned taste for
claret--and joined Miss Raven in the hall, a great, roomy, shadowy
place which was evidently popular. There was a great fire in its big
hearth-place with deep and comfortable chairs set about it; in one of
these I found her sitting, a book in her hand. She dropped it as I
approached and pointed to a chair at her side.
"What do you think of that queer old man?" she asked in a low voice as I
sat down. "Isn't there something almost--what is it?--uncanny?--about
him?"
"You might call him that," I assented. "Yes--I think uncanny would fit
him. A very marvellous man, though, at his age."
"Aye!" she exclaimed, under her breath. "If I could live to see it, it
wouldn't surprise me if he lived to be four hundred. He's so queer. Do
you know that he actually goes out early--very early--in the morning
and swims in the open sea?"
"Any weather?" I suggested.
"No matter what the weather is," she replied. "He's been here three
weeks now, and he has never missed that morning swim. And sometimes
the mornings have been Arctic--more than I could stand, anyway, and
I'm pretty well hardened."
"A decided character!" I said musingly. "And somehow, he seems to fit
in with his present surroundings. From what I have seen of it, Mr.
Raven was quite right in telling me that this house was a museum."
I was looking about me as I spoke. The big, high-roofed hall, like
every room I had so far seen, was filled from floor to ceiling with
books, pictures, statuary, armour, curiosities of every sort and of
many ages. The prodigious numbers of the books alone showed me that I
had no light task in prospect. But Miss Raven shook her head.
"Museum!" she exclaimed. "I should think so! But you've seen
nothing--wait till you see the north wing. Every room in that is
crammed with things--I think my great-uncle, who left all this to
Uncle Francis recently, must have done nothing whatever but buy, and
buy, and buy things, and then, when he got them home, have just dumped
them down anywhere! There's some order here," she added, looking
round, "but across there, in the north wing, it's confusion."
"Did you know your great-uncle?" I asked.
"I? No!" she replied. "Oh, dear me, no! I'd never been in the north
until Uncle Francis came home from India some months ago and fetched
me from the school where I'd been ever since my father and mother
died--that was when I was twelve. No, except my father, I never knew
any of the Raven family. I believe Uncle Francis and myself are the
very last."
"You must like living under the old family roof?" I suggested.
She gave me a somewhat undecided look.
"I'm not quite sure," she answered. "Uncle Francis is the very soul of
kindness--I think he's the very kindest person, man or woman, I ever
came across, but--I don't know."
"Don't know--what?" I asked.
"Don't know if I really like this place," she said. "As I said to you
this afternoon, this is a very odd house altogether, and there's a
strange atmosphere about it, and I think something must have happened
here. I--well, personally, I feel as if I were something so very small
and insignificant, shut up in immensity."
"That's because it's a little strange, even now," I suggested. "You'll
get used to it. And I suppose there's society."
"Uncle Francis is a good deal of a recluse," she answered. "It's
really a very good thing that I'm fond of outdoor life, and that I
take an interest in books, too. But I'm very deficient in knowledge in
book matters--do teach me something while you're here!--I'd like to
know a good deal about all these folios and quartos and so on."
I made haste to reply that I should be only too happy to put my
knowledge at her disposal, and she responded by saying that she would
like to help me in classifying and inspecting the various volumes
which the dead-and-gone great-uncle had collected. We got on very well
together, and I was a little sorry when my host came in with his other
guest--who, a loop-hole being given him, proceeded to give us a
learned dissertation on the evidences of Roman occupation of the North
of England as evidenced by recent and former discoveries of coins
between Trent and Tweed: it was doubtless very interesting, and a
striking proof of Mr. Cazalette's deep and profound knowledge of his
special subject, and at another time I should have listened to it
gladly. But--somehow I should just then have preferred to chat quietly
in the corner of the hearth with Miss Raven.
We all retire early--that, Mr. Raven informed me with a shy laugh, as
if he were confessing a failing, was the custom of the house. But, he
added, I should find a fire in my sitting-room, so that if I wanted to
read or write, I should be comfortable in my retirement. On hearing
that, I begged him to countermand any such luxuries on my account in
future; it was my invariable habit, I assured him, to retire to bed at
ten o'clock, wherever I was--reading or writing at night, I said,
were practices which I rigidly tabooed. Mr. Cazalette, who stood by,
grimly listening, nodded approval.
"Wise lad!" he said. "That's another reason why I'm what I am. Don't
let any mistake be made about it!--the old saw, much despised and
laughed at though it is, has more in it than anybody thinks for. Get
to your pillow early, and leave it early!--that's the sure thing."
"I don't think I should like to get up as early as you do, though,"
remarked Mr. Raven. "You certainly don't give the worms much chance!"
"Aye, and I've caught a few in my time," assented the old gentleman,
complacently. "And I hope to catch a few more yet. You folk who don't
get up till the morning's half over don't know what you miss."
I slept soundly that night--a strange bed and unfamiliar surroundings
affect me not at all. Just as suddenly as I had dropped asleep, I
woke. My windows face due east--I was instantly aware that the sun had
either risen or was just about to rise. Springing out of bed and
drawing up the blind of one of the three tall, narrow windows of my
room, I saw him mounting behind a belt of pine and fir which stretched
along a bluff of land that ran down to the open sea. And I saw, too,
that it was high tide--the sea had stolen up the creek which ran right
to the foot of the park, and the wide expanse of water glittered and
coruscated in the brilliance of the morning glory.
My watch lay on the dressing-table close by; glancing at it, I saw
that the time was twenty-five minutes to seven. I had been told that
the family breakfasted at nine, so I had nearly two-and-a-half hours
of leisure. Of course, I would go out, and enjoy the freshness of the
morning. I turned to the window again, just to take another view of
the scenery in front of the house, and to decide in which direction I
would go. And there, emerging from a wicket-gate that opened out of an
adjacent plantation, I caught sight of Mr. Cazalette.
It was evident that this robust octogenarian had been taking that
morning swim of which Miss Raven had told me the previous evening. He
was muffled up in an old pea-jacket; various towels were festooned
about his shoulders; his bald head shone in the rising sun. I watched
him curiously as he came along the borders of a thick yew hedge at the
side of the gardens. Suddenly, at a particular point, he stopped, and
drawing something out of his towels, thrust it, at the full length of
his arm, into the closely interwoven mass of twig and foliage at his
side. Then he moved forward towards the house; a bushy clump of
rhododendron hid him from my sight. Two or three minutes later I heard
a door close somewhere near my own; Mr. Cazalette had evidently
re-entered his own apartment.
I was bathed, shaved, and dressed by a quarter past seven, and finding
my way out of the house went across the garden towards the wicket-gate
through which I had seen Mr. Cazalette emerge--as he had come from the
sea that way, it was, I concluded, the nearest way to it. My path led
by the yew-hedge which I have just mentioned, and I suddenly saw the
place where Mr. Cazalette had stood when he thrust his arm into it;
thereabouts, the ground was soft, mossy, damp: the marks of his shoes
were plain. Out of mere curiosity, I stood where he had stood, and
slightly parting the thick, clinging twigs, peeped into the obscurity
behind. And there, thrust right in amongst the yew, I saw something
white, a crumpled, crushed-up lump of linen, perhaps a man's
full-sized pocket-handkerchief, whereon I could make out, even in that
obscurity (and nothing in the way of hedges can be thicker or darker
than one of old, carefully-trimmed yew) brown stains and red stains,
as if from contact with soil or clay in one case, with blood in the
other.
I went onward, considerably mystified. But most people, chancing upon
anything mysterious try to explain it to their own satisfaction. I
came to the conclusion that Mr. Cazalette, during his morning swim--no
doubt in very shallow waters--had cut hand or foot against some sharp
pebble or bit of rock, and had used his handkerchief as a bandage
until the bleeding stopped. Yet--why thrust it away into the
yew-hedge, close to the house? Why carry it from the shore at all, if
he meant to get rid of it? And why not have consigned it to his
dirty-linen basket and have it washed?
"Decidedly an odd character," I mused. "A man of mystery!"
Then I dismissed him from my thoughts, my mind becoming engrossed by
the charm of my surroundings. I made my way down to the creek, passed
through the belt of pine and fir over which I had seen the sun rise,
and came out on a little, rock-bound cove, desolate and wild. Here one
was shut out from everything but the sea in front: Ravensdene Court
was no longer visible; here, amongst great masses of fallen cliff and
limpet-encrusted rock, round which the full strength of the tide was
washing, one seemed to be completely alone with sky and strand.
But the place was tenanted. I had not taken twenty paces along the
foot of the overhanging cliff before I pulled myself sharply to a
halt. There, on the sand before me, his face turned to the sky, his
arms helplessly stretched, lay Salter Quick. I knew he was dead in my
first horrified glance. And for the second time that morning, I saw
blood--red, vivid, staining the shining particles in the yellow,
sun-lighted beach.