The Castle by the Sea/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
THE ALARM
TWO days later, just after lunch, I was informed by Jackman that Mr. Peter Toosey would like to speak to me. He entered with several symptoms of embarrassment, one of which consisted of sitting on my hat, which, of course, ought not to have been where it was. But he at last found a vent for his voice.
"I think I can suggest an explanation of the events which have troubled you, Mr. Brabazon," he said.
"My dear sir," said I, at once arrested, "if you can, you have my eternal gratitude."
"Let us take it logically," said Mr. Toosey, gaining confidence, and spreading out a color-stained bunch of fingers. "One, the presence of an outsider, rambling through the rooms by night, discloses that there is something in the Castle which some one wants."
"That I will not dispute," I said dryly.
"Next," said Mr. Toosey, ticking off a finger, "the existence of spies, demonstrated by you by sundry tests, shows that the Castle is watched night and day."
"Granted!" I again accented.
"It is then obvious," proceeded Mr. Toosey, "that the spies are set to prevent something or some one from: leaving the Castle."
"Let us suppose that," I agreed.
"Is it treasure? The treasure won't walk out of its own accord. It is therefore a man, with or without treasure. Some one, therefore, in the Castle is the object of their manœuvres."
"That sounds quite plausible," I said. "And it obviously is n't I."
"No, not you," he asserted confidently.
"Nor Mr. or Mrs. Jackman," I went on.
"Certainly not," agreed Mr. Toosey.
"Well, then, there's yourself," I suggested.
Mr. Toosey was thrown into confusion. "I don't think that I am of any interest to the gang," he stammered. "I will admit I had n't thought of myself. I thought of some one else."
"In the name of fortune, whom?" I asked.
Mr. Toosey lowered his voice. "Some one concealed in the Castle," he said.
"But—" I began, staggered.
"What," suggested Peter Toosey, now alive with his idea, "what if one of the gang is already hiding in the Castle, seeking refuge from the friends he has betrayed?"
I pondered it. "Probably a member of a secret Russian society who has broken his vows," proceeded Mr. Toosey, warming, "and with a pack of blood-thirsty wretches on his trail!"
"It's an exciting idea," I said.
"Or ruffianly members of the Camorra!" said Mr. Toosey, following up his advantage. "Or even Fenians!"
"If you are right," I said, "I will lodge a complaint with the Russian embassy, with the Italian Government, and the Head Centre in New York. We must stop it."
"Of course mine is only an idea," said he modestly.
"A very ingenious idea," I said. "We will certainly go into it when we have a little leisure. If we could capture one or two—"
He retired in a glow of satisfaction, promising to think out further ideas, and I went on with my writing. I was planning nothing short of a dinner party, in which four ladies were to figure. But now I had a happy notion. Mr. Toosey might assist me more nearly to balance the excessive numbers of the other sex. I was pleased with my inspiration as I penned my invitation to Mrs. Harvey and her daughter at Two Bridges, and to Miss Fuller and Miss Forrest at Southington. I secured Mr. Toosey as a guest before he left that day.
I had not, I confess, anticipated the downfall of my extreme hopes; and the Southington reply came like a blow in the face. Miss Forrest and Miss Fuller much regretted.... Now why?
Oh, well, I threw sentiment to the winds and gave way to my irritation. At least Miss Harvey was coming and bringing her mother, who "looks forward to seeing your ancient Castle." And Mr. Toosey would serve for Mrs. Harvey. Mrs. Jackman, all agog with excitement at this unwonted festivity, was doing her utmost. I rather fancied that Mr. Toosey had something to communicate to me on the afternoon of the day, but, fearing he had further developed his ideas, I dodged him, made a bolt for it, and stayed out on the water till rather late. When I returned I had just time to dress and get down to my arriving guests. The car brought the American ladies.
Mrs. Harvey was a woman of comfortable body, with a pleasant smile, and a wrinkled capable face. She looked as if she lived alertly and briskly, yet let nothing disturb her, a combination we are hardly able to arrive at in these less fortunate isles. She was dressed as smartly as her daughter, and seemed to me to retain as much youthful fire. To my renewed astonishment, after his initial shyness had worn off, Mr. Toosey developed amazingly; under the influence of wine he blossomed like a flower, and delighted the table with his anecdotes and ideas. Encouraged by his audience he retired on stories of the Latin Quarter, during his youth, which began gradually to assume such weird colors that I hastened to intervene. I do not know that it was necessary, for Mrs. Harvey was sprightly with laughter, and her daughter listened without manifest distress.
"Mamma," she said abruptly across the table, "we must go to Paris this fall."
"Very well, my dear," said Mrs. Harvey obediently. "I dare say your papa can do without us till Christmas. I suppose you will spend Christmas here, Sir Gilbert?" she inquired, turning to me.
"If I were Sir Gilbert, I certainly would," said I.
"Of course, it's my mistake," she said smiling.
"I should just love to spend a Christmas in an old-world place like this," remarked Miss Harvey.
Mr. Toosey, feeling he had had his day, was making up for lost time with the courses.
After dinner I conducted my guests through such portions of the Castle as were available, and they enjoyed the excursion all the more that Jackman and I were obliged to carry long brass candlesticks.
"Say, we should have all this lighted with electricity," observed Mrs. Harvey.
We were then in the picture-gallery, and there was considerable excuse for her remark, inasmuch as we were striving in vain to make out the features of Lady Claire.
"She's a lovely woman," said Mrs. Harvey admiringly. Mr. Toosey had passed us, explaining to Miss Harvey at her earnest request how he painted.
"Then she was your great-grandmother, Sir Gilbert?" asked my lady.
She seemed to me rather muddle-headed, but I disclaimed the identity again politely.
"Oh, yes," she gave me a meaning smile, but I couldn't fathom its meaning. "This is a pretty little property," she went on appraisingly, "but it would be all the better for improvement, would n't it, Mr. Brabazon?"
To my ears there was a perceptible emphasis on my name, by which I thought she was impressing it on herself.
"I should say a few thousand pounds would help it much," I said. "It's been neglected since the present owner got it. I gather he has no money."
"But if he were to marry well, that could easily be altered," said Mrs. Harvey, and again I caught her significant smile.
"No doubt," said I, indifferently.
"That's the way, I think, the world keeps its balance," observed Mrs. Harvey. "It levels up that way."
"I suppose so," I assented, following her notion which seemed to have an idea in it. "Stable equilibrium is best achieved as a resultant of divergent forces."
"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Harvey.
"I beg yours," I returned. "I was thinking aloud."
"Well, if thinking's going to help you any, go on thinking," said she good-naturedly.
"Well, we gain equipoise by constant adjustments. We should wobble over without them."
She looked puzzled. "I'm thinking aloud," I explained again. "No doubt if Sir Gilbert were wise he would not come down with a crash. Perhaps he will be."
"It all depends on him," observed Mrs. Harvey, eying me. And at that moment it flashed on my mind that she was under an astonishing misapprehension. I stood silent for a moment, wondering how I should disillusionize her, wondering also how she had come to make the odd mistake. And behind these thoughts suddenly arose the dim and formless shapes of other and even stranger thoughts. I saw Miss Harvey and Miss Forrest and Miss Fuller through a mist of vague guesses and chances and hazy speculations. It was as if a nebula of doubt had suddenly sprung up and around me and them. How long I was silent I do not know, but thoughts are instant, so it may have been but a minute or two. I was roused from my reverie not by Mrs. Harvey, but by Mrs. Jackman's voice.
"Please, sir, a lady wishes to see you on urgent business."
I stared. "What?" I said.
"Miss Forrest, sir;" she paused, her eyes ardent with some emotion. In wonder and anxiety I turned away, with an apology to my companion, and followed Mrs. Jackman down the stairs. In the hall was Perdita in evening dress, a fleecy wrap hanging from her shoulder.
"You have come after all," I said, going forward with my two hands outstretched. "Oh, how unkind of you to come so late, and how kind to come at all
"Mr. Brabazon," she began impetuously, paying this outbreak no heed. "There's a man about the house—two men, I saw them—one came in at the gate, and there was another. And he was stealing through the shrubbery, and remembering what has happened here I thought you ought to know," she ended breathlessly, and my sentiment slipped from me, as her wrap was slipping from her, leaving her with white and beautiful arms in the dim light of the hall.
"When?" I asked.
"Just now," she breathed. "I 've run all the way. I don't think they can be here before me. I dodged through the meadow and through the lime avenue. They went by the shrubberies towards the back of the house. I saw them plainly in the moonlight."
"You brave girl!" I said, and put a hand on her shoulder. I was just aware that it was resting not upon her dress, but upon the supple splendor of her arm; and I am sure she was conscious of nothing save the invaders.
"They may have resolved to move to-night, thinking we are engaged and off guard," I said. "Thanks to you, we are forewarned. Now, you will let me give you a glass of wine."
She declined, but I insisted, and I left her in the dining-room under Mrs. Jackman's care while I ran up-stairs. I gave Jackman the news and drew Toosey aside to communicate it to him. But my action excited the curiosity of Miss Harvey.
"What is it?" she asked. "Has anything happened? Do tell me."
It seemed hopeless to shut them out of our secret, as we should require all the available male assistance we could muster; and so I told her frankly. She seemed delighted.
"This is just a real Castle affair," she said cheerfully. "I can imagine we are being besieged by horrible and vicious enemies, can't you, mamma?"
I don't know if Mrs. Harvey was able to stretch her imagination so far, but she certainly looked uneasy. Her comfortable appearance vanished, and she cast anxious glances at me, so that I felt constrained to reassure her. The ladies accompanied us down-stairs and Jackman sought weapons in the kitchen. I fear we were not armed after Miss Harvey's heart, nor in keeping with our environment. We hardly did credit to a castle; for Jackman had possessed himself of a chopper, I was supplied with a rake, and Mr. Toosey was equipped with a Turk's head broom. Jackman's weapon was certainly formidable to observe, but I had my doubts if it would come into operation. What must happen next but that Miss Harvey should insist on accompanying us? And while we were demurring, Perdita, who had been conferring with her, expressed her intention of coming to point out in what direction the burglars had gone. With this accession to our attacking force it began almost to be safer to venture out than to stay in a dispeopled fortress; and I was on the point of inviting Mrs. Harvey also to join us. But Miss Christobel seized a carving knife from the table and walked out into the hall, thus giving us the signal for an advance. We opened the door and sallied forth.
I suppose we might have been considered a reconnaissance in force; for our object was to locate the enemy and measure his strength. We went cautiously at first, all the more that the moon had gone in, and the garden was steeped in a vague twilight. Perdita kept close by me—perhaps it was I who kept close by Perdita—and Mr. Toosey followed, brandishing his Turk's head. Miss Harvey and Jackman, with the murderous weapons, brought up the rear. We stealthily crept along the drive to the avenue where the road for tradesmen's carts deviated from it towards the back parts of the Castle.
"This is where I saw them," said Perdita breathlessly. "They were going, oh! so quietly."
We diverged through the shrubbery, and beat it from end to end, but encountered nothing. Thence in a body we reached the rear of the house. Still no one was to be found. So we made a circuit of the north side, and came out by the tangled orchard. Jackman here bravely volunteered to reconnoitre, and we watched him become part of the darkness as he strode off. We waited five minutes—six minutes; and then a noise disengaged itself on the still air towards the left.
"It's on the front lawn," said Miss Harvey in my ears, her carving knife tickling my ribs. "There, there!"
It was true. The sound of a falling body, as it seemed, reached us from the front of the house. I dashed off at my best speed, with some one at my heels, and along the path we raced in pursuit.
I jumped the gravel path that crossed our track and sped on to the lawns to the south. Before me I could faintly see a big border, and I swerved to avoid it. Immediately afterwards my foot caught in something, and I tripped, staggered, recovered myself and ran on. A wild cry came from behind me; I turned half-way round in my course to look back, but still ran on. The tail of the moon lit up the prospect thinly, and I described in the distance a man making off at full speed. The sight stimulated me, and I increased my pace, stumbled again, and went down headlong. Recovering myself stupidly, I felt something under my feet, and groped for it. It was a wire rope stretched along the lawn.
The man had vanished, and I knew it was hopeless to attempt to overtake him. Behind me was a voice still crying, and I went back. A figure lying on the lawn met my eyes, and I stooped:
"Are you hurt?" I asked.
"My foot's tangled," said Perdita's voice.
I disengaged her from the wire, put my arms about her, and lifted her with an absurd sense of joy.
"Hark!" said she, "I think it must be Miss Harvey."
Exploration led us to the second victim. We found her thrown with the impetus of her run into a bed of tea-roses, where she lay in distress. I raised her, too, gently.
"Please," she said, "be careful. These horrid thorns! Oh, I shan't be able to wear evening dresses for a week."
"Damn the wires!" I said savagely.
Perdita limped, and Miss Harvey uttered little distressful exclamations, and I looked about for further news. There was no sign of Toosey or of Jackman; but a shout came from beyond the rhododendrons.
"Wait here," I said to the girls, and I leapt the barrier of wire, and dashed into the lower garden. Almost at once I was seized by the legs and thrown heavily to the ground, while a long stick was poked into the small of my back.
"Damn you, lie still—lie still, damn you! I've got you!" yelled a voice which I recognized as Mr. Toosey's.
"Hold up, you fool!" I cried angrily, as I felt a feather broom sweep up my hair. "Hold up, you confounded ass!"
Mr. Toosey held up. "Lord, I thought it was a burglar!" he explained apologetically, as he helped me to my feet. I was too angry to retort, and marched off without a word, Toosey following, and pouring out his explanations and excuses. We had nearly reached the ladies, when in the midst of his apologies, he tripped and went over, saluting the earth with a solid dull bang. He scrambled to his feet clumsily.
"Oh, good Lord, I'd forgotten my wires," he bleated.
"Your wires!" I exclaimed, turning on him.
"Yes; I wanted to tell you I had laid them this morning," he said triumphantly. "I thought it an excellent notion if they should come. And, by George, it nearly did for them. That noise we heard—"
"Oh, you blatant ass!" I cried, out of patience. "You 'll be the death of me. It nearly did for Miss Harvey and Miss Forrest. Oh, you inconceivable dolt!"
I turned away in high dudgeon, and offered my arm to Perdita, who after a momentary hesitation accepted it. Her ankle had suffered a strain, and she limped perceptibly. Miss Harvey volubly offered her opinion on the night's transactions, and Mr. Toosey had sunk below apologies. These, however, he resumed when we had regained the house, and been greeted by Mrs. Harvey as if we had returned from the dead.
"I know I'm marked all over," said Christobel plaintively. "Isn't there a scratch on my back?* she asked her mother.
"There is a sort of speckled one," said Mr. Toosey, looking over Mrs. Harvey's shoulder interestedly, "but not a large one, or very deep," he said eagerly.
Miss Harvey bounced away indignantly. Injuria formae had driven her to a feminine petulance I had never yet observed in her. She frowned like a thunderstorm, threatening the rain of tears. Perdita limped across to comfort her, and of a sudden I felt sorry for Mr. Toosey. I owed him something in compensation, for the accident had given me privileges, and I felt a barrier had insensibly gone down between me and mine. Forlorn he stood looking at the havoc of his handiwork, till I breathed a cheering word into his ear. Of course I dared not do it aloud. Mrs. Harvey also was being called upon to console her daughter. I believe she thought the injuries had been the horrible result of a contest with the burglars.
"It was n't a bad idea," I whispered. "But you should have given us warning."
"I—I intended to this afternoon, but I couldn't find you," said Mr. Toosey, picking up, and added: "I should n't be surprised if one of those fellows is out there with a broken leg."
At that I had a revulsion; for Perdita's ankle twinkled in my mind's eye, and with indignation I recognized what it might have meant. His silly complacency infuriated me.
"Well, you'd better make yourself scarce till they 've got over it," I said inhospitably. "You 'll catch it if you stay."
"Perhaps you 're right," he sighed, and he slipped from the room like a schoolboy anxious to escape the master's eye.
As I showed him out, Jackman came breathlessly into the hall.
"Did—did you find any one, sir?" he asked.
"No," said I, shortly. "Did you?"
"No, sir," he returned promptly, "not a sign of any one."
I had one further consolation that night. I helped Perdita into the motor-car from which the Harveys were to drop her at Southington. Meanwhile I embroidered some foolish frivolity about the goddess's injured shoulder. She fretted frankly.
"If you guessed," said I, contemplating her from behind, "how wonderfully the scratch sets off your hues you would not mind."
She paused. "Does it?" she asked with interest.
I nodded. "Flaws only emphasize the nobility of a pattern," I said sententiously, "provided always they are tiny flaws. It is only by contrast that sheer beauty emerges at its best. Set a pretty girl beside a plain one—and see how she shines! And the beauty of an impaired surface is the lovelier for the comparison!"
"You think so?" said Miss Harvey, pensively.
"Yes, it is so. Mr. Brabazon's right," said her mother, anxiously.
"Why else did the fashion of patches come in?" I asked, "if not designed to throw up the perfection of an exquisite complexion?"
"That's true," said Christobel. "But it did smart," she added with a smile. "I believe those roses of yours have more thorns than ours."
"Ah, they should not have pricked a rose!" I exclaimed.
Christobel beamed in her magnificent frank way, as a queen might extend a favor to her courtier.
"That's just lovely, Mr. Brabazon," said she. "Why, what's the matter with your face?"
The smile spread and broke into laughter. She laughed as if she were at a pantomime. I inquired of Perdita with my eyes.
"It's rather dirty," she said gravely, but her gravity was a little constrained.
"Oh, damn it. It's Toosey's infernal broom," said I, in a flash of surmise. "He brushed all my face." Miss Harvey still laughed, and a trickle of laughter came into Perdita's face.
"I don't mind," I said recklessly. "I took part of it out in a swear-word. And I 'll take the rest out in something else."
They did n't know, but I took it out in assisting Perdita into the car a little later. I ought only to have been a prop, or crutch. I confess I was more. I drew her by her slender arm towards me, so that she was forced to lean on my shoulder, and then I bodily lifted her in. For just a moment she swayed in the air in my grasp, and then her skirts blew back into my face, thrilling me. She thought she was going to fall, and clutched me, but she was n't. I set her gently down; but I felt her in my arms long after the car had vanished.
I felt her in my arms when I went to bed, and lay pondering the events of the night. But across this persisting consciousness a thought cut sharply. Why did Mrs. Harvey obviously suppose me to be Sir Gilbert Norroy? And if she had fallen into that error, had her daughter also? And if Christobel, the outspoken had—?
Back at this juncture flowed that delicious consciousness. And I believe I passed to sleep holding Perdita in my arms.