The Wheel of Time, Collaboration, Owen Wingrave/Owen Wingrave/Chapter 4
IV
In the drawing-room after dinner the girl found an occasion to approach Spencer Coyle. She stood before him a moment, smiling while she opened and shut her fan, and then she said, abruptly, raising her strange eyes: "I know what you've come for; but it isn't any use."
"I've come to look after you a little. Isn't that any use?"
"It's very kind. But I'm not the question of the hour. You won't do anything with Owen."
Spencer Coyle hesitated a moment. "What will you do with his young friend?"
She stared, looked round her.
"Mr. Lechmere? Oh, poor little lad! We've been talking about Owen. He admires him so."
"So do I. I should tell you that."
"So do we all. That's why we're in such despair."
"Personally, then, you'd like him to be a soldier?" Spencer Coyle inquired.
"I've quite set my heart on it. I adore the army, and I'm awfully fond of my old playmate," said Miss Julian.
Her interlocutor remembered the young man's own different version of her attitude; but he judged it loyal not to challenge the girl.
"It's not conceivable that your old playmate shouldn't be fond of you. He must therefore wish to please you; and I don't see why—between you—you don't set the matter right."
"Wish to please me!" Miss Julian exclaimed. "I'm sorry to say he shows no such desire. He thinks me an impudent wretch. I've told him what I think of him, and he simply hates me."
"But you think so highly! You just told me you admire him."
"His talents, his possibilities, yes; even his appearance, if I may allude to such a matter. But I don't admire his present behavior."
"Have you had the question out with him?" Spencer Coyle asked.
"Oh yes; I've ventured to be frank—the occasion seemed to excuse it. He couldn't like what I said."
"What did you say?"
Miss Julian, thinking a moment, opened and shut her fan again.
"Why, that such conduct isn't that of a gentleman!"
After she had spoken her eyes met Spencer Coyle's, who looked into their charming depths.
"Do you want, then, so much to send him off to be killed?"
"How odd for you to ask that—in such a way!" she replied, with a laugh. "I don't understand your position; I thought your line was to make soldiers!"
"You should take my little joke. But, as regards Owen Wingrave, there's no 'making' needed," Mr. Coyle added. "To my sense"—the little crammer paused a moment, as if with a consciousness of responsibility for his paradox—"to my sense he is, in a high sense of the term, a fighting man."
"Ah, let him prove it!" the girl exclaimed, turning away.
Spencer Coyle let her go; there was something in her tone that annoyed and even a little shocked him. There had evidently been a violent passage between these young people, and the reflection that such a matter was, after all, none of his business only made him more sore. It was indeed a military house, and she was, at any rate, a person who placed her ideal of manhood (young persons doubtless always had their ideals of manhood) in the type of the belted warrior. It was a taste like another; but, even a quarter of an hour later, finding himself near young Lechmere, in whom this type was embodied, Spencer Coyle was still so ruffled that he addressed the innocent lad with a certain magisterial dryness. "You're not to sit up late, you know. That's not what I brought you down for." The dinner-guests were taking leave and the bedroom candles twinkled in a monitory row. Young Lechmere, however, was too agreeably agitated to be accessible to a snub: he had a happy preoccupation which almost engendered a grin.
"I'm only too eager for bedtime. Do you know there's an awfully jolly room?"
"Surely they haven't put you there?"
"No, indeed; no one has passed a night in it for ages. But that's exactly what I want to do—it would be tremendous fun."
"And have you been trying to get Miss Julian's permission?"
"Oh, she can't give leave, she says. But she believes in it, and she maintains that no man dare."
"No man shall! A man in your critical position in particular must have a quiet night," said Spencer Coyle.
Young Lechmere gave a disappointed but reasonable sigh.
"Oh, all right. But mayn't I sit up for a little go at Wingrave? I haven't had any yet."
Mr. Coyle looked at his watch.
"You may smoke one cigarette."
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned round to see his wife tilting candlegrease upon his coat. The ladies were going to bed, and it was Sir Philip's inveterate hour; but Mrs. Coyle confided to her husband that after the dreadful things he had told her she positively declined to be left alone, for no matter how short an interval, in any part of the house. He promised to follow her within three minutes, and after the orthodox hand-shakes the ladies rustled away. The forms were kept up at Paramore as bravely as if the old house had no present heartache. The only one of which Spencer Coyle noticed the omission was some salutation to himself from Kate Julian. She gave him neither a word nor a glance, but he saw her look hard at Owen Wingrave. Her mother, timid and pitying, was apparently the only person from whom this young man caught an inclination of the head. Miss Wingrave marshalled the three ladies—her little procession of twinkling tapers—up the wide oaken stairs and past the watching portrait of her ill-fated ancestor. Sir Philip's servant appeared and offered his arm to the old man, who turned a perpendicular back on poor Owen when the boy made a vague movement to anticipate this office. Spencer Coyle learned afterwards that before Owen had forfeited favor it had always, when he was at home, been his privilege at bedtime to conduct his grandfather ceremoniously to rest. Sir Philip's habits were contemptuously different now. His apartments were on the lower floor, and he shuffled stiffly off to them with his valet's help, after fixing for a moment significantly on the most responsible of his visitors the thick red ray, like the glow of stirred embers, that always made his eyes conflict oddly with his mild manners. They seemed to say to Spencer Coyle, "We'll let the young scoundrel have it to-morrow!" One might have gathered from them that the young scoundrel, who had now strolled to the other end of the hall, had at least forged a check. Mr. Coyle watched him an instant, saw him drop nervously into a chair, and then with a restless movement get up. The same movement brought him back to where his late instructor stood addressing a last injunction to young Lechmere.
"I'm going to bed, and I should like you particularly to conform to what I said to you a short time ago. Smoke a single cigarette with your friend here, and then go to your room. You'll have me down on you if I hear of your having, during the night, tried any preposterous games." Young Lechmere, looking down with his hands in his pockets, said nothing—he only poked at the corner of a rug with his toe; so that Spencer Coyle, dissatisfied with so tacit a pledge, presently went on, to Owen: "I must request you, Wingrave, not to keep this sensitive subject sitting up—and, indeed, to put him to bed and turn his key in the door." As Owen stared an instant, apparently not understanding the motive of so much solicitude, he added: "Lechmere has a morbid curiosity about one of your legends—of your historic rooms. Nip it in the bud."
"Oh, the legend's rather good, but I'm afraid the room's an awful sell!" Owen laughed.
"You know you don't believe that, my boy!" young Lechmere exclaimed.
"I don't think he does," said Mr. Coyle, noticing Owen's mottled flush.
"He wouldn't try a night there himself!" young Lechmere pursued.
"I know who told you that," rejoined Owen, lighting a cigarette in an embarrassed way at the candle, without offering one to either of his companions.
"Well, what if she did?" asked the younger of these gentlemen, rather red. "Do you want them all yourself?" he continued, facetiously, fumbling in the cigarette-box.
Owen Wingrave only smoked quietly; then he exclaimed:
"Yes—what if she did? But she doesn't know," he added.
"She doesn't know what?"
"She doesn't know anything!—I'll tuck him in!" Owen went on gayly, to Mr. Coyle, who saw that his presence, now that a certain note had been struck, made the young men uncomfortable. He was curious, but there was a kind of discretion, with his pupils, that he had always pretended to practise; a discretion that, however, didn't prevent him as he took his way upstairs from recommending them not to be donkeys.
At the top of the staircase, to his surprise, he met Miss Julian, who was apparently going down again. She had not begun to undress, nor was she perceptibly disconcerted at seeing him. She nevertheless, in a manner slightly at variance with the rigor with which she had overlooked him ten minutes before, dropped the words, "I'm going down to look for something. I've lost a jewel."
"A jewel?"
"A rather good turquoise, out of my locket. As it's the only ornament I have the honor to possess—" And she passed down.
"Shall I go with you and help you?" asked Spencer Coyle.
The girl paused a few step below him, looking back with her Oriental eyes.
"Don't I hear voices in the hall?"
"Those remarkable young men are there."
"They'll help me." And Kate Julian descended.
Spencer Coyle was tempted to follow her, but remembering his standard of tact, he re joined his wife in their apartment. He delayed, however, to go to bed, and though he went into his dressing-room, he couldn't bring himself even to take off his coat. He pretended for half an hour to read a novel; after which, quietly, or perhaps I should say agitatedly, he passed from the dressing-room into the corridor. He followed this passage to the door of the room which he knew to have been assigned to young Lechmere, and was comforted to see that it was closed. Half an hour earlier he had seen it standing open; therefore he could take for granted that the bewildered boy had come to bed. It was of this he had wished to assure himself, and having done so, he was on the point of retreating. But at the same instant he heard a sound in the room—the occupant was doing to the window something which showed him that he might knock without the reproach of waking his pupil up. Young Lechmere came in fact to the door in his shirt and trousers. He admitted his visitor in some surprise, and when the door was closed again Spencer Coyle said:
"I don't want to make your life a bur den to you, but I had it on my conscience to see for myself that you're not exposed to undue excitement."
"Oh, there's plenty of that!" said the ingenuous youth. "Miss Julian came down again."
"To look for a turquoise?"
"So she said."
"Did she find it?"
"I don't know. I came up. I left her with poor Wingrave."
"Quite the right thing," said Spencer Coyle.
"I don't know," young Lechmere repeated, uneasily. "I left them quarrelling."
"What about?"
"I don't understand. They're a quaint pair!"
Spencer Coyle hesitated. He had, fundamentally, principles and scruples, but what he had in particular just now was a curiosity, or rather, to recognize it for what it was, a sympathy, which brushed them away.
"Does it strike you that she's down on him?" he permitted himself to inquire.
"Rather!—when she tells him he lies!"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, before me. It made me leave them; it was getting too hot. I stupidly brought up the question of the haunted room again, and said how sorry I was that I had had to promise you not to try my luck with it."
"You can't pry about in that gross way in other people's houses—you can't take such liberties, you know!" Mr. Coyle interjected.
"I'm all right—see how good I am. I don't want to go near the place!" said young Lechmere, confidingly. "Miss Julian said to me, 'Oh, I dare say you'd risk it, but'—and she turned and laughed at poor Owen—'that's more than we can expect of a gentleman who has taken his extraordinary line.' I could see that something had already passed between them on the subject—some teasing or challenging of hers. It may have been only chaff, but his chucking the profession had evidently brought up the question of his pluck."
"And what did Owen say?"
"Nothing at first; but presently he brought out very quietly: 'I spent all last night in the confounded place.' We both stared and cried out at this, and I asked him what he had seen there. He said he had seen nothing, and Miss Julian replied that he ought to tell his story better than that—he ought to make something good of it. 'It's not a story—it's a simple fact,' said he; on which she jeered at him and wanted to know why, if he had done it, he hadn't told her in the morning, since he knew what she thought of him. 'I know, but I don't care,' said Wingrave. This made her angry, and she asked him, quite seriously, whether he would care if he should know she believed him to be trying to deceive us."
"Ah, what a brute!" cried Spencer Coyle.
"She's a most extraordinary girl—I don't know what she's up to."
"Extraordinary indeed—to be romping and bandying words at that hour of the night with fast young men!"
Young Lechmere reflected a moment. "I mean because I think she likes him."
Spencer Coyle was so struck with this unwonted symptom of subtlety that he flashed out: "And do you think he likes her?"
But his interlocutor only replied with a puzzled sigh and a plaintive "I don't know—I give it up!—I'm sure he did see something or hear something," young Lechmere added.
"In that ridiculous place? What makes you sure?"
"I don't know—he looks as if he had. He behaves as if he had."
"Why, then, shouldn't he mention it?"
Young Lechmere thought a moment. "Perhaps it's too grewsome!"
Spencer Coyle gave a laugh. "Aren't you glad, then, you're not in it?"
"Uncommonly!"
"Go to bed, you goose," said Spencer Coyle, with another laugh. "But, before you go, tell me what he said when she told him he was trying to deceive you."
"'Take me there yourself, then, and lock me in!'"
"And did she take him?"
"I don't know—I came up."
Spencer Coyle exchanged a long look with his pupil.
"I don't think they're in the hall now. Where's Owen's own room?"
"I haven't the least idea."
Mr. Coyle was perplexed; he was in equal ignorance, and he couldn't go about trying doors. He bade young Lechmere sink to slumber, and came out into the passage. He asked himself if he should be able to find his way to the room Owen had formerly shown him, remembering that, in common with many of the others, it had its ancient name painted upon it. But the corridors of Paramore were intricate; moreover, some of the servants would still be up, and he didn't wish to have the appearance of roaming over the house. He went back to his own quarters, where Mrs. Coyle soon perceived that his inability to rest had not subsided. As she confessed for her own part, in the dreadful place, to an increased sense of "creepiness," they spent the early part of the night in conversation, so that a portion of their vigil was inevitably beguiled by her husband's account of his colloquy with little Lechmere, and by their exchange of opinions upon it. Towards two o'clock Mrs. Coyle became so nervous about their persecuted young friend, and so possessed by the fear that that wicked girl had availed herself of his invitation to put him to an abominable test, that she begged her husband to go and look into the matter, at whatever cost to his own equilibrium. But Spencer Coyle, perversely, had ended, as the perfect stillness of the night settled upon them, by charming himself into a tremulous acquiescence in Owen's readiness to face a formidable ordeal—an ordeal the more formidable to an excited imagination, as the poor boy now knew from the experience of the previous night how resolute an effort he should have to make. "I hope he is there," he said to his wife; "it puts them all so in the wrong!" At any rate, he couldn't take upon himself to explore a house he knew so little. He was inconsequent—he didn't prepare for bed. He sat in the dressing-room with his light and his novel, waiting to find himself nodding. At last, however, Mrs. Coyle turned over and ceased to talk, and at last, too, he fell asleep in his chair. How long he slept he only knew afterwards by computation; what he knew, to begin with, was that he had started up, in confusion, with the sense of a sudden appalling sound. His sense cleared itself quickly, helped doubtless by a confirmatory cry of horror from his wife's room. But he gave no heed to his wife; he had already bounded into the passage. There the sound was repeated—it was the "Help! help!" of a woman in agonized terror. It came from a distant quarter of the house, but the quarter was sufficiently indicated. Spencer Coyle rushed straight before him, with the sound of opening doors and alarmed voices in his ears, and the faintness of the early dawn in his eyes. At a turn of one of the passages he came upon the white figure of a girl in a swoon on a bench, and in the vividness of the revelation he read as he went that Kate Julian, stricken in her pride too late with a chill of compunction for what she had mockingly done, had, after coming to release the victim of her derision, reeled away, overwhelmed, from the catastrophe that was her work—the catastrophe that the next moment he found himself aghast at on the threshold of an open door. Owen Wingrave, dressed as he had last seen him, lay dead on the spot on which his ancestor had been found. He looked like a young soldier on a battle-field.
THE END