Читать книгу A Monk of Cruta - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 13

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"Paul!"

Paul had walked unannounced into his mother's favourite little sitting-room at Vaux Court, tired and travel-stained. She rose to her feet and looked at him anxiously.

"Don't be alarmed, mother," he said, stooping down and kissing her. "There's nothing at all the matter."

"Arthur is well?"

"Quite well; I was with him yesterday afternoon. There's nothing the matter. London was boring me, that's all, and I thought I'd run down here and have a look at the old place, and perhaps a day's hunting."

Relieved of her anxiety, Mrs. de Vaux was unaffectedly pleased to see her eldest son. She was a fine, white-haired old lady, dignified and handsome, but with very few soft lines about her comely face.

"I am delighted to see you, of course, Paul! The meet is at Dytchley woods to-morrow! I hope you'll have a good day. Take your coat off. I have rung for some tea."

"Thanks! How bright and cheerful the fire seems. I walked from the station, and it was miserably cold."

"Of course it was. I wish I had known you were coming. We have so little work for the carriage horses."

"I did not make up my mind until half an hour before the train started," Paul answered. "Dick Carruthers wanted me to run over to Paris with him for a couple of days, and I was undecided which to do. I heard that it was cold and wet there, though; and there is always a charm about this old place which makes me glad to come back to it."

"There is not such another place in England," his mother remarked, pouring out the tea. "Although this is such an outlandish county, there have been a dozen people here this week, asking to be allowed to see over the Abbey. I always give permission when you are away, and there is no one stopping here."

Paul drank his tea, and stretched himself out in his low chair with an air of comfort.

"I am glad you let them see the place, mother," he said. "It is only right. What class of people do you have, as a rule? Clergymen and ecclesiastical architects, I suppose?"

"Chiefly. There are a good many Americans, though; and yesterday, or the day before, a Roman Catholic priest. He spent the day in the cloisters and wandering about the Abbey, I believe."

Paul looked up suddenly, and drew his chair back out of the firelight. For the first time, his mother noticed how pale and ghastly his face was.

"Paul, are you ill?" she asked anxiously. "What is the matter with you?"

"Nothing. I am only tired. It is a long journey, you know—and the walk from the station. Indeed, it is nothing else. I am quite well."

His mother resumed her seat. She had risen in sudden alarm. Her son's face had frightened her.

"You look just as your poor father used to look sometimes," she said softly. "It always frightened me. It was as though you had a pain somewhere, or had suddenly seen a ghost. You are sure you are well?"

"Quite, mother! You need have no fear. Arthur and I have your constitution, I think."

His tone was deeper, almost hollow. He still kept his chair back amongst the shadows. Mrs. de Vaux was only partially satisfied.

"I am afraid you have been keeping too late hours, Paul, or reading too much. Lord Westover was saying the other day that you were in a very Bohemian set—journalists and artists, and those sort of people. I am afraid they keep awful hours."

"Lord Westover knows nothing about it," Paul answered wearily. "Ordinary London society would tire me to death in a fortnight. There is another class of people, though, whose headquarters are in London, far more cultured, and quite as exclusive, with whom association is a far greater distinction. I can go anywhere in the first set, because I am Paul de Vaux, of Vaux Abbey, and have forty thousand a year. I am permitted to enter the other only as the author of an unfashionable novel, which a few of them have thought leniently of. Which seem the worthier conditions?"

"I am answered, Paul. Of course, in a sense, you are right. I am an old woman, and the twaddle of a London drawing-room would fall strangely upon my ears now, but I had my share of it before Arthur was born. If I were a man, I should want variety—a little sauce—and you are right to seek for it. And now, won't you go and have a bath, and change your things. You still look pale, and I think it would refresh you. Shall I ring for Reynolds? I suppose you have not brought your own man?"

He stretched out his hand, and arrested her fingers upon the bell. "In a moment, mother. It is so comfortable here, and I really think it is my favourite room."

He looked round approvingly. It was a curious, hexagonal chamber, with an oak-beamed ceiling, curving into a dome. The walls were hung with a wonderful tapestry of a soft, rich colour, and every piece of furniture in the room was of the Louis Quinze period. There was scarcely a single anachronism. The Martin de Vaux of forty years ago had been an artist, and a man of taste; and when he had brought home his bride, a duke's daughter, he had spent a small fortune on this apartment. Since then it had always been her favourite, and she was always glad to hear any one praise it.

"I seldom sit in any other," she remarked complacently. "The blue drawing-room is open to-night, but that is because Lord and Lady Westover are dining here. I am afraid May will not be able to come; she has a cold or something of the sort. I wonder whether it is true, what they say, that she is delicate."

Paul did not appear much interested. He had a purpose in lingering here, and it had nothing to do with May Westover's health. There was a little information he wished to obtain without exciting his mother's curiosity. But it was not exactly an easy matter.

"I was interested in what you said about the visitors here," he remarked. "I daresay to Americans this place must be very interesting."

"You would think so if you saw some of them. They are a great deal too inquisitive and familiar for Reynolds. He detests them. It is far more interesting to think of that Catholic priest who was here the other day. He lingered about the place as though he had known it all his life, and loved it; and, Reynolds says, he prayed for two hours in the chapel."

"Did you see him yourself?"

"Yes, in the distance. I did not notice him particularly. I wished afterwards that I had. Reynolds' report of him pleased me so much. I daresay he was conjuring up pictures of the days when the old Abbey was full of grey-hooded monks, and the chapel was echoing day and night to their solemn chants and prayers. Sometimes, in the gloaming, I can almost fancy myself that I see them kneeling in long rows in those rich stalls, and hear the rustle of their gowns as they pass slowly down the aisles. I think he must have found it sad to linger about in that beautiful chapel, so cold, and empty, and bare. That is why I like Roman Catholics. They have such a strong reverential affection for their places of worship, and take such a delight in adorning them. It is almost like a personal love."

Paul moved uneasily in his chair and looked steadily into the fire. "Then you did not notice him particularly?"

"Notice him! Notice whom?"

"This priest, or whoever he was."

"I did not see his face, Paul, if that is what you mean. I only remember that he was tall. You seem very much interested in him. No doubt Reynolds could tell you anything you wish to know. Here he is; you had better ask him."

A grey-headed man-servant had entered, bearing a lamp. Mrs. de Vaux turned to him.

"Reynolds, Mr. Paul is interested in hearing about the priest who spent so much time looking over the Abbey yesterday. Can you describe him?"

Reynolds set down the lamp and turned respectfully around. "Not very well, I'm afraid, sir," he said doubtfully. "They all seem so much alike, you know, sir, in those long gowns. He was tall, rather thin, and no hair on his face at all. I can't say that I noticed anything else, except that he spoke in rather a foreign accent."

"You are sure he was a priest, I suppose," Paul asked carelessly. "We hear so much now of impostors, and of things being stolen from places of interest, that it makes one feel suspicious."

"I am quite sure he was no impostor, sir." Reynolds answered confidently. "He was too interested in the place for that. He knew its history better than any one who has ever been here in my day. If he had been one of those sneaking sort of fellows, looking about for what he could get, he would have offered me money, and tried to get rid of me for a time, I think, sir."

"That's true," Paul remarked. "Were you with him all the time, then?"

"Very nearly, sir. He did not like my leaving him at all. He was afraid of missing something worth seeing. Besides, he did not ask to come into the house at all, not even to see the pictures. He spent all his time in the ruins.

"That ends the matter, of course," Paul answered shortly. "There is nothing out there to attract pilferers. Sorry I said anything about it."

"He asked whether you spent much of your time here, and when you would be down again, sir," Reynolds remarked, as he turned to quit the room.

Paul looked up, and then stood quite still for a moment without speaking. A great fear had fallen upon him. Out of the shadows of the past, he seemed to see again that deathbed scene, and the tragedy which had brought down the curtain upon two lives. Almost he could fancy himself again upon his yacht, with the salt sea spray beating against his face, and the white breakers hissing and seething around him, as they made the dangerous passage towards that faint light, which flickered and gleamed in the distant monastery tower. They are safe! They reach the land; they are hurried into that great, gloomy bedchamber, where chill draughts rustled ghost-like amongst the heavy, faded hangings, and the feeble candlelight left weird shadows moving across the floor and upon the walls. Again he heard the rattling of the window-panes, bare and exposed to every gust of wind; the far-off thunder of the sea, like a deep, continuous undernote; and, from an almost unseen corner of the chamber, the monotonous, broken rhythm of sad prayers for the dying, mumbled by that dark, curious-looking priest. And then, when the background of the picture had formed itself in his memory, he saw the deed itself. He saw the white, stricken face suddenly ablaze with that last effort of passionate life; he saw the outstretched arm, the line of fire, and the sudden change in the countenance of the man who stood at the foot of the bed. He saw the cool cynicism replaced by a spasm of ghastly fear, and he heard the low, gurgling cry dying away into a faint moan of terror, as the murdered man sank on to the floor, a crumpled heap. And, last of all, he saw that little brown girl, with her tumbled hair and tear-stained face, clasping the dead body and glaring at every one in the room, with a storm of hatred and impotent fury in her flashing eyes. And that last recollection brought him, like a flash, back to the present—brought him swift, bewildering memories of Adrea, shaking his heart, and bringing the hot colour streaming into his face. He remembered where he was, and why he had left London. He remembered, too, that he was not alone, and with a little start he awoke to the present.

Reynolds had left the room, and his mother was watching him curiously. He found it hard to meet her steady, questioning gaze without flinching.

"Paul," she said slowly, "you are in trouble."

He shook his head. "It is nothing, mother—nothing at all. I ought to beg your pardon for letting my thoughts run away with me so."