Читать книгу The Dwarf's Chamber - Fergus Hume - Страница 5

Table of Contents

ON leaving that hospitable inn, it was Warwick’s intention to push on towards London; but so stimulated was his curiosity by the landlady’s chatter about the Lelanro family, that he determined to look again on that tantalizing wall, which apparently concealed some strange secret. With this intent he retraced his way across the bridge, still drawing onward by his fiddling the dancing children, and strolled over the meadows in the direction of the Manor. Here, anxious to rid himself of his innocent company, he sat down under a tree, and played to their restless feet until they were fairly wearied out. Then he nodded a kind farewell, and leaving them to pick buttercups till the school-bell rang, he betook himself along the banks of the stream.

This rustic river, of no great width, parted two landscapes markedly dissimilar in character. On the further side a forest of oak, and sycamore, and ash, and birch covered a round swelling hill; and at its foot, numerous large rocks thrust themselves from amid the green foliage into the turbid waters. Overshore the stream fretted and whitened round the Titanic stones, but swept smoothly onward, deep and silent, under the shadow of the bank whereon Warwick stood. Thence spread fat meadow lands dotted with ancient trees, and divided by flowering hedgerows, the rigid intersecting lines of which assimilated the plain to a chess-board. Through this fertility the highroad meandered white and dusty to where the vision was stayed by low-lying hills undulating against the blue June sky. As a finishing touch to the contrast, the peaked roofs of the Manor House showed themselves in the dip of the land, between forest slope and low-lying meadow, linking, as it were, the mountain with the vale, past savagery with present domesticity, being at once a feudal castle and a modern mansion.

After a careless glance at this scene, which would have longer enchained the eye of an artist, Warwick passed into the path which wound tortuously along the flowery banks. Here the green arcade overhead was vocal with the song of bird and hum of insect, while the murmur of the fretting water added a deeper note. Through the boles of the trees which fringed the meadows in a single line he now and then caught a glimpse of slowly-moving cattle, of scampering foals and playful lambs. From such a pastoral landscape his attention was distracted by the trout leaping after May-flies, and in the green twilight of the woods beyond he saw the brown flash of a squirrel springing from one tree-trunk to another. Across the stream flitted glittering dragon-flies and droning bumble-bees, while aloft swallows whirled hither and thither; and from the arching blue rained down the music of an invisible lark. The peaceful beauty of the whole stole imperceptibly into the heart of the wayfarer, and for the moment he questioned whether it would not be wiser to accept the offer of Mistress Sally and make music for the villagers, than to tempt the blows of Fate in far-off toiling, moiling London.

“Here I could be happy,” thought he, leisurely strolling onward. “No care, no trouble, no dread, only rest and comfort, and infinite peace. Merely with a violin and an ambition to be a musician, it is madness to go to London, where I would be but a drop in the ocean. That man of whom my father spoke may not be disposed to help me, and then what should I do?—I, with no friends, no money, with not even a name; a waif, a tramp, a bastard for aught I know. Yet it would be ignoble to rest in my present ignorance of birth and position.”

At this stage of his musings the path rounded a curve of the river, and began to slope gently upward. The gables of the Manor House were now close at hand, and Warwick, mounting the declivity, found himself able to command a fine view of the whole building. Surrounded on three sides by the woods, its mass lay directly on the verge of the stream, which here flowed ominously swift under a Cyclopean wall. From the waters, sullen in their gloom, these grey stones, looking massive enough to resist cannon, rose abruptly for close on twenty feet. Not a loophole, not a window, not even a chink was to be seen in its stern front, and the whole length was draped with dark-green ivy, which accentuated its forbidding appearance. Above this shot the red-tiled roofs, peaked and steep, round turrets, pierced with narrow windows, and lines of machicolated battlements grey with age; the whole jumbled together in picturesque confusion. With the stream moat-like at its foot, and the wild woods on either side, this curious building resembled a feudal castle, such as Doré drew for the tales of Rabelais. Here a robber chief might have dwelt; here a magician might have kept in durance some enchanted princess; yet the building was set in the heart of England, and promised no more extraordinary adventure than the commonplace kind, incident to our prosaic and law-protected existence. Civilization kills the romance of road, and river, and lonely country house.

Much struck with the sight of this wood-encircled castle dominating the swift stream, Warwick looked at it long and earnestly, and finally he sat under a shady oak to make his midday meal. After this he purposed to return to the bridge, and so pursue his way to London along the high-road. Despite the romance of the place, which engendered dreams and set strange melodies floating through his brain, Warwick was too young and healthy to neglect the food provided by Mistress Sally. He finished the meat-pie and the bottle of ale, reserving the bread and cheese for his supper; then throwing himself full length on the soft grass, he smoked luxuriously, and eyed wall and turret and gable through the blue clouds which rolled from his pipe. Seen through so misty a veil, the mansion became enchanted; and in the glamour of his dreaming brain it was less a common country house than a castle of faery.

“I might be heir to a mansion like that,” thought the romantic Warwick. “Every one seems to take me for a gentleman; so why should I not be one? I was born in the humble booth of a fair, it is true; but my father could never discover his place of birth. And how can he expect me to learn it from this?”

The reference was to a slip of paper which he took out of his pocket-book. Thereon was written a name and a date—the name, “Algernon”; the date, “December 24, 1857.”

“My father said the secret could be solved by this,” murmured the youth; “but though I have pored over it for hours, never have I been able to gain a hint of its meaning. It may be a cryptogram, a rebus, a cipher, a Chinese puzzle, for all I know. But a name and a date are poor material for a man to trace his progenitors.” He replaced the precious paper, which contained his future, in the pocket-book, and leaning his elbow on the grass, he continued to soliloquize aloud:

“My father’s friend in London may reveal the truth; but it is hardly likely. If he would not tell my father, he certainly will not tell me. Perhaps he cannot; but at all events I’ll see this Ballard as soon as I set foot in London. Ballard,” he added, starting up; “why, that is the name of the kind landlady. I wonder if she is any connection of my town friend? What a fool I was not to inquire! However, it’s not too late. I’ll return for the night to the ‘Lelanro Arms,’ and question her closely.”

This suggestion of the “Lelanro Arms” turned his thoughts towards the family of that name, and to the hints given by Mistress Sally concerning a mystery connected with their mansion. A thousand fancies haunted the imaginative brain of Warwick as he stared at the menacing wall, and he wondered greatly what mystery could be concealed behind it. Stories occurred to him of great families cursed with secrets engendered by the evil doings of former generations, secrets so terrible that they drove all cheerfulness from the heart, and banished all smiles from the face. No one knew what these secrets might be, yet they tortured the heart of many a proud noble and long-descended squire. From what he had heard and seen, it would appear that the Lelanros concealed some such indefinable horror in house and heart, which blighted the existence of all who bore their name. Mistress Sally hinted as much, and the mighty wall, so out of keeping with the law-protected security of an English home, confirmed the hint.

Dominated by the thought, Warwick no longer beheld in the mansion a castle of faery, but a blood-stained house, groaning under a curse. From the past came forth a power to render it infamous and desolate. No smile was on the lips of its lord; no stranger was admitted within its gates, and it loomed across the stream deadly and sullen; accursed, to the inflamed fancy of this lad, as ever was the dwelling of Atreus. Blue was the sky above it, green were the woods around it, and limpid the stream that sparkled under the lichened wall; yet to Warwick it scowled an abode of evil, a haunted mansion of crime and desolation. In the bright sunshine he shivered at the thought of what tales those hoary walls could tell, were they gifted with speech.

To dispel so gloomy a mood, he hastily seized his violin and improvised a merry air, which was more in keeping with the glory of that summer day. The notes chased one another in airy flight, and thrilled and trilled like a choir of birds. Into the musician’s soul Nature poured the suggestion of her fecund beauty, and under flying bow and lithe fingers the strains echoed through the warm air like the melodies of light tripping fairies. It was no passionate love-song, no melody begotten by the thought of human pain and grief, but an elfish carol, heartless and beautiful as Nature herself. She was the inspirer, and passing from the soul of her interpreter to the instrument, she rendered herself audible in silver cascades of hurrying notes. The voice of the stream, the trill of the lark, sigh of wind, and rustle of leaves were all blent in the magic strain, which rose and fell fitfully with joyous gladness.

In the interval of a brilliant passage, Warwick paused with a look of wonderment on his mobile face, for in the distance sounded a sweet voice mocking the cadences of his instrument. Pure and silvery as the note of a bird, it rippled from over stream, and he became aware that some one was singing in emulation behind the ivy-clad wall. To test the truth of the echo he hastily improvised a sparkling run, and paused. The unseen singer took it up, and executed the whole passage with faultless precision, in clear-sounding notes. He again swept the bow across the strings; and again the human echo mocked his fantasy. Then ensued a delicate duet, in which the notes of the violin trilled across the stream, to be met midway by similar strains. Note for note the hidden voice replied to the violin’s melody. Then Warwick paused, and the voice sang alone; he re-executed the melody, and so instrument and singer fluted together like mocking-birds.

“This is an adventure of faery,” cried Warwick, when he could no longer provoke a reply. “I would give anything to see this caged bird.”

He pictured to himself a delicate maiden prisoned behind those grim stones, and laying down his violin, he descended the green slope to the banks of the river, as though then and there intending to swim across and storm the prison. This fantastic adventure appealed greatly to his fancy, and, parted from all knowledge of the singer by wall and stream, he sat meditating on the flowery marge. Nevertheless, despite his ardent curiosity, he had no intention of swimming stream or of scaling wall, as it was not his business, or right, to thrust himself into the affairs of the Lelanro family. All he decided to do was to return to the inn, and, if possible, to learn from Mistress Sally what bird was caged in that woodland castle. Such was his intent, but Fate took the matter into her own hands, and thrust him forward on a path whence there was no retreat.

Wrapped in his dreams of the hidden singer, he did not note how insecure was the bank on which he reclined. The water had eaten away the under-part, and though Warwick was ignorant of his danger, he was seated on a mere shell of matted grass and earth, beneath which swirled the current. Unexpectedly his seat collapsed, and before he could collect his scattered thoughts he found himself swept into mid-stream, swimming for dear life. Notwithstanding the heat of the day, the water was bitterly cold, and the youth, chilled and numbed by the sudden immersion, was almost helpless in the grip of the current.

Fortunately Warwick was a good swimmer, but encumbered by his clothes, and cramped by the cold wave, he could not regain the shelving bank whence he had fallen. The main strength of the current rushed directly past the wall, and thither, in spite of all his efforts, the youth was borne. Dreading lest his strength should give way, he seized the roots of the ivy which, huge and gnarled, dipped in the stream, and with a powerful effort drew himself upward from the water which threatened to suck him down. Half bewildered by the shock, and the position in which he found himself, he saw that he was fully committed to the adventure; and, as there was no other means by which he could hope to save his life, he clambered with difficulty up the natural ladder formed by the roots and sprays of the ivy, Emerging at the top of the wall from shadow to sunshine, the change was too sudden; and smitten by the fierce beams, he was seized with vertigo.

But a moment he balanced himself on the wall, and saw, as in a dream, the stream on one side, a garden on the other, when, losing senses and hold, he reeled dizzily and fell downward into what seemed to be a gulf of roaring gloom.