Читать книгу The White Prior - Fergus Hume - Страница 5

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After his dreary journey Tresham was by no means sorry to find himself seated before a well-spread table in a comfortable room, and did full justice to the excellent meal provided by the hospitality of Mr. Harley. Owing to the lateness of the hour he hardly expected to see his employer that evening, and had already turned his thoughts towards the final pipe and subsequent retirement, when an elderly man abruptly entered the room. The new-comer, whom Tresham rightly guessed to be Jasper, was a lean, cadaverous creature, neatly arrayed in black broadcloth. His clean-shaven face was as impassive as that of the Sphinx, and his grey hair was plastered smoothly on his egg-shaped skull. Deferential as he was in manner, Tresham took an unreasoning dislike to his stealthy movements and sinuous obsequiousness; nor was this feeling of repulsion lessened when he remembered that the man was dumb.

Of this latter failing he had immediate proof, for Jasper held in his hands a packet of small cards. Selecting two of these he placed them before Tresham, who read on the first, “Mr. Harley,” and on the second, “The library.” Rightly interpreting this as a request that he should so seek his host in that room he was about to reply, but reflecting that Jasper was probably deaf as well as dumb, he took out his pencil to communicate by writing. To his surprise Jasper picked up the cards and touched his ears with a nod to intimate that he could hear.

“You are not deaf then?” asked Tresham, in some astonishment.

Jasper shook his head, and hastily produced another card on which was printed “An accident.”

“Poor fellow,” said Tresham involuntarily; but instead of being pleased by this mark of sympathy, Jasper looked angered, and again thrust before the tutor the card inscribed with his master’s name.

“Very well,” said the young man, smiling at the odd creature, “I will follow you at once.”

Jasper gave a nod of satisfaction and led the way down-stairs. These were of mahogany, dark and dreary in appearance, and but dimly lighted, so that following in the wake of his dumb guide, Tresham became aware of a sudden depression of spirits, as though something evil were in the air. Impulsively he touched Jasper’s arm, as they paused at the door of the library.

“Is this place haunted?” he asked anxiously.

The idea had only entered his head at that moment, and was but an idle caprice of the imagination which he hardly expected to be taken seriously.

Jasper stamped furiously, and his face assumed a sinister expression as he showed a card on which was written “Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!” Then producing another inscribed “Silence,” he ushered Tresham into the library before he had time to recover from the oddity of this behaviour. The chance remark had so raised the ire of this man that Tresham fancied he must have unconsciously hit the mark.

If the stairs were dimly illuminated amends was made in the library, which was one blaze of light. It seemed to Tresham’s bewildered eyes as though a thousand tapers flamed on all sides; but he soon saw that the actual number of these was trebled and quadrupled by skilfully-placed mirrors, which intervened between the well-filled book-shelves. Surrounded by vast sheets of looking-glass on all sides, the room seemed to extend indefinitely, and Tresham felt himself seized with vertigo when a glance upward revealed a ceiling wholly of mirrors. In the blaze of light, in the multiplicity of reflections, there was something monstrous and fantastical. Duplicated in every direction, he felt as though he were in a world of ghosts.

“Welcome to the Priory, Mr. Tresham,” said a voice behind him; “I trust you had a pleasant journey.”

“Thank you, yes; very pleasant,” stammered Gilbert, turning towards the speaker. “You must excuse me, Mr. Harley, but I feel somewhat dazed. These mirrors!”

“Yes, they are confusing to one not accustomed to them,” replied Harley smoothly. “Sit down here, Mr. Tresham, and let us talk. Later on I will introduce your pupil to you.”

The owner of the Priory was a slender, refined-looking man, attired in evening dress, with a precision which argued a scrupulous regard for appearance. A little below the middle height, he seemed but a frail creature, bloodless and weak. His narrow feet and delicate hands were almost feminine in size, and the latter especially, with long fingers and carefully-trimmed nails, struck Gilbert as unpleasantly like the claws of a bird. A perfectly white complexion, fair hair, and pale blue eyes completed his etiolated appearance; and the man looked like the last offshoot of an exhausted race, effete and worn out. A languor pervaded looks and movements which assimilated him to some pale flower secluded from the vivifying influence of sun and wind. In him his race had reached its end, for it seemed impossible that so sapless a twig of the family tree could put forth another shoot. Yet he had a son and a daughter; and Gilbert shuddered to think what weakness weakness had produced.

“Will you have a glass of wine, Mr. Tresham?” said Harley, pushing forward a decanter of port. “I don’t like drinking by myself, yet am obliged to do so owing to the absence of company and to my constitutional weakness; I am not strong, and wine makes blood.”

Gilbert silently acquiesced in this remark as he accepted the invitation, and looked curiously at the frail being, lying weak and exhausted in the depths of the arm-chair. A breath would have blown him away, yet despite his physical weakness he was sufficiently spirited, and talked brightly to his visitor.

“I hope you will like the Priory,” said he, languidly sipping his wine; “we are a quiet folk here, and I do not think you will have much trouble with Felix.”

“Is he backward, Mr. Harley?”

“Not in some things, but in others very much so. The fact is, the lad is stuffed with fiction and poetry—both bad for a delicate boy. I wish you to induct him into a course of profitable reading. Keep him at Latin and Greek, Mr. Tresham, for he is very backward in the classics. However, I give you full permission to act as you think best,” added Harley, with a faint smile, “for Sir Percy Barstone has given me a most brilliant report of your teaching capabilities.”

“Sir Percy is most kind, sir. It is true that I helped him to pass his examination, but beyond that I have no experience in teaching.”

“Nor has Felix of learning,” replied Harley amiably, “so you are both novices. Do you like this room, Mr. Tresham?”

“Honestly speaking, I can’t say that I do. The multiplicity of mirrors, and especially those on the roof, give me a sensation of vertigo.”

“Ah, you are not used to them,” replied Harley complacently. “I like those innumerable reflections because they make me feel as though many people were present. I hate solitude, and I cannot go into society on account of my wretched health, so I hit on this plan to provide myself with silent company. Sitting here with my wine before me I feel as though I were in a cafe on the Boulevards.”

“An odd idea, Mr. Harley.”

“Very odd,” assented Harley, with a sidelong glance at once inquisitive and defiant; “but there are many odd things about this house. Felix, for instance. Here he is! the ghost of what a boy should be! I wish he were stronger,” finished the father, with a sigh.

Towards Gilbert came a duplicate of his host, as bloodless, as white, as frail. The lad was arrayed in a black velvet suit with a lace collar, and looked not more than ten years of age. In his pinched features, Tresham could descry a likeness to the father, and the wan smile with which he greeted his new tutor was reflected at the moment in the pale lips of Mr. Harley. Tresham never beheld a more pitiful sight than these exhausted creatures, who were suffering for the sins of their race.

“This is Mr. Tresham, my boy,” said Harley, drawing his son towards him. “Shake hands with your tutor, Felix.”

The lad put out a thin hand and weakly pressed that extended to him by Gilbert. He was by no means shy, nor was he on the other hand forward: his listless nature seemed incapable of asserting itself either way. He simply greeted his tutor with languid indifference, and afterwards returned to the end of the library, where he buried himself in a big book. There was something painful in the lifelessness of so young a child.

“You must change all that,” said Harley, indicating his son’s occupation; “the lad is killing himself through his brains.”

“With your permission I shall not keep him too close to his books,” observed Gilbert, who had been reflecting on his mode of procedure. “The boy must stay in the open air. Can he swim, Mr. Harley—or row, or ride?”

“He can do none of these things,” replied Harley, with a mortified look. “I am sorry to say it, Mr. Tresham, but the lad is a coward.”

“I think that is a rather unfair judgment, Mr. Harley,” said Gilbert, after a pause; “the face is not that of a coward—it expresses indifference only. Let me guide him as I think fit, sir, and I promise you he will soon wipe away that reproach. He needs exercise and open air; so I will first harden the body and then improve the brain. Unless the first is healthy, it is useless to attempt anything with the lad.”

“Do what you think best, Mr. Tresham,” said Harley graciously, “and I have no doubt that you will be aided well in your endeavours by my daughter. She is the exact opposite of Felix, and is never indoors. I believe she is outside now, notwithstanding the rain.”

Further remark on the part of Mr. Harley was rendered impossible by the unexpected entry of the young lady in question. While Tresham and Harley had been talking she had rapped at one of the French windows at the further end of the library, and had been admitted by Felix. Now she bounded into the room, clad in a mackintosh shining with rain-drops, her face glowing with health, and her dark hair glittering with wet. As Tresham rose to his feet, he was positively startled by the contrast between this brilliant vitalized woman and the anaemic manhood of her father and brother.

“Don’t be so noisy, Fay,” said Harley, with a shudder, as though her sudden entry jarred on his nerves. “This is Mr. Tresham, the tutor of Felix. My daughter, Mr. Tresham.”

“How do you do, Mr. Tresham?” said Fay, in a gay and hearty voice. “I hope you are not shocked by my entering by the window. But I went down to the boat-shed to see about my dingy, and came in yonder as the nearest way.”

“It saves time, Miss Harley,” replied Gilbert, smiling, “and time is precious in this century.”

“Not with us,” retorted she promptly; “we are the idlest people in the Thames valley. You will find it difficult to make us work, Mr. Tresham.”

“Am I then to have you for a pupil?” said Tresham, seeing that Harley had retired to speak to Felix, and in nowise adverse to a merry word or so.

“If you care to. I have been to school, but I am terribly backward yet. Not much better than Felix, poor child. Come here, Felix,” she said, swooping down on her brother and catching him in her arms. “This is the gentleman who will make you a great man.”

“Don’t, Fay,” retorted the boy peevishly, “you wet my clothes. I don’t want to be a great man, but a poet.”

“Oh!” interposed Harley satirically, “then a poet, according to that definition, is not a great man.”

“I would rather be a general than a poet,” declared Fay, who was rolling up her loose hair in front of a mirror. “I wish I had been born a man.”

Privately, Gilbert thought she had more of the masculine element in her than had her father or brother; but of course he did not venture to express so bold an opinion. He was greatly attracted by the exuberant vitality of this girl, and wondered how the exhausted tree of the Harleys had borne so lusty a blossom. Her presence in the room was like a breath of salt sea air penetrating the sickly atmosphere of a hot-house; and her bright manner and merry voice quite dispelled the gloom which he had experienced since entering the library.

But he had little time for these reflections, for Fay, declaring that she had to be up early for a row on the river, bade them good-night, and swept out of the room like a whirlwind. With her departed all the feeling of reality, and Gilbert once more became conscious that the library was ghost-like and uncanny. Like the prince in Tennyson’s poem he felt as though he moved amid a world of ghosts.

“My daughter’s manner is rather trying to one’s nerves,” said Harley, in an apologetic tone, “but I wish Felix was more like her.”

“Oh, Felix will soon be as fond of the river as Miss Harley appears to be,” said Gilbert, taking the boy’s hand. “We are going to be excellent friends, are we not, Felix?”

“Oh yes,” replied the lad passively, and slipped away to his reading, whither he was followed by his tutor.

“Come, Felix,” said he laughingly, closing the book, “you are under my charge now, and as a first exercise of my authority I must ask you to go to bed at once. It is not good for little boys to stay up so late.”

“Very well, sir; good-night,” replied Felix, with the same indifference, and left the room in a weary manner, as though he were worn out.

“What do you think of him, Mr. Tresham?” asked Harley anxiously; “will you be able to make anything of him?”

“It is rather hard to say at present,” replied Gilbert dubiously. “I’ll try, and if I can make him like his sister I shall be more than satisfied. And now, Mr. Harley,” he added, holding out his hand, “if you will permit me I shall say good-night also, as I am weary with my journey.”

“Good-night, Mr. Tresham,” said Harley, with a languid shake. “I like you, and think we shall get on very well together.” After which intimation of good-will, Gilbert retired to think over his first experience in the Priory. It was an odd one, but subsequent events at the Priory proved of so strange a nature, that he no longer wondered at his curious reception by the curious inhabitants of this ghostly mansion.