Ravensdene Court. J. S. Fletcher

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ adds to its charm," I remarked with a laugh. "I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing the ghost."

      "I don't!" she said. "That is, I hope I shan't. The house is odd enough without that! But—you wouldn't be afraid?"

      "Would you?" I asked, looking more closely at her.

      "I don't know," she replied. "You'll understand more when you see the place. There's a very odd atmosphere about it. I think something must have happened there, some time. I'm not a coward, but, really, after the daylight's gone——"

      "You're adding to its charms!" I interrupted. "Everything sounds delightful!"

      She looked at me half-inquiringly, and then smiled a little.

      "I believe you're pulling my leg," she said. "However—we'll see. But you don't look as if you would be afraid—and you're not a bit like what I thought you'd be, either."

      "What did you think I should be?" I asked, amused at her candour.

      "Oh, I don't know—a queer, snuffy, bald-pated old man, like Mr. Cazalette," she replied. "Booky, and papery, and that sort of thing. And you're quite—something else—and young!"

      "The frost of thirty winters have settled on me," I remarked with mock seriousness.

      "They must have been black frosts, then!" she retorted. "No!—you're a surprise. I'm sure Uncle Francis is expecting a venerable, dry-as-dust sort of man."

      "I hope he won't be disappointed," I said. "But I never told him I was dry as dust, or snuffy, or bald——"

      "It's your reputation," she said quickly. "People don't expect to find such learning in ordinary young men in tweed suits."

      "Am I an ordinary young man, then?" I demanded. "Really——"

      "Oh, well, you know what I mean!" she said hastily. "You can call me a very ordinary young woman, if you like."

      "I shall do nothing of the sort!" said I. "I have a habit of always calling things by their right names, and I can see already that you are very far from being an ordinary young woman."

      "So you begin by paying me compliments?" she retorted with a laugh. "Very well—I've no objection, which shows that I'm human, anyhow. But here is my uncle."

      I had already seen Mr. Francis Raven advancing to meet us; a tall, somewhat stooping man with all the marks of the Anglo-Indian about him: a kindly face burnt brown by equatorial suns, old-fashioned, grizzled moustache and whiskers; the sort of man that I had seen more than once coming off big liners at Tilbury and Southampton, looking as if England, seen again after many years of absence, were a strange country to their rather weary, wondering eyes. He came up with outstretched hands; I saw at once that he was a man of shy, nervous temperament.

      "Welcome to Ravensdene Court, Mr. Middlebrook!" he exclaimed in quick, almost deprecating fashion. "A very dull and out-of-the-way place to which to bring one used to London; but we'll do our best—you've had a convoy across the park, I see," he added with a glance at his niece. "That's right!"

      "As charming a one as her surroundings are delightful, Mr. Raven," I said, assuming an intentionally old-fashioned manner. "If I am treated with the same consideration I have already received, I shall be loth to bring my task to an end!"

      "Mr. Middlebrook is a bit of a tease, Uncle Francis," said my guide. "I've found that out already. He's not the paper-and-parchment person you expected."

      "Oh, dear me, I didn't expect anything of the sort!" protested Mr. Raven. He looked from his niece to me, and laughed, shaking his head. "These modern young ladies—ah!" he exclaimed. "But come—I'll show Mr. Middlebrook his rooms."

      He led the way into the house and up the great stair of the hall to a couple of apartments which overlooked the park. I had a general sense of big spaces, ancient things, mysterious nooks and corners; my own rooms, a bed-chamber and a parlour, were delightful. My host was almost painfully anxious to assure himself that I had everything in them that I was likely to want, and fussed about from one room to the other, seeing to details that I should never have thought of.

      "You'll be able to find your way down?" he said at last, as he made for the door. "We dine at seven—perhaps there'll be time to take a little look round before then, after we've dressed. And I must introduce Mr. Cazalette—you don't know him personally?—oh, a remarkable man, a very remarkable man indeed—yes!"

      I did not waste much time over my toilet, nor, apparently did Miss Marcia Raven, for I found her, in a smart gown, in the hall when I went down at half-past-six. And she and I had taken a look at its multifarious objects before Mr. Raven appeared on the scene, followed by Mr. Cazalette. One glance at this gentleman assured me that our host had been quite right when he spoke of him as remarkable—he was not merely remarkable, but so extraordinary in outward appearance that I felt it difficult to keep my eyes off him.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

THE MORNING TIDE

       Table of Contents

      Miss Raven had already described Mr. Cazalette to me, by inference, as a queer, snuffy bald-pated old man, but this summary synopsis of his exterior features failed to do justice to a remarkable original. There was something supremely odd about him. I thought, at first, that my impression of oddity might be derived from his clothes—he wore a strangely-cut dress-coat of blue cloth, with gold buttons, a buff waistcoat, and a frilled shirt—but I soon came to the conclusion that he would be queer and uncommon in any garments. About Mr. Cazalette there was an atmosphere—and it was decidedly one of mystery. First and last, he looked uncanny.

      Mr. Raven introduced us with a sort of old-world formality (I soon discovered, as regards him, that he was so far unaware that a vast gulf lay between the manners and customs of society as they are nowadays and as they were when he left England for India in the 'seventies: he was essentially mid-Victorian) and in order to keep up to it, I saluted Mr. Cazalette with great respect and expressed myself as feeling highly honoured by meeting one so famous as my fellow-guest. Somewhat to my surprise, Mr. Cazalette's tightly-locked lips relaxed into what was plainly a humorous smile, and he favoured me with a knowing look that was almost a wink.

      "Aye, well," he said, "you're just about as well known in your own line, Middlebrook, as I am in mine, and between the pair of us I've no doubt we'll be able to reduce chaos into order. But we'll not talk shop at this hour of the day—there's more welcome matters at hand."

      He put his snuff box and his gaudy handkerchief out of sight, and looked at his host and hostess with another knowing glance, reminding me somehow of a wicked old condor which I had sometimes seen at the Zoological Gardens, eyeing the keeper who approached with its meal.

      "Mr. Cazalette," remarked Miss Raven, with an informing glance at me, "never, on principle, touches bite or sup between breakfast and dinner—and he has no great love of breakfast."

      "I'm a disciple of the justly famed and great man, Abernethy," observed Mr. Cazalette. "I'd never have lived to my age nor kept my energy at what, thank СКАЧАТЬ