Ravensdene Court. J. S. Fletcher

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      "I really don't, Mr. Cazalette," I replied.

      "Well I'm eighty years of age," he answered with a grin. "And I'm intending to be a hundred! And on my hundredth birthday, I'll give a party, and I'll dance with the sprightliest lassie that's there, and if I'm not as lively as she is I'll be sore out of my calculations."

      "A truly wonderful young man!" exclaimed Mr. Raven. "I veritably believe he feels—and is—younger than myself—and I'm twenty years his junior."

      So I had now discovered certain facts about Mr. Cazalette. He was an octogenarian. He was uncannily active. He had an almost imp-like desire to live—and to dance when he ought to have been wrapped in blankets and saying his last prayers. And a few minutes later, when we were seated round our host's table, I discovered another fact—Mr. Cazalette was one of those men to whom dinner is the event of the day, and who regard conversation—on their own part, at any rate—as a wicked disturbance of sacred rites. As the meal progressed (and Mr. Raven's cook proved to be an unusually clever and good one) I was astonished at Mr. Cazalette's gastronomic powers and at his love of mad dishes: indeed, I never saw a man eat so much, nor with such hearty appreciation of his food, nor in such a concentrated silence. Nevertheless, that he kept his ears wide open to what was being said around him, I soon discovered. I was telling Mr. Raven and his niece of my adventure of the afternoon, and suddenly I observed that Mr. Cazalette, on the other side of the round table at which we sat, had stopped eating, and that, knife and fork still in his queer, claw-like hands, he was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning eyes full of a strange, absorbed interest. I paused—involuntarily.

      "Go on!" said he. "Did you mention the name Netherfield just then?"

      "I did," said I. "Netherfield."

      "Well, continue with your tale," he said. "I'm listening. I'm a silent man when I'm busy with my meat and drink, but I've a fine pair of ears."

      He began to ply knife and fork again, and I went on with my story, continuing it until the parting with Salter Quick. When I came to that, the footman who stood behind Mr. Cazalette's chair was just removing his last plate, and the old man leaned back a little and favoured the three of us with a look.

      "Aye, well," he said, "and that's an interesting story, Middlebrook, and it tempts me to break my rule and talk a bit. It was some churchyard this fellow was seeking?"

      "A churchyard—in this neighbourhood," I replied. "Or—churchyards."

      "Where there were graves with the name Netherfield on their stones or slabs or monuments," he continued.

      "Aye—just so. And those men he foregathered with at the inn, they'd never heard of anything at that point, nor elsewhere?"

      "Neither there nor elsewhere," I assented.

      "Then if there is such a place," said he, "it'll be one of those disused burial-grounds of which there are examples here in the north, and not a few."

      "You know of some?" suggested Mr. Raven.

      "I've seen such places," answered Mr. Cazalette. "Betwixt here—the sea-coast—and the Cheviots, westward, there's a good many spots that Goldsmith might have drawn upon for his deserted village. The folks go—the bit of a church falls into ruins—its graveyard gets choked with weeds—the stones are covered with moss and lichen—the monuments fall and are obscured by the grass—underneath the grass and the weed many an old family name lies hidden. And what'll that man be wanting to find any name at all for, I'd like to know!"

      "The queer thing to me," observed Mr. Raven, "is that two men should be wanting to find it at the same time."

      "That looks as if there were some very good reason why it should be found, doesn't it?" remarked his niece. "Anyway, it all sounds very queer—you've brought mystery with you, Mr. Middlebrook! Can't you suggest anything, Mr. Cazalette? I'm sure you're good at solving problems."

      But just then Mr. Cazalette's particular servant put a fresh dish in front of him—a curry, the peculiar aroma of which evidently aroused his epicurean instinct. Instead of responding to Miss Raven's invitation he relapsed into silence, and picked up another fork.

      When dinner was over I excused myself from sitting with the two elder men over their wine—Mr. Cazalette, whom by that time I, of course, knew for a Scotchman, turned out to have an old-fashioned taste for claret—and joined Miss Raven in the hall, a great, roomy, shadowy place which was evidently popular. There was a great fire in its big hearth-place with deep and comfortable chairs set about it; in one of these I found her sitting, a book in her hand. She dropped it as I approached and pointed to a chair at her side.

      "What do you think of that queer old man?" she asked in a low voice as I sat down. "Isn't there something almost—what is it?—uncanny?—about him?"

      "You might call him that," I assented. "Yes—I think uncanny would fit him. A very marvellous man, though, at his age."

      "Aye!" she exclaimed, under her breath. "If I could live to see it, it wouldn't surprise me if he lived to be four hundred. He's so queer. Do you know that he actually goes out early—very early—in the morning and swims in the open sea?"

      "Any weather?" I suggested.

      "No matter what the weather is," she replied. "He's been here three weeks now, and he has never missed that morning swim. And sometimes the mornings have been Arctic—more than I could stand, anyway, and I'm pretty well hardened."

      "A decided character!" I said musingly. "And somehow, he seems to fit in with his present surroundings. From what I have seen of it, Mr. Raven was quite right in telling me that this house was a museum."

      I was looking about me as I spoke. The big, high-roofed hall, like every room I had so far seen, was filled from floor to ceiling with books, pictures, statuary, armour, curiosities of every sort and of many ages. The prodigious numbers of the books alone showed me that I had no light task in prospect. But Miss Raven shook her head.

      "Museum!" she exclaimed. "I should think so! But you've seen nothing—wait till you see the north wing. Every room in that is crammed with things—I think my great-uncle, who left all this to Uncle Francis recently, must have done nothing whatever but buy, and buy, and buy things, and then, when he got them home, have just dumped them down anywhere! There's some order here," she added, looking round, "but across there, in the north wing, it's confusion."

      "Did you know your great-uncle?" I asked.

      "I? No!" she replied. "Oh, dear me, no! I'd never been in the north until Uncle Francis came home from India some months ago and fetched me from the school where I'd been ever since my father and mother died—that was when I was twelve. No, except my father, I never knew any of the Raven family. I believe Uncle Francis and myself are the very last."

      "You must like living under the old family roof?" I suggested.

      She gave me a somewhat undecided look.

      "I'm not quite sure," she answered. "Uncle Francis is the very soul of kindness—I think he's the very kindest person, man or woman, I ever came across, but—I don't know."

      "Don't know—what?" I asked.

      "Don't know if I really like this place," she said. "As I said to you this afternoon, this is a very odd house altogether, and there's a strange atmosphere СКАЧАТЬ