CHAPTER V. MASTER AND MAN.
To have a raving lunatic under the same roof with you is an experience which appeals differently to different minds. To the middle-aged it is a fact calculated to send a “cold shiver down the back,” while to the very young it suggests untold possibilities of danger and excitement.
It is not surprising, therefore, that while Mrs. Abercarne made up her mind to go as soon as she heard of the existence of Mr. Richard, to Chris this was only another inducement to stay. It was a hard matter, however, to bring her mother to her way of thinking; and when Mrs. Abercarne insisted on replacing in her trunks the things which she had begun to unpack, the young girl almost gave up hoping to change her determination.
“Now I shall go downstairs and knock at the door of the study, and explain to Mr. Bradfield how impossible it is that we should remain here under the circumstances,” said the elder lady decidedly, as she straightened the lace she wore round her neck, preparatory to making an imposing entrance into her employer’s presence.
“But, mother, you told him just now that you were not a bit frightened, and he will think you are very changeable to have altered your mind so soon.”
“I have had time to think it over,” explained her mother, rather weakly. “One does not see everything in the first minute. And it is not for myself I care. But a young girl like you must not be exposed to the vagaries of a madman, nor live in a house that is talked about.”
Chris was silent. Against those mysterious conventions which bound her mother down more tightly than prison walls, she knew that all her arguments, all her persuasions, would be powerless. With sorrowful eyes she watched her mother finish repacking, shut down the lid of the last portmanteau, and leave the room with the firm steps of a woman who had finally and firmly made up her mind.
Then Chris went into the beautiful Chinese-room, and looked lovingly round the walls, and longingly out of the window. She had never been inside a house half so nice as this, she thought, and she had not yet got over the first ecstasy of joy on finding what a beautiful place they were to have for a home. Now they would have to go back to London, she supposed; and as their own house had been given up, and the furniture sold, they would have to take cheap and dreary lodgings until they could find some other engagement. And when would they be so lucky as to find another together?
Chris was not more inclined to tears than other girls of her age, but the weight of the woes upon her gradually grew too heavy to be borne without some outward demonstration. So that, when at last the door opened to admit, as she supposed, her mother, Chris was curled up in one of the low arm-chairs by the window and could not for shame exhibit her tear-stained face.
“Oh, mother,” she sobbed, without looking up, “how can you have the heart to leave this lovely place to go back to that hateful London? We should have been so happy here; I’m sure we should!”
“There!” exclaimed a man’s gruff voice loudly, and Mr. Bradfield, for he was the intruder, burst into a loud, ironical laugh.
Chris sprang up and dried her eyes hastily, overwhelmed with confusion.
Her mother, not so fleet of foot as the man, was only just entering the room. Her face wore an expression of great vexation.
“There!” repeated Mr. Bradfield, as soon as he could speak. “Did you hear that, madam? You should have coached your daughter up better. You come and tell me that you would be glad to stay in my house, but that your daughter is so much frightened that she insists on leaving immediately; and I come up here, take the young lady unawares, and hear her beg not to be taken away! How do you reconcile the two things, Mrs. Abercarne? Answer me that, madam.”
Even Mrs. Abercarne had no answer ready. Chris came to her mother’s rescue.
“My mother is quite right,” she said. “I should not care to stay here, although it is such a beautiful place, now that I know there is a person shut up here. I should always be afraid of his getting out.”
Mr. Bradfield stamped his foot impatiently. Since he had been a rich man he had been used to finding a way out of every difficulty, a way to indulge every whim.
“I have told you both that there is no danger; that this unfortunate young man is absolutely harmless and inoffensive. You shall hear what his attendant says.”
Mr. Bradfield rang the bell sharply, and told the servant, who quickly appeared at the summons, to send Stelfox to him. In the meantime, without any further remarks either to mother or daughter, he strode up and down the room with his hands behind him, and his eyes on the carpet.
In a few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the man who had told the housemaid that Mr. Richard “was quiet now” came in.
Jim Stelfox was a man about forty-five years of age, rather above the medium height, with an open, honest, and withal resolute-looking face, and a straightforward look of the eyes which spoke of obstinacy as well as honesty. His hair, which was still thick, was iron-grey; so were his trim whiskers. His eyes were grey also, hard and keen; his mouth was straight, and shut very firmly.
He waited, with his eyes fixed upon his master, respectfully, to be interrogated.
“How many years have you been in my employment, Stelfox?” asked Mr. Bradfield.
“Seventeen years, sir.”
“And how many years is it now since you’ve had charge of Mr. Richard?”
“Ten years, sir, on and off; and seven years altogether,” answered Stelfox.
Mr. Bradfield’s manner grew harsher, more dictatorial with every succeeding question, almost as if each answer of the man’s had been a fresh offence. But Stelfox’s manner never changed; it was always respectful, stolid and studiously monotonous. The next question Mr. Bradfield put in a louder, angrier voice than ever.
“And have you ever, in the course of all that time, known Mr. Richard do any harm to man, woman or child?”
For about two seconds the man did not answer; two seconds in which Chris, rendered curious by something in the manner of master and man towards each other, awaited quite eagerly some astonishing reply. She was disappointed. The answer came as smoothly and quietly as ever:
“Never, sir.”
Mr. Bradfield turned impatiently to the two ladies.
“You hear,” he said triumphantly. “Here is the testimony of a man who has been in constant attendance upon him for seven years, and in partial attendance upon him for three more. Can you have stronger evidence than that?”
“It is quite satisfactory, I am sure,” murmured Mrs. Abercarne, who had not the courage to face this overbearing man with questions and doubts.
But Chris was different. Although she longed to stay, although the lunatic, harmless or otherwise, caused her no fears, she “wanted to know, you know.” There was some mystery, trivial, no doubt, about Mr. Richard and his guardian and his keeper.
The manner of the two men towards each other, the furtive, yet impatient glances with which the master regarded the man, the studiously monotonous and mechanical tone in which the man replied to the master, showed that they were not quite honest either towards the other, or else towards her mother and herself. At least, this was what Chris thought, and without pausing to consider how her question might be received, she broke out:
“But, Mr. Bradfield, if he is harmless, why do you shut him up?”
Mrs. Abercarne, although she had not dared to put this question herself, looked gratefully at her daughter, and curiously at her employer. He hesitated a moment, and Chris saw Stelfox glance at his master with an expression of some amusement.
“Well,” said Mr. Bradfield at last, rather impatiently, “I am afraid we should none of us find the poor fellow a very desirable companion. He is very noisy, for one thing.”
Now both the ladies had had occasion to find out that this latter statement was true, at any rate, so they were silent for a minute. Then Chris, not yet satisfied, spoke again.
“You know,” and she turned to Stelfox, “that my mother and I heard you struggling with him, and when you came out we heard you say he was quiet now, as if you had had some trouble with him. How was that if he was so harmless?”
Again Stelfox glanced at his master, and Chris, following his look, noticed that Mr. Bradfield had become deadly white. He stamped impatiently on the floor as he caught his servant’s eye.
“Oh,” said Stelfox, after a few seconds’ pause, “that was only his rough play.”
“Then I don’t wonder you keep him shut up,” said Chris, drily.
Mr. Bradfield stared at her with a frown on his face. But Chris did not care. They were going away, so she could speak out her mind. There was a pause for some moments, and then Mrs. Abercarne began to fidget a little, being anxious to get away. Mr. Bradfield’s frown cleared away as he watched Chris, and at last he said, quite good-humouredly:
“You’re an impudent little piece of goods. And so you are going to let my madman frighten you away?”
Chris glanced at her mother. Then she turned boldly, with her hands behind her, and faced him.
“Not if it rested with me, Mr. Bradfield.”
He was evidently delighted by her answer, and began to chuckle good-humouredly as he signed to Stelfox to leave the room.
“So you would brave the bogies, would you? And it is only this haughty mother of yours who stands in the way of our all being happy together. Now, come, Mrs. Abercarne, can you resist the appeal of youth and beauty? I couldn’t.”
Mrs. Abercarne, keen-witted as she thought herself, had not noticed so much as Chris had done in the interview between master and man. On the other hand she had taken careful note of the manner in which Mr. Bradfield regarded Chris. And prudence began to whisper that in leaving Wyngham House she might be throwing away a chance of establishing her daughter in a rather magnificent manner.
So she laughed gently and showed a disposition to temporise. Whereupon Mr. Bradfield seized his advantage, laid much stress upon the comfort her presence would bestow upon a lonely bachelor, and upon the distinguished service her superintendence of his household would render him. And Chris joining in his pleading with eloquent eyes and a few incoherent words, they succeeded between them in inducing the elder lady to accede to their wishes.
His object once gained, Mr. Bradfield wasted no further time with them, but disappeared quickly with his usual nod of farewell.
Chris, anxious not to leave her mother time to waver, ran across the corridor to their bedroom, unpacked their trunks with rapid hands, and rang the bell for a house-maid to take the trunks themselves away to one of the lumber-rooms, so that Mrs. Abercarne might feel that she had burnt her ships.
Then Chris peeped into the Chinese-room, saw her mother busy at the writing-table, and guessed that she was writing to inform one of her friends of her definite arrangement to stay at Wyngham. Chris thought it would be better not to interrupt her, so she softly closed the door and went down the corridor to make a private inspection of the pictures to fill up the time.
In one of the odd little passages which branched off to the right and left from the corridor, she came upon a picture which seemed to her rather more interesting than the rest; for it was a figure subject, while the rest were chiefly landscapes. The passage was so dark that it was only by opening the door of one of the rooms to which it led that she could see the picture with any distinctness; and it was while she was standing on tip-toe to examine it that the sound of stealthy footsteps reached her ears. Peeping out from the nook in which she was hidden, Chris saw at the entrance of the wing the house Mr. Bradfield standing in front of the door of “Mr. Richard’s rooms.” He was stooping low with his ear to the crack of the door, and his dark face wore an expression of intense anxiety. She had scarcely had time to notice these things when Stelfox came up with absolutely silent footsteps behind his master. His face wore the same expression of hard suppressed amusement which she had noticed on one occasion in the Chinese-room. He did not speak to his master, but stood waiting in a respectful attitude and without uttering a sound. Chris thought the whole scene rather strange, and instead of retreating at once, as she should have done, she kept her eyes fixed upon the pair, from her distant corner, a few moments longer.
So she saw Mr. Bradfield raise his head and turn to walk away; she saw him start at the sight of Stelfox, and utter an angry exclamation.
But this was eavesdropping, so she drew back hastily out of sight and hearing.
Chris could not, however, get out of her mind the thought that Mr. Bradfield’s behaviour was very odd, and that Stelfox’s action in waiting coolly there without a word was more odd still.