The Luck of the Vails: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"I got in by the front door," said Mr. Francis. "It was left unlocked; very careless of the servants."

"Very, indeed. Did you lock it?"

"Yes, and I was just stealing upstairs when you awoke. I had meant to go very quietly to Harry's room, and just look at the dear lad, to satisfy myself he was all right. If I had not had the good fortune to find the door open, I should have passed the night in the summerhouse, and just seen that all was well in the morning. I hope Harry will speak to Templeton about the door."

"But how will Harry know, unless he knows of your coming?"

"Ah!" Mr. Francis paused a moment. "I will leave it unlocked; indeed I must, when I go out. You can then call his attention to it. Good-night, my dear boy; I shall go to my room too. I will sleep on the sofa very comfortably."

Geoffrey turned into his room with slow and sleepy steps, shut the door and locked it. Then he undressed very quickly, and over his nightshirt put on a dark coat. He was too full of this appearance of Mr. Francis, and of wonder what it really meant, to waste time in mere idle contemplation of it, and he sat on his bed, following out end after end of tangled conjecture.

Harry's safety during the hours which had to pass before morning was his first thought, but that he speedily dismissed. "I have frightened the old man," he said to himself with strong satisfaction. "I have made him tremble in his wicked shoes. No, he dare do nothing to-night. There is a witness that he is here, that he arrived secretly after dark, and left before morning. No, Harry is all safe for to-night, but I am glad I woke."

Geoffrey lay back on his bed, keenly interested in what lay before him, but astounded by the possibly imminent issues. Hitherto his life had always run very easily, a pleasant, light business; but now suddenly there were thrust into his young and inexperienced hands the red reins of life and death, reins that governed or governed not horses that he could but indistinctly guess at. But the reins were in his hands; it was his business, and now, to steer as well as he could between God knew what devils and deep seas. A thousand directions were open to him; in all but one, as far as he could forecast the future, lay disaster. A solution and a rescue he felt there must be, but in what direction did it lie? To go now to Harry's room, what risk was there, what fear of eyes behind curtains; and once there, what sort of reception would he meet? Harry had gone to bed nearly three hours ago, and must he be plucked from his sleep to hear this wild tale—a tale so full of conjecture, so scant in certainties? And if he heard it, what, to judge by Geoffrey's previous knowledge of him, his only guide in this lonely hour, would be his manner of taking it? One only, he knew it well: bewildered surprise and scorn that one whom he had accounted friend should bring him so monstrous a tale. That he must certainly expect, indignant speech, or silence even more indignant, and a rupture that could not easily be healed. No, to go to Harry now would in all probability mean to sever himself from him, and this in the hour of dark need and danger.

Geoffrey got up from where he was lying and walked silently with bare feet up and down the room. Then he stripped off coat and nightshirt, and sluiced head and neck with cold water. He felt awake enough, but stupid from sheer perplexity, and he was determined to give his faculties, such as they were, every opportunity for lively and wise decision. There had been, for instance, some train of instinctive thought in his mind when he had shut the door, but dressed himself for possible action. His brain had told him that he did not mean to go to bed yet; had it not told him something more? His action in putting on dark coverings had been perhaps involuntary; it was his business now to account for it.

Ah! the door by which Mr. Francis had entered—that was it. He did not believe that he had come in, as he said, by the front door, for the noise of its opening and shutting—the noise, too, of the lock which he said he had turned after he had come in—must have awoke him from a sleep that had never quite become unconsciousness. A clock had struck, it is true, the moment before he was completely roused, and he had not heard it; but how often, he reflected, do one's ears hear the clock strike, yet never convey the message to the brain! It was far more likely that the slight stir of movement made by Mr. Francis as he peeped round the inner door leading to the staircase had awoke him. How, then, was it possible that he should have opened, shut, and locked the heavy front door, have crossed the hall, and yet never have broken in upon his doze? Besides, the face that looked at him was that of a man peeping into a room, not of one leaving it. It seemed then very likely that Mr. Francis had not entered by the front door; it was also hardly possible that it should not have been locked at nightfall by the servant who put up the shutters.