XVI
The agitation pervading the house was sinister. Laurence felt as though witnessing the convulsions of some human body, seen only heretofore amid the restraints and graceful amenities of society; but now abandoned and indecently torn in its last agony. If indeed Mr. Rivers was dying, his soul was not merely quitting its fragile, fleshly tabernacle; but was also, very sensibly, quitting this larger tabernacle of house and household which it had informed through a long course of years, and moulded to express its tastes, flatter its idiosyncrasies, and forestall its every wish. It was fitting, therefore, though fearful, that this outer envelope of the owner's life should be shaken, and lose its habitual immutability and impervious calm; while his well-drilled servants, usually obedient as machines to the direction of his hand, ran distracted, scared and helpless as a flock of frightened sheep.
The men hurried aimlessly, spoke in whispers. Members of the establishment with whom Laurence was unacquainted invaded the corridor from the direction of the offices. At the foot of the staircase were grouped the stout, French chef, in spotless, linen cap and jacket, his attendant scullions, and a couple of men arrayed in long, green baize aprons and black, calico blouses, the full sleeves of which buttoned tight around the wrist. The coachman was there too, a stable helper, and the groom who had accompanied Laurence on his first visit to Bishop's Pudbury. All these persons were well on in middle life, some old, white-haired, and bent. All appeared deeply moved, an inarticulate confusion in their looks, as though finding themselves suddenly confronted by dire calamity. Laurence had seen men look thus in the breathless pause, between recurrent earthquake shocks, among the rocking buildings of a far-away, Spanish-American city. As he passed them, coming from that light, clear-coloured room, they stared at him, and slunk aside as though a fresh terror was added to those which already so unmanned them. In their present state of feeling the seemly decorum of respectful service was relaxed; and to Laurence, overwrought by his recent and strange experiences, it appeared that they shrunk from him as from one unclean and outcast.
He turned rather sternly upon Renshaw. "What is the meaning of all this commotion? If I was wanted, why on earth was I not called sooner?"
The butler's large, smooth, egg-shaped face turned from purple to something approaching grey.
"We had looked for you everywhere, sir, both myself and Mr. Watkins," he answered. "But until Mr. Lowndes suggested it, in consequence of some remark passed by Mr. Rivers, it had never occurred to us that you would be in the yellow drawing-room, sir."—Renshaw cleared his throat, recovering some of his accustomed dignity of bearing. "The electric light is switched on from the corridor outside, you will observe, sir. It has always been understood that no one—neither the upper or the under servants, sir—are ever required to go into the yellow drawing-room after dusk."
And with these words, and their implication of commerce on his part with something unlawful and malign, sounding in his ears, Laurence passed into his uncle's bed-chamber.
As he did so, a blast of air, hot and dry as from the mouth of a furnace, met him. The fire upon the hearth was piled up into a mountain of blazing coal and wood. The light of it filled the room with a fitful, lurid brilliance such as is produced by a great conflagration. In it, the breasts of the couchant sphinxes glowed, seeming to rise and fall as though they breathed. The caryatides supporting the ebony canopy likewise appeared imbued with life. Their smooth arms and bowed shoulders strained under the weight resting upon them; while the wreaths of fruit and blossom, girding their naked loins, heaved from the painfully sustained effort of nerve and muscle. The snake-locks of the Medusa's head, carved in high relief upon the circular, central panel of the back of the bedstead, writhed, twisted, interlaced and again slid asunder, as in frustrated desire and ceaseless suffering.
And along the middle of the great bed, surrounded by these opulent forms, and, at first sight, far less alive than they, lay Mr. Rivers. His face was so blanched, so unsubstantial, that, but for the glittering eyes still greedy of knowledge, it would have hardly been distinguishable from the white pillows supporting him. His shoulders and chest were muffled in a costly, sable cape; from beneath the lower edge of which his hands, thin as reeds, protruded, lying inert upon the thickly-wadded, blue-and-gold, damask coverlet. On the oak table—moved from its place by the armchair to the bedside—were the few handsomely bound books, the crystal memento mori resting on its strip of crimson embroidery, and a silver bell, the handle of it shaped as a slender, winged Mercury, elegantly poised for flight.