Chapter 7

THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES

It was six o'clock as the carriage passed Swiss Cottage station and ten minutes later when they had climbed the stiff hill to the Heath. Alban had not often ridden in a carriage, but he would have found his sensations very difficult to set down. The glossy cushions, the fine ivory and silver fittings, were ornaments to be touched with caressing fingers as one touches the coat of a beautiful animal or the ripe bloom upon fruit. Just to loll back in such a vehicle, to watch the houses and the people and the streets, was an experience he had not hitherto imagined. The smooth motion was a delight to him. He felt that he could continue such a journey to the ends of the earth, resting at his ease, untroubled by those never ended questions upon which poverty insisted.

"Is it far yet, sir--is Mr. Gessner's house a long way off?"

He asked the question as one who desired an affirmative reply. The parson, however, believed that his charge was already wearied; and he said eagerly:

"It is just over there between the trees, my lad. We shall be with our good friend in five minutes now. Perhaps you know that you are on Hampstead Heath?"

"I came here once with little Lois Boriskoff--on a Bank Holiday. It was not like this then. If Mr. Gessner is rich, why does he live in a place where people come to keep Bank Holiday? I should have thought he would have got away from them."

"He is not able to get away. His business takes him into town every day--he goes by motor-car and comes back at night to breathe pure air. Bank Holidays do not occur every day, Mr. Kennedy. Fortunately for some of us they are but four a year."

"Of course you don't like going amongst all those poor people, Mr. Geary. That's natural. I didn't until I had to, and then I found them much the same as the rest. You haven't any poor in Hampstead, I am told."

Mr. Geary fell into the trap all unsuspectingly.

"Thank heaven"--he began, and then checking himself clumsily, he added, "that is to say we are comparatively well off as neighborhoods go. Our people are not idlers, however. Some of the foremost manufacturers in the country live in Hampstead."

"While their work-people starve in Whitechapel. It's an odd world, isn't it, Mr. Geary--and I don't suppose we shall ever know much about it. If I had made a fortune by other people's work, I think I should like some of them to live in Hampstead too. But you see, I'm prejudiced."

Sidney Geary looked at the boy as though he had heard a heresy. To him the gospel of life meant a yearly dole of coals at Christmas and a bout of pleasant "charity organizations" during the winter months. He would as soon have questioned the social position of the Archbishop of Canterbury as have criticised the conduct and the acts of the manufacturers who supported his church so generously.

"I am afraid you have received some pernicious teaching down yonder," he said, with a shake of his abundant locks. "Mr. Gessner, I may tell you, has an abhorrence of socialism. If you wish to please him, avoid the topic."

"But I do not wish to please him--I do not even know him. And I'm not a socialist, sir. If Mr. Gessner had ever lived in Whitechapel; if he had starved in a garret, he would understand me. I don't suppose it matters, though, whether he does or not, for we are hardly likely to discuss such things together."

"My dear lad, he has not sent for you for that, believe me. His conversation will be altogether of a different nature. Let me implore you to remember that he desires to be your benefactor--not your judge. There is no kinder heart, no more worthy gentleman in all London to-day than Richard Gessner. That much I know and my opportunities are unique."

Alban could make no reply to this; nor did he desire one. They had passed the Jack Straw's Castle by this time, and now the carriage entered a small circular drive upon the right-hand side of the road and drew up before a modern red-bricked mansion, by no means ostentatious or externally characteristic of the luxury for which its interior was famed. Just a trim garden surrounded the house and boasted trees sufficient to hide the picturesque gables from the eyes of the curious. There were stables in the northern wing and a great conservatory built out toward the south. Alban had but an instant to glance at the beautiful facade when a young butler opened the door to them and ushered them into a vast hall, panelled to the ceiling in oak and dimly lighted by Gothic windows of excellent stained glass. Here a silence, amazing in its profundity, permitted the very ticking of the clocks to be heard. All sounds from without, the hoot of the motors, the laughter of children, the grating voices of loafers on the Heath, were instantly shut out. An odor of flowers and fine shrubs permeated the apartment. The air was cool and clear as though it had passed through a lattice of ice.

"Please to wait one moment, Kennedy, and I will go to Mr. Gessner. He expects us and we shall not have long to wait. Is he not in the library, Fellows--ah, I thought he would be there."

The young butler said "Yes, sir;" but Alban perceived that it was in a tone which implied some slight note of contempt. "That fellow," he thought, "would have kicked me into the street if I had called here yesterday--and his father, I suppose, kept a public-house or a fish shop." The reflection flattered his sense of irony; and sitting negligently upon a broad settee, he studied the hall closely, its wonderful panelling, the magnificently carved balustrades, the great organ up there in the gallery--and lastly the portraits. Alban liked subject pictures, and these masterpieces of Sargent and Luke Fildes did not make an instantaneous appeal to him. Indeed, he had cast but a brief glance upon the best of them before his eye fell upon a picture which brought the blood to his cheeks as though a hand had slapped them. It was the portrait of the supposed Polish girl whom he had seen upon the balcony of the house in St. James' Square--last night as he visited the caves.

Alban stared at the picture open-mouthed and so lost in amazement that all other interests of his visit were instantly lost to his memory. A hard dogmatic common-sense could make little of a coincidence so amazing. If he had wished to think that the unknown resembled little Lois Boriskoff--if he had wished so much last night, the portrait, seen in this dim light, flattered his desire amazingly. He knew, however, that the resemblance was chiefly one of nationality; and in the same instant he remembered that he had been brought to the house of a Pole. Was it possible, might he dare to imagine that Paul Boriskoff's friendship had contrived this strange adventure. Some excitement possessed him at the thought, for his spirit had ever been adventurous. He could not but ask himself to whose house had he come then and for what ends? And why did he find a portrait of the Polish girl therein?

Alban's eyes were still fixed upon the picture when the young butler returned to summon him to the library. He was not a little ashamed to be found intent upon such an occupation, and he rose immediately and followed the man through a small conservatory, aglow with blooms, and so at once into the sanctum where the master of the house awaited him. Perfect in its way as the library was, Alban had no eyes for it in the presence of Richard Gessner whom thus he met for the first time. Here, truly, he might forget even the accident of the portrait. For he stood face to face with a leader among men and he was clever enough to recognize as much immediately.

Richard Gessner was at that time fifty-three years of age. A man of medium height, squarely built and of fine physique, he had the face rather of a substantial German than of the usually somewhat cadaverous Pole. A tousled black beard hid the jowl almost completely; the eyes were very clear and light blue in color; the head massive above the neck but a little low at the forehead. Alban noticed how thin and fragile the white hand seemed as it rested upon a strip of blotting-paper upon the writing-table; the clothes, he thought, were little better than those worn by any foreman in Yarrow's works; the tie was absolutely shabby and the watch-chain nothing better than two lengths of black silk with a seal to keep them together. And yet the mental power, the personal magnetism of Richard Gessner made itself felt almost before he had uttered a single word.

"Will you take a seat, Mr. Kennedy--I am dining in the city to-night and my time is brief. Mr. Geary, I think, has spoken to you of my intentions."

Alban looked the speaker frankly in the face and answered without hesitation:

"He has told me that you wish to employ me, sir."

"That I wish to employ you--yes, it is not good for us to be idle. But he has told you something more than that?"

"Indeed," the curate interrupted, "very much more, Mr. Gessner. I have told Kennedy that you are ready and willing to take an interest, the greatest possible interest, in his future."

The banker--for as such Richard Gessner was commonly known--received the interjection a little impatiently and, turning his back slightly, he fixed an earnest look upon Alban's face and watched him critically while he spoke.

"Mr. Kennedy," he said, "I never give my reasons. You enter this house to confer a personal obligation upon me. You will remain in that spirit. I cannot tell you to-night, I may be unable to tell you for many years why you have been chosen or what are the exact circumstances of our meeting. This, however, I may say--that you are fully entitled to the position I offer you and that it is just and right I should receive you here. You will for the present remain at Hampstead as one of my family. There will be many opportunities of talking over your future--but I wish you first to become accustomed to my ways and to this house, and to trouble your head with no speculations of the kind which I could not assist. I am much in the city, but Mr. Geary will take my place and you can speak to him as you would to me. He is my Major Domo, and needless to say I in him repose the most considerable confidence."

He turned again toward Mr. Geary and seemed anxious to atone for his momentary impatience. The voice in which he spoke was not unpleasant, and he used the English language with an accent which did not offend. Rare lapses into odd and unusual sentences betrayed him occasionally to the keen hearer, but Alban, in his desire to know the man and to understand him, made light of these.

"I am to remain in this house, sir--but why should I remain, what right have I to be here?" he asked very earnestly.

The banker waved the objection away a little petulantly.

"The right of every man who has a career offered to him. Be content with that since I am unable to tell you more."

"But, sir, I cannot be content. Why should I stay here as your guest when I do not know you at all?"

"My lad, have I not said that the obligation is entirely on my side. I am offering you that to which you have every just claim. Children do not usually refuse the asylum which their father's door opens to them. I am willing to take you into this house as a son--would it not be a little ungrateful to argue with me? From what I know of him, Alban Kennedy is not so foolish. Let Mr. Geary show you the house while I am dressing. We shall meet at breakfast and resume this pleasant conversation."

He stood up as he spoke and began to gather his papers together. To Alban the scene was amazingly false and perplexing. He was perfectly aware that this stranger had no real interest in him at all; he felt, indeed, that his presence was almost resented and that he was being received into the house as upon compulsion. All the talk of obligation and favor and justice remained powerless to deceive. The key to the enigma did not lie therein; nor was it to be found in the churchman's suavity and the fairy tale which he had recited. Had the meeting terminated less abruptly, Alban believed that his own logic would have carried the day and that he would have left the house as he had come to it. But the clever suggestion of haste on the banker's part, his hurried manner and his domineering gestures, left a young lad quite without idea. Such an old strategist as Richard Gessner should have known how to deal with that honest original, Alban Kennedy.

"We will meet at breakfast," the banker repeated; "meanwhile, consider Mr. Geary as your friend and counsellor. He shall by me so be appointed. I have a great work for you to do, Mr. Kennedy, but the education, the books, the knowledge--they must come first. Go now and think about dinner--or perhaps you would like to walk about the grounds a little while. Mr. Geary will show you the way--I leave you in his hands."

He folded the papers up and thrust them quickly in a drawer as he spoke. The interview was plainly at an end. He had welcomed a son as he would have welcomed any stranger who had brought a letter of introduction which decency compelled him to read.