Part 6

“Good morning, Mr. Bradbury,” I answered, as he took my hands. “I’m glad to see you.”

“But where in the devil’s name had they hid you? With whom were you riding? He had cause to fear my friend here, Sir Gavin.”

“He’s Roger Galt. He took me out of Charles Craike’s hands, when he held me prisoner in a farmhouse away on the moors miles from here.”

“Galt! A notorious fellow. Highwayman! There’s a price on his head.”

“Yet my father’s friend and mine. I’m safe through him. But for him I should be aboard the ship of one Blunt, smuggler—may be worse; oh, it’s been the prettiest of plots, Mr. Bradbury, and I’ve the wildest of tales for you.”

“So!” he said swiftly. “So! Charles Craike thought to trick us, and you’ve tricked Charles Craike. By heaven, he’ll answer for this—by heaven! My dear sir, I’ve hunted high and low for you. Charles Craike denied all knowledge of you. Old Mr. Edward would not lift a finger. Lord knows and I guess the story our precious gentleman has told him of you. But I’ll lay Charles Craike by the heels yet.”

“Mr. Bradbury,” said I, “your friend here and the runners follow after Galt. I’d have no hurt come to him, for through him, and him only, despite Craike, I’m here and safe ashore. Not that they’re like to take him,” as I stared up the road and saw the riders pulling in, while Roger vanished from view. “Charles Craike has sworn that Roger Galt shall pay for this; I’d not have your friend there play Craike’s part, and set his hands on Galt.”

“I’ll have a word with Sir Gavin,” Mr. Bradbury assented. “Not that ’twill count, for Sir Gavin is set against the fellow, he’s been swearing indeed, for all I might say to the contrary, that not Charles Craike but Galt was responsible for the outrage upon us.”

“You took little hurt from your fall, I trust, Mr. Bradbury.”

“Little save a bad shaking. I was afoot almost at once. And must step it every foot of the way to the village—there’s a tolerable inn there, whither I’ll now lead you, Mr. Craike.”

“And what then?” I asked.

“Why, surely, we’ll proceed to wait upon your grandfather, sir.”

“Unless my Uncle Charles plans otherwise.”

“Nay, we’ll ride thither this afternoon, sir, if you’re rested and well. But the runners shall go beside our coach, lest Mr. Charles Craike still desire that we shall not meet your grandfather.”

_Chapter XV_. _The Doomed House_

That afternoon I drove with Mr. Bradbury to my grandfather’s house, and the two thief-catchers rode beside us. The house stood at a distance of five miles from the little village that looked down upon the sea; from the inn window I had caught sight of Blunt’s brig already putting out. It was an ancient dwelling of the Craike family, that my grandfather, enriched by trade in the East, Mr. Bradbury now assured me, had set in repair for his habitation.

For all the outrage of my imprisonment, Mr. Bradbury would have me keep a secret from old Sir Gavin Masters my detention in the Stone House. Let it remain a secret, and let the scandal be hushed, he insisted, until we had had our interview with my grandfather. I had an uneasy suspicion that he believed the old man himself implicated in the plot against me, or at least feared his resentment at interference with a crew of smugglers, with whom he and his son were associated. Committing my cause to Mr. Bradbury, I pleaded exhaustion; left him to tell what tale he would to Sir Gavin, and kept my room until the hour of our departure from the inn. I contented myself with insistence that Roger Galt should have due credit for returning me to safety, and should not be held guilty of the sins of Charles Craike and his rogues. What tale Mr. Bradbury told, I knew not; as we drove away, he gave me to understand that Sir Gavin had relinquished the search after Roger; I assumed that the justice himself would not welcome an open breach with the smuggling fraternity—with whom, indeed, I took it from furtive whisperings and black looks at me, the folk at the inn—as, no doubt, the fisher-folk at the village—were in league.

But what was my grandfather’s share in the plot of my kin against me I conjectured bitterly. Mr. Bradbury observed that my uncle had established great influence over the old man; that, indeed, the one thought and acted habitually as the other. But he was bent still on my presentation to my grandfather, as if he hoped that Mr. Craike might take a liking to me, and my favour with him counteract the influence of my Uncle Charles. So, cleanly-clad, well-dressed once more, I sat by Mr. Bradbury in his coach, and proceeded with him to Craike House, as if none of the events of the Stone House had happened; indeed, my curiosity to learn what manner of man was my grandfather prevailed for the time over perplexity and dread.

We drove always within sound of the sea, though it was hid from our sight for the most; our way taking us over an old stone road; but at times, where the cliffs were broken, we saw the waters grey and leaden still for hanging clouds; the violence of the wind had abated, yet it blew keenly; always the tang of the sea was in my nostrils. Our road struck at last from the sea inland; we were driving soon through a deep wood; this was unbroken, ere we came to iron gates in an old brick wall. A woman, coming out of the gate-keeper’s cottage at the sound of coach and riders, stared at us through the bars, but at the sight of Mr. Bradbury’s head poking out of the window, and at his curt order, “Open the gates, woman. Mr. Bradbury to see Mr. Craike!” she unlocked and opened the gates, staring at us as we passed by. I saw her for a big woman, as nut-brown as a gipsy, and as vivid in her red shawl and green kirtle; a swath of orange-coloured stuff was about her black hair. We drove on, and the runners clattered after us. Looking back, I saw the woman run into the cottage, and reappear presently with a bearded fellow, rubbing his eyes sleepily; I saw the glint of big rings in his ears, his rig of wide blue breeches and red-striped shirt,—both remained staring after us, till the trees hid them from us. The coach rolled on through a park, ill-tended, overgrown, a very wilderness; green darkness dropped about us till we came in sight of Craike House.

It stood amid tall pine and fir trees—a sombre, dreary house; the ivy holding it in a green net, webbed across shuttered windows, climbing to the very leads, and gripping the chimney stacks. An ancient, crumbling house,—I had a notion that but for the ivy it must fall in ruins to the ground; a house of gloom from the dark ivy—the evil green ivy, with the black pines and fir trees all about it, with weeds and tangle of flowers before it, where once had been rose gardens; with nettles and lank green grass upon its lawns. We drove up, seeing no one; we pulled up before the flight of stone steps leading up to its door,—steps worn by rains of centuries, and by the feet of generations; steps guarded by stone dragons, wingless and earless from their years, their eyes blinded and their jaws stopped with green moss. Sombre and secret stood the house amid the black cloud of pine and fir trees; I saw the black clouds lower above it; I heard the winds cry out about it; the old trees strain and sigh, and toss their boughs like arms, in lamentation or in terror for the house,—the doomed house, where my kinsmen dwelt. Afar I heard the drumming of the sea against the rock-bound coast. I had a curious shapeless notion—prescience—that even as all the evil of the house—the ill-gotten fortunes of the house—came from the sea, out of the sea should retribution—vengeance—come.

Mr. Bradbury bade the runners and the coach-boy wait for us. Taking my arm, he climbed the steps with me to the door; its oak was bound with iron in fantastic pattern, and studded with copper nails; the knocker was of copper in the form of a satyr’s grinning face,—and all this copper was corroded, and the green stained the door as the evil green of the ivy stained the front of the house. Mr. Bradbury raised the knocker with difficulty; though it clashed heavily, it failed to bring response from the house; whispering to me, “I’d have thought Charles would have been keeping a sharper look out for our arrival than this,” he knocked double knocks, until the clank of a chain and the screech of bolts sounded within. The door opened, and an old man stood blinking out at us—an old man, his clean-shaven face shrivelled and brown, and his eyes palely blue; his white hair was powdered, and his suit of black on his bent and withered body as neat and precise as his linen.

“Mr. Bradbury, sir,” he quavered.

“Your ears are not as sharp as they might be, Thrale,” said Mr. Bradbury, drily. “Pray, open the door to Mr. Craike and me, and tell your master that we have the honour to wait upon him in obedience to his wish.”

Thrale answered in that shaking voice of his—though his eyes looked keenly and wickedly at me, “To be sure, gentlemen, to be sure! Pray step inside!”—and opened the door slowly into the hall. It was a dark and gloomy vault; ere old Thrale closed the door, I caught a glimpse of a hall panelled all in oak, of canvases mouldering in mildewed frames, and of a wide black stairway opposite the door, leading up into darkness. If fanlight above the door or windows at the head of the stair should have lit the hall, all light was kept out by curtains, shutters, or netted ivy; the darkness of night fell with the closing of the door.

Mr. Bradbury, grasping my arm hurriedly, cried out, “Gad, how dark and cold this house is, Thrale! I’m not prepared to take my death of a chill waiting here till you announce us to your master. Go ahead of us, man, and show us into his room immediately—d’ye hear me?” He adopted a tone of brusque good humour, though well I understood his apprehension of what might yet befall me, if we were left standing in the dark. The dark hung mysterious all about us; I could feel cold draughts of air; I believed that I could hear furtive whisperings and footsteps, doors softly opening and closing, hangings waving; all this might have been the wind without. Certainly I heard Thrale chuckle behind me, as he locked the door and fixed the chain; he answered Mr. Bradbury, “As you wish, sir.”

“Strike a light, Thrale,—d’ye hear me?—a light. I’ve no mind to break a leg or my neck in the dark! A light, Thrale!”

“Certainly, sir,” Thrale’s answer floated back to us, as he flitted away in the dark.

“Why, damn the fellow, he’s leaving us after all,” gasped Mr. Bradbury. “Thrale, you hear me? Thrale! Come back, man!”

But there came no sound save of the whisperings, gliding footsteps, rustlings of hangings waving in the dark, or of the ghostly wind that seemed to haunt the House of Craike. Mr. Bradbury’s left hand grasped my arm; I understood that his right groped in his coat pocket for his pistol. The impress of the blackness and gloom of the house was upon me, while I had good cause to dread my uncle’s plotting; I stood straining my eyes and ears in the darkness, imagining that figures advanced upon us in the dark. Mr. Bradbury drew me back against the door, muttering, “By the Lord, if the old rogue’s not back presently, I’ll take upon me to make a dash for the stair and force my way into the master’s room.”

But he was silent, as a glimmer of light showed through the darkness. Thrale was returning, carrying a silver candlestick; his face was villainous and livid in the pale light.

“Where the deuce have you been, Thrale?” cried Mr. Bradbury. “Didn’t you hear me call after you?”

Thrale answered quietly, “I asks pardon, Mr. Bradbury, sir. As you said, I don’t hear as well as I might. I’d flint and steel to find,”—and stood blinking at us, with the candlestick lifted high in his bone-white hands.

A skeleton’s hands—mere bone—they seemed to me, as the old rogue, at Mr. Bradbury’s peremptory order, lit us up the stairs. The glimmer of pale light, the lime-white head, the bone-white hands, the silver candlestick, seemed from his noiseless movement to glide before us. From the head of the stair wide galleries led off to right and left and before us,—galleries shrouded with dark tapestries. I saw rusty armour standing against the walls. I kicked against a pile of tumbled mail as the old man flitted before us by many fast-shut doors down the corridor to the left. He paused at a high black door, the glimmer of the candle showed me grotesque carvings and tarnished gilding upon it; he rapped smartly on this door with his bony fingers. No one answering, he opened the door, and swept aside the thick green curtains hanging before it.

The room revealed was high and wide; only a pale green light crept through the diamond panes of its two windows stained by the mosses of the years and netted with the ivy. For the time I had no eye for its furnishings, but only for the figure in the carved black chair by the fire. He was an old man; he had been of great stature and strength, his bulk was supported now by faded purple cushions. He seemed to prop himself upon the arms of his chair; his wide, brown hands were stained with red jewels; I had an uneasy fancy of blood-smeared hands. His clean-shaven face was very broad, bronzed and congested, his brows were framed in white hair tumbling about his immense shoulders; his eyes were coal-black beneath ash-grey brows. His whole aspect suggested decaying will, as his body decaying strength. A quilted gown of green and gold-brocaded silk was corded about his middle; his bent legs were cased in black silken breeches and hose; his shoe buckles were set with smoke-blue jewels; an ebony stick rested by his chair.

“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, stepping swiftly forward and bowing politely, “I have the honour at last to present your grandson—Mr. John Craike!”

_Chapter XVI_. _Old Mr. Edward Craike_

It may have been only the leaping flame upon the hearth, but it seemed to me that colour rose to the old brown face, and that light burned in the coal-black eyes. An instant only, and his aspect was hard and grim. He did not offer his hand to Mr. Bradbury or me; he seemed still to prop himself upon the arms of his chair; he said, in tones curiously rich and full for so old a man, “You wrote to me, Bradbury, and Charles answered you at my dictation that I would receive you.”

“Well, we are here, sir,” said Mr. Bradbury, easily.

“And you are here! You know me well enough, Mr. Bradbury, to understand my wishes. I do not welcome your visit. I felt bound only to receive you and hear you. Why have you come?”

Mr. Bradbury, standing forward, sought his snuff-box, and made play with it; the cold jewels shining white upon his fingers, his eyes hard and keen as his diamonds. “Mr. Craike,” he said, “our interview with you should surely be in private. Is there any need for Thrale to remain?”

“Set chairs, Thrale, and I’ll ring for you—if I need you. Is Mr. Charles in the house?”

“No, sir,” answered Thrale, his malignant look marking resentment against Mr. Bradbury. “He’s abroad.”

“If he return, tell him to come to my room. Set chairs—damn you! Set chairs! Don’t stand there like a candle in a draught. Like to be blown out any minute—eh, Bradbury, eh?” and passed from sudden passion to loud laughter.

As Thrale set chairs by the fire for Mr. Bradbury and me, I found the opportunity to look about the room. It was lit by those green panes dully for the lateness of the afternoon, and by the leaping flame. It had been a rich, ornate room; I saw dull gold and faded colours in some sombre painting upon the ceiling; faces on the walls—portraits of gloomy folks much of the aspect of the grim old man looking across the green-veined marble hearth at us. A panelled room with heavy tapestries corrupt with moth and grime, with heavy furniture dark with age, a huge four-poster with black silken curtains, black presses, black table; pale gleam of crystal and silver upon a sideboard, old books in a high case. Only a Persian carpet by my grandfather’s chair and his garish gown and gems lent rich colour to the room; all else was gloomy, tarnished, faded. Gloom—surely over all the house was gloom; surely the wind beating on the windows, moaning and sighing, was burdened with a tale of sins; surely a sense of evil brooded in this room,—where sat old Edward Craike to think of life drawing near to death,—to think, maybe, of punishment for years of sinning. For on the face was scored a record of old sins and dead passions; its aspect was evil; the lips were merciless; the brooding eyes, from the sudden blazing wrath at Thrale, could burn with an unholy fire. Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood,—I could feel for this old broken man no pity, no affection. I found myself conjecturing only that these eyes would face death—surely so near him—courageously, as an intrepid voyager’s looking on uncharted seas.

Thrale, stepping noiselessly, withdrew.

Mr. Bradbury leaned forward swiftly. “Now, sir,” he said, “I ask you to listen to me patiently.”

“Go on, Bradbury!”

“I ask you to remember your affection for your son Richard—such affection as you have not felt for any other being.”

He said heavily, “Why recall the past, Bradbury? What is the past but a voyage I have made, and come from with an empty hold?”

“Ay, surely,” assented Mr. Bradbury, taking snuff and smiling. “You have a gift of melancholy, Mr. Craike.”

“Bradbury, you speak to me as no man dares to speak.”

“You permit me,” said Mr. Bradbury quietly, “to speak frankly to you, knowing me your friend, Mr. Craike, and honest in my dealings with you. As your friend—as your son’s friend—I am here. Mr. Craike, you’ve sailed over the world in your day; you’ve suffered shipwreck; you’ve been cast away. What would you not have given—even you—to have had with you upon the desert isle you’ve told me of, one of your kind—one of your blood?”

“Allegory, Bradbury?” he said, impassively.

“Allegory, surely! Seeing you sitting here alone—knowing you all these days alone, as surely as were you on your desert isle, longing—as any human being must long—for kith and kin, for friend, at least for one of whose companionship—affection even—you might be assured.”

“You mean this lad here?” in unaltered tone.

“Who else? Look at this lad! Frame a picture in your mind, Mr. Craike—your son Richard’s—set Richard’s likeness and this boy’s side by side. And will you say that this lad seated here is not, feature for feature, colour of eyes and hair and skin, in body, manner—your son, Richard?”

My grandfather said slowly, “Richard was as all our race. The lad is Richard look for look. What is it to me, Bradbury? My son was never wed.”

I felt my cheeks burn; ere Mr. Bradbury might restrain me, I started up, and facing the old man, cried out, “And there you lie! If I be the son of Richard Craike—and that I be I care not—no man shall question or deny my parents’ honour, take their name lightly. You hear me,—you lie!”

He did not stir in his chair; his aspect was unchanged save that the light seemed to burn up in his old eyes. He said coolly, “The lad is Richard’s son, Bradbury.”

“And rightly resentful of your words, sir,” cried Mr. Bradbury, snapping his snuff-box.

“Bradbury, don’t try me too far. You are at liberty to go at once—with Richard’s son.”

“Mr. Craike,” said Mr. Bradbury, leaning forward in his chair, and looking intently at my grandfather, “knowing you—your sense of justice—I dare to tell you, as the lad has told you, that you lie. Your son was wedded nineteen years back to Mary Howe—you will recall her.”

“Surely—serving-woman to Mrs. Charles.”

“He was wedded to her in London, after Charles and his wife, understanding Richard’s passion for her, had driven her from this house. Their enmity pursued her—from house to house, employment to employment. She was in London—destitute, nigh starving—when Richard, returning from the Continent, sought and found her. He married her in London—nineteen years since, Mr. Craike, nineteen years since. He lived for several years with her in London under her name of Howe, earning his living honestly, not communicating with you and taking nothing from you. He disappeared ten years or so back. Mr. Craike, the agency that robbed you of your son; that took him from his wife and child, that shipped him out of England or hid his body in the ground—for whether he be alive or dead I cannot tell, even as you—I do believe to be the active enmity of your son Charles—his jealousy of Richard Craike, his elder brother and your heir.”

And now at last I saw the cruel lips part; and now I heard the old man gasp and mutter to himself; I saw the red flash upon his shaking hands; I saw his eyes burn up, and flame from Bradbury to me.

“Mr. Craike,” Mr. Bradbury proceeded, “the proofs of this marriage—of the boy’s legitimacy—are in my hands.”

“You have these proofs with you?”

“Mr. Craike, would I be such a fool as to bring them here? Would Mrs. Richard Craike entrust them to me, coming to this house? We have them and we hold them.”

“Fearing me?”

“No! Fearing your son Charles. With cause, sir, with bitter cause! And hear this, sir, we should have been here days since—would have been—but for your son. His agents waylay our coach; his agents carry off the boy and gaol him in the Stone House you may know of. Ay, and would have shipped him overseas with Blunt—smuggler, freebooter—what is he? All this, all this,—to keep the lad from you, sir, while you sit by your fire alone—alone!”

“You’ve proof of this? I have no knowledge of any plot?”

“Proof! Am I fool or trickster, Mr. Craike?”

“I do not think you fool or trickster, Bradbury.”

“Look on this boy: his likeness to your son Richard. Knowing your son Charles, think at what he would stay to keep him from your sight.”

He said deliberately, “I know my son Charles even as I know myself. I am no censor, Bradbury. Charles would have kept this lad away from me, say you? Fearing lest he commend himself to me and profit by it; take more at my death than by the law he must inherit. Money and jewels—knowing on what I have my hand. What of it, Bradbury? Had I been Charles; had I desired to keep my brother’s son out of my father’s sight—for such a reason—I would have done as Charles has done. Only, I was bolder in my day than Charles. Enough, what is all this to me?”

“Yet Charles has failed,” said Mr. Bradbury, grinning, “and you will profit by it, Mr. Craike. Do you love Charles?”

“You need not ask that, Bradbury.”

“And you loved Richard. You should favour Richard’s son. Alone—I said of you—alone, with thoughts—and terrors.”

“Had the sea ever terror for me, Bradbury, or peril, or the dark? What terrors now?”

“Mr. Craike, you are a man, and the unknown after death is terrible to men. Except they have a faith that you have not. Unhappily!”

“I have no faith, or fear.”

“Oh, if you be prepared to sit alone in your last years,—face death alone,” Mr. Bradbury said earnestly, “I appeal still to what was human in you—love for your son Richard. Let your heart turn to Richard’s son.”

“What purpose would you serve?”

Mr. Bradbury did not answer, but was taking snuff, and coldly regarding my Uncle Charles, who had drawn aside the curtain, and was standing in the doorway.

_Chapter XVII_. _Creed of Mr. Charles_

He stepped forward—a handsome, smiling gentleman of middle age, his face ivory-white, his white hair held by a black ribbon, his dress as precise as Mr. Bradbury’s, but set off by his shapely body. He wore no jewel; he had no touch of colour on him, save the red line of his lips and the cold blue of his eyes. He bowed with a courtly grace to Mr. Bradbury; he vouchsafed me the merest lift of his brows.

Mr. Bradbury met him with an equal composure. “It’s as well that you came here, Mr. Charles,” he said. “You formed the subject of our conversation.”