Part 8

I have a belief—it dates from the time I passed at Rogues’ Haven—that the spirit of a man is stamped upon the house in which he dwells. Surely the spirit of old Edward Craike impressed itself upon his gloomy home, and the mystery of the man was the mystery of the house. Ay, the past of our race and the past of my grandfather alike affected the ancient house, meshed in a monstrous web of dark green ivy, clouded by gloomy woods, and blown upon by melancholy winds. Now did faces peer our of the shadows at me, seated drearily by the fire? Did I hear whispering, muttering, or did I but imagine voices in the wind come up from stormy sea to the black woods, to cry about the dwelling, and moan and sigh, and to creep in by breach and crack and cranny, to stir the dusty, moth-corrupted hangings, and fill the house with secret rustling, sighing?

My uncle did not rejoin me till the night was far advanced. He came in stepping so stealthily that at the sudden sight of him standing beside me, and watching me with haunted eyes, I started from my chair, and scarcely repressed a cry. He smiled at me, but his gaiety of the early evening had passed from him; he dropped heavily into a chair facing me, giving me not a word. I watched the shadows fall about his face, as the coals blackened out, and the candles, waving in the draughts, guttered, burned down, and smoked. If a light leaped high from silver stick, I saw him white as ivory, lips twisted, eyes brooding. He looked at me malevolently at times; I understood how much in truth he hated me; how my resemblance to my father tormented him; what was the repression compelled upon him by his father.

He said suddenly, “It’s a cruel trick of fate, nephew, brings you to this house!”

“How?” I asked. “I’m not here by any wish of mine.”

“Or by any wish of mine,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “Fate, in the form of Bradbury! Odd, kinsman, that my father should be so near to death, and I who have endured him all these years bid fair to lose in these last days of his my profit on it. I’ve a notion, nephew, that in the few weeks you will remain here you’ll benefit by all I looked for. Estimate my sentiment towards you!”

“The hate that looked from your eyes a moment since.”

“A poor expression of it, nephew,” he said. “There is no look, or word spoken or written, shall reveal a man’s soul. The fellow Rousseau has essayed to reveal his soul, to be sure, and has revealed but the body of an ape. I have a philosophy of my own, John Craike,—that my soul is not my body’s own; that aught I do, while my soul is in my body, counts nothing in the score against me. If I do aught—pride myself on it or am ashamed—I need not plume myself, or fret me. For it is not my deed.”

“A comfortable creed,” said I. “It would absolve you from aught that you have done or plan to do against your brother or your brother’s son.”

“I take it so,” he answered, coolly. “Nephew, this will of mine—I name it ‘will’—is no more mine, no more controllable by me than that wind blowing from the sea, and crying out about this dreary house. The actions of our lives are inevitable as storm or summer sun. My very promise to my father to do no hurt to you, while you are in this house, is no more mine than the injury I have essayed and failed to do you. We are predestined, nephew, as surely as any hapless wretch who walked the plank, or drowned in scuttled ship, or burned with its burning—at my father’s hands.”

“I did not know,” I whispered, “the manner of his past. And do you tell me?”

“I tell you nothing that you must not know,” he said indifferently. “Rogues’ Haven—this house is but a haven for old rogues,—rogues who were young and lusty with him once, and sinned at his command. Sinned! Nay, there is no sin; there is no virtue that is a man’s own. Predestined!”—his laughter rang out over the winds that beat against the shutters—“Will you tell all this to my father, nephew? Will you seek to blacken me to him that you may profit by it? It will not change a whit his disposition to me. He is not wholly past all love or hate, though he is near to death. And lacking my philosophy, he is not past all terror. He fears death; he fears dead men who, living, troubled him not at all. He is afraid to go down to their company—their company—the maw of the worm or the fish, the decay of all who go down into the ground or sink in the sea. His soul—it never was his soul! He loved your father; he ever hated me. Till he grew old, his will was stronger than my will. My will grows stronger, nephew; I warn you my will may yet prevail over his old affection for your father, on which your hope with him rests wholly.”

“Will!” I repeated. “It accords ill with your creed, my uncle.”

“Will!” he said, laughing. “Oh, it’s no more than the force given to the wind or the wave. Predestined! If I win yet, nephew, so it is fated; not any act of yours or mine may stay it. I do not see the event. No man may look beyond the minute that is now. Nephew, I vow I saw you yawning; I prose; I weary you; I am a dull fellow,—and who would not be, living in this house?”

“No, I am tired, that’s all. I’ll go to bed.”

He caught the bell-rope, and old Thrale answering, he bade him light me to my room. The fire upon its hearth burned brightly; the bed was warm and soft, but my comfort lulled in no way my apprehension of the night. Though I locked the door and set a chair against it, I did not feel secure. Knowing myself friendless in the house, with no more than the decaying will of an old man between me and my enemy. Knowing the house peopled with old rogues, who, I conjectured, had been seamen on my grandfather’s ship, when he was young, and sinned unpardonable sins, and grew rich under a black flag. I fell to picturing him in his youth and strength—the dark ruthless face, the powerful body, the strong, cruel hands. I pictured him on the deck of his ship,—I conjured up its build for swiftness, its rakish masts, the swell of its white sails. I conjured up illusions of glittering seas, blue as the sheen on copper in the sun; a phantasm of those old rogues, withered, bloated, tottering now, as lusty with youth. Stark to the waist I saw them, their bodies muscular and brown as iron, and lithe as steel; the wicked aged faces that had peered at me out of the shadows now young, and red with drink and lust and greed; I saw these rogues now toiling at the guns,—through smoke I saw them: their hands grip cutlass, or knife, or pistol now for dish or glass or bottle. I saw such treasure, as the massy plate upon the board that night, piled on red decks with bursting chests of rich apparel—dyed silks and satins, laces; gold pieces, precious gems, even as the red gems upon my grandfather’s fingers. And I heard piteous lamentation in the wind screaming from the sea; cries of the dying and tormented in its wailing round the house, and in its rumbling above the chimney stacks the roar of guns; and the wash of waters in the sweeping of the pine and fir boughs. The dark curtains of my bed were half-drawn; when the moon shone in, I saw a black flag flying and a death’s head on it.

For my terrors, born of the evil brooding in this house, I could not rest. I fell to wondering whether my grandsire slept soundly in his bed, or whether phantoms crowded upon him, and the winds cried menace to him—an old man black with sins and nigh to dying.

_Chapter XXI_. _My Cousin Oliver_

I slept towards morning, and did not wake until the sun was rising; the light came golden-green through the stained windows. I rose from my bed, and, opening the casement, looked out over sunlit woods; afar, through the break in the trees, I could make out the glittering waters of the sea. In the decaying garden I saw the colours of many flowers among weeds; a hawthorn by an overgrown walk was a silver fount of blossom. The gloom of the garden and the wood had passed with the darkness and the sea wind; only the pines and firs were sombre yet and sighing in the breeze.

I was still in my shirt when a rapping sounded on my door. I hastened silently to pull away the chair, asking, “Who’s there?”

My cousin Oliver answered gruffly, “It’s I, cousin,” and I let him in. He was in shabby riding-rig, his black hair tumbled over his nose; he stood awkwardly in the doorway. With the flush of drink off him he seemed not so ill a fellow, though his look was lowering and sullen, and he possessed none of his father’s elegance, but only a hard strength such as must have been my grandfather’s in his youth. “Get into your breeches, cousin,” he muttered, “and ride with me.”

“Why, I’ll be happy,” said I.

“We’ll ride down to the sea and swim in it, if you’ve a mind for it.”

“I’ve a mind for it, yes.”

“Dress then. I’ll wait for you,” and moved over to the window-seat and lounged there, till I had pulled on my clothes. He sat sullenly regarding me; I could not estimate his disposition to me, believing that his father had instructed him to treat me with civility; from time to time I stole a glance at him reflected dully in the mirror, noting the health and strength of him, and could not find it in me to hate the fellow as with cause I hated his father. Dressed at last, a towel about my neck, I said, “At your service, cousin,” and he, lurching up from his seat, strode before me down the gallery, and brought me by a dark stair out of the house into the courtyard. I had a certain hesitation in accompanying him—with my escape from being shipped overseas with Blunt on the _Black Wasp_ fresh in my mind; but reassured that I was safe now through my grandfather’s direction, I set my dread aside.

He had anticipated my hesitation, it seemed, for he swung round, and demanded curtly, “Are you afraid to go with me, cousin?”

“No, I’m not afraid,” I answered.

He cast a look about him, shot out his hand and gripped my sleeve. He said, in that harsh tone of his, “You’ve no need to be, whatever others may do. D’ye understand me?”

“I’m happy to understand.”

“You saw me swilling last night.”

“Ay, I saw.”

He said simply, “Wouldn’t the house and the folk in it drive a man to the devil?”—and turned abruptly and crossed the courtyard with me at his heels.

The courtyard was deserted. Neglect and decay marked it; the moss grew green in crevices and cracks of the paving stones; the ivy held the out-buildings as it held the house. The great stables were bare but for three horses in the stalls; a fellow ill of look, of middle-age, but seeming young by comparison with the old men about my grandfather, was plying a broom.

“Saddle the mare for Mr. Craike, Nick,” Oliver ordered. “I’ll get my horse out.”

Nick responding, “Ay, ay, sir,” set down his broom, and stared at me. A seaman surely, he was as brown as the old rogues; the silver rings in his ears, and the tattoo-marks on his bare arms, accorded ill with his shabby rig of a groom.

I waited by the stable-door until Nick brought out the mare; Oliver followed, leading a powerful black horse; and making down to the gates, he leaped to saddle. I, rejoicing at the prospect of a better mount than ever it had been my lot to ride, disdained Nick’s assistance into saddle, and rode out after Oliver. I had already a hope of friendship with this strong, uncouth, young kinsman of mine. I thought to find him in his disposition no more a pattern of my uncle than he resembled the gentleman in his fashion and graces. Yet I feared to confide in any of the folk of the house, and I resolved to keep my own counsel until I knew more of my cousin. Indeed, he gave me no opportunity for conversation. He made off at a gallop down the drive; and I had much ado to keep within sight of him. He did not ride for the gates, but swerving off to the left, he rode down through the park to the wall, where it was crumbling and broken. Setting his horse to the breach, he leaped it; and I following, he led me at a gallop down towards the sea.

The joy of the morn dispelled for a time my thoughts of the gloomy house and its folk. The sun was now clear; the breeze blew sweetly from the sea; little white clouds sailed over a blue heaven. We came out of the wood into open country; we swept through green meadows and drained lands; he rode like the very devil, taking hedge and ditch; he did not pause till we were riding out through a break in the cliffs. The shingly beach of a little cove was before us; the waters rolling in and the foam scudding. I saw the white gulls wheel and dip; fishing boats were out at sea; no dwelling was in sight; the beach was all our own. Oliver, dismounting, secured his bridle to a stunted tree, and silently walked down with me over the rocks to the beach; drawing apart from me to strip. I had no proper realisation of his strength till I saw him racing out into the sea—it seemed to me to break with a dangerous wash upon the beach; he splashed out with the sunlight white upon him, and the waters foaming against him; he swam far out then and rode back with the breakers. I, being accustomed only to inland waters, was nigh drowned, when I attempted to follow him; I was no more his match as swimmer than as horseman. I was dressed, and glowing with warmth and health, ere he desisted and pulled on his clothes.

“Faith, cousin,” said I, “I would I had your strength and courage. Had I dared swim out as you, I’d have drowned for sure.”

He nodded, not ill-pleased, and said, grinning, “I should have wagered you you’d not dare. If you’d have drowned—” but broke off and turned from me.

“You mean, if I’d have drowned,” said I, “it would have been all to the advantage of other folk?”

“What does it matter what I meant? Hark’ee, cousin, while you’re in the house, whatever’s done to get you out of it, I’m not for profiting by it.”

“You mean you’re my friend.”

“I didn’t say so,” he answered heavily. “I’m saying that I’m not for profiting at your cost—d’ye understand me?” He did not face me, but stood staring seawards. I said nothing, but waited. He burst out presently, “You’ve a notion by now how old Edward came by his money. If he have money? If all this talk among the rogues about him be more than the chattering of old fools? They talk of a secret store he keeps by him at the house. They talk, when they fancy none’s listening to ’em, of gold and jewels. They vow he’s hid his store in the house, and none knows where save himself. From their talk ’twas evilly come by. There’s blood upon it—every coin and gew-gaw; there’s a curse upon it; they say no man’ll ever profit by it; and every rogue among them itches to set his claws upon it, curse or no curse.” He laughed and waved his hand seawards. “We’re an ill race, we Craikes,” he muttered. “We’ve been of the sea and the coasts year in, year out. The sea calls every man of us down to it—you and I’ll be sailing yet, cousin; the sea calls us and the sea has us in the end. Did you hear the beat of the sea like drums through the night, cousin? Did you hear the wind crying?”

“Ay, as if the spirits of the dead were in it. Ay, and I feared.”

He said slowly, “I’ve heard it, many a night about the old house. I’ve heard the voices growing louder. D’ye think old Edward lies awake, and listens and fears? He’s near to death. He’s turned eighty years. And all the old rogues about him know him breaking and cease to fear him. He was their captain once by the strength and the will of him. He would have died at their hands but for his strength and will, and never have brought his ship and his treasure home. He’s breaking. What’s to be the end, cousin?”—he laughed savagely to himself. “D’ye think me mad, John Craike?”

“No, having passed a night in the house.”

“We’re like to see the end, you and I and my father,—he has wit enough to win. But that fellow Blunt.”

“A damned rogue!”

“Blunt and his men of the _Black Wasp_, Thrale and old Mistress Barwise, will see to it yet there’s wild doings at the house. She’s housekeeper, to be sure. Blunt was ship’s boy with old Edward. They think a treasure’s hid in the house. What d’ye think of it all?”

“Think! That I’d have you for my friend, cousin?”

“You’re like to be the heir of all this,” he said, laughing. “Why should I be your friend?”

“Being what I think you,” I told him; “not what you’d have me think. Your hand, cousin.”

He swung round, his brows scowling, his face flushed. He muttered, “D’ye mean it, John Craike? After seeing me as I was last night? You’ll see me so any night of the week. You’ll see me a butt for my father. You’ll find me a cross-grained, ill-mannered fellow.”

“I think you as you are,” I answered steadily. “Your hand, cousin.”

_Chapter XXII_. _The Web of Ivy_

My grandfather summoned me to his presence before noon. I breakfasted with Oliver; my uncle did not honour us; it was his habit, his son informed me, to lie abed late. The girl Evelyn Milne came down, slim and pale in her black gown; she gave us the chillest of “good mornings,” and sat silent and obscure through the meal. Thrale waited on us; recalling all Oliver had said to me on the beach, I eyed the old man in the light of day—observing the brownness of his shrivelled skin, the bony hands serving us so deftly; and from time to time I saw him peer at me, his eyes gleam sinister; his face expressed nothing; his voice was thin and reedy. The girl passed not a word with us, ere she rose from breakfast; she seemed a poor, scared, fluttering thing, afraid of Oliver and me.

“How do we pass the day, cousin?” I asked, as Oliver pulled back his chair. “Do we ride abroad?”

Thrale interrupted swiftly, “Will you pardon me, sir?”

“Surely, Thrale.”

“Your grandfather, sir, desires a word with you. He asks you to remain here. He’ll send for you when he’s ready for you.”

I nodded. Oliver, without a word, marched out, leaving me to yawn the morning away by the fire. Thrale, clearing the table, vanished presently; I sat waiting glumly; silence had fallen over the house. The sunlight filtered through the dull panes, revealing the decay of the house, the tattered tapestries, the mouldering oak, the green-specked mirrors and the paintings dark with smoke and grime. I pondered heavily, feeling the gloom descend once more upon me, and hearing stealthy footsteps through the house, and muttering voices. The air of the room was thick with the musty odours of decay; the windows, when I would have opened them, proved bound with ivy. I grew so weary that at last I would have pulled the bell-rope for Thrale, and asked him to bring me a book, or let me out into the air, until my grandfather should summon me. I started to find Thrale was in the room and beckoning to me, “Your grandfather will see you now, sir,” he said.

I followed him readily up the stairs and down the corridor to my grandfather’s room. He announced me with all formality, “Mr. John, sir,” and left me standing before the grim old figure in the brocaded gown. He sat huddled by the fire, his jewelled hands seemed palsied, as he warmed them at the blaze; his lips scarcely to support his tobacco pipe—the air was heavy with smoke. He pointed to the chair before him; when I sat down, he regarded me for awhile in silence. He said at last, “Well, grandson—Bradbury swears you’re my grandson, and Bradbury has no cause to lie.”

“I’m happy that you think so, sir,” I flashed, colouring.

He chuckled to himself, “You’ve Richard’s look,” he said. “You’ve his evil temper—I’ve horsed him for it many a time. Ay, and he’s dead—isn’t he?”

“For all I know. Or overseas.”

“Or overseas!” he repeated slowly. “Your mother now—does she know?”

“My mother thinks him dead.”

“She was a fine, upstanding lass,” he said, pulling at his pipe. “Ay, ay, years since. And she wedded Richard—he-he—for all that Charles and his wife might do. She feared and hated us all, except Richard. She’s paying Charles coin for coin. What’s she said of us to you.”

“Little, and that’ll I’ll not say, sir, by your leave.”

His brow grew dark; he muttered, “Years since—not so many—and you’d not have answered so. You’re bold—hey, you’re bold. Little she said, but no good—hey?”

“Why should she speak well of you?” I said, quietly. “You were her enemies.”

He chuckled, “Ay, and so she kept you hid from us all these years. You’d not be in the house but for Bradbury. Cunning dog, Bradbury.”

“And even for Mr. Bradbury,” said I, “I’ll not be staying, sir.”

“Why? D’ye fear Charles? Has Charles done aught—after my word to him?” He lurched up from his chair and stood glowering down on me; the tobacco pipe, dropping from his grasp, smashed on the hearth.

“No, he’s done nothing.”

“Why would you go then? Are you afraid—our ways not being yours? Why would you go?”

I answered, “I do not like the house or the folk around you. What’s there about this house, sir? What’s it in the very wind of a night? What’s all the muttering in the dark?”

He returned to his chair, and leaning forward in it, watched me intently with his red-lidded eyes.

“I feared the house,” I went on, “when I first came up through the woods with Mr. Bradbury, and saw it in its cobweb of ivy and the black pines at its back. I’ve no cause to remain here, and I’ll not remain.”

He muttered, “Yet you’ll remain.”

“I’m gaoled here, then. Is that it?”

“You’ll remain,” he repeated, “though you’ll be free to ride abroad with the young cub Oliver. You’re safe here; there’s naught in the house to fear. There’s none dares do you hurt.”

“None of those old men, your servants?” said I. “Those old brown men with the evil eyes, and the rings in their ears, and the tattoo-marks on their arms? I’m afraid, maybe, of Blunt and his crew—not of these old men.”

“Once,” he chuckled. “Ay, but once.”

“Once these old rogues were to be feared, you mean?”

“Once, I was feared, as—by God!—I am yet to be feared. I’m master of my house, grandson, as I was master of my ship. Master of Blunt—any who’d do you hurt. You’ll stay!”—poking out his shaking hand, the red gems gleaming, “You’ll stay, as your father would have stayed by me, till the breath’s out of my body. Not so very long!” His tone was quavering and eager, “You’ll bear me company, and you’ll profit by it. I’ll soon be dead, and you’ll soon be rich. Would you have me think you care nothing to be rich?”

“Why, surely we all care.”

“Ay,” nodding his head. “I could tell of a treasure a man would sell his soul for”—lowering his tone, peering about him, and muttering. “You can come by it honestly, if that’s aught to you, and more than if only you come by it. D’ye see these red rings?”

“Like blood upon your hands,” I ventured, shrinking from him.

He laughed to himself, “Like blood! Rubies! I’ll show you yet—when it’s fitting—and tell you a tale.”

“Plundered treasure!”

“What of it? What gives a man the right to the treasure of the earth except the strength to take and hold it?”

“As any of the rogues about this house would take.”

“Ay, if they dared. And knew where I hold it. Fearing me yet and not knowing. Will ye not stay?”

“And yet I’ll not stay in this house.”

He said heavily, but without anger, “You’re like your father in more than looks. I’d have you by me, till I die. You fear the dark and the sounds of the wind and sea. You’re young-what should you hear in the wind, or see moving in the dark? What should you see stepping over the floor, when the moon comes up? I fear nothing in the winds or the dark or the moon. Ay, and I’ve sailed in uncharted seas, and I’ll sail the sea that shall never have a chart. Not fearing! But I’d have you by me, till I embark.”