CHAPTER II
THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT
THE stranger and the majordomo stared at each other; the same idea had struck them both. Mr. Daniells, with dropping jaw, was scratching his cheek in perplexity. The irregular guest, however, seemed the more perturbed of the two; a heavy frown of annoyance darkened his face. The housekeeper was the first to speak.
“A carriage, at this hour—why this'll be the master at last!” she said and advanced to the door, just as the vehicle with a fine curve drew up by the porch. “Save us, no! Who, in the Lord's name can it be, Daniells?” she whispered, in awestruck amazement, looking over her shoulder at her husband and screening the light in her hand from a puff of wind.
The traveler alighted and, oddly painted on the darkness by a ray from the carriage lamp, stood giving directions to a servant in a foreign-looking livery, for the lifting down of sundry articles of luggage. He then turned round briskly and, with a clanking of spurs, came up the stone steps. At sight of him, the butler, who had pushed his way past his wife, gave an exclamation of surprized recognition—in which might have been detected a certain ring of relief.
“Ha, this is pleasant!” cried the newcomer in a voice of great heartiness. “This hospitable Stanton—the door wide open at the very sound of a traveler's wheels!” He spoke fluently, though with a perceptible outlandish accent. “I hope good Sir Jasper is well?”
“Sir Jasper—Captain?” said the majordomo, faltering. “Sir Jasper? Have you come on a visit, sir?”
“Yes, surely; he expects me, does he not?”
“Why, Captain Hanstedt, sir, Sir Jasper has been away since the end of May.”
Blank dismay overspread the visitor's countenance.
“Away? Der Teufel!" he exclaimed. And when the servant had laid bare the state of resent affairs at Stanton, “Most singular,” e went on. “Singular, most singular! Inexplicable. I must say. It was all arranged when I was here last—you remember, in March last—that when I returned to England in the Autumn, my first visit was to be with him, for the shooting. I wrote two days ago, to announce my coming on the fourth. What has happened—nothing bad I hope?”
Daniells took the candle from his wife's hand and brought its light over a heap of unopened letters on the hall table. The visitor bent down to look and turned one over with the end of his switch.
“There's mine,” he said and pondered. Then straightening himself, “What's to be done, now? It's the deuce of a long drive back to Salisbury.”
Here the other traveler, who, during the colloquy, had remained in the shadow, came back into the circle of light and remarked quietly:
“Well, Mr. Daniells, it really seems decreed that you are to dispense the hospitality of Sir Jasper's house to stranded wayfarers tonight.”
The miltary gentleman looked up quickly, first at the speaker, who answered the look by a slight, very easy bow, and then inquiringly at the butler.
“Ah, hum—yes,” said the latter, betraying some confusion. “Rather funny, isn't it, Captain Hanstedt, sir? This gentleman, a friend of Sir Jasper—” and as he said this there was appeal in his side-flung glance—“this gentleman who—well, like yourself, sir, did not know—in fact, sir, he is going to spend the night here, too. I mean, like yourself, as we hope, sir, if you don't mind hasty accomodation. Yes sir, as I was saying, I am sure Sir Jasper would have wished it. Please to step this way, gentle men. I'll send your carriage round to the stables, Captain. And the wife will see to the rooms.”
The two strangers found themselves ushered into a morning room, the coldness of which was soon relieved by the lighting of a few candles and the crackling of a fire ready laid.
For a while there was a thoughtful silence. The captain stood before the hearth, legs apart in approved dragoon style. His companion sank into an armchair with equally self-possessed manner. And they took stock of each other.
They were much of an age; both in their middle twenties, perhaps twenty-eight; both men of good looks and of breeding, albeit in ways markedly contrasting. The captain's undress frogged coat and strapped trousers proclaimed the half-pay officer; his mustache heralded cavalry service. Brilliant, mobile, black eyes and white teeth which showed in flashes between very red smiling lips, gave a look of intense vital energy to a full-blooded countenance which otherwise was set in easy-going geniality, suggestive above all things of the hearty bon-vivant.
The other had the clear-cut, regular, rather impassive cast of features which belongs to the best type of English manhood—the gray eyes of the self-reliant, looking straight and direct, observant, without being searching; the set lips, firm, rather disdainful, the lips of one who thinks more than he talks, who at least had rather listen at any time than hear his own voice. It was the face of a man who is perhaps best satisfied with his surrounding when alone.
After a minute or two of mutual contemplation in a silence broken only by the crackling of the firewood, the military gentleman moved away from the hearth and, planting himself a pace in front of the armchair, clicking his spurred heels together in the true German style of ceremony, bowed.
“Sir,” he began, “since our mutual friend, Sir Jasper, is so unfortunately absent, I introduce myself. Baron von Hanstedt, formerly captain in the Hanoverian hussars—the Death Hussars, Black Brunswickers, as you call them in England. Not your countryman, of course, but next door to it; we owe allegiance to the same king. Since the close of the late campaign an independent person traveling for my pleasure.”
This was spoken roundly, and, though it had begun formally enough, it ended with an ingratiating look which obviously requested a similar confidence. The Englishman rose and returned the bow, if somewhat less elaborately.
“DELIGHTED, I am sure,” he made answer with a pleasant smile that altered his whole countenance; the odd foreign mixture of geniality and ceremoniousness in this chance acquaintance had taken his fancy. “And I, sir—” but here there was a second's hesitation—“my name is Alfred Fendall. Like yourself, as it seems, a traveler, but a traveling student; yes—that can be taken as a description of my pursuits in life. Just returned from what some people would call the grand tour—if it had not been prolonged for so many years and gone through without the wearisomeness of the usual bear-leader. I have had a very tiring day,” he added half-apologetically, sinking down again into his armchair.
The other eyed him a moment with his broad smile; then, drawing a chair to the hearth, he stretched out his legs to the blaze.
“Now, this is pleasant! Very pleasant. There is no one whose company, I think, is so enjoyable as that of a traveled Englishman. I am in luck. For, in this curious accident, I was like to spend a rather tiresome evening—either to return to Salisbury behind a pair of tired horses, or to remain solus and bored in a deserted house. I am grateful to fate—or I should rather say, if you will allow me, grateful to you, Mr.—Mr.?”
“Fendall.”
“Ah yes, Mr. Fendall. Instead, I say, of solitude, which I hate. A meeting of friends. For do not the French have it, les amis de nos amis sont nos amis? And when I find myself, so to speak, your guest. It was your amiable suggestion to the butler. A friend of my old friend, Sir Jasper—why, a relative perhaps?”
The captain turned his head to look, with an engaging curiosity, at his companion.
“Yes—you are right. I may call myself a kind of relative. But I must decline any claim to the honor of being host at Stanton Manor. We are both guests here tonight. A quaint situation—guests of Mr. Daniells, the butler.”
There was something in the tone with which this was said, courteous though it was, that discouraged further inquiry. The other, as a man of the world, forthwith accepted the hint.
“Quaint, as you say, my dear Mr. Fendall. A picturesque adventure: the soldier, the student, the deserted mansion—quite in the manner of our Musaeus. You know his work, no doubt. And it would be altogether delightful, were it not, in its way, alarming. What can be the mystery of Sir Jasper's absence, for mystery there seems to be? Have you any idea—do you know anything?”
“Nothing beyond what you heard yourself just now. Indeed, you would seem to have been more intimate with him, these last years at least, than I.”
“Intimate? Well hardly that. He has shown me kindness; given me charming hospitality. Our actual acquaintance is not of long date. I must tell you that my father and he had been great friends in their young days, though I was unaware of the fact. When Sir Jasper met me in the hunting field last season and heard my name, he with the greatest hospitality invited me to make Stanton my quarters during the rest of the season—for old times' sake, as you say here. And, I must declare, a better host I never knew. . It is quite impossible that he could have forgotten our arrangements for the Autumn.”
The young man in the armchair remained silent, gazing pensively at the ceiling.
“I really think,” resumed the ex-Brunswicker, after a musing pause, “that something ought to be done to find out what has happened to our friend—that good Sir Jasper!” He got up rather excitedly. “I wish—but I am myself hardly in a position to—but you, now, a relative; would you not think of making inquiries?”
“I certainly intend to do so,” came the quiet answer. “In the ordinary course of things I should scarcely feel entitled to meddle in Sir Jasper's affairs. But these strange circumstances seem to justify inquiries at least. I shall go on to London tomorrow.”
“Yes, that's right. His bankers, his man of affairs, any one you can think of—his doctor, perhaps, if you can find him. Of course, I would gladly devote some of my time to help. But—a stranger, a foreigner—they would send me about my business. Do you know, Mr. Fendall, it relieves my mind greatly, this decision of yours? I am sure you will not mind letting me know of anything you may find out. I shall leave you my address in town.
“Well, I am relieved! Yes, I feel I can do better justice, now, to whatever cheer the butler may have to place before us in the name of his missing master. He has been giving himself considerable exercise on our behalf, judging by the echoes which resound from every quarter of this empty house, up-stairs and down-stairs—Yoicks! Here he comes!”
The speaker's joviality was here in strong contrast with the air of gravity with which he had referred to Sir Jasper.
When Mr. Daniells, rather red in the face, threw open the door with professional pomp and announced that supper was on the table, the soldier affectionately linked his arm to that of the student and marched with him into the dining-room, remarking in his rich guttural tones:
“So, my dear Mr.Fendall, procul atra cura, as we used to sing at Göttingen, my alma mater. For the nonce let us dismiss dull care. No use in anticipating tragedy—which after all may be but our fancy—is there? 'Pon honor, here is a recomforting sight at the end of a long day!”
Indeed Mr. Daniells had performed wonders. It was no mere corner of the table laid out for a snack; silver gleamed on the mahogany under the light of candelabra. The promised joint, flanked by the “trimmings,” cunningly dished so as to pass muster in the eyes of good-will as separate courses, supported by such cold viands as a ruthless ransacking of Mrs. D.'s larder could produce—the knuckle end of a gammon, a Blue Vinney cheese and so forth—now covered the board with more than sufficiency. The tankards were filled from the servants' hall cask of home-brewed; but topaz of sherry and ruby of port, glinting on the dresser, promised a congruous conclusion to a repast for the quality.
The Hanoverian took in the scene with a glance of appreciation. Having suggested by a courteous gesture that his new friend should undertake the carving, he himself, on the latter's equally courteous refusal, took up the honor of the table and went right willingly through the task. And he proved a notable trencherman; his voracious performance, after the manner of so many of his countrymen, interfered in no wise with the flow of conversation.
A BRILLIANT raconteur, he entertained his rather silent fellow guest—not to speak of the majordomo, for whom here was an even more welcome change in the dullness of times than he had hoped—with anecdotes of camp and court worthy of the fluent Gronow himself. Tales of student life—the high deeds of Kneipe and Mensur, the potting and dueling of the Gottingen good days, the brief, glorious career of the seven hundred noble Brunswickers, volunteers all, raised in mourning memory of the dead Duke William Augustus, the death of the leader in the Waterloo campaign—sundry personal feats and escapes of his own, relieved now and again by piquant allusions to adventures of galanterie during the late occupation of Paris by the allies—poured out from a seemingly inexhaustible fount.
“But come, my dear Fendall,” he said at last, “what ails you? I can not help perceiving that you are not quite une bonne fourchetie as one might expect to find a man with such square shoulders. You shame my appetite—and my garrulity. Not one personal confidence of your own adventures! What ails you? You young Englishmen, traveled as you may be, are an oddly buttoned-up generation. Sir Jasper now, I'll warrant, would have capped every one of my tales with some thrilling experience of his own young days—aye, and, pardi, of his later ones! Sir Jasper was good at a story, was he not, Daniells? Your name is Daniells, if I remember right?”
The butler paused in the act of removing the cloth, preparatory to placing the wine and walnuts on the mahogany.
“I do hope, Captain Hanstedt, sir,” said he, as if brought back in the midst of his satisfaction to a sense of his present uncertainty, “that when you say 'was', it does not mean that you believe—it sounds dreadful, in a manner of speaking!”
“Nay, nay, my good Daniells, by 'was good' I only mean when we last met here. I have no doubt he is still as good and will be so when he does return. We have to thank you for a remarkably creditable feast, and I hope I may sometime or other have an opportunity to tell him how capitally you have acted in his name. And, while we drink his wine, the next best thing to hearing him talk would be to hear about him. It may help us on our quest. For this gentleman, like me, means to institute inquiries about the mysterious disappearance—inquiries which, I must say, might well have begun sooner.
“But nunc est bibendum, Fendall; in other words, fill and pass the bottle! And I further propose this,” went on the baron, growing perceptibly excited, “in which I am sure you will concur; namely, that Daniells here, being vice-host tonight, take a seat and have his wine with us. Informal, but picturesque and pleasant! And this evening's rencounter is nothing if not picturesque; don't you think so?”
The young Englishman, who had first received this suggestion with something of a patrician frown, checked himself and said, with a transient smile:
“No, Baron, not vice-host as you, an invited guest of Sir Jasper may call him, but to me host entire. Landlord, in fact; Mr. Daniells will remember the bargain I made with him. I am here a guest at what we agreed to call the Stanton Arms. But none the less indebted to him for service much appreciated,” he added, as confusion again showed itself on the butler's face. “So we'll drink with him a bottle or two of his no doubt remarkable port, for the good of the house. Bring your chair round, Mr. Landlord!”
The words, pronounced in half-jocular, half-serious, but wholly gracious, manner, put the retainer at his ease once more and loosened a tongue that only professional decorum had held in restraint. There can be no doubt that Mr. Daniells, the disconsolate contemplator of the roadside ruin a few hours before, spent an evening more agreeable to his gregarious tastes than he had ever known, even on the best days of the Three Choughs.
But, however cleverly lured on by the captain, nothing came out which could throw any fresh light on the mystery of the squire's disappearance. And, after an hour's conviviality to which he, however, contributed scarcely more than the cracking of nuts and the pushing of the decanters along the polished wood, the guest of the portmanteau pleaded fatigue to the guest of the chaise and requested mine host, as he insisted on calling him, to show him his room.
When he had been duly installed in his apartment, made cheery enough by a wood fire, the young man drew an armchair by the hearth and lost himself in deep reverie.
For a while he could hear talk renewed in the dining-room below him, where his companion was, no doubt, discussing a fresh bottle with Sir Jasper's hospitable butler. But in time profound stillness settled upon the house. Yet the young man dreamed on, wide-eyed, while the flaming logs passed into red embers and then into a mere heap of white ash.
At last he roused himself and wearily prepared to turn into bed. But, as he tossed his coat upon a chair, under the impulse of a new thought he took up the candelabrum, the candles of which were already burned well nigh to the socket, opened the door and sallied into the passage.
Noiselessly, but without stealth, with all the decision of one well-acquainted with the place, he made his way to another room in the opposite wing of the house; and there, raising the light aloft, he stood a while gazing wistfully at the surroundings. It was a boudoir, obviously that of the late lady of the house, but still apparently kept up as one of the reception rooms.
A harp, with disused, curling strings, glinted pale golden in a comer. The white-paneled walls were covered with watercolors and pastels. Over the mantelpiece, however, hung a picture to which, after a moment, the night intruder drew near. It was the portrait of a young woman, painted in the manner of Romney, with a sad, rather weak, piteously tender face, a child on her lap and another playing at her knee.
His candles still held aloft, he gazed darkly for a long while. Presently something—perhaps a faint noise, perhaps that unmistakable feeling in silence and solitude of another living presence near—made him turn round sharply. The light fell upon a black figure framed in the white doorway. It was the Hanoverian, who was looking in with a smile that revealed the white row of teeth under the dark mustache—with shining eyes of singular expression.
The Englishman could not repress a start of anger; both the broadness of the grin and the fire of the eyes were more than the situation justified. Nevertheless, it was in a subdued voice that he said—
“So, it is you, Baron.”
“And so it is you, Mr. Fendall,” returned the other, deliberately stepping forward. “I heard some one pass my door—my room is in this passage—at a time when I thought everything was asleep in the house. I myself, somehow, am wakeful as the devil tonight—wine has at times that effect, and I had a fine whack of it! But you, so tired and all that? Do you know, as I watched you first prowling round the room, then petrified before that lady's picture, I thought you were sleep-walking. All my care was not to startle you. Perhaps you were, after all. That was a mighty jump you gave! Charming picture that, of the late Lady Ferrars,” he went on, drawing nearer and peering knowingly at the portrait.
The other made no response for a moment. At last he said with an effort at airiness:
“Baron, let's leave it at that. I mean, that I was sleep-walking, you awoke me out of my trance, and thereafter we both wisely sought our beds. I do not know what time it is, but I shall have to depart somewhat early in the morning and therefore”
“Right, my dear sir. Quite right. Indeed you look rather overdone,” said the Brunswicker, thickly. And, before the parting at his own door, he insisted with effusion upon shaking hands.