CHAPTER XIII
During the next half-hour, Hamel was introduced to luxuries to which,in a general way, he was entirely unaccustomed. One man-servant wasbusy preparing his bath in a room leading out of his sleeping apartment,while another brought him a choice of evening clothes and superintendedhis disrobing. Hamel, always observant, studied his surroundingswith keen interest. He found himself in a queerly mixed atmosphere ofluxurious modernity and stately antiquity. His four-poster, the hugecouch at the foot of his bed, and all the furniture about the room,was of the Queen Anne period. The bathroom which communicated with hisapartment was the latest triumph of the plumber's art--a room with floorand walls of white tiles, the bath itself a little sunken and twice theordinary size. He dispensed so far as he could with the services of themen and descended, as soon as he was dressed, into the hall. Meekins waswaiting at the bottom of the stairs, dressed now in somber black.
"Mr. Fentolin will be glad if you will step into his room, sir," heannounced, leading the way.
Mr. Fentolin was seated in his chair, reading the Times in a corner ofhis library. Shaped blocks had been placed behind and in front ofthe wheels of his little vehicle, to prevent it from moving. A shadedreading-lamp stood on the table by his side. He did not at once lookup, and Hamel glanced around with genuine admiration. The shelves whichlined the walls and the winged cases which protruded into the room werefilled with books. There was a large oak table with beautifully carvedlegs, piled with all sorts of modern reviews and magazines. A log firewas burning in the big oaken grate. The perfume from a great bowl oflavender seemed to mingle curiously yet pleasantly with the half mustyodour of the old leather-bound volumes. The massive chimneypiece was ofblack oak, and above it were carved the arms of the House of Fentolin.The walls were oak-panelled to the ceiling.
"Refreshed, I hope, by your bath and change, my dear visitor?" the headof the house remarked, as he laid down his paper. "Draw a chair up hereand join me in a glass of vermouth. You need not be afraid of it. Itcomes to me from the maker as a special favour."
Hamel accepted a quaintly-cut wine-glass full of the amber liquid. Mr.Fentolin sipped his with the air of a connoisseur.
"This," he continued, "is one of our informal days. There is no one inthe house save my sister-in-law, niece, and nephew, and a poorinvalid gentleman who, I am sorry to say, is confined to his bed. Mysister-in-law is also, I regret to say, indisposed. She desired me topresent her excuses to you and say how greatly she is looking forward tomaking your acquaintance during the next few days."
Hamel bowed.
"It is very kind of Mrs. Fentolin," he murmured.
"On these occasions," Mr. Fentolin continued, "we do not make use of adrawing-room. My niece will come in here presently. You are looking atmy books, I see. Are you, by any chance, a bibliophile? I have a case ofmanuscripts here which might interest you."
Hamel shook his head.
"Only in the abstract, I fear," he answered. "I have scarcely opened aserious book since I was at Oxford."
"What was your year?" Mr. Fentolin asked.
"Fourteen years ago I left Magdalen," Hamel replied. "I had made upmy mind to be an engineer, and I went over to the Boston Institute ofTechnology."
Mr. Fentolin nodded appreciatively.
"A magnificent profession," he murmured. "A healthy one, too, I shouldjudge from your appearance. You are a strong man, Mr. Hamel."
"I have had reason to be," Hamel rejoined. "During nearly the wholeof the time I have been abroad, I have been practically pioneering.Building railways in the far West, with gangs of Chinese and Italiansand Hungarians and scarcely a foreman who isn't terrified of his job,isn't exactly drawing-room work."
"You are going back there?" Mr. Fentolin asked, with interest.
Hamel shook his head.
"I have no plans," he declared. "I have been fortunate enough, or shallI some day say unfortunate enough, I wonder, to have inherited a largelegacy."
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
"Don't ever doubt your good fortune," he said earnestly. "The longer Ilive--and in my limited way I do see a good deal of life--the moreI appreciate the fact that there isn't anything in this world thatcompares with the power of money. I distrust a poor man. He may mean tobe honest, but he is at all times subject to temptation. Ah! here is myniece."
Mr. Fentolin turned towards the door. Hamel rose at once to his feet.His surmise, then, had been correct. She was coming towards them veryquietly. In her soft grey dinner-gown, her brown hair smoothly brushedback, a pearl necklace around her long, delicate neck, she seemed to hima very exquisite embodiment of those memories which he had been carryingabout throughout the afternoon.
"Here, Mr. Hamel," his host said, "is a member of my family who hasbeen a deserter for a short time. This is Mr. Richard Hamel, Esther; myniece, Miss Esther Fentolin."
She held out her hand with the faintest possible smile, which might havebeen of greeting or recognition.
"I travelled for some distance in the train with Mr. Hamel thisafternoon, I think," she remarked.
"Indeed?" Mr. Fentolin exclaimed. "Dear me, that is veryinteresting--very interesting, indeed! Mr. Hamel, I am sure, did nottell you of his destination?"
He watched them keenly. Hamel, though he scarcely understood, was quickto appreciate the possible significance of that tentative question.
"We did not exchange confidences," he observed. "Miss Fentolin onlychanged into my carriage during the last few minutes of her journey.Besides," he continued, "to tell you the truth, my ideas as to mydestination were a little hazy. To come and look for some queer sort ofbuilding by the side of the sea, which has been unoccupied for a dozenyears or so, scarcely seems a reasonable quest, does it?"
"Scarcely, indeed," Mr. Fentolin assented. "You may thank me, Mr. Hamel,for the fact that the place is not in ruins. My blatant trespassing hassaved you from that, at least. After dinner we must talk further aboutthe Tower. To tell you the truth, I have grown accustomed to the use ofthe little place."
The sound of the dinner gong boomed through the house. A moment laterGerald entered, followed by a butler announcing dinner.
"The only remaining member of my family," Mr. Fentolin remarked,indicating his nephew. "Gerald, you will be pleased, I know, to meetMr. Hamel. Mr. Hamel has been a great traveller. Long before you canremember, his father used to paint wonderful pictures of this coast."
Gerald shook hands with his visitor. His face, for a moment, lighted up.He was looking pale, though, and singularly sullen and dejected.
"There are two of your father's pictures in the modern side of thegallery up-stairs," he remarked, a little diffidently. "They are greatfavourites with everybody here."
They all went in to dinner together. Meekins, who had appeared silently,had glided unnoticed behind his master's chair and wheeled it across thehall.
"A partie carree to-night," Mr. Fentolin declared. "I have a residentdoctor here, a very delightful person, who often dines with us, butto-night I thought not. Five is an awkward number. I want to get to knowyou better, Mr. Hamel, and quickly. I want you, too, to make friendswith my niece and nephew. Mr. Hamel's father," he went on, addressingthe two latter, "and your father were great friends. By-the-by, haveI told you both exactly why Mr. Hamel is a guest here to-night--why hecame to these parts at all? No? Listen, then. He came to take possessionof the Tower. The worst of it is that it belongs to him, too. His fatherbought it from your father more years ago than we should care to talkabout. I have really been a trespasser all this time."
They took their places at a small round table in the middle of thedining-room. The shaded lights thrown downwards upon the table seemedto leave most of the rest of the apartment in semi-darkness. The gloomyfaces of the men and women whose pictures hung upon the walls werealmost invisible. The servants themselves, standing a little outside thehalo of light, were like shadows passing swiftly and noiselessly backand forth. At the far end of the room was an organ, and to the left alittle balcony,
built out as though for an orchestra. Hamel looked abouthim almost in wonderment. There was something curiously impressive inthe size of the apartment and its emptiness.
"A trespasser," Mr. Fentolin continued, as he took up the menu andcriticised it through his horn-rimmed eyeglass, "that is what I havebeen, without a doubt."
"But for your interest and consequent trespass," Hamel remarked, "Ishould probably have found the roof off and the whole place in ruins."
"Instead of which you found the door locked against you," Mr. Fentolinpointed out. "Well, we shall see. I might, at any rate, have lost theopportunity of entertaining you here this evening. I am particularlyglad to have an opportunity of making you known to my niece and nephew.I think you will agree with me that here are two young people who arehighly to be commended. I cannot offer them a cheerful life here. Thereis little society, no gaiety, no sort of excitement. Yet they neverleave me. They seem to have no other interest in life but to be alwaysat my beck and call. A case, Mr. Hamel, of really touching devotion. Ifanything could reconcile me to my miserable condition, it would be thekindness and consideration of those by whom I am surrounded."
Hamel murmured a few words of cordial agreement. Yet he found himself,in a sense, embarrassed. Gerald was looking down upon his plate andhis face was hidden. Esther's features had suddenly become stony andexpressionless. Hamel felt instinctively that something was wrong.
"There are compensations," Mr. Fentolin continued, with the air of oneenjoying speech, "which find their way into even the gloomiest of lives.As I lie on my back, hour after hour, I feel all the more consciousof this. The world is a school of compensations, Mr. Hamel. Theinterests--the mental interests, I mean--of unfortunate people likemyself, come to possess in time a peculiar significance and to yielda peculiar pleasure. I have hobbies, Mr. Hamel. I frankly admit it.Without my hobbies, I shudder to think what might become of me. I mightbecome a selfish, cruel, misanthropical person. Hobbies are indeed agreat thing."
The brother and sister sat still in stony silence. Hamel, looking acrossthe little table with its glittering load of cut glass and silver andscarlet flowers, caught something in Esther's eyes, so rarely expressiveof any emotion whatever, which puzzled him. He looked swiftly back athis host. Mr. Fentolin's face, at that moment, was like a beautifulcameo. His expression was one of gentle benevolence.
"Let me be quite frank with you," Mr. Fentolin murmured. "My occupationof the Tower is one of these hobbies. I love to sit there within a fewyards of the sea and watch the tide come in. I catch something of thespirit, I think, which caught your father, Mr. Hamel, and kept him aprisoner here. In my small way I, too, paint while I am down there,paint and dream. These things may not appeal to you, but you mustremember that there are few things left to me in life, and that those,therefore, which I can make use of, are dear to me. Gerald, you aresilent to-night. How is it that you say nothing?"
"I am tired, sir," the boy answered quietly.
Mr. Fentolin nodded gravely.
"It is inexcusable of me," he declared smoothly, "to have forgotten evenfor a moment. My nephew, Mr. Hamel," he went on, "had quite an excitingexperience last night--or rather a series of experiences. He was firstof all in a railway accident, and then, for the sake of a poor fellowwho was with him and who was badly hurt, he motored back here in thegrey hours of the morning and ran, they tell me, considerable riskof being drowned on the marshes. A very wonderful and praiseworthyadventure, I consider it. I trust that our friend up-stairs, when herecovers, will be properly grateful."
Gerald rose to his feet precipitately. The service of dinner was almostconcluded, and he muttered something which sounded like an excuse. Mr.Fentolin, however, stretched out his hand and motioned him to resume hisseat.
"My dear Gerald!" he exclaimed reprovingly. "You would leave us soabruptly? Before your sister, too! What will Mr. Hamel think of ourcountry ways? Pray resume your seat."
For a moment the boy stood quite still, then he slowly subsided intohis chair. Mr. Fentolin passed around a decanter of wine which had beenplaced upon the table by the butler. The servants had now left the room.
"You must excuse my nephew, if you please, Mr. Hamel," he begged."Gerald has a boy's curious aversion to praise in any form. I am lookingforward to hearing your verdict upon my port. The collection of wine andpictures was a hobby of my grandfather's, for which we, his descendants,can never be sufficiently grateful."
Hamel praised his wine, as indeed he had every reason to, but for afew moments the smooth conversation of his host fell upon deaf ears. Helooked from the boy's face, pale and wrinkled as though with some sortof suppressed pain, to the girl's still, stony expression. This wasindeed a house of mysteries! There was something here incomprehensible,some thing about the relations of these three and their knowledge of oneanother, utterly baffling. It was the queerest household, surely, intowhich any stranger had ever been precipitated.
"The planting of trees and the laying down of port are two virtues inour ancestors which have never been properly appreciated," Mr. Fentolincontinued. "Let us, at any rate, free ourselves from the reproach ofingratitude so far as regards my grandfather--Gerald Fentolin--to whom Ibelieve we are indebted for this wine. We will drink--"
Mr. Fentolin broke off in the middle of his sentence. The august calm ofthe great house had been suddenly broken. From up-stairs came the tumultof raised voices, the slamming of a door, the falling of somethingheavy upon the floor. Mr. Fentolin listened with a grim change in hisexpression. His smile had departed, his lower lip was thrust out, hiseyebrows met. He raised the little whistle which hung from his chain. Atthat moment, however, the door was opened. Doctor Sarson appeared.
"I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Fentolin," he said, "but our patient isbecoming a little difficult. The concussion has left him, as I feared itmight, in a state of nervous excitability. He insists upon an interviewwith you."
Mr. Fentolin backed his little chair from the table. The doctor cameover and laid his hand upon the handle.
"You will, I am sure, excuse me for a few moments, Mr. Hamel," his hostbegged. "My niece and nephew will do their best to entertain you. Now,Sarson, I am ready."
Mr. Fentolin glided across the dim, empty spaces of the splendidapartment, followed by the doctor; a ghostly little procession itseemed. The door was closed behind them. For a few moments a curioussilence ensued. Gerald remained tense and apparently suffering fromsome sort of suppressed emotion. Esther for the first time moved in herplace. She leaned towards Hamel. Her lips were slowly parted, hereyes sought the door as though in terror. Her voice, although save forthemselves there was no one else in the whole of that great apartment,had sunk to the lowest of whispers.
"Are you a brave man, Mr. Hamel?" she asked.
He was staggered but he answered her promptly.
"I believe so."
"Don't give up the Tower--just yet. That is what--he has brought youhere for. He wants you to give it up and go back. Don't!"
The earnestness of her words was unmistakable. Hamel felt the thrill ofcoming events.
"Why not?"
"Don't ask me," she begged. "Only if you are brave, if you have feelingfor others, keep the Tower, if it be for only a week. Hush!"
The door had been noiselessly opened. The doctor appeared and advancedto the table with a grave little bow.
"Mr. Fentolin," he said, "has been kind enough to suggest that I take aglass of wine with you. My presence is not needed up-stairs. Mr. Hamel,"he added, "I am glad, sir, to make your acquaintance. I have for a longtime been a great admirer of your father's work."
He took his place at the head of the table and, filling his glass,bowed towards Hamel. Once more Gerald and his sister relapsed almostautomatically into an indifferent and cultivated silence. Hamel foundcivility towards the newcomer difficult. Unconsciously his attitudebecame that of the other two. He resented the intrusion. He foundhimself regarding the advent of Doctor Sarson as possessing somesecondary significance. It was almost as th
ough Mr. Fentolin preferrednot to leave him alone with his niece and nephew.
Nevertheless, his voice, when he spoke, was clear and firm.