CHAPTER XVI.
A SECRET FOR SALE
It was the work of a moment. The scream, the turn, the threatening gesture, then the dropping of the weapon and an abrupt change on the old man’s face, accompanied by a loud, forced laugh. Bayre scarcely realised what it all meant, even as he stepped hastily down to the half-landing and looked up into the misty recesses of the galleried floor above.
Then from out of the dimness he saw a face, the face of Olwen Eden; and if he had not known before what the look and gesture meant which he had surprised in his uncle, he knew now.
And there passed suddenly through his heart a great throb of joy, of exultation, for he saw in the white face the look every man longs to see on the countenance of the woman he loves--the look which is an avowal and a promise.
Old Mr Bayre, still laughing harshly, replaced the club among the other weapons on the wall. But his hands were not steady, for it fell with a crash to the ground, and then slid down the stairs to young Bayre’s feet.
The visitor thought it prudent to pick up the weapon and to retain it for future defensive purposes. His uncle left off laughing suddenly.
“Give that to me,” he said.
“Not yet, sir. When I take my leave of you will be soon enough.”
Old Mr Bayre uttered an indignant grunt, but before he could speak, Olwen had run down the stairs past him and stood by the young man’s side.
“What are you doing here?” asked the old man, gruffly.
She turned and looked up.
“I’ll show him the way out,” she said. “I can draw the bolts myself and turn the key. And that will save you the risk of catching cold.”
With a grunt and a muttered grumble, Mr Bayre was apparently on the point of retreating up the stairs; but pausing for an instant to look down upon the young people, something in their attitude struck him, as he peered down by the light of his lantern and of the dim lamp above, and he descended the stairs with leisurely footsteps, keeping his eyes fixed upon his nephew.
“I can show him out,” said the old man, with disagreeable emphasis. “I shall be delighted to. Olwen, you can go back to your room.”
The girl hesitated and held out her hand.
“Good-bye, Mr Bayre,” said she.
The old man placed himself between them, but the young one would not be put off. He took the girl’s hand and held it in his for a moment, saying, in a voice the significance of which was unmistakable, “Good-bye. And--thank you.”
She ran upstairs, and the two men, the younger still holding the club, were left face to face on the little square half-landing.
The look of veiled malignity on the old man’s face was as strong as ever.
“You had better not indulge any thoughts of my ward, Bartlett,” said he, drily, as soon as the last sound of the girl’s light footsteps had died away in the gallery above. “For she will marry money, money, money. There’s no satisfaction in anything but money, and money she must have. Not mine. I have other uses for mine.”
“Of course, sir,” said the young man, more disgusted than ever with his old relation, in whom avarice appeared to have swallowed up every feeling of good-nature, of affection, and of ordinary human kindness, “you have a right to do as you please with your own property, and to entertain what opinions you please about the value of money and its place in the world, but I should have thought you might make allowance for the difference between the feelings of an old man and those of a young girl. Surely if she doesn’t think money the one thing needful she might have a voice in her own destiny?”
“She’ll think as I do when she’s as old as I,” retorted the amiable old gentleman, promptly. “And in the meantime I’m going to save her from doing anything foolish. So be warned. Come along.”
As the young man declined to go first, his uncle led the way into the great shadowy hall, where their footsteps echoed in dark recesses and among the tall pillars which supported the staircase.
“You’ll remember what I’ve said?” said the old man as he drew back the bolts of the heavy front door, which was not that by which visitors were usually admitted, but was a state entrance now apparently unused.
“Yes, and I’m much obliged to you for that and--all your other kind acts.”
Old Mr Bayre, with his hand still on the bolts, laughed again boisterously.
“Oh, you’re thin-skinned,” said he. “And nervous, I suppose. You don’t seem to understand that you had no more right to make a forced entrance into my house, as I caught you doing, than if you were a common tramp. And you well deserve the fright I gave you when you thought--you thought--Ha, ha! you thought, I suppose, that I was going to brain you with that club!”
“It did look like it,” said the young man, shortly.
The old man glanced at the weapon, which was still in his nephew’s hand.
“Well, well, you were mistaken. People don’t do those things,” said he. “So now you can put that down and get out as quickly as you like.”
As he spoke he opened the door, letting a gust of cold night air blow into the hall, force back the heavy door, and whirl the skirt of his dressing-gown about him like a sheath. And so, inhospitable, grim to the last, he let his nephew pass out without another word, and shut the door behind him with a loud clang.
Young Bayre shuddered, not with the remembrance of the peril he could not doubt that he had escaped, but at the thought that Olwen was shut up in the house with this half-insane old man, who was no doubt irritated against her on account of the part she had played in the events of his own visit.
Bayre could not endure this thought. It was true that his uncle had shown towards the young girl none of the strange and startling animosity which he had not scrupled to exhibit to himself. But with the belief strong in his mind that such eccentricity as that of the old man could not be far removed from insanity, Bayre wondered whether the fact of her having interfered on his behalf, as she had done, might not have inflamed her guardian against her.
Yet what could he do? He could not return to the house; indeed, any such attempt would be more likely to do harm than good to the object of his solicitude.
Bayre was perplexed, troubled, confounded by all he had gone through.
That there was a mystery about his uncle and his great lonely house was undoubted: that he had someone shut up there, as Olwen believed, seemed almost as certain. The strange manner in which he had taken care to open no room too quickly, and to give any person who might be within ample time for concealment, remained in the young man’s mind as a most significant fact.
Was it his young wife? And if so, what was her mental condition? Remembering that ghastly display of soiled and ancient finery in the room with the barred windows, Bayre was inclined to think that imprisonment might have turned the brain of the captive, whoever she might be. And ugly doubts of his uncle, of whose malignity he had had ample proofs, rose in his mind again. What if he should make an attempt to reduce his bright young ward to the condition of the mysterious prisoner whose existence Olwen herself suspected?
The thought was such a terrible one that Bayre suddenly went back towards the great house, filled with vague longing to rescue the young girl from the shelter of such a doubtful home.
As he came near he saw a window in the middle of the building open, and a hand, the very turn of which he recognised, dark as it was, waving a handkerchief to him as he stopped.
He saw no face; he heard no sound. But there was something in the action that comforted him; for he had an idea that it was meant to put heart into him, and hope. He waved his own handkerchief in return, in silence also. Then the window closed and all was darkness again.
With a heart full of tender longings, but also with vague fears, he turned and went away.
He got into the avenue, and thence into the road; but before he was half-way to his lodging he was sure that he was being followed. It was not a pleasant sensation, with the doubts he had concerning the goodwill of the inhabitants of the island towards him. And after a time, during which he had ascertained beyond a doubt that his suspicions were correct, Bayre doubled back quickly, and discovered, as he had half-expected, the lean form of Pierre Vazon hidden behind a clump of brambles.
“Hallo!” cried he. “Following me, eh?”
Pierre did not appear to be taken aback by the discovery. He drew himself up at once, and said,--
“Precisely, monsieur. I was following you. And I only wanted to be at a safe distance from the _château_ before I spoke to you.”
“Well, we are a long way off now.”
“Yes, yes.” The man looked at him with sly eyes which were, the young man thought, as disagreeable in their way as his uncle’s were in another. If there was no malignity in those of Vazon, there was much cunning.
“And now, what have you to say?”
Pierre came very close to him.
“Am I too bold in asking whether you are anxious to find out the mystery of the great lonely _château_, monsieur?” he asked in a thick whisper.
Bayre could not wholly repress a convulsive movement at these words.
“Mystery! Is there a mystery?” he asked, trying to speak carelessly.
Pierre laughed softly under his breath.
“Oh, I think monsieur is sure of that!”
“Well, if there is, what business is it of yours, or of mine?”
“Well, monsieur, my business is that of my master, whoever he may be,” said Pierre, in the same subdued key. “And yours, I suppose, is to learn something about your relation--and his wealth.”
These last words he said very slowly, with deep meaning.
“My uncle’s wealth,” replied Bayre, sharply, “as you call it, is not my affair, nor will it ever have any concern for me.”
“It might have,” said Pierre, slowly. “With a little word in your ear, sir, if you would choose that I should say it, your uncle’s wealth might be a very interesting matter to you.”
“Why, you old rascal, do you suppose I should levy blackmail upon my own relation?” cried Bayre, indignantly.
“Ah, well, it does him very little good, monsieur. Even his collection, which pleases all the world, has ceased to give him much pleasure,” said Pierre. “So much money, money, shut up in pictures, and enamels, and nicknacks. That is so, _hein_!”
Vazon understood his master pretty well, Bayre thought, as he gave the would-be betrayer another look.
“And he has a secret, you say?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Which you are ready to sell to me?”
“Well, well, who has a greater right to it than you, his near relation? And secrets are worth money, money. And young men like you, monsieur, can do with money, eh?”
And the peasant, like a rough Mephistopheles, came close to his ear.
Bayre drew back and looked down at him.
“Well, look here, much as I want money--I don’t deny that--I’d rather scrape along through life on as many pence a day as my uncle has pounds than buy his secrets from the vermin who take his pay and are ready to sell their master!”
And with a gesture of unutterable contempt Bayre turned away and made briskly for the cliff.
He heard a mocking laugh behind him, and the word “Fool!” uttered in no very subdued tone, as he reached the path which led to the cottage where he was staying.