Round the Fire Stories Page 6

THE JAPANNED BOX

  It _was_ a curious thing, said the private tutor; one of those grotesqueand whimsical incidents which occur to one as one goes through life. Ilost the best situation which I am ever likely to have through it. But Iam glad that I went to Thorpe Place, for I gained—well, as I tell youthe story you will learn what I gained.

  I don’t know whether you are familiar with that part of the Midlandswhich is drained by the Avon. It is the most English part of England.Shakespeare, the flower of the whole race, was born right in the middleof it. It is a land of rolling pastures, rising in higher folds to thewestward, until they swell into the Malvern Hills. There are no towns,but numerous villages, each with its grey Norman church. You have leftthe brick of the southern and eastern counties behind you, andeverything is stone—stone for the walls, and lichened slabs of stone forthe roofs. It is all grim and solid and massive, as befits the heart ofa great nation.

  It was in the middle of this country, not very far from Evesham, thatSir John Bollamore lived in the old ancestral home of Thorpe Place, andthither it was that I came to teach his two little sons. Sir John was awidower—his wife had died three years before—and he had been left withthese two lads aged eight and ten, and one dear little girl of seven.Miss Witherton, who is now my wife, was governess to this little girl. Iwas tutor to the two boys. Could there be a more obvious prelude to anengagement? She governs me now, and I tutor two little boys of our own.But, there—I have already revealed what it was which I gained in ThorpePlace!

  It was a very, very old house, incredibly old—pre-Norman, some of it—andthe Bollamores claimed to have lived in that situation since long beforethe Conquest. It struck a chill to my heart when first I came there,those enormously thick grey walls, the rude crumbling stones, the smellas from a sick animal which exhaled from the rotting plaster of the agedbuilding. But the modern wing was bright and the garden was well kept.No house could be dismal which had a pretty girl inside it and such ashow of roses in front.

  Apart from a very complete staff of servants there were only four of usin the household. These were Miss Witherton, who was at that timefour-and-twenty and as pretty—well, as pretty as Mrs. Colmore isnow—myself, Frank Colmore, aged thirty, Mrs. Stevens, the housekeeper, adry, silent woman, and Mr. Richards, a tall, military-looking man, whoacted as steward to the Bollamore estates. We four always had our mealstogether, but Sir John had his usually alone in the library. Sometimeshe joined us at dinner, but on the whole we were just as glad when hedid not.

  For he was a very formidable person. Imagine a man six feet three inchesin height, majestically built, with a high-nosed, aristocratic face,brindled hair, shaggy eyebrows, a small, pointed Mephistophelian beard,and lines upon his brow and round his eyes as deep as if they had beencarved with a penknife. He had grey eyes, weary, hopeless-looking eyes,proud and yet pathetic, eyes which claimed your pity and yet dared youto show it. His back was rounded with study, but otherwise he was asfine a looking man of his age—five-and-fifty perhaps—as any woman wouldwish to look upon.

  But his presence was not a cheerful one. He was always courteous, alwaysrefined, but singularly silent and retiring. I have never lived so longwith any man and known so little of him. If he were indoors he spent histime either in his own small study in the Eastern Tower, or in thelibrary in the modern wing. So regular was his routine that one couldalways say at any hour exactly where he would be. Twice in the day hewould visit his study, once after breakfast, and once about ten atnight. You might set your watch by the slam of the heavy door. For therest of the day he would be in his library—save that for an hour or twoin the afternoon he would take a walk or a ride, which was solitary likethe rest of his existence. He loved his children, and was keenlyinterested in the progress of their studies, but they were a little awedby the silent, shaggy-browed figure, and they avoided him as much asthey could. Indeed, we all did that.

  It was some time before I came to know anything about the circumstancesof Sir John Bollamore’s life, for Mrs. Stevens, the housekeeper, and Mr.Richards, the land-steward, were too loyal to talk easily of theiremployer’s affairs. As to the governess, she knew no more than I did,and our common interest was one of the causes which drew us together. Atlast, however, an incident occurred which led to a closer acquaintancewith Mr. Richards and a fuller knowledge of the life of the man whom Iserved.

  The immediate cause of this was no less than the falling of MasterPercy, the youngest of my pupils, into the mill-race, with imminentdanger both to his life and to mine, since I had to risk myself in orderto save him. Dripping and exhausted—for I was far more spent than thechild—I was making for my room when Sir John, who had heard the hubbub,opened the door of his little study and asked me what was the matter. Itold him of the accident, but assured him that his child was in nodanger, while he listened with a rugged, immobile face, which expressedin its intense eyes and tightened lips all the emotion which he tried toconceal.

  “One moment! Step in here! Let me have the details!” said he, turningback through the open door.

  And so I found myself within that little sanctum, inside which, as Iafterwards learned, no other foot had for three years been set save thatof the old servant who cleaned it out. It was a round room, conformingto the shape of the tower in which it was situated, with a low ceiling,a single narrow, ivy-wreathed window, and the simplest of furniture. Anold carpet, a single chair, a deal table, and a small shelf of booksmade up the whole contents. On the table stood a full-length photographof a woman—I took no particular notice of the features, but I rememberthat a certain gracious gentleness was the prevailing impression. Besideit were a large black japanned box and one or two bundles of letters orpapers fastened together with elastic bands.

  Our interview was a short one, for Sir John Bollamore perceived that Iwas soaked, and that I should change without delay. The incident led,however, to an instructive talk with Richards, the agent, who had neverpenetrated into the chamber which chance had opened to me. That veryafternoon he came to me, all curiosity, and walked up and down thegarden path with me, while my two charges played tennis upon the lawnbeside us.

  “You hardly realize the exception which has been made in your favour,”said he. “That room has been kept such a mystery, and Sir John’s visitsto it have been so regular and consistent, that an almost superstitiousfeeling has arisen about it in the household. I assure you that if Iwere to repeat to you the tales which are flying about, tales ofmysterious visitors there, and of voices overheard by the servants, youmight suspect that Sir John had relapsed into his old ways.”

  “Why do you say relapsed?” I asked.

  He looked at me in surprise.

  “Is it possible,” said he, “that Sir John Bollamore’s previous historyis unknown to you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You astound me. I thought that every man in England knew something ofhis antecedents. I should not mention the matter if it were not that youare now one of ourselves, and that the facts might come to your ears insome harsher form if I were silent upon them. I always took it forgranted that you knew that you were in the service of ‘Devil’Bollamore.”

  “But why ‘Devil’?” I asked.

  “Ah, you are young and the world moves fast, but twenty years ago thename of ‘Devil’ Bollamore was one of the best known in London. He wasthe leader of the fastest set, bruiser, driver, gambler, drunkard—asurvival of the old type, and as bad as the worst of them.”

  I stared at him in amazement.

  “What!” I cried, “that quiet, studious, sad-faced man?”

  “The greatest rip and debauchee in England! All between ourselves,Colmore. But you understand now what I mean when I say that a woman’svoice in his room might even now give rise to suspicions.”

  “But what can have changed him so?”

  “Little Beryl Clare, when she took the risk of becoming his wife. Thatwas the turning point. He had got so far that his own fast set hadthrown him over. There
is a world of difference, you know, between a manwho drinks and a drunkard. They all drink, but they taboo a drunkard. Hehad become a slave to it—hopeless and helpless. Then she stepped in, sawthe possibilities of a fine man in the wreck, took her chance inmarrying him, though she might have had the pick of a dozen, and, bydevoting her life to it, brought him back to manhood and decency. Youhave observed that no liquor is ever kept in the house. There never hasbeen any since her foot crossed its threshold. A drop of it would belike blood to a tiger even now.”

  “Then her influence still holds him?”

  “That is the wonder of it. When she died three years ago, we allexpected and feared that he would fall back into his old ways. Shefeared it herself, and the thought gave a terror to death, for she waslike a guardian angel to that man, and lived only for the one purpose.By the way, did you see a black japanned box in his room?”

  “Yes.”

  “I fancy it contains her letters. If ever he has occasion to be away, ifonly for a single night, he invariably takes his black japanned box withhim. Well, well, Colmore, perhaps I have told you rather more than Ishould, but I shall expect you to reciprocate if anything of interestshould come to your knowledge.” I could see that the worthy man wasconsumed with curiosity and just a little piqued that I, the new-comer,should have been the first to penetrate into the untrodden chamber. Butthe fact raised me in his esteem, and from that time onwards I foundmyself upon more confidential terms with him.

  And now the silent and majestic figure of my employer became an objectof greater interest to me. I began to understand that strangely humanlook in his eyes, those deep lines upon his careworn face. He was a manwho was fighting a ceaseless battle, holding at arm’s length, frommorning till night, a horrible adversary, who was for ever trying toclose with him—an adversary which would destroy him body and soul couldit but fix its claws once more upon him. As I watched the grim,round-backed figure pacing the corridor or walking in the garden, thisimminent danger seemed to take bodily shape, and I could almost fancythat I saw this most loathsome and dangerous of all the fiends crouchingclosely in his very shadow, like a half-cowed beast which slinks besideits keeper, ready at any unguarded moment to spring at his throat. Andthe dead woman, the woman who had spent her life in warding off thisdanger, took shape also to my imagination, and I saw her as a shadowybut beautiful presence which intervened for ever with arms uplifted toscreen the man whom she loved.

  In some subtle way he divined the sympathy which I had for him, and heshowed in his own silent fashion that he appreciated it. He even invitedme once to share his afternoon walk, and although no word passed betweenus on this occasion, it was a mark of confidence which he had nevershown to any one before. He asked me also to index his library (it wasone of the best private libraries in England), and I spent many hours inthe evening in his presence, if not in his society, he reading at hisdesk and I sitting in a recess by the window reducing to order the chaoswhich existed among his books. In spite of these close relations I wasnever again asked to enter the chamber in the turret.

  And then came my revulsion of feeling. A single incident changed all mysympathy to loathing, and made me realize that my employer stillremained all that he had ever been, with the additional vice ofhypocrisy. What happened was as follows.

  One evening Miss Witherton had gone down to Broadway, the neighbouringvillage, to sing at a concert for some charity, and I, according to mypromise, had walked over to escort her back. The drive sweeps roundunder the eastern turret, and I observed as I passed that the light waslit in the circular room. It was a summer evening, and the window, whichwas a little higher than our heads, was open. We were, as it happened,engrossed in our own conversation at the moment, and we had paused uponthe lawn which skirts the old turret, when suddenly something broke inupon our talk and turned our thoughts away from our own affairs.

  It was a voice—the voice undoubtedly of a woman. It was low—so low thatit was only in that still night air that we could have heard it, but,hushed as it was, there was no mistaking its feminine timbre. It spokehurriedly, gaspingly for a few sentences, and then was silent—a piteous,breathless, imploring sort of voice. Miss Witherton and I stood for aninstant staring at each other. Then we walked quickly in the directionof the hall-door.

  “It came through the window,” I said.

  “We must not play the part of eavesdroppers,” she answered. “We mustforget that we have ever heard it.”

  There was an absence of surprise in her manner which suggested a newidea to me.

  “You have heard it before,” I cried.

  “I could not help it. My own room is higher up on the same turret. Ithas happened frequently.”

  “Who can the woman be?”

  “I have no idea. I had rather not discuss it.”

  Her voice was enough to show me what she thought. But granting that ouremployer led a double and dubious life, who could she be, thismysterious woman who kept him company in the old tower? I knew from myown inspection how bleak and bare a room it was. She certainly did notlive there. But in that case where did she come from? It could not beany one of the household. They were all under the vigilant eyes of Mrs.Stevens. The visitor must come from without. But how?

  And then suddenly I remembered how ancient this building was, and howprobable that some mediæval passage existed in it. There is hardly anold castle without one. The mysterious room was the basement of theturret, so that if there were anything of the sort it would open throughthe floor. There were numerous cottages in the immediate vicinity. Theother end of the secret passage might lie among some tangle of bramblein the neighbouring copse. I said nothing to any one, but I felt thatthe secret of my employer lay within my power.

  And the more convinced I was of this the more I marvelled at the mannerin which he concealed his true nature. Often as I watched his austerefigure, I asked myself if it were indeed possible that such a man shouldbe living this double life, and I tried to persuade myself that mysuspicions might after all prove to be ill-founded. But there was thefemale voice, there was the secret nightly rendezvous in the turretchamber—how could such facts admit of an innocent interpretation? Iconceived a horror of the man. I was filled with loathing at his deep,consistent hypocrisy.

  Only once during all those months did I ever see him without that sadbut impassive mask which he usually presented towards his fellow-man.For an instant I caught a glimpse of those volcanic fires which he haddamped down so long. The occasion was an unworthy one, for the object ofhis wrath was none other than the aged charwoman whom I have alreadymentioned as being the one person who was allowed within his mysteriouschamber. I was passing the corridor which led to the turret—for my ownroom lay in that direction—when I heard a sudden, startled scream, andmerged in it the husky, growling note of a man who is inarticulate withpassion. It was the snarl of a furious wild beast. Then I heard hisvoice thrilling with anger. “You would dare!” he cried. “You would dareto disobey my directions!” An instant later the charwoman passed me,flying down the passage, white faced and tremulous, while the terriblevoice thundered behind her. “Go to Mrs. Stevens for your money! Neverset foot in Thorpe Place again!” Consumed with curiosity, I could nothelp following the woman, and found her round the corner leaning againstthe wall and palpitating like a frightened rabbit.

  “What is the matter, Mrs. Brown?” I asked.

  “It’s master!” she gasped. “Oh ‘ow ‘e frightened me! If you had seen ‘iseyes, Mr. Colmore, sir. I thought ‘e would ‘ave been the death of me.”

  “But what had you done?”

  “Done, sir! Nothing. At least nothing to make so much of. Just laid my‘and on that black box of ‘is—‘adn’t even opened it, when in ‘e came andyou ‘eard the way ‘e went on. I’ve lost my place, and glad I am of it,for I would never trust myself within reach of ‘im again.”

  So it was the japanned box which was the cause of this outburst—the boxfrom which he would never permit himself to be
separated. What was theconnection, or was there any connection between this and the secretvisits of the lady whose voice I had overheard? Sir John Bollamore’swrath was enduring as well as fiery, for from that day Mrs. Brown, thecharwoman, vanished from our ken, and Thorpe Place knew her no more.

  And now I wish to tell you the singular chance which solved all thesestrange questions and put my employer’s secret in my possession. Thestory may leave you with some lingering doubt as to whether my curiositydid not get the better of my honour, and whether I did not condescend toplay the spy. If you choose to think so I cannot help it, but can onlyassure you that, improbable as it may appear, the matter came aboutexactly as I describe it.

  The first stage in this _dénouement_ was that the small room on theturret became uninhabitable. This occurred through the fall of theworm-eaten oaken beam which supported the ceiling. Rotten with age, itsnapped in the middle one morning, and brought down a quantity ofplaster with it. Fortunately Sir John was not in the room at the time.His precious box was rescued from amongst the _débris_ and brought intothe library, where, henceforward, it was locked within his bureau. SirJohn took no steps to repair the damage, and I never had an opportunityof searching for that secret passage, the existence of which I hadsurmised. As to the lady, I had thought that this would have brought hervisits to an end, had I not one evening heard Mr. Richards asking Mrs.Stevens who the woman was whom he had overheard talking to Sir John inthe library. I could not catch her reply, but I saw from her manner thatit was not the first time that she had had to answer or avoid the samequestion.

  “You’ve heard the voice, Colmore?” said the agent.

  I confessed that I had.

  “And what do _you_ think of it?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, and remarked that it was no business of mine.

  “Come, come, you are just as curious as any of us. Is it a woman ornot?”

  “It is certainly a woman.”

  “Which room did you hear it from?”

  “From the turret-room, before the ceiling fell.”

  “But I heard it from the library only last night. I passed the doors asI was going to bed, and I heard something wailing and praying just asplainly as I hear you. It may be a woman——”

  “Why, what else _could_ it be?”

  He looked at me hard.

  “There are more things in heaven and earth,” said he. “If it is a woman,how does she get there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, nor I. But if it is the other thing—but there, for a practicalbusiness man at the end of the nineteenth century this is rather aridiculous line of conversation.” He turned away, but I saw that he felteven more than he had said. To all the old ghost stories of Thorpe Placea new one was being added before our very eyes. It may by this time havetaken its permanent place, for though an explanation came to me, itnever reached the others.

  And my explanation came in this way. I had suffered a sleepless nightfrom neuralgia, and about mid-day I had taken a heavy dose of chlorodyneto alleviate the pain. At that time I was finishing the indexing of SirJohn Bollamore’s library, and it was my custom to work there from fivetill seven. On this particular day I struggled against the double effectof my bad night and the narcotic. I have already mentioned that therewas a recess in the library, and in this it was my habit to work. Isettled down steadily to my task, but my weariness overcame me and,falling back upon the settee, I dropped into a heavy sleep.

  How long I slept I do not know, but it was quite dark when I awoke.Confused by the chlorodyne which I had taken, I lay motionless in asemi-conscious state. The great room with its high walls covered withbooks loomed darkly all round me. A dim radiance from the moonlight camethrough the farther window, and against this lighter background I sawthat Sir John Bollamore was sitting at his study table. His well-sethead and clearly cut profile were sharply outlined against theglimmering square behind him. He bent as I watched him, and I heard thesharp turning of a key and the rasping of metal upon metal. As if in adream I was vaguely conscious that this was the japanned box which stoodin front of him, and that he had drawn something out of it, somethingsquat and uncouth, which now lay before him upon the table. I neverrealized—it never occurred to my bemuddled and torpid brain that I wasintruding upon his privacy, that he imagined himself to be alone in theroom. And then, just as it rushed upon my horrified perceptions, and Ihad half risen to announce my presence, I heard a strange, crisp,metallic clicking, and then the voice.

  Yes, it was a woman’s voice; there could not be a doubt of it. But avoice so charged with entreaty and with yearning love, that it will ringfor ever in my ears. It came with a curious far-away tinkle, but everyword was clear, though faint—very faint, for they were the last words ofa dying woman.

  “I am not really gone, John,” said the thin, gasping voice. “I am hereat your very elbow, and shall be until we meet once more. I die happy tothink that morning and night you will hear my voice. Oh, John, bestrong, be strong, until we meet again.”

  I say that I had risen in order to announce my presence, but I could notdo so while the voice was sounding. I could only remain half lying, halfsitting, paralyzed, astounded, listening to those yearning distantmusical words. And he—he was so absorbed that even if I had spoken hemight not have heard me. But with the silence of the voice came my halfarticulated apologies and explanations. He sprang across the room,switched on the electric light, and in its white glare I saw him, hiseyes gleaming with anger, his face twisted with passion, as the haplesscharwoman may have seen him weeks before.

  “Mr. Colmore!” he cried. “You here! What is the meaning of this, sir?”

  With halting words I explained it all, my neuralgia, the narcotic, myluckless sleep and singular awakening. As he listened the glow of angerfaded from his face, and the sad, impassive mask closed once more overhis features.

  “My secret is yours, Mr. Colmore,” said he. “I have only myself to blamefor relaxing my precautions. Half confidences are worse than noconfidences, and so you may know all since you know so much. The storymay go where you will when I have passed away, but until then I relyupon your sense of honour that no human soul shall hear it from yourlips. I am proud still—God help me!—or, at least, I am proud enough toresent that pity which this story would draw upon me. I have smiled atenvy, and disregarded hatred, but pity is more than I can tolerate.

  “You have heard the source from which the voice comes—that voice whichhas, as I understand, excited so much curiosity in my household. I amaware of the rumours to which it has given rise. These speculations,whether scandalous or superstitious, are such as I can disregard andforgive. What I should never forgive would be a disloyal spying andeavesdropping in order to satisfy an illicit curiosity. But of that, Mr.Colmore, I acquit you.

  “When I was a young man, sir, many years younger than you are now, I waslaunched upon town without a friend or adviser, and with a purse whichbrought only too many false friends and false advisers to my side. Idrank deeply of the wine of life—if there is a man living who has drankmore deeply he is not a man whom I envy. My purse suffered, my charactersuffered, my constitution suffered, stimulants became a necessity to me,I was a creature from whom my memory recoils. And it was at that time,the time of my blackest degradation, that God sent into my life thegentlest, sweetest spirit that ever descended as a ministering angelfrom above. She loved me, broken as I was, loved me, and spent her lifein making a man once more of that which had degraded itself to the levelof the beasts.

  “But a fell disease struck her, and she withered away before my eyes. Inthe hour of her agony it was never of herself, of her own sufferings andher own death that she thought. It was all of me. The one pang which herfate brought to her was the fear that when her influence was removed Ishould revert to that which I had been. It was in vain that I made oathto her that no drop of wine would ever cross my lips. She knew only toowell the hold that the devil had upon me—she who had striven so toloosen it
—and it haunted her night and day the thought that my soulmight again be within his grip.

  “It was from some friend’s gossip of the sick room that she heard ofthis invention—this phonograph—and with the quick insight of a lovingwoman she saw how she might use it for her ends. She sent me to Londonto procure the best which money could buy. With her dying breath shegasped into it the words which have held me straight ever since. Lonelyand broken, what else have I in all the world to uphold me? But it isenough. Please God, I shall face her without shame when He is pleased toreunite us! That is my secret, Mr. Colmore, and whilst I live I leave itin your keeping.”