“That’s what you think,” this smile seemed to say, “as once before you thought that Fate could be escaped. Wait and see, my friend. Wait and see!”
“Not in this room any way,” I remarked aloud, and departed in a hurry down the passage which led to the main staircase.
Before I reached its end a remarkable sight caused me to halt in the shadow. The Atterby-Smith family were going to bed en bloc. They marched in single file up the great stair, each of them carrying a hand candle. Papa led and young Hopeful brought up the rear. Their countenances were full of war, even the twins looked like angry lambs, but something written on them informed me that they had suffered defeat recent and grievous. So they vanished up the stairway and out of my ken for ever.
When they had gone I started again and ran straight into Lady Ragnall. If her guests had been angry, it was clear that she was furious, almost weeping with rage, indeed. Moreover, she turned and rent me.
“You are a wretch,” she said, “to run away and leave me all day long with those horrible people. Well, they will never come here again, for I have told them that if they do the servants have orders to shut the door in their faces.”
Not knowing what to say I remarked that I had spent a most instructive evening in the museum, which seemed to make her angrier than ever. At any rate she whisked off without even saying “good night” and left me standing there. Afterwards I learned that the A.-S.‘s had calmly informed Lady Ragnall that she had stolen their property and demanded that “as an act of justice” she should make a will leaving everything she possessed to them, and meanwhile furnish them with an allowance of £4,000 a year. What I did not learn were the exact terms of her answer.
Next morning Alfred, when he called me, brought me a note from his mistress which I fully expected would contain a request that I should depart by the same train as her other guests. Its real contents, however, were very different.
“My dear Friend,” it ran, “I am so ashamed of myself and so sorry
for my rudeness last night, for which I deeply apologise. If you
knew all that I had gone through at the hands of those dreadful
mendicants, you would forgive me.—L.R.”
“P.S. — I have ordered breakfast at 10. Don’t go down much before,
for your own sake.”
Somewhat relieved in my mind, for I thought she was really angry with me, not altogether without cause, I rose, dressed and set to work to write some letters. While I was doing so I heard the wheels of a carriage beneath and opening my window, saw the Atterby-Smith family in the act of departing in the Castle bus. Smith himself seemed to be still enraged, but the others looked depressed. Indeed I heard the wife of his bosom say to him,
“Calm yourself, my dear. Remember that Providence knows what is best for us and that beggars on horseback are always unjust and ungrateful.”
To which her spouse replied,
“Hold your infernal tongue, will you,” and then began to rate the servants about the luggage.
Well, off they went. Glaring through the door of the bus, Mr. Smith caught sight of me leaning out of the window, seeing which I waved my hand to him in adieu. His only reply to this courtesy was to shake his fist, though whether at me or at the Castle and its inhabitants in general, I neither know nor care.
When I was quite sure that they had gone and were not coming back again to find something they had forgotten, I went downstairs and surprised a conclave between the butler, Moxley, and his satellites, reinforced by Lady Ragnall’s maid and two other female servants.
“Gratuities!” Moxley was exclaiming, which I thought a fine word for tips, “not a smell of them! His gratuities were—‘Damn your eyes, you fat bottle-washer,’ being his name for butler. My eyes, mind you, Ann, not Alfred’s or William’s, and that because he had tumbled over his own rugs. Gentleman! Why, I name him a hog with his litter.”
“Hogs don’t have litters, Mr. Moxley,” observed Ann smartly.
“Well, young woman, if there weren’t no hogs, there’d be no litters, so there! However, he won’t root about in this castle no more, for I happened to catch a word or two of what passed between him and her Ladyship last night. He said straight out that she was making love to that little Mr. Quatermain who wanted her money, and probably not for the first time as they had forgathered in Africa. A gentleman, mind you, Ann, who although peculiar, I like, and who, the keeper Charles tells me, is the best shot in the whole world.”
“And what did she say to that?” asked Ann.
“What did she say? What didn’t she say, that’s the question. It was just as though all the furniture in the room got up and went for them Smiths. Well, having heard enough, and more than I wanted, I stepped off with the tray and next minute out they all come and grab the bedroom candlesticks. That’s all and there’s her Ladyship’s bell. Alfred, don’t stand gaping there but go and light the hot-plates.”
So they melted away and I descended from the landing, indignant but laughing. No wonder that Lady Ragnall lost her temper!
Ten minutes later she arrived in the dining-room, waving a lighted ribbon that disseminated perfume.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.
“Fumigating the house,” she said. “It is unnecessary as I don’t think they were infectious, but the ceremony has a moral significance — like incense. Anyway it relieves my feelings.”
Then she laughed and threw the remains of the ribbon into the fire, adding,
“If you say a word about those people I’ll leave the room.”
I think we had one of the jolliest breakfasts I ever remember. To begin with we were both hungry since our miseries of the night before had prevented us from eating any dinner. Indeed she swore that she had scarcely tasted food since Saturday. Then we had such a lot to talk about. With short intervals we talked all that day, either in the house or while walking through the gardens and grounds. Passing through the latter I came to the spot on the back drive where once I had saved her from being abducted by Harût and Marût, and as I recognized it, uttered an exclamation. She asked me why and the end of it was that I told her all that story which to this moment she had never heard, for Ragnall had thought well to keep it from her.
She listened intently, then said,
“So I owe you more than I knew. Yet, I’m not sure, for you see I was abducted after all. Also if I had been taken there, probably George would never have married me or seen me again, and that might have been better for him.”
“Why?” I asked. “You were all the world to him.”
“Is any woman ever all the world to a man, Mr. Quatermain?”
I hesitated, expecting some attack.
“Don’t answer,” she went on, “it would be too long and you wouldn’t convince me who have been in the East. However, he was all the world to me. Therefore his welfare was what I wished and wish, and I think he would have had more of it if he had never married me.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“Because I brought him no good luck, did I? I needn’t go through all the story as you know it. And in the end it was through me that he was killed in Egypt.”
“Or through the goddess Isis,” I broke in rather nervously.