The Lair of the White Worm/Chapter 19

CASWALL WAS GENUINELY surprised when he saw Lady Arabella, though he need not have been surprised after what had already occurred in the same way. The look of surprise on his face was so much greater than Lady Arabella had expected—though she thought she was prepared to meet anything that might occur—that she stood still, open-eyed in sheer amazement. Cold-blooded as she was and ready for all social emergencies, she was nonplussed how to go on. She was plucky, however, and began to speak at once, although she had not the slightest idea what she was going to say. Had she been told that she was beginning to propose to a man, she would have indignantly denied it.
“I came to offer you my very, very warm sympathy with the grief you have so lately experienced.”
There was a new surprise in his voice as he said:
“My grief? I’m afraid I must be very dull; but I really do not understand.”
Already she felt at a disadvantage, and hesitated as she went on:
“I mean about the old man who died so suddenly—your old…retainer.”
Caswall’s face relaxed something of its puzzled concentration:
“Oh him! I hope you don’t think he was any source of grief. Why, he was only a servant; and he had over-stayed his three-score and ten years by something like twenty years. He must have been ninety, if he was a day!”
“Still, as an old servant…!”
Caswall’s words were not so cold as their inflection.
“I never interfere with servants. Besides, I never saw or heard of him. He was kept on here merely because he had been so long on the premises, or for some other idiotic reason. I suppose the steward thought it might make him unpopular if he were to be dismissed. All that is nonsense. There is no sentiment in business; if he is a sentimentalist, he has no right to be a steward of another man’s property.”
Somehow this tone almost appalled her. How on earth was she to proceed on such a task as hers if this was the utmost geniality she could expect? So she at once tried another tack—this time a personal one:
“I am sorry I disturbed you. I took a great liberty in the so doing. I am really not unconventional—and certainly no slave to convention. Still there are limits.… It is bad enough to intrude in this way, and I do not know what you can say or think of the time selected for the intrusion.”
After all, Edgar Caswall was a gentleman by custom and habit, so he rose to the occasion:
“I can only say, Lady Arabella, that you are always welcome at any time when you may deign to honour my house with your presence.”
She smiled at him sweetly as she said:
“Thank you so much. You do put one at ease. A breach of convention with you makes me glad rather than sorry. I feel that I can open my heart to you about anything.”
Caswall smiled in his turn.
“Such consideration and understanding as yours are always prohibitive of breach of convention.”
“Try me. If I stand the test it will be another link between us.”
“That, indeed, would be a privilage. Come, I will try you.”
Forthwith she proceeded to tell him about Oolanga and his strange suspicions of her honesty. Caswall laughed heartily and made her explain all the details. He laughed genuinely at her reading of Oolanga’s designs, which he did not even dignify with the sobriquet of insolence. His final comment was enlightening.
“Let me give you a word of advice: If you have the slightest fault to find with that infernal nigger, shoot him on sight. A swelled-headed negro, with a bee in his bonnet is one of the worst difficulties in the world to deal with. So better make a clean job of it, and wipe him out at once!”
“But what about the law, Mr. Caswall?”
“Oh, the law is all right. But even the law doesn’t concern itself much about dead negros. A few more or less of them does not matter. To my mind it’s rather a relief!”
“I’m afraid of you,” was her only comment, made with a sweet smile and in a soft voice.
“All right,” he said, “let us leave it at that. Anyhow, we shall be rid of one of them!”
“I don’t love negros any more than you do,” she said, “and I suppose one mustn’t be too particular where that sort of cleaning up is concerned.”
Then she changed in voice and manner, and asked genially:
“And now tell me, am I forgiven?”
“You are, dear lady—if there is anything to forgive.”
As he spoke, seeing that she had moved to go, he came to the door with her, and in the most natural way accompanied her downstairs. He passed through the hall door with her and down the avenue. As he went back to the house, she smiled to herself and took herself into her own confidence in a whisper:
“Well, that is all right. I don’t think the morning has been altogether thrown away.”
And she walked slowly back to Diana’s Grove.
When Adam Salton separated from Lady Arabella he continued the walk which he had begun. He followed the line of the Brow, and refreshed his memory as to the various localities. He
got home to Lesser Hill just as Sir Nathaniel was beginning breakfast. Mr. Salton had gone to Walsall to keep an early appointment; so he was all alone. When breakfast was over, he, seeing in Adam’s face that he had something to speak about, followed into the study and shut the door.
When the two men had lighted their pipes, Sir Nathaniel began:
“Since we talked, I have remembered an interesting fact about Diana’s Grove that I intended to have mentioned earlier, only that something put it out of my head. It is about the house, not the Grove. There is, I have long understood, some strange mystery about that house. It may be of some interest, or it may be trivial, in such a tangled skein as we are trying to unravel.”
“I am listening. Please tell me all—all you know or suspect, and I shall try to form an opinion. To begin, then, of what sort is the mystery—physical, mental, moral, historical, scientific, occult? Any kind of hint will help me.”
“Well, my dear boy, the fact is, I don’t know!”
“Don’t know, sir?”
“That is not so strange as it may appear. It may belong to any or all of these categories. Naturally, you are incredulous of such complete ignorance—”
“Oh, sir, I would not doubt you.”
“No, of course not. But all the same, you may not be able to believe or understand. Of course I understand your reluctance to speak of a doubt. But that applies not to the fact, but to the manner of expressing it. Be quite assured. I fully accept your belief in
my bona fides. But we have difficulties to encounter, barriers to pass; so we must trust each other to speak the truth even if we do not understand it ourselves.”
Adam was silent for a few moments, and then said, with his face brightening:
“Quite right. I shall try to tell you what I think; but I have not put my thoughts on the subject in sequence, and so you must forgive me if due order is not observed in my narration. I suppose you have seen the house at Diana’s Grove?”
“Only the outside of it; but I have that in my mind’s eye, and I can fit into my memory whatever you may call my attention to.”
“Good! Well, I shall just tell you, to begin with, what I know, and I may happen to know more of it than you do.”
“The house is very old—probably the first house of some sort that stood there was in the time of the Romans. This was probably renewed—perhaps several times at later periods. The house stands, or, rather used to stand as it is when Mercia was a kingdom—I do not suppose that the basement was later than the Norman Conquest. Some years ago, when I was President of the Mercian Archæological Society, I went all over it very carefully. This was before it was purchased by Captain March. The house had then been done up so as to be suitable to bring the bride to. The basement is very strange—almost as strong and as heavy as if it had been intended to be a fortress. There are a whole series of rooms deep underground. One of them in particular struck me. The room itself is of considerable size, but the masonry is more than massive. In the middle of the room is a sunk well, built up to floor level and evidently going deep underground. There is no windlass nor any trace of there ever having been any—no rope—nothing. Now, we know that even the Romans had wells of immense depth from which the water was lifted by the ‘old rag rope’; that at Woodhull used to be nearly a thousand feet. Here, then, we have simply an enormously deep well-hole. The door of the room when I saw it was massive, and was fastened with a lock nearly two feet square. It was evidently intended for some kind of protection to something or someone; but no one in those days when I had made the visit had ever heard of anyone having been allowed even to see the room. All this is à propos of the suggestion of which I have hinted that the well-hole was a way by which the White Worm (whatever it was) went and came. At that time I would have had a search made, even excavation if necessary, at my own expense, but all suggestions were met with a prompt and explicit negative. So, of course, I took no further step in the matter. Then it died out of recollection—even of mine.”
“Do you remember, sir,” asked Adam, “what was the appearance of the room where the well-hole was? And was there furniture—in fact, any sort of thing in the room?”
“I do not remember. It was all very dark—so dark that it was impossible to distinguish anything. The only thing I do remember was a sort of green light—very clouded—very dim, which came up from the well. Not a fixed light, but intermittent and irregular. Quite unlike anything I had ever seen.”
“Do you remember how you got into that room—the well-room? Was there a separate door from outside, or was there any interior room or passage which opened into it?”
“I think there must have been some room with a way into it. I remember going up some steep steps by which I came into the well-room. They must have been worn smooth by long use or something of the kind, for I could hardly keep my feet as I went up. Once I stumbled and nearly fell into the well-hole. I was more carreful after that.”
“Was there anything strange about the place—any queer smell, for instance?”
“Queer smell—yes! Like bilge or a rank swamp. It was distinctly nauseating; I remember that when I came out I felt that I was going to be physically sick. I shall try to think back on my visit and see if I can recall any more of what I saw or felt.”
“Then perhaps, sir, later in the day you will kindly tell me anything you may chance to recollect.”
“I shall be delighted, Adam. If your uncle has not returned by then, I shall join you in the study after dinner, and we shall resume this interesting chat.”