He literally dragged his friend off to the library.
As they entered, the doctor, who was sitting at the long table, strewn with books and papers, rose and came forward, saying:
“Ah, Mr. Hamilton! We’ve met before, I think.”
“Yes, Doctor, once. How do you do?”
They shook hands, and immediately Hamilton felt his vague apprehensions concerning Gaunt’s continued presence here disappear before his delighted personality. This man could do no one any harm, he told himself.
“And how is London looking, Mr. Hamilton?” the doctor asked.
“Terrible in this heat. I must confess I ran away. Couldn’t stand it any longer.”
“Wise man! I think we’re better off here, eh, Tony?”
“Rather! John, you must stay with us — mustn’t he, Doctor?”
“Of course he must. Now, Mr. Hamilton, as a medical man, I prescribe a few weeks of sea air, and no worries.”
Hamilton laughed.
“You’re both very good. If it’s not overtaxing your domestic arrangements, Tony, I’d like nothing better.”
“Mrs. Lorrimer will be able to manage. We’ve got Johnston here as well now, you know,” Tony said, pulling the bell-rope.
“What’s happened to your home in Town, Tony?” queried Hamilton.
“Sold,” the other replied laconically; “privately, of course. I didn’t want that place on my hands. And I’d given up the flat, too. Kestrel is good enough for me.”
At this juncture Lorrimer appeared at the door, and to him Tony said:
“Mr. Hamilton will be staying some time, Lorrimer. Put his things in the tower room. You’ll love that, John, it’s awfully quaint. Perhaps you’d like a wash before lunch? Show Mr. Hamilton up, Lorrimer.”
When they had gone, Gaunt remarked coldly:
“Most inopportune, your friend’s visit, Tony. He could scarcely have come at a worse time.”
“I know. I’m awfully sorry, Doctor, but what could I do? I couldn’t send him away. He is my friend, after all.”
“We who follow the Way have little time for friends, Tony, and small room in our hearts for them. Purge yourself of all earthly love, my son.”
“I’ll try, Doctor,” Tony replied humbly. “Can we carry on at all while he’s here?”
“We must. If he stays too long, I will persuade him to go, somehow. Leave that to me.”
“May I tell him something of what you are teaching me?” the young man asked. “He will wonder what we are doing if I don’t, and perhaps he too might want to join us.”
“Missionary zeal already, Tony? No, we don’t win followers that way. But you can tell him enough to satisfy his curiosity. Since you are not yet initiated, you cannot reveal the inner secrets.”
The tower room, to which Lorrimer conducted Hamilton, was approached by a spiral staircase from the end of the long gallery. It had not been used in Tony’s father’s day, and had only recently been prepared for just such an occasion as this. It occupied the upper portion of one of the two towers which surmounted the Abbey, and was circular in shape, with four windows, set in deep embrasures, commanding every point of the compass. The staircase went on past its door to the roof of the tower.
Lorrimer ushered Hamilton inside and set his bag on the four-poster bed which stood in the middle of the floor. The rest of the furniture was arranged round the walls.
“What a delightful room, Lorrimer!” exclaimed Hamilton as he surveyed it.
“Very pleasant this weather, sir,” the servant replied, “but a bit chilly in winter. There’s no fireplace, you see. Shall I unpack for you, sir?”
“No, thanks, I’ll do it myself. What time is lunch?”
“In half an hour, sir. Will that be all, then, sir?”
Hamilton assured him that he wanted nothing else, and when Lorrimer had gone he unpacked his suitcase and distributed his belongings in the drawers of the great chest opposite the foot of the bed.
The task completed, he washed his face and hands at the primitive wash-stand and, sitting in one of the window recesses, relit his pipe. He could see the irregular roof of the building below, and the other tower beyond, with behind it nothing but the sea. Everything was very still. London, with all its teeming millions, seemed infinitely remote: he could scarcely realize that he had left it only yesterday. Already it was like a bad dream in the morning. The charm of Kestrel settled over him in a golden cloud. All his fears had vanished. What Tony and his friends were doing would be explained presently, but everything was all right. All he had to do was to enjoy this short respite from the humdrum of his daily existence. How he envied his friend, able to stay in this enchanted spot for ever if he so desired!
The faint note of a gong reached his ears, and he went down to lunch. He found Tony and the doctor awaiting him in the hall, and with them a fat and peculiarly unpleasant-looking man, who was introduced to him as Mr. Simon Vaughan. Cocktails were served by Johnston, Tony’s suave manservant, who recognized Hamilton and gave him a little bow. Then they went to lunch in the old dining-hall.
This room, which lay at the back of the building, separated from the library by a passage leading from the hall to the servants’ quarters, had also been brought into use after old Sir Anthony’s death. It was nobly proportioned, with a high peaked roof and richly carved stone walls. The ancient east window, with its wonderful Crucifixion in stained glass, miraculously preserved almost intact through the centuries, instantly betrayed the original purpose of the chamber, and it gave Hamilton a queer feeling for a while, to sit there, eating and talking, in what had once been the holy of holies of the old monks. The feeling wore off gradually, however, and he was soon laughing with the rest at the doctor’s gay sallies. Vaughan’s conversation scintillated also, and Hamilton soon forgot the gross appearance of the man, as Tony had done long before.
Chapter IX
The same afternoon Tony and his friend went for a stroll down to the sheltered beach on the landward side of the island. Gaunt had told him that there was no necessity for further study that day, so that he and Hamilton could talk to their hearts’ content. They went down the stairway to the harbour, and then along a narrow path over the wall on to the beach. Finding a spot where the low cliff gave shelter from the sun, they sat on the warm, soft sand and watched the little waves breaking on the shore.
For a while they talked of various unimportant things, of London, and mutual friends there, but at last Hamilton could contain himself no longer.
“Look here, Tony,” he said, “exactly what’s going on here? What are you and Gaunt working so hard at, and what’s this fellow Vaughan up to?”
Tony, his hands clasped round his knees, drew in a lungful of smoke before replying. Then he said:
“Gaunt is teaching me the ancient wisdom, and Simon Vaughan is making his preparations for the ultimate expulsion of the curse.”
“Oh! You believe in it now?”
“Absolutely. John, there can be no shadow of doubt. There is something abominable hidden here, and I feel it my duty to put an end to it.”
“Have you seen anything?”
“No, but they have. They went down into the caves beneath the crypt one night when I was asleep and actually saw the thing.”
“H’m. Beneath the crypt, eh? I thought you said there was nothing there in your letter.”
“No, not in the crypt itself. But there is a way through the crypt altar into a perfect maze of tunnels and passages in the solid rock. I went down once, with Vaughan and Gaunt, but since it was before sunset we saw nothing, though we felt it, by Jove! It was awful. I was jolly glad to get out again.”
“Felt it? How do you mean?”
“A sort of beastly oppression and feeling of tension, as if something were being wound up. Gaunt said that if we had stayed a minute longer that we did it would have materialized. I’m very thankful we didn’t.”