Then I turned to the portrait of Mr Heale. It represented a young man in a claret-coloured coat, very slim and upright. It showed a face of great power, a big forehead, clear-cut features, and a determined chin, with extraordinarily bright large eyes; evidently the portrait of a man of great physical and mental force, who would do whatever he took in hand with all his might. It was very finely painted, with a dark background of woods against a stormy sky.
I was immensely struck by the picture; and not less by the fact that there was an extraordinary though indefinable likeness to Mrs Hall herself. I felt somehow that she perceived that I had noticed this, for she made as though to leave the room. I could not help the inference that I was compelled to draw. I lingered for a moment looking at the portrait, which was so lifelike as to give an almost painful sense of the presence of a third person in the room. But Mrs Hall went out, and I understood that I was meant to follow her.
She led the way into their own sitting-room, and then with some agitation she turned to me. “I understand that you are an old friend of Mr Netherby’s, sir,” she said.
“Yes,” I said; “he is my greatest friend.”
“Could you persuade him, sir, to leave this place?” she went on. “You will think it a strange thing to say – and I am glad enough to have a lodger, and I like Mr Netherby – but do you think it is a good thing for a young gentleman to live so much alone?”
I saw that nothing was to be gained by reticence, so I said, “Now, Mrs Hall, I think we had better speak plainly. I am, I confess, anxious about Mr Netherby. I don’t mean that he is not well, for I have never seen him look better; but I think that there is something going on which I don’t wholly understand.”
She looked at me suddenly with a quick look, and then, as if deciding that I was to be trusted, she said in a low voice, “Yes, sir, that is it; this house is not like other houses. Mr Heale – how shall I say it? – was a very determined gentleman, and he used to say that he never would leave the house – and – you will think it very strange that I should speak thus to a stranger – I don’t think he has left it.”
We stood for a moment silent, and I knew that she had spoken the truth. While we thus stood, I can only say what I felt – I became aware that we were not alone; the sun was bright on the woods outside, the clock ticked peacefully in a corner, but there was something unseen all about us which lay very heavily on my mind. Mrs Hall put out her hands in a deprecating way, and then said in a low and hurried voice, “He would do no harm to me, sir – we are too near for that” – she looked up at me, and I nodded; “but I can’t help it, can I, if he is different with other people? Now, Mr Hall is not like that, sir – he is a plain good man, and would think what I am saying no better than madness; but as sure as there is a God in Heaven, Mr Heale is here – and though he is too fine a gentleman to take advantage of my talk, yet he liked to command other people, and went his own way too much.”
While she spoke, the sense of oppression which I had felt a moment before drew off all of a sudden; and it seemed again as though we were alone.
“Mrs Hall,” I said, “you are a good woman; these things are very dark to me, and though I have heard of such things in stories, I never expected to meet them in the world. But I will try what I can do to get my friend away, though he is a wilful fellow, and I think he will go his own way too.” While I spoke I heard Basil’s voice outside calling me, and I took Mrs Hall’s hand in my own. She pressed it, and gave me a very kind, sad look. And so I went out.
We lunched together, Basil and I, off simple fare; he pointed with an air of satisfaction to a score which he had brought into the room, written out with wonderful precision. “Just finished,” he said, “and you shall hear it later on; but now we will go and look round the place. Was there ever such luck as to get a harbourage like this? I have been here two months and feel like staying for ever. The place is in Chancery. Old Heale of Treheale, the last of his stock – a rare old blackguard – died here. They tried to let the house, and failed, and put Farmer Hall in at last. The whole place belongs to a girl ten years old. It is a fine house – we will look at that tomorrow; but today we will walk round outside. By the way, how long can you stay?”
“I must get back on Friday at latest,” I said. “I have a choir practice and a lesson on Saturday.”
Basil looked at me with a good-natured smile. “A pretty poor business, isn’t it?” he said. “I would rather pick oakum myself. Here I live in a fine house, for next to nothing, and write, write, write – there’s a life for a man.”
“Don’t you find it lonely?” said I.
“Lonely?” said Basil, laughing loud. “Not a bit of it. What do I want with a pack of twaddlers all about me? I tread a path among the stars – and I have the best of company, too.” He stopped and broke off suddenly.
“I shouldn’t have thought Mrs Hall very enlivening company,” I said. “By the way, what an odd-looking woman! She seems as if she were frightened.”
At that innocent remark Basil looked at me suddenly with the same expression of indefinable anger that I had seen in his face at our first meeting; but he said nothing for a moment. Then he resumed: “No, I want no company but myself and my thoughts. I tell you, Ward, if you had done as I have done, opened a door into the very treasure-house of music, and had only just to step in and carry away as much as one can manage at a time, you wouldn’t want company.”
I could make no reply to this strange talk; and he presently took me out. I was astonished at the beauty of the place. The ground fell sharply at the back, and there was a terrace with a view over a little valley, with pasture-fields at the bottom, crowned with low woods – beyond, a wide prospect over uplands, which lost themselves in the haze. The day was still and clear; and we could hear the running of the stream below, the cooing of doves and the tinkling of a sheepbell. To the left of the house lay large stables and barns, which were in the possession of the farmer.
We wandered up and down by paths and lanes, sometimes through the yellowing woods, sometimes on open ground, the most perfect views bursting upon us on every side, everything lying in a rich still peace, which came upon my tired and bewildered mind like soft music.
In the course of our walk we suddenly came upon a churchyard surrounded by a low wall; at the farther end, beyond the graves, stood a small church consisting of two aisles, with a high perpendicular tower. “St Sibby,” said Basil, “whether he or she I know not, but no doubt a very estimable person. You would like to look at this? The church is generally open.”
We went up a gravel path and entered the porch; the door was open, and there was an odd, close smell in the building. It was a very plain place, with the remains of a rood-loft, and some ancient woodwork; but the walls were mildewed and green and the place looked neglected.
“Vyvyan is a good fellow,” said Basil, looking round, “but he is single-handed here; the Rector is an invalid and lives at Penzance, and Vyvyan has a wretched stipend. Look here, Leonard; here is the old Heale vault.” He led me into a little chapel near the tower, which opened on to the church by a single arch. The place was very dark; but I could see a monument or two of an ancient type and some brasses. There were a couple of helmets on iron supports and the remains of a mouldering banner. But just opposite to us was a tall modern marble monument on the wall. “That is old Heale’s monument,” said Basil, “with a long, pious inscription by the old rector. Just look at it – did you ever see such vandalism?”