A Ring of Rubies
Page 22
bag.
"Here they are," he said, "the precious keys! here they are, one andall--some bright, some rusty; some large, some small. You will have totake pains with these keys, Miss Rosamund. They were made specially fortheir owner by a skilled locksmith; they are full of curious tricks;some must turn twice before they open, some must lock and unlock andlock again and yet again; some remain immovable until they find thesecret spring. Don't break any of them, for it would be difficult toreplace them. Now take the bag; its contents are heavy and moreprecious than gold."
Mr Gray placed the leather bag in my hand. Its weight surprised me. Iwould not show dismay, however, but girding up my courage and all themuscles of my strong right arm, went out into the street.
I had to walk the whole length of this long street before I came acrossan empty hansom. Both arms ached by this time. From right hand to leftI changed that bag; from left hand back again to right. I never carriedanything so heavy before. I wished more than once that I had acceptedMr Gray's offer of sending a trusty messenger with me.
At last, however, my earnestly desired hansom crawled slowly into view.I hailed it, got in, and a few minutes later found myself standing inthe hall of Cousin Geoffrey's house.
The caretaker, Drake, was within. He knew me this time, and smiled awelcome.
"Drake," I said, "I have come to spend some hours here. Mr Gray saysthat I am to have full liberty, and am not to be questioned orinterfered with in any way."
"Certainly, miss; whatever Mr Gray wishes must be done."
"Is Mrs Drake within this morning, Drake?"
"The missus is down in the kitchen, miss; shall I fetch her to you?"
"I don't think you need do that. I only wanted to say that as I shallprobably have to spend the day here, I should like to have something toeat."
"Yes, Miss Lindley; the missus had better come up and take your orders."
"No, Drake; I have no time to waste in that way. Go down-stairs andtell her that I will come to her in the kitchen at two o'clock. Ask herto have a cup of tea for me and a boiled egg, if quite convenient. Ishall pay, of course."
"Oh, miss, there ain't no need. Mr Gray provides us very liberally.I'll give the wife your orders, Miss Lindley."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
KEYS AND LOCKS.
As the saying is, I had my task cut out for me. Never did any one gomore nearly mad over the subject of keys than I. Cousin Geoffrey, withall his eccentricities, had in many respects a well-balanced mind.Nothing could have been neater than the queer arrangements of his house.Everywhere there were locked cupboards, locked bureaus, locked chestsof drawers, boxes with locks to them, portfolios which could only beopened by fitting a key into a lock. In short, there never was a morethoroughly locked-up house. No wonder the bag which contained CousinGeoffrey's keys should prove heavy.
It was one thing, however, for the owner of the said keys to know whereto apply each--it was quite another thing for me. To my horror when Iunfastened the brown leather bag, I found that the great bunches of keysof all sorts and sizes were unlabelled. When I made this discovery Ialmost gave up my task in despair. I had to look twice at the rubyring, and think of the voice which spoke so confidently within itssecret chamber before I had the courage to commence my search.
I don't believe, however, that my heart was a particularly faint one,and after girding myself to the fray, I toiled up-stairs, carrying thebag of keys with me.
I knew well that my search must be confined to the octagon room.
To reach this room I had to go up-stairs to the first landing of thehouse. I had then to turn to the left, and to descend some four or fivesteps; a narrow passage here led me to a spiral staircase whichcommunicated directly with the Chamber of Myths.
This quaint and beautiful room was evidently an afterthought. It wasbuilt when the rest of the house was completed. It stood alone, and Ifound afterwards that it was supported from the ground by massivepillars. No pains and no money had been spared upon it. The middle ofLondon, or at least the middle of Bloomsbury, could scarcely contain alovely view. Geoffrey Rutherford had clearly apprehended this fact whenhe built the octagon chamber: he did the next best thing he could forit; he supplied it with painted glass, of modern workmanship it is true,but exquisite in colour and artistic in design. The eight windows whichthe room contained were narrow, high, and pointed; they were filled inwith glass copied from the designs of masters. Geoffrey must havetravelled over a great part of Europe to supply himself with thesedesigns. He must have gone with an artist as his companion, for in noother way could these perfectly painted glass pictures from old FlemishCathedrals and old Roman Council Chambers have been so exquisitely andperfectly reproduced.
"I wonder if he copied the designs himself," I thought. "I rememberthat my mother told me what an accomplished artist Cousin Geoffrey was.Oh, what lovely glass! I could sit here and study. I will sit here andstudy. If I cannot acquire art in any other way, I will learn it fromCousin Geoffrey's windows."
The Chamber of Myths had always exercised a fascination over me, butnever more so than to-day. I was so excited by what I saw that I forgotfor a time the mission on which I had come. The subjects of thedifferent windows represented Woman in various guises and forms: therewas the mother with the baby in her arms: there was the maiden crowningherself with spring flowers, there was the wife tending the vines andwatching for the return of her absent husband. One window was largerthan the rest, and it contained what I supposed was a copy of awell-known masterpiece. The world's greatest Friend sat in the centreof a group of children. Some had climbed into His arms, some leantagainst His knees, some knelt at His feet, the tender and gracious handswere raised in blessing, the eyes shone with the highest love. In thebackground a mother stood, worship in her face; adoration, humility,joy, thanksgiving in her smile. This picture of Christ blessingchildren made me weep.
"Oh, if I could but see the original," I murmured.
I did not know then what I afterwards learnt that I was looking at theoriginal; that this painted window was the work, the greatest work, ofthe eccentric owner of the house. Between each of the pointed windowshung valuable Gobelin tapestries, some the work of the great Frenchartist, Noel Coypel; others by the splendid workman, Jans. I learnedthe value of these rare tapestries later on; now I scarcely noticedthem, so absorbed was I in the fascination of the windows. Each windowcontained a deep seat, which was approached by oak steps, highlypolished and black with age. The floor of the room was also of blackoak. The roof was high and pointed, made of oak and exquisitely carved.Behind each of the tapestry curtains I discovered a small lockedcupboard. There were four oak bureaus in the room, each of whichcontained ten separate locked drawers. A work-table of ivory, inlaidwith lovely _lapis lazuli_, was also locked. There was an old-fashionedwriting-table, and three or four oak chests. Everything that could befitted with a key in this chamber had a lock which was securelyfastened. I thought it highly probable that each lock would have to befitted with a separate key. In this case, after making a carefulcalculation, I found that if I were to acquaint myself with all thesecrets contained in the Chamber of Myths, I must be supplied with aboutsixty separate keys. No wonder the task before me seemed to increase inmagnitude as I approached it.
Opening my brown leather bag, I laid the keys which Mr Gray had givenme on a slender Queen Anne table, which stood near one of the tapestryrecesses. My first task was to arrange them according to size. Thisoccupied me until two o'clock, when a slow, somewhat heavy step on thestairs warned me that Mrs Drake was approaching. I did not want her tosee me at my task, and hastened to meet her. She had provided a daintylittle lunch for me; not in the kitchen, but in the queer and desolatesitting-room where I had first seen Cousin Geoffrey. I ate my chop offold Sevres china, and drank a refreshing draught of water out of a tall,rose-coloured Flemish glass. I was far too excited to linger long overthe meal. The moment I had satisfied my hunger, I ran back to theoctagon room, and con
tinued my task of arranging and sorting the keys.I had provided myself with paper and ink, and as I fitted each key toits lock I fastened a label to it. Night overtook me, however, beforemy work was a quarter done. I put the keys once more into the brownbag--the unsorted ones at the bottom, those with the labels at the top.I went down-stairs, desired Drake to fetch a cab for me, told him Ishould return to the house early the next day, and took the precious bagcontaining the keys back to the lawyer's office. He was within, andevidently expecting me.
"Well, Miss Rosamund," he said, "and what luck have you had?"
"None up to the present," I replied. Then I continued: "There must havebeen a sad want of order in some person's brain not to have had thesekeys labelled."
"Ah, you have found that out, have you?"
"Yes, and I am