Scarweather

by Anthony Rolls

  Mrs. Reisby must have seen us from one of the windows, for she came running out of the house to greet us.

  I had been impressed by the good looks of Mrs. Reisby in London, but here, in the bracing air of the north, she was absolutely superb. She came towards us with an easy, buoyant movement, looking like a happy goddess, with a glow of health and excitement in her face.

  “How delightful to see you!” she cried. “Tolgen has gone down to the boat-house with Eric to see about some tackle. We’ve had to put off the excavation for a day or two until Mr. Macwardle comes home—he’s the Lord of the Manor, you know.”

  Chattering gaily, we walked down the lawn. In front of us, above the creek, rose the rocky and heathery mass of Scarweather Point. To the right we had a view of the open sea. Before we had reached the boat-house, Eric, hearing our voices, came out of it with a merry shouting, and he was followed, a moment later, by the Professor.

  As I looked at the Professor, with the blue water of the tide in the creek behind him, I could not help thinking of a northern pirate. He wore a pair of grey trousers and a loose flannel coat, unbuttoned over a fisherman’s jersey. His beard and hair were flaming red, with a dash of silver, in the sunlight, and he was looking tanned and ruddy. Even there, with the headland rising above us and the open sea large and level in our view, this man seemed to fill our vision and our thoughts with a sense of something colossal, pervading, imminent. Indeed, this is what he always made me feel, in a greater or lesser degree: the invasion or extension of a commanding and enormous personality.

  “Hey-di-dee!” he bellowed, “welcome to the rugged north! Stern and simple magnificence of nature—eh? Saepe faunorum voces exauditae! I cannot shake hands—I’m all over grease and oil—”

  As we stood there, in the wind and the sunlight above the gay rippling water of the creek, I doubt if you could have discovered anywhere a group of happier people or a jollier scene. It is wonderful how quickly sophistication is ended when you give yourself up to a true spirit of relaxation and the simple enjoyment of healthy movement and of healthy pursuits in the open air. Who could have suspected, in that little group, the gathering elements of a dark and appalling tragedy? I will admit a feeling of uneasiness, a transient feeling, when I heard Mrs. Reisby speak of my cousin as “Eric,” but I was reassured by the candour and the open friendship of their attitude.

  “I’ve had to postpone the dig until Monday,” said the Professor, “because old Macwardle has gone up to town, and he doesn’t come back until Sunday night. But I hope you will be able to amuse yourselves. Foster knows his way about, and Hilda, I’m sure, will be delighted—eh? As for myself, I am occasionally occupied, and you will doubtless excuse me if I cannot give you the whole of my time and attention. Ellingham will appreciate—eh?—”

  “Really, sir,” replied Ellingham, “we should be extremely unhappy if we thought you were troubling yourself on our account.”

  “Ah, ho!” cried Reisby with a boisterous laugh, “but I should be extremely unhappy if I thought you young people could get along well enough without me. No, no! My inclination is to join with you in your frolics, as Johnson would have said. In my free time I shall be entirely at your disposal. Only I fear it will be necessary for me to get through some work before Monday—that’s all. And let me tell you, sir,” he turned to Ellingham, “there are three miles of the Kinkell—both banks—for you to fish. Macwardle gives me four tickets for the season, and I have only to fill in the names.”

  It was then proposed that Mrs. Reisby, Ellingham, Eric and myself should go for a walk to Seidal Moor before lunch and have a look at the earthwork.

  As the four of us walked along the path over the headland Mrs. Reisby suddenly exclaimed:

  “Why, there’s the mystery ship!”

  “The mystery ship!” said Ellingham, giving me a laughing glance. “How exciting! Is that her, out yonder?”

  A large barque in the offing was beating slowly up towards the coast under mizen, lower topsails and a couple of jibs.

  “Yes, I think that’s the ship,” Mrs. Reisby answered. “I am not well versed in nautical affairs. We call her the mystery ship because she appears to hang about in such an odd way before signalling for a Northport pilot. I forget her name, but I believe she’s a German.”

  “Well,” said Ellingham, “she’s evidently in no hurry, or she would be carrying a bigger spread of canvas. It’s not more than what sailors would call a royal breeze, and she has nothing set above her lower topsails.”

  We came down the hill and along the road by the harbour. Joe Lloyd had left his cottage and was talking to a group of fishermen by the side of the road. They were looking with some interest at the ship, and a pair of glasses was being passed from hand to hand.

  “Good morning, Mr. Lloyd,” said Mrs. Reisby. “Isn’t that the boat that we have seen here so often before—a German?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Lloyd, touching his black locks respectfully. “I know the ship. Emil Guntershausen of Hamburg, bound for Northport with iron ore.”

  Ellingham nodded his head thoughtfully, as if he remembered the name. “And how is the tide running now?”

  Joe Lloyd looked at him with a furtive and (I thought) a sinister glance.

  “Half ebb, sir.”

  “Then why doesn’t he put on a bit of canvas and make sure of the evening tide at Northport?”

  “There you are, Joe!” cried one of the fishermen. “I reckon the gentleman’s right. It’s just what I was a-saying of.”

  “He’s no business of mine,” said Joe gruffly, “but, speaking as a seafaring man myself—which I hope you’ll allow—” he turned in a half-sneering, half-threatening manner towards the fishermen, “I don’t see nothing peculiar in what he’s doing. There you are! He’s put down his helm to go about, and now he’ll make a long leg to wind’ard and fetch up to Northport in the afternoon.”

  “May I borrow the glasses for a moment?” said Ellingham. “Thank you.” He stared at the ship intently and then handed the glasses back to their owner.

  “And what do you make of it, sir?” Lloyd asked him, with a grin of defiant impudence.

  “Well,” replied Ellingham, looking particularly amiable, “that boat is not made in Germany, though she may now belong to Hamburg owners. She was built for the Norwegian timber trade—a Stavanger boat, I should say, from the look of her deck-houses.”

  “Why, the gentleman’s a sailor!” said one of the fishermen. “He’s got her properly sized up anyhow.”

  Joe Lloyd was evidently astonished, but he shrugged a shoulder with the affectation of indifference.

  “No, I’m not a sailor,” said Ellingham, “I’m only a school-master, worse luck! But I am fond of looking at ships—and I am fond of talking to seafaring men,” he added, with a friendly nod in the direction of Lloyd.

  As we climbed up to the breezy moor we looked from time to time at the ship, now beating out to sea.

  “There goes the mizen staysail,” Ellingham observed. “I dare say Mr. Lloyd is right after all, but the skipper evidently believes in taking it easy.”

  “You amazed me with your nautical knowledge,” said Mrs. Reisby, laughing. “They will treat you with real respect now, I can assure you.”

  Ellingham smiled, but he made no answer.

  We duly visited the ramparts of Caer Carrws, looked at the tumuli, and came down over the south side of the moor to the valley above the creek.

  It was a jolly morning. I can still see in vivid memory the splendid youth, the comeliness and the vigour of my cousin Eric; the abounding, vital charm of Mrs. Reisby. We were all in a happy mood, though Ellingham was occasionally thoughtful.

  Our kind hostess told us that we were to consider ourselves, by day, the guests of Scarweather, though entirely free to make our own plans. She would only ask us to let her know if we did not intend to be in to lunch
or dinner. Tolgen, she said, would probably be more or less free after Monday, but he was visited sometimes by his colleagues or pupils, and he was also engaged in private study and experiment. We were to feel no restraint, no obligation, but were to regard Scarweather as our temporary home. No arrangement could have been more to our liking, for I knew Ellingham would go off on solitary rambles, and I proposed to do a little quiet reading in my room at the hotel. We thanked her cordially, and I, for my part, felt that I was about to spend the most delightful holiday of a lifetime.

  Our little party was approaching the drive at Scarweather as a large and luxurious motor car swung out of it. Inside the car there was a pale, fat woman wrapped in a mass of costly furs, who indolently flipped a hand at Mrs. Reisby. I did not pay much attention to the lady or the car, and I was rather surprised to see that Ellingham was looking at them with an apparently disproportionate interest.

  “I believe that is one of Tolgen’s private pupils,” said Mrs. Reisby, smiling, “though you would hardly believe it, would you? What a mercy she is not staying to lunch!”

  The Professor now appeared, obviously walking down the drive in order to shut the gate.

  “Ah, ho! Ah, ho!” he boomed. “Did you see her, my dear? Lady Pamela Mulligan—a woman of benevolent designs, though not conspicuously intelligent. I did not urge her to stay; in fact I told her I was particularly busy. Ha, ha! I do not welcome these dabblers, Ellingham, their nullity and futility are almost outside the limits of belief. But I should be sorry to disoblige her brother, who is one of the most worthy and discerning patrons of my college.”

  “And may I ask, sir,” said Ellingham, “what is the object of this lady’s dabbling?”

  “Ho!—La-di-diddle-de-dee! She calls it science, my dear fellow—science! What exact meaning she attaches to that word I cannot say.”

  “Oh, do you know? Tolgen,” said Mrs. Reisby, “we saw the mystery ship this morning. Mr. Ellingham surprised us all, including Joe Lloyd, by showing how much he knew about her.”

  “Eh?”

  I happened to be looking at Reisby, and I saw, or thought I saw, a sudden corrugation of his brow, a momentary spasm of anger, the reflex of an ugly thought. I remember this, because it appeared so unaccountable at the time, and I wondered if Ellingham saw it as well. It was a mere flicker, gone in a second, but it left an impression on my mind. I think it was from that moment that I began to feel a formless, irrational yet obstinate suspicion, the shadow of a quite intangible menace, the dim foreboding of something not yet recognised on the conscious plane.

  “Why, Ellingham, you don’t know that boat, do you?”

  “No, sir—far from it. I merely hazarded the guess that she was originally a Norwegian.”

  “So she was, undoubtedly. Bergen or Stavanger—eh? We merely divert ourselves in our childish way, Mr. Ellingham, by pretending that she is mysterious. A most inoffensive, dull German trader. Our sea-gossip, even if tolerated as a romantic fiction of the idle, is really too ill-natured! Now, what do you young people say to a little trolling off the Bank this afternoon? We can get Lloyd to help us with the boat if we want him; or, better still, he can come round in his own boat and we can form two separate expeditions. You, my dear, could send Frances out with Winnie, I presume?”

  The Professor’s domestic staff consisted of the nurse (Winnie), an elderly cook and still more elderly housemaid, and a lad who came every day from Aberleven. In his more serious labours, the lad was assisted by Joe Lloyd or Dollar.

  Frances, the Reisbys’ daughter, was at this time a charming little girl between three and four years old, with a tumbling, tousled mass of adorable yellow hair. For the present, she is not concerned in this history.

  4

  In spite of my vague mistrust of Professor Reisby (a feeling of which I was heartily ashamed) I have never enjoyed myself more than I did at Scarweather.

  Everything was pleasantly informal, yet well ordered and well considered. The sea-fishing was excellent, the trout of the Kinkell rose merrily to a fly, the clean air of the moors bathed you in a stream of health; on the one hand you could feel the primitive delight of solitary places, and on the other you had the equal delight of intelligent conversation and a most congenial society.

  On Saturday morning Ellingham and I decided to put some sandwiches in our pockets and go for a long walk along the coast, and home again by a circuitous route across the Burrowdown Hills. The Professor was engaged in study, and Eric had made up his mind, so he said, to put in a few hours of serious reading; while Mrs. Reisby was occupied (or appeared to be) with the affairs of her household.

  Fred Ellingham, when he went for a long walk in the country, invariably carried a lot of apparatus which, in his opinion, was necessary for the proper enjoyment of a ramble. On this particular day he had the Zeiss camera, a folding stand, a large mapcase, a pair of powerful glasses, a prismatic compass, a tin water-bottle full of cold tea, a geological hammer in a special case, and a grey canvas haversack containing various boxes and wrappings for “specimens” or what not. He carried in his hand a shooting-stick—one of those cumbersome things which are of little use when you are actually walking but which provide you with a reliable seat. I believe he had been several times arrested as a spy during his continental holidays.

  As we proceeded on our way, Ellingham frequently paused to make use of his various instruments. He took photographs, he identified places in the landscape, he chipped off pieces of rock and put them in his bag, he astonished me by the ingenuity of his observations and the range of his experience. We were sitting under a stone wall and eating our sandwiches, when Ellingham, passing me a tinful of his cold tea, suddenly remarked:

  “Reisby is a queer old bird.”

  The crudity and simplicity of this made me laugh, quite forgetting my own uncharitable suspicion. Ellingham’s ordinary speech was rarely so colloquial.

  “You may laugh,” said Ellingham, “but my comment is not entirely frivolous. What do you think of him?”

  “Why,” said I, “you know that I admire him immensely, and I think he is a truly delightful host.”

  “You are not speaking without reserve,” said Ellingham, taking his glasses out of the case. “Is that a flight of curlew rising over the hill?”

  He looked intently through his binoculars, and then resumed:

  “You know as well as I do, my dear young friend, that there is something about this man which is disturbing without being comprehensible.”

  That was exactly what I had felt, without admitting it so clearly.

  “Well,” I said, “what is your own opinion?”

  Ellingham frowned slightly, compressing his lips in a thin, hard line. Then he rubbed his fingers along the sharp angle of his lower jaw, always a sign that he was considering how much he was prepared to say. Yet even then I had a singular proof of his awareness.

  “Digger beetle,” he remarked, watching an insect moving through the scrubby grass near his foot. “Now, about Reisby. You are a sensible youth, and I need not invoke your complete discretion.” (He himself was only thirty-six.) “I shall only recall what has come under your own observation: it is, perhaps, enough to make you think. Professor Reisby plays chess in a sailor’s eating-house in Poplar—mere eccentricity. Professor Reisby chooses to live on a lonely and remote part of our northern coast—mere eccentricity. Professor Reisby gives lessons to Lady Pamela Mulligan, who is known to the initiated as one of the most depraved women in high society and a hopeless victim of the drug habit—a very singular pupil, to say the least of it. Professor Reisby cannot conceal his intense annoyance when he hears that you have been looking at a German ship—is that also a mere eccentricity? Late in the evening (I do not know if you did observe this, by the way) Professor Reisby is called by a signal on a telegraphic buzzer in some unlocated part of the house. It is my natural habit to seek for an explanation of anything which excite
s my interest. Perhaps I have a theory in my mind; perhaps not. I will only say that I think Eric Foster ought to be careful. If he got on the wrong side of Reisby he might have to pay a terrible price. I would not have spoken to you, nor would I even have suggested anything to make you uneasy, if this thought had not come into my mind.”

  I had never heard Ellingham speak so gravely before. My reply I do not recollect, nor does it matter. We resumed our walk in a thoughtful mood, but Ellingham positively, and even rudely, declined to say anything more about the situation at Scarweather. I made up my mind to speak to Eric when I got a chance.

  Late in the afternoon we had walked across the upper part of the Kinkell valley. The beauty of the day and the scenery, and above all the happy resilience of youth, had gone a long way towards removing the gloom which had been roused by the solemn warning of Ellingham, and I was already looking forward to a pleasant evening at Scarweather.

  We were going along a pathway between the bank of the river and the side of Yeaverlow Hill when my companion pointed out a great conical mound of earth, half concealed below a plantation of fir-trees.

  “That is a burial place of the Bronze Age,” he said. “Here it is on the map—‘Devil’s Hump, Tumulus.’ Evidently a fine thing of its kind, but I believe it’s been rather badly knocked about. Suppose we go up and have a look?”

  The mound was on a grassy terrace above the valley. The sides of it were covered with a thin, wiry turf, and there were also a few clumps of bracken and a few brambles. On the top of the mound there was a sandy hollow, partly filled with blocks of stone. In one or two places near the top were the extruding edges of great horizontal slabs, and a little lower down you could see the face of a big flat stone planted upright like a tombstone in a churchyard.

  “Considerable disturbance of a comparatively recent date,” said Ellingham, “but a large part of the barrow is evidently intact. I wonder old Reisby doesn’t open it.”

  He looked closely at the edges of the stones.