"When people are engaged in a hazardous way of life they become superstitious. When fishermen are at sea they never mention rabbits or hares or any wild animals. It's unlucky. If they meet a minister of the church as they are setting out in their boats they would turn back."
"How did such superstitions start? I wonder."
"It may have been that someone met a parson on the way to the boats and didn't return; and perhaps it happened a second time. That's all that would be needed with such people. And once a superstition is born it seems to live forever. In the old days these islands were also a sanctuary for those who wanted to evade the law. We here were a law unto ourselves. Many an outlaw settled here; some found political asylum and became subjects of the ruling Kellaway. You see, it's an interesting history this of our Island and we Kellaways have something to be proud of."
"And the line is unbroken all through the ages?"
"Yes. If a female inherited she was in duty bound to marry and her husband would then take the name of Kellaway."
"It's been a wonderful morning," I said, "edifying too. I feel I've learned so much and it's made me want to learn more and more."
He turned to me and laid his hand on my arm. "I want you to stay here, Ellen," he said. "I can't tell you how much I want you to stay. When I saw you in London it was the Devil's own job not to snatch you up and insist that you come down and get to know your family before you rushed into marriage. I can't tell you how much restraint I put upon myself."
"I still can't understand why you came like that. Why didn't you tell me who you were?"
"It was the whim of a moment. You were so immersed in the prospect of marriage . . . and then, when it fell through, I felt my chance had come. I wanted you to come here freely, because you wanted to. It's difficult to explain. Suffice it that I'm happy you are here."
I was touched by the emotion in his voice. I was finding his company stimulating. He had intrigued me from the moment I had met him at the recital; he had frightened me in the house in Finlay Square; but that morning on the Island I decided he was the most fascinating man I had ever met.
He seemed to make a great effort to curb his emotions. "Alas," he said, "we must now return to the castle. There is so much I want to show you, but perhaps you have had enough for today. Get Gwennol to show you round the castle but don't listen to too many stories about the ghosts."
"Are there ghosts then?"
"It would be strange if in six hundred years we hadn't managed to collect a few. Most of them are in the dungeons. There have been one or two over the centuries who have tried to wrest our heritage from us, for to rule an island is the irresistible longing of some men. I can understand it, can't you? It's a little world in itself, a little kingdom. Perhaps you begin to feel that, Ellen. Do you?"
"I certainly thought you must be rather proud when they show you such obvious respect, as they did this morning."
"Oh, they daren't do aught else." He laughed. "I will say, though, that since I've been in control we've prospered. Crops have been, good. You might say that's in the hands of God. But it is a fact that it's in the hands of Jago Kellaway as well. I've introduced modern farming methods; I've discovered good ways of marketing. There is so much one can do with foresight on an island like this. Your father and I didn't always see eye to eye with one another, Ellen."
"Oh?" I said, wanting him to go on. Anything he could tell me about my father was of the utmost interest to me.
"He was ill for a long time before he died. That left the reins in my hands."
"And it was then that things began to improve?"
"People on the Island will tell you so. There! Now you're not so happy. Don't talk about the past, Ellen. You're here. Let's go on from there."
He smiled at me and I fancied I saw in his eyes that which faintly alarmed me. But I was in a happy mood as we rode into the stables. It had been an exciting and stimulating morning.
It was afternoon. We had had a luncheon of cold meats and salad, Jenifry, Jago and I. Gwennol had gone to the mainland. "She often gets one of the men to row her over on calm days like this," Jenifry explained.
She asked how I had enjoyed the morning and where we had been. She was very pleasant and I felt I had been overfanciful about the image I had seen in the mirror on the previous night.
Jago had to leave on some estate business and Jenifry told me she rested in the afternoons, so I said I would take a stroll round the castle alone. I should enjoy discovering things for myself.
It was about half past two when I set out—a beautiful September afternoon with the sun picking out pearly tints in the water. I passed between the battlemented bastions to a courtyard and before me was a Gothic arch and two stone steps considerably worn in the middle by thousands of footsteps. I should never cease to marvel at the countless people who must have trodden the castle steps to wear down the stone as it obviously was, and to wonder about their lives. I was in another courtyard which looked familiar and then I heard the cooing of the pigeons and recognized this as the spot I had visited on the previous evening.
Then I saw him. He was very small with a thatch of hair so fair that it was almost white; his eyes were very pale and the fact that he had fair sparse eyebrows and lashes gave him a look of surprise.
He turned suddenly and saw me. I judged him then to be about fourteen or fifteen although before I had seen his face, on account of his being so small, he had appeared to be younger.
He carried a bowl of maize in his hands and as he looked at me a bird perched on his shoulder. A look of fear came over his face and he started to walk towards the outhouse where I had seen a shadow when I was there before and which I now guessed to have been his.
I cried out: "Don't go, please. I've come to see the pigeons."
But he continued to move towards the outhouse.
"If you go the pigeons won't be fed," I reminded him. "Do let me see you feed them. I love the way they flutter round you."
He paused as though he were giving a great deal of consideration to his next move.
I had an inspiration. "I think you must be Slack," I said. "I met your mother at the inn."
He smiled slowly and nodded.
"I'm Ellen Kellaway. I've come to stay here for a while."
"Do you like the pigeons?" he asked.
"I don't know much about them, but I did hear the story of the brown pigeons taking the messages, and I thought that was wonderful."
"These take messages," he said proudly.
"It's like a miracle. They just know where to go, don't they?"
A smile crossed his face. "You train them," he said. He took a handful of maize from the bowl and threw it onto the cobbles. Several of the birds flew down and pecked at it. Some remained perched on the bowl. They cooed contentedly.
"I believe they know you," I said.
"Of course they do."
"How long have you been looking after them?"
"Ever since I've been here." He started counting on his fingers. It seemed something like five years.
"I saw you in there last night," I said, pointing to the outhouse.
"I saw you," he replied with a sly smile.
"I called you but you pretended you didn't hear."
He nodded and continued to look sly.
"May I look in now?"
"Do you want to?"
"Of course I do. I'm getting very interested in pigeons."
He opened the door and we stepped down three stone steps into a small room where sacks of maize and drinking troughs were stored.
"It's my pigeon house," he said. "But I've got to finish feeding them now."
We went back into the courtyard. He held out his arm and two birds immediately alighted on it. "There, my pretties," he murmured. "Be 'ee come to see Slacky then?"
I took a handful of the maize and threw it onto the cobbles. He watched the birds pecking at it. "You like pigeons, Miss," he said. "Her liked 'em too."
"Her?"
He
nodded vigorously. "Her liked 'em. Her'd come and help me feed 'em. Then she went away."
"Who was that, Slack?" I asked.
"Her," he said. His eyes were bewildered. "Her just went away."
He was disturbed by the memory. I could see that he had almost forgotten my existence. He went on feeding the pigeons and because I could see that to question him further would only disturb him and make him less inclined to talk, I strolled off.
The next day Gwennol took me round the castle.
"Let's begin with the dungeons," she said. "They're really quite eerie."
We descended a stone spiral staircase clinging to a rope banister and as we did so she warned me to take care.
"These stairs are so treacherous. You never really get used to them. A few years ago one of the maids fell down and wasn't discovered for a day and a night. The poor creature was nearly out of her wits when they did find her—not so much with pain as with fear of ghosts. She swore some ghostly hand pushed her down and nothing would convince her to the contrary."
We had reached a kind of enclosed courtyard, the floor of which was cobbled; it was surrounded by doors. There must have been about eighteen of them. I pushed open one and saw a cell which was like a cave in which it would have been difficult for a man of normal height to stand upright. Fixed to the wall on a chain was a heavy iron ring. I shivered, realizing that this would be used to prevent the cell's inmate from escaping. The walls were seeping with moisture and there was a damp noisome odor about the place.
I shivered and shut the door. I opened another; there was a similar cavelike cell. I explored others. They were not all alike though equally dismal. Some were lofty with half windows high in the wall, glassless and barred. On one wall the sketch of a gallows was cut into the stone; on another an evil grinning face had been drawn. It was a dark gloomy place in which I knew many must have suffered utter despair.
"It's gruesome," I said.
Gwennol nodded. "Imagine yourself a prisoner here. You'd call and no one would hear you and if they did perhaps they wouldn't care."
"You can almost sense the suffering, the mental agony, the frustration and desperation that has gone on here," I said.
"Ugh! Morbid," she commented. "I can see you've had enough, but you had to have a look at them, of course. They're an important part of the castle."
We climbed the stairs to the upper regions and she took me through so many rooms that I lost count of them. We explored the towers—north, south, east and west; and we went along galleries and up and down staircases. She showed me the kitchens, the bakery, the buttery, the winery and the slaughterhouse; she introduced me to the servants, who bobbed their curtsies or touched their forelocks according to their sex and watched me guardedly and with obvious curiosity.
There was one room which led off the hall which interested me particularly because as we entered it she said: "I heard this was your mother's favorite room. Her name was Frances, wasn't it? Some of the older servants still call it Frances's room."
There was a step leading down to it and I followed Gwennol in. She seated herself on a settle which fitted exactly into an alcove.
"She used to paint, I heard," she went on. "She couldn't have used this room as a studio. It's not light enough. I don't think anyone has used it much since she went."
I looked round the room eagerly trying to picture her there. It was certainly not a bright room. The window was small and its panes leaded. It was furnished as a sitting room. There were a few chairs, a table, but little else apart from the wooden settle.
"I wonder if any of her things are still here," I said.
"Look in the cupboard."
I opened the door of this and cried out in triumph, for inside was an easel and some rolls of paper.
"These must have been hers," I cried, and as I picked up the roll of paper I saw a sketchbook lying on the floor. Written across it was her name: Frances Kellaway. This was indeed a discovery and I was so excited by it that my hand shook as I turned over the leaves. Gwennol rose from the settle and looked over my shoulder. There were sketches of the castle from various angles.
"She was quite an artist," said Gwennol.
"I want to take this book and look through it at my leisure," I said.
"Why not?"
"It's so exciting. You're amused, but I knew so little of my mother, and my father I can't remember at all. You must have known him."
"Nobody knew him well. I saw very little of him. I don't think he liked young people. He was ill for a long time and kept in his own rooms. I'd see him now and then in a wheelchair; Fenwick, his valet-secretary, looked after him. Uncle Jago would spend a lot of time with him discussing business. But he hardly seemed like a member of the household."
"It's strange when you come to think about it. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him and I never knew him."
"Console yourself that nobody knew him well either. Uncle Jago once said he was a loner. Fenwick could tell you more about him than anyone else, I daresay."
"Where is Fenwick?"
"He left when your father died. I think he lives somewhere on the mainland."
"Do you know where?"
She shook her head and seeming to find the questions about my father becoming boring, she changed the subject. "I wonder if there are any of her things in the settle. Look, the seat is the lid of a sort of trunk."
She lifted it and I went over to look inside. There was nothing there but a traveling rug.
"It was evidently used chiefly as a seat," said Gwennol, putting the lid down and sitting on it. But she jumped up almost immediately. "Let's go and see Slack," she said. "I want him to row me over to the mainland tomorrow. Would you like to come? I know you haven't explored the Island yet and you did spend some time on the mainland waiting, but I always like to take advantage of calm seas. I shall be visiting friends so perhaps you'd like to explore a bit. We could go to the inn and get horses there, if you liked. It's what I often do."
I said I would like to do that.
"Very well, though of course it depends on the weather."
"So Slack will row us over."
"Yes, he loves to and it gives him an opportunity to see his mother."
"He's a strange boy. I discovered him when he was feeding the pigeons."
"Oh, so you've already met Slack. They say he's 'lacking' but over some things he's quite bright. It's just that he's different from most people. He came to us when he was about eleven. Uncle Jago noticed him. He had found a baby robin and was looking after it. Jago thought he'd be useful to look after the pigeons, which at that time were being attacked by some disease, and you know there's a legend about when the pigeons go the Kellaways will lose the Island. Not that Jago would believe that, but he always says he's respectful about superstitions because other people believe in them. Well, he found out that Slack was quite knowledgeable about birds and nature generally, so he took him on. The pigeons thrived immediately. Poor Slack, he can only just read and write and when he was on the mainland he used to go away for days at a time. He drove his mother frantic. Then he'd come back. He'd been in the woods watching the birds. Now of course he wouldn't dream of going away. He has his pigeons to care for."
"When I stayed at the Polcrag Inn his mother mentioned that he was here."
"Yes, Slack's her only child. When he was a little one and showed himself not quite like other children she used to say there was nothing wrong with him but that he came before he was quite done. He was born two months before he should have been apparently. She said he was slack-baked and then people started to call him Slack. Few people understand him and I think they underestimate him. He's a good boy at heart and he made a magnificent job of the pigeons."
"I could see how he felt about them and oddly enough they seemed to be aware of it."
"There's no doubt he's got a way with him. Come on. Let's go and find him now."
He was in the outhouse nursing a pigeon; he scarcely looked at us as we entered.
"She have hurt her leg, see?" He murmured. "There, my pretty, 'tis only Miss Gwennol and Miss Ellen. They'll not harm 'ee."
"Can you heal it, Slack?" asked Gwennol.
"Surely, Miss Gwennol. There be this power in me."
Gwennol looked at me and smiled. "I want you to row me over to the mainland tomorrow, Slack. That's if the sea's like it is today."
"I'll have the boat for 'ee, Miss Gwennol."
"Miss Ellen is coming with me."
He nodded but his attention was all for the bird.
"You know what to do, Slack?" asked Gwennol.
"Oh, aye, Miss Gwennol, I do know."
"And the strange thing is," said Gwennol when we had left him, "that he does, and in a short time that bird will be hopping around so that you won't know him from the rest."
We went back through the courtyards.
In the afternoon I went for a walk and explored various parts of the Island. During dinner I talked to Jago about what I had seen and found I was beginning to catch his enthusiasm.
When I retired for the night I was pleasantly tired. Each day, I promised myself, I would learn more about my family. I was looking forward to more conversation with Gwennol during the next day's trip and I thought I might have a further word with Mrs. Pengelly.
Then, as I was about to get into bed I noticed my mother's sketchbook which I had found that morning, so setting the candle down on the little table by the bed, I started to look through it.
How interesting it was to see parts of the castle reproduced. She had had undoubted talent. One could feel the antiquity of those gray stone walls which she had drawn so realistically. There was a lovely picture of the Blue Rock Island with just a hint of the mainland in the distance. There were some portraits too. There was one of a plump child looking out on the world with large inquiring eyes. I stared at it; then I saw the caption: "E. Aged Two." Why yes, now I recognized myself. So that was how I had looked when I was two. I turned the pages. I was looking at Jago—two portraits of him, facing each other. How she had caught the resemblance! They were like two different men—and yet they were both Jago. Strangely enough, he was smiling in both of them, but in one the smile was benign and in the other . . . ? It was that one which interested me. It was painted so that wherever one looked the eyes followed one. I had seen him look like that. Had it been in the house in Finlay Square? The heavy lids had fallen slightly over the eyes and it gave them a veiled, almost sinister look; and there was a certain twist about the mouth as though he were plotting something which could brook no good to someone.
Lord of the Far Island Page 17
