LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter III. In the Upstairs Corridor

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      The stranger was dressed in a summer suit of grey flannel, and dangled a broad-brimmed Panama hat in his hand. Nothing indicated that he had observed their little group.

      Mrs. Moor tapped her heel smartly on the floor. He at once looked round, but with perfect self-possession. He was a shortish, heavily-built man, perhaps fifty years of age, having a full, florid face, a dome-like forehead, and a neck short, thick and red — an energetic, intellectual type of person, probably capable of prolonged periods of heavy mental exertion. His head was bald to the crown, the remaining fair was sandy-red and he wore a short, pointed beard of the same colour. His somewhat large, flat. Pale blue-grey eyes had that peculiar look of fixity which comes from gazing at one set of objects and thinking of something totally different.

      “Are you the American gentleman?” interrogated Mrs. Moor, from a distance. He strolled towards them before replying.

      “I do belong to the American nation.” His voice was thick, but not unpleasant; it had very little accent.

      “They told us you were here, but we were not anticipating a musical treat.”

      He laughed politely. “I guess my apology will have to be that I forgot my audience, madam. I heard you all come in, but you disappeared somewhere in the house, and the circumstance went clean out of my mind.”

      Mrs. Moor glanced at the bulky note-book stuffed into his side-pocket, and risked a shrewd conjecture.

      “Artists, we know, are notoriously absent-minded.”

      “Why, I do paint, madam — but I don’t put that forward as an excuse for discourtesy.”

      “Then you were lost in the past, we will say. You have few such interesting memorials in your country?”

      “We have some; we are putting on years. But I’m interested in this house in a special sense. My wife’s great-grandfather was the former proprietor of it — I don’t know just how you call it here . . . well, the squire.“

      Isbel fastened her steady, grey-black eyes on his face. “But why were you playing Beethoven in an empty house?”

      The singular, softly-metallic character of her voice seemed to attract his attention, for he shot a questioning glance at her.

      “I was working something out,” he replied curtly, after a brief hesitation.

      “Is it permissible to inquire what?”

      He looked still more surprised. “You wish to know that? . . . Some ideas came to me in this house which seemed to require music to illustrate them — that particular music, I mean.”

      “Do you know Mr. Judge personally?”

      “I do not.”

      Isbel went on gazing at him meditatively, and seemed inclined to pursue the conversation, but at that moment a sound was heard in the hall below. Glancing over the balustrade, they saw Mrs. Priday entering from the lobby.

      “I’ll have to be going,” remarked the American.

      No one offered to detain him; the ladies smiled, while Marshall raised his hat. The artist bowed gravely, clapped his own had on and turned to go downstairs.

      In the hall he stopped beside the caretaker for a moment in order to slip a coin into her hand. After that he went out, and the door close behind him.

      “What is the name of that gentleman?” asked Mrs. Moor of the woman, as soon as the latter had joined them.

      “Mr. Sherrup, madam.”

      “Oh! . . . Well, Mrs. Priday, we’ve now seen the whole of the ground floor, and we’re waiting for you to show us over the rest, if you will be so good. And first of all — what are those two doors there?”

      “The drawing-room, madam, and what used to be the old library, but Mr. Judge has turned it into a billiard-room. The new library’s at the end of the corridor. That’s all the sitting-rooms on this floor.”

      “Very good, then I think we’ll first see the drawing-room.”

      Mrs. Priday without delay ushered them into the apartment in which Sherrup had been playing the piano. It was immediately over the dining-room, and had the same outlook; its windows overlooked the side and back of the house. Quite evidently it was the sanctum of the late lady of the manor — no man could have lived in that room, so full of little feminine fragilities and knick-knacks as it was, so bizarre, so frivolous, so tasteless, yet so pleasing. And underneath everything loomed up the past, persisting in discovering itself, despite the almost passionate efforts to conceal it . . . A chill struck Isbel’s heart, and at the same time she wished to laugh.

      “Her taste!” she exclaimed “Couldn’t she see it was all wrong? How old was she, Mrs. Priday?”

      “Who, miss?”

      “The late Mrs. Judge.”

      “She was thirty-seven, miss.”

      “Twenty years younger than her husband. I wasn’t so far out, aunt . . . Were they happy together?”

      “Why shouldn’t they be happy together, miss? Young husbands are not always the kindest.”

      “What was she like?”

      “Small, slight, and fair, miss; pretty and soft-spoken, with a weakish mouth, but the sharpest tongue that ever was.”

      Mrs. Moor looked annoyed, but Isbel persisted with her questions.

      “Did they get about together much?”

      “Yes and no, miss. She was one for society, while the master likes no ones’ company so much as his own. He will shut himself up with a book by the hour together. And then he’s fond of long tramps in the countryside; and he belongs to an antiquarian society — they go on excursions and suchlike.”

      “Did she go with them?”

      The caretaker smiled. “She hated them like a swarm of earwigs, miss. She used to call them most terrible names.”

      “Poor Mrs. Judge!”

      “How long have you been in service here?” demanded Mrs. Moor.

      “Eighteen years, madam, I married Priday eighteen years ago. He’s been here all his life, and his father and grandfather, too. Many people they’ve seen come in, and many people they’ve seen go out.”

      “Most interesting! Has Mr. Judge been down here yet since his return?”

      “Not yet, madam. We’ve had letters, and that’s all.”

      They passed through the billiard room. Isbel contrived to linger behind with Marshall for a moment.

      “Which is the room we have to see?”

      “Upstairs. I think I told you it’s called the East Room.”

      “I’m growing more fascinated now. It certainly has an atmosphere of its own, this house. Whether pleasant or unpleasant I can’t decide yet.”

      He pressed her arm. “I sincerely hope you will like it, for I don’t see how our marriage is going to come off till your aunt gets fixed.”

      She looked back at him affectionately, but said nothing. Meanwhile Mrs. Moor had followed the caretaker into the corridor, where she awaited them impatiently. They proceeded without loss of time to visit the bedrooms on that floor. Some were large, some were mere boxes, but the appointments of all were modern, hygienic, and expensive. Whoever spent a night at Runhill Court was sure of a luxurious room. The views, too, from the

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