The Ivory Child | Page 4

taken to see a much finer
place, a splendid old castle with brick gateway towers, that had been
wonderfully well restored and turned into a most luxurious modern
dwelling. Let us call it "Ragnall," the seat of a baron of that name.
I had heard a good deal about Lord Ragnall, who, according to all
accounts, seemed a kind of Admirable Crichton. He was said to be
wonderfully handsome, a great scholar--he had taken a double first at
college; a great athlete--he had been captain of the Oxford boat at the
University race; a very promising speaker who had already made his
mark in the House of Lords; a sportsman who had shot tigers and other
large game in India; a poet who had published a successful volume of

verse under a pseudonym; a good solider until he left the Service; and
lastly, a man of enormous wealth, owning, in addition to his estates,
several coal mines and an entire town in the north of England.
"Dear me!" I said when the list was finished, "he seems to have been
born with a whole case of gold spoons in his mouth. I hope one of them
will not choke him," adding: "Perhaps he will be unlucky in love."
"That's just where he is most lucky of all," answered the young lady to
whom I was talking--it was Scroope's fiancée, Miss Manners--"for he is
engaged to a lady that, I am told, is the loveliest, sweetest, cleverest girl
in all England, and they absolutely adore each other."
"Dear me!" I repeated. "I wonder what Fate /has/ got up its sleeve for
Lord Ragnall and his perfect lady-love?"
I was doomed to find out one day.
So it came about that when, on the following morning, I was asked if I
would like to see the wonders of Ragnall Castle, I answered "Yes."
Really, however, I wanted to have a look at Lord Ragnall himself, if
possible, for the account of his many perfections had impressed the
imagination of a poor colonist like myself, who had never found an
opportunity of setting his eyes upon a kind of human angel. Human
devils I had met in plenty, but never a single angel--at least, of the male
sex. Also there was always the possibility that I might get a glimpse of
the still more angelic lady to whom he was engaged, whose name, I
understood, was the Hon. Miss Holmes. So I said that nothing would
please me more than to see this castle.
Thither we drove accordingly through the fine, frosty air, for the month
was December. On reaching the castle, Mr. Scroope was told that Lord
Ragnall, whom he knew well, was out shooting somewhere in the park,
but that, of course, he could show his friend over the place. So we went
in, the three of us, for Miss Manners, to whom Scroope was to be
married very shortly, had driven us over in her pony carriage. The
porter at the gateway towers took us to the main door of the castle and
handed us over to another man, whom he addressed as Mr. Savage,

whispering to me that he was his lordship's personal attendant.
I remember the name, because it seemed to me that I had never seen
anyone who looked much less savage. In truth, his appearance was that
of a duke in disguise, as I imagine dukes to be, for I never set eyes on
one. His dress--he wore a black morning cut-away coat--was faultless.
His manners were exquisite, polite to the verge of irony, but with a hint
of haughty pride in the background. He was handsome also, with a fine
nose and a hawk-like eye, while a touch of baldness added to the
general effect. His age may have been anything between thirty-five and
forty, and the way he deprived me of my hat and stick, to which I
strove to cling, showed, I thought, resolution of character. Probably, I
reflected to myself, he considers me an unusual sort of person who
might damage the pictures and other objects of art with the stick, and
not seeing his way how to ask me to give it up without suggesting
suspicion, has hit upon the expedient of taking my hat also.
In after days Mr. Samuel Savage informed me that I was quite right in
this surmise. He said he thought that, judging from my somewhat
unconventional appearance, I might be one of the dangerous class of
whom he had been reading in the papers, namely, a "hanarchist." I
write the word as he pronounced it, for here comes the curious thing.
This man, so flawless, so well instructed in some respects, had a fault
which gave everything away. His h's were uncertain. Three of them
would come