Archibald Malmaison: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Malmaison House was partly destroyed by fire a number of years ago, [3] and
two years later the portion still standing was taken down to make way for
the proposed branch of the London and South-Coast Railway. The branch is
still unbuilt, but only some heaps of grass-grown rubbish remain to mark
the site of the venerable edifice. But at the period of which I am now
writing it was an imposing pile of gray-stone, standing on a slight
elevation, with a sloping lawn in front, and many large trees surrounding
it. The centre and the right wing were of Elizabethan date; the left wing
was constructed by Sir Christopher Wren, or by some architect of his
school, and, though outwardly corresponding with the rest of the building,
was interiorly both more commodious and less massive. The walls of the old
part were in some places over four feet in thickness, and even the
partitions between the rooms were two feet of solid masonry. Many of the
rooms were hung with tapestry; and in taking down the house several traces
were discovered of secret passages hollowed out within the walls
themselves, and communicating by means of sliding panels from room to
room. The plan of the building comprised two floors and an attic; but the
attic was not coextensive with the lower areas; and there was often a
difference of level between the apartments on the latter floors of from
one to four steps. An irregular corridor on the first floor, badly
lighted, and in some places perfectly dark, extended from the centre into
the right wing, affording entrance to the rooms front and back.

At the end of the right wing was situated the east chamber, of which
mention has already been made. Originally, the only access to it was by
way of a larger chamber adjoining, which, again, could only be entered
through the dark corridor. This was the condition of things at the time of
the famous magic disappearance of Sir Charles Malmaison, in 1745. But, at
the beginning of the present century, a door was cut through the outside
wall, whence a covered flight of stone steps led down into an enclosed
courtyard. The room was thus rendered independent, so to speak, of the
rest of the house. The occupant might lock the door communicating with the
adjoining chamber, and go and come by the other as he pleased. As for the
courtyard, part of it had formerly been used as a stable, with stalls for
three horses; these were now transferred to the other end of the mansion,
though the stable, of course, remained; and it was necessary to go through
the stable in order to get to the covered flight of steps.

It may be remembered that Archibald, in what we may term his soporific
period, had manifested a strong, although entirely irrational, repugnance
to this east chamber. Perhaps he had been conscious of presences there
which were imperceptible to normal and healthy senses! Be that as it may,
he got bravely over his folly afterward, and in his twelfth year (his
third, Sir Clarence would have called it) he permanently took up his
quarters there, and would admit no "women" except as a special favor. In
those days, when people were still, more or less, prone to superstition,
it was not every boy who would have enjoyed the sensation of spending his
nights in so isolated a situation; for the right wing was almost entirely
unoccupied on this floor. But Archibald appears to have been singularly
free from fear, whether of the natural or of the supernatural. He
collected together all his boyish _penates_--his gun, his sword, his
fishing-rods, and his riding-whips, and arranged them about the walls. He
swept down the cobwebs from windows and ceiling; turned out of doors a lot
of miscellaneous lumber that had insensibly collected there during the
last half century; lugged in a few comfortable broad-bottomed chairs and
stanch old tables; set up a bookshelf containing Walton's "Complete
Angler," "Dialogues of Devils," "Arabian Nights," Miss Burney's "Evelina,"
and other equally fashionable and ingenious works; kindled a great fire on
the broad hearth; and, upon the whole, rendered the aspect of things more
comfortable than would have been anticipated. The room itself was long,
narrow, and comparatively low; the latticed windows were sunk several feet
into the massive walls; lengths of brownish-green and yellow tapestry,
none the fresher for its two centuries and more of existence, still
protested against the modern heresy of wallpaper; and in a panel-frame
over the fireplace was seen the portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of the
Jacobite baronet. It was a half-length, in officer's uniform; one hand
holding the hilt of a sword against the breast, while the forefinger of
the other hand pointed diagonally downward, as much as to say, "I vanished
in that direction!" The fireplace, it should be noted, was built on the
side of the room opposite to the windows; that is to say, in one of the
partition walls. And what was on the other side of this partition? Not the
large chamber opening into the corridor--that lay at right angles to the
east chamber, along the southern front of the wing. Not the corridor
either, though it ran for some distance parallel to the east chamber, and
had a door on the east side. But this door led into a great dark closet,
as big as an ordinary room, and used as a receptacle for rubbish. Was it
the dark closet, then, that adjoined the east chamber on the other side of
the partition? No, once more. Had a window been opened through the closet
wall, it would have looked--not into Archibald's room, but--into a narrow
blind court or well, entirely enclosed between four stone walls, and of no
apparent use, save as a somewhat clumsy architectural expedient. There was
no present way of getting into this well, or even of looking into it,
unless one had been at the pains to mount on the roof of the house and
peer down. As a matter of fact, its existence was only made known by the
reports of an occasional workman engaged in renewing the tiles, or mending
a decayed chimney. An accurate survey of the building would, of course,
have revealed it at once; but nothing of the kind had been thought of
within the memory of man. Such a survey would also have revealed what no
one in the least suspected, but which was, nevertheless, a fact of
startling significance--namely, that the blind court was, at least,
fifteen feet shorter, and twenty-five feet narrower, _than it ought to
have been_!

Archibald was as far from suspecting it as anybody; indeed, he most likely
never troubled his head about builders' plans in his life. But he thought
a great deal of his great-grandfather's portrait; and since it was so
placed as to be in view of the most comfortable chair before the fire, he
spent many hours of every week gazing at it. What was Sir Charles pointing
at with that left forefinger? And what meant that peculiarly intent and
slightly frowning glance which the painted eyes forever bent upon his own?
Archibald probably had a few of Mrs. Radcliffe's romances along with the
other valuable books on his shelves, and he may have cherished a notion
that a treasure, or an important secret of some sort, was concealed in the
vicinity. Following down the direction of the pointing finger, he found
that it intersected the floor at a spot about five feet to the right of
the side of the fireplace. The floor of the chamber was of solid oak
planking, blackened by age; and it appeared to be no less solid at this
point than at any other. Nevertheless, he thought it would be good fun,
and at all events would do no harm, to cut a hole there, and see what was
underneath. Accordingly, he quietly procured a saw and a hammer and
chisel, and one day, when the family were away from home, he locked
himself into his room, and went to work. The job was not an easy one, the
tough oak wood being almost enough to turn the edge of his chisel, and
there being no purchase at all for the saw. After quarter of an hour's
chipping and hammering, with very little result, he paused to rest. The
board at which he had been working, and which met the wall at right
angles, was very short, not more than eighteen inches long, indeed, being
inserted merely to fill up the gap caused by a deficiency in length of the
plank of which it was the continuation. Between the two adjoining ends was
a crack of some width, and into that crack did Archibald idly stick his
chisel. It seemed to him that the crack widened, so that he was able to
press the blade of the chisel down to its thickest part. He now worked it
eagerly backward and forward, and, to his delight, the crack rapidly
widened still further; in fact, the short board was sliding back
underneath the wainscot. A small oblong cavity was thus revealed, into
which the young discoverer glowered with beating heart and vast
anticipations.

What he found could scarcely be said to do those anticipations justice; it
was neither a casket of precious stones, nor a document establishing the
family right of ownership of the whole county of Sussex. It was nothing
more than a tarnished rod of silver, about nine inches in length, and
twisted into an irregular sort of corkscrew shape. One end terminated in a
broad flat button; the other in a blunted point. There was nothing else in
the hole--nothing to show what the rod was meant for, or why it was so
ingeniously hidden there. And yet, reflected Archibald, could it have been
so hidden, and its place of concealment so mysteriously indicated, without
any ulterior purpose whatever? It was incredible! Why, the whole portrait
was evidently painted with no other object than that of indicating the
rod's whereabouts. Either, then, there was or had been something else in
the cavity in addition to the rod, or the rod was intended to be used in
some way still unexplained. So much was beyond question.

Thus cogitated Archibald--that is to say, thus he might have cogitated, for
there is no direct evidence of what passed through his mind. And, in the
first place, he made an exhaustive examination of the cavity, and
convinced himself not only that there was nothing else except dust to be
got out of it, but also that it opened into no other cavity which might
prove more fruitful. His next step was to study the silver rod, in the
hope that scrutiny or inspiration might suggest to him what it was good
for. His pains were rewarded by finding on the flat head the nearly
obliterated figures 3 and 5, inscribed one above the other, in the manner
of a vulgar fraction, thus, 3/5; and by the conviction that the spiral
conformation of the rod was not the result of accident, as he had at first
supposed, but had been communicated to it intentionally, for some purpose
unknown. These conclusions naturally stimulated his curiosity more than
ever, but nothing came of it. The boy was a clever boy, but he was not a
detective trained in this species of research, and the problem was beyond
his ingenuity. He made every application of the figures 3 and 5 that
imagination could suggest; he took them in feet, in inches, in yards; he
added them together, and he subtracted one from the other: all in vain.
The only thing he did not do was to take any one else into his confidence;
he said not a word about the affair even to Kate; being resolved that if
there were a mystery, it should be revealed, at least in the first
instance, to no one else besides himself. At length, after several days
spent in fruitless experiments and loss of temper, he returned the rod to
its hiding-place, with the determination to give himself a rest for
awhile, and see what time and accident would do for him. This plan, though
undoubtedly prudent, seemed likely to effect no more than the others; and
over a year passed away without the rod's being again disturbed. By
degrees his thoughts ceased to dwell so persistently upon the unsolved
puzzle, and other interests took possession of his mind. The tragedy of
his aunt's death, his love for Kate, his studies, his prospects--a hundred
things gave him occupation, until the silver rod was half forgotten.

In the latter part of 1813, however, he accidentally made a rather
remarkable discovery.

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