Allan and the Ice Gods (3 page)

“Another thing is,” I went on, “that I do not wish to be bothered by a

lawsuit with Mr. Atterby-Smith. Further, I cannot bind myself to live

half the year in Ragnall Castle in a kind of ducal state. Very likely,

before all is done, I might want to return to Africa, which then I

could not do. In short, it comes to this: I accept the executorship

and my out-of-pocket expenses, and shall ask your firm to act for me

in the matter. The fortune I positively and finally refuse, as you

observe Lady Ragnall thought it probable I should do.”

Mr. Mellis rose and looked at the clock. “If you will allow me to

order the dogcart,” he said, “I think there is just time for me to

catch the afternoon train up to town. Meanwhile, I propose to leave

you a copy of the will and of the other documents to study at your

leisure, including the sealed letter which you have not yet read.

Perhaps after taking independent advice, from your own solicitors and

friends, you will write me your views in a few days’ time. Until then,

this conversation of ours goes for nothing. I consider it entirely

preliminary and without prejudice.”

The dogcart came round—indeed, it was already waiting—and thus this

remarkable interview ended. From the doorstep I watched the departure

of Mr. Mellis and saw him turn, look at me, and shake his head

solemnly. Evidently he thought that the right place for me was a

lunatic asylum.

“Thank goodness, that’s done with!” I said to myself. “Now I’ll order

a trap and go and tell Curtis and Good about all the business. No, I

won’t; they’ll only think me mad as that lawyer does, and argue with

me. I’ll take a walk and mark those oaks that have to come down next

spring. But first I had better put away these papers.”

Thus I reflected and began to collect the documents. Lifting the copy

of the will, I saw lying beneath it the sealed letter of which Mr.

Mellis had spoken, addressed to me and marked

To be delivered after my death, or in the event of Mr. Quatermain

pre-deceasing me, to be burned unread.

The sight of that well-known writing and the thought that she who

penned it was now departed from the world and that nevermore would my

eyes behold her, moved me. I laid the letter down, then took it up

again, broke the seal, seated myself, and read as follows:

My dear friend, my dearest friend, for so I may call you, knowing

as I do that if ever you see these words we shall no longer be

fellow citizens of the world. They are true words, because between

you and me there is a closer tie than you imagine, at any rate, at

present. You thought our Egyptian vision to be a dream—no more; I

believe it, on the other hand, at least in essentials, to be a

record of facts that have happened in bygone ages. Moreover, I

will tell you now that my revelation went further than your own.

Shabaka and Amada were married and I saw them as man and wife

leading a host southward to found a new empire somewhere in

Central Africa, of which perchance the Kendah tribe were the last

remnant. Then the darkness fell.

Moreover, I am certain that this was not the first time that we

had been associated upon the earth, as I am almost certain that it

will not be the last. This mystery I cannot understand or explain,

yet it is so. In some of our manifold existences we have been

bound together by the bonds of destiny, as in some we may have

been bound to others, and so, I suppose, it will continue to

happen, perhaps for ever and ever.

Now, as I know that you hate long letters, I will tell you why I

write. I am going to make a will, leaving you practically

everything I possess—which is a great deal. As there is no

relationship or other tie between us, this may seem a strange

thing to do, but after all, why not? I am alone in the world,

without a relative of any kind. Nor had my late husband any except

some distant cousins, those Atterby-Smiths whom you may remember,

and these he detested even more than I do, which is saying much. On

one point I am determined—that they shall never inherit, and that

is why I make this will in such a hurry, having just received a

warning that my own life may not be much prolonged.

Now, I do not deceive myself. I know you to be no money-hunter and

I think it highly probable that you will shrink from the

responsibilities of this fortune which, if it came to you, you

would feel it your duty to administer it for the good of many to

the weariness of your own flesh and spirit. Nor would you like the

gossip in which it would involve you, or the worry of the actions-at-law which the Atterby-Smiths, and perhaps others unknown, would

certainly bring against you. Therefore, it seems possible that you

will refuse my gift, a contingency for which I have provided by

alternative depositions. If a widowed lady without connections

chooses to dispose of her goods in charity or for the advancement

of science, etc., no one can complain. But even in this event I

warn you that you will not altogether escape, since I am making

you my soul executor, and although I have jotted down a list of

the institutions which I propose to benefit, you will be given an

absolute discretion concerning them with power to vary the

amounts, and add to, or lessen, their number. In return for this

trouble, should you yourself renounce the inheritance, I am

leaving you an executor’s fee of 5,000 pounds, which I beg that you

will not renounce, as the mere thought of your doing so offends me.

Also, as a personal gift, I ask you to accept all that famous set

of Caroline silver which was used on grand occasions at Ragnall,

that I remember you admired so much, and any other objects of art

that you may choose.

Lastly—and this is the really important thing—together with the

Egyptian collection, I pass on to you the chest of
Taduki
herb

with the Kendah brazier, etc., enjoining you most strictly, if

ever you held me in any friendship, to take it, and above all to

keep it sacred.

In this, Friend, you will not fail me. Observe, I do not direct

you to make further experiments with the
Taduki
. To begin with,

it is unnecessary, since, although you have recently refused to do

so in my company—perhaps because you were afraid of complications

—sooner or later you will certainly breathe it by yourself,

knowing that it would please me much, and, perhaps, when I am

dead, hoping that through it you may see more of me than you did

when I was alive. You know the dead often increase in value at

compound interest, and I am vain enough to hope that this may be

so in my case.

I have no more to say. Farewell—for a little while.

Luna Ragnall.

P.S. You can burn this letter if you like; it does not in the

least matter, as you will never forget its contents. How

interesting it will be to talk it over with you one day.

It is unnecessary that I should set out the history of the disposal of

the great Ragnall fortune in any detail. I adhered to my decision

which at last was recorded with much formality; though, as I was a

totally unknown individual, few took any interest in the matter. Those

who came to hear of it for the most part set me down as mad; indeed, I

could see that even my friends and neighbours, Sir Henry Curtis and

Captain Good, with whom I declined to discuss the business, more or

less shared this view, while a society journal of the lower sort

printed a paragraph headed:

THE HUNTER HERMIT. IVORY TRADER WHO MOCKED AT MILLIONS!

Then followed a distorted version of the facts. Also I received

anonymous letters written, I do not doubt, by members of the Atterby-Smith family, which set down my self-denial to “the workings of a

guilty conscience” and “to fears of exposure.”

Of all these things I took no heed, and notwithstanding wild threats

of action by Mr. Atterby-Smith, in due course the alternative clauses

of the will came into operation, under which, with only a rough list

to guide me, I found myself the practical dispenser of vast sums. Then

indeed I “endured hardness.” Not only had collieries and other

properties to be sold to the best advantage, not only was I afflicted

by constant interviews with Messrs. Mellis & Mellis and troubles too

numerous to mention. In addition to these, I think that every society

and charity in the United Kingdom and quite eighty per cent. of its

beggars must have written or sought interviews with me to urge their

public or private claims, so that, in the end, I was obliged to fly

away and hide myself, leaving the lawyers to deal with the

correspondence and the mendicants.

At length I completed my list, allotting the bulk of the money to

learned societies, especially such of them as dealt with archaeological

matters in which the testatrix and her husband had been interested; to

those who laboured among the poor; to the restoration of an abbey in

which I had heard Lady Ragnall express great interest, and to the

endowment of the castle as a local hospital in accordance with her

wish.

This division having been approved and ratified by an order in Court,

my duties came to an end. Further, my fee as executor was paid me,

which I took without scruple, for seldom has money been harder earned,

and the magnificent service of ancient plate was handed over to me—or

rather to the custody of my bank—with the result that I have never

set eyes upon it from that day to this, and probably never shall.

Also, I selected certain souvenirs, including a beautiful portrait of

Lady Ragnall by a noted artist, painted before her marriage,

concerning which there was a tragic story whereof I have written

elsewhere. This picture I hung in my dining room where I can see it as

I sit at table, so that never a day passes that I do not think twice

or thrice of her whose young loveliness it represents. Indeed, I think

of her so much that often I wish I had placed it somewhere else.

The Egyptian collection I gave to a museum which I will not name; only

the chest of
Taduki
and the other articles connected with it I kept,

as I was bound to do, hiding them away in a bookcase in my study and

hoping that I should forget where I had put them, an effort wherein I

failed entirely. Indeed, that chest might have been alive to judge

from the persistence with which it inflicted itself upon my mind, just

as if someone were imprisoned in the bookcase. It was stowed away in

the bottom part of an old Chippendale bookcase which stood exactly

behind my writing chair and which I had taken over as a fixture when I

bought the Grange. Now this chair, that I am using at the moment of

writing, is one of the sort that revolves, and, heedless of the work I

had to do, continually I found myself turning it round so that I sat

staring at the bookcase instead of at my desk.

This went on for some days, until I began to wonder whether there was

anything wrong; whether, for instance, I had placed the articles so

that they could fall over and my subconscious self was reminding me of

the fact. At length, one evening after dinner, this idea fidgeted me

so much that I could bear it no more. Going to my bedroom, I opened

the little safe that stands there and took out the key of the bookcase

which I had stowed away so that I could not get at it without some

trouble. Returning, I unlocked the faded mahogany door of the

Eighteenth Century bookcase and was surprised when it opened itself

very quickly, as if something were pushing at it.

Next moment, I saw the reason. My subconscious self had been right.

Owing, I suppose, to insufficient light when I put them away, I had

set the ebony tripod upon which rested the black stone bowl that

formerly was used in the
Taduki
ceremonies in the sanctuary of the

temple in Kendah-land, whence Lady Ragnall had brought it, so that one

of its feet projected over the edge of the shelf. Thus it pressed

against the door, and when it was opened, of course fell forward. I

caught it, rather smartly, I flattered myself, or rather I caught the

bowl, which was very heavy, and the tripod fell to the floor. Setting

down the bowl on the hearthrug which was near, I picked up its stand

and made a hasty examination, fearing lest the brittle, short-grained

wood should have broken. It had not; its condition was as perfect as

when it was first used, perhaps thousands of years before.

Next, that I might examine this curiosity with more care than I had

ever yet done, I placed the bowl upon its stand to consider its shape

and ornamentation. Though so massive, I saw that in its way it was a

beautiful thing, and the heads of the women carved upon the handles

were so full of life that I think they must have been modelled from a

living person. Perhaps that model was the priestess who had first used

it in her sacred rites of offering or of divination, or perhaps Amada

herself, to whom, now that I thought of it, the resemblance was great,