He rose. He went to the door. From the direction of the sitting-room came the buzz of voices. Evidently some sort of social gathering was in progress there, and he wanted to be in it.
He zig-zagged down the passage, chose after some hesitation the middle one of the three handles with which a liberal-minded architect had equipped the sitting-room door, and, walking in, gazed on the occupants with a smile of singular breadth and sweetness.
There were two persons present. One was Berry. The other was a distinguished-looking man of middle life with a clean-cut face and a grey moustache. Both seemed surprised to see him.
''Lo!' said Mr Hoke spaciously.
Berry, in his capacity of host, answered him.
'Hullo!' said Berry. The apparition had not unnaturally startled him somewhat. 'Mr Hoke!'
'Hic-coke,' replied Hoke, endorsing the statement.
Berry had now arrived at a theory which seemed to him to cover the facts. He assumed that after admitting Lord Hoddesdon a short while back he had forgotten to close the front door, and that his latest visitor, finding it open, had come in. It was a thing that might quite easily have happened, for his lordship's arrival, puzzling him completely, had taken his mind off all other matters. At any rate, here Hoke was, and he endeavoured politely to discover what had brought him there.
'Do you want to see me about something?' he asked.
'Got gat,' said Mr Hoke pleasantly.
'Cat?' said Berry.
'Gat,' said Mr Hoke.
'What cat?' asked Berry, still unequal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation.
'Gat,' said Mr Hoke with an air of finality.
Berry tentatively approached the subject from another angle.
'Hat?' he said.
'Gat,' said Mr Hoke.
He frowned slightly, and his smile lost something of its effervescent bonhomie. This juggling with words was giving him a slight, but distinct headache.
Lord Hoddesdon, too, seemed far from genial. The interruption coming at a moment when he had begun to talk really well, annoyed him.
Considering that he had stated so firmly and uncompromisingly to his sister Vera that nothing would induce him ever to return to Valley Fields, the presence of Lord Hoddesdon in Berry's sitting-room requires, perhaps, a brief explanation. Briefly, he had changed his mind. It is the distinguishing mark of a great man that he is never afraid to change his mind, should he see good reason to do so. And Lord Hoddesdon, thinking things over in his club, had seen excellent reason.
Lady Vera's revelations on the previous night had shaken him to the core. If Ann Moon was really planning to jilt his son and marry this Conway, the matter was serious. Although nothing in the millionaire's behaviour so far had indicated a desire to part with money, it had seemed to Lord Hoddesdon, always an optimist, that, once the girl was married to his son, he would surely be in a position to work Mr Frisby for a small loan. He and T. Paterson would then, dash it, be practically relations. It was vital, accordingly, that this Conway be firmly suppressed by one in authority.
Conscious, therefore, of the fact that he now had six hundred pounds in his account at the bank, he had come to The Nook to buy the fellow off. He had come by night, because in his opinion Valley Fields was safer then. And he had just been in the act of talking to him as a head of the family should have talked, when this disgusting interruption had occurred. Right in the middle of one of his best sentences the door had opened and in had staggered a large, red-faced inebriate.
Conscious that the spell had been broken and that further discussion of a delicate matter must be postponed, and feeling bitterly that this was just the sort of friend he might have expected the man Conway to have, Lord Hoddesdon rose.
'Where is my hat?' he said stiffly.
'Gat,' said Mr Hoke, his annoyance increasing. It seemed to him that these people were deliberately affecting to misunderstand plain English.
He regarded Lord Hoddesdon, now making obvious preparations for departure, with a hostile eye. For some little time he had been allowing his mind to wander from his mission, but now Captain Kelly's words came back to him. 'No one is to leave either of these houses,' the Captain had said. 'And if anyone goes in, they've dam' well got to stay there.' The grey-moustached stiff had gone in. Very well. Now he would stay here.
'You thinking of leaving?' asked Mr Hoke.
Lord Hoddesdon raised his eyebrows. Impecuniosity and the exigences of a democratic age had combined to cause his lordship to be sparing of the hauteur which so often goes with blue blood: but he employed it now. He stared at J. B. Hoke like a seigneur of the old régime having a good look at a vassal or varlet.
'I haven't the pleasure of knowing who you are, sir . . .'
Berry did the honours.
'Mr Hoke – The Earl of Hoddesdon—'
Mr Hoke's severity waned a little.
'Are you an Oil?' he said, interested.
'. . . but, in answer to your question, I am thinking of leaving,' said Lord Hoddesdon.
Mr Hoke's momentary lapse into amiability was over. He was the strong man again, the man behind the gun.
'Oh, no!' he said.
'I beg your pardon?' said Lord Hoddesdon.
'Granted,' said Mr Hoke. He produced the gat, of which they had heard so much, and poised it in an unsteady but resolute grasp. 'Hands up!' he said.
II
In the sitting-room of Peacehaven, meanwhile, separated from the sitting-room of The Nook by only a thin partition, events had been taking place which demand the historian's attention. It is to Lord Biskerton and his affairs that the chronicler must now turn his all-embracing eye.
At about the moment when Mr Hoke was climbing over the dining-room window-sill of The Nook, intent on ham and whisky, the Biscuit, seated in an armchair next door, had begun to gaze at a photograph of Miss Valentine on the mantelpiece, thinking the while those long, sweet thoughts which come to a young man with love in his heart and a cheque for two thousand pounds in his pocket. The burst of song in which he had indulged on returning home after the departure of Mr Robbins had continued for the space of perhaps ten minutes. At the end of that period, he had abated the nuisance and turned to silent musing.
He gazed at the photograph of Kitchie. To have won the love of a girl constructed on those lines might have been considered luck enough for any ordinary man. But not for Godfrey Edward Winstanley Brent, Lord Biskerton, Fortune's Favourite. To him had been vouchsafed in addition one of the red-hottest tips that ever emanated from the Stock Market and, as if that were not sufficient, a miraculous shower of gold which would enable him to profit by it.
From his earliest years, the Biscuit had nourished an unwavering conviction that Providence was saving up something particularly juicy in the way of rewards for him, and that it was only a question of time before it came across and delivered the goods. He based this belief on the fact that he had always tried to be a reasonably bonhomous sort of bird and was one who, like Abu Ben Adhem, loved his fellow-men. Abu had clicked, and Lord Biskerton expected to click. But not in his most sanguine moments, not even after a Bump Supper at Oxford or the celebration of somebody's birthday at the Drones, had he ever expected to click on this colossal scale. It just showed that, when Providence knew it had got hold of a good man, the sky was the limit.
Furthermore, while benefiting him, Providence would also put good old Berry on Easy Street. Lavish. That is what the Biscuit considered it. Lavish. Nestling in his chair, he felt almost dizzy. Joy-bells seemed to be ringing in a world where everything, after a rocky start, had suddenly come abso-bally-right.
Presently, as he sat, there came to him the realization that on one point he had made a slight and pardonable error. Those were not joy-bells. What was ringing was the one at the front door. A caller had apparently come to share with him this hour of ecstasy. Hoping that it was Berry, fearing that it might be the Vicar, he went to the door and opened it. And, having opened it, he stood on the mat, staring with a wild
surmise.
He had been prepared for Berry. He had been prepared for the Vicar. He had even been prepared for somebody selling brooms, cane-bottomed chairs, or aspidistras. What he had not been prepared for was his late fiancée, Ann Moon.
'Hul-lo!' said the Biscuit, blinking.
She was gazing at him with large eyes, and she seemed a little breathless. Her face was flushed, and her lips were parted. Extraordinarily pretty – not that it mattered, of course – it made her look, the Biscuit felt.
'Hullo!' he said blankly.
'Hullo,' said Ann.
'You!' said the Biscuit.
'Yes,' said Ann. 'May I come in?'
'Come in?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, rather,' said the Biscuit, roused to the necessity of playing the host. 'Of course. Certainly.'
Still stunned, he led the way to the sitting-room.
'Would you like to take a seat, or anything of that sort?'
'May I?'
'Certainly,' said the Biscuit. 'Of course. Oh, rather.'
Ann sat down, and there followed a pause of some length. It is not easy for a girl who has broken her engagement with a man and who has called at his house to suggest that, her outlook on things having altered, that engagement shall be resumed, to know exactly how to start.
Ann's mind, like that of her host, was in a distinctly disordered condition. She had come here on one of those sudden impulses on which she was too prone to act. She told herself that she hated and despised Berry, and this had led to a conviction that she had treated the Biscuit very badly and must make amends. But it was not easy to open the subject.
'Cigarette?' said the Biscuit.
'No, thanks.'
What made it so particularly difficult was that her mind was divided against itself. It was all very well for her to tell herself that she hated and despised Berry. So she did. But how long would this attitude last after the first spasm of righteous indignation had ceased to hold control? At present, she was still in the full grip of that burning fury which comes to every girl who has been made a fool of and who is compelled to face the sickening fact that Mother – or, at least, her chaperon – was right. Lady Vera had said that Berry was a mercenary impostor, and a mercenary impostor he had proved.
So far, as the Biscuit would have said, so good.
But all the while there was something deep down in her which was whispering that, impostor or not, he was the man she loved and always would love. For years she had been plagued by a meddling and interfering Conscience; and now that at last she seemed to be acting on lines of which Conscience approved, up popped an inconvenient Subconscious Self to make her uneasy. Look at it how you liked, it was a pretty tough world for a girl.
She forced herself to crush down this new assailant.
'Godfrey,' she said.
'Hullo?'
'I want to speak to you.'
'Shoot,' said the Biscuit.
'I—' said Ann.
She stopped. It was even more difficult than she had thought it would be.
Silence fell again. The Biscuit raked his mind for conversational material. He had always been fond of Ann but he was bound to admit that he had liked her better before she contracted this lock-jaw or aphasia or whatever it was. Put it this way. A merry, prattling girl – excellent. A girl apparently suffering from the dumb staggers – no good to a fellow whatever. If Ann had come all the way to Valley Fields merely to gulp at him, he wished she would go.
As a matter of fact, he wished she would go, anyway. He was an engaged man, and an engaged man cannot be too careful. Kitchie might resent – and very properly resent – this entertaining of attractive females in his home.
However, he had to be courteous. It being impossible to take her by the scruff of the neck and bung her out, something in the nature of polite chit-chat was indicated.
'How are you?' he said.
'I'm all right.'
'Pretty well?'
'Yes, thanks.'
'You're looking well.'
'You're looking well.'
'Oh, I'm all right.'
'So am I.'
'That's good,' said the Biscuit. 'I wonder if you'd mind if I took a small snort? The old brain feels as if it had come a bit unstuck at the seams.'
'Go ahead.'
'Thanks. You?'
'No, thanks.'
'Well, best o' luck,' said the Biscuit, imbibing.
He felt more composed now. It occurred to him that a major mystery still remained unsolved.
'How did you know I was living here?' he asked.
'Lady Vera told me.'
'Ah!' said the Biscuit. 'I see. She told you?'
'Yes. By the way, did she tell you?'
'That I live here?'
'About her engagement.'
The Biscuit goggled.
'Her engagement?'
'She's going to marry my uncle.'
'What! Old Pop Frisby?'
'Yes.'
'My. . . stars!'
'I was surprised, too. I hadn't thought of Uncle Paterson as a marrying man.'
'Any man's a marrying man that a woman like my Aunt Vera gets her hooks on,' said the Biscuit profoundly. 'Well, I'm dashed! So my family is keeping your family in the family, after all. Knock me down with a feather, that's what you could do.'
He mused awhile. Things were growing clearer.
'So that's why you came down here?'
'No.'
'How do you mean, no?'
'I mean, no.'
'You mean, you didn't come here just to tell me this bit of news?'
'No.'
'Then why,' demanded the Biscuit, putting his finger squarely on the centre of this perplexing matter, 'did you come? Always glad to see you, of course,' he added, gallantly. 'Drop in any time you're passing and all that. Still, why did you come?'
Ann felt that the moment had arrived. With a slight tingling of the spinal cord and other evidences of embarrassment in the shape of the glowing cheek and the foot drawing patterns on the floor, she braced herself to speak.
'Godfrey,' she said.
'Carry on,' said the Biscuit encouragingly, after an adequate pause.
'Godfrey,' said Ann, 'you got a letter from me, didn't you?'
'Breaking the engagement? Rather.'
'I came here,' said Ann, 'to tell you I was sorry I wrote it.'
The Biscuit was insufferably hearty.
'Not at all. A very well-expressed letter. Thought so at the time and think so still. Full of good stuff.'
'I . . .'
The Biscuit clicked his tongue remorsefully.
'By the way,' he said, 'can't think what I was doing, not touching on the topic before, but wish you happiness, and all that sort of rot. Berry Conway told me you and he had signed up.'
'Do you know him?' cried Ann, astonished.
'Of course I know him. And I ought to have extended felicitations and so forth long ago. What with life being tolerably full, and one thing and another, I overlooked it. Dashed sensible of you both, I consider. There's no one I would rather see you engaged to than old Berry.'
'We are not engaged.'
'Not?'
'No.'
'Then,' said the Biscuit, aggrieved, 'I have been misinformed. My leg has been pulled, and – what makes it worse – by a usually reliable source.'
'I've broken it off,' said Ann shortly.
The Biscuit stared.
'Broken it off ?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Never mind why.'
'My dear old soul,' said the Biscuit paternally, 'I would be the last man to butt in on other people's affairs, but, honestly, don't you think you're rather overdoing this breaking-off business? I mean to say, twice in under a week. Goodish going, you must admit. I don't know what the European record for engagement-breaking is, but I should say you hold it. Twice! Great Scott!'
Ann clenched her hands.
'It needn't be twice,' she said, speaking wit
h difficulty, 'unless you like.'
'Eh?'
'I came here,' said Ann, 'to suggest that, if you felt the same, we might consider that letter of mine not written.'
The Biscuit gasped. They were coming off the bat too quick for him today. First Hoke, then old Robbins, and now this. He began to feel slightly delirious.
'Do you mean,' he asked, 'that you're suggesting that you and I . . . ?'
'Yes.'
'That our engagement . . .'
'Yes.'
'That we shall . . . ?'
'Oh, yes, yes, yes!' said Ann.
There was a long silence. The Biscuit walked to the window, and looked out. There was nothing to see, but he remained there, looking, for some considerable time. He perceived that all his tact and address would be needed to handle this situation.
'Well?' said Ann.
The Biscuit turned. He had found the right words.
'Look here, old soul,' he said apologetically, 'I'm afraid I've a rather nasty knock for you, and, if you take my advice, you'll have a drink to brace yourself. I'd do anything in my power to oblige, but the fact is I can only be a sister to you.'
With a sorrowful jerk of the thumb, he indicated the mantelpiece.
'Like Dykes, Dykes and Pinweed,' he said, 'I'm bespoke.'
Ann caught her breath in sharply.
'Oh!' she said.
She got up. Never since the day when, a child of eleven, she had been pushed on to the platform to assist a conjurer at a children's party, had she felt so supremely foolish: but she held her head high. She went to the mantelpiece and examined the photograph thoughtfully.
'She's pretty,' she said.
'She is pretty,' agreed the Biscuit.
'Why, I know her!' exclaimed Ann.
'You do?'
'It's Kitchie Valentine. I came over in the boat with her.'
The Biscuit had half a mind to say something about this bringing them all very close together, but he was not quite sure how it would go. It might go well, or it might not go well. He decided to keep it back.
'She lives next door, doesn't she?' said Ann. 'I had forgotten.'
'That's right,' said the Biscuit. 'Next door. We did most of our coo-and-billing across the fence.'
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