“You’d like to go back altogether,” said the girl, affirming it as a fact; and yet her sweet eyes, gravely unsatisfied, seemed to peer through his into his soul.
“I don’t say that, Miss Sellwood,” he protested. “Of course it’s a great thing for me to have come in for all this fortune and power — and it’ll be a greater thing still once I can believe it’s true! That’s the trouble. The whole show’s so like a dream. And that’s where this little hut helps me; it’s real, anyway; I can sight it. As for all the rest, it’s too many measles for me — as yet; what’s more, if I was to wake up this minute on Carara I shouldn’t so very much mind.”
“I wonder,” said Olivia, with her fine eyes looking through him still. “I just wonder!” And her tone set him wondering too.
“Of course,” he faltered, “I should be mighty sorry to wake up and find I’d only dreamt you!”
“Of course,” she returned, with a laughing bow; but there had been an instant’s pause; and she was studying the picture-gallery over the bunk when she continued, “I see you’ve been long enough in England to acquire the art of making pretty speeches. And I must tell you at once that they never amuse me. At least,” she added more kindly, again facing him, “not when they come from a person as a rule so candid as yourself.”
“But you mistake me; I was perfectly candid,” protested poor Jack.
“It won’t do,” said the girl. “And it’s time we went.”
Olivia felt that she had made excellent friends with the Duke; that the more she saw of him, the better she would probably like him; and that she could possibly be of use to him, in little ways, if he would be sensible, and make no more than a friend of her. She was not so sure of him, however, as she could have wished; and she was anxious to leave well alone. It was thus the worst of luck that at this last moment she should perceive the suggestively white bouquet upon the high deal chimney-piece.
“You’ve been to a wedding,” she cried, “and I’ve never heard a word about it! Whose was the wedding? Some of the tenantry, of course, or the bride would hardly have presented you with her bouquet!”
And she reached it down, and widened her pretty nostrils over the fading flowers; but they smelt of death; and their waxen whiteness had here and there the tarnish of a half-eaten apple.
“There was no bride,” said Jack, “and no wedding.”
“Then why this bride’s bouquet? No! I beg your pardon; it isn’t a fair question.”
“It is — perfectly. I had it made for a young lady. The head-gardener made it, but I told him first what I wanted. There was no word of a wedding; I only thought a nosegay would be the right sort of thing to give a young lady, to show her she was mighty welcome; and I thought white was a nice clean sort of colour. But it turned out I was wrong; she wouldn’t have liked it; it would only have made her uncomfortable; so, when I found out that, I just let it rest.”
“I see,” said Olivia, seeing only too clearly. “Still, I’m not sure you were right: if I had been the girl — —”
“Yes?”
The quick word altered the speech it had also interrupted.
“I should have thought it exceedingly kind of you,” said Olivia, after a moment’s reflection.
She replaced the flowers on the chimney-board, and then led the way out among the pines.
“I’m sorry you were in such a hurry,” he said, overtaking her when he had locked up the hut. “I might have made you some billy-tea. The billy’s the can you make it in up the bush. I had such a work to get one over here! I keep some tea in the hut, and billy-tea’s not like any other kind; I call it better; but you must come again and sample it for yourself.”
“We’ll see,” said Olivia smilingly; but with that she lost her tongue; and together they crossed the lake in mutually low spirits. It was as though the delicate spell of simple friendship had been snapped as soon as spun between them, and the friends were friends no more.
On the lawn, however, in a hammock under an elm, they found a young man smoking. It was Mr. Edmund Stubbs, who had arrived, with his friend the Impressionist, on the Saturday afternoon. He was smoking a pipe; but the ground beneath him was defiled with the ends of many cigarettes; and close at hand a deck-chair stood empty.
“I smell the blood of Mr. Llewellyn,” said Olivia, coming up with the glooming Duke. “He smokes far too many cigarettes!”
“He has gone for more,” said the man in the hammock.
“I wonder you don’t interfere, Mr. Stubbs; it must be so bad for him.”
“On the contrary, Miss Sellwood, it is the best thing in the world for him. A man must smoke something. And an artist must smoke cigarettes. You can tell what he does smoke, however, from his work. Pipe-work is inevitably coarse, banal, obvious, and only fit to hang in the front parlours of Brixton and Upper Tooting. Cigar-work is little better; but that of the cigarette is delicate, suggestive, fantastic if you will, but always artistic. Ivor Llewellyn’s is typical cigarette-work.”
“How very interesting,” said Olivia.
“My colonial!” muttered the Duke.
At the same time they caught each other’s eyes, turned away with one consent, nor made a sound between them until they were out of earshot of the hammock. And then they only laughed; yet the spell that had been broken was even thus made whole.
CHAPTER IX
AN ANONYMOUS LETTER
It is comparatively easy to read a character from a face. This is always a scientific possibility. To fit the face to a given character is obviously the reverse. And those who knew the worst of Lady Caroline Sellwood, before making her acquaintance, received, on that occasion, something like a shock. They had nourished visions of a tall and stately figure with a hook-nose and an exquisitely supercilious smile; whereas her Ladyship was decidedly short, and extremely stout, with as plebeian a snub-nose and as broad a grin as any in her own back-kitchen. Instead of the traditionally frigid leader of society, she was a warm-hearted woman where her own interests were not concerned; where they were, she was just what expedience made her, and her heart then took its temperature from her head, like the excellent servant it had always been. A case very much in point is that of her relations with Claude Lafont, whom, however, Lady Caroline had now her own reasons for fearing no more. As for the Duke of St. Osmund’s, her heart had been a perfect oven to him from the first.
Nor did she make any pretence about the matter — it was this that so repelled Olivia. But the very falsity of the woman was frank to the verge of a virtue; and the honest dishonesty of her front hair (which was of the same shade as Olivia’s, only much more elaborately curled) was as bluntly emblematic as a pirate’s flag. Lady Caroline Sellwood was honestly dishonest to the last ounce of her two hundredweight of avoirdupois.
This was the kind of thing she thought nothing of doing. She had been engaged for months upon an egregious smoking-cap for Claude Lafont. That is to say she had from time to time put in a few golden stitches, in front of Claude, which her maid had been obliged to pick out and put in again behind the scenes. Claude, at any rate, had always understood that the cap was for him — until one evening here in the conservatory, when he saw Lady Caroline coolly trying it on the Duke.
“It never did fit you, Claude,” she explained serenely. “It was always too small, and I must make you another. Only see how it fits the dear Duke!”
The dear Duke was made the recipient of many another mark of unblushing favour. He could do no wrong. His every solecism of act or word, and they still cropped up at times, was simply “sweet” in the eyes of Lady Caroline Sellwood, and his name was seldom on her lips without that epithet.
Moreover, she would speak her mind to him on every conceivable topic, and this with a freedom often embarrassing for Jack; as, for example, on the first Sunday after church.
“I simply don’t know how Francis dared!” Lady Caroline exclaimed, as she took Jack’s arm on the sunlit terrace. “Twenty-one minutes by my watch — and such drivel! It did
n’t seem so to you? Ah, you’re so sweet! But twenty-one minutes was an outrage, and I shall tell the little idiot exactly what I think of him.”
“I rather like him,” said Jack, who put it thus mildly out of pure politeness to his companion; “and I rather liked what he said.”
“Oh, he’s no worse than the rest of them,” rejoined Lady Caroline. “Of course I swear by the sweet Established Church, but the parsons personally, with very few exceptions, I never could endure. Still, it’s useful to have one in the family; he does everything for us. He christens the grandchildren, and he’ll bury the lot of us if he’s spared, to say nothing of marrying poor Olivia when her time comes. Ah well, let’s hope that won’t be yet! She is my ewe lamb. And all men are not such dear sweet fellows as you!”
This sort of speech he found unanswerable; and although treated by her Ladyship with unflagging consideration, amounting almost to devotion, Jack was never at his ease in such interviews.
One of these took place in the hut. Lady Caroline insisted on seeing it, accompanied by Olivia. Of course the whole idea charmed her to ecstasies; it was so original; it showed such a simple heart; and the hut itself was as “sweet” as everything else connected with the Duke. So was the pannikin of tea which Jack was entreated to brew for her in the “billy”: indeed, this was too sweet for Lady Caroline, who emptied most of hers upon the earth behind her camp-stool — an act which Jack pretended not to detect, and did not in the least resent. On the contrary, he put a characteristic construction upon the incident, which he attributed exclusively to Lady Caroline’s delicate reluctance to hurt his feelings by expressing her real opinion of the tea; for though personally oppressed by her persistent kindness, he was much too unsophisticated, and had perhaps too good a heart of his own, ever to suspect an underlying motive.
Towards the end of that week, in fact on the Friday afternoon, they were all taking tea on the terrace; or rather all but the two talented young men, who were understood never to touch it, and who, indeed, were somewhat out of their element at the Towers, except late at night, when the ladies had gone to bed. “I can’t think why you asked them down,” said Lady Caroline to Claude. “I didn’t,” was the reply; “it was you, Jack.” “Of course it was me,” cried the astonished Jack, “and why not? Didn’t they use to go to your rooms, old man, and to your house, Lady Caroline?” “Ah,” said her Ladyship, with her indulgent smile, “but that was rather a different thing — you dear kind fellow!” All this, however, was not on the Friday afternoon, when Lady Caroline was absorbed in very different thoughts. They were not of the conversation, although she put in her word here and there; the subject, that of the Nottingham murder, being one of peculiar interest. The horrible case in question, which had filled the papers all that week, had ended the previous day in an inevitable conviction. And even Claude was moved to the expression of a strong opinion as he put down the Times.
“I must say that I agree with the judge,” he remarked with a shudder. “‘Unparalleled barbarity’ is the only word for it! What on earth, though, was there to become ‘almost inaudible with emotion’ about, in passing sentence? If I could see any man hanged with equanimity, or indeed at all, I confess it would be this loathly wretch.”
“Claude,” said Lady Caroline, “I’m ashamed of you. He is an innocent man. He shall not die.”
“Who’s to prevent it?” asked Jack.
“I am,” replied Lady Caroline calmly.
“There’ll probably be a petition, you see,” exclaimed Claude. “Then the Home Secretary decides.”
“And I decide the Home Secretary,” said Lady Caroline Sellwood.
It was grossly untrue, and Olivia shook her head in answer to the Duke’s astounded stare, but her mother’s eyes were again fixed thoughtfully on lawn and lake. The short dry grass was overrun with wild thyme, innumerable butterflies played close to it, as spray, and the air hummed with bees likewise in love with the aroma, whose fragrance reached even to the terrace. But Lady Caroline noted none of these things, nor yet the shadows of spire and turret encroaching on the lawn — nor yet the sunlight strong as ever on the lake beyond. She was already pondering on the best way of bringing a certain matter to a head. This quiet country life, with so tiny a house-party, and with one day so like another, was excellent so far as it went, but the chances were that it would not go the whole way. It lacked excitement and incentive. It was the kind of life in which an attachment might too easily stagnate in mere foolish friendship. It needed an event; a something to prepare for, to look forward to; a something to tighten the nerves and slacken the tongue; and yet nothing that should give the Duke an opportunity of appearing at a public disadvantage.
So this was the difficulty. It disqualified the dance, the dinner-party, even the entertaining of the county from 3.30 to 6.30 in the grounds. But Lady Caroline overcame it, as she overcame most difficulties, by the patient application of her ingenious mind. And her outward scheme was presently unfolded in the fewest and apparently the most spontaneous words.
“He is not guilty, and he shall not die,” she suddenly observed, as though the Nottingham murder had all this time monopolised her thoughts. “But let us speak of something else; I had, indeed, a very different matter upon my mind, until the papers came and banished everything with this ghastly business. The fact is, dear Duke, that you should really do something to entertain your tenantry, and possibly a few neighbours also, before they begin to talk. They will expect it sooner or later, and in these things it is always better to take time by the forelock. Mind, I don’t mean an elaborate matter at all — except from their point of view. I would just give them the run of the place for the afternoon, and feed the multitude later on. Francis, don’t look shocked! I hope you’ll be there to ask a blessing. Then, Duke, you could have a band on the lawn, and fireworks, and indeed anything you like. It’s always good policy to do the civil to one’s tenantry, though no doubt a bore; but you needn’t shake hands with them, you know, and you could leaven the lower orders with a few parsons and their wives from the surrounding rectories. It’s only a suggestion, of course, and that from one who has really no right to put in her oar at all; still I know you won’t misunderstand it — coming from me.”
He did not; his face had long been alight and aglow with the red-heat of his enthusiasm; and now his words leapt forth like flames.
“The very ticket!” he cried, starting to his feet. “A general muster of all sorts, and we’ll do ‘em real well. Fizz and fireworks! A dance on the lawn! And I’ll make ‘em a speech to wind up with!”
“That would be beautiful,” said Lady Caroline with an inward shudder. “What a dear fellow you are, to be sure, to take up my poor little suggestion like this!”
“Take it up,” cried Jack, “I should think I would take it up! It’ll be the best sport out. Lady Caroline, you’re one in two or three! I’m truly thankful for the tip. Here’s my hand on it!”
His hand was pressed without delay.
“It really is an excellent suggestion,” said Claude Lafont, in his deliberate way, after mature consideration. “It only remains to settle the date.”
“And the brand of fizz, old man, and the sort of fireworks! I’ll leave all that to you. And the date, too; any day will do me; the sooner the better.”
“Well,” said Lady Caroline, as though it had only just struck her, “Olivia’s birthday is the twentieth — —”
“Mamma!” cried that young lady, with real indignation.
“And it’s her twenty-first birthday,” pursued the other, “and she is my ewe lamb. I must confess I should like to honour that occasion — —”
“Same here! By all manner o’ means!” broke in the Duke. “Now, Miss Sellwood, it’s no use your saying one word; this thing’s a fixture for the twentieth as ever is.”
The girl was furious. The inevitable, nay, the intentional linking of her name with that of the Duke of St. Osmund’s, entailed by the arrangement thus mooted and made, galled her pride to t
he quick. And yet it was but one more twang of the catapult that was daily and almost hourly throwing her at his head; neither was it his fault any more than hers; so she made shift to thank him, as kindly as she could at the moment, for the compliment he was so ready to pay her — at her mother’s suggestion.
“You could hardly get out of it, however, after what was said,” she added, not perhaps inexcusably in the circumstances.
“No more can you,” retorted the Duke. “And here comes the very man we must all consult,” he added, as the agent appeared, a taking figure in his wrinkled riding breeches, and with his spurs trailing on the dead-smooth flags.
The agent handed Jack a soiled note, and then sat down to talk to the ladies. This he did at all times excellently, having assurance and a certain well-bred familiarity of manner, which, as the saying is, went down. In this respect he was a contrast to all the other men present. He inquired when the Home Secretary would be back and ready for his revenge on the links. And he heard of the plans for the twentieth with interest and a somewhat superfluous approval. Meanwhile the Duke had read his note more than once, and now he looked up.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, displaying the crumpled envelope, which had also a hole through the middle.
“In rather a rum place,” replied the agent. “It was nailed to a tree just outside the north gates.”
“Well, see here,” said Jack, who stood facing the party, with his back to the stone bulwark of the terrace, and a hard look on his face; “that’s just the sort of place where I should have expected you to find it, for it’s an anonymous letter that some fellows might keep to themselves — but not me! I’m for getting to the bottom of things, whether they’re nice or whether they’re nasty. Listen to this: ‘To the Duke of St. Osmund’s’ — he prints ‘Duke’ in big letters, as much as to say I’m not one. ‘A word in your Grace’s ear’ — he prints that the same. ‘They say,’ he says, ‘that you hail from Australia, and I say you’re not the first claimant to titles and estates that has sprung from there. Take a friendly tip and put on as few frills as possible till you’re quite sure you are not going to be bowled out for a second Tichborne. A well-wisher.’ Now what does it all mean? Is it simple cheek, or isn’t it? I recollect all about Tichborne. I recollect seeing him in Wagga when I was a lad, and we took a great interest in his case up the bush; but why am I like him? Where does the likeness come in? I’ve heard fat men called second Tichbornes, but I don’t turn twelve stone. Then what can he mean? Does he mean I’m not a Duke? I know I’m not fit to be one; but that’s another matter; and if it comes to that, I never claimed to be one either; it was Claude here who yarded me up into this pen! Then what’s it all about? Can any lady or gentleman help me? I’ll pass the letter round, and I’ll be mightily obliged if they can!”
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 117