Ellie shook her head slowly.
“Does anybody really think like that nowadays?”
“Of course they do. They do in your country too.”
“Yes,” she said, “in a way that’s true but—if anyone makes good there—”
“You mean if a man makes a lot of money.”
“Well, not only money.”
“Yes,” I said, “it’s money. If a man makes a lot of money he’s admired and looked up to and it doesn’t matter where he was born.”
“Well, that’s the same everywhere,” said Ellie.
“Please, Ellie,” I said. “Please don’t go and see my mother.”
“I still think it’s unkind.”
“No it isn’t. Can’t you let me know what’s best for my own mother? She’d be upset. I tell you she would.”
“But you must tell her you’ve got married.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
It occurred to me it would be easier to write to my mother from abroad. That evening when Ellie was writing to Uncle Andrew and Uncle Frank and her stepmother Cora van Stuyvesant, I, too, was writing my own letter. It was quite short.
“Dear Mum,” I wrote. “I ought to have told you before but I felt a bit awkward. I got married three weeks ago. It was all rather sudden. She’s a very pretty girl and very sweet. She’s got a lot of money which makes things a bit awkward sometimes. We’re going to build ourselves a house somewhere in the country. Just at present we’re travelling around Europe. All the best, Yours, Mike.”
The results of our evening’s correspondence were somewhat varied. My mother let a week elapse before she sent a letter remarkably typical of her.
“Dear Mike. I was glad to get your letter. I hope you’ll be very happy. Your affectionate mother.”
As Ellie had prophesied, there was far more fuss on her side. We’d stirred up a regular hornet’s nest of trouble. We were beset by reporters who wanted news of our romantic marriage, there were articles in the papers about the Guteman heiress and her romantic elopement, there were letters from bankers and lawyers. And finally official meetings were arranged. We met Santonix on the site of Gipsy’s Acre and we looked at the plans there and discussed things, and then having seen things under way we came to London, took a suite at Claridge’s and prepared, as they say in old world books, to receive cavalry.
The first to arrive was Mr. Andrew P. Lippincott. He was an elderly man, dry and precise in appearance. He was long and lean with suave and courteous manners. He was a Bostonian and from his voice I wouldn’t have known he was an American. By arrangement through the telephone he called upon us in our suite at 12 o’clock. Ellie was nervous, I could tell, although she concealed it very well.
Mr. Lippincott kissed Ellie and extended a hand and a pleasant smile to me.
“Well, Ellie my dear, you are looking very well. Blooming, I might say.”
“How are you, Uncle Andrew? How did you come? Did you fly?”
“No, I had a very pleasant trip across on the Queen Mary. And this is your husband?”
“This is Mike, yes.”
I played up, or thought I did. “How are you, sir?” I said. Then I asked him if he’d have a drink, which he refused pleasantly. He sat down in an upright chair with gilt arms to it and looked, still smiling, from Ellie to me.
“Well,” he said, “you young people have been giving us shocks. All very romantic, eh?”
“I’m sorry,” said Ellie, “I really am sorry.”
“Are you?” said Mr. Lippincott, rather dryly.
“I thought it was the best way,” said Ellie.
“I am not altogether of your opinion there, my dear.”
“Uncle Andrew,” Ellie said, “you know perfectly well that if I’d done it any other way there would have been the most frightful fuss.”
“Why should there have been such a frightful fuss?”
“You know what they’d have been like,” said Ellie. “You too,” she added accusingly. She added, “I’ve had two letters from Cora. One yesterday and one this morning.”
“You must discount a certain amount of agitation, my dear. It’s only natural under the circumstances, don’t you think?”
“It’s my business who I get married to and how and where.”
“You may think so, but you will find that the women of any family would rarely agree as to that.”
“Really, I’ve saved everyone a lot of trouble.”
“You may put it that way.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“But you practised, did you not, a good deal of deception, helped by someone who should have known better than to do what she did.”
Ellie flushed.
“You mean Greta? She only did what I asked her to. Are they all very upset with her?”
“Naturally. Neither she nor you could expect anything else, could you? She was, remember, in a position of trust.”
“I’m of age. I can do what I like.”
“I am speaking of the period of time before you were of age. The deceptions began then, did they not?”
“You mustn’t blame Ellie, sir,” I said. “To begin with I didn’t know what was going on and since all her relations are in another country it wasn’t easy for me to get in touch with them.”
“I quite realize,” said Mr. Lippincott, “that Greta posted certain letters and gave certain information to Mrs. van Stuyvesant and to myself as she was requested to do by Ellie here, and made, if I may say so, a very competent job of it. You have met Greta Andersen, Michael? I may call you Michael, since you are Ellie’s husband?”
“Of course,” I said, “call me Mike. No, I haven’t met Miss Andersen—”
“Indeed? That seems to me surprising.” He looked at me with a long thoughtful gaze. “I should have thought that she would have been present at your marriage.”
“No, Greta wasn’t there,” said Ellie. She threw me a look of reproach and I shifted uncomfortably.
Mr. Lippincott’s eyes were still resting on me thoughtfully. He made me uncomfortable. He seemed about to say something more then changed his mind.
“I’m afraid,” he said after a moment or two, “that you two, Michael and Ellie, will have to put up with a certain amount of reproaches and criticism from Ellie’s family.”
“I suppose they are going to descend on me in a bunch,” said Ellie.
“Very probably,” said Mr. Lippincott. “I’ve tried to pave the way,” he added.
“You’re on our side, Uncle Andrew?” said Ellie, smiling at him.
“You must hardly ask a prudent lawyer to go as far as that. I have learnt that in life it is wise to accept what is a fait accompli. You two have fallen in love with each other and have got married and have, I understood you to say, Ellie, bought a piece of property in the South of England and have already started building a house on it. You propose, therefore, to live in this country?”
“We want to make our home here, yes. Do you object to our doing that?” I said with a touch of anger in my voice. “Ellie’s married to me and she’s a British subject now. So why shouldn’t she live in England?”
“No reason at all. In fact, there is no reason why Fenella should not live in any country she chooses, or indeed have property in more than one country. The house in Nassau belongs to you, remember, Ellie.”
“I always thought it was Cora’s. She always has behaved as though it was.”
“But the actual property rights are vested in you. You also have the house in Long Island whenever you care to visit it. You are the owner of a great deal of oil-bearing property in the West.” His voice was amiable, pleasant, but I had the feeling that the words were directed at me in some curious way. Was it his idea of trying to insinuate a wedge between me and Ellie? I was not sure. It didn’t seem very sensible, rubbing it in to a man that his wife owned property all over the world and was fabulously rich. If anything I should have thought that he would have played down Ellie�
�s property rights and her money and all the rest of it. If I was a fortune hunter as he obviously thought, that would be all the more grist to my mill. But I did realize that Mr. Lippincott was a subtle man. It would be hard at any time to know what he was driving at; what he had in his mind behind his even and pleasant manner. Was he trying in a way of his own to make me feel uncomfortable, to make me feel that I was going to be branded almost publicly as a fortune hunter? He said to Ellie:
“I’ve brought over a certain amount of legal stuff which you’ll have to go through with me, Ellie. I shall want your signature to many of these things.”
“Yes, of course, Uncle Andrew. Any time.”
“As you say, any time. There’s no hurry. I have other business in London and I shall be over here for about ten days.”
Ten days, I thought. That’s a long time. I rather wished that Mr. Lippincott wasn’t going to be here for ten days. He appeared friendly enough towards me, though, as you might say, indicating that he still reserved his judgment on certain points, but I wondered at that moment whether he was really my enemy. If he was, he would not be the kind of man to show his hand.
“Well,” he went on, “now that we’ve all met and come to terms, as you might say, for the future, I would like to have a short interview with this husband of yours.”
Ellie said, “You can talk to us both.” She was up in arms. I put a hand on her arm.
“Now don’t flare up, ducks, you’re not a mother hen protecting a chicken.” I propelled her gently to the door in the wall that led into the bedroom. “Uncle Andrew wants to size me up,” I said. “He’s well within his rights.”
I pushed her gently through the double doors. I shut them both and came back into the room. It was a large handsome sitting room. I came back and took a chair and faced Mr. Lippincott. “All right,” I said. “Shoot.”
“Thank you, Michael,” he said. “First of all I want to assure you that I am not, as you may be thinking, your enemy in any way.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m glad to hear that.” I didn’t sound very sure about it.
“Let me speak frankly,” said Mr. Lippincott, “more frankly than I could do before that dear child to whom I am guardian and of whom I am very fond. You may not yet appreciate it fully, Michael, but Ellie is a most unusually sweet and lovable girl.”
“Don’t you worry. I’m in love with her all right.”
“That is not at all the same thing,” said Mr. Lippincott in his dry manner. “I hope that as well as being in love with her you can also appreciate what a really dear and in some ways very vulnerable person she is.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll have to try very hard. She’s the tops, Ellie is.”
“So I will go on with what I was about to say. I shall put my cards on the table with the utmost frankness. You are not the kind of young man that I should have wished Ellie to marry. I should like her, as her family would have liked her, to marry someone of her own surroundings, of her own set—”
“A toff in other words,” I said.
“No, not only that. A similar background is, I think, to be desired as a basis for matrimony. And I am not referring to the snob attitude. After all, Herman Guteman, her grandfather, started life as a dockhand. He ended up as one of the richest men in America.”
“For all you know I might do the same,” I said. “I may end up one of the richest men in England.”
“Everything is possible,” said Mr. Lippincott. “Do you have ambitions that way?”
“It’s not just the money,” I said. “I’d like to—I’d like to get somewhere and do things and—” I hesitated, stopped.
“You have ambitions, shall we say? Well, that is a very good thing, I am sure.”
“I’m starting at long odds,” I said, “starting from scratch. I’m nothing and nobody and I won’t pretend otherwise.”
He nodded approval.
“Very frankly and handsomely said, I appreciate it. Now, Michael, I am no relation to Ellie, but I have acted as her guardian, I am a trustee, left so by her grandfather, of her affairs, I manage her fortune and her investments. And I assume therefore a certain responsibility for them. Therefore I want to know all that I can know about the husband she has chosen.”
“Well,” I said, “you can make inquiries about me, I suppose, and find out anything you like easily enough.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Lippincott. “That would be one way of doing it. A wise precaution to take. But actually, Michael, I should like to know all that I can about you from your own lips. I should like to hear your own story of what your life has been up to now.”
Of course I didn’t like it. I expect he knew I wouldn’t. Nobody in my position would like that. It’s second nature to make the best of yourself. I’d made a point of that at school and onwards, boasted about things a bit, said a few things, stretching the truth a bit. I wasn’t ashamed of it. I think it’s natural. I think it’s the sort of thing that you’ve got to do if you want to get on. Make out a good case for yourself. People take you at your own valuation and I didn’t want to be like that chap in Dickens. They read it out on the television, and I must say it’s a good yarn on its own. Uriah something his name was, always going on about being humble and rubbing his hands, and actually planning and scheming behind that humility. I didn’t want to be like that.
I was ready enough to boast a bit with the chaps I met or to put up a good case to a prospective employer. After all, you’ve got a best side and a worst side of yourself and it’s no good showing the worst side and harping on it. No, I’d always done the best for myself describing my activities up to date. But I didn’t fancy doing that sort of thing with Mr. Lippincott. He’d rather pooh-poohed the idea of making private inquiries about me but I wasn’t at all sure that he wouldn’t do so all the same. So I gave him the truth unvarnished, as you might say.
Squalid beginnings, the fact that my father had been a drunk, but that I’d had a good mother, that she’d slaved a good bit to help me get educated. I made no secret of the fact that I’d been a rolling stone, that I’d moved from one job to another. He was a good listener, encouraging, if you know what I mean. Every now and then, though, I realized how shrewd he was. Just little questions that he slipped in, or comments, some comments that I might have rushed in unguardedly either to admit or to deny.
Yes, I had a sort of feeling that I’d better be wary and on my toes. And after ten minutes I was quite glad when he leaned back in his chair and the inquisition, if you could call it that, and it wasn’t in the least like one, seemed to be over.
“You have an adventurous attitude to life, Mr. Rogers—Michael. Not a bad thing. Tell me more about this house that you and Ellie are building.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s not far from a town called Market Chadwell.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know just where it is. As a matter of fact I ran down to see it. Yesterday, to be exact.”
That startled me a little. It showed he was a devious kind of fellow who got round to more things than you might think he would.
“It’s a beautiful site,” I said defensively, “and the house we’re building is going to be a beautiful house. The architect’s a chap called Santonix. Rudolf Santonix. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him but—”
“Oh yes,” said Mr. Lippincott, “he’s quite a well-known name among architects.”
“He’s done work in the States I believe.”
“Yes, an architect of great promise and talent. Unfortunately I believe his health is not good.”
“He thinks he’s a dying man,” I said, “but I don’t believe it. I believe he’ll get cured, get well again. Doctors—they’ll say anything.”
“I hope your optimism is justified. You are an optimist.”
“I am about Santonix.”
“I hope all you wish will come true. I may say that I think you and Ellie have made an extremely good purchase in the piece of property that you have bought
.”
I thought it was nice of the old boy to use the pronoun “you.” It wasn’t rubbing it in that Ellie had done the buying on her own.
“I have had a consultation with Mr. Crawford—”
“Crawford?” I frowned slightly.
“Mr. Crawford of Reece & Crawford, a firm of English solicitors. Mr. Crawford was the member of the firm who put the purchase in hand. It is a good firm of solicitors and I gather that this property was acquired at a cheap figure. I may say that I wondered slightly at that. I am familiar with the present prices of land in this country and I really felt rather at a loss to account for it. I think Mr. Crawford himself was surprised to get it at so low a figure. I wondered if you knew at all why this property happened to go so cheaply. Mr. Crawford did not advance any opinion on that. In fact he seemed slightly embarrassed when I put the question to him.”
“Oh well,” I said, “it’s got a curse on it.”
“I beg your pardon, Michael, what did you say?”
“A curse, sir,” I explained. “The gipsy’s warning, that sort of thing. It is known locally as Gipsy’s Acre.”
“Ah. A story?”
“Yes. It seems rather confused and I don’t know how much people have made up and how much is true. There was a murder or something long ago. A man and his wife and another man. Some story that the husband shot the other two and then shot himself. At least that’s the verdict that was brought in. But all sorts of other stories go flying about. I don’t think anyone really knows what happened. It was a good long time ago. It’s changed hands about four or five times since, but nobody stays there long.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Lippincott appreciatively, “yes, quite a piece of English folklore.” He looked at me curiously. “And you and Ellie are not afraid of the curse?” He said it lightly, with a slight smile.
“Of course not,” I said. “Neither Ellie nor I would believe in any rubbish of that kind. Actually it’s a lucky thing since because of it we got it cheap.” When I said that a sudden thought struck me. It was lucky in one sense, but I thought that with all Ellie’s money and her property and all the rest of it, it couldn’t matter to her very much whether she bought a piece of land cheap or at the top price. Then I thought, no, I was wrong. After all, she’d had a grandfather who came up from being a dock labourer to a millionaire. Anyone of that kind would always wish to buy cheap and sell dear.
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