He crossed the last stile and was now in the park proper. Several villagers were strolling about under the trees, and they looked at this newcomer, with his dark-coloured clothes and strangely-shaped hat, with some surprise. Nevertheless, he held uninterruptedly on his way until he reached the broad drive which led to the Abbey. He walked on the turf by the side of it, over the bridge which crossed the stream, through the inner iron gates, beyond which the village people were not allowed to pass, and so to the well-remembered spot. On his right was the house—a strange, uneven building, at times ecclesiastical, here and there domestic, always ancient, with its wings of cloisters running almost down to the moat which surrounded it. And just over the moat, crossed by that light iron handbridge, with its back against what he remembered as a plantation, but which had now become a wood, the little red brick cottage, smothered all over with creepers, its tiny garden ablaze with flowers, its empty rows of dog kennels, its deserted line of coops. David glanced for a moment at the drawn blinds of the Abbey. Then he crossed the footbridge and the few yards of meadow, lifted the latch of the gate and, walking up the gravel path, came to a sudden standstill. A man who was seated almost hidden by a great cluster of fox-gloves rose to his feet.
"It's you, then, lad!" he exclaimed, holding out both his hands. "You're welcome! There's no one to the house—there won't be for a quarter of an hour—so I'll wring your hands once more. It's a queer world, this, David. You're back with me here, where I brought you up as a stripling, and yon's the Abbey. Sit you down, boy. I am not the man I was since I came here."
David Thain dragged an old-fashioned kitchen chair from the porch, and sat by his uncle's side. Richard Vont, although he was still younger than his sixty-four years, seemed to his nephew curiously changed during the last week. The hard, resolute face was disturbed. The mouth, kept so tight through the years, had weakened a little. There was a vague, almost pathetic agitation, in the man's face.
"You'll take no notice of me, David," his uncle went on. "I'm honest with you. These few days have been like a great, holy dream, like something one reads of in the Scriptures but never expects to see. There's old Mary Wells—she's doing for me up there. Just a word or two of surprise, and a grip of the hand, and no more. And there's the Abbey—curse it!—not a stone gone, only the windows are blank. You see the weeds on the lawn, David? Do you mark the garden behind? They tell me there's but two gardeners there to do the work of twenty. And the drive—look at it as far as you can see—moss and weed! They're coming down in the world, these Mandeleys, David. Even this last little lawsuit, the lawyers told me, has cost the Marquis nineteen thousand pounds. God bless you for your wealth, David! It's money that counts in these days."
David produced a pouch of tobacco from his pocket and handed it over to his uncle, who filled a pipe eagerly.
"That's thoughtful of you, David," he declared. "I'd forgotten to buy any, and that's a fact, for I can't stand the village yet. You're looking strange-like, David."
"And I feel it," was the quiet answer. "Uncle, hasn't it made any difference to you, this coming back?"
"In what way?" the old man asked.
"Well, I don't know. I walked across those fields to the park, and I seemed suddenly to feel more like a boy again, and I felt that somehow I was letting go of things. Do you know what I mean?"
"Letting go of things," Richard Vont repeated suspiciously. "No!"
"Well, somehow or other," David continued, as he filled his own pipe and lit it, "I found myself looking back through the years, and I wondered whether we hadn't both let one thing grow too big in our minds. Life doesn't vary much here. Things are very much as we left them, and it's all rather wonderful. I felt a little ashamed, as I came up through the park, of some of the things we've planned and sworn. Didn't you feel a little like that, uncle? Can you sit here and think of the past, and remember all that burden we carried, and not feel inclined to let it slip, or just a little of it slip, from our shoulders?"
Vont laid down his pipe. He rose to his feet. His fingers suddenly gripped his nephew's shoulder. He turned him towards the house.
"Listen, David," he said; "there's twilight an hour away yet, but it will soon be here. The blackbirds are calling for it, and the wind's dropping. Now you see. That was her room," he added, touching the window, "and there's the door out, just the same. You see that tree there? I was crouching behind that with my gun ready loaded, and there was murder in my heart—I tell you that, boy. I watched the Abbey. I was supposed to be safe in Fakenham Town, safe for a good two hours, and I lay there and watched because I knew, and no one came. And then I heard a whisper. I turned my head, although I was most afeared, and out of that door—that door from Marcia's room, David—I saw him come. I saw her arms come out and draw him back, and then I began to breathe hard, but the trees were thick that way—I'd been looking for him coming from the Abbey—-and they stole out together, arm in arm. I was so near them that they must have heard me groan, for Marcia started. And then, before I knew what was happening, he—the Marquis, mind—had struck up my gun, caught it by the barrel and sent it flying. My hand was on his throat, but he was as strong as I was, in those days, and a mighty wrestler. It's my shame, boy, after all these years to have to confess it, but he got the better of me. I was crazy with anger, and he had me down. And then he stood aside and bade me get up, and my strength seemed all gone. He stood there looking at me contemptuously. 'Don't make a fool of yourself, Vont,' he said. 'Your daughter and I understand one another, and our concerns have nothing to do with you. If you have anything to say to me, come up to the Abbey to-morrow. You'll find your gun in the thicket.' He turned round and he kissed Marcia's fingers, just like I'd seen them do in the distance at their fine parties up there, and he strolled away. There was the gun in the thicket, and he knew it, and I knew it, and I couldn't move, and he went. And all I could hear was Marcia crying, and those birds singing behind, and I just slipped away into the wood."
"Uncle, is it worth while bringing this all up again?" David interrupted.
"Aye, it's worth while!" the old man insisted fiercely. "It's worth while for fear I should forget, for the old place has its cling on me. That next day I went to the Abbey, and I saw the Marquis. He was quite cool, sent the servants out—he'd no weapon near—and he talked a lot that I don't understand and never shall understand, but it was about Marcia, and that she was his, and was leaving with him for London that evening. I just asked him one question. 'It's for shame, then?' I asked. And he looked at me just as though I were some person whom he was trying to make understand, who didn't quite speak the language. And he said—'Your daughter made her choice months ago, Vont. She will live the life she desires to live. I am sorry to take her away from you. Think it over, and try and feel sensible about it.' It was then I felt a strange joy, that I've never been able rightly to understand. I'd just remembered that the cottage was mine, and I had a sudden feeling that I wanted to sit at the end of the garden and watch the Abbey and curse it, curse it with a Bible on my knee, till its stones fell apart and the grass grew up from the walks and the damp grew out in blotches on the walls. And that's why I've come back after all these years."
"And you're just the same?" David asked curiously. "You feel just the same about him?"
"Don't you, my lad?" his uncle demanded. "You're not telling me that you're climbing down?"
David took the old man's arm.
"On the contrary, uncle," he said, "my promised share of the work is done. I hold his promissory notes for forty thousand pounds, due in three months. I have sold him some shares that aren't worth forty thousand pence, and won't be for many a year. I've cheated him, if you like, but when the three months comes you can make him a bankrupt, if you will. I'll give you the notes."
Richard Vont drew himself up. He turned his face towards the Abbey, growing a little indistinct now in the falling twilight.
"It's grand hearing," was all he said. "There's Mary, coming round with the supper, boy. I'
ll take the liberty of asking you to have a bite with me and a glass of ale, but I'll not forget that you're the great David Thain, the millionaire from America, who took kindly notice of me on the steamer. Come this way, sir," he went on, throwing open the cottage door. "It's a queer little place, but it's a novelty for you American gentlemen. Step right in, sir. Mrs. Wells," he announced, "this is a gentleman who was kind to me upon the steamer, and he promised that if ever he was this way he'd drop in. He'll take some supper with me. You'll do your best for us?"
The old lady looked very hard at David Thain, and she dropped a curtsey.
"From America, too," she murmured. "'Tis a wonderful country! Aye, I'll do my best, Richard Vont."
CHAPTER X
Mr. Wadham, Junior, a morning or so later, rang the bell at Number 94 Grosvenor Square and aired himself for a moment upon the broad doorstep, filled with a comfortable sense that this time, at least, in his prospective interview, he was destined to disturb the disconcerting equanimity of his distinguished client. He was duly admitted and ushered into the presence of the Marquis, who laid down the newspaper which he was reading, nodded affably to his visitor and pointed to a chair.
"Your request for an interview, Mr. Wadham," the former said, "anticipated my own desire to see you. Pray be seated. I am entirely at your service."
Mr. Wadham paused for a moment and decided to cross his legs. He was already struggling against that enervating sense of insignificance which his client's presence inevitably imposed upon him.
"We heard yesterday morning from Mr. Merridrew," he commenced. "He made us a remittance which was four hundred pounds short of what we expected. His explanation was that your lordship had received that sum from him."
"Quite right, Mr. Wadham," the Marquis assented affably. "Quite right. I was in the neighbourhood, and, finding Mr. Merridrew with a considerable sum of money in hand, I took from him precisely the amount you have stated."
"Your lordship has perhaps overlooked the fact," Mr. Wadham continued, "that we are that amount short of the interest on the Fakenham mortgage—Number Seven mortgage, we usually call it."
"Dear me!" the Marquis observed. "Surely such a trifling sum does not disturb your calculations? You do not run my affairs on so narrow a margin as this, I trust, Mr. Wadham?"
"It isn't a question of a narrow margin, your lordship," Mr. Wadham replied. "There is, as a rule, no margin at all. We usually have to make the amount up by overdrawing, or by advancing it ourselves. This time the firm wish me to point out that we are unable to do either."
"Dear me! Dear me!" the Marquis ejaculated, in a tone of some concern. "I had no idea, Mr. Wadham, if you will forgive my saying so, that your firm was in so impecunious a position."
"Impecunious?" the lawyer murmured, with his eyes fixed upon his client. "I scarcely follow your lordship."
"Did I not understand you to say," the Marquis continued, "that this trifle of four hundred pounds has upset your arrangements to such an extent that you are unable to make your customary payments on my behalf?"
"Will your lordship forgive my pointing out," Mr. Wadham explained, "that these payments are on your account, and that it is no part of the business of solicitors to finance their clients, without a special arrangement? We have our own more lucrative investments continually open to us, and we are at the present moment several thousand pounds out of pocket on account of recent law expenses."
"The whole thing," the Marquis pronounced, "seems to me very trifling. State in precise terms, if you please, Mr. Wadham, the object of your visit."
"To ask for your lordship's instructions as to the payment of twelve hundred pounds interest, due to-morrow," Mr. Wadham replied. "We have eight hundred pounds in hand from Mr. Merridrew. So far from having any other funds of your lordship's at our disposal, we are, as I have pointed out, your creditor for a somewhat considerable amount."
The Marquis was leaning back in his chair, the tips of his long, elegant fingers pressed gently together.
"It appears to me, Mr. Wadham," he said quietly, "that your visit is, in a sense, an admonitory one. Your firm resents—am I not right?—the fact that I have found it convenient to help myself to a portion of the revenue accruing from my estate."
"We should not presume for a moment to take up such an attitude," the lawyer protested. "On the other hand, the four hundred pounds in question requires replacement by to-morrow."
"And you find the raising of that sum inconvenient, eh, Mr. Wadham?"
The young man was distinctly ill at ease. His instructions were to be firm and dignified but by no means to offend; to deliver a formal protest against this tampering with funds already dedicate, but to do or say nothing which would give the Marquis any excuse for reprisals against the firm. Mr. Wadham began to wonder whether perhaps he was a person of small tact, or whether these instructions were more than usually difficult to carry out.
"There is no sacrifice, your lordship," he said slowly, "which my firm would hesitate to make in your interests and the interests of the Mandeleys estate. At the same time, the unexpected necessity for finding these sums of money is, I must confess, at times a strain upon us."
The Marquis nodded sympathetically. He rose to his feet, crossed the room towards his desk, which he unlocked with a key attached to a gold chain, and returned with a bundle of scrip in his hand.
"I have here, Mr. Wadham," he announced, "scrip in a very famous oil company, the face value of the shares being, I believe, a trifle over forty thousand pounds. I, in fact, paid that price for them at the beginning of the week."
The young lawyer uncrossed his legs and swallowed hard. He was prepared for many shocks, but this one seemed outside the region of all human probability.
"Did I understand your lordship to say that you had paid forty thousand pounds for them?" he gasped.
The Marquis assented with an equable little nod.
"I was somewhat favoured in the matter," he admitted, "as the value of the shares has, I believe, already considerably increased. The amount I actually paid for them was, in round figures, forty thousand and one hundred pounds—transfer duty, or something of that sort. I have little head for figures, as you know, Mr. Wadham. You had better take these—not for sale, mind, but for deposit at one of my banks. You will probably find that, under the circumstances, they will permit you to overdraw an additional five hundred pounds on my account, without embarrassing your own finances."
Mr. Wadham, Junior, took the bundle of scrip into his hand, and glanced hastily through it.
"The Pluto Oil Company of Arizona," he murmured reflectively.
"The name of the company is doubtless unknown to you," the Marquis observed indulgently; "they are, in fact, only just commencing operations—but it is the opinion of my friend and financial adviser, Mr. David Thain, that the forty thousand pounds' worth of shares you have in your hand will be worth at least two hundred thousand before the end of the year."
"Mr. David Thain, the multi-millionaire?" Mr. Wadham faltered.
"The same!"
The lawyer gripped the bundle hard in one hand, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again and struck out boldly.
"As your lordship's adviser," he said, "may I enquire as to the nature of the payment which you have made? Forty thousand pounds is not a sum which either of the banks with whom your lordship has credit—"
The Marquis waved his hand.
"My dear young friend," he explained, "it was not necessary for me to resort to banks. Mr. Thain suggested voluntarily that I should give him my note of hand for the amount. He quite understood that a man whose chief interest in the country is land does not keep such a sum as forty thousand pounds lying at his banker's."
Mr. Wadham groped for his hat.
"The shares shall be deposited, and the interest, of course, paid," he murmured. "I am sorry to have troubled your lordship in the matter."
"Not at all, not at all," the Marquis replied genially. "Very pleased to see you at any
time, Mr. Wadham, on any subject connected with the estates. Ah!" he added, glancing at a card which a footman at that moment had brought in, "here is my friend, Mr. David Thain. You must meet him, Mr. Wadham. Such men are rare in this country. They form most interesting adjuncts to our modern civilisation. Show Mr. Thain in, Thomas."
David Thain duly arrived. He shook hands with the Marquis and was by him presented to Mr. Wadham.
"Mr. Wadham is my legal advisor—or rather a junior representative of the firm who conduct my affairs," the Marquis explained. "I have just handed him over my shares in the Pluto Oil Company, for safe keeping."
"Very glad to know you, Mr. Thain," the young lawyer observed, reverently shaking hands. "One reads a great deal of your financial exploits in the newspapers just now."
"I really can't see," David replied, "that your press men are much better over here than in the States. In any case, Mr. Wadham, you mustn't believe all you read."
"You will give my regards to your father and the other members of your firm," the Marquis concluded, with the faintest possible indication of his head towards the door. "I shall probably have some instructions of an interesting nature to give you before long, with regard to the cancellation of, at any rate, the home estate mortgages. Ah, here is Thomas! Very much obliged for your attention, Mr. Wadham."
The lawyer made his adieux in somewhat confused fashion, and left the room with an ignominious sense of dismissal. The Marquis glanced at the clock.
"I am a creature of habit, Mr. Thain," he said. "At twelve o'clock I walk for an hour in the Park. Will you give me the honour of your company?"
"Anywhere you say," David assented. "There was just a little matter I wanted to mention—nothing important."
"Precisely," the Marquis murmured, ringing the bell. "You will return to lunch, of course? I shall take no denial. My daughter would be distressed to miss you. Gossett," he added, as they moved out into the hall, "my coat and hat, and tell Lady Letitia that Mr. Thain will lunch with us. Have you any idea, Gossett," he added, as he accepted his cane and gloves, "how to make cocktails?"
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