E Phillips Oppenheim

by The Wicked Marquis

  "I have a book of recipes, your lordship," was the somewhat doubtful reply.

  "See that cocktails are served before luncheon," the Marquis instructed. "You see, we are not altogether ignorant of the habits of your countrymen, Mr. Thain, even if in some cases we may not ourselves have adopted them. A cocktail is, I gather, some form of alcoholic nourishment?"

  Thain indulged in what was, for him, a rare luxury—a hearty laugh. He threw his head back, showing all his white, firm teeth, and the little lines at the sides of his eyes wrinkled up with enjoyment. Suddenly a voice on the stairs interposed.

  "I must know the joke," Letitia declared. "How do you do, Mr. Thain? A laugh like yours makes one feel positively delirious with the desire to share it. Father, do tell me what it was?"

  "To tell you the truth, my dear," the Marquis replied, quite honestly, "I am a little ignorant as to the humorous application of a remark I have just made."

  "It was your father's definition of an American institution, Lady Letitia," David explained, "and I am afraid that its humour depended solely upon a certain environment which I was able to conjure up in my mind—a barroom at the Waldorf, say."

  "Another disappointment," Letitia sighed.

  "Mr. Thain is lunching with us, dear," her father announced.

  "So glad," Letitia remarked, nodding to Thain. "We shall meet again, then."

  She passed out of the front door, and David, who was very observant, noticing several things, was silent for the first few moments after her departure. She appeared, as she could scarcely fail to appear in his eyes, charming even to the point of bewilderment. Yet, although the wind was cold, she had only a small and very inadequate fur collar around her neck. Her tailormade suit showed signs of constant brushings. There was a little—a very modest little patch upon her shoes, and a very distinct darn upon her gloves. David frowned in puzzled fashion as he turned into the Park. Some of his boyish antipathies, so carefully nursed by his uncle and fostered by the atmosphere in which they lived during his early days in America, flashed into his memory, only to be instantly discarded. He remembered the drawn blinds, the weedy walks of Mandeleys; the hasty glimpse which he had had of silent, empty rooms and uncarpeted ways in the higher storeys of the mansion in Grosvenor Square.

  "I am not a person," the Marquis observed, as they proceeded upon their promenade, "who needs a great deal of exercise, but I am almost a slave to habit, and for many years, when in town, it has been my custom to walk here for an hour, to exchange greetings, perhaps, with a few acquaintances, to call at my club for ten minutes and take a glass of dry sherry before luncheon. In the afternoons," he went on, "I occasionally play a round of golf at Ranelagh. Are you an expert at the game, Mr. Thain?"

  "I have made blasphemous efforts," David confessed, "but I certainly cannot call myself an expert. Perhaps what is known as the American spirit has rather interfered with my efforts. You see, we want to get things done too quickly. Golf is a game eminently suited to the British temperament."

  "You are doubtless right," the Marquis murmured. "That loitering backward swing, eh?—the lazy indisposition to raise one's head? I follow you, Mr. Thain. Your call this morning, by-the-by," he went on. "You have some news, perhaps, of these Pluto Oils?"

  David shook his head.

  "I came to see you," he announced, "upon a different matter."

  CHAPTER XI

  The Marquis was occupied for several minutes in exchanging greetings with passing acquaintances. As soon as they were alone again, he reverted to his companion's observation.

  "There was a matter, I think you said, Mr. Thain, which you wished to discuss with me."

  "I was going to ask you about Broomleys," David replied.

  The Marquis was puzzled.

  "Broomleys? Are you referring, by chance, to my house of that name?"

  "I guess so."

  "But, my dear Mr. Thain, you surprise me," the Marquis declared. "When did you hear of Broomleys?"

  "I should have explained," David continued, "that I spent this last week-end at Cromer. There I visited an agent and told him that I would like to take a furnished house in the neighbourhood. I motored over, at his suggestion, to see Broomleys, and the tenant, Colonel Laycey, kindly showed me over. He is leaving within a few days, I believe."

  "Dear me, of course he is!" the Marquis observed genially. "I had quite forgotten the fact—quite forgotten it."

  The Marquis saluted more acquaintances. He was glad of an opportunity for reflection. The Fates were indeed smiling upon him! A gleam of anticipatory delight shone in his eyes as he thought of his next interview with Mr. Wadham, Junior! On his desk at the present moment there lay a letter from the firm, announcing Colonel Laycey's departure and adding that they saw little hope of letting the house at all in its present condition.

  "It would be a great pleasure to us, Mr. Thain," the Marquis continued pleasantly, "to have you for a neighbour. Did the agent or Colonel Laycey, by-the-by, say anything about the rent?"

  "Nothing whatever," David replied. "The Colonel pointed out to me various repairs which certainly seemed necessary, but as I am a single man, the rooms affected could very well be closed for a time. It was the garden, I must confess, which chiefly attracted me."

  "Broomleys has, I fear, been a little neglected," the Marquis sighed. "These stringent days, with their campaign of taxation upon the landed proprietor, have left me, I regret to say, a poor man. Colonel Laycey was not always considerate. His last letter, I remember, spoke of restorations which would have meant a couple of years' rent."

  "If I find any little thing wants doing urgently when I get there," David promised carelessly, "I will have it seen to myself. If the rent you ask is not prohibitive, it is exactly the place I should like to take for, say, a year, at any rate."

  "You are a man of modest tastes, Mr. Thain," the Marquis observed. "The fact that you are unmarried, however, of course renders an establishment an unnecessary burden. You will bear in mind, so far as regards the rent of Broomleys, Mr. Thain, that the house is furnished."

  "Very uncomfortably but very attractively furnished, from what I saw," David assented.

  The Marquis collected himself. Colonel Laycey had been asked three hundred a year and was paying two hundred, a sum which, somehow or other, the Marquis had always considered his own pocket money, and which had never gone into the estate accounts. A little increase would certainly be pleasant.

  "Would five hundred a year seem too much, Mr. Thain?" he asked. "I cannot for the moment remember what Colonel Laycey is paying, but I know that it is something ridiculously inadequate."

  "Five hundred a year would be quite satisfactory," David agreed.

  "I will have the papers drawn up and sent to you at once," the Marquis promised. "You will be able to enter into possession as soon as you like. You would like a yearly tenancy, I presume?"

  "That would suit me quite well."

  "You will be able, also, to resume your acquaintance with that singular old man whom you met upon the steamer—Richard Vont," the Marquis remarked, with a slight grimace. "I hear that he is in residence there."

  "I have already done so," David announced.

  The Marquis raised his eyebrows.

  "You have probably heard his story, then, from his own lips," he observed carelessly. "I am told that he sits out on the lawn of his cottage, reading the Bible and cursing Mandeleys. It is a most annoying thing, Mr. Thain, as I dare say you can understand, to have your ex-gamekeeper entrenched, as it were, in front of your premises, hurling curses across the moat at you. That class of person is so tenacious of ideas as well as of life. Here comes my daughter Letitia, already well escorted, I see."

  Letitia, with Grantham by her side, waved her hand without pausing, from the other side of the broad pathway. David for a moment felt the chill of the east wind.

  "Grantham," the Marquis told his companion confidentially, "is one of Lady Letitia's most constant admirers. My daughter, as I dare say yo
u have discovered, Mr. Thain, is rather an unusual young woman. Her predilections are almost anti-matrimonial. Still, I must confess that an alliance with the Granthams would give me much pleasure. I should, in that case, be enabled to give up my town house and be content with bachelor apartments—a great saving, in these hard times."

  "Naturally," David murmured.

  "Often, in the course of our very agreeable conversations," the Marquis went on, "I am inclined to ignore the fact of your most amazing opulence. My few friends, I am sorry to say, are in a different position. Money in this country is very scarce, Mr. Thain—very scarce, at least, on this side of Temple Bar."

  David answered a little vaguely. His eyes were lifted above the heads of the scattered crowd of people through which they were passing.

  "May I ask—if it is not an impertinence," he said,—"is Lady Letitia engaged to Lord Charles Grantham?"

  The Marquis's manner was perhaps a shade stiffer. Mr. Thain was just given to understand that about the family matters of such a personage as the Marquis of Mandeleys there must always be a certain reticence.

  "There is no formal engagement, Mr. Thain," he replied. "The fashion nowadays seems to preclude anything of the sort. One's daughter just brings a young man in, and, in place of the delightful betrothal of our younger days, the date for the marriage is fixed upon the spot."

  Luncheon at 94 Grosvenor Square, notwithstanding the cocktails, was an exceedingly simple meal, a fact which the Marquis himself seemed scarcely to notice. He kept his eye on his visitor's plate, however, and passed the cutlets with an unnoticeable sigh of regret.

  "Charlie wouldn't come in to lunch, father," Letitia announced. "I think he was afraid you were going to ask him his intentions."

  The Marquis glanced at the modicum of curry with which he was consoling himself.

  "Upon the whole, my dear," he said, "I am glad that he stayed away. He is a most agreeable person, but not at his best at luncheon time. By-the-by, do you know who our new neighbour is to be at Broomleys?"

  "You haven't let it?" she asked eagerly.

  "This morning, my dear," her father replied, bowing slightly towards their guest. "Mr. Thain has been spending the week-end at Cromer, was offered Broomleys by the agent there, and he and I fixed up the matter only a few minutes ago."

  "How perfectly delightful!" Letitia exclaimed.

  David glanced up quickly. He looked his hostess in the eyes.

  "That is very kind of you, Lady Letitia," he said. She laughed at him.

  "Well, I meant it," she declared, "and I still mean it, but not, perhaps, exactly in the way it sounded. Of course, it will be very pleasant to have you for a neighbour, but to tell you the truth—you see, although we're poor we are honest—our own sojourn at Mandeleys rather depends on whether we let Broomleys, and Colonel Laycey, although he has the most delightful daughter, with whom you are sure to fall in love, was a most troublesome tenant. He was always wanting things done, wasn't he, father?"

  "It is certainly a relief," the Marquis sighed, watching with satisfaction the arrival of half a Stilton cheese, a present from his son-in-law, "a great relief to find a tenant like Mr. Thain."

  "I asked your agent," David remarked a little diffidently, "about the shooting."

  The Marquis touched his glass.

  "Serve port, Gossett," he directed,—"the light wood port, if we have any," he added a little hastily, to the obvious relief of his domestic. "The shooting, eh, Mr. Thain?"

  He sipped his wine and considered. First Broomleys, and then the shooting! The gods were very kind to him on this pleasant April morning.

  "You haven't preserved lately, I understand," his guest observed.

  "Not for some years," the Marquis acknowledged.

  "I don't mind about that at all," David went on. "I am just American enough, you know, to find no pleasure in shooting tame birds. I shall have no parties, and I shall not be ambitious about bags. I like to prowl about myself with a gun."

  His host nodded appreciatively.

  "You shall have the refusal of the shooting," he promised. "At the moment I am not prepared to quote terms. My people of business can do that."

  "Have you no friends in England, Mr. Thain?" Letitia asked, a little abruptly.

  "Very few," David replied. "I do not make friends easily."

  "I always thought Americans were so sociable," she remarked. "A great many of your compatriots have settled down here, you know."

  David considered the matter for a moment.

  "You would smile, I suppose," he said, "if I were to tell you that there are more so-called 'sets' in American Society than in your own. I am a very self-made man indeed, and I possess no womenkind to entertain for me. I am therefore dependent upon chance acquaintances."

  "Such friends as may make your sojourn in Norfolk more agreeable, Mr. Thain," the Marquis promised genially, "you shall most certainly find. Mandeleys will always be open to you."

  David made no immediate response. His teeth had come together with a little click. He felt a strange repugnance to lifting the glass, which the butler had just filled, to his lips. A queer little vision of Mandeleys and the cottage was there, Richard Vont, seated amongst those drooping rose bushes, his face turned towards the Abbey, his eyes full of that strange, expectant light. A sudden wave of self-disgust almost broke through a composure which had so far resisted all assaults upon it. Almost he felt that he must rise from his place, tell this strange, polished, yet curiously childlike being the truth—that he was being drawn into the nets of ruin—that he was entertaining an enemy unawares.

  "You must really try that wine, Mr. Thain," he heard his host say gently. "I make no excuse for not offering you vintage port. At Mandeleys I have at least the remnants of a cellar. You shall dine with us there, Mr. Thain, and I will give you what my grandfather used to declare was 1838 vintage."

  David roused himself with an effort. He brushed aside the uncomfortable twinge of conscience which had suddenly depressed him, and turning away from Letitia, looked his host in the eyes.

  "You are very kind," he said. "I shall come with much pleasure."

  CHAPTER XII

  The Duchess waved her sugar tongs imperiously, and David, who had hesitated upon the threshold of her drawing-room, made his way towards her. There were a dozen people sitting around, drinking tea and chatting in little groups.

  "Now don't look sulky, please," she begged, as she gave him her left hand. "This is not a tea party, and it is quite true that I did ask you to come and have a chat with me alone, but I couldn't keep these people away. They'll all go directly, and if they don't I shall turn them out. Letitia has promised me to take care of you and to see that no one bites. Letitia, here is the shy man," she added. "There!"—thrusting a cup of tea into his hand. "Take that, help yourself to a muffin and go and hide behind the piano."

  Letitia rose from her place by the side of an extremely loquacious politician, to whose animated conversation she had paid no attention since David's entrance.

  "You hear my aunt's orders?" she said, nodding. "Don't try to shake hands, with that collection of things to carry. I am to pilot you into a corner and keep you quite safe until she is ready to take possession of you herself."

  David looked longingly at some French windows which led out on to a wide stone terrace.

  "Why not outside?" he suggested. "It's really quite warm to-day."

  "Why not, indeed?" she assented. "Come along."

  They passed out together, found two comfortable wicker chairs and a small table, on which, with a sigh of relief, David deposited his burden. Below them was a stretch of the Park, from which they themselves were screened by a row of tall trees.

  "Don't sit down," she begged him. "Get me another of those small muffins first, and a cup of tea. If any one suggests coming out here, bolt the windows after you."

  David executed his task as speedily as possible. Letitia watched him a little curiously as he returned.

  "You are
n't really a bit shy, you know," she told him. "I watched you through the window there. How clever you were not to see that tiresome Mrs. Raymond!"

  "Why should I see her?" he asked. "She is a perfect stranger to me. She came up to me at a party, the other night, and asked me, as a great favour, to dine at her house and to tell her how to invest some money so that she could double it."

  "I know," Letitia assented, with her mouth full of muffin. "She does that to all the financiers and expects them to give her tips just because she has dark eyes and asks them to a tête-à-tête dinner. I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant. What on earth have you been doing to father? He swaggers about as though he were already a millionaire."

  "I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant."

  David smiled a little sadly as he looked out across the tree tops.

  "Your father has rather a sanguine temperament," he said.

  "Well, don't encourage him to speculate, please," Letitia begged. "We couldn't afford to lose a single penny. As it is," she went on, "we are only able to come to Mandeleys because you've taken that ramshackle old barn close by and paid twice as much as it's worth. About the shooting, too! I almost laughed aloud when you mentioned it! Do you know, Mr. Thain, that we haven't reared a pheasant for years, and that we don't even feed the wild ones?"

  "What about the partridges, though," he reminded her, "and the hares? I talked to a farmer when I was down there the other day, and he complained bitterly that there was only one vermin-killer on the whole estate and that the place was swarming with rabbits. I rather enjoy rabbit shooting."

  "Oh, well, so long as you understand," Letitia replied, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "take the shoot, for goodness' sake, and pay dad as much as he chooses to ask for it. I've always noticed," she went on reflectively, "one extraordinary thing about people who haven't the faintest idea of business. They are always much cleverer than a real business man in asking ever so much more than a thing is worth. A person with a sense of proportion, you see, couldn't do it."