Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  `Well, so should I, and I'm darned sure Miss Clayton would - or somewhere not far away. So we'll cross Nevada off our list for a start.' He shook his head. 'It's quite a business, though. I'm darned glad you're around, I can tell you. Anyway, for the moment we needn't look farther than Claridge's, the day after tomorrow. Oh, and we'll be at Oxton Hall for Christmas.' He grinned at Samson. 'Our tranquil days are over, Thomas - for the moment, anyway.' But if he could have foreseen the circumstances in which he would remind Samson of that jocular phrase, Mr Franklin would not have smiled as he said it.

  He had supposed that his few days in London would be fairly unhurried, and like everyone else who visits that city, in any age, he was quite wrong. He had to call at the American Express Company, for he had decided that there was no point in leaving the bulk of his assets in the States; the die was cast, and the time had come, England was where he was going to be, and with fifty thousand pounds snugly locked up in Mr Evans's Chancery Lane Safe Deposit, it was only common sense to transfer the rest of his money to London and put it out in sensible investments. Nothing fancy or speculative; Mr Franklin's pioneer prudence wanted no get-rich-quick schemes; he knew nothing about finance beyond putting his dollar on the counter and picking up his goods, but he understood that there were safe, cautious advisers to be had in the City who would lay his cash out for him in directions which would ensure a modest, certain return in any circumstances short of total revolution. And that, in spite of Cassel's mild misgivings, he could not see happening.

  The American Express Company, when he called on it, gave a violent start and then welcomed him with open arms. Plainly the assistant manager still was wary of him; he lurked behind the manager's chair in a manner which suggested that he expected Mr Franklin to ask for a draft payable in the British Crown jewels; but the manager himself, once he had ascertained that all that was required was a simple credit transfer from New York, and that there was to be no sudden demand for bullion, was all affability and co-operation. Mr Franklin's assets would be deposited with Lloyd's, who in turn would advise him on their profitable disposal. The manager would have dearly liked to know what became of the fifty thousand in gold that Mr Franklin had spirited away that September day, but he could hardly ask, and the client took his leave with the manager concealing his curiosity, and the assistant eyeing his departure apprehensively all the way to the door.

  'That's an odd bird,' said the manager reflectively. 'Isn't he the little Englishman now, though? - why, I didn't recognise him at first.'

  'I did,' said the assistant, darkly. 'Carnegie's nephew - huh!'

  'Oh, he's sound,' said the manager. 'And he's darned warm, too - there aren't many better-heeled individuals - walking along Queen Street this minute.'

  'That's it,' said the assistant. 'He's got no right to be. Why, you said yourself he doesn't know how to treat money.'

  'When you've got as much as he has,' said the manager heavily, 'you can treat it how you damned well like. Let's cable McCall and get things moving.'

  Meanwhile Mr Franklin had called for Peggy at a fashionable photographers, and bore her off to Asprey's for the first important purchase of their partnership. He approached it with a private determination that whichever ring Peggy chose, it should far outweigh in value the jewellery he had bought for Pip; his Puritan soul and sense of fitness would demand no less, and he was resolved to cajole and coax if he had to. To his relief, it was not necessary; what he had thought extravagant, in his provincial ignorance, was evidently commonplace in London society. Peggy examined several trays of rings with critical care, and finally selected a circlet of diamonds which, to his inexpert eye, seemed to consist of stones whose minute size was out of all proportion to the price demanded. However, he was assured by the salesman, acid a glowing Peggy, that size was not necessarily a guide to value; on an impulse, he bought her a pair of emerald earrings, which were accepted only after a bright-eyed protest and murmurs about extravagance, while the assistant beamed in his most avuncular fashion.

  'Engagement earrings!' said Peggy, turning her head this way and that to admire them. 'Mark, you're mad! Whoever heard of such a thing?'

  'It's an old Arapaho custom,' said Mr Franklin. 'Every brave gives his intended squaw a pair of engagement earrings, generally made out of whole buffalo horns.'

  'They don't!'

  'They're going to have to, after this,' said Mr Franklin. 'And it's going to be mighty tough, because the emerald buffalo is just about extinct.' He noticed that the assistance was staring at him in some concern, and thought, careful Franklin, or you're liable to start a whole new bogus zoology. Peggy said there was nothing for it: the Sphere would just have to take her picture all over again, with the earrings, and Mr Franklin left the shop walking on a little air. He took her to tea at the Ritz, and was brought back to earth when, drawing off her gloves and settling herself into a corner of the couch, she said quite matter-of-fact:

  'Where are we going to live, Mark?'

  However, he was not taken aback. 'Where would you like to live?' he asked, and Peggy replied without hesitation.

  'London. If you don't mind. My friends are here, and while Mummy was alive we used to take a house during the season, in Eaton Place. And it has all the shops, theatres, that sort of thing. I suppose I always imagined that when I got married I would be living in the West End, Belgravia - or Mayfair when I was really day-dreaming.' She smiled at him. 'But don't worry - I don't want to live in Mayfair. It's too ... oh, too "House of Lords" nowadays, and political hostesses, and stuffy and awful and rather vulgar. You're in Brook Street or Curzon Street, everyone sizes everyone else up, and there's the most ghastly competition - do you know what I mean? But if you're in Belgravia, well, it's still absolutely the best, but so much easier, somehow, and younger and smarter. Not so many grisly Duchesses.' She wiggled her eyebrows whimsically, and sighed. 'That's what I'd like. But that's just me.' She sat forward to pour tea. 'What about you?'

  It was going to be London, then. Did he mind? He tried to visualise the kind of house he had read about, months ago at the estate agents - Cadogan Square, it had been, and he'd been rather attracted by it. How long would he have endured the solitude of Castle Lancing, even if he hadn't been going to get married? Had he intended to settle there? What, indeed, had he intended? He was stirring his cup thoughtfully, and Peggy said: 'Oh, dear. Have I said the wrong thing? You tell me where -

  'Far from it.' Mr Franklin reached out and took her hand reassuringly. 'Very far from it. No, if I didn't answer right away it wasn't because I had any doubts about London. I was just wondering - about me, selfishly.' He grinned. 'You see, Peg - I don't really know, still, why I came to England. Don't misunderstand me; I love it, and I don't want to leave it. But I came here with no clear notion of what I was going to do - that's an awful admission for a grown-up man, isn't it? It was a strange business, all right. But the last few days have changed things a lot. Now - I do know what I'm going to do.'

  She was watching him, expectantly. 'What, Mark?'

  'I'm going to get married,' he said. 'That's the important thing. And I don't care where I live, except that it has to be with you. And if you want London - then I want London; it's that simple.' He grinned and nodded with that emphatic phrase that was a byword among his countrymen: 'Every time!'

  'Oh, Mark, are you sure? You're not just -'

  'No, I'm not just. I really mean it. How about Cadogan Square?'

  'Cadogan Square?' Peggy stared. 'Oh ... well, yes ... that sort of thing.' But not quite, he realised. 'But what on earth do you know about it? I didn't know you'd even been there!'

  'Haven't. But I read about it - when I first came here. It sounds like the kind of place that would have the sort of house you want - I imagine,' said Mr Franklin knowledgeably, 'that it would have to accommodate us, and your maid, and my man Thomas - 'he glided past the name with slight trepidation, but Peggy did not so much as blink ' - and a cook, and two or three maids, or a footman, or something. Wou
ldn't it?'

  'Why - yes!' Peggy was laughing, and he felt a sudden urge to kiss her, and see what the murmuring Quality of the Ritz, politely engulfing their pate sandwiches and coffee cake, made out of that. 'But, Mark, I didn't know that you'd even thought about it. I hadn't, really! Gosh, you're a dark horse!'

  'Would we have to have a butler? By God, there's an idea! I'll bet Thomas would be the butlingest butler you ever saw! If he'd do it, that is. Anyway, we can settle all that - ' Mr Franklin waved a lighthearted hand. 'Is there any more of that tea? And those kind of fishy sandwiches - why d'you suppose they make 'em six to a man-sized bite? Fellow could starve to death in here ...'

  'Oh, Mark!' Peggy shook her head at him, smiling lovingly. 'I'm so glad we're getting married. We are, aren't we?'

  'That's the way the wise money's going,' said Mr Franklin. 'At least, I asked this girl - down in Norfolk, you know - God, what a little beauty she is! And she said "Yes", so unless she's taken up with some other guy in the meantime - there are these smooth Americans who hang around Claridge's and the Ritz - '

  'Stop it, idiot! People will look, and I'll start laughing!' She shook her head. 'D'you know - you've changed. Ever so much, really. When we first met, you were a terribly serious person - you just looked at one in that quiet, steady way - it was rather frightening, really. D'you know what Father said about you - it was the very first time you were at Oxton, the day the King left? He said, "I like that chap. He's straight". And then he said "He's very dangerous". I asked him what on earth he meant, and he laughed and said, he didn't mean you were, really, but that you could be, that you'd be a bad enemy. I thought he was right, and you were rather sober, and didn't say a great deal, and one couldn't tell what you were thinking at all. Now - well, you're different - at least to me. Jolly, and - 'she shrugged, looking for a word. 'I don't know - you seem much happier, somehow.'

  She was right, reflected Mr Franklin. He, who had always been reserved to the point of shyness, had been astonished to find himself of late feeling positively frivolous -at least, it was frivolity by his lights. He had found himself laughing aloud once or twice, or grinning without restraint; he had made occasional jokes, and not of the wry variety, but nonsensical things, which made her laugh. Maybe he was changing. 'Or maybe it's just getting engaged to be married,' he said. 'Ever seen young deer in spring? They prance and tumble and rush around; I guess that's what I'm doing. All right, I'm going to be very serious. Cadogan Square -or wherever it's going to be. Are you quite certain you don't want to live in Mayfair? We can, you know. And I don't want you to think that we can't because of ... expense, or anything like that. So if secretly you'd rather live around Brook Street or off Piccadilly, just say so. It doesn't make any difference.'

  Peggy considered this, and then said: 'No, I don't want to. The reasons I gave are what I really feel. I'm not a Mayfair person Daddy isn't ... well, there are funny levels in Society, and my family has never been in the forefront of the fashionable world. You can mix in among them, without belonging to them, do you see what I mean?' She paused, looking across the room, and when she spoke again it was with an odd expression, half-frown, half-smile, looking at him curiously almost. 'Mark - are you awfully rich?'

  The old Mr Franklin would have considered this rather solemnly; the new one laughed straight out before settling himself to give a serious answer. 'Rich? I don't know what rich is, really. But yes, I think I am - anyway, the thought of keeping two houses in Brook Street, if we had to, wouldn't worry me. And one in the country.'

  'You'll keep Lancing Manor, won't you?'

  'Why, yes.' He was pleased. 'I'd always want to keep that. It's not very big, of course - we couldn't live there - '

  'But it will be ideal, if we want to get away to the country for a little while - it's close enough to Oxton to be convenient. And it's a beautiful place. D'you remember the first time you took me there - after the King's awful week-end?' Peggy smiled reminiscently. 'I think that was the moment. ..'She let it trail away, and he had to ask what the moment had been.

  'I'm not going to make you conceited,' said Peggy, becoming mock business-like and putting on her gloves. 'Now, just you use some of that fabulous wealth to pay for our tea - I have to be at Aunt Sophy's by half-past five, or she'll have a fit.'

  12

  A few days later Mr Franklin returned to Castle Lancing, for what he felt was a necessary rest. It was a strange thing that he, who could ride thirty miles a day, in bad weather, sleep on the ground, and get up long before first light to punch cattle or dig in rock and mud until dark, and feel no more than pleasantly weary, should find himself bone-tired after a few days spent in nothing more exacting than talking to estate agents - Wilton Crescent, not Cadogan Square, it transpired, was where Peggy had set her heart on living - or opening negotiations with the urbane Mr Pride for domestic staff.

  From these discussions, tied as they were to some vaguely-resolved date in the coming spring, Mr Franklin and Peggy gradually began to find their wedding-date settled for them; their decision to take a West Indian cruise as their honeymoon finally determined them, and February 3, 1910 was fixed on. A notice appeared to that effect in the better newspapers, and in the last week before Christmas Mr Franklin, on the point of setting out for Oxton Hall for the holiday, sat in Castle Lancing and contemplated Page Three of the Sphere, where Peggy, resplendent in her emerald earrings, sat in maidenly serenity, apparently contemplating, with slightly parted lips, an advertisement for tonic wine on the page opposite. He had actually caught his breath on opening the magazine - was she really that beautiful? No doubt he was biased, but to him she looked like a rather thoughtful angel who might, at any moment, make a caustic remark about God, and then turn aside rebuke by releasing one of those brilliant smiles; who was very conscious of posing for her picture, and was ready to mock herself and the viewer on the point. He'd have to ask the photographer for the original, if not for the caption beneath it. 'Miss Peggy Clayton, only daughter of Sir Charles Clayton, of Oxton Hall, Norfolk, whom readers will remember as one of the- reigning beauties of last season Sir Charles recently had the honour to entertain His Majesty. ..' `... Mr Mark Franklin, of Castle Lancing, Norfolk, who has extensive mining and cattle interests in his native United States.'

  He smiled at that. What would Jim Eliot have said about his "cattle interests"? Extensive experience as ground-hog and saddle-tramp was more like it, but one couldn't expect the Sphere to say that, even if they'd known it.

  Samson and he drove over to Oxton in the late afternoon; the snow had gone, and the countryside was bare and sodden and still. Mr Franklin, jumping down from the passenger's seat to close the great gates, glanced back at the garden and paused with his hand on the wrought-iron latch; it was peaceful and rather melancholy with its stark branches and dripping bushes and damp grass, but how pleasantly familiar now, and how comfortable to look on it and the solid, foursquare house, and feel the gentle thrill of ownership. Even when he lived in London, it would still be here. As he turned away he would not have believed the circumstances in which he was to look on it again.

  Oxton Hall was full in Christmas week, with Arthur's companions and Peggy's friends chattering their congratulations, and decorations going up, and bustle everywhere, late meals, Sir Charles' routine thrown quite out of gear, raised voices and happy laughter ringing along the old corridors, groups round the piano singing after dinner, or playing party games with a tireless zest which made Mr Franklin wonder if he was getting old. When he was not with Peggy, he found himself gravitating to the company of Sir Charles and his more senior neighbours who dropped in for afternoon tea, or for dinner. Peggy, he noticed, joined in the preliminary merry-making perfunctorily; of course, she was the hostess, and had other things to attend to while the bright young things romped and shouted and gossiped noisily, but he found himself hoping that her tastes were, in fact, rather more sedate and adult than those of her brother and his friends. He hoped it because he had to face squarely the fact that
there was a fifteen-year age difference between Peggy and himself, and it would be reassuring to think that she did not have quite as much indefatigable energy for juvenile amusement as her contemporaries.

  `Preparing to be a staid and respectable old married woman,' she said lightly, when he remarked on it. `I think I stopped being a bright young thing when I was about seven. When I hear them whooping it up I just want to go and lie down. ' She grimaced as the sound of Poppy, the bedroom peregrinator, shrilled across the hall from the drawing-room, where the piano was being mercilessly hammered to the accompaniment of stamping feet:

  "Has anybody here seen Kelly? Kelly from the Isle of Man!"

  'Has anybody here heard Poppy?' wondered Peggy. 'They'd have a job not to. I do hope Arthur gets sick of her soon - or she gets sick of him, and goes back to Frank Lacy. He sent a Christmas card the other day, did you know? "To Sir Charles Clayton and Family", if you please, and signed "Lacy". Of all the fat-headedness. I mean, he's either Frank or nothing, and since he's ceased to be welcome you'd think he'd know better than to send a card at all. I sometimes wonder if he's slightly touched.'

  'Have you seen him lately?'