The real and resuscitated Lord Quorn had all this while been having a deplorable time of it. Driven from theThree Pigeonsin consequence of that hostelry being the abode of the terrible Leos, denied access to his own home through the same fear, he had betaken himself to a neighbouring village, and there spent his days, only venturing towards Staplewick after nightfall, when he would prowl about the Towers like an uneasy, discontented ghost. But now the small sum he had been able to raise on the little jewellery he wore was all but spent, and he was becoming desperate. Every day he expected to find that his trackers from the Antipodes had departed in disgust; every night he was disappointed. Surely, thought he, with the false Lord Quorn to all intents established, what have these nuisances to wait for? Surely even the self-and-brother-reliant Lalage can scarcely be stupid enough to suppose that she had a chance of catching the substituted lord of Staplewick. If he has the cleverness and enterprise to fill that position backed by his friend's money he will hardly be such a rank idiot as to allow himself to be snapped up by those Australian sharks.
Meanwhile the position for the real owner was drawing to a point when something would have to be done. Necessary as it was for him to lie low, it was yet more necessary for him to live, and his resources were now about exhausted.
And the other Lord Quorn, he who had, so to speak, bought a title without a title, was, except so far as nourishment went, in an almost equally uncomfortable position. He had vowed that he would get up (his chill having left him) and he had done so, much to Peckover's annoyance and apprehension. That astute person, rendered yet more wily by the chance of losing a handsome income, and furthermore of being kicked out of the fairly safe asylum he had found in the Towers, had set himself, with all the desperate disingenuousness he could summon to his aid, to work upon the fears and personal considerations of the convalescent. The consequence was that Gage, obstinate as he was, so far succumbed to the lurid picture, drawn by his friend, of the certain consequences of showing himself, that he had to submit with a very ill grace to confining his perambulations to the more secluded parts of the house and garden.
He would not have minded this so much had his circumscribed existence been mitigated by the charm of constant—or even inconstant—female society. But the fact was that so long as the rich Mr. Gage, represented by the strategic Peckover, was more or less free, Lord Quorn, even with a fair income, the result of his performance in the lake, was, to these ladies at least, less to be desired than the man of wealth. The Misses Hemyock were too familiar with an aristocratic position for it to have any charms for them. They were also well versed in the tricks of keeping up appearances on limited means, which meant going in for the parade and going without the desirables of life; in consequence of which their discontented hearts were both rigidly set upon solid fortune rather than upon empty grandeur; money was what they hankered after; they were tired of mere social standing. So Mr. Gage's yearning was still ungratified, and so he told himself, and his friend, Peckover, in no measured terms as he rampaged about the more secluded quarters of the demesne.
Meanwhile the time for the Hemyocks to give up their tenancy of Staplewick had arrived, and that designing family had left the Towers. Not to go far, though. Lady Agatha with an eye to bringing the business in hand to a happy conclusion, had persuaded some acquaintances, two elderly sisters, to turn out of the Moat, a house within half a mile of the Towers, and seek the invigorating air of a seaside resort for a month or two. From this point of vantage she continued to keep an opportunist's eye on the eligible bachelors, whose position of comparative freedom was now from the lady's point of view that of a bird who is let out of its cage and allowed to hop and flutter to the extent permitted by the string attached to its legs. But the Moat and theThree Pigeons, where the enterprising Leos still lingered in an attitude of doubtfully restrained aggressiveness, were both marked with a red cross in the minds of Peckover and Gage, to be given a wide berth in their rambles.
Now a curious chance was to bring about a still more complicated state of affairs than already existed. Gage was out riding one afternoon, exploring the roads and bridle-paths of the neighbourhood alone, for, since his adventure with Harlequin, Peckover had decided that life on five thousand a year was too precious to risk on horseback. He was jogging along a woodland road, turning over in his mind plans for the extraction of more fun than he was just then getting out of his purchased dignity, when suddenly a turn in the way gave him a glimpse of the well-known figures of the ladies from the Moat who did not exactly fit in with the distractions he was seeking. Luckily their backs were towards him, while the grassy road deadened the sound of his horse's hoofs. Quickly he reined up and turned aside into the wood with the intention of striking a bridle-path, a few hundred yards ahead, which would bring him to the park and safety. As he gained the covert he heard or thought he heard, the would-be charmers giving tongue in pursuit. Accordingly he shook up his horse into a smart trot, hoping to get clear away without apparent rudeness.
Now it is manifestly difficult to ride fast and far through a pathless wood unscathed. In his anxiety to press forward Gage had one or two narrow escapes from being rubbed off by interposing trees. As he was being carried away at a smart pace he suddenly had occasion to duck over the saddle-bow to avoid a low branch. While in this attitude, leaning sideways, his horse tripped over an exposed root, plunged forward and recovered himself, but not before the impetus had shot his rider out of the saddle. In trying to save himself Gage somehow contrived to twist and wedge his foot in the stirrup as he fell. So he was dragged along, just able to keep his head from contact with the ground by the purchase he got from the bridle which he still clutched. He tried in vain to stop the horse, preferring naturally the society of the Misses Hemyock to the excitement of that bumping progress; but the animal was not amenable to snaffle or reason, and the severely inconvenient mode of getting over the ground continued.
Then suddenly, in his undignified, not to say dangerous, position, Gage heard a man's voice cry, "Whoa, boy!" the horse swerved inconveniently for his hanger-on, who became aware as the painful method of equitation came to a stop, that a man was at his head. Without unnecessary loss of time Gage allowed himself to be extricated from his unbecoming attitude and set on his feet.
"Awkward position to adopt," remarked his rescuer dryly. "Lucky thing I happened to be on hand."
"I'm awfully obliged to you," Gage said, gratefully, feeling that his good time had hung in the balance during those exciting moments. "Shouldn't wonder if you've saved my life."
He surveyed his preserver inquiringly to gather what manner of man he was. A shabby, hungry-looking fellow, who ought to have been more respectable than his clothes proclaimed.
"I think it's quite likely," was the cool response.
"Horse stumbled when I was off my balance ducking away from a bough," Gage thought proper to explain by way of excusing his late pose.
"Ah! Just so. Not an easy position to recover from when once you're well shaken into it," the man commented indifferently; "with the horse a bit fresh, and the ground not exactly a billiard table. Lucky I noticed you, if you happen to be in no particular hurry to hand in your checks."
"I really am more than grateful to you," Gage protested warmly, realizing the narrow squeak he had had of losing a big investment. "I hope I may be able to prove my gratitude. Do you belong to these parts?"
"No. Not exactly," the man answered gloomily. "Came down here to get a place only to find it snapped up by somebody else."
"Ah, the way of the world, I'm afraid," Gage commented sympathetically. "Well, perhaps I can find you something to do on my place here. I'm Lord Quorn."
"Oh, are you?" returned the man in a tone which left Gage a little doubtful as to his manners.
"I've taken over an old place that wants a deal of looking after to get it ship-shape," he continued. "Any experience in land and farming?"
"Plenty," was the prompt answer.
"Then you ought to do for me," Gage said. "Anyhow I should like to put something acceptable in your way. You've done me a service I shan't easily forget, and I hope you won't do anything to make me want to regret it. Now, will it suit your book to take a position on the Staplewick estate?"
"Just what I was after," replied the stranger in a curiously mechanical tone. He seemed strangely preoccupied, even apathetic, but Gage was not going just then to criticize too closely the man who had saved his life.
"Come along, then," he said.
The man seemed to rouse himself from a reverie, then laughed oddly. "Yes, I'll come," he agreed more briskly. "You shan't find fault with the way I look after my place."
"We'll talk it over as we go," said Gage, throwing the bridle over his arm and moving on.
"Full of fun and pretty surprises, the peerage," Gage observed to his friend later in the afternoon. "Makes one wonder what the next start is going to be."
"What's wrong now?" Peckover inquired with a laugh.
"Had a nasty spill, and nearly got sent to bye-bye just as the fun is beginning."
"Come off?"
Gage answered by an aggrieved nod, as though he held his friend responsible for the mishap. "Got my foot caught in the iron and was dragged ever so far."
"Awkward," Peckover commented. "Still you can't put that down to the peerage. Noblemen's feet don't swell, although their heads may."
"I don't," returned Gage snappishly. "Only the Quorn title doesn't seem exactly a mascot."
This was a proposition which the vendor of that equivocal dignity did not feel himself in a position to traverse. "How did you get out of it?" he asked sympathetically.
"The iron? I shouldn't have been taken out alive, with the brute bumping me over the ground fit to drive my spine out at the top of my skull," Gage replied in a victimized tone, "if it hadn't been for a chap that came along in the nick of time and held him up."
"Lucky," remarked Peckover. "Going to settle a few hundred thou. on him?" he inquired playfully.
"Not exactly. But I'm going to give him a billet on the estate. Poor devil, out-at-elbows; superior sort for all that. Knows all about farming, he tells me. He'd better have that glib old thief Treacher's place at the farm. Turn him in there, and let him make the best job he can of it. He has given me an idea of how he'd work the land, which seems pretty sensible, and at the worst he can't rob me more than Treacher has been doing."
"Good idea," Peckover agreed, not wildly interested in the arrangement.
"Yes," said Gage. "After all, the fellow saved my life. I owe him a chance of showing he can be honest as well as useful. Now, as I'm considerably bumped about and only fit for a hot bath, I'd be glad if you'd just trot the fellow down to the farm, give Treacher his notice, and show his successor how the land lies. We can put him up somewhere till Treacher clears out."
"All right," Peckover responded with a yawn. "Anything to oblige. Where is the party?"
"He's in the gun-room. I told Bisgood to get him something to eat. Poor fellow seemed half starved. His name's Jenkins. Treat him kindly. He has done us both a service," he added significantly.
"All serene," Peckover assured him with another yawn. "I'll handle him tenderly. In the gun-room, eh?"
As Peckover opened the gun-room door, Gage's preserver was standing with his back to it, scrutinizing a sporting print. "Up, Jenkins," was Peckover's facetious salutation and mode of attracting his attention. Next moment it was down Peckover, for he staggered back and subsided helplessly into a low chair as, in the stranger who turned quickly, he recognized with a gasping cry the real Lord Quorn, whom he had believed to be lying poisoned and forgotten in Great Bunbury churchyard.
For several seconds neither man spoke; Peckover, sprawling limply as he fell, staring with distended, apprehensive eyes at Quorn who, master of the strange situation, regarded him with a certain grim amusement.
"Hope you are having a good time, Mr.—Gage, is it?—or something else, which for the moment has slipped my memory?"
Peckover's wits were rapidly recovering from the shock of dispersal caused by the unexpected bomb which had fallen on them. "Curious we should meet again like this," he said with a sickly smile.
"Very," was the pointed response. "And a trifle awkward, I should fancy, for you."
"Oh, no," Peckover protested, pulling himself together and assuming the boldest face he could summon up. "It wasn't my fault you drank that doctored wine, which I intended for my own consumption."
"Dare say not," Quorn returned uncompromisingly. "Admitting for the sake of argument that was an unfortunate mistake, how about you and your friend annexing my place and title?"
Peckover's face showed bland surprise. "Me and my friend taking your place and title? What do you mean?"
"Oh," replied Quorn with impatient sarcasm, "we are dense this evening. It may astonish you, Mr. Alias Gage, but I rather fancy Staplewick Park and Towers belong to Lord Quorn."
"Who suggested they didn't?" asked Peckover wonderingly.
"I'd like to see the man, that's all," retorted Quorn. "And," he resumed, "I'm rather under the impression that I'm Lord Quorn."
"I dare say," was the prompt rejoinder. "But it doesn't follow you are that nobleman."
"What?" he roared.
"Don't make a noise," said Peckover, with a touch of dignity; "the servants aren't used to it."
"I say I am Lord Quorn," the other repeated with less volume but more intensity. "And you know it."
"But Lord Quorn says he's Lord Quorn," argued the wily Peckover with maddening plausibility. "That's all I know. I'm not the Heralds' College."
"You're a pair of frauds," cried Quorn.
"Naturally, if you're the rightful peer," was the bland reply. "But we don't know it, nor anybody else."
"Don't they?"
"Except yourself, I was going to say, and a lady and gentleman who have come all the way from Australia to stick to it—and you."
The hit told. Quorn's manner visibly weakened.
"What—you've had the nuisances up here—what is their infernal game?" he asked, darkly apprehensive.
"Simple enough," replied Peckover, beginning to feel the courage he had hitherto simulated. "The fair Lalage's game is to be Lady Quorn, or to know the reason why. And she has brought over dear old Carnaby as an extra note of interrogation."
"Oh! What persevering devils they are," Quorn observed uneasily. "And what do they say to your friend who calls himself Lord Quorn?"
"Say?" Peckover's native smartness was quick to turn the situation to advantage. "Why, their idea is that one Lord Quorn's as good as another and failing one the other will do nicely."
Quorn gave a long whistle. "Why, you don't mean to say that Lal Leo is going for your friend?"
"She is, though, by George," was the blunt answer. "Only, of course, she hasn't got the hold on him she would have on you. And that's where Carnaby comes in."
Quorn looked at him searchingly, but was fain to accept the statement. Besides which, it tallied with his idea of the Leonine methods. "Well, that's a queer go," he said, and then fell into a puzzled silence. Presently he burst out with a question, not unnatural under the circumstances. "Who the devil is the thief who has the cheek to call himself Lord Quorn?"
Peckover shrugged. "For aught I know to the contrary he is Lord Quorn," he replied blandly.
"Rats!" cried the dispossessed one wrathfully. "It's a put-up job between you and him."
"My good sir——"
"You know he's not Lord Quorn, and you know I am."
"I've told you already, not being in the know of the Heralds' College, I'm not in a position to say anything about it."
"Aren't you?" sneered Quorn. "I know all about it, though. When I drank that loaded stuff that sent me to sleep that was your chance, and you took it."
"Did I?"
"You did. And I don't blame you. But I've woke up now."
"Then," rejoined Peckover sarcastically, "since you are so wide-awake, perhaps you can explain why I didn't take the title myself?"
"I suppose," Quorn replied nastily, "you didn't feel you could fill the part."
"Of a British nobleman?" Peckover laughed scornfully. "Too steady and respectable, eh? My highly creditable record wouldn't have stood in my way if I'd had a chance of nobbling the coronet."
Quorn brought his fist down with a bang on the table. "D—n it, man, who is this fellow?"
"Lord Quorn," Peckover maintained.
"Lord Quorn!" The real man could not find words to express his disgust. "How did you pick him up?" he demanded, seeing the uselessness of arguing the question of identity.
"He picked me up," Peckover replied coolly.
"How? When? Where?"
"I'll tell you all about it, if you won't make such a noise," Peckover said suavely. "He came to theQuorn Armsjust after you had made that little mistake in the refreshment, and announced himself as Lord Quorn; and who was I to say he was not Lord Quorn?"
"Funny," remarked Quorn, "that he should have brought you along here."
"Fact is," was the ready explanation, "he was afraid of being caught by those Hemyock terrors who straightaway began tumbling over one another to get him. Brought me along here as a chaperon, or an umbrella, if you like, and I've made myself useful."
"I see," said Quorn suspiciously. "And how about being a millionaire?"
"That," replied Peckover, "is how we worked the trick. Lady Agatha is a nailer. She wouldn't have wasted board and lodging on a poor man. And as a rich chap I can whistle the dear girls off when they get closer to Quorn than he cares about."
The assumption of the title irritated its real holder. "Quorn?" he repeated resentfully. "I like that. There's only one Quorn, and I'm going to show everybody where he is."
"Lalage and all?" was the pertinent objection.
"Oh, confound Lalage!"
"Just so—confound Lalage," was the hearty response, "Only take care Lalage does not confound you."
For a few moments Quorn preserved an aggrieved and discomfited silence. "You don't suppose," he said at length, "I am going to stand being humbugged like this."
"I don't reckon anything about it," replied Peckover with wise mendacity. "You two Quorns had better fight it out between yourselves. Only——"
"Only what?" the other snapped.
"If I were you I should wait until the ring's clear before I put up my hands."
Quorn stared in front of him in gloomy silence. "Pretty darned mess it is," he remarked presently.
"It is. But it will clear up," said Peckover cheerfully. "That is if you give it time."
Quorn made a sour face. "Nice position for me——"
"If you will go engaging the affections of ladies from the Bush with short hair and muscular brothers," put in Peckover. "It's a mercy as it is that this other claimant cropped up. He has saved you a lot of worry."
"So they're after him?" asked Quorn with grim amusement.
"You bet. He had to stay in bed for a week to keep out of their way. Lalage has crossed over to be Lady Quorn, and she means business."
"The devil she does!" exclaimed Quorn uneasily.
"Just think," urged Peckover with telling plausibility, "what this other Quorn has saved you from. Dear old Carnaby has a rare hankering after experiments on people's physiognomies; trying how a man looks with his nose bent, his eye closed, and a tooth or two smudged out. He fitted his dooks once round my throat, and I can feel 'em there now."
"What was that for?"
"Just to keep his hand in. He is uncommonly keen on meeting you, and he has got a bagful of funniments ready for the occasion."
"Pleasant fellow," ejaculated Quorn ruefully.
"Yes," pursued Peckover, "it's providential this chap, t'other Quorn, turned up. And if you take my advice you'll let him sit where he is till the Leos have eaten their heads off atThe Pigeonsand turned the game up."
"Looks as though I'd better," Quorn agreed reluctantly.
"It will be bad enough if Carnaby catches you about as it is," continued Peckover, encouraged by the success of his argument. "He may do something distinctly unpleasant, but, not being for the moment Lord Quorn, you won't have to marry old Lalage into the bargain."
"That's something," murmured Quorn.
"Everything, almost," said Peckover cheerfully. "If you wriggle out of that matrimonial spring-trap, you won't mind leaving half of your tail behind. You may lose a feature or two, but you'll be saved a life-time of bother."
"To get quit of Lalage would be gratifying," Quorn admitted gloomily. "But with my nose sliced off——"
"If," urged Peckover encouragingly, "you keep away from the looking-glass you'll never miss it."
"But other people will," Quorn objected, clearly discomposed by the idea.
"Well, then," Peckover summed up, "if you don't feel equal to tackling the gentle Carnaby either as Quorn or Jenkins, you had best lie low till they cart themselves away. The other Quorn won't be particular, since you saved his life, and Treacher doesn't go for a month. We'll fix you up a room in one of the lodges, and you can spend your time in keeping out of Lalage's way. Give out you are surveying the estate, which, if it should turn out to be yours, won't be trouble thrown away. I'll look after you, and back you up. You can trust me."
"I don't know that I can," was the not unnatural objection.
"Of course you can," Peckover assured him sympathetically. "Anyhow, you've got to, unless you want Carnaby to wring you out and swab the stable yard with you."
"A nice thing," Quorn protested distastefully, "for me to be skulking about, and playing the understrapper on my own estate."
"Ah, yes," said Peckover sententiously. "We often have to pay for our fun when we least expect to."
Thus it came to pass that matters shaped themselves to the wily Peckover's handling, and he was able with native shrewdness to snatch a fresh reprieve from the threatening exposure. And it was of manifest importance for him to do so, since every day's income made an appreciable addition to the little capital he was amassing. If only he could keep the game up for a few months it would be for him, an independence. That former income of his, thirty-five shillings a week, would be his for life, and without working. No wonder he sharpened his wits to keep his oddly diversified puppets dallying.
So the unsuspecting Lord Quorn by purchase continued to enjoy his title, little dreaming of the Jenkinsian volcano at his very door. So likewise the chafing and mystified Quorn was assiduously taken in hand by Peckover and his fears kept up to high-water mark.
Lady Ormstork was a practitioner in somewhat the same line of business as Lady Agatha Hemyock. Her dealings were however, of a wider scope and carried out with more histrionic embellishment than those of her sister schemer who, as may have been gathered, had her hands full with her two discontented and recalcitrant daughters. Lady Ormstork had, she was thankful, and also given to say, no daughter. But other people had them. Also she had no money to speak of, and again other people had. So, being a tough and wise lady of tireless energy and a grasping turn of mind, she set herself to take certain other people's daughters, for matrimonial objects, be it understood, and at the same time as much of their money as she had the face—and hers was fairly expansive and brazen—to ask for.
In pursuance of a scheme which her ladyship had already several times put in practice with success, she, on hearing certain rumours, ran down to Great Bunbury, and secured a furnished house on the outskirts of that somewhat uninteresting borough.
As the upshot of this apparently pointless and fatuous action, it was one afternoon announced to Gage who was seeking relaxation from the duties of his position in a game of billiards with his friend Peckover, that Lady Ormstork and Miss Ulrica Buffkin were in the drawing-room.
"Who the deuce are they, Bisgood?" Gage inquired, in not the best of humours at being interrupted in a promising run of nursery cannons.
"I don't know, my lord," answered Bisgood stolidly, his air suggesting that it was his master's business to find out for himself. "Never heard of the ladies before."
"What are they like?" asked Peckover, ever on the alert for an unpleasant surprise.
"Middle-aged lady, sir, and a young one."
"Good-looking?" Gage demanded, weighing the visitors against the joy of the prettily placed balls by the top pocket.
"The young lady decidedly so, my lord," Bisgood answered with the dictum of a connoisseur. "As regards the elder lady opinions might diff——"
"Oh, bother the old lady. You can look after her, Percy," said Gage, putting on his coat. "I suppose they are ladies, Bisgood?"
"Lady Ormstork, my lord."
"Where's the book? Let's look her out."
Bisgood fetched Debrett, while Gage brushed his hair and gave an upward twist to his moustache.
"Yes, here it is, correct enough. 'Harriot, Lady Ormstork, widow of Henry Fitz-fulke Candlish, fourth Baron Ormstork.' Come on, old man," Gage commanded; and with pricking curiosity concerning Miss Buffkin, he led the way to the drawing-room.
The first glance told both men that Bisgood had not overstated the case. Miss Buffkin had a roguish, voluptuous prettiness which fitted each man's ideal of feminine beauty. Indeed it was so long before they could bring themselves to notice her companion that any other than the gratified Lady Ormstork would have reasonably shown signs of being offended.
"Lord Quorn?" the wily peeress inquired sweetly, looking from one to the other; and for once, perhaps naturally, at fault.
Gage, wrestling with his sudden preoccupation, went forward and shook hands. "How do you do?" he inquired tentatively, in a manner from which no unprejudiced observer would have deduced any deep concern as to the state of her ladyship's health.
"I must introduce myself." She opened the conversation winningly, as the men took chairs opposite to her and kept furtive eyes on the alluring Ulrica. "I was a great friend of the late peer's—your cousin——" Gage bowed. "My husband and he were at Eton together and kept up a life-long friendship." Lady Ormstork sighed. The men tried to look sympathetic and merely found themselves looking at the beautiful Miss Buffkin to see how she took it.
"We often stayed here," the peeress proceeded in a voice of tender reminiscence. "We always loved Staplewick and the—the neighbourhood."
With an effort the men accepted the interesting statement with a duly chastened glance at the maundering lady.
"So much so," Lady Ormstork continued, dropping with surprising ease the tone of lament in favour of one which suggested business-like hope, "that being sadly in need of change of air after the fatigue of the London season, I suggested, instead of the inevitable Homburg, the healthy and peaceful paradise of Great Bunbury."
It struck as much of the minds of her listeners as they could afford to detach from the prepossessing Miss Buffkin that it had never occurred to them so to regard that unlovely market-town, but they made allowances for variation in tastes and found it possible to rejoice that some one, particularly this talkative old peeress, took pleasure in it.
"It's an interesting old place," Gage agreed, with as much irony as anything else.
"Nice change after London," Peckover chimed in, with a slight shudder at the recollection of his first impressions of that unattractive town. "Don't you think so?" he suddenly asked Miss Buffkin.
The young lady hesitated, and her hesitation could not be said to count as a testimonial to the grimy place in question. "It's not exactly lively," she answered with a smile that disclosed an irreproachable set of teeth. "When you've walked up one side of the street and down the other you are ready, if not anxious, to bid Great Bunbury a life-long farewell."
"My dearest Ulrica," Lady Ormstork remonstrated, "you have no romance."
"If I had a sackful, Great Bunbury would shake it out of me pretty quick," her protégée retorted.
"Well," the elder lady resumed almost plaintively, "perhaps it is that I view it in the light of happier days. It used to be quite a treat to drive in from here on a fine afternoon to shop in the quaint little town."
Both men glanced at Miss Buffkin as inviting a comment.
"The things you buy there aren't much of a treat," she observed dryly.
"And that is why," proceeded Lady Ormstork, ignoring the remark, "my heart turned towards Great Bunbury and dear old Staplewick, so that I felt I must come and see it again, even at the risk of being considered intrusive."
The expression on the two men's faces was calculated to assure her that so long as she appeared similarly accompanied she need have no fear of her welcome.
"I'm sure I'm delighted," Gage assured her, with a sly glance at the fascinating Ulrica. "I hope you will stay to tea now, and come often," he said with real enthusiasm. "As often as you can."
Lady Ormstork looked deeply grateful; indeed, as though a load of ungratified longing had been lifted from her shoulders; while Miss Buffkin seemed, from one cause or another, highly amused.
"Thank you, Lord Quorn, it is most kind," Lady Ormstork replied gushingly. "I shall revel in revisiting the dear old haunts. I warn you I shall take you at your word, and come very, very often."
"Can't come too often," Gage assured her gaily. "Hope Miss Buffkin will come too. You mustn't leave her moping in Great Bunbury. We'll try to get up some fun for her out here."
Lady Ormstork had no intention of leaving the profitable Ulrica behind, and she intimated as much. Miss Buffkin, on her part, seemed to find more than a transitory amusement in the effect she had produced upon the men.
"Perhaps you would like a turn before tea and look round the gardens," Gage suggested, nudging his friend, "Rather untidy, but we are going to make them trim directly."
"Oh, I should dearly love to see them as they are," the wily old peeress assured him. "Untidiness lends itself to romance, does it not?"
"I dare say it does," responded Gage, "and gets interest out of it."
Lady Ormstork was too busy manoeuvring to get hold of Peckover to notice the joke. Her game was to throw the new Lord Quorn and the fair Ulrica together with ultimate profit to herself.
Peckover, it may be stated, was not wildly interested in the dowager peeress. Not quite taking in the situation, he had anticipated that she would hang on to Gage, leaving Miss Buffkin in his willing charge. But the whole sense of the meeting was against him. Between the grasping old lady and the repudiating Gage, he had no chance.
"Go on!" commanded his friend in a peremptory whisper pushing him towards the peeress.
"Don't you love a winter garden?" that astute dowager enquired sweetly as she annexed him, and then, without waiting for his predilections on the horticultural question, proceeded to arrange for "dear Ulrica" to be personally conducted by Gage. There was no help for it, and Peckover resigned himself to the tolerance of aristocratic age and presumed inanity.
"I can't tell you," Lady Ormstork observed in the cooing tone with which she smoothed over her designs, "how delighted I am to make the acquaintance of your friend, the new Lord Quorn, and to revisit dear old Staplewick. What a charming fellow he seems."
"Oh, yes; he's a slice of all right," Peckover agreed, wondering whence the lady had formed that conclusion, since Gage's behaviour had hitherto shown more signs of being charmed than charming.
"He has," declared Lady Ormstork, "the family likeness. Particularly the nose. I saw the Quorn nose at once."
This was a somewhat trying statement for Peckover, but he manfully repressed all evidence of agitation. "Yes," he assented, "he's got the nose all right, and a bit of the Quorn lip, I'm thinking."
Looking round as it were to verify the comparison, Lady Ormstork was pleased to see the lagging pair in close and animated conversation.
"Yes, he reminds me of the late peer, particularly when he smiles," she declared with boldness, considering that she had never set eyes on a Lord Quorn in her life, nor been until a week before, within fifty miles of Staplewick.
"Oh, does he?" responded Peckover indifferently, as he suppressed a yawn.
"It will be so nice to come over here often," pursued Lady Ormstork, ignoring her companion's preoccupation. "So delightful for my dear young friend, Miss Buffkin. Naturally to a high spirited girl Great Bunbury is a little dull."
"I should think it would be," Peckover responded.
"Yes," said the lady with a little sigh of relief, "and so it will be such a pleasant change for her to have, so to speak, the run of this lovely park."
"I'm sure," Peckover said with emphasis, "Lord Quorn will be delighted for Miss Buffkin to come here all day and every day."
"How good of him," exclaimed Lady Ormstork, greedily accepting the suggestion. "And I shall enjoy it too, more than I can express."
Peckover was silent as he fell gloomily to wondering whether his desirable lot would be to entertain this suave old lady while his friend flirted with the fair and lively Ulrica.
"My young friend," proceeded Lady Ormstork, "is a really charming girl—what a superb Wellingtonia!—Yes, I see a great deal of her. Her father is not able to take her about, and so she has become almost like my own daughter."
"Except that she doesn't exactly take after you in looks," thought Peckover; but he merely bowed acceptance of her statement.
"You see, her position is quite enviable," the lady continued in her society voice and drawl, "As an only child she will be immensely rich. Indeed Ulrica has her separate fortune now. I'm sure I may confide in you, Mr.——'
"Gage," Peckover supplied alertly.
"Mr. Gage. Not one of the Shropshire Gages?"
"Not that I know of," he replied, beating down a sporting instinct to claim kindred with that highly respectable, if rural, family.
"Ah! Some of the Worcestershire branch, the Lovel-Gages, were my greatest friends," said Lady Ormstork regretfully reminiscent. "You don't come from Worcestershire?"
"Not straight," he answered.
Lady Ormstork laughed, as she always did when there was the possibility of a joke being intended. "Well my dear Mr. Gage, I may tell you in confidence, as I feel we are going to be very good friends, that one of the reasons I brought dear Ulrica down to this quiet place was to be out of the way of certain fortune hunters who were pursuing her with their attentions."
"I don't wonder," responded Peckover, with a touch of enthusiasm.
"No," the lady agreed. "Apart from her immense fortune, she is adorable. So handsome! and so clever!"
"Yes, she's all that," said Peckover, enviously thinking of what a good time his friend was having, and regretting for once, that he had let the title go.
"One person in particular," pursued the dowager, "has given me great anxiety. A Spanish duke, of undeniable family, a Grandee of Spain, and all that sort of thing, don't you know, but very poor, and consequently most persistent. You know what these foreigners are."
"Rather," Peckover assured her, in a tone which implied an intimate acquaintance with the procedure of Spanish Grandees, rich and poor.
"Of course," the lady continued, "—oh, how pretty that peep is!—of course an alliance with Ulrica would set him, the duke, on his feet again. It would enable him to resume his position and live on his estates like a prince."
"Get a new hat to wear in the royal presence," added Peckover, remembering that attribute of Spanish Grandees which he had read of in the "interesting items" column of a weekly paper.
"He is, I believe, devotedly in love with Ulrica, apart from her fortune," continued his companion. "And of course from the point of view of mere rank and grandeur, the alliance would have been quite desirable. But, after all, an English girl should marry an Englishman, that is my feeling and the wish of Ulrica's father; and so we have come down here to let the storm of the Duke de Salolja's passion blow itself out."
"I see," said Peckover thoughtfully, wondering how much of the storm was true, since his last habit of mind was naturally now prone to suspicion and to look askance at unwarranted confidences.
"Well, Percy, my boy, what do you tot them up to come to?" inquired Gage jovially as they turned from an impressive adieu to their guests who drove off radiant—at least as far as Lady Ormstork was concerned—at the success of their visit.
"They're all right," Peckover answered somewhat gloomily. Considering the poor time he had had as the medium through which the wily peeress desired to convey certain information to his friend he could scarcely be expected to emulate that gentleman's enthusiasm.
"Right? I should think so," Gage exclaimed with emphasis. "The girl is simply scrumptious."
"I dare say," Peckover returned, with a jealous twinge. "Rather different from our friends at the Moat, eh?"
"Slightly. There's no comparison. She's a real beauty, and full of fun."
"Oh, you found that out, did you?" Peckover observed curiously.
"Rather. This is the sort of Lord Quorn I'm paying for."
"She has a lot of money," said Peckover.
"How do you know?"
"The old lady-bird told me so. Confidential old party. Good as admitted they had come down here to have a dash at you."
"Me?" cried Gage, much interested.
"Your title. Or, rather mine," his friend declared sombrely, so dismally, indeed, that Gage said—
"Come, you are not going to repent? This is what I paid for. I told you so at the outset."
"Oh, yes," Peckover agreed. "It's fair enough," and with the image of Miss Buffkin's commanding beauty in his heart, he darkly resolved to try whether some of her smiles might not in future be for him.
Lady Ormstork was, as might have been confidently anticipated, as good as her word. Almost every day she brought the fair Miss Buffkin to Staplewick, and on those that were missed the two friends contrived to find an excuse for calling at Cracknels, as the villa, built by a retired biscuit baker, was named. The game was not a very pleasant one for Peckover, seeing that in it the dowager was invariably his partner, nevertheless he continued to stick to it doggedly in the hope that his opportunity for making running with the captivating Ulrica would surely come.
Accordingly he disguised his feelings and the alertness with which he waited for an opening to assert his powers of fascination, making himself the while as agreeable and attentive to the astutely meandering peeress as the nature of her society talk permitted.
"Lord Quorn and dear Ulrica seem to have taken quite a fancy to one another," she remarked one afternoon, tactfully leading the way so as to give a wide berth to a plantation of rhododendrons in the midst of which she had reason to suspect the other pair of promenaders was lingering. "Don't you think so, Mr. Gage?"
"Looks like it," answered Peckover with a sardonic curl of the lip.
"You are his great friend. He would naturally confide in you," observed the lady with a pointed invitation to betray the said confidence.
"Oh, yes. He is very far gone," was the somewhat ill-humoured reply. "No need for him to mention it, so long as I retain my eyesight."
"I am inclined to think," Lady Ormstork observed meditatively, "that the alliance would not be at all a bad thing."
"No?" Peckover, smarting under his confederate's good fortune, would not commit himself to an opinion.
"Don't you think so?" the dowager asked suavely.
"I don't blame old Quorn," Peckover replied, rather crudely. "As to whether Ul—Miss Buffkin might not do better is a matter of opinion."
"Possibly she might; or she might do worse," was the sage response. "After all, Quorn is a charming fellow."
"Oh, yes," his friend assented in a tone so warped that it seemed to signify, "Oh, no."
"It's a fine old title," said the lady reflectively.
"Title's all right," he agreed equivocally.
"Undeniable," Lady Ormstork maintained. "But of course, my dear Mr. Gage, you understand that advantage would weigh nothing with me if Quorn were not genuinely fond of Ulrica."
"Just so," responded Peckover with a wink at a passing swallow.
"Naturally," she pursued, "you will see my position is a somewhat delicate one. It is on that account, my dear Mr. Gage, that I make no scruple in asking you, a clever man of the world—if I may call you so——"
"Oh, don't mention it," he replied glibly.
"I'm asking you not to let me be in the dark as to your friend's real feelings and intentions. For if I were sure that Quorn had no idea of proposing I should consider it my duty to take Ulrica away from here at once."
"He has not expressed any such intention to me," Peckover replied, brightening a little.
"But surely you think he will, he must?" demanded the lady anxiously.
"Yes, he should by rights," Peckover agreed. "But he may not be a marrying man."
Lady Ormstork looked scandalized. "Every man is a marrying man when he meets a girl like Ulrica. Besides, it is the duty of every peer to marry, or what will become of our old nobility? Heaven only knows to whom, as matters stand, the Quorn title will go next."
Peckover had an idea that he could claim to share the knowledge. "He ought to come to a firm offer if he means business," he said.
"Our time here is getting short," Lady Ormstork declared significantly. Not but what she was prepared to grace Great Bunbury with her presence for a twelvemonth if that were likely to bring off the match. "As Ulrica's temporary guardian I cannot allow Quorn to flirt with her indefinitely if he has no intention of proposing."
"No," Peckover responded promptly, wondering how he could get a look in. Then a happy idea struck him. "Quorn is a shilly-shallying fellow," he said guilefully. "Can't make up his mind. I usually have to do it for him."
"I wish you would in this instance," the lady exclaimed fervently.
"Well, I think I might," he replied with sudden animation. "But of course it won't do for me to tell him straight he ought to propose. He'd see you working the figure. No, I've got a more artful plan than that."
"Oh, you dear Mr. Gage!" cried Lady Ormstork, brightening at the prospect of an end to her uninteresting sojourn at The Cracknels. "Do tell me."
"Easy enough," said Peckover, sparkling likewise; "and highly effective. One trial will prove it, or money returned. Make him jealous."
"How can we?" asked the dowager with a dubiousness which her companion did not find altogether complimentary.
"Leave it to me," he replied, his sparkle subsiding to a touch of huffiness. "Don't you think I'm equal to it?"
"Oh, yes, indeed, dear Mr. Gage," the lady drawled, eyeing him still rather doubtfully.
"Don't you make any mistake about it," he protested severely. "I always was first favourite with the ladies, and Quorn knows it—to his cost, I may tell you."
"And you are still friends?" was the astute comment.
"Sworn friends," Peckover replied with much truth. "I'll prove it by making up his mind for him to marry the finest girl in England."
"And what is your plan?" Lady Ormstork inquired approvingly.
Rapidly the alert little mind had blocked in the outline of his scheme. "Let me make the running for a lap or two," he suggested. "If that doesn't hurry him up, nothing will. You come up as usual to-morrow; I'll slip away from Quorn, meet you, and go off for a stroll with Miss Ulrica. You come on to the Hall. Tell Quorn offhand, when he asks, what has become of the young lady. Say she thought she'd prefer a stroll with me for a change, and if he sits still after that it's odds against Miss Buffkin being Lady Quorn. You watch the effect."
Lady Ormstork looked as though she might be safely trusted to keep her eyes open for it.
Next day things happened as had been arranged. Peckover made a timely desertion, and Lady Ormstork arrived at the Towers dignified and alone.
"Not brought Miss Buffkin to-day?" Gage asked, trying to look as though he had still got the better half of the Cracknels establishment. "Hope she's not ill?"
"Oh, dear no," Lady Ormstork answered sweetly. "She is here. But we met your charming friend, Mr. Gage, just by the lodge gates, and dear Ulrica said she had been cramped up in the fly long enough, so she got out to stroll up through the park."
Gage evidently experienced some difficulty in looking as pleased as a host should at the idea of his guest doing what pleases her best. "I see," he said, uneasily reflective. "Shall we walk back and meet them? It's a lovely day."
"So Ulrica thought," the astutely suave lady responded. "And the park looked so tempting. Yes, a short stroll would be delightful."
Accordingly they made their way down the drive at a pace which, set by the deliberate old peeress, ill accorded with Gage's impatience.
Naturally Peckover had foreseen this move, and had proposed a circuitous and covert route to the house. Ulrica, quite privy to the scheme, offered no objection.
"Sun's rather hot," Peckover observed, when the carriage with its guileful occupant had rolled away from them. "Let's keep under the trees."
Ulrica laughed, and took without comment the path he indicated.