CHAPTER IIITHE LAST WORD GOES BEGGING
Sir Richard Wynyard, aged fifty-six, was a little, grey, square-shouldered man, with a good heart and bad temper. His father, the notorious Sir Fulke, had put his two sons into the army, given them small and irregularly paid allowances, and then abandoned them to their own devices, whilst he squandered the family patrimony on horses and cards. When Richard, his heir, was quartered in Dublin, he fell desperately in love with a beautiful Irish girl; but, painfully aware of his own empty purse, he was too prudent to marry—unlike his reckless younger brother, who adventured a runaway match on a captain’s pay and debts. Major Wynyard made no sign, much as this silence cost him, and when, after his father’s death, he had at last a roof to offer—Wynyard, a stately old place, although somewhat dismantled—he sought his lady-love in haste, but, alas! he was months too late; she had already been summoned to another home,—the beautiful Rose O’Hara, his heart’s desire, was dead.
This was said to have been Sir Richard’s sole love-affair, and the one grief of his life. The late baronet’s reckless extravagance had shattered the fortunes of his descendants; his heir found himself compelled to let the land, close the Hall, sell off the horses, and take up his abode with his mother in the town house in Queen’sGate; where he lived and how, was indifferent to him, he seemed to have no heart for anything. This was attributed to his supreme disgust at inheriting such a legacy of debt; but the real truth was that the loss of the beautiful Rose had temporarily stunned her lover.
Lady Wynyard, once a celebrated beauty, was now a weak and withered old dowager, tyrannically ruled by her servants. When she, too, was carried to the ancestral vault, her son still remained in the gloomy family abode, and, more from apathy than anything else, fell under the thrall of her retainers.
Between his father’s and his mother’s debts, Sir Richard found himself sorely pressed, and he took Martin Kesters, his schoolfellow and friend, into his confidence.
“I shall be a crippled man all my life,” he declared; “it will take years to nurse the property into anything like what it was in my grandfather’s day; and, by that time, that young chap, Owen, will step into my shoes.”
“Well, Dick, if you don’t mind a bit of risk,” said his companion, “I know a thing that will set you on your legs and make your fortune; but it’s not absolutely certain. Still, if it comes off, you get five hundred per cent. for your money, and become a semi-millionaire. It’s an Australian gold-mine, and I believe it’s going to boom!”
“Anything is better than this half-and-half existence,” said Sir Richard impatiently. “You have a long head, Martin, and I’ll take your tip and put on all I can scrape. I’ll mortgage some outlying land, sell some of the good pictures and the library, and be either a man or a mouse. For once in my life I’ll do a big gamble. If I win, you say it’s a big thing; if I lose,it means a few hundreds a year and a bedroom near my club for the rest of my days. I take no middle course—I’ll be a rich man or a pauper.”
And Sir Richard was as good as his word; he scraped up fifteen thousand pounds, staked the whole sum on his venture—and won.
Subsequently, he cleared the property, invested in some securities, began to feel at ease in the world, and travelled widely. Having known the pinch and humiliation of genteel poverty and practised stern self-denial in his youth, Sir Richard was naturally the last man to have any sympathy with a nephew—a restless, reckless scatter-brain—who was following in the footsteps of his squandering forefathers. The good-looking young scapegrace must have a sharp lesson, and learn the value of money and independence.
Lady Kesters’ promised interview with her uncle took place. He was fond of Leila in his own brusque fashion, and secretly plumed himself on having manœuvred her marriage.
“Well, Leila, I suppose you have come about this precious brother of yours?” he began, as she was ushered into the smoking-room.
“Of course I have, Uncle Dick,” she replied, as she imprinted a kiss upon his cheek and swept into a chair. “Something must be done!” and she looked at him with speculative eagerness.
“There I agree with you,” he answered. “And Owen is the man to do it. God helps those who help themselves!”
“Owen is most anxious to make another start; but it is not easy for a soldier man, brought up as he has been.”
“Brought up as a rich man’s heir,” broke in heruncle, with a quick, impatient movement; “more fool the rich man! I gave the fellow a good education, good allowance, good send-off. I got him into his father’s old regiment, and made him a decent allowance; he did fairly well in India, I admit; but as soon as he came home to the depôt, he seemed to have lost his head. Why, I believe the young scamp actually kept racers, and as for his hunters, I never saw finer cattle in my life! One day, when I happened to run down to Canterbury to visit him, I noticed a servant exercising a couple of horses—such a pair! I was bound to stop and admire them, and the groom informed me that they belonged to Lieutenant Wynyard of the Red Hussars; and Mr. Wynyard’s uncle hadn’t as much as a donkey to his name!”
“But could have thousands if he chose,” interposed Leila. “As for racing, it was only his hunters Owen put into regimental steeplechases and that sort of thing.”
“And that sort of thing came devilish expensive!” snapped Sir Richard, who was now pacing the room. “I had to pay his debts. I paid themtwice, and he promised on his word of honour to turn over a new leaf. The next thing he did was to back a bill for an infernal young swindler, and let me in for two thousand pounds—that was the last straw!”
“Yes, I know it was,” assented his niece; “but really, Uncle Dick, Owen was not so much to blame as you believe. He was very steady out in India for four years; coming home, as you say, went to his head; he did not realise that money does not go nearly as far here—especially in an expensive cavalry regiment. He kept polo ponies and racing ponies in Lucknow, and could not understand that he could not do the sameat home. As to the bill, he is not suspicious, or sharp at reading character, and is staunch to old friends—or those he mistakes for friends—as in the case of young de Montfort. He had never heard what a ‘wrong un’ he turned out; they were at Eton——”
“Yes, I know—same house—same puppy-hole!” growled her uncle.
“And when Mr. de Montfort looked up Owen and told him a pathetic and plausible tale about his affairs, and swore on his word of honour that his signature was a mere formality—and——”
“Cleared off to Spain and leftmeto pay!” interposed Sir Richard, coming to a halt.
“Owen had to pay too,” retorted his sister, with a touch of bitterness.
“You mean that I made him leave the Service? Yes, I could not afford to go on supporting an extravagant young ass.”
“Owen is not brilliant, Uncle Dick, but he is no fool.”
“A fool and another man’s money are soon parted. Life was made too easy for the chap—very different to whatIfound it at his age. I had no hunters, no dozens of silk shirts, and rows of polo boots;Inever was to be met lounging down Piccadilly as if the whole earth belonged to me.”
“Well, at least, Uncle Dick, you were never compelled to give up a profession you adored, when you were barely five-and-twenty.”
“I’ve given up a lot,” he answered forcibly, “and when I was older than him; but never mindme; we are talking of Owen. After leaving the Hussars, Kesters took him on, and got him a capital billet in the City—a nice soft berth, ten to four, but my gentleman could notstand an office stool and tall hat, and in five months he had chucked——”
Leila nodded. It was impossible to deny this indictment.
“So then it was my turn again; and I thought a little touch of real work would be good for the future Sir Owen Wynyard, and, after some trouble, I heard of a likely opening in the Argentine on the Valencia Estancia, well out of the way of towns and temptation—a horse-breeding ranch, too. You see I studied the fellow’s tastes, eh?” And Sir Richard twirled his eyeglasses by the string—a trick of his when he considered that he had scored a point.
“I gave him his passage and outfit, and put a few hundreds into the concern as a spec. and to insure him an interest, and within twelve months here he is back again on my hands—the proverbial rolling stone!” He cleared his throat, and continued: “Now, Leila, my girl, you have a head on your shoulders, and you know that these rolling stones find their way to the bottom, and I am going to block my specimen in good time. I suppose he told you what I said to him yesterday?”
“Yes; he came straight to Mount Street from seeing you.”
“He has got to shift for himself for two years, to earn his bread, with or without butter, to guarantee that he does not take a penny he has not worked for, that he does not get into debt or any matrimonial engagement; should he marry a chorus-girl, by Jove I’ll burn down Wynyard! If, by the end of that time, he turns up a steady, industrious, independent member of society, I will make him my agent—he shall have an adequate allowance, the house to live in, and most of my money when I am dead!”
Lady Kesters was about to speak, but with a hasty gesture her uncle interposed.
“I may as well add that I think myself safe in offering this prize, for it’s my belief that Owen will never win it. He has the family fever in his veins—the rage for gambling—and he is like the patriarch Reuben, ‘unstable as water and cannot excel.’ At the end of six months he will be penniless, and you and Kesters will have to come to his rescue; for my partIwash my hands of him.”
“Uncle Dick,” she said, rising, “I think you are too hard on Owen; he would not have come back from South America if he had not had a row with the manager of the Estancia: surely you could not expect an English gentleman—an Englishman—to stand by and see a poor woman nearly beaten to death?”
“Oh,” with an impatient whirl of his glasses, “the fellow has always as many excuses as an Irishman!”
“I think you are unjust,” she said, with a flash in her dark eyes. “I admit that Owen has been extravagant and foolish, but he was not worse, or half as bad, as many young men in his position. Are you quite determined? Won’t you give Owen another chance—or even half a chance?”
“No; his future is now in his own hands, and I stick to what I’ve said,” he declared, with irritable vehemence. “You came here, my clever Leila, to talk me over. Oh, you are good at that, but it’s no go this time! I am honestly giving the boy his only remedy. Let me see,” sitting down at his bureau, “what is the date? Yes—look here—I make an entry. I give Owen two years from to-day to work out his time—to-day is the thirty-first of March.”
“But why not wait until to-morrow, and make itthe first of April?” suggested his niece, with a significant and seductive smile.
“Leila,” he spluttered, “I’m astonished at you! You jeer at me because I’m not disposed to keep your beloved brother as an ‘objêt de luxe,’ eh?”
“I don’t jeer, Uncle Dick, and I am sorry my tongue was too many for me; but I can see both sides of the question, and itishard that, after indulging Owen as a boy, sending him to Eton, putting him into the Hussars, and letting him become accustomed to the Service, sport, and society, you suddenly pull up and throw him out in the world to sink or swim. What can he do?”
“That is for him to find out, and, since he wouldn’t pull up, I must.”
“Listen to me,” she said, rising and coming closer to him; “supposing Owen were to give you a promise in writing that he would stick steadily to one situation for two years, what would you say then?”
“I’d say that the promise would not be worth the paper it was written on!” he answered, with gruff emphasis. “Givemedeeds, not documents.”
“Oh, so that is your opinion and your last word?”
“It’s my opinion—yes—but as to the last word, of course it’syourperquisite!” and he chuckled complacently.
Lady Kesters stood for a moment looking steadily at her uncle, and he as steadily at her. Then she slowly crossed the room and touched a bell to summon a footman, who presently ushered her out of the house.