CHAPTER XX.
AN EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSAL.
“Oh you have come to make my fortune!” said Percy Levant. “Pardon me, but that sounds rather—funny!” and he regarded Mr. Spenser Churchill with a faint smile.
“Funny!” echoed the philanthropist, in an injured tone, “why ‘funny’? I trust I have always proved myself your friend and well-wisher, my dear Percy?”
The young man smiled again, and stroked his silky mustache with his white, long, artistic-looking hand.
“Yes—oh, yes! I didn’t mean to be offensive, but you must allow that people don’t generally go about making other people’s fortunes—that’s all. Pray proceed. I’m all impatience, and grateful by anticipation! Goodness knows my fortune needs making very badly!” and he glanced round the room, and down at his shabby velvet jacket, which hung over a chair, with a little grimace.
“Forgive me, my dear Percy, if I remark that the poverty which you lament may be as much your fault as your misfortune.”
“I dare say,” he assented, with good-tempered indolence; “you mean that there is not enough of the busy bee about me, Mr. Churchill?”
The philanthropist shook his head gravely.
“I am afraid you have not been industrious, my dear Percy. Let us for a moment review your position.”
“Review it for half-an-hour if you like,” said the young fellow. “It won’t hurt me, and it will probably amuse you. Meanwhile, here’s something that won’t hurt you and will amuse both of us,” and he opened the door to the urchin who had brought the liquid refreshment. “Go ahead while I mix. Plenty of brandy in yours, eh?”
“Here you are, my dear Percy,” said Mr. Churchill, blandly, “in the possession of youth and health, and—shall I say—remarkable good looks——”
“Say what you like. You’ll excuse my not blushing.”
“And in addition to those great advantages, a wonderful talent for one of the fine arts. I believe, my dear Percy, that you are a musician of a high order——”
“Thanks again! Here’s your health!” interjected the young fellow. “Yes, I can ‘play a bit, and sing a bit, and jump Jim Crow.’ As to being a musician——” he shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“You play and sing like an artist, my dear Percy, and most young fellows so highly endowed as you are would have made a name for themselves and a place in the world.”
“Instead of which, here I am in dingy Soho, with the last two quarters’ rent unpaid, and forced to borrow a five-pound note from my dear friend, Mr. Spenser Churchill,” he said, lightly.
The philanthropist shook his head.
“What good will a five-pound note do you, Percy?”
“Well, ten pounds would certainly do me more good. Are you going to make it ten?”
“I will make it much more than ten if you will listen to me and—er—promise to follow my advice. Just consider your position, as I say, my dear Percy. Have you no ambition? Surely you, with your great gifts and youth and good looks, must feel that this is not the place for you——”
“That I am wasting my sweetness on the desert air.Just so. I often feel it; but once having got lost in the desert, it’s rather difficult to find one’s way out, you see. Have I no ambition?” The black eyes flashed, and the clear olive tint of his complexion grew warm. “Of course I have! What do you take me for—a mule, a packhorse? Why, man, I never see a well-dressed man of my own age but I envy him his clothes; I never lean over the railings in the park and watch the fellows riding by but I envy them their horses and their acquaintance with the pretty girls—the daughters and wives of swell people; I never pass a good club but I feel that I’d give ten years of my life to be a member and one of the class to which it belongs. Do you think I live in this stifling den from choice? Do you think I dine on a sixpenny plate of meat, and drink porter, sit in the gallery of a theatre, and wear old clothes because I like doing it?”
He drew himself up to his full height, and flashed down upon his observant listener for a second, then relapsed into his old lounging attitude, and laughed musically.
“Why do you come here with your Arabian Nights’ kind of speeches and stir me up! Bah, it’s too hot for such mental exercise,” and he sank into a chair and folded his hands behind his head. “No, Churchill, I am in the desert, and there I shall stick.”
“Unless some friendly guide extends a helping hand and leads you out,” said the philanthropist. “I can quite understand your feelings, my dear Percy, and I must say they are very natural ones. You are, without flattery, formed by nature to adorn a higher sphere than your present one. I don’t think any of the young fellows you envy could do greater credit to their wealth and position than you could do. Seriously, I think you were cut out for better things than teaching the piano to the daughters of the inhabitants of Soho and its neighborhood.”
“No doubt. I was intended for the heldest son of a hearl,” said Percy, sarcastically, “but there happens to be a hitch somewhere.”
“And suppose I tell you that I can undo that hitch, that I can give you a helping hand to better and higher things; in short, to repeat myself, to make your fortune! Think of it, my dear Percy. Plenty of money, the entrance to good society, horses to ride, club doors thrownopen to you, choice wines, men of rank for friends, and a world ready to welcome with outstretched hands good-looking and accomplished Mr. Percy Levant!”
The young fellow regarded him with the same incredulous smile, but there was a light of subdued eagerness in his eyes, and a warmer color in his face.
“You ought to go into the house, Churchill,” he said. “I don’t mean the workhouse, but the House of Commons. I suppose you learn all this kind of thing at your charitable public meetings? I’ll come and hear you some of these days; they tell me you make uncommonly good speeches. Well, go on. How is this fortune of mine to be made, and—excuse my bluntness—why are you so anxious to make it?”
“A very natural question, my dear Percy, and, believe me, I am not at all annoyed by it. I intend to be perfectly frank and open-minded with you——”
Percy Levant smiled, and got another cigar.
“I beg your pardon, Churchill, but the idea of your being frank rather tickled me. The spasm has passed, however; proceed. Is it a new gold mine you are going to ask me to become a director of? Or have you invented a new washing machine, and want me to travel for it? What is it?”
“It has always seemed so strange to me,” resumed Mr. Spenser Churchill, ignoring the interruption, “that you have never turned your attention to matrimony.”
The young fellow stared at him, then laughed sarcastically.
“You think that the palatial dimensions of this room are too large for one individual; that I should be more comfortable if I shared my sixpenny plate of meat and thread-bare wardrobe with another? My dear Churchill, you might as well ask a limping, footsore tramp why he doesn’t turn his attention to riding in a carriage and pair! Matrimony! Good Lord! I am not quite out of my mind!”
“But your wife need not be poor, my dear Percy. She may be rich in this world’s goods——”
“Oh, yes, I didn’t think of that; and you suggest that there are hundreds of wealthy heiresses who are dying to become Mrs. Percy Levant; perishing with the desire tobestow their hands and fortunes on the music teacher of Soho!”
“You would not be the first man who has married money,” said the philanthropist, smoothly. “But let me be more explicit, my dear Percy. By one of those strange chances, which are indeed providential, I happen to be acquainted with a young lady who would, in all respects, make you a most suitable wife.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” said Spenser Churchill, gravely, “the circumstances of the case are peculiar, not to say romantic. The fact is, I am that young lady’s guardian, not exactly such in a legally qualified sense, but by—er—an unfortunate accident; and, as her guardian, I am naturally desirous of promoting her present and future welfare. Ah, my dear Percy, how sacred a trust one undertakes when one accepts the care of a young and innocent girl!” and he looked up at the ceiling with a devout sigh.
Percy Levant smiled with mingled mockery and amusement.
“Very nice sentiments,” he said. “But go on. And this is the young lady you have in your eye for me, is it?”
The philanthropist nodded gravely.
“I confess it, my dear Percy. I have considered the question in all its numerous bearings, and I am convinced that I shall be promoting both her future welfare and yours by—er—bringing you together.”
Percy Levant stared at him.
“This grows serious,” he said. “And may I ask if this young lady is ‘rich in this world’s goods,’ as you so beautifully put it?”
“She is—or, rather, she will be,” replied Spenser Churchill, leaning forward, and speaking in a lower tone, and with his eyes fixed on the other man’s face with a keen, yet covert watchfulness. “I said that there were peculiar and romantic circumstances in the case, and one of them is this, that the young lady has no idea of the wealth which will some day be hers.”
“Oh!” said Percy, curtly, “she hasn’t, eh? Yes, that’s peculiar, certainly. I suppose there is no doubt about the golden future, eh?”
“It is as certain as that you and I are in this room.”
“And the romance—where does that come in?”
“Her story is a singular one. Her name——” he stopped suddenly, and smiled blandly, “but perhaps I’d better reserve that for a while, my dear Percy.”
“Yes, you’d better,” rejoined the young man, sarcastically. “I might go in for the speculation on my own account, and throw you over! Churchill, for a saint, you are singularly suspicious!”
“Not suspicious, my dear Percy; say careful, perhaps cautious,” suggested the philanthropist, with an oily smile.
“All right; choose your own word! Go on.”
“The young lady’s career has been a singular one; she has been an actress.”
Percy whistled and stared.
“But she is a lady in every sense of the word,” continued Spenser Churchill, slowly and significantly. “She has left the stage, acting on my advice, and in consequence of the death of her only relative, and is living now with some dear friends of mine. With the exception of myself, she has no one to turn to for advice and assistance. I am her sole guardian, and—I may say—friend. She will, I am sure, be guided entirely by me, and that is why I am so anxious to provide for her future welfare.”
“By marrying her to a needy adventurer,” finished Percy Levant, with a smile.
“No; to one who, though deficient in the energy which achieves greatness by its own strength is, I am sure, a man of honor,” said Spencer Churchill, suavely.
Percy Levant stared at him with a curious smile.
“This is amusing and romantic with a vengeance,” he said. “And the young lady—of course she is as ugly as sin?”
Spenser Churchill was about to answer in the negative, and dilate upon Doris’ beauty, but he stopped himself and made a gesture of denial with his hands.
“By no means, my dear Percy. This, I will say, that she is refined, accomplished, amiable——”
“And quiet in single or double—especially double—harness?”
“In sporting parlance, my dear Percy, that exactly describes my charming ward.”
The young man took a turn up and down the room, and then, resuming his old attitude, looked down upon the smooth face of the tempter with a curious and half-troubled regard.
“You don’t offer me a penny for my thoughts, Churchill, and so I’ll just make you a present of them. I am wondering—what—the—devil—you are going to gain in this business. Wait a moment. You come here and offer this young girl to me—is she young, by the way?”
Spenser Churchill nodded and smiled.
“To me—a penniless man, without position or anything else that makes a man eligible for a husband——”
“You forget your youth and good looks—your undoubted talents, dear Percy,” murmured the philanthropist.
“A most undesirable match in every way,” went on the other, taking no notice of this interpolation. “Why do you do it? Of course, you have some game——”
“My dear Percy!”
“Oh, nonsense. For Heaven’s sake, let us have no hypocrisy. You offer to sell this girl to me, with her fortune in the future—what is the price I am to pay for it?”
“If you insist upon putting it with such—may I say—barbaric directness——”
“Yes, I do. I want the thing plain and distinct. I don’t suppose it is for any love of me that you come, as you say, to ‘make my fortune!’”
“Not altogether; though I have always regarded you as a very dear friend, Percy.”
The young man made a movement of impatience.
“Yes, yes, I know! But you have some object in view; what is it? You don’t want me to believe that I am to give you nothing in return for a wealthy wife. What is it?”
Spenser Churchill drew a paper from his pocket.
“Really, it is marvelously like Faust and Mephistopheles, isn’t it?”
“If that’s a document I am to sign, it really is,” assented Percy, with a grim smile.
“Well, I shall want your signature, my dear Percy, but only in ordinary ink—only in ordinary ink.”
“What does it contain?” asked the young fellow. “One moment before you tell me. If it is anything detrimental—anything that would interfere with the happiness of this young girl, you can put your precious paper back in your pocket and light your pipe with it.”
“Right, quite right; your caution does credit to your heart and honor, my dear Percy,” said Spenser Churchill. “I say nothing of the injustice you’ve done to me by your suspicion. I forgive you! In a word, this is a little bond by which you undertake three things. To marry the young lady when I shall request you, and not till then; to keep the marriage secret until I give you permission to disclose it, and on your wedding day to pay me ten thousand pounds, or give me a bond for that amount.”
“Is that all?” demanded Percy Levant, staring at him with knitted brows.
“Yes; and I don’t think the conditions over hard. Consider, my dear Percy; I don’t think you would have a chance of knowing who the young lady is without I tell you, you certainly haven’t of marrying her without my assistance; as to the secrecy of the affair—why, that is not a great hardship; and for ten thousand pounds, believe me, my dear Percy, that it will be but a bagatelle to the man who shall marry my ward.”
“She will be very rich then?”
“Very rich.”
“How am I to know that this is not a trick of yours, my good Churchill?—that I may marry thisprotégéeof yours, and wake up to find that it is ‘beggar mated to beggar’?”
Spenser Churchill nodded a smiling approval.
“A very proper question, very proper. If you will look over this bond, you will see that the payment of the ten thousand pounds is contingent upon the young lady’s becoming possessed of at least twenty thousand a year. Do me the favor of perusing it; it is very short and very simple.”
“And very sweet,” said Percy, and he rapidly ran over the paper. “I see you have left a blank where the young lady’s name should go.”
“Which I will fill in when you have signed.”
“Ah! How long will you give me to consider this extraordinary proposal of yours?”
“Exactly five minutes,” said Spenser Churchill blandly; “and excuse me, my dear Percy, if I say that that is four minutes too long! My dear young friend, consider! A young, refined, accomplished lady, with a future fortune of at least twenty thousand a year—and you hesitate. Are you so fond of Soho, and this rather—excuse me—squalid life of yours? Think what a vista this opens before you? You are ambitious. I present you with a golden ladder by which you may climb to any height you please. What are your prospects now, save those of a lifelong drudgery with the workhouse at the end? You, whose gifts warrant your taking your place among the flower of the land——”
“Wait, wait!” interrupted Percy. “I can’t think with your drivel buzzing in my ears! I want to think! Man alive, I can scarcely believe that this is sober earnest, and if it were not for the price you exact, I should find it impossible to do so; but now I see your game, or part of it——” he wandered to the piano as he spoke, and dropping into his music chair, abstractly let his hands stray over the keys.
“I think more easily to music,” he murmured, dreamily.
Spenser Churchill watched him in silence for a few minutes, then he said:
“Time is up, my dear Percy. Is it to be ‘Yes,’ or ‘No?’”
The young fellow rose from the piano; his face was pale, and his eyes glowing with a strange excitement.
“I cannot resist it!” he said, in a low voice, whose tremor belied his faint smile. “You are right—more right than you guessed—when you said I was ambitious. I am sick and weary of this life of squalid drudgery. I feel as if I would sell my soul—perhaps I am doing it!—to get out of it. Give me the paper and I’ll sign it!”
Spenser Churchill spread it on the table, and Percy Levant snatched up a pen and wrote his name.
“There!” he said, pushing it from him, folding his arms, and looking down at Spenser Churchill with an almost defiant light in his dark eyes. “And now whatnext? I am all attention! Who and where is my future bride, and when shall I see her?”
“Her name is Doris Marlowe,” said Spenser Churchill, softly, writing the name in the blank left for the purpose as he spoke. “She is at present acting as companion to Lady Despard, and you shall see her in a day or two.”
“Doris Marlowe!” repeated Percy Levant. “Doris Marlowe; it sounds pretty, ‘but a rose by any other name,’ etc.; and she is acting as companion to Lady Despard, is she? And has no suspicion of the wealth that will be hers? Churchill, are you sure that this is not a fiction born of your too fertile imagination?”
“You will see in a day or two,” said Spenser Churchill.
“It is really genuine? And what is the plan to be adopted? You will, I suppose, introduce me as a prince traveling incog., a millionaire in embryo, a something brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes of the young lady and carry her fancy captive? Is this to be the line?”
The philanthropist shook his head with an indulgent smile.
“No, my dear Percy; I’m free to admit that that is the kind of thing most men would do; but I think that you and I are too wise, not to say too honorable, to adopt such a course of deception.”
Percy Levant laughed sardonically.
“Pardon; I forgot that you were a man of high principle, and a light of Exeter Hall. Well, what will you do?”
“I shall tell the truth,” said Spenser Churchill, with a virtuous uplifting of the eyes. “I shall introduce you to Lady Despard as a musical genius—you are a genius, you know, my dear Percy!—struggling against the difficulties and obstacles insuperable to poverty and—er—that kind of thing. Lady Despard is never so happy as when she is assisting struggling talent, and she will receive any one whom I recommend; dear Lady Despard! The rest I leave to you. If you cannot find a way to Miss Marlowe’s heart, then I will confess that I am very much mistaken in you.”
“Thanks for your flattering opinion,” said Percy, with a short bow. “I will do my best—or my worst, which is it? Meanwhile, touching that ten pounds!”
“You shall have it with pleasure,” said Spenser Churchill, and he took a note from his purse and handed it to him with a benevolent smile. “Do not spend it——”
“In riotous living! No, father patriarch, I won’t; I will buy myself some decent clothes, and get my hair cut, for I’ve noticed that your Lady Despards take a great deal more interest in struggling genius when it is clean and neatly dressed.”
Spenser Churchill nodded.
“You know the world, I see, my dear Percy. I think that is all we need say. We thoroughly understand each other——”
“I thoroughly understand you,” returned the young fellow; “whether you understand me is quite another matter.”
“I think I do, I think I do,” murmured Spenser Churchill, blandly. “I think that you will do your best to win the game which will secure you a charming wife and future independence. Good-by, my dear Percy. Don’t let the new suit of clothes be too resplendent; remember that you are a poor young man of genius.”
“I’m not likely to forget the poverty,” said Percy, slowly. “Good-by. Mind how you go downstairs; there are generally from twenty to thirty children asleep on them at this hour, and the parents, strange to say, have an unreasonable objection to having them smashed.”
“I will take care,” said the philanthropist, and, with a murmured benediction, he ambled out.