“‘My Lord,’” went on the dictator. “‘This is to promise you that to-morrow morning I will hand tothe messenger you send to me all the papers of yours in my possession. I confess to having held those papers over you for the purpose of blackmail, and of having obtained from you the sum of eight thousand pounds, and I promise to amend my ways, and to endeavour to lead an honest life.Signed.A. S. Voles.’“ToThe Earl of Rochester.
“‘My Lord,’” went on the dictator. “‘This is to promise you that to-morrow morning I will hand tothe messenger you send to me all the papers of yours in my possession. I confess to having held those papers over you for the purpose of blackmail, and of having obtained from you the sum of eight thousand pounds, and I promise to amend my ways, and to endeavour to lead an honest life.
Signed.A. S. Voles.’“ToThe Earl of Rochester.
That was the letter.
Three times the rogue at the table refused to go on writing, and three times his master went to the door, the rattle of the door handle always inspiring the scribe to renewed energy.
When the thing was finished Jones read it over, blotted it, and put it in his pocket with the cheque.
“Now you can go,” said he. “I will send a man to-morrow morning at eight o’clock to your home for the papers. I will not use this letter against you, unless you give trouble—Well, what do you want?”
“Brandy,” gasped Voles. “For God’s sake some brandy.”
CHAPTER IXMORE INTRUDERS
The little glass that had held thefin champagnestood on the table, the door was shut, Voles was gone, and the incident was ended.
Jones, for the first time in his life, felt the faintness that comes after supreme exertion. He could never have imagined that a thing like that would have so upset him. He was unconscious during the whole of the business that he was putting out more energy than ordinary, he knew it now as he contemplated the magnitude of his victory, sitting exhausted in the big saddle-bag chair on the left of the fire place and facing the door.
He had crushed the greatest rogue in London, taken from him eight thousand pounds of ill gotten money, and freed himself of an incubus that would have made his position untenable.
Rochester could have done just the same, had he possessed daring, and energy, and courage enough. He hadn’t, and there was an end of it.
At this moment a knock came to the door, and a flunkey—a new one—appeared.
“Dinner is served, my Lord.”
Jones sat up in his chair.
“Dinner,” said he. “I’m not ready for it yet. Fetch me a whisky and soda—look here, tell Mr. Church I want to see him.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Jones, as stated before, possessed that very rare attitude—an eye for men. It was quite unknown to him; up to this he had been condemned to take men as he found them; the pressure of circumstances alone had made him a business partner with Aaron Stringer. He had never trusted Stringer. Now, being in a position of command, he began to use this precious gift, and he selected Church for a first officer. He wanted a henchman.
The whisky and soda arrived, and, almost immediately on it, Church.
Jones, placing the half empty glass on the table, nodded to him.
“Come in,” said he, “and shut the door.”
Church closed the door and stood at attention. This admirable man’s face was constructed not with a view to the easy interpretation of emotions. I doubt if an earthquake in Carlton House Terrace and the vicinity could have altered the expression of it.
He stood as if listening.
Jones began: “I want you to go to-morrow at eight o’clock to No. 12B Jermyn Street to get some documents for me. They will be handed to you by A. S. Voles.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“You will bring them back to me here.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“I have just seen the gentleman, and I’ve just dealt with him. He is a very great rogue and I had to call an officer—a constable in. I settled him.”
Mr. Church opened his mouth as though he were going to speak. Then he shut it again.
“Go on,” said Jones. “What were you going to say?”
“Well, your Lordship, I was going to say that I am very glad to hear that. When you told me four months ago, in confidence, what Voles was having out of you, you will remember what advice I gave your Lordship. ‘Don’t be squeezed,’ I said. ‘Squeeze him.’ Your Lordship’s solicitor, Mr. Mortimer Collins, I believe, told you the same.”
“I have taken your advice. I find it so good that I am going to ask your advice often again—Do you see any difference in me, Mr. Church?”
“Yes, my Lord, you have changed. If your Lordship will excuse me for saying so.”
“How?”
“You have grown younger, my Lord, and more yourself, and you speak different—sharper, so to say.”
These words were Balm of Gilead to Jones. He had received no opinion of himself from others till now; he had vaguely mistrusted his voice, unable to estimate in how much it differed from Rochester’s. The perfectly frank declaration of Church put his mind at rest. He spoke sharper—that was all.
“Well,” said he. “Things are going to be different all round; better too.”
He turned away towards the bureau, and Church opened the door.
“You don’t want me any longer, my Lord?”
“Not just now.”
He opened Kelly’s directory, and looked up the solicitors, till he came to the name he wanted.
Mortimer Collins, 10, Sergeant’s Inn, Fleet Street.
“That’s my man,” said he to himself, “and to-morrow I will see him.” He closed the book and left the room.
He did not know the position of the dining room, nor did he want to. A servant seeing him, and taking it for granted that at this late hour he did not want to dress, opened a door.
Next minute he was seated alone at a large table, stared at by defunct Rochesters and their wives, and spreading his table napkin on his knees.
The dinner was excellent, though simple enough. English society has drifted a long way from the days when Lord Palmerston sat himself down to devour two helpings of turtle soup, the same of cod and oyster sauce, a huge plateful of York ham, a cut from the joint, a liberal supply of roast pheasant, to say nothing of kickshaws and sweets; the days when the inside of a nobleman after dinner was a provision store floating in sherry, hock, champagne, old port, and punch.
Nothing acts more quickly upon the nervous system than food; before the roast chicken and salad were served, Jones found himself enjoying his dinner, and, more than that, enjoying his position.
The awful position of the morning had lost its terrors, the fog that had surrounded him was breaking. Wrecked on this strange, luxuriant, yet hostile coast, he had met the natives, fed with them, fought them, and measured their strength and cunning.
He was not afraid of them now. The members of the Senior Conservative Club Camp had left him unimpressed, and the wild beast Voles had bequeathed to him a lively contempt for the mental powers of the man he had succeeded.
Rightly or wrongly, all Lords caught a tinge of the lurid light that shewed up Rochester’s want of vim and mental hitting power.
But he did not feel a contempt for Lords as such. He was longing to appreciate the fact that to be a Lord was to be a very great thing. Even a Lord who had let his estates run to ruin—like himself.
A single glass of iced champagne—he allowed himself only one—established this conviction in his mind, also the recognition that the flunkeys no longer oppressed him, they rather pleased him. They knew their work and performed it perfectly, they hung on his every word and movement.
Yesterday, sitting where he was, he would have been feeling out of place, and irritable and awkward. Even a few hours ago he would have felt oppressed and wanting to escape somewhere by himself. What lent him this new magic of assurance and sense of mastery of his position? Undoubtedly it was his battle with Voles.
Coffee was served to him in the smoking room, and there, sitting alone with a cigar, he began clearly and for the first time to envisage his plans for the future.
He could drop everything and run. Book a passage for the United States, enter New York as Lord Rochester, just as a diver enters the sea, and emerge as Jones. He could keep the eight thousand pounds with a clear conscience—or couldn’t he?
This point seemed a bit obscure.
He did not worry about it much. The main question had not to do with money. The main question was simply this, shall I be Victor Jones for the future, or shall I be the Earl of Rochester? The twenty-first Earl of Rochester?
Shall I clear out, or stick to my guns? Remain boss of this show and try and make something of the wreckage, or sneak off with nothing to show for the most amazing experience man ever underwent?
Rochester had sneaked off. He was a quitter. Jones had once read a story in the Popular Magazine, in which a Railway Manager had cast scorn on a ne’er-do-well. “God does surely hate a quitter,” said the manager.
These words always remained with him. They had crystallised his sentiments in this respect: the quitter ranked in his mind almost with the sharper.
All the same the temptation to quit was strong, even though the temptation to stay was growing.
A loophole remained open to him. It was not necessary to decide at once; he could throw down his cards at any moment and rise from the table if the game was getting too much for him, or if he grew tired of it.
He saw difficult times ahead for him in the mess in which Rochester had left his affairs—that was, perhaps, his strongest incentive to remain.
He was roused from his reverie by voices in the hall. Loud cheery voices.
A knock came to the door and a servant announced: “Sir Hugh Spicer and Captain Stark to see you, my Lord.” Jones sat up in his chair. “Show them in,” said he.
The servant went out and returned ushering in a short bibulous looking young man in evening dress covered with a long fawn coloured overcoat; this gentleman was followed by a half bald, evil looking man of fifty or so, also in evening attire.
This latter wore a monocle in what Jones afterwards mentally called, “his twisted face.”
“Look at him!” cried the young man, “sitting in his blessed arm chair and not dressed. Look at him!”
He lurched slightly as he spoke, and brought up at the table where he hit the inkstand with the cane he was carrying, sending inkpot and pens flying. Jones looked at him.
This was Hughie. Pillar of the Criterion bar, President of the Rag Tag Club, baronet and detrimental—and all at twenty three.
“Leave it alone, Hughie,” said Stark, going to thesilver cigar box and helping himself. “Less of that blessed cane, Hughie—why, Jollops, what ails you?”
He stared at Jones as he lit a cigar. Jones looked at him.
This was Spencer Stark, late Captain in His Majesty’s Black Hussars, gambler, penniless, always well dressed, and always well fed—Terrible. Just as beetles are beetles, whether dressed in tropical splendour or the funereal black of the English type, so are detrimentals detrimentals. Jones knew his men.
“I beg your pardon,” said he, “did you mean that name for me?”
He rose as he spoke, and crossing to the bell rang it. They thought he was speaking in jest and ringing for drinks; they laughed, and Hughie began to yell, yell, and slash the table with his cane in time to what he was yelling.
This beast, who was never happy unless smashing glasses, making a noise or tormenting his neighbours, who had never been really sober for the space of some five years, who had destroyed a fine estate, and broken his mother’s heart, seemed now endeavouring to break his wanghee cane on the table.
The noise was terrific.
The door opened and calves appeared.
“Throw that ruffian out,” said Jones.
“Out with him,” cried Hughie, throwing away his cane at this joke. “Come on, Stark, let’s shove old Jollops out of doors.”
He advanced to the merry attack, and Stark, livenedup by the other, closed in, receiving a blow on the midriff that seated him in the fender.
The next moment Hughie found himself caught by a firm hand, that had somehow managed to insert itself between the back of his collar and his neck, gripping the collar.
Choking and crowing he was rushed out of the room and across the hall to the front door, a running footman preceding him. The door was opened and he was flung into the street.
The ejection of Stark was an easier matter. The hats and coats were flung out and the door shut finally.
“If either of those guys comes here again,” said Jones to the acolyte, “call an officer—I mean a constable.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“I wonder how many more people I will have to fling out of this house,” said he to himself, as he returned to the smoking room. “My God, what a mess that chap Rochester must have made all round. Bar bummers like those! Heu!”
He ordered the ink to be cleared up, and then he sent for Mr. Church. He was excited.
“Church,” said he. “I’ve shot out two more of that carrion. You know all the men I have been fool enough to know. If they come here again tell the servants not to let them in.”
But he had another object in sending for Church. “Where’s my cheque book?” he asked.
Church went to the bureau and opened a lower drawer.
“I think you placed it here, my Lord.” He produced it.
When he was gone Jones opened the book; it was one of Coutt’s.
He knew his banker now as well as his solicitor. Then he sat down, and taking Rochester’s note from his pocket began to study the handwriting and signature.
He made a hundred imitations of the signature, and found for the first time in his life that he was not bad at that sort of work.
Then he burnt the sheets of paper he had been using, put the cheque book away and looked at the clock; it pointed to eleven.
He switched out the lights and left the room, taking his way upstairs.
He felt sure of being able to find the bed-room he had left that morning, and coming along the softly lit corridor he had no difficulty in locating it. He had half dreaded that the agile valet in the sleeved jacket might be there waiting to tuck him up, but to his relief the room was vacant.
He shut the door, and going to the nearest window pulled the blind up for a moment.
The moon was rising over London, and casting her light upon the Green Park. A huge summer moon. The sort of moon that conjures up ideas about guitars and balconies.
Jones undressed, and putting on the silk pyjamas that were laid out for him, got into bed, leaving only the light burning by the bedside.
He tried to recall the details of that wonderful day, failed utterly, switched out the light, and went to sleep.
CHAPTER XLADY PLINLIMON
The most curious thing in the whole of Jones’ extraordinary experiences was the way in which things affecting Rochester affected him. The coldness of the club members was an instance in point. He knew that their coldness had nothing to do with him, yet he resented it practically just as much as though it had.
Then again, the case of Voles. What had made him fight Voles with such vigour? It did not matter to him in the least whether Voles gave Rochester away or not, yet he had fought Voles with all the feeling of the man who is attacked, not of the man who is defending another man from attack.
The attitude of Spicer and the other scamp had roused his ire on account of its want of respect for him, the supposed Earl of Rochester. Rochester’s folly had inspired that want of respect, why should he, Jones, bother about it? He did. It hit him just as much as though it were levelled against himself. He had found, as yet to a limited degree, but still he had found that anything that would hurt Rochester would hurt him, that his sensibility was just as acuteunder his new guise, and, wonder of wonders, his dignity as a Lord just as sensitive as his dignity as a man.
If you had told Jones in Philadelphia that a day would come when he would be angry if a servant did not address him as “my Lord,” he would have thought you mad. Yet that day had come, or was coming, and that change in him was not in the least the result of snobbishness, it was the result of the knowledge of what was due to Rochester, Arthur Coningsby Delamere, 21st Earl of, from whom he could not disentangle himself whilst acting his part.
He was awakened by Mr. Church pulling up his window blinds.
He had been dreaming of the boarding-house in Philadelphia where he used to live, of Miss Wybrow, the proprietress, and the other guests, Miss Sparrow, Mr. Moese—born Moses—Mr. Hoffman, the part proprietor of Sharpes’ Drug Store, Mrs. Bertine, and the rest.
He watched whilst Mr. Church passed to the door, received the morning tea tray from the servant outside, and, placing it by the bed, withdrew. This was the only menial service which Mr. Church ever seemed to perform, with the exception of the stately carrying in of papers and letters at breakfast time.
Jones drank his tea. Then he got up, went to the window, looked out at the sunlit Green Park, and then rang his bell. He was not depressed nor nervous this morning. He felt extraordinarily fit. The powerful good spirits natural to him, a heritage better than afortune, were his again. Life seemed wonderfully well worth living, and the game before him the only game worth playing.
Then the Mechanism came into the room and began to act. James was the name of this individual. Dumb and serious and active as an insect, this man always filled Jones’ mind with wonderment; he seemed less a man than a machine. But at least he was a perfect machine.
Fully dressed now, he was preparing to go down when a knock came to the door and Mr. Church came in with a big envelope on a salver.
“This is what you requested me to fetch from Jermyn Street, my Lord.”
“Oh, you’ve been to Jermyn Street?”
“Yes, my Lord, directly I had served your tea at quarter to eight, I took a taxi.”
“Good!” said Jones.
He took the envelope, and, Church and the Mechanism having withdrawn, he sat down by the window to have a look at the contents.
The envelope contained letters.
Letters from a man to a woman. Letters from the Earl of Rochester to Sapphira Plinlimon. The most odiously and awfully stupid collection of love letters ever written by a fool to be read by a wigged counsel in a divorce court.
They covered three months, and had been written two years ago.
They were passionate, idealistic in parts, drivelling. He called her his “Ickle teeny weeny treasure.”Baby language—Jones almost blushed as he read.
“He sure was moulting,” said he, as he dropped letter after letter on the floor. “And he paid eight thousand to hold these things back—well, I don’t know, maybe I’d have done the same myself. I can’t fancy seeing myself in thePhiladelphia Ledgerwith this stuff tacked on to the end of my name.”
He collected the incriminating documents, placed them in the envelope, and came downstairs with it in his hand.
Breakfast was an almost exact replica of the meal of yesterday; the pile of letters brought in by Church was rather smaller, however.
These letters were a new difficulty, they would all have to be answered, the ones of yesterday, and the ones of to-day.
He would have to secure the services of a typist and a typewriter: that could be arranged later on. He placed them aside and opened a newspaper. He was accustomed enough now to his situation to be able to take an interest in the news of the day. At any moment his environment might split to admit of a new Voles or Spicer, or perhaps some more dangerous spectre engendered from the dubious past of Rochester; but he scarcely thought of this, he had gone beyond fear, he was up to the neck in the business.
He glanced at the news of the day, reading as he ate. Then he pushed the paper aside. The thought had just occurred to him that Rochester had paid that eight thousand not to shield a woman’s name but toshield his own. To prevent that gibberish being read out against him in court.
This thought dimmed what had seemed a brighter side of Rochester, that obscure thing which Jones was condemned to unveil little by little and bit by bit. He pushed his plate away, and at this moment Mr. Church entered the breakfast room.
He came to the table and, speaking in half lowered voice said:
“Lady Plinlimon to see you, your Lordship.”
“Lady Plinlimon?”
“Yes, your Lordship. I have shown her into the smoking room.”
Jones had finished breakfast. He rose from the table, gathered the letters together, and with them in his hand followed Church from the breakfast room to the smoking room. A big woman in a big hat was seated in the arm chair facing the door.
She was forty if an hour. She had a large unpleasant face. A dominating face, fat featured, selfish, and made up by art.
“Oh, here you are,” said she as he entered and closed the door. “You see I’m out early.”
Jones nodded, went to the cigarette box, took a cigarette and lit it.
The woman got up and did likewise. She blew the cigarette smoke through her nostrils, and Jones, as he watched, knew that he detested her. Then she sat down again. She seemed nervous.
“Is it true what I hear, that your sister has left you and gone to live with your mother?”
“Yes,” said Jones, remembering the bird woman of yesterday morning.
“Well, you’ll have some peace now, unless you let her back—but I haven’t come to talk of her. It’s just this, I’m in a tight place.”
“Oh!”
“A very tight place. I’ve got to have some money—I’ve got to have it to-day.”
“Oh!”
“Yes. I ought to have had it yesterday, but a deal I had on fell through. You’ve got to help me, Arthur.”
“How much do you want?”
“Fifteen hundred. I’ll pay it back soon.”
“Fifteen hundred pounds?”
“Yes, of course.”
A great white light, cold and clear as the dawn of Truth, began to steal across the mind of Jones. Why had this woman come to him this morning so quickly after the defeat of Voles who held her letters? How had Voles obtained those letters? This question had occurred to him before, and this question seemed to his practical mind pregnant now with possibilities.
“What do you want the money for?” asked he.
“Good heavens, what a question, what does a woman want money for? I want it, that’s enough—What else will you ask?”
“What was the deal you expected money from yesterday?”
“A stock exchange business.”
“What sort of business?”
She crimsoned with anger.
“I haven’t come to talk of that. I came as a friend to ask you for help. If you refuse, well, there that ends it.”
“Oh, no, it doesn’t,” said he. “I want to ask you a question.”
“Well, ask it.”
“It’s just a simple question.”
“Go on.”
“You expected to receive fifteen hundred pounds yesterday?”
“I did.”
“Did you expect to receive it from Mr. A. S. Voles?”
He saw at once that she was guilty. She half rose from her chair, then she sat down again.
“What on earth do you mean?” she cried.
“You know quite well what I mean,” replied he, “you would have had fifteen hundred of Voles’ takings on those letters. You heard last night I had refused to part. He was only your agent. There’s no use in denying it. He told me all.”
Her face had turned terrible, white as death, with the rouge showing on the white.
“It is all untrue,” she stuttered. “It is all untrue.” She rose staggering. He did not want to pursue the painful business, the pursuit of a woman was not in his line. He went to the door and opened it for her.
“It is all untrue. I’ll write to you about this—untrue.”
She uttered the words as she passed out. He reckoned she knew the way to the hall door, and, shutting the door of the room, he turned to the fire place.
He was not elated. He was shocked. It seemed to him that he had never touched and handled wickedness before, and this was a woman in the highest ranks of life!
She had trapped Rochester into making love to her, and used Voles to extort eight thousand pounds from him on account of his letters.
She had hypnotized Rochester like a fowl. She was that sort. Held the divorce court over him as a threat—could Humanity descend lower? He went to “Who’s Who” and turned up the P’s till he found the man he wanted.
Plinlimon: 3rd Baron, created 1831, Albert James, b. March 10th 1862. O. S. of second Baron and Julia d. of J. H. Thompson, of Clifton, m. Sapphira. d. of Marcus Mulhausen, educ. privately. Address The Roost, Tite Street, Chelsea.
Thus spake, “Who’s Who.”
“I bet my bottom dollar that chap’s been in it as well as she,” said Jones, referring to Plinlimon, Albert James. Then a flash of humour lit the situation. Voles had returned eight thousand pounds; as an agent he had received twenty five per cent., say, therefore, he stood to lose at least six thousand. This pleased Jones more even than his victory. He had a racial, radical, soul-rooted antipathy to Voles. Not an anger against him, just an antipathy. “Now,” said he, ashe placed “Who’s Who” back on the bureau, “let’s get off and see Mortimer Collins.”
He left the house, and, calling a taxi cab, ordered the driver to take him to Sergeant’s Inn. He had no plan of campaign as regards Collins. He simply wanted to explore and find out about himself. Knowledge to him in his extraordinary position was armour, and he wanted all the armour he could get, fighting, as he was, not only the living present, but also another man’s past—and another man’s character, or want of character.
CHAPTER XITHE COAL MINE
Sergeant’s Inn lies off Fleet Street, a quiet court surrounded with houses given over to the law. The law has always lived there ever since that time when, as Stow quaintly put it, “There is in and about the city a whole University as it were, of students, practicers, and pleaders, and judges of the laws of this realm, not living of common stipends, as in other universities it is for the most part done, but of their own private maintenance, as being fed either by their places or practices, or otherwise by their proper revenue, or exhibition of parents or friends—of their houses, there be at this day fourteen in all; whereof nine do stand within the liberties of this city, and five in the suburbs thereof.”
Sergeant’s Inn stood within the liberties, and there to-day it still stands, dusty, sedate, once the abode of judges and sergeants, now the home of solicitors. On the right of entrance lay the offices of Mortimer Collins, an elderly man, quiet, subfusc in hue, tall, sparsely bearded, a collector of old prints in his spare hours, and one of the most respected members of his profession.
His practice lay chiefly amongst the nobility and landed gentry, a fact vaguely hinted at by the whiteor yellow lettering on the tin deed boxes that lined the walls of his offices, setting forth such names and statements as: “The Cave Estate,” “Sir Jardine Jardine,” “The Blundell Estate,” and so forth and so on. He knew everyone, and everything about everyone, and terrible things about some people, and he was to be met with at the best houses. People liked him for himself, and he inspired the trust that comes from liking.
It was to this gentleman that Jones was shown in, and it was by this gentleman that he was received coldly, it is true, but politely.
Jones, with his usual directness, began the business.
“I have come to have a serious talk with you,” said he.
“Indeed,” said the lawyer, “has anything new turned up?”
“No. I want to talk about my position generally. I see that I have made a fool of myself.”
The man of law raised his hands lightly with fingers spread, the gesture was eloquent.
“But,” went on the other, “I want to make good, I want to clear up the mess.”
The lawyer sighed. Then he took a small piece of chamois leather from his waistcoat pocket and began to polish his glasses.
“You remember what I told you the day before yesterday,” said he; “have you determined to take my advice? Then you had nothing to offer me but some wild talk about suicide.”
“What advice?”
Collins made an impatient gesture.
“Advice—why to emigrate and try your luck in the Colonies.”
“H’m, h’m,” said Jones. “Yes, I remember, but since then I have been thinking things out. I’m going to stay here and make good.”
Again the lawyer made a gesture of impatience.
“You know your financial position as well as I do,” said he. “How are you to make good, as you express it, against that position? You can’t, you are hopelessly involved, held at every point. A month ago I told you to reduce your establishment and let Carlton House Terrace; you said you would and you didn’t. That hurt me. I would much sooner you had refused the suggestion. Well, the crash if it does not come to-day will come to-morrow. You are overdrawn at Coutts’, you can raise money on nothing, your urgent debts to tradesmen and so forth amount, as you told me the day before yesterday, to over two thousand five hundred pounds. See for yourself how you stand.”
“I say again,” said Jones, “that I am going to make good. All these affairs seem to have gone to pieces because—I have been a fool.”
“I’m glad you recognise that.”
“But I’m a fool no longer. You know that business about Voles?”
The man of affairs nodded.
“Well, what do you think of that?” He took Voles’ cheque from his pocket and laid it before the lawyer.
“Why, what is this?” said the other. “Eight thousand pounds.”
“He called on me for more blackmail,” replied Jones, “and I squeezed him, called in a—policeman, made him disgorge, and there’s his cheque. Do you, think he has money enough to meet it?”
“Oh, yes, he is very wealthy, but you told medistinctlyhe had only got a thousand out of you.”
Jones swore mentally. To take up the life and past of a rogue is bad, to take up the life and past of a weak-kneed and shifty man is almost worse.
“I told you wrong,” said he.
Collins suppressed a movement of irritation and disgust. He was used to dealing with Humanity.
“What can a doctor do for a patient who holds back essential facts?” asked he. “Nothing. How can I believe what you say?”
“I don’t know,” replied the other. “But I just ask you to. I ask you to believe I’m changed. I’ve had a shock that has altered my whole nature. I’m not the same man who talked to you the day before yesterday.”
Collins looked at him curiously.
“You have altered,” said he, “your voice is different, somehow, too. I am not going to ask youwhathas brought about this change in your views. I only trust it may be so—and permanent.”
“Bedrock,” said Jones. “I’m going to begin right now. I’m going to let that caravan—”
“Caravan!”
“The Carlton House place, your idea is good, willyou help me through with it? I don’t know how to start letting places.”
“I will certainly assist you. In fact I believe I can get you a tenant at once. The Bracebridges want just such a house, furnished. I will get my clerk to write to them—if you really mean it.”
“I mean it.”
“Well, that’s something. I pressed the point about your really meaning it, because you were so violently opposed to such a course when I spoke of it before. In fact you were almost personal, as though I had proposed something disgraceful—though it was true you came to agree with me at last.”
“I guess the only disgrace is owing money and not being able to pay,” said the present Lord Rochester. “I’ve come to see that now.”
“Thank God!” said Collins.
“I’ll take rooms at a quiet hotel,” went on the other, “with this eight thousand and the rent from that Gazabo, I ought to tide over the rocks.”
“I don’t see why not, I don’t really see why not,” replied Collins cheerfully, “if you are steadfast in your purpose. Fortunately your wife’s property is untouched, and how about her?”
“Yes,” said Jones, with a cold shiver.
“The love of a good wife,” went on the other, “is a thing not to be bought, and I may say I have very good reason to believe that, despite all that has occurred, you still have your wife’s affection. Leaving everything else aside I think your greatest mistake was having your sister to live with you. It does not do,and, considering Miss Birdbrook’s peculiar temper, it especially did not do in your case. Now that things are different would you care to see your wife, and have a quiet talk over matters?”
“No,” said Jones, hurriedly. “I don’t want to see her—at least, not yet.”
“Well, please yourself,” replied the other. “Perhaps later on you will come to see things differently.”
The conversation then closed, the lawyer promising to let him know should he secure an offer for the house.
Jones, so disturbed by this talk about his wife that he was revolving in his mind plans to cut the whole business, said good-bye and took his departure. But he was not destined to leave the building just yet.
He was descending the narrow old stairs when he saw some people coming up, and drew back to let them pass.
A stout lady led the way and was followed by an elderly gentleman and a younger lady in a large hat.
“Why it is Arthur,” cried the stout woman. “How fortunate. Arthur, we have come to see Mr. Collins, such a terrible thing has happened.”
The unfortunate Jones now perceived that the lady with the huge hat was the bird woman, the elderly gentleman he had never seen before, but the elderly gentleman had evidently often seen him, was most probably a near relative, to judge by the frigidity and insolence of his nod and general demeanour. This old person had the Army stamp about him, and a very decided chin with a cleft in it.
“Better not talk out here,” said he, “come in, come in and see Collins.”
Jones did not want in the least to go in and see Collins, but he was burning to know what this dreadful thing was that had happened. He half dreaded that it had to do with Rochester’s suicide. He followed the party, and next moment found himself again in Collins’ room, where the lawyer pointed out chairs to the ladies, closed the door, and came back to his desk table where he seated himself.
“Oh, Mr. Collins,” said the elderly lady, “such a dreadful thing has happened—coal—they have found coal.” She collapsed.
The old gentleman with the cleft chin took up the matter.
“This idiot,” said he, indicating Jones, “has sold a coal mine, worth maybe a million, for five thousand. The Glanafwyn property has turned up coal. I only heard of it last night, and by accident. Struthers said to me straight out in the club, ‘Do you know that bit of land in Glamorgan, Rochester sold to Marcus Mulhausen?’ Yes, I said. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it’s not land, it’s the top of the biggest coal mine in Wales, steam coal, and Mulhausen is going to work it himself. He was offered two hundred and fifty thousand for the land last week, they have been boring there for the last half year,’ that’s what he told me, and I verified it this morning. Of course Mulhausen spotted the land for what it was worth, and laid his trap for this fool.”
Jones restrained his emotions with an effort, notknowing in the least his relationship to the violent one. Mr. Collins made it clear.
“Your nephew has evidently fallen into a trap, your Grace,” said he. Then turning to Jones:
“I warned you not to sell that land—Heaven knows I knew little enough of the district and less of its mineral worth; still, I was adverse from parting with land—always am—and especially to such a sharp customer as Mulhausen. I told you to have an expert opinion. I had not minerals in my mind. I thought, possibly, it might be some railway extension in prospect—and it was your last bit of property without mortgage on it. Yes, I told you not to do it, and it’s done.”
“Oh, Arthur,” sighed the elderly woman. “Your last bit of land—and to think it should go like that. I never dreamed I should have to say those words to my son.” Then stiffening and turning to Collins. “But I did not come to complain, I came to see if justice cannot be done. This is robbery. That terrible man with the German name has robbed Arthur. It is quite plain. What can be done?”
“Absolutely nothing,” replied Collins.
“Nothing?”
“Your ladyship must believe me when I say nothing can be done. What ground can we have for moving? The sale was perfectly open and above board. Mulhausen made no false statement—I am right in saying that, am I not?” turning to Jones.
Jones had to nod.
“And that being the case we are helpless.”
“But if it can be proved that he knew there was coal in the land, and if he bought it concealing that knowledge, surely, surely the law can make him give it back,” said the simple old lady, who it would seem stood in the place of Rochester’s unfortunate mother.
Mr. Collins almost smiled.
“Your ladyship, that would give no handle to the law. Now, for instance, if I knew that the Canadian Pacific Railway, let us say, had discovered large coal bearing lands, and if I used that private knowledge to buy your Canadian Pacific stock at, say, one hundred, and if that stock rose to three hundred, could you make me give you your stock back? Certainly not. The gain would be a perfectly legitimate product of my own sharpness.”
“Sharpness,” said the bird woman, “that’s just it. If Arthur had had even sense, to say nothing of sharpness, things would have been very different all round—all round.”
She protruded her head from her boa and retracted it. Jones, furious, dumb, with his hands in his pockets and his back against the window, said nothing.
He never could have imagined that a baiting like this, over a matter with which he had nothing to do, could have made him feel such a fool, and such an ass.
He saw at once how Rochester had been done, and he felt, against all reason, the shame that Rochester might have felt—but probably wouldn’t. His uncle, the Duke of Melford, for that was the choleric one’s name, his mother, the dowager Countess of Rochester,and his sister, the Hon. Venetia Birdbrook, now all rose up and got together in a covey before making their exit, and leaving this bad business and the fool who had brought it about.
You can fancy their feelings. A man in Rochester’s position may be anything, almost, as long as he is wealthy, but should he add the crime of poverty to his other sins he is lost indeed. And Rochester had not only flung his money away, he had flung a coal mine after it.
No wonder that his uncle did not even glance at him again as he left the room, shepherding the two women before him.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Collins, when they found themselves alone. It was the mildest thing he could say, and he said it.