A queer atmosphere of depression seemed about this time to have affected the two inhabitants of Number 94 Grosvenor Square. The Marquis had suddenly become aware of an aimlessness in life which not even his new financial hopes enabled him to combat. The night of his weekly dinner at Trewly's he spent in the entertainment of three ancient whist companions, and it was not until they had gone and he was left alone in the silent house that he realised how empty and profitless the evening had been. Day by day, after lunch, he sent out the same message to his chauffeur—five o'clock for the club instead of three o'clock for Battersea, and on each occasion the words seemed to leave his lips with more reluctance. He walked each morning in the Park, as carefully dressed and as upright as ever, but one or two of his acquaintances noticed a certain difference. There was an increased pallor, a listlessness of gait, which seemed to bespeak an absent or a preoccupied mind. He even welcomed the coming, one morning just as he was starting for his promenade, of Mr. Wadham, Junior. Here at least was diversion.
Mr. Wadham, Junior, had been rehearsing his interview and his prospective deportment towards the Marquis on the way up, and he started the enterprise to his own entire satisfaction. He entered the library with an exceedingly serious air, and he took great pains to be sure that the door was closed after the retreating butler before he did more than respond to his distinguished client's greeting.
"Anything fresh, Wadham?" the latter enquired.
"I have ventured to see your lordship once more," Mr. Wadham began, "with reference to the scrip which we deposited at the bank to meet certain liabilities on your behalf."
"Well, what about it?" the Marquis asked good-humouredly. "You lawyers know nothing of the Stock Exchange."
Mr. Wadham assumed an expression of great gravity.
"Would your lordship," he begged, "for the satisfaction of my firm, the members of which I think you will admit have always been devoted to your lordship's interests, ring up the stockbroking firm of—say—Messrs. Youngs, Fielden and Company, or any other you like, with reference to the value of those shares?"
"I am, unfortunately," the Marquis replied, "not in a position to do so. The shares were sold me by a personal friend. I am content to believe that if they had not been of their face value, the transaction would not have been suggested to me."
"That," Mr. Wadham declared seriously, "is not business."
"It happens to be the only way in which I can look upon the matter," was the cool reply.
"To proceed a little further," the lawyer continued, "I am here to enquire, solely in your own interests and as a matter of business, whether you have made any definite agreement to pay for these shares? I am under the impression that your lordship mentioned a note of hand."
"I have signed," the Marquis acknowledged, "a bill, I believe the document was called, for forty thousand pounds, due in about two months' time."
"Has your lordship any idea as to how this liability is to be met?"
"None at all. It is possible that the shares will have advanced in value sufficiently to justify my selling them. If not, I take it that the bank will advance the sum against the scrip."
Mr. Wadham, Junior, could scarcely contain himself.
"Does your lordship know," he exclaimed, "that the bank hesitated about advancing a sum of less than a thousand pounds upon the security of those shares?"
The Marquis yawned.
"They will probably have changed their minds in two months' time," he remarked.
"But if they have not?" Mr. Wadham persisted.
"It is the unfortunate proclivity of you who are immersed in the narrow ways of legal procedure," his client observed, "to look only upon the worst side of a matter. Personally, I am an optimist. I rather expect to make a fortune on those shares."
"It is the belief of my firm, on the contrary," Mr. Wadham confessed gloomily, "that they will end in a petition in bankruptcy being presented against your lordship."
The Marquis shook out his handkerchief, wiped his lips and lit a cigarette.
"Yours appears to be rather a dismal errand, Mr. Wadham," he said coldly. "Is there any reason why I should detain you further?"
"None whatever, so long as I have made it quite clear that there is no prospect of raising a single half-penny in excess of the mortgages already completed. The matter of the forty thousand pounds draft is, of course, entirely in your lordship's hands. I thought it my duty to inform you as to the value of the shares, in case you were able to persuade the gentleman who sold them to you to cancel the transaction."
"You mean well, Wadham, no doubt," the Marquis declared, a little patronisingly, "but, as I said before, your turn of mind is too legal. My respects to your father. You will forgive my ringing, will you not? Lady Letitia is waiting for me to walk with her."
Mr. Wadham departed, saying blasphemous things all the way into Piccadilly, and the Marquis walked with Lady Letitia in the Park. As a rule their conversation, although mostly of personal matters, was conducted in light-hearted fashion enough by Letitia, and responded to with a certain dry though stately humour by her father. This morning, however, a silence which amounted almost to constraint reigned between them. The Marquis, realising this, finally dragged his thoughts with difficulty away from his own affairs.
"I had intended to speak to you, Letitia," he began, "concerning the announcement of your marriage. Some festivities must naturally follow, and a meeting between myself and the Duke."
"Whom you hate like poison, don't you, dad!" Letitia said, with a little grimace. "Well, so do I, for the matter of that."
"One's personal feelings are scarcely of account in such a case," the Marquis averred; "that is to say, any personal feelings with the exception of yours and Grantham's. The match is suitable in every way, and at a time when every young man of account is being chased by a new race of ineligible young women, it must be a comfort to his family to contemplate an alliance like this."
Letitia shrugged her shoulders.
"With regard to the actual announcement, dad," she said, "we are going to keep it to ourselves for a few weeks longer, or at any rate until we are safely settled in the country. It's such a bore to have every one you have ever spoken to in your life come rushing round to wish you happiness and that sort of thing. Charlie rather agrees with me."
"The matter, naturally, is in your hands," the Marquis replied, with a slight air of relief.
"Of course, I am seeing rather more of Charlie," Letitia went on, "but people won't take any notice of that. There have been rumours of our engagement at least half a dozen times already. Aren't you getting just a little sick, dad, of this everlasting walk and these everlasting people we keep on bowing to and wish we didn't know?"
"I hadn't thought of it exactly in that way," her father confessed, "and yet perhaps London is a little wearisome this season."
"I think," Letitia sighed, "that I never felt so keen about leaving town and getting into the country. I suppose you wouldn't care to go down to Mandeleys a week earlier, would you?" she asked tentatively.
The Marquis looked upwards towards the tops of the trees. He thought of that particular spot on the hall table where notes were left for him, of the old-fashioned silver salver laid by his side on the breakfast table, upon which his letters were placed. He thought of the queer new feeling with which, day by day, he glanced them through, opening none, searching always, covering his disappointment by means of some ingenious remark; and of the days when he returned from such a walk as this, or from the club, his eyes glued upon the sideboard even while the butler was relieving him of his coat and gloves. This morning all the accumulated sickness, all the little throbs of disappointment, seemed to be lumped into one gigantic and intolerable depression, so that his knees even trembled a little while he walked, and his feet felt as though they were shod with lead. He remembered his sleepless nights. He thought of that dull ache which came to him sometimes in the still hours, when he lay and fancied that he could hear her voice, her cheerful laugh, the tender touch of her fingers. He felt a sudden, overmastering desire to be free, at any rate, from that minute by minute agony. At Mandeleys there would be only the post. Or perhaps, if he made up his mind to leave town earlier than he had expected, he would not be breaking his word to himself if he sent just a line to tell her of his changed plans. The country, by all means!
"So far as I am concerned, Letitia," he said, "I think that I have never before felt so strongly the desire to leave London. I suppose that, if we were content to take things quietly, we could collect a few servants and be comfortable there?"
"I am sure of it, dad!" she exclaimed eagerly. "You don't need to bother. I could arrange it all," she went on, passing her arm through his. "Four or five women will be all that we need, and Mrs. Harris can collect those in the village. Then we need only take Gossett and Smith from here, and of course cook. The others can go on to board wages."
The Marquis smiled indulgently.
"You must not disperse the establishment too completely, my dear," he said. "I have great hopes that a certain business venture which I have made will place us in a very different financial position before very long."
She looked a little dubious.
"Was that what Mr. Wadham was worrying about this morning?" she asked.
"Mr. Wadham, Junior, is a most ignorant young man," her father proclaimed stiffly. "The venture, such as it is, is one which I have made entirely on my own responsibility."
A sudden thought struck her. Her arm tightened upon her father's.
"Has it anything to do with Mr. Thain?"
"It was Mr. Thain who placed the matter before me," he assented.
"And Mr. Wadham doesn't approve?"
"You really are a most intelligent young person," her father declared, smiling. "Mr. Wadham's disapproval, however, does not disturb me."
Letitia was conscious of a curious uneasiness.
"Are you quite sure that Mr. Thain is an honest man, father?" she asked.
The Marquis's eyebrows were slightly elevated.
"My dear!" he said reprovingly. "Mr. Thain's position as a financier is, I believe, beyond all question. Your aunt, who, you will remember, first brought him to us, spoke of his reputation in the States as being entirely unexceptionable."
"After all, aunt only met him on the steamer," Letitia observed.
"Consider further," the Marquis continued, "that he has taken Broomleys and will therefore be a neighbour of ours for some time. Do you think that he would have done this with the knowledge in his mind he had involved me in a transaction which was destined to have an unfortunate conclusion?"
Letitia was silent. Her fine forehead was clouded by a little perplexed frown. The problem of David Thain was not so easily solved. Then the Duchess called to them from her car and beckoned Letitia to her side.
"I have heard rumours, Letitia," she whispered.
Letitia nodded.
"I was coming round to see you, aunt," she replied. "We are not going to announce it until a little later on."
The Duchess smiled her approbation.
"I am delighted," she declared. "You are so difficult, Letitia, and there are so many girls about just now, trying to get hold of our young men. Some one was telling me only last night of an American girl—or was she South American; I don't remember—with millions and millions, who almost followed Charlie about. Of course, that sort of thing is being done, but it hasn't happened in our family yet. Dear people, both of you! When are you going to Mandeleys?"
"We have just decided," the Marquis told her, "to shorten our stay in London. Letitia's engagements are capable of curtailment, and my own are of no account. We are thinking of going at once."
"And your neighbour," the Duchess enquired; "when is he going into residence?"
"I have not heard."
"I am expecting him to come to Scotland later on," she observed.
The Marquis was gently surprised.
"Won't he be just a little—"
"Not at all," the Duchess interrupted. "He shoots and fishes, and does everything other men do. I am not quite sure," she went on, "that you thoroughly appreciate Mr. Thain."
"My dear Caroline, you are entirely mistaken," the Marquis assured her. "What Letitia's sentiments with regard to him may be, I do not know, but so far as I am concerned, I consider him a most desirable acquisition to my acquaintances."
"If only I had your manner!" she said earnestly. "Poor Mr. Thain!"
With a little nod she drove off. The Marquis and Letitia continued their promenade.
"Why 'Poor Mr. Thain'?" the former mused. "Exactly what did Caroline mean, I wonder?"
"I think," Letitia replied, "that she was emphasising the distinction between your acceptance of Mr. Thain and hers."
Her father remained puzzled.
"Mr. Thain has been a guest at my house," he said, "and we shall treat him as a neighbour when we meet at Mandeleys."
"Those things are indications of a friendly feeling," Letitia observed, "but you yourself know where you have placed the barriers. Now Aunt Caroline doesn't mean to have any barriers. If Mr. Thain can be awakened to his great opportunities, it is perfectly clear that she means to enter upon a flirtation with him."
The Marquis was a little shocked.
"You are somewhat blunt, my dear," he said. "So far as your Aunt Caroline is concerned, too, I fear that she has in a measure lost that fine edge—perhaps I should say that very delicate perception of the differences which undoubtedly do exist. I am pointing this out to you, Letitia," he continued, as they left the Park, "but it occurs to me that my doing so is unnecessary. I have noticed that since your entrance into Society, some four or five years ago, you have identified yourself entirely with my views. Nothing could have been more discriminating than your treatment of the various excellent people with whom you have been brought into contact."
Letitia did not speak for a moment. Then she turned to her father with a little sigh.
"An inherited weakness, I suppose," she murmured. "I sometimes rather envy other people their standpoint."
The Marquis made no reply. They were nearing Number 94, and he was conscious of that slight, nervous expectancy which required always a firm hand. The door was opened before they could ring. The young man who served under Gossett was already relieving him of his hat and gloves. With a perfectly leisurely step, the Marquis advanced towards the hall table. He glanced at the superscription of two or three notes, dropped his eyeglass, and turned away towards his study—empty-handed.
"Several notes for you, Letitia," he said, without looking around.
Richard Vont, a few mornings later, leaned upon his spade and gazed over towards Mandeleys with set, fixed eyes. His clothes and hands were stained with clay, the sweat was pouring down his face, he was breathing heavily like a man who has been engaged in strenuous labour. But of his exhausted condition he seemed to take no count. There was something new at the Abbey, something which spoke to him intimately, which was crowding his somewhat turgid brain with the one great imagining of his life. For Mandeleys had opened its eyes. A hundred blinds had been raised, long rows of windows stood open. Men were at work, weeding the avenue, and driving mowing machines across the lawns which stretched down to the ring fence and the moat. Flaming borders of yellow crocuses became miraculously visible as the dank grass disappeared, and many spiral wreaths of smoke were ascending into the misty stillness of the spring morning. Away behind, in the high-walled garden, were more gardeners, bending at their toil. Richard Vont was no reader of theMorning Post, but an item in its fashionable intelligence of that morning lay clearly written before him. The Marquis was coming back!
Vont turned slowly away, left his spade in the tool shed, entered the cottage by the back door, carefully changed his clothes, washed the clay from his face and hands, and descended into the sitting room, where his breakfast awaited him. Mrs. Wells looked at him curiously. She was a distant connection and stood upon no ceremony with him.
"Richard," she demanded, "where were you when I come this morning?"
"Sleeping, maybe," he answered, taking his place at the table.
"And that you weren't," she contradicted, "for I made bold to knock at your door to ask if you'd like a rasher of bacon with your eggs."
He raised his head and looked at her steadily.
"Well?"
"I'm not one to pry into other people's affairs," she continued, "but your goings on are more than I can understand. All day long you sit with the Book upon your knee, and if a neighbour asks why you never pass the gate, or seemingly move a limb, it's the rheumatics you speak of. And yet last night your bed was never slept in, my man, and I begin to suspect other nights as well. What's it mean, eh?"
Richard Vont rose to his feet and opened the door.
"Just that," he answered harshly, pointing to it. "I'll not be spied on. Inch for inch and yard for yard, this cottage and garden are mine, I tell you—mine with dishonour, maybe, but mine. I'll have none around me that watches and frets because of the things that I choose to do. I'll lie out in the garden at nights, if I will, and not account to you, Mary Wells; or sleep on the floor, if it pleases me, and it's no concern of any one but mine. So back to the village gossips, if you will, and spread your tale. Maybe I'm a midnight robber and roam the countryside at night. It's my affair."
"A robber you're not, Richard Vont," was the somewhat dazed reply, "and that the world knows. And there's summut more that the world knows, too, and that is that since you came back from Americy, never have you set foot outside that gate. There's friends waiting for you at the village, and there's them as smokes their pipe at night in the alehouse, whose company 'd do you no harm, but for some reason of your own you live like a hermit. And yet—yet—"
"Go on, Mary," he said sturdily. "Finish it."
"It's the nights that are baffling," Mrs. Wells declared. "There's some of your clothes in the morning wrings with sweat. There's sometimes the look in your face at breakfast time as though you'd had a hard day's work and done more than was good for your strength."
"I'm no sleeper," he declared, "no sleeper at all. If I choose to walk in the garden, what business is it of yours, Mary, or of any one down in th' village? Answer me that, woman?"
"Every man, I suppose, may please himself," she conceded grudgingly, "but I don't hold with mysteries myself."
"Then you full well know," he replied, "how to escape from them. If they're too much for you, Mary, I've fended for myself before, and I can do it again."
Mrs. Wells snorted.
"Keep your own counsel, then, Richard."
"And you keep yours," he advised. "You're my nearest of kin, Mary, though you're but my cousin's widdy. If you can learn to keep a still tongue in your head and do what's asked of you, there may be a trifle coming to you when my time comes. But if you get these curious fits on you, and they're more than you can stand; if you're going bleating from house to house in the village, and spending your time in tittle-tattling, then we'll part. Them's plain words, anyhow."
Mrs. Wells became almost abject.
"You've said the word, Richard, and I'll bide by it," she declared. "You can run races with yourself round the garden all night long, if you've a will. I'll close my eyes from now. But," she added, as a parting shot, "that clay on your old clothes takes a sight of getting off."
Richard Vont ate his breakfast slowly and thoughtfully, entirely with the air of a man who accomplishes a duty. Afterwards, with the Bible under his arm, he took his accustomed seat at the end of the garden facing Mandeleys. There were tradesmen's carts and motor-vans passing occasionally on their way to and from the house, but he saw none of them. He was in his place, waiting, watching, perhaps, but without curiosity. Presently a summons came, however, which he could not ignore. He turned his head. David Thain, on a great black horse, had come galloping across the park from Broomleys, and had brought his restive horse with some difficulty up to the side of the paling. The greeting between the two was a silent, yet, so far as Vont was concerned, an eager one.
"You know what that means?" David observed, pointing with his crop towards the house.
"I know well," was the swift answer. "It's what I've prayed for. Move your horse out of the way, boy. Can't you see I'm watching?"
David looked at the old man curiously. Then he dismounted, and with his arm through the reins, leaned against the paling.
"There's nothing to watch yet," he said, "but tradesmen's carts."
"It's just the beginning," Vont muttered. "Soon there'll be servants, and then—him! If he comes in the night," the old man went on, his voice thickening, "I'll—"
Words seemed to fail him, but he had clenched his hands on the cover of the book he had closed, and his blue veins stood out in ugly fashion. David sighed. Yet, notwithstanding his despair, some measure of curiosity prompted a question.
"Just why do you want to see him so much?" he asked.
"Hate," was the quiet reply. "It's twenty years since, and I've a kind of craving to see him that much older. There's hate and love, you know, David. They're both writ of here. But I tell you it's hate that lasts the longest. Love is like my flowers. Look at them—my tall hollyhocks, my bush roses, my snapdragon there. They blossom and they fade, and they lie dead—who knows where? And in the spring they come again, or something like them. And hate," he went on, pointing to a spade which lay propped against the paling, "is like that lump of metal. It's here winter and summer alike. It doesn't change, it doesn't die; there's no heat would melt it. It was there last year, it's there to-day, it will be there to-morrow."
David sighed, and looked for a moment wearily away. The old man watched him anxiously. Exercise had brought a slight flush to his pallid cheeks and an added brightness to his eyes. He sat his horse well, and his tweed riding-clothes were fashionably cut. His uncle's frown became deeper.
"You're young, David," he said, "and I know well that you and me look out on life full differently. But an oath—an oath's a sacred thing, eh?"
"An oath is a sacred thing," David repeated. "I've never denied it."
"You'll not flinch, lad?" the old man persisted eagerly.
"I shall not flinch."
"Then ride off now. There's no gain to either of us in talking here, for your mind is set one way and mine another. You'll have a score of years of youth left after you've done my behest."
David paused with his foot in the stirrup, withdrew it and returned to the paling.
"Let me know the worst," he begged. "I've beggared your enemy for you. I've soiled my conscience for the first time in my life. I've lied to and ruined the man who trusted in my word. What is this further deed that I must do?"
Richard Vont shook his head.
"When the time comes," he promised, "you shall know. Meanwhile, let be! It's a summer morning, and you are but young; make the most of it. Come when I send for you."
So David rode off, up the broad slopes of the great park, along the wonderful beech avenue and out on to the highway. He turned in his saddle for a moment and looked towards the road from London.
The Marquis, with an after-breakfast cigarette in his mouth, strolled out of his front door, a few mornings later, to find himself face to face with Richard Vont. He called Letitia, who was behind.
"The worst has happened," he groaned.
Letitia stood by her father's side and looked across the stone flags, across the avenue, with its central bed of gay-coloured flowers, the ring fence, the moat, the few yards of park, to where, just inside his little enclosed garden, Richard Vont was seated, directly facing them.
"Well, you expected it, didn't you, father?" she observed.
"All the same," the Marquis declared, with a frown, "it's an irritating thing to have a man seated there within a hundred yards of your front door, with a Bible on his knee, cursing you. I am convinced now, more than ever, that my case against this man must have been grossly mismanaged. The law could never permit such an indignity."
Letitia stepped back for a moment to light a cigarette. Then she rejoined her father and contemplated that somewhat grim figure critically.
"If he is going to do that all the time," the Marquis went on, "I shall have nerves. I shall have to live in the back part of the house."
Letitia gravely considered the matter.
"Why don't you try talking common sense to him?" she suggested. "Perhaps a few words from you would make all the difference."
"He is probably sitting there with a gun," her father sighed. "However, it's an idea, Letitia. I'll try it."
He strolled across the avenue, through a little iron gate in the railings, and across the moat by a footbridge. When he had approached within a dozen paces of the palings, however, Richard Vont rose to his feet.
"You're nigh enough, Lord Mandeleys," he called out, "nigh enough for your own safety."
The Marquis advanced with his usual leisurely and aristocratic walk to the edge of the palings. Richard Vont stood glaring at him like a wild beast, but there was no signs of any weapon about.
"Vont," the former said, "we both have rights. This park is mine so far as your paling, just as your garden is yours where you are. I have no fancy for shouting, and I have a word to say to you."
"Say it and begone, then," Vont exclaimed fiercely.
"Really," the Marquis expostulated, "you are behaving in a most unreasonable manner. I am here to discuss the past. For any wrong which you may consider I have done you, I express my regret. I suggest to you that your daughter's present position in life should reconcile you to what has happened."
"My daughter's brains nor your money don't make an honest woman of her."
The Marquis sighed wearily.
"Your outlook, Vont," he said, "is full of prejudice and utterly illogical. I found qualities in your daughter which endeared her to me, and she has lived a perfectly reputable and engrossing life ever since she left your home, such a life as she could not possibly have lived under your roof or in this part of the world. In every way that counts, she has prospered. Therefore, I ask you to reconsider the matter. I claim that any wrong I may have done you is expiated, and I suggest that you abandon an attitude which—pardon me—is just a little theatrical, put aside that very excellent Book or else read it as a whole, and give me your hand."
"I'd cut it off first," Vont declared savagely.
"This is rank prejudice," the Marquis protested.
"It seems so to you, belike," was the scornful answer. "You clever folk who can crowd your brain with thoughts and ideas from books—you've no room there for the big things. You've so many little weeds growing up around that the flower doesn't count. Nought that you can say about Marcia can alter matters. I'd sooner have seen her married to the poorest creature on your land than to know that she has lived as your dependent for all these years."
The Marquis shook his head sorrowfully.
"You're an obstinate old man, Vont," he said, "and a very selfish one. You are wrapped up in your own narrow ideas, and you won't even allow any one else to show you the truth. Marcia has been happy with me. She would have been the most miserable creature on earth married to a clod."
"Ay, she's been here to show herself," Vont muttered, "down in a motor-car, in furs and silks, like a creature from some world that I know not about. She's talked as you've talked. I've listened to the pair of you. I thrust my daughter out of the garden and bade her go away and learn the truth. And you—well, I just take leave to say that as I cursed you nigh on a score of years ago, and have cursed you in my heart ever since, so I curse you now!"
"But are you going to sit there every day doing it?" the Marquis enquired, a little irritably.
"This house and garden are mine," Richard Vont replied stolidly, "although you've done your best to beggar me by taking them away. When I choose, I shall sit here. When I choose, I shall sit and watch you with your guests, watch you morning, noon and night. I've one wish in my heart, hour by hour. Maybe that wish will reach home, Marquis of Mandeleys. If it does, you'll see them all in black along the churchyard path there, and hear the doors of your vault roll open."
"You're a little mixed in your similes, my friend," the Marquis remarked, "because, you know, if those things happen—to me, I shall be the one person who doesn't hear them. Still, I gather that you are implacable, and that is what I came to find out. What astonishingly fine hollyhocks!" he observed, as he turned away. "I must go and look at my own."
For a moment there was tragedy in Vont's clenched fists and fierce, convulsive movement forward. The Marquis, however, without a backward glance, lounged carelessly away and, finding Letitia, strolled with her to the walled garden.
"The man is impossible," he proclaimed. "It is obviously his intention to sit there and make himself a nuisance. Well, we get used to everything. I may get used to Richard Vont."
Letitia hesitated for a few moments.
"Father," she said, "there are certain subjects which are not, as a rule, mentioned, but if you will permit me—"
The Marquis stopped her.
"My dear, please not," he begged, a little stiffly. "Remember, if you will, that I have little in common with the somewhat modern school of thought indulged in by most of your friends. There are certain subjects which cannot be discussed between us. Let us hear what Mr. Hales has to say."
Hat in hand, the head gardener had hastened down to meet them, and under his tutelage they explored his domain. His master murmured little words of congratulation.
"I have done my best, your lordship," the man observed, "but Mr. Merridrew has been cruel hard on me for bulbs and seeds and plants, and as to shrubs and young trees, he'll not have a word to say."
The Marquis nodded sympathetically.
"We may be able to alter that next year, Hales," he promised. "Mr. Merridrew, I know, has had great trouble with the tenants for the last few quarters. Next year, Mr. Hales, we will see what we can do."
The gardener once more doffed his cap and received the intelligence with gratified interest. Over the top of the hill, a small governess' cart, drawn by a fat pony, came into sight, and Letitia waved her hand to the girl who was driving.
"It's Sylvia Laycey," she murmured. "Now how on earth can that child still be at Broomleys, if Mr. Thain is really here?"
Sylvia explained the matter as she drove into the great stableyard, Letitia walking on one side of her and the Marquis on the other.
"Of course we've left Broomleys," she told them, "but we are staying with the Medlingcourts for three or four days. They asked us at the last moment. And then your letter came, Letitia—just in time. I'm simply crazy to come and stay with you. Letitia, you lucky girl! You are going to be here all the time! I am simply foolish about him!"
"About whom?" Letitia asked indifferently.
"Why, Mr. David Thain, of course! He's the nicest thing I've ever talked to. He lunched with us on Thursday—but of course you're in love with him, too, so there'll be no chance for me."
Letitia's laugh was half amused, half scornful.
"If you are in earnest, Sylvia," she said, "which doesn't seem very likely, I can assure you that you need fear no rival. Mr. Thain does not appeal to me."
"We have nevertheless found Mr. Thain," the Marquis observed, suddenly reminding them both of his presence, "a very agreeable and interesting acquaintance."
Sylvia made a little grimace. She thrust her arm through Letitia's and drew her off towards the lawn, where some chairs had been brought out under a cedar tree.
"You are such a wonderful person, Letitia," she said, "and of course your father's a Marquis and mine isn't. But I thought, nowadays, Americans were good enough for anybody in the world, if only they had enough money."
"Both my father and I, you see," Letitia observed, "are a little old-fashioned. I have never had any idea of marriage, except with some one whose family I knew all about."
"Of course," Sylvia declared, "I am a horrid Radical, and I think I'd sooner not know about mine. If Mr. Thain's antecedents were unmentionable, I should adore him just the same, but, as I know your father would remind me in some very delicate fashion if he were here, the situation is different. You don't mind talking about him, do you, Letitia, because that's what I've come for?"
"Well, I'll listen," Letitia promised, as she settled herself in an easy-chair. "I really don't know what I should find to say, except that he's moderately good-looking, has quite nice manners, and money enough to buy the whole county."
"You are fearfully severe," Sylvia sighed. "Of course, I've been talking rot, as I always do, but we did find him charming, Letitia, both Daddy and I. He was so simple and unaffected, and he drove me into Fakenham and bought cutlets for our luncheon. When I come to think of it," she went on, with a look of horror in her face, "I believe he paid for them, too."
"He can well afford to," Letitia laughed.
The Marquis came to them across the lawn. He held in his hand an open telegram.
"From Grantham, my dear," he said to Letitia. "It appears that he is bored with town and proposes to come down to-morrow night instead of waiting until Saturday. I have replied that he will be very welcome. Mrs. Foulds will really have to bestir herself. I have a line from Caroline, too, to ask if she may stay for a couple of days on her way to Harrogate."
Letitia rose to her feet. The cloud which had fallen upon her face was doubtless owing to housekeeping cares. The Marquis, shading his eyes with his hand, was gazing across the park.
"Really," he remarked, a little drily, "I shall have to hint to our new neighbour that turf which is several hundred years old is not meant to be cut up like prairie-land. He sits his horse well, though."
Sylvia jumped quickly up and Letitia gazed in the direction which her father had indicated. David, on his black horse, was riding across the park towards Broomleys.
The Marquis, as he sat at his study table after lunch, was not inclined to regard his first day at Mandeleys as a success. The only post of the day had been delivered, and the letter for which he was waiting with an anxiety greater than he even realised himself, was still absent. There was a letter, however, from Mr. Wadham, which afforded him some food for thought. It was a personal letter, written by the head of the firm, and he perused it for the second time with a frown upon his forehead.
My dear Lord Mandeleys:
I have ventured, in your interests, to do what my son tells me you yourself felt some hesitation in doing—namely, I have made enquiry through a firm of stockbrokers who make a speciality of American oil shares, as to the Pluto Oil Company, Limited, of whose shares you have made so large a purchase. I find that no development of this property has taken place, very little, if any, machinery has been erected, no oil has ever been discovered in the locality or upon the estate. May I beg of you that, to avoid disastrous consequences, you at once see your friend from whom you purchased these shares, and endeavour to make some arrangement with him to take them off your hands, as they were doubtless tendered to you by false representations.
I am quite sure that I need not point out to your lordship that I write you this letter entirely without prejudice and in the interests of the Mandeleys name and estates.
There could be no possibility of the drafts executed by your lordship being met, unless the shares themselves provided the funds, which, under the existing conditions, appears impossible.
Respectfully yours,STEPHEN WADHAM.
The Marquis looked out upon the lawn. There was in his memory, too, a recent and serious conversation with Mr. Merridrew, concerning the accumulating charges for dilapidations upon the property. He watched David playing croquet with Sylvia Laycey with a deepening frown upon his face, glanced from them to where Letitia sat, apparently absorbed in a book which she was reading, and from her he looked through a side window towards that hated little demesne across the moat, where Richard Vont, in his shabby brown velveteen suit, with his white hair and his motionless figure, seemed to dominate the otherwise peaceful prospect. Somehow or other, both outlooks irritated him almost as much as his own mental condition. The hard pressure of circumstances was asserting itself in his mind. He found himself struggling against an insidious longing to see Letitia in Sylvia's place. In his way he was superstitious. He even began to wonder whether that silent, ceaseless hate, that daily litany of curses, could really in any way be responsible for the increasing embarrassments by which he was surrounded, that great, dumb anxiety which kept him with wide-open eyes at night and sent him about in the daytime with a constant, wearing pain at his heart.
He turned at last wearily away from the window, rose to his feet, opened the French doors which led out into the gardens, and strolled across the lawn to where Letitia was seated. She laid down her book and welcomed him with a smile which had in it just a shade of fatigue.
"Our friend Thain," he observed, "seems to be a success with Miss Sylvia."
Letitia turned her head and watched them.
"Sylvia has already confided to me her ardent admiration."
The Marquis sighed as he sank into a chair. Letitia glanced at him a little anxiously.
"Anything wrong, dad?"
"Nothing that should depress one on such a wonderful day. It is more a state of mind than anything. You and I, I fancy, were both born a few hundred years too late."
"Money again?"
He nodded.
"It is one of the most humiliating features of modern existence," he declared, "to find the course of one's daily life interfered with by the paltry necessities of pounds, shillings and pence. One inherits a great name," he went on ruminatively, "great traditions, an estate brimful of associations with illustrious ancestors. In one's daily life one's sense of dignity, one's whole position, is all the time affected, I may say poisoned, by the lack of that one commodity which is neither a proof of greatness or even deserving. We are very poor indeed, Letitia."
She sighed.
"Is it anything fresh?"
"Mr. Merridrew has been here this morning," her father continued, "and has spoken to me very seriously about the condition of the whole estate. No repairs or rebuilding have been effected for years. The whole of the rents, as they have been received, have been required to pay interests on the mortgages. Mr. Merridrew adds that he scarcely dare show himself before any one of the tenants, to whose just demands he is continually promising attention. He considers that unless the whole of the next quarter's rents are spent in making repairs, we shall lose our tenants and the property itself will be immensely deteriorated."
"There are those shares that Mr. Thain sold you," she reminded him hopefully.
"You must take this for what it is worth," he said. "I have a private letter from Mr. Wadham himself this morning, in which he tells me frankly that he has received reports indicating that those shares are worthless."
"Worthless?" Letitia exclaimed, bewildered.
Her father nodded.
"He begs me earnestly to appeal to Mr. Thain to take them off my hands. Even if I could bring myself to contemplate such a step, we should even then be faced with the fact that, adopting Mr. Merridrew's views, there are no funds to provide the interest on the mortgages next quarter day."
Letitia glanced once more uneasily towards David Thain.
"Worthless!" she repeated. "I don't understand it, father. Do you really believe that Mr. Thain would do you an ill turn like this?"
The Marquis shook his head.
"I can conceive no possible reason for such an action," he declared. "We have not injured him in any way. On the contrary, we have, at your Aunt Caroline's solicitation, offered him a hospitality somewhat rarely accorded by you and me, dear, to persons of his nationality and position."
Letitia made a little grimace.
"Aunt Caroline looks at him from a different point of view, doesn't she!"
"Your aunt is intensely modern," the Marquis agreed. "She is modern, too, without any real necessity. Her outlook upon life is one which, considering her descent, I cannot understand."
"Don't you think, father," Letitia asked him squarely, "that, however, disagreeable it may be, you ought to speak to Mr. Thain about the shares? He could probably tell you something which would relieve your mind, or he might offer to take them back."
The Marquis was silent for a moment. Probably no one in the world except Letitia knew how much it cost him to say the next few words.
"I will do so," he promised. "I will find an early opportunity of doing so. At the same time, in the absence of any more definite information, I prefer to retain my belief in their value."
Sylvia and David came strolling towards them. The former was looking almost distressed.
"Letitia dear, isn't it horrid!" she said. "I must go now! I promised Mrs. Medlingcourt that I'd be back to tea. She has some stupid people coming in. We've had such a wonderful game of croquet. I am quite sure I could make an expert of Mr. Thain in a very short time. Can I have my pony cart, please, Letitia? And what time shall I come on Thursday?"
"We shall be ready for you any time you like," Letitia replied, "so please suit yourself."
They all strolled round to see her start. She looked a little wistfully at the vacant place in the governess' cart, as she took her seat.
"I can't drop you at Broomleys gate, can I, Mr. Thain?" she asked.
He shook his head smilingly.
"I should never dare to face your pony again," he declared. "Bring your father over to see me, and we'll mark out a croquet court at Broomleys."
"We'll come," she promised.
She drove away. David, too, turned to take his leave.
"So nice of you to entertain our little visitor," Letitia said, smiling graciously upon him. "She is charming, isn't she?"
"Quite," he replied.
"I'll show you a way into the park from the flower gardens," she continued. "It saves you a little."
She led the way across the lawn, very erect, very graceful, very indifferent. David walked by her side with his hands behind him.
"You must find these country pursuits a relaxation after your more strenuous life," she observed.
"I find them very pleasant."
"To-morrow," Letitia told him, "my aunt arrives for a day or two. You are almost as popular with her, you know, as you seem to be with Sylvia."
"The Duchess," he repeated. "I did not know that she was coming here. She was kind enough to ask me to go to Scotland later on."
"You will be very foolish if you don't go, then," Letitia advised. "The Rossdale grouse moors are almost the best in Scotland. Aunt Caroline is staying here for two days on her way to Harrogate. You must dine with us on Thursday night. She will be so disappointed if she does not see you at once."
"You are very kind, Lady Letitia," he said. "I fear that I am inclined to encroach upon your hospitality."
She picked a rose and held it to her lips for a moment.
"We must amuse Aunt Caroline," she observed languidly. "It is many years since she imposed herself as a visitor here. We dine at a quarter past eight. This is the gate."
He passed through it and turned to make his farewells. Her left hand was resting upon the iron railing, her right supported her parasol. She nodded to him a little curtly.
"You promised," he reminded her, "that some day you would come over and help me about the garden."
"Did I?" she answered. "Well, remind me sometime, won't you?"
"Why not now?" he persisted.
She shook her head.
"I have to go and consult with Mrs. Foulds as to where to put all our visitors. Charlie Grantham is coming with aunt, I think, and we have so many rooms closed up. Don't fall into the moat. There's a bridge just to the left."
She turned away, and David watched her for several moments before he swung round. He was conscious of a sudden and entirely purposeless feeling of anger, almost of fury. From the higher slopes of the park he turned and looked once more towards Mandeleys. Letitia had evidently forgotten her household duties. She had thrown herself back in her chair and was once more apparently engrossed in her book.