CHAPTER XIV.

"TWELVE IT IS."

We must now go back a little space in our history.

When Lord Loughton, on the occasion of his first dinner at Bourbon House, was introduced to Miss Tebbuts, the aunt of Mr. Larkins, he did not forget what he had been told respecting that lady. "Wellclose said she was thirty-six, but she looks at least half a dozen years older than that," muttered the earl to himself. "But twenty thousand pounds can gild with youth and beauty a demoiselle of even that mature age." And his lordship became at once very attentive to Miss Tebbuts.

Hannah Tebbuts was sister to Orlando's mother. In conjunction with another sister, also unmarried, she had for several years kept a select seminary for young ladies in a little town in one of the midland counties. When her sister married Mr. Larkins that gentleman had not risen to fame and fortune. He was still brooding over the Pill that was ultimately to make his name known to the ends of the earth. Even then Hannah Tebbuts saw but little of her married sister, and she saw still less of her when Mrs. Larkins went to live in a big mansion in the outskirts of London.

By and by Mrs. Larkins died, and after that a dozen years passed away without Miss Hannah catching even a passing glimpse of her rich relations in London. But at the end of that time there came a message for her to go up to town with the least possible delay. Her famous brother-in-law was dangerously ill, and he had asked that she might be sent for to go and nurse him. Miss Hannah was less loath to go because she had lately lost the sister with whom she had lived for so many years, and had, in consequence, given up her school. Once in London, there she remained till Mr. Larkins died. His illness was a long and tedious one, but through it all Miss Hannah nursed her brother-in-law with the most devoted care and attention. As a reward for her services, and a token of the high esteem in which he held her, the sick man, by a codicil added to his will only a few days before his death, bequeathed to her the very handsome legacy of twenty thousand pounds.

Never was a simple-minded woman more puzzled what to do with a legacy. Her tastes were so inexpensive, and her mode of life so quiet and sedate, that she could find no use for the money. All she could do was to place the amount in the hands of her nephew, begging him to allow her a hundred a year out of it, and invest the remainder for her in any way he might think best.

Miss Tebbuts had never been handsome, but no one who studied her face could doubt her amiability and good-temper. There was nothing fashionable, nothing modish, about her. Her gown was after a style that had been in vogue some dozen years previously. She wore elaborate caps, and little sausage-like curls, now beginning to turn gray. She was of a retiring disposition, and her greatest trouble was having to fill the position of hostess at Bourbon House to the numerous strangers her nephew took there. Mr. Wellclose was wrong when he surmised that she might possibly be the victim of some early disappointment. Miss Tebbuts had never had an offer in her life, and if she had ever entertained any hopes in that direction she had trampled them under foot long ago, so that nothing was now left of them save a faint, sweet memory, like the sweetness of crushed flowers exhaled from a _pot pourri_. And this was the lady to whom John Marmaduke Lorrimore began to pay very marked attention.

He sat next her at the dinner-table, he made his way to her side in the drawing-room, and he favored her with more of his conversation than any one else. After a little while he began to call two or three times a week and take her for drives in the basket-carriage, with little Mabel Larkins to play propriety. He was seen with her at the Brimley spring flower-show, and at the garden-party, of which mention has already been made, his attentions to her were the theme of public comment. In short, people began to talk in all directions, and before long everybody knew for a fact, or thought they did, that the earl and Miss Tebbuts were going to make a match of it. This notoriety was just what the earl wanted. On one point he was particularly careful: he never spoke a word of love to Miss Tebbuts, nor gave utterance to any sentiments that could possibly be construed into the faintest shadow of a declaration.

One day Orlando said, smilingly, "If you play your cards properly, aunt, you may yet be Countess of Loughton."

Miss Tebbuts colored up. "But I don't want to be Countess of Loughton," she said, "and you don't know what you are talking about. Make your mind easy on one point: Lord Loughton and I will never be more than friends."

"Such attentions as his can have but one meaning."

"You talk like a very young man, Orlando. According to your theory, no gentleman can pay a lady a few simple attentions without having certain designs imputed to him."

"A few simple attentions, aunt! Pardon me, but they seem to me most marked attentions."

"Well, whatever they may seem, they won't end in matrimony; on that point you may make yourself quite sure."

Orlando was terribly disappointed, but did not dare to show it. What a splendid thing it would have been to have an aunt who was a countess and an uncle who was an earl! Such a dream was almost too blissful to contemplate. And yet he firmly believed it might become a glorious reality if only his aunt were not so foolishly weak-minded. If she did not care greatly for such a marriage on her own account, she ought to remember what was due to her nephew and nieces. Never could they hope that such an opportunity would offer itself again.

One day the earl was surprised by a visit from the dowager countess, or, rather, he was not surprised. He had quite expected to see her before long. Certain rumors had reached her ears, and she had driven over from Ringwood to satisfy herself as to their truth or falsity. Mr. Flicker was with her, as monumentally severe as ever.

The countess had not seen Lord Loughton since his transformation. She remembered him as a shabby, buttoned-up individual, with long straggling hair, and patched boots, and a generally mouldy and decayed appearance, who was known to the world as "Mr. Fildew." She saw before her a good-looking, well-preserved, elderly gentleman, clean shaved and carefully dressed, and of a spruce and military aspect. This personage called himself Lord Loughton, and the countess recognized at once his likeness to certain traditional types of the Lorrimore family. So far she was gratified. It was evident that the new earl was not likely to prove such a discredit to his connections as had at one time seemed but too probable.

"Welcome to Laurel Cottage, aunt," said the earl, as he assisted her ladyship to alight. "I thought I should have had the pleasure of seeing you here long ago."

The countess vouchsafed no word in reply, but glanced round at the house and the grounds, and then, turning to Flicker, she said, "Quite a little paradise."

"But without a peri to do the honors of it," remarked the earl, with a chuckle and a tug at his mustache.

"Ah, I'm coming to that part of the business presently," said the dowager, in her most acidulated tones. "And now, have you a place, where I can sit down?"

The earl led the way into his little sitting-room. The countess followed him, and Mr. Flicker brought up the rear. The countess seated herself on an ottoman, and, putting up her glasses, took a quiet survey of the room. "Rather different from the sort of home you have been used to of late years--eh?" she said, sharply.

"Yes, for an earl I can't say that I'm badly lodged," sneered her nephew.

"You are lodged far beyond your deserts, sir, I do not doubt."

"The Lorrimore family have generally been fortunate in that respect."

"I did not come here to bandy personalities with you." The earl bowed. "I came in consequence of a certain rumor that has reached my ears." The dowager paused, but apparently the earl had nothing to say. He was stroking his chin, and gazing through his glass at a Parian Venus bracketed on the opposite wall.

"A most absurd rumor," continued the countess, with added asperity, "but one, nevertheless, that I feel called upon to investigate. May I ask you, sir, whether it is true that you are going to be married to a creature of the name of--of--what is the creature's name, Mr. Flicker?"

"Tebbuts, my lady. Hannah Tebbuts."

"Just so. Tebbuts. I knew it was some horrid word. Pray, sir, is there any foundation for the rumor in question?"

The earl withdrew his gaze from the Venus, and, producing his handkerchief, he began to polish his eyeglass with slow elaboration. "May I ask, madam, by whose authority I, a man fifty-three years old, am catechised as though I were a schoolboy caught _in delicto?_"

The countess fairly gasped for breath. Mr. Flicker raised his hands and turned up his eyes till nothing but the dingy whites of them were visible. "Catechise you, indeed! I am here, sir, because I want to know the truth, and the truth I must have," said the ruffled countess. "If this rumor be correct, you have been obtaining money under false pretences, and acting as no honorable man would act."

The earl had actually the audacity to lean back in his chair and laugh. "Really, aunt," he said, "you amuse me. A little more, and your language would be actionable. Nobody could tell you better than Mr. Flicker here that, even if I were to marry to-morrow, I should not be doing that which you assert I should be. The agreement between us was that I was to be paid a certain quarterly stipend as long as I remained unmarried. There was no absolute promise on my part that I would never marry. But the moment I do marry, if I ever do, the stipend will cease. Where are the false pretences that your ladyship accuses me of?"

For a few moments the dowager could not speak. Then she said--and her head by this time was nodding portentously--"I always asserted from the first that you were nothing better than a--a--"

"Common swindler, madam," remarked the earl, pleasantly. "You always did say so. I give you credit for that much. But I remember also that long ago your epithets were more remarkable for their vigor than for their accuracy. Consequently, I have learned to appraise them at their proper value."

"This man is insufferable," exclaimed the countess. Mr. Flicker tried to look sympathetic, but only succeeded in looking a little more miserable than before. "May I ask you, sir, to give me a plain answer to a plain question? Is it, or is it not, your intention to marry?"

"Now we are becoming business-like, which is much better than being personal," said the earl, placably. "A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer. I have no present intention of getting married; but still, more remote contingencies than that have come to pass in the history of the world."

"A--h! then it is true that this creature has designs on you."

"If by 'this creature' your ladyship means Miss Tebbuts, I say emphatically no. Allow me to add that Miss Tebbuts is a lady, and incapable of forming designs against any man."

"A lady, forsooth! Her father, or her brother, or somebody connected with her, was a common quack."

"Her brother-in-law created a pill and made a fortune. Had he been a great captain, and killed ten thousand men, a grateful nation would have erected a statue to him; but seeing that he only invented a pill, and probably saved ten thousand lives, society votes him vulgar, and passes him by on the other side. What a strange, topsy-turvy state of things we have got to at the end of our nineteen centuries of practical religion!"

The countess looked mutely at Flicker, but her look plainly said, "Surely this fellow must be crazy." Mr. Flicker responded by a melancholy shake of the head. "Are we to infer from this rigmarole, sir, that the report is nothing more than a foolish _canard_, and that you have no more intention of getting married than I have?"

"Well, I will hardly venture to go as far as that. You see, aunt, Miss Tebbuts is a very charming lady, and her charms are enhanced by a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. At five per cent. that fortune would yield an annual income of one thousand pounds."

"Yes, but there would be two of you to keep out of it. As the case stands now, you have six hundred a year, and only yourself to keep."

"I assure your ladyship that Miss Tebbuts's tastes are of the most simple and inexpensive kind. She is one of those admirable women who would live on a hundred a year and save fifty of it."

"Have you no more respect for your family, sir, than to marry a quack doctor's sister?"

"Have my family no more respect for me than, out of an aggregate income of twenty thousand a year, to expect me to live on, and be satisfied with, a paltry six hundred? Are you aware, madam, that the Earl of Loughton's boots let water in, and that he hasn't enough money in his purse to pay for a pair of new ones?"

"So, sir, we are getting sit your motives by degrees. You threaten us with this marriage unless we agree to buy you off."

The earl laughed silently. "I threaten you with nothing I merely put before you a plain statement of facts, and leave you to draw what inference you please. Remember, pray, that it is you who have come to me and not I who have appealed to you. Take back your six hundred a year, madam, if it so please you; I shall not want for bread and cheese, I dare say."

For the first time since the discussion began, Mr. Flicker now spoke. "If I remember rightly, my lord, the amount of income suggested by you at our first meeting was twelve hundred a year--just double the sum you are now in receipt of? If the family, taking into consideration all the circumstances of the case, could see their way to fall in with your first suggestion, is there not a possibility that these disquieting rumors respecting a presumptive matrimonial alliance might prove to be without the slightest foundation in fact?"

"In other words, Flicker, would not a golden bullet bring down this _canard_ at once and forever?"

The ghost of a smile flitted across the lawyer's hard-set face. "My meaning precisely, my lord."

"Well, golden bullets are wonderful things, and really, now I come to think of it, I shouldn't be surprised if, in the present case, one of them, properly aimed, were to have the effect hinted at by you."

The countess glowered at the lawyer as though she could scarcely believe the evidence of her ears. "Mr. Flicker," she said, in her most imperious way, "may I ask by whose authority you have dared even to hint at a course which, if carried out, would be a disgrace to everybody concerned?"

"My lord," said Mr. Flicker, turning to the earl, "may I take the liberty of asking to be permitted to have five minutes' private conversation with her ladyship?"

"Certainly, Flicker, certainly. I'll go and have a cigarette in the garden. Touch the bell and send the servant for me when you are ready." And with that the earl strolled leisurely out. As he was shutting the door he heard the countess say with much emphasis, "That man will be the death of me."

At the end of ten minutes a servant came in search of him. He found the lawyer alone. "What has become of her ladyship?" he asked.

"She has gone to her carriage. She is a great age, and the interview has somewhat tried her strength. I have, however, much pleasure in informing your lordship that--that, in fact--"

"That our wild duck is to be shot with a golden bullet after all. Is not that so?"

"It is so, my lord."

"Twelve?"

"Twelve it is, my lord. After this, I presume we need not disquiet ourselves in the least as to any matrimonial intentions on the part of your lordship?"

"Not in the least, Flicker. I give you my word of honor on that score. As I said once before, I am not a marrying man, and am in no want of a wife."

Mr. Flicker rose and pushed back his chair. "We are quite prepared to take your lordship's word in the matter. I shall have the honor of forwarding you a check as soon as I get back to town."

The earl expressed his thanks, and was going with Flicker to the door when the latter said, "Pardon me, my lord, but I think it would be as well not to let the countess see you again to-day. There is a tendency to irritation of the nervous system, and I am afraid that your presence would hardly act as a sedative."

The earl laughed. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "Anyhow, give my love to her, and tell her that I hope to visit her before long at Ringwood."

Mr. Flicker shook his head, as implying that he knew better than to deliver any such message. Then the earl shook hands with him, and they parted.