Part 6

“Fashionable in the States; short for Algernon.”

“He seemed pretty chummy.”

“That’s his independent bringing-up. They’re all like that in America.”

“Jolly country.”

“You’d love it.”

“Well, so long.”

“So long.”

On the bottom step Lord Dreever halted.

“I say, I’ve got it!”

“Good for you; got what?”

“Why, I knew I’d seen that chap’s face somewhere before, only I couldn’t place him. I’ve got him now. He’s the Johnny who came into the shelter last night—chap you gave a quid to.”

Spike’s was one of those faces which, without being essentially beautiful, stamp themselves on the memory.

“You’re quite right,” said Jimmy. “I was wondering if you would recognise him. Would you prefer a cigar or a cocoanut? The fact is, he’s a man I once employed over in New York, and when I came across him over here he was so evidently wanting a bit of help that I took him on again. As a matter of fact I needed somebody to look after my things, and Spike can do it as well as anybody else.”

“I see. Not bad my spotting him, was it? Well, I must be off. Good-bye. Two-fifteen at Paddington. Meet you there. Book for Dreever if you’re there before me.”

“Right. Good-bye.”

Jimmy returned to the dining-room. Spike, who was examining as much as he could of himself in the glass, turned round with his wonted grin.

“Say, who’s de gazebo, boss? Ain’t he de mug youse was wit last night?”

“That’s the man. We’re going down with him to the country to-day, Spike, so be ready.”

“On your way, boss. What’s dat?”

“He has invited us to his country house, and we’re going.”

“What? Bote of us?”

“Yes. I told him you were my servant. I hope you aren’t offended.”

“Nit. What’s dere to be offended at, boss?”

“That’s all right. Well, we’d better be packing. We have to be at the station at a quarter to two.”

“Sure.”

“And, Spike.”

“Yes, boss?”

“Did you get any other clothes besides what you’ve got on?”

“Nit. What do I want wit more dan one dude suit?”

“I approve of your rugged simplicity,” said Jimmy, “but what you’re wearing is a town suit, excellent for the Park or the Marchioness’s Thursday crush, but essentially metropolitan. You must get something else for the country, something dark and quiet. I’ll come and help you choose it, now.”

“Why, won’t dis go in de country?”

“Not on your life, Spike. It would unsettle the rustic mind. They’re fearfully particular about that sort of thing in England.”

“Dey’s to de bad,” said the baffled disciple of Beau Brummell, with deep discontent.

“And there’s just one thing more, Spike. I know you’ll excuse me mentioning it. When we’re at Dreever Castle you will find yourself within reach of a good deal of silver and other things. Would it be too much to ask you to forget your professional instincts? I mentioned this before in a general sort of way, but this is a particular case.”

“Ain’t I to get busy at all, den?” queried Spike.

“Not so much as a salt-spoon,” said Jimmy firmly. “Now we’ll whistle a cab and go and choose you some more clothes.”

Accompanied by Spike, who came within an ace of looking almost respectable in new blue serge (“small gent’s”—off the peg), Jimmy arrived at Paddington with a quarter of an hour to spare. Lord Dreever appeared ten minutes later, accompanied by a man of about Jimmy’s age. He was tall and thin, with cold eyes and tight, thin lips. His clothes fitted him in the way clothes do fit one man in a thousand. They were the best part of him. His general appearance gave one the idea that his meals did him little good, and his meditations rather less. He had practically no conversation.

This was Lord Dreever’s friend Hargate—the Hon. Louis Hargate. Lord Dreever made the two acquainted; but even as they shook hands Jimmy had an impression that he had seen the man before, but where or in what circumstances he could not remember. Hargate appeared to have no recollection of him, so he did not mention the matter. A man who has led a wandering life often sees faces which come back to him later on, absolutely detached from their context. He might merely have passed Lord Dreever’s friend in the street. But Jimmy had an idea that the other had figured in some episode which at the moment had had an importance.

What that episode was had escaped him. He dismissed the thing from his mind. It was not worth harrying his memory about.

Judicious tipping had secured them a compartment to themselves. Hargate, having read the evening paper, went to sleep in the far corner. Jimmy and Lord Dreever, who sat opposite one another, fell into a desultory conversation.

At Reading Lord Dreever’s remarks took a somewhat intimate turn. Jimmy was one of those men whose manner invites confidences. His lordship began to unburden his soul of certain facts relating to the family.

“Have you ever met my Uncle Thomas?” he inquired. “You know Blunt’s Stores? Well, he’s Blunt. It’s a company now, but he still runs it. He married my aunt. You’ll meet him at Dreever.”

Jimmy said he would be delighted.

“I bet you won’t,” said the last of the Dreevers, with candour. “He’s a frightful man—the limit. Always fussing round like a hen. Gives me a fearful time, I can tell you. Look here, I don’t mind telling you—we’re pals—he’s dead set on my marrying a rich girl.”

“Well, that sounds all right. There are worse hobbies. Any particular rich girl?”

“There’s always one. He sticks me on to one after another. Quite nice girls, you know, some of them, only I want to marry somebody else—that girl you saw me with at the Savoy.”

“Why don’t you tell your uncle?”

“He’d have a fit. She hasn’t a penny. Nor have I, except what I get from him. Of course, this is strictly between ourselves.”

“Of course.”

“I know everybody thinks there’s money attached to the title; but there isn’t—not a penny. When my Aunt Julia married Sir Thomas the whole frightful show was pretty well in pawn. So you see how it is.”

“Ever think of work?” asked Jimmy.

“Work?” said Lord Dreever reflectively. “Well, you know, I shouldn’t mind work, only I’m dashed if I can see what I could do. I shouldn’t know how. Nowadays you want a fearful specialised education, and so on. Tell you what, though, I shouldn’t mind the Diplomatic Service. One of these days I shall have a dash at asking my uncle to put up the money. I believe I shouldn’t be half bad at that. I’m rather a quick sort of chap at times you know. Lots of fellows have said so.”

He cleared his throat modestly, and proceeded.

“It isn’t only my Uncle Thomas,” he said; “there’s Aunt Julia too. She’s about as much the limit as he is. I remember when I was a kid she was always sitting on me. She does still. Wait till you see her. Sort of woman who makes you feel that your hands are the colour of tomatoes and the size of legs of mutton, if you know what I mean. And talks as if she were biting at you. Frightful!”

Having unburdened himself of which criticism, he yawned, leaned back, and was presently asleep.

It was about an hour later that the train, which had been taking itself less seriously for some time, stopping at all stations of quite minor importance, and generally showing a tendency to dawdle, halted again. A board with the legend “Dreever” in large letters showed that they had reached their destination.

The station-master informed Lord Dreever that her ladyship had come to meet the train in the motor car, and was now waiting in the road outside.

Lord Dreever’s jaw fell.

“Oh, Lord!” he said. “She’s probably motored in to get the afternoon letters. That means she’s come in the runabout, and there’s only room for two of us in that. I forgot to write that you were coming, Pitt. I only wired about Hargate. Dash it, I shall have to walk.”

His fears proved correct. The car at the station-door was small. It was obviously designed to seat four only.

Lord Dreever introduced Hargate and Jimmy to the statuesque lady in the tonneau, and then there was an awkward silence.

At this point Spike came up, chuckling amiably, with a magazine in his hand.

“Gee!” said Spike. “Say, boss, de mug what wrote dis piece must have bin livin’ out in de woods. Say, dere’s a gazebo who wants to swipe de heroine’s jools what’s locked in a drawer. So dis mug—what do you t’ink he does?” Spike laughed shortly, in professional scorn. “Why——”

“Is this gentleman a friend of yours, Spennie?” inquired Lady Julia politely, eyeing the red-haired speaker coldly.

“It’s——”

He looked appealingly at Jimmy.

“It’s my man,” said Jimmy. “Spike,” he added, in an undertone, “to the woods. Chase yourself. Fade away.”

“Sure,” said the abashed Spike. “Dat’s right. It ain’t up to me to come buttin’ in. Sorry, boss. Sorry, gents. Sorry, loidy. Me for the tall grass.”

“There’s a luggage cart of sorts,” said Lord Dreever, pointing.

“Sure,” said Spike, affably. He trotted away.

“Jump in, Pitt,” said Lord Dreever. “I’m going to walk.”

“No, I’ll walk,” said Jimmy. “I’d rather. I want a bit of exercise. Which way do I go?”

“Frightfully good of you, old chap,” said Lord Dreever. “Sure you don’t mind? I do bar walking. Right-O! You keep straight on.”

Jimmy watched them out of sight and started to follow at a leisurely pace. It certainly was an ideal afternoon for a country walk. The sun was just hesitating whether to treat the time as afternoon or evening. Eventually it decided that it was evening and moderated its beams. After London the country was deliciously fresh and cool. Jimmy felt an unwonted content. It seemed to him just then that the only thing worth doing in the world was to settle down somewhere with three acres and a cow and become pastoral.

There was a marked lack of traffic on the road. Once he met a cart and once a flock of sheep with a friendly dog. Sometimes a rabbit would dash out into the road, stop to listen, and dart into the opposite hedge, all hind-legs and white scut. But except for these he was alone in the world.

And gradually there began to be borne in upon him the conviction that he had lost his way.

It is difficult to judge distance when one is walking but it certainly seemed to Jimmy that he must have covered five miles by this time. He must have mistaken the way. He had certainly come straight; he could not have come straighter. On the other hand, it would be quite in keeping with the cheap substitute which served the Earl of Dreever in place of a mind that he should have forgotten to mention some important turning. Jimmy sat down by the roadside.

As he sat there came to him from down the road the sound of a horse’s feet trotting. He got up. Here was somebody at last who would direct him.

“Halloa!” he said. “Accident? And, by Jove, a side-saddle!”

Jimmy stopped the horse, and led it back the way it had come. As he turned the bend in the road he saw a girl in a riding-habit running towards him. She stopped running when she caught sight of him, and slowed down to walk.

“Thank you ever so much,” she said, taking the reins from him. “Dandy, you naughty old thing!”

Jimmy looked at her flushed, smiling face, and stood staring. It was Molly McEachern.

★ 12 ★ _Making a Start_

Self-possession was one of Jimmy’s leading characteristics, but for the moment he found himself speechless. This girl had been occupying his thoughts for so long that—in his mind—he had grown very intimate with her. It was something of a shock to come suddenly out of his dreams and face the fact that she was in reality practically a stranger. He felt as one might with a friend whose memory has been wiped out. It went against the grain to have to begin again from the beginning after all the time they had been together.

A curious constraint fell upon him.

“Why, how do you do, Mr. Pitt?” she said, holding out her hand.

Jimmy began to feel better. It was something that she remembered his name.

“It’s like meeting somebody out of a dream,” said Molly. “I have sometimes wondered if you were real. Everything that happened that night was so like a dream.”

Jimmy found his tongue.

“You haven’t altered,” he said; “you look just the same.”

“Well,” she laughed, “after all, it’s not so long ago, is it?”

He was conscious of a dull hurt. To him it had seemed years. But he was nothing to her—just an acquaintance, one of a hundred. But what more, he asked himself, could he have expected? And with the thought came consolation. The painful sense of having lost ground left him. He saw he had been allowing things to get out of proportion. He had not lost ground. He had gained it. He had met her again and she remembered him. What more had he any right to ask?

“I’ve crammed a good deal into the time,” he explained. “I’ve been travelling about a bit since we met.”

“Do you live in Shropshire?” asked Molly.

“No. I’m on a visit—at least, I’m supposed to be; but I’ve lost the way to the place, and I am beginning to doubt if I shall ever get there. I was told to go straight on. I’ve gone straight on, and here I am, lost in the snow. Do you happen to know whereabouts Dreever Castle is?”

She laughed.

“Why,” she said, “I’m staying at Dreever Castle myself.”

“What?”

“So the first person you meet turns out to be an experienced guide. You’re lucky, Mr. Pitt.”

“You’re right,” said Jimmy slowly; “I am.”

“Did you come down with Lord Dreever? He passed me in the car just as I was starting out. He was with another man and Lady Julia Blunt. Surely he didn’t make you walk?”

“I offered to walk. Somebody had to. Apparently he had forgotten to let them know he was bringing me.”

“And then he misdirected you! He’s very casual, I’m afraid.”

“Inclined that way, perhaps.”

“Have you known Lord Dreever long?”

“Since a quarter-past twelve last night.”

“Last night!”

“We met at the Savoy, and later on the Embankment. We looked at the river together and told each other the painful stories of our lives, and this morning he called and invited me down here.”

Molly looked at him with frank amusement.

“You must be a very restless sort of person,” she said. “You seem to do a great deal of moving about.”

“I do,” said Jimmy. “I can’t keep still. I’ve got the go-fever, like the man in Kipling’s book.”

“But he was in love.”

“Yes,” said Jimmy; “he was. That’s the bacillus, you know.”

She shot a quick glance at him. He became suddenly interesting to her. She was at the age of dreams and speculations. From being merely an ordinary young man with rather more ease of manner than the majority of the young men she had met, he developed in an instant into something worthy of closer attention. He took on a certain mystery and romance. She wondered what sort of a girl it was that he loved. Examining him in the light of this new discovery, she found him attractive. Something seemed to have happened to put her in sympathy with him. She noticed for the first time a latent forcefulness behind the pleasantness of his manner. His self-possession was the self-possession of the man who had been tried and has found himself.

At the bottom of her consciousness, too, there was a faint stirring of some emotion, which she could not analyse, not unlike pain. It was vaguely reminiscent of the agony of loneliness which she had experienced as a small child on the rare occasions when her father had been busy and distrait and had shown her by his manner that she was outside his thoughts. This was but a pale suggestion of that misery, but nevertheless there was a resemblance. It was a rather desolate, shut-out sensation, half resentful.

It was gone in a moment. But it had been there. It had passed over her heart as the shadow of a cloud moves across a meadow in the summer-time.

For some moments she stood without speaking. Jimmy did not break the silence. He was looking at her with an appeal in his eyes. Why could she not understand? She must understand.

But the eyes that met his were those of a child.

As they stood there the horse, which had been cropping in a perfunctory manner at the short grass by the roadside, raised his head and neighed impatiently. There was something so human about the performance that Jimmy and the girl laughed simultaneously. The utter materialism of the neigh broke the spell. It was a noisy demand for food.

“Poor Dandy!” said Molly. “He knows he’s near home, and he knows it’s his dinner-time.”

“Are we near the castle, then?”

“It’s a long way round by the road, but we can cut across the fields. Aren’t these English fields and hedges just perfect? I love them! Of course I loved America, but——”

“Have you left New York long?” asked Jimmy.

“We came over here about a month after you were at our house.”

“You didn’t spend much time there, then?”

“Father had just made a good deal of money in Wall Street. He must have been making it when I was on the _Mauretania_. He wanted to leave New York, so we didn’t wait. We were in London all the winter. Then we went over to Paris. It was there we met Sir Thomas Blunt and Lady Julia. Have you met them? They are Lord Dreever’s uncle and aunt.”

“I’ve met Lady Julia.”

“Do you like her?”

Jimmy hesitated.

“Well, you see——”

“I know. She’s your hostess, but you haven’t started your visit yet, so you’ve just got time to say what you really think of her before you have to pretend she’s perfect.”

“Well——”

“I detest her,” said Molly crisply. “I think she’s hard and hateful.”

“Well, I can’t say she struck me as a sort of female Cheeryble Brother. Lord Dreever introduced me to her at the station. She seemed to bear it pluckily, but with some difficulty.”

“She’s hateful,” repeated Molly. “So is he—Sir Thomas, I mean. He’s one of those fussy, bullying little men. They both bully poor Lord Dreever till I wonder he doesn’t rebel. They treat him like a schoolboy. It makes me wild. It’s such a shame. He’s so nice and good-natured. I am so sorry for him.”

Jimmy listened to this outburst with mixed feelings. It was sweet of her to be so sympathetic; but was it merely sympathy? There had been a ring in her voice and a flush on her cheek which had suggested to Jimmy’s sensitive mind a personal interest in the down-trodden peer. Reason told him that it was foolish to be jealous of Lord Dreever. A good fellow, of course, but not to be taken seriously. The primitive man in him, on the other hand, made him hate all Molly’s male friends with an unreasoning hatred. Not that he hated Lord Dreever. He liked him. But he doubted if he could go on liking him for long if Molly were to continue in this sympathetic strain.

His affection for the absent one was not put to the test. Molly’s next remark had to do with Sir Thomas.

“The worst of it is,” she said, “father and Sir Thomas are such friends. In Paris they were always together. Father did him a very good turn.”

“How was that?”

“It was one afternoon just after we arrived. A man got into Lady Julia’s room while we were all out except father. Father saw him go into the room, and suspecting something was wrong, went in after him. The man was trying to steal Lady Julia’s jewels. He had opened the box where they were kept, and was actually holding her rope of diamonds in his hand when father found him. It’s the most magnificent thing I ever saw. Sir Thomas told father he gave a hundred thousand dollars for it.”

“But surely,” said Jimmy, “hadn’t the management of the hotel a safe for valuables?”

“Of course they had; but you don’t know Sir Thomas. He wasn’t going to trust any hotel safe. He’s the sort of man who insists on doing everything in his own way, and who always imagines he can do things better for himself than anyone else can do them for him. He had had this special box made, and would never keep the diamonds anywhere else. Naturally the thief opened it in a minute. A clever thief would have no difficulty with a thing like that.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, the man saw father and dropped the jewels, and ran off down the corridor. Father chased him a little way, but, of course, it was no good; so he went back and shouted and rang every bell he could see and gave the alarm, but the man was never found. Still, he left the diamonds. That was the great thing, after all. You must look at them to-night at dinner. They really are wonderful. Are you a judge of precious stones at all?”

“I am, rather,” said Jimmy; “in fact, a jeweller I once knew told me I had a natural gift in that direction. And so, of course, Sir Thomas was pretty grateful to your father?”

“He simply gushed. He couldn’t do enough for him. You see, if the diamonds had been stolen I’m sure Lady Julia would have made Sir Thomas buy her another rope just as good. He’s terrified of her, I’m certain. He tries not to show it; but he is. And besides having to pay another hundred thousand dollars, he would never have heard the last of it. It would have ruined his reputation for being infallible and doing everything better than anybody else.”

“But didn’t the mere fact that the thief got the jewels and was only stopped by a fluke from getting away with them do that?”

Molly bubbled with laughter.

“She never knew. Sir Thomas got back to the hotel an hour before she did. I’ve never seen such a busy hour. He had the manager up and harangued him, and swore him to secrecy—which the poor manager was only too glad to agree to, because it wouldn’t have done the hotel any good to have it known. And the manager harangued the servants, and the servants harangued each other, and everybody talked at the same time, and father and I promised not to tell a soul; so Lady Julia doesn’t know a word about it to this day. And I don’t see why she ever should; though one of these days I’ve a good mind to tell Lord Dreever! Think what a hold he would have over them! They’d never be able to bully him again.”

“I shouldn’t,” said Jimmy, trying to keep a touch of coldness out of his voice. This championship of Lord Dreever, however sweet and admirable, was a little distressing.

She looked up quickly.

“You don’t think I really meant to, do you?”

“No, no,” said Jimmy hastily. “Of course not.”

“Well, I should think so!” said Molly indignantly. “After I promised not to tell a soul about it.”

Jimmy chuckled.

“It’s nothing,” he said, in answer to her look of inquiry.

“You laughed at something.”

“Well,” said Jimmy apologetically, “it’s only—it’s nothing really—only what I meant is, you have just told one soul a good deal about it, haven’t you?”

Molly turned pink. Then she smiled.

“I don’t know how I came to do it,” she declared. “It rushed out of its own accord. I suppose it is because I know I can trust you.”

Jimmy flushed with pleasure. He turned to her and half halted, but she continued to walk on.

“You can,” he said; “but how do you know you can?”

“Why,” she said—she stopped for a moment, and then went on hurriedly, with a touch of embarrassment—“why, how absurd! Of course I know. Can’t you read faces? I can. Look,” she said, pointing, “now you can see the castle. How do you like it?”

They had reached a point where the fields sloped sharply downward. A few hundred yards away, backed by woods, stood the grey mass of stone which proved such a kill-joy of old to the Welsh sportsman during the peasant season. Even now it had a certain air of defiance. The setting sun lit up the waters of the lake. No figures were to be seen moving in the grounds. The place resembled a palace of sleep.

“Well!” said Molly.

“It’s wonderful!”

“Isn’t it? I’m so glad it strikes you like that. I always feel as if I had invented everything round here. It hurts me if people don’t appreciate it.”

They went down the hill.

“By the way,” said Jimmy, “are you acting in these theatricals they are getting up?”

“Yes. Are you the other man they were going to get? That’s why Lord Dreever went up to London, to see if he couldn’t find somebody. The man who was going to play one of the parts had to go back to London on business.”