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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-08-04 08:51:17 -0700 |
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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-08-04 08:51:17 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f57f44 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text +*.htm text +*.html text +*.png binary +*.jpg binary +*.svg text +*.pdf binary +*.bmp binary +*.zip binary +*.midi binary +*.mp3 binary diff --git a/79269-0.txt b/79269-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b14e6d --- /dev/null +++ b/79269-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7188 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79269 *** + + + + + THE HAUNTED HOUSE + + + + + CHESTER-BELLOCS + —————————————————— + The Green Overcoat + Mr. Petre + The Emerald + The Haunted House + —————————————————— + +[Illustration: _An early portrait of Lord de Beaurivage (then Mr. +George Huggins) as an open-air merchant of vegetables and orchard +produce in 1883_] + + + + + THE + HAUNTED HOUSE + + BY + HILAIRE BELLOC + + _With Illustrations by + G. K. CHESTERTON_ + + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK · _Harper & Brothers_ · LONDON + 1928 + + + THE HAUNTED HOUSE + COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY HILAIRE BELLOC + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + FIRST EDITION + M-B + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + An early portrait of Lord de Beaurivage (then Mr. George + Huggins) as an open-air merchant of vegetables and orchard + produce in 1883 _Frontispiece_ + + _Facing page_ + + The brothers at Rackham 20 + + Aunt Hilda settling everything 38 + + Neighbour Hellup and Neighbour Jake 56 + + “Our younger hostesses” 60 + + The Ancestor 68 + + Progress of Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight, to his ancestral home 70 + + John Maple as Lieutenant Allegri 78 + + The atheist Gaul 122 + + “Twenty thousand pounds? You haven’t got twenty thousand pence!” + said Aunt Hilda 130 + + Fond embrace of Hilda, relict of the late William Maple, + Esquire, of Rackham Catchings in the County of Sussex, and + Amathea, wife of George, First Baron de Beaurivage (pronounced + Bruvvish) 146 + + Lord Hambourne is astonished at the modern habits of the + fifteenth century 156 + + Mr. Corton reads _The Spectator_ 188 + + John Maple explains his plan 194 + + Growing nervousness of Lord de Beaurivage 226 + + Lord Hellup accepting from Lord Hambourne the interesting + scientific discovery that motor-cars are less susceptible to + psychic influence than horses 236 + + Partial, but representative deputation of the domestic staff of + Rackham Catchings protesting against the Headless Thing 238 + + Unaffected emotion of George, First Baron de Beaurivage on the + appearance of an historic figure 242 + + Distraction of Lord Hambourne on being offered the usual terms 248 + + Effect of the other world on Miss Broom, housemaid 250 + + Solid satisfaction of Mr. Pretherton at the pressed pace of + Columbus 256 + + Genuine pleasure of Columbus on observing the haste of Mr. + Pretherton 258 + + Wifely protest of Amathea, Lady de Beaurivage, at the unworthy + treatment of her lord 268 + + Hilda Maple admits that she is a sinful woman 270 + + “Hannibal!... I mean, Hamilcar!” 272 + + + + + THE + HAUNTED HOUSE + + CHAPTER I + + +In the English County of Sussex, upon the clay thereof, and upon a +slight eminence of that clay, stood and stands a squire’s house called +Rackham. + +Rackham is a common enough name in that part of the world, attached to +perhaps half a dozen widely-different places and things; downs, woods, +fields. But no one had ever bothered to call Rackham anything extra to +make it a special Rackham. Rackham it had been and remained during its +three hundred years as a cell of Lewes Priory and its four hundred of +various lay owners. + +Its master at the end of the nineteenth century was a certain Mr. Henry +Maple, of a good ordinary position, born to no great fortune, but a +sufficient master of his countryside. + +By birth he was what one might expect, a great-grandson. A Maple who +had begun as a smith and cattle dealer and had gone on as a general +broker, sometimes advancing cash to his fellows and sometimes making a +lucky purchase and sale in stock, had bought out the former immemorial +squires of Rackham when George III. was king. Those whom he had bought +out were an impoverished line, whose founder (a Lewes tallow chandler) +had got it, rather more than a century before, after the Civil Wars, +from a ruined cavalier family, which, in its turn, had been started by +a scullion in Thomas Cromwell’s kitchen, who, yet a century earlier, +had nobbled this parcel of his master’s loot during the great break-up. + +So you see that Rackham was just like scores and hundreds of its kind +up and down England, and possessed, after the fashion of any one of the +others, by a very amiable man, a gentleman (which is saying a great +deal), a man formed by Public School and University, and having behind +him two generations of Public School and University, and three of +sufficient wealth. + +Rackham was a rather absurd looking house, but dignified. Half of it +was the original Elizabethan living house, with a few stones left of +the earlier monastic building and great oak beams for its framework, +but transmogrified by eighteenth-century additions and internal +changes. From the lawn in front you saw at one end two low stories of +wood and plaster, a tiled roof above that; at the other a brick wall +pierced at regular intervals by a particularly ugly set of windows. At +the back, looking north, was a dreary stucco addition of kitchens and +offices, greenish with damp weather. The later half of the house, all +brick, had been added, as had certain changes in the older part, before +1790, by the fortunate smith and cattle dealer. The stucco offices to +the north had been built by his son during the high corn prices of the +Napoleonic wars. + +Inside, the house was what you would expect from such a history. +Nothing whatever told you, even in its oldest part, that there was work +many hundred years old, save the few stones of the monastic building +at the base of a wall, certain beams still exposed in the servants’ +quarters, a box room, and one of the smaller bedrooms. The other beams +had been covered long ago with plaster ceilings. Some of them had +been cut clean away to raise the height of the living-rooms after the +later fashion. There was a bathroom with hot and cold water, which +was thought a fine new thing in the middle of the nineteenth century, +when it had been fitted up. There was a small, rather dingy hall; a +passage running from this to the various living-rooms; one simple +staircase for the family, with rather nicely carved oaken banisters, +and a very much worn and very ugly carpet. There were plenty of books +and plenty of pictures—pictures of all sorts and kinds; many a bad +watercolour by ladies of the place, living and dead; a few portraits +in the drawing-room, one of which, almost black, was reputed to be a +Gainsborough. The house was comfortable, it was homely, and it exactly +suited its master, who was, in the first years of the twentieth +century, a man of about forty, very much liked in the neighbourhood, +and with something of a reputation for scholarship; a widower with one +young child—a boy called John. + +Thus lived Henry Maple, on what he felt, as all such men feel, to be +ancestral land descended to him from beyond all human record; and in +sober truth possessed by his own blood for a good deal more than a +hundred years; which is quite a long succession for such English land. + +He was part of it: of the outlook from that slight eminence towards the +Downs ten miles off along the southern sky; of the rather dishevelled +little park (if you liked to call it that) with its ill-kept gravel +way and its little lodge at the gates; of half a dozen farms which had +provided an income sufficient for his father and grandfather before +him, and the rents of which heavily reduced during the depression of +the 80’s had since remained unchanged; sleeping, like most things in +that good world. Part of him also were the two or three horses in +his stables, the two or three vehicles, and particularly the little +brougham in which he drove to the domestic country station three miles +off, where the very asphalt and palings seemed to talk with the Sussex +burr and to think of London, forty miles away, as a place utterly +remote. + +London was not properly part of Henry Maple’s life. He had his club, of +course, for which his father had put him down when he was born, just as +he had put him down for his Public School and for his College. He used +it perhaps twenty times in a year. + +The staff of Rackham was consonant with all the rest. A butler of much +the same age as his master, and of twenty years’ standing, knowing the +names of wines, but far more familiar with beer. A lad who cleaned +boots, ran messages, and took the blame for mishaps; a few maids; a +fixed, elderly cook called Mrs. Marwell, and a kitchenmaid; and she +that had been the child’s nurse, and still was after a fashion (even +after he had begun to go to a Preparatory School). She was kept on, and +would be kept on till she died. + +There was Rackham; and (one would have said) the benediction of God +upon it. I knew it well enough. + +The first thing that began to threaten such unchangeable things with +change was an unaccountable creeping oddity in the relation of income +to expenditure. Henry Maple, in the intervals of his reading and his +quiet entertainment, heard of it vaguely as “these times.” It might +also be called certain new habits of a changing age; rather more +travel, a few more visitors, farmers coming shame-facedly and very +privately to ask for some small reduction in rent, or rather heavy +piece of repair, which was granted as a matter of course; coming again +a year or two later to ask for another, which was also granted as a +matter of course, but at last with a little misgiving. + +The century was thus nine years old, and his lonely, affectionate +little son, of whom his father made a close companion, was nine years +old also, when Henry Maple realised that there were a good many things +he ought to have done to the house and did not from lack of funds—wear +and tear come so gradually. He was used to the fences beginning to look +tumbled down, and to a good deal of grass on the few paths; for the +gardener was getting old, and not over lively. + +Henry Maple had grown used also to an overdraft at his bank; though he +was rather disturbed when, a few years earlier, the manager had told +him in a pleasant conversation that it would be well to fix a limit—and +did so. But he got used to that too. + +He very reluctantly and in rather haphazard, expensive fashion +mortgaged two of the outlying farms; then a third. There came a moment +when he had a little difficulty in meeting the full interest, though it +was in the hands of a family lawyer who was as much a part of his life +as anything else, and had jogged along comfortably enough with him. But +he did at one moment in the year 1905, rather suddenly, need £1,000. + +It had not occurred to him how easily his younger brother, William +Maple, a London solicitor in good practice whom he saw fairly often, +could meet the case, or how willing he would be to do it. It was +William Maple himself who suggested the thing (how he could have heard +of the embarrassment Henry was at a loss to guess, and, indeed, did not +waste much time in guessing). It was after a quiet dinner which the two +brothers had had together, when William was spending a week-end at +Rackham, that the proposal was made, and the elder brother accepted it +with real gratitude. + +A second thousand followed, and a third. William came oftener—a +frequent guest. He had married a handsome, rather pushing wife of +a birth like his own, the daughter of the Dean of Lamborough, the +grand-daughter of a large coal-owner of the Midlands; a woman who liked +to know the world and whose increasing acquaintance with sundry rich +people and other sundry talked-of people in London increased, very much +to her husband’s content, and not a little to his advantage. + +Henry Maple had no great liking for his sister-in-law. Her worldliness +jarred on him and she knew nothing of the things he loved. But he never +thought of her unjustly. He invited her frequently enough, and they +were fairly good friends. + +William Maple was what Henry would no doubt have been if Fate had +compelled him (as it never did) to earn his living. But in the twenty +odd years since their common boyhood the difference in habit of mind +and activity had become pronounced. William was precise and methodical; +not unjust, but long grown incapable of anything unbusinesslike or +slack. A bargain was a bargain, and a contract a contract; and the +results of it, if they were turned out to the other man’s loss, were +the other man’s look-out. He could no more separate his family from the +rest of the world in this general view than he could have separated +one set of figures from another in the jottings of his notebooks. These +he kept carefully from year to year; no one saw them but himself, and +they did all the work that the most elaborate keeping of accounts can +do in a large business. + +It was natural enough in Henry’s eyes that his brother should be easy +in the matter of interest and allow it to be added to the main debt. It +was natural in William’s that this attitude on his own part, which was +not ungenerous, should yet be precisely regulated and never allowed to +breed confusion. + +The losses on all English agricultural work continued; the new habits +continued with them; the slightly increased expenditure; the vague idea +permeating Henry Maple’s mind that the old state of affairs was the +natural and permanent one and would in due course return. + +He knew roughly—after a few more years had passed—that his total +indebtedness to his brother had now come to £7,000; he knew that +the interest had fallen into arrears—to how much the total of the +new interest on those arrears might amount he had but a very rough +conception, and he did not dwell upon it. + +When it had been suggested by William that the mortgages on the +farms might be taken over, so as to make one simple body of all the +obligations, he was more than willing—it kept things in the family. +The fixed figure in his mind of £7,000 thus became £10,000; and the +arrears of interest crept on. There was one or two further loans, and +one fine day in 1913 William thought it only right to have a clear +statement, and go into everything in detail with his brother. It was +thus upon a Sunday in August, a year before the quite unimaginable war, +that the critical moment came. + +William had turned over in his own mind during the previous week what +he would say and do. He had everything fixed, tabulated and arranged. + +William Maple had prospered; he had bought one of the dignified old +freehold houses on the river in Cheyne Walk, spending on it rather +more than he would have done, perhaps, had not his wife urged him. The +house was becoming something of a centre in London for people who wrote +and painted and were talked of, for the more important people who had +gone into politics, and even for a few of the very much more important +people whose point was their new wealth. Mrs. William Maple had decided +that the time had come for a proper house in the country as well; but +her husband, for all his success, hesitated at the expense. It was Mrs. +William Maple who suggested that the opportunity lay ready to hand in +Rackham. + +“Henry will never marry again,” she had said. “The longer he keeps that +place the more it will go to pieces. I don’t believe that boy, John, +will come to any good with it. He’s a nice bright child and I am as +fond of him as you are; but I see what the end of it will be.” + +And William, after a rather long pause, had agreed that she was +right—at any rate as far as his brother’s incapacity for management was +concerned, and the probability of a break-down if things continued as +they were. + +There was no need to do anything harsh or unpleasant, Mrs. William had +said. After all, what with the capital sums advanced and the really +absurd arrears of interest, and the interest on those arrears—let her +husband remember that he very often had to find that himself, when he +was making new investments, and depending upon the bank—the total must +be getting close on £18,000. + +“Not quite that,” William Maple had answered. + +“Well!” Mrs. William had taken him up with a rather sharp sigh, “close +on it, anyhow! And we can’t afford it—you know we can’t. Besides which, +as I say, it would be a blessing all round; and there’s no need to do +anything harsh or unpleasant. You can suggest some arrangement. Henry +might travel for a bit, on whatever more you could let him have, and we +might pay him rent for a while and then see what could be done when we +had room to turn round.” + +“Yes,” her husband had answered, “Yes.... Something of that sort could +be done.... Certainly.” + +Something of that sort had occurred to him also, Had it not? Vaguely? +All but £18,000 was due: allow Henry another £2,000 odd. After all, as +land now was, £20,000 was a very fair amount to allow for Rackham: if +anything too much. There was an enormous amount wanted doing to the +place—he was already beginning to think of it almost as his own. As for +his wife, she was there in spirit already; ordering the place about, +renewing it from cellar to roof, and a squire’s wife, as she should be. +Moreover, she was the good angel of poor Henry, and of his unfortunate +little son. She was saving them from a terrible future. + +William had sat up late that night in his study, getting all the papers +in order, setting down the main figures in an exceedingly clear and +plain fashion. The next day, he had invited himself to Rackham, and the +day after he had driven from the station in the old brougham behind the +old horse with the old coachman, up the dilapidated drive, to the door +which had not been painted since the triumphant conquest of the Boer +Republics, and the nasty slump in Chartereds. + +So there William Maple was, on that Sunday evening of August, 1913, +sitting over brother Henry’s wine and making himself ready for an +explanation. + +“Is that the same port?” he said. + +“Yes,” Henry answered, taking up his glass and looking through it at a +candle. + +“I thought it had gone off. Father laid it down the day you got into +the Eight,” said William. + +Henry nodded. + +“There is no reason why it should have gone off, though it wasn’t a +particularly good year. Anyhow, it’s all right still.” + +The curtains were not drawn, the big ugly windows of the dining-room +were open to the warm August night. The mahogany reflected the glass +ware and the silver. Henry’s eye rested, unseeing, upon the crest the +fortunate smith and cattle dealer had arranged for, more than a century +ago. It was a scene unchanged; just what it had been for the last +thirty years and more, as far back as the two men could remember, save +for the slightly dingier tint of the walls and the irregular, patchy +fading of the red damask of the curtains. Other little details William +now oddly noticed, though Henry could not have told him they were +there: one of the bell handles had gone from the side of the fire-place +leaving an iron stump, and poor old helmeted Minerva upon a bracket +(Italian she had been, and brought over after the French wars) had lost +the tip of her nose. + +The silence could not go on for ever, and William braced himself to +speak. It was no great effort for him, after all. He had had to do such +things twenty times before, though never in such surroundings nor with +the difficulty—slight to him, but still present—of imperilling the +associations of childhood. + +[Illustration: _The brothers at Rackham_] + +“Henry,” he said rather too suddenly, “I want to talk to you about +your own affairs.” + +“Yes,” said Henry gently. “Yes ... what?” + +He had no particular dread of what was coming; he thought it might be +another loan, and that would not be unwelcome. There had been another +little trouble. The water-mill absolutely must be seen to, and he was +afraid it would cost a good deal. George Barrett, the miller, had +spoken of it twice. + +“Henry,” continued William, “I think the time really has come when we +must take stock.” + +It was not quite what Henry had expected. He looked up rather startled +and a little bewildered. But he felt the justice of it. After all, +they had not “taken stock” at all at any time. William took from his +mouth the end of the cigar he had been smoking and ground it slowly on +his plate. He felt in his pocket for papers, but thought better of it. +Looking down at the cloth, so as to avoid his brother’s eye, he said: + +“The total amount, Henry, counting the arrears of interest, you know, +is £17,324 odd.” He paused a minute—“£17,324 ... odd.” Then he pulled +out a half sheet of paper which he had hesitated at just before, pushed +his plate aside, spread the figures out before him, and repeated, “Yes, +£17,324 14s. and 3d.” + +What had floated in Henry’s mind for so long was a fixed figure in +large print—£10,000. And after it—in a sort of blur—something or other +that might be a few thousand more. £17,324 pulled him up. It was a +good deal more than he had bargained for. Then he remembered sundry +odd sums which, after all, he ought to have added to that £10,000. +There had been the cleaning out of what they called “the Lake” but +the villagers “the Pond”; and yet—now he remembered it—there had been +the big subscription which he had thought only right for the building +of the new bit on to the church. That was years ago and somehow or +other he had not connected it with the main debt. And then, of course, +arrears did mount up. After all, 5 per cent. on £10,000 was £500 a +year, was it not? And there is interest on that interest when it is +not paid. Yes, it was right enough, no doubt. Such was the course of +Henry’s rambling mind, before which now stood a new figure, large, +dominant, £17,324. + +“Yes,” he said gently, looking up a little timidly, “yes, William, I am +sure you’re right. I’ll look up my figures.” He had not an idea where +they were, nor whether he had them all. “£17,324. I’m sure you are +right.” + +William began scribbling at the paper meaninglessly with the point of a +little gold pencil he carried on his watch-chain. + +“You know, Henry, to tell you the honest truth,” he said, “I could not +go beyond £20,000. I will be quite plain with you. We have never had +any secrets from each other. I am not badly off. I don’t say I am. But +what a man is worth is one thing, and the free money at his disposal +is another. And Hilda, you know—not that I blame her—but she likes to +have her house full of people....” He paused. + +“Yes,” said Henry gently, “yes, she’s the wife of a rising man. She’s +quite right.” + +“Well, you see,” went on William, with his eyes still averted from his +brother’s, and scribbling away furiously making circles round and round +that figure of £17,324, “the fact is, that I can’t help thinking you +and I might come to an arrangement which would suit both of us....” + +“I don’t doubt it, William,” said Henry gently, and with some +admiration in his voice. He had no idea how these good business men got +on; he felt about them a little as he had felt about the big boys in +the Eleven when he had been a little boy at school. “You have always +been very generous to me, William.” + +“I don’t want you to say that, Henry,” said William, decently and +soberly. “I wish I could have done more. At any rate, there it is. And +quite honestly, I shall not be able to go beyond £20,000.” + +What now stood up in Henry’s mind out of the mist was the fact +that there was a margin, a margin of well over £2,000, which he +characteristically put down as “about three.” He was just going to +suggest something about that margin, and how useful it would be to him, +when William spoke again. + +“Henry,” he said, lowering his voice by a tone or two, and speaking +more slowly, “I don’t want to seem to be giving advice; but I am more +used to precise business perhaps than you are; that is inevitable, +seeing the different kind of life I have had to lead.... But ... I am +rather afraid that if we do not look out, the next few years might be +disastrous to you.” + +“Oh,” answered his brother uneasily, “things are bound to turn, you +know. Only this morning I was reading that wheat had gone up another +2s.—it’s true it’s the time of year for that, but....” + +William interrupted him firmly, looking him straight in the face for +the first time in all his conversation, and bringing his right hand +firmly down upon the table. + +“My dear Henry, _no_,” he said, “_no_. I have seen any amount of this +kind of thing. Honestly, it can’t go on. It’s your business, of course; +I don’t want to interfere. But it would relieve me (and I know I am +doing right in suggesting it) if you would undertake the only form of +retrenchment you can.” + +“What?” said Henry bewildered and alarmed. “Sell the place? William? +Sell the place? Sell Rackham?” + +“Oh, no!” answered William a little wearily, but trying to use a +soothing tone. “No! No! No! Nothing tragic! But why shouldn’t you +see that the place is properly kept in good hands, and you yourself +_travel_? Travel with the boy? You used to like travelling, and it +would do _him_ all the good in the world, at his age. A gap between the +Preparatory School and the Public School does no harm, and he is just +in the years when a boy takes in what he sees. It is astonishing what +one can save if one travels for a year or two.” + +“Travel?” repeated Henry, as though in hesitation. He had loved what +little travelling he had had when he was young; the word appealed to +him. But the ties of his own old place suddenly called him back, as did +the now deep rut of daily habit into which his middle age had fallen. + +“I couldn’t bear to let it,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “I +couldn’t let Rackham. Besides, who would take it? Who would keep it up?” + +“My dear fellow, I didn’t suggest that you should let it exactly. I +have an idea, and I want to put it before you, and I want you to think +it over really carefully. There’s no hurry. _I_ would look after the +place. I could be here off and on the whole time, week-ends and what +not. I have got the means and I should like the job. I am fond of the +country, you know; and Hilda....” + +“Do you mean—_live_ here?” said Henry. + +“Well, my dear fellow, only off and on, of course, coming down from +London. But it would be kept up and cost you nothing, and I would see +that it was more or less put to rights, you know. It is a good idea. +And I would set what sum you liked, in reason, as my rent to you +against your interest as it falls due. And then your farm rentals +would come to you—at least, they’d be set against the interest also.” + +“The rents don’t come to much now,” said Henry gloomily. + +“No; but come—it makes a difference. And you know when one is in a +place one always does something to keep it going and even improve +it. And, you know, as for the balance, I mean _up_ to £20,000, as I +said....” + +“Yes, yes,” answered his brother, a little shortly. Then he mused. +William followed up. He rose from his chair and paced the room. + +“Look here, Henry,” he said, “the long and the short of it is that +something must be done, and surely this is the sensible thing to +do. You know you like it as far as the travelling goes; it would be +delightful for the boy; and then perhaps when the time comes things +will have taken a turn for the better.” For it was William now who +chose to be vague. He was restless, and sat down again, once more +looking his brother in the face. “I have told you, Henry, and surely +you must see it, there _must_ be a crash if you don’t look out. Living +abroad wouldn’t cost you a half—not a third—of what it costs you to +live here, and I’d take it all over—just for the time; and it will save +the boy’s schooling as well. There’s everything to be said for it, and +nothing against it. Come! Think it over.” + +There was a very long silence. By the end of it the elder brother had +taken one of those curiously rapid decisions which the undetermined do +take when they are brought up suddenly against realities. + +He simply said: + +“Very well, William.” Then he sighed, and added: “Yes ... I think +you’re right.” + +Another silence followed, during which the younger and more prosperous +man felt like an exhausted swimmer who touches the shore with his feet. +His speech was lighter when he resumed. + +“Well, I am heartily glad of that, Henry. I thank God for it. I do +really think it is the best thing. It is obviously the best thing. If +you had seen what I have seen....” + +“Yes, I know,” said Henry gently. “I know.” + +“My dear fellow, we see tragedies in my business which....” + +“Yes, I know,” said Henry again. “I know.” + +“Two years, say, or perhaps three; we could talk about that in good +time. There’s no sort of hurry.” + +“There’s no hurry, of course,” said Henry. “But I would make it this +autumn. These things had better be done soon if they’re to be done at +all.” + +His tone was not hopeless, nor even cheerless: he knew that he would +have to face a very sad day, but it was natural in such a man to expect +an early return of all that he had known. + +“I’ll go south,” he said. “It won’t take you long to make out the +thing in black and white, will it?” + +“Oh, we shan’t need anything very formal, letters will do,” said his +brother. “I tell you what,” he added, “you had better have that balance +of £20,000 pretty soon, so that you can make all your arrangements +before you start; and then we’ll draw up some idea of what annual +balance there may be between the rental and what is due, you know, and +we’ll estimate the rest of your income—there is still a good wad of +father’s German Government loan untouched, isn’t there?” + +“Yes,” said Henry simply. “I’ve still got that, it’s in the bank at +Lewes. They never brought in much—I don’t know how much—about £400 I +think—or £450. I don’t know.” + +“Well,” answered William, “it’s only the usual first-class government +loan rates, but anyhow, German stuff is as safe as gold.” + +“Yes,” said Henry. + +“You will find the margin ample,” his brother assured him. “Things will +be all quite simple.” They were beginning to seem quite simple to Henry. + +He remembered how cheaply he had travelled in the past, and how he +had enjoyed the little places and the simple habits. He thought of a +year of his own boyhood with his own father in Italy just after the +unification. He began to make pictures in his mind of his boy’s delight +at the mountains and at the beauties of the new lands. + +“Yes, yes,” he said. “It’s the best thing. Write me the letters when +you choose, and I’ll look over them.” + +And that was the way in which Rackham began its fourth transfer—but, +after all, remained under the same blood. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +It was early in the month of June, 1914. Henry Maple was in +Switzerland, not the tourist Switzerland which he hated, but the +pleasant southern slopes of the Jura overlooking the plain, with the +great mountains to the south. + +He was happier than he had been for many years—happier even than at +Rackham. The recent fret of embarrassment, the almost daily shifts and +worries, were ugly memories already faded. In the early part of the +year he had gone back to England alone, and found Rackham already so +nicely set in order by his wealthy brother that he knew not whether to +be pleased at its renewal or pained at the change. But on the whole he +was more pleased; for after all, it was more like the Rackham of his +childhood. + +The provision made during the months of his absence had been ample for +his very few needs. The boy was getting good teaching at Solothurn, and +learning French and German thoroughly; in the autumn he would go on to +the Public School his father and his grandfather had gone to; he might +spend part of the holidays with his uncle, but most (he hoped) here in +the Jura with himself. For they had grown very close together during +this little not unpleasant exile, and the lad was coming to have +something of a hero-worship for a father who was always tender to him, +always understanding, and seemed to know so very much and to be able to +show him all that was to be discovered in that new world of travel from +which they had just settled down. He was spending perhaps a quarter +of what he had spent in Sussex—he had even saved! And if William had +punctually paid himself his dues, he had as punctually remitted the +balance of the rental and dividends to the Bank in Berne. + +There came the threat of war and the ultimatum to Servia, but Henry +Maple had read too much and knew too much of the past to believe that +war would come. + +War came; and the crash had upon this refined, scholarly +far-too-detached character a strange effect of not unwelcome isolation. +His vague hopefulness was still permanent; he had never liked the +Germans; therefore he was sure that they would soon be beaten. He was +secure where he was, and victory would only be a matter of a few weeks. + +The Marne confirmed his judgment. Victory went on being a matter of a +few weeks. But in the autumn came a letter from William, explaining why +the next remittance would be considerably smaller than the last. The +German dividend, of course, had failed. He must not mind if there was +a certain irregularity in the payments. Everything was at sixes and +sevens, and it was not at all easy to transfer money; but he could +manage it. He hoped Henry had saved a little, and that the occasional +inevitable delays and the necessary diminution of the total would be +bearable until peace should come—for William agreed it could not be +long delayed. As for the boy, he had better stay safe where he was—he +was getting excellent tuition, and it would not be too late to go on to +his school in England when peace came. He had seen the headmaster and +it would be all right—a few months wouldn’t matter. And after all, John +was barely fourteen. + +Yes; Henry had saved a little, for the first time in his life (and how +proud of it he was!). The lessening of income was a nuisance, but it +hardly meant more than that the saving stopped, and that he had to take +a little more care of his very modest expenditure. He secretly rejoiced +at the suggestion that his son would not have to leave him permanently +just yet, or have to attempt to rejoin him during the holidays under +the very difficult conditions of war-time. Of course, John would go to +school a little late, but he comforted himself by remembering that, +after all, he would have the boy with him so much longer, and that was +a great delight. The delay postponed for the lad one great advantage, +but it gained him others. It was a very good thing for a young +Englishman to have known other countries and other languages well as a +boy, and things would right themselves somehow. + +So it went on through the better part of ’fifteen. Remittances came +sufficiently often and of sufficient amount to keep things just barely +going; but no more. Victory was due almost any day—though, it’s true, +it was getting late. Towards the end of the year Henry Maple began +to feel he knew not what difference in his gentle vigour and in his +hopefulness. It was as though the world were losing its taste. + +He put it down to the war—but it was not the war. 1916 went by, and +that internal enemy, whatever it was, took more and more of the man’s +life. Yet he put it down to nothing but the restrictions and fatigues +and anxieties of the time. The progress of the disease was slow, his +son hardly noticed it. To boys of his age a man of over fifty seems +very old, and that his father should now no longer be able to take the +long walks he had, or to read quite so long at a time, seemed to him +nothing but the natural process of age. + +So it went on for two years more. Twice Henry had made the resolution +to get back home to see if—late as it was—the boy couldn’t be got to +his school. Twice he had abandoned that resolution. The increasing +difficulties of travel appalled him, and it must be admitted that a +stronger motive was his clinging to John’s companionship. His brother’s +urgent appeals to him not to move, the assurance that he was better +where he was, and sundry hints in the letters, hints which escaped +the censorship, that England might not be quite secure confirmed his +lethargy. His increasing weakness did the rest. He would wait till the +war was over—still confident that it would be over “almost any time +now,” and over in the right way. + + * * * * * + +On the 2nd May, 1918, not for the first time, but hardly for more than +the second time in Henry Maple’s life, he was pulled up sharply against +reality. A telegram came from Hilda, saying that William had died +suddenly—a letter would follow. + +The shock fell on a man much nearer death than either he or his child +had imagined. He went down a further step in the descent out of this +life. He had been really fond of his brother; too grateful for a +generosity that had been very much more like an investment; and he was +bound—as such natures are—by the common memories of childhood. + +But there was a good side even to that, and it put some light into the +mind of the dying man—for dying he now was, though slowly. After all, +John was the heir. William had died childless. John was the heir: not +only to dear Rackham and its impoverished fields, but to that solid +fortune which William had created—always subject, of course, to Hilda’s +life-rights: that was only just. + +Henry honestly admitted to himself that he had never liked Hilda; she +was too loud for him. He used to say to himself, that she was not quite +a lady. But he would be just; of course she ought to have the usufruct +of the greater part as long as she lived. It was only right. Never +mind: John was the heir. Henry knew of himself, by this time, that he +was dying: but John was the heir, and all was well. The boy was nearly +eighteen, they must be thinking of the University soon: the war could +not go on for ever; and in a way it was a sort of providence, was it +not, that poor William should have gone when he did? And yet, no, that +was a thought he must put away. William would have looked after the +boy, anyhow.... It had better be Oriel. He did not know how Oriel stood +now, but he had been at Oriel himself, and that was reason enough. +Oriel it should be. He had everything arranged. + +He made no doubt at all as to what William’s will would be, though he +had been too delicate to discuss it with him those five years before, +when they had last met; it would be the normal will of an enriched, +childless younger son standing thus in a landed family; there would be +the life interest for Hilda—perhaps large—but the rest of the income +would accumulate for the boy until he was of age; and meanwhile there +would be an allowance for his education. Perhaps Hilda would be made +guardian; he would regret it, but he did not mind. He could not think +long on these things: he could not concentrate. He awaited the papers. + +Instead of the papers, only a couple of rare letters came through +from his sister-in-law, but all that late summer of 1918 went by, +with the war now at last manifestly closing, the turn of the tide, +the Armistice. At the end of the year Hilda herself, too soon after a +message announcing her coming, was in the sick man’s room. + +She stayed exactly two days in the little house on the slope of the +Jura, just gracious to her nephew, just sufficiently affectionate to +her brother-in-law, and no more. Mrs. William Maple was a business +woman, and she had come to talk business. + +And the business was this. William Maple had left everything to her +absolutely. That was the first point. Yes? (putting up her hand) surely +he did not suspect her? She would do her duty, and she knew what her +duty was. But so far as the legal terms of the will went, there it was. +That was how it stood. It was not her doing. She had known nothing +about it till it was read. Henry must remember it was her husband’s +money, and, for her part, she thought he had done rightly. + +So much for that. Now about Rackham. + +She changed her tone somewhat when she came to this. She was not +exactly ashamed, but she was just a trifle embarrassed. She owed it +to herself to do what she had to do, but she did not like doing it. +However, these things have to be done, and she was as brief as she was +clear. + +Rackham was gone; hopelessly gone; William had spared his brother the +worry of too much detail. He had very generously provided much more, +really, than the difference between the rents and the interest could +possibly have covered; she had all the papers in due order, and she +had brought with her the accountancy document with a mass of other +papers, which her sick brother-in-law had neither the energy nor the +clearness of mind to follow. He listened patiently as she spoke—yet not +despairingly. He still had something of that hopefulness in him which +had been at once the curse and the alleviation of his not unhappy but +most unfortunate life: for such men trouble rather their descendants +than themselves. + +Hilda made the position plain enough. If she had been—what she thanked +God she was not—a cold, calculating sort of person, there would have +been nothing for it but to sell Rackham; it was not entailed, and even +so, she would have lost thousands on the deal. But she was not like +that. She assured him she was not like that. She was willing to lose +and to take Rackham over as it stood in cancellation of all debts. She +was glad to make the sacrifice. She would not dream of disturbing his +illness with pressure of any kind. A will of his in her favour was one +way. If he disliked that, she wished to be generous; she would make it +a purchase. She would accept it against the debt. + +Henry heard her, and he saw no way out. + +“You will do the right thing by the boy,” he said. “He’s the only +child. Hilda, you will do the right thing, of course?” + +She assured him of that; but what the right thing meant was left vague, +as everything had been left vague in Henry Maple’s life. It mattered +little anyhow, she thought; Rackham was hers to dispose of, and there +was still long life before her. The right thing by the boy meant, let +it be hoped, some regard for his proper upbringing: then, of course, he +would stand somehow vaguely at Rackham, so long as Rackham was their +home, as the heir. So let it stand at that. + + * * * * * + +When the end came (it was the foul winter of ’19 that killed him) it +came rapidly enough. But just before that end Henry Maple rallied +singularly in intelligence and decision. It was like that little return +of the flood in certain heavens before the final ebb. It was as though +he had a task to perform. + +Such men postpone: but now there could be no postponement. He spoke to +the boy. + +“John,” he said, “you know that I have been very ill, and you have +seen me getting worse.” He looked at the tall boy—the tall young man, +he seemed, for the first time, in his father’s eyes; strong in +his eighteen years—and understood how true it is that children are a +mitigation of the memory of death. Something far stronger than his own +youth was there: as tender, but more sturdy, and (he secretly hoped) +more obstinate. + +[Illustration: _Aunt Hilda settling everything_] + +“Yes, Papa,” said John. He took his father’s hand where it lay upon the +rug of the invalid chair, as a woman might have done. “But you will get +better.” + +Henry Maple slightly shook his head. + +“I have not told you—I have not allowed any of these good people here +to tell you—the doctor was quite right; he knew all about it from the +beginning, and he tells me that it is coming to the end.” + +For the first time in his young life John Maple felt that shock of +emotion which suddenly whitens the face, and he knew that his heart +had stopped beating for the moment. He could not prevent a convulsive +clutch at his father’s hand. The old man looked at him with all the +affection of the past in his eyes. + +“Sometimes, John dear,” he said, “I think I have not given you a fair +chance. Then I say to myself that, after all, it was the war, and we +were wiser to stay where we were. It has been very happy here.” + +“It has, Papa,” said John. + +“You have not been lonely, boy?” + +“Never,” answered John, truthfully enough. “I like our friends here, +and the two Englishmen as much as any. Charles is going to Oxford next +term....” Then he stopped abruptly. It was amazing to him that he had +forgotten in those few words the blow that had fallen, and suddenly, in +spite of himself, he began to cry. His father stroked his hand. + +“It does no harm to cry, boy. It’s all the better. You will feel it +less later. It had to come. But I have a great deal to tell you. You +know we have become much poorer?” + +“Well, yes, of course, Papa. I don’t know much about these things, but +we have lacked nothing.” + +“No, dear boy, but it is not Rackham. Do you remember Rackham well? You +must—you were over thirteen, and big for your age, when you left it.” + +“Yes, Papa,” said John, still sobbing. “I remember Rackham!” + +“Well, John, it is very difficult to say, but I will try and say it. +Technically—legally—I suppose that is the right word—Rackham is not +mine any more.” + +The boy looked bewildered. That Rackham had been theirs, his father’s, +and his father’s father’s, and so on, and would be his in his turn, +this was a thing he had taken for granted as part of the universe. That +idea had no connotation of wealth in his mind. It was the very stuff +of his thoughts. The Maples and Rackham were one thing. + +“It could not be helped. I did my best. You know, land went to +pieces.... Your uncle was very generous; he was, really. We should not +have been here, even, but for him. Honestly, John, your Aunt Hilda has +been generous too. I can’t deny that.” + +“What do you mean by generous, Papa?” said the young man, a little +hardly. + +“Why, my dear,” the other answered, sighing, “I owed her husband, and +therefore I owed her, after her husband died, more than I could pay; +more than there was anywhere. There was a German investment of your +grandfather’s—did you know that?” + +“No, Papa.” + +“Well, it’s gone, of course. I lost it by your uncle’s advice; he said +it was as safe as gold; but after all, he could not tell. No one could +tell.” + +“Papa,” said John Maple, asking a question of this sort for the first +time in his life, prompted by he knew not what odd premonition of the +future, “what was the sum owed? How much was the money claimed? How +much would be needed to...?” + +His father looked at him with a long look. + +“You’re thinking of getting Rackham back?” + +“Oh, no, Papa,” he said, startled. He had no conception of such +powers. He could not even imagine himself earning. “I only wondered.” + +“Well, well,” said Henry Maple, falling back into his vagueness, “your +aunt will do the right thing. When I am gone, John, go straight back to +her.... You want to know ... what the sum was?” + +“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said John. But something fierce in his voice +belied the words. + +“My dear boy, it is easily told. The first sum, you know, the actual +sum, I don’t mean the interest—was £10,000. One bit after another ... +it began during those bad years ... I saw corn sold at Lewes market +for 10s. a sack.... Anyhow, your uncle was really generous. He was, +indeed. He never pressed and the interest ran, without his ever saying +a word about it.... And then, at the end, when what with that, and some +expenses or other ...” he hesitated, as though his memory was working +ill ... “oh, yes, on the church, you know. Well, it wasn’t £20,000.... +But your uncle was generous, boy, do believe it. He gave me the balance +making it up to £20,000. That is what we have had over and above some +of the rentals since we have been here.... There will be £300 or £400 +for you to take in the bank when....” He would not say the words. + +“It was £20,000 altogether?” said John. + +“Yes,” said his father. “But, you know, when your aunt came she had all +the papers in order, and there’s no denying she had a right to a lot +more than that.” + +The son was silent: he was growing older with every moment of this. + +“_She_ was just, too, John, believe me. They kept the place very well. +It looked twice what it had been, though a little strange ... when I +went back there.... Anyhow, it’s hers now.” + +“Hers?” said John. “Oh, don’t bother, Papa. Don’t trouble. I ought not +to have asked you.” + +“Yes, dear boy, it had to be. Strictly, she could have made me sell. +But in her odd way she’s generous too, I think. Though I can’t pretend +that I ever....” He would not complete the sentence. But from that +moment the boy had an unpleasing image of the woman in his heart. + +“It was her right, John, and she’ll do the right thing by you. She has +no children, and it’s bound to come to you. And, you know, you are to +go to Oriel? She’ll see to that. I make no doubt she’ll see to that. +Settle it with her. And your allowance, my dear boy ... and....” + +He ceased, under a sudden spasm of extreme fatigue. + +“I must stop now, boy.” + +His son kissed him upon the forehead, and thought it oddly cold. + +“It’s late,” the father added, almost in a whisper. “Tell Marie to come +up. I’ll get to bed.” + +And next morning young John Maple, waking late, alarmed that his father +had not rung, went to his door, and knocked, and heard no answer. That +father was dead. + + * * * * * + +The English friends in the place told the lonely boy what he should +do, but he was already almost competent to act. Cut off though he +had been from the life of his kind, he had a singularly mature power +of decision, and it was nerved now by a strange, tenacious feeling +in which, as in a composite picture, were inextricably entwined the +beloved memory of the face which he would never see again for ever +(every detail of the funeral remained vivid all his life)—a profound +sense of wrong done him, and a vague, quite formless, but astonishingly +strong intention of _action_—what action he knew not, nor how it should +be performed, nor where. Even in one so young, sudden and overwhelming +grief adds to the vividness of life intolerably. By so much as he +dwelt—more than in real experience itself—upon his father’s voice, +gesture, everything—by so much was he acutely, violently sensitive to +harsh alien things. + +His aunt had not come out for the funeral. She seemed to show an +intolerable indifference. Bad as the immediate post-war conditions +were, it was inexcusable. The letter he had received from her struck +him like ice; though that woman had never written unkindly in her life, +yet also she had never written kindly. The journey home in those +strange, interrupted days of the spring of ’19, with the delays and +the broken glass in the carriages and the sleepless nights, felt like +an approach to some doom. What would it be like? What would Rackham +be like? What would it have become? He had a fairly clear memory +of the place, though he had not seen it since he was a child—for +five-and-a-half years. His father had told him very vaguely and in a +few sentences that it “looked twice what it had been”; but he evidently +did not like to dwell on any description. He had pictured to himself +one or two consolations—meeting again with Corton, the old butler, and +the rest of them—he supposed they were all still there—the familiar odd +disjointed front of the house, half brick, half timber; the rank grass, +the neglected field beyond the rusty iron palings, the ill-kept lawn +which were for him not decay, but Home. + +His first shock was at the station. + +It was not the old brougham that met him, the old horse that he +remembered; it was a car, too smart for such a place; and the driver, +of all things in the world, a Frenchman, demobilised and (by some +strange snobbery of his aunt’s) smuggled in: imported by the favour of +some Parliamentarian friend of hers. + +The drive was too short. The old ramshackle lodge was gone, and there +was, in its place, a Queen Anne cottage of the worst type. The drive +was twice as broad as in the old days. The gravel of it clean and new. +Then, at a turn, in a moment—the evening still light—he saw Rackham. + +But was it Rackham? The front was all timber now. And no one could say +whether it was all new or all old. It seemed new, made falsely old. The +windows were old-new, anyhow, for they were criss-cross lattice. It +made him think of the few times he had seen stage scenery, when he had +gone with his father into Berne to the play. + +Corton was there when the door opened. And for the first time in +so many days he rejoiced a moment in the warmth of the old man’s +greeting—but in what surroundings! + +The old hall had gone; the next room had been knocked into it. He could +have believed it the lounge of an hotel for its garishness. There were +strange beams, artificially rough and artificially darkened. There were +pictures on the wall which he had never known. All looked new, most +abominably aping age. + +He was in an ill mood by the time his aunt received him. But that first +evening things went quietly enough. She did her best—it was a poor +best, but she could do no better. She was precise, she was worldly, she +could not bear things to be casual and unfixed; and she was (wrongly) +convinced that the boy before her was but a repetition of his father—of +whose goodness she had felt nothing, for whose vagueness and slackness +she had had all the contempt of her kind. + +I say, it was a poor best; and for a week—she thought it well to allow +a little time before any business should be talked—the tension grew. + +The breaking-point came one evening after dinner in the +drawing-room—furnished after some antique fashion which John could not +understand and hated—when Hilda Maple, in a tone which seemed to him +rather like the commands of an official than converse with one’s kind, +began to give him her plans for his future. He was to have so much—not +an insufficient allowance—paid thus and thus; he must account for it. +She had seen the authorities at Oriel and the rooms he would have. She +approved of the rooms. Perhaps she would have preferred Christ Church, +but it was his poor, dear father’s wish (she said that as though his +father’s wish was necessarily less worthy than her own—after all, poor +Henry had been at Oriel, hadn’t he?). + +John made no answer. He listened with increasing anger in his heart. + +“They wanted you to read history,” she said, “but I said you would +rather read law. You would, I know. Your uncle would have said that. He +always said that he wished he had read law himself at the University. +He said that it would have saved him three years. And you know, John, +you will have to have a profession.” + +John sat up in his chair and leaned forward slowly towards the April +fire. + +“I shall not go to Oxford. I shall find some trade,” he said, in a +slow, determined voice. + +“What do you mean?” answered his aunt sharply. + +“What I say,” answered her nephew. + +It was not a courteous beginning in her ears, for she felt she was +being enormously kind. After all, she owed him nothing; it was the +other way round; she had lost by him and his. + +“What you say?” she cried, almost angrily. “What you say? I don’t +understand you!” + +“I have got £352 left, Aunt Hilda,” he said, still refusing to meet her +eyes and looking straight into the fire. + +“Well?” said she. + +“It’s enough to turn round on,” he continued. + +“Good heavens, boy! Do you understand that you’re not yet nineteen? +D’you think you are of age? What can one do with three ... really, I +don’t understand what you mean!” + +But in that young mind a very firm determination was growing up. He +knew nothing whatever of the world. But he was prepared to learn it, +and to learn it alone, as soon as might be. He said no more. She +questioned, she spoke so strongly that with a woman less careful of +herself there would have been a storm. But she got no more out of him. + +There followed two days in which neither said much. Hilda Maple did not +reproach herself, but she was a little anxious. She thought herself +capable of any situation: but this was new. On the third day John told +her of his determination. + +He was going to London. He would give her his address the moment he had +one; he begged her to let him be. He was sure of himself. + +There passed rapidly through his aunt’s mind the alternatives before +her, and before him. She saw them clearly, as was her talent, and she +made the decision, which was perhaps the only one she could have made. + +He might go. She would not oppose his going. She was still determined +to do her duty in so far as he would meet her—she had a strong sense +of that—there was nothing petulant about the woman, nor any danger +of sudden moods; she had the virtues of the worldly, and their kind +of strength. It was a simple issue—either to use the law—which would +be odious, and would mean a permanent breach in little more than two +years’ time (for she rightly guessed the obstinacy of that deep-voiced, +clear-cut, sturdy figure) or simply to let him run the length of his +tether. She prophesied no disaster; she had the judgment to think that +upon the whole there would be none; though there was a hidden sneer in +her mind as she thought of what occupations this pig-headedness might +drive him to. She told him there would always be a home there when he +needed it; at heart she felt relieved of a burden. + +John, on his side, felt a weight lifted too. And young as he was, he +moderated. + +“I certainly don’t want to quarrel, Aunt Hilda,” he said. “And I cannot +help telling you that I am grateful to you. You see, when I have made +up my mind——” he talked like one ten years older, and anyone with +a better sense of humour than Hilda Maple could hardly have helped +smiling—“when I have made up my mind—I can’t even think of myself as +changing.” + +So it was settled. They agreed for a fortnight’s interval in which he +should meet his father’s friends of the neighbourhood, and take some +advice as to where he might get rooms in town—as to what he should look +for then. + +John Maple saw and heard and learnt much in that fortnight; and all +he saw and learnt and heard further hardened him in his anger and his +resolve. + +For one thing, he discovered the odious word Catchings. It seems +that Rackham had been rebaptised “Rackham Catchings.” Disgusting +black-letter buffoonery! + +He had first come across it in the village shop, where the young man +with whom he had played as a boy was all obsequiousness to the heir of +such wealth, and had said, bowing and smirking, over a parcel, “Shall I +send it up to the Catchings?” + +“To what?” John had said sharply. + +“To the Catchings, sir—Rackham Catchings? Your house, sir; leastways, +Mrs. Maple’s house.” + +“Oh,” John had answered. “Yes, Rackham, of course. Where else should +you send it?” And he had turned abruptly out of the familiar door. + +After that he noticed the odious thing in the address of letters +arriving. On the first day he had occasion to write a note he found +it on the paper heading. He saw in the _County News_ that some show +or other was to be opened a fortnight hence by Mrs. Maple of Rackham +Catchings. He was beginning to get it on the brain. + +And certainly there had been plenty of Catchings added to Rackham. To +his mind, in those few days during which he still lingered, the new +sham timbered front was the Catchings and the beastly sham panelling +and sham beams of the new rooms, and the odious antique furniture, and +the silly Wardour Street pictures deliberately darkened—all these were +the Catchings. He went over them one by one, listing them in his mind, +and grimly delighted in the coming luxury, distant or near, of tearing +them out by the roots like a lot of bad teeth. + +It was a state of things that did not make for better relations, though +John was careful to keep off any questions on the novelties, even on +the absurd novel name. He would learn its origin in due time. Meanwhile +upon anything that mattered he was stubbornly silent, and sufficiently +talkative on things that did not. + +Aunt Hilda played her part well enough, determined as he was, and +successful as he was, in preventing an open quarrel. On the day when +she bade him good-bye at the door, and made him promise to write and +to return often to visit her, she rejoiced that she had not broken her +word to the dead man. She had done her best. And if anything went wrong +with John, why she was always there to help. But there is no denying +that she was relieved. + +As for John, though he had left Rackham silent, he had fallen into a +new mood as the train approached London. Her friends and his father’s +had given him introductions and he had been told of good and reasonable +lodgings; and he had those few hundreds and scores of pounds in his +pocket, which are a fortune on the threshold of one’s twentieth year. + +But quite unchanged in his heart as he travelled still stood the image +of the old Rackham, the real Rackham. And those hurried facts which his +father had passed over as though they were too painful for him—sums of +money: the real sum owed—£10,000, or say £12,000, £13,000 at the very +most—yet £20,000 claimed. Well, £20,000 it legally was and £20,000 he +would adhere to. + +That £20,000 he would find, make, somehow, somewhere. + +At his age £20,000 is like a million, but at his age, also, a million +may be found, made, somehow—somewhere. That £20,000 hardened in his +soul and became the permanent furniture of it. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +How young people fall on their legs no one knows—least of all +themselves: no more than cats thrown off a roof. Those who have gone +out into the world on their own before they were twenty know that it +happens, and that is all they can say. + +It happened to John Maple. He went through the string of those +adventures which all such lads go through, indifferent to the squalor +because he was too young; delighted with the uncertainty, and buoyed +up by the novelty of his life. It happened to him also (as it happens +to all such) that he was never cut off from his equals in real life as +such are cut off in melodrama. There was nothing about not darkening +doors again, or shaking dust off feet. He went down often enough to +Aunt Hilda’s (thinking himself a noble fellow enough for tolerating +Rackham). He made better and better friends with Corton, who always +thought of him as the only true Maple. He met his aunt’s friends. His +father’s old acquaintances looked him up, and asked him out in London. +If you had taken a couple of weeks out of the boy’s life and followed +it hour by hour, you would have found such a mosaic as only an early +experience of that strange kind knows—there are plenty of us alive +to-day who have known it and can remember it. John Maple came to know +them all. + +Lodgings chosen for their peculiarity, their isolation; a single bare +room overlooking London from the height of an old building; a basement; +a dusty studio; one changed for another. Odd acquaintances from the +most different sorts of worlds. Broken-down actors, young men trying +to find work, and trying to forget the time when they were soldiers. +Pompous hosts in huge great mausoleums of houses (bad speculations on +the Crown property at Kensington—white elephants). Dull Bohemian nights +in Chelsea. Much more interesting revolutionary nights sandwiched +between foreign and domestic spies in reeking cellars off Houndsditch. +One or two really interesting parties in the houses of such people, for +instance, as Charles Baker, who had been his father’s friend for years +before the exile, and who was still in Parliament and still ridiculing +it, but whose real point was that he could paint; or tea with another +friend of his father’s of very many years’ standing, Lady Pattle, +the widow of the Admiralty Judge. There he met everybody—and there, +incidentally, he met Bo. + +Lady Pattle liked pretty well everything, but if she liked one thing +more than another it was people who could talk crisply and dress +crisply. She liked them best when they were least English, and she +liked them best of all when they were American. + +Now God in His providence had at this very moment provided for Lady +Pattle, and for England, precisely what was most needed in this line. + +Hamilcar Hellup had not begun life upon a few copper coins, still less +had he walked as a barefoot child into New York, because he could not +afford to ride. He had been born of a very good family—that is to say, +of a family that had plenty of lineage (ten generations of it since +the first settlers); moderate in fortune; once Puritan, now atheist, +in religion. He had been brought up with the other lads of the village +under that fine tradition of social equality which for so long was, +and still is, in unspoiled places, the tradition of the United States. +He had made a large fortune without selling any material objects that +anyone had ever seen, dealing shrewdly in paper. He had never cheated +anyone, to his knowledge. What is far more remarkable, very few people +had cheated him; or, at any rate, very few with impunity. + +His delight was to escape from New York and return at too brief +intervals to the place of his birth: and there his confidant was a +playmate who had remained poor and cunning on the soil, one Hiram Jake. +Hiram Jake remained in Hamilcar Hellup’s vision the symbol of his own +people, and years later, when he stole back home on brief escapes from +England, to talk of Mayfair to Hiram Jake over the broken fence of +that citizen’s lot was cold water in the desert to the millionaire. + +When he was a little over fifty he became a widower, and was left with +an only child, a girl called Isabeau, then twelve years old, and to +enjoy, at eighteen, yet another fortune from her mother. His whole life +changed. He gave up the accumulation of further wealth—and therein was +wise, for he had an enormous lump of it. He came over to Europe with +his daughter. First he travelled with her to many places he himself had +seen in his former journeys; then he put her back into a school in his +own country; his wife would have wished it. + +While Isabeau was thus growing up American, her father, fully +realising, what he had known at the back of his mind since first he had +seen the country, that England was the place where rich men should come +to die, made his arrangements to settle here. + +Nearly seven years had passed since then, and Isabeau, whose name had +very naturally contracted into Bo, was on the point of coming back to +England, when Hamilcar Hellup (he had been Hamilcar J., but he had +dropped the J.—wherein again he was wise) was first pestered by our +hungry politicians to pay them money for a peerage. + +Now Hamilcar, being an American, knew all about such things. The Press +of his native country had told him far more about English politics than +our own Press ever tells Balham or Tooting. He knew all about the +politicians, with their tongues hanging out for money—and he preferred +to keep his money to himself. Therefore had Hamilcar been standing on +guard, like a wicket keeper with the gloves on, for now some years: +ready to catch each attack on his purse and throw it back. Hitherto he +had succeeded. Of the last begging interviews, two had been attempted +by a tout of the Prime Minister of the day, very clumsily done, without +a proper introduction; the fellow simply rang the bell and sent in a +card. He was shown out; or, as Hamilcar put it, thrown into the street. +But appetite in politicians is over-mastering, and Hamilcar’s wealth +was notorious, illustrious, quite unconcealed. + +[Illustration: _Neighbour Hellup and Neighbour Jake_] + +The next attack was delivered in his club. It was delivered by an old +gentleman who had bothered him about a lot of other things. This cadger +was (to change the metaphor) deftly cut through the slips. But the +third attack came, only two days later, in the shape of a florid young +man in the Government, with whom he got on like a house on fire. It was +quite late in the evening during a party in Merton Street, when his +under-secretary suddenly asked him whether he would meet yet another +politician at lunch next day. Hellup very foolishly consented; and +there suffered a most brutal hammering, a torture of direct insistence +that he should pay. But there was plenty of hard wood in Hamilcar +Hellup, and he stood firm. There was nothing doing. + +What did the trick was Lady Pattle. Lady Pattle had got to know him +just after he had landed. She was a dab at that sort of thing, and she +had managed it sideways, getting him kidnapped to tea in her house +under the guard of her niece and a Lord Chancellor in a large motor. +She had him by the Christian name within a year. She was not for +hurrying things. He was taking her advice during all the second year, +and still more during all the third year; and he had rarely found it +wrong. Lady Pattle it was who told him quite solemnly, after now six +years of acquaintance, that he ought to buy. Lady Pattle it was who +broke down that iron resolve and made Hamilcar Hellup a peer. No other: +Peggy, Lady Pattle. + +Let me cast no suspicion on that honoured name. She took no commission. +She had been specially urged by no one. It was principally from +Hamilcar himself that she had learnt how he had set his teeth, and was +becoming obstinately proud as well as amused in turning the politicians +down. She desired to do only what might be good for him, for she was +really fond of him—and she advised him to yield. Her arguments were +sound. The Prime Minister was asking nothing exorbitant. A dozen new +peers had paid him from twice to ten times as much. Hamilcar was +very rich, and he would not feel it. It was not as if he had run +after them; they had run after him; and really a peerage was a solid +advantage—especially for an American. + +“Not Home,” was Hamilcar’s comment; and Lady Pattle had answered +sharply, “No, but you are not living at home.” Whereat Hamilcar had +sighed, for it was true. And in his heart he longed for the wooden +houses and Jake, the playmate of his boyhood, and to see the smoke +rising from his own land, and after that to die. + +“It is not,” she said, “as though you had a boy to take it on after +you. That would be a nuisance. But it will certainly help Bo. She’d +like it. She’s been too young so far to know what it means; but +she’d like it now. And it’s great fun, remember. You go and hear the +debates and if you like you can join in. Anybody can. Then, it helps +you abroad: on the Riviera especially, and in Paris too. Still. Even +to-day. It won’t last, but be an English peer while it lasts.” + +“Raises prices?” said Hamilcar. + +She shook her head. + +“Not at the kind of places you go to. They couldn’t raise them.” + +What clinched the matter—nothing less would have convinced him—was the +battery she brought up at the end of this memorable conversation. + +“If you don’t pay that little bounder off and have done with it, you’ll +be plagued for the rest of your life. He’s worse in opposition than +in office,” she had said. What that meant Hamilcar Hellup hardly +understood; but he understood well enough the wisdom of cutting worry. +And that very week he bought the peerage. One thing, however, he stuck +to; he would not change his name. They tried hard to make him, but +he was adamant. The Hellups had been Hellups too long to change, and +Hellup he remained. + +Therefore, when Bo came over from her school, and when Lady Pattle +presented her at Court, and when, with her straightforwardness and +beauty and (to be quite just) her hardness, she had duly impressed +herself upon London, she was the Honourable Isabeau Hellup. Why she was +not Lady Isabeau Hellup was explained to her, and she was reluctant to +accept the explanation. Then did she begin with a great verve a career +of conquest; and her father was prouder of her than of any deal he had +ever made in his life: not excepting the original great Paramount Paper +Merger, in the year ’95. + +Bo had armed herself, as must every woman who proposes to conquer, with +a dog—by name Lovey-Lad, by nature swift and terrible, strong to seize +and to tear, strong also to growl, and of the bulldog breed. He became, +in the few hundreds of newspaper pictures which appeared on both sides +of the Atlantic, her cognitive sign, as is the Lion that of St. Jerome, +the Dog that of St. Roch, the Eagle that of Jupiter and St. John, +and an open Bible spread under the left hand that of the late Queen +Victoria at a certain epoch of her reign. + +[Illustration: “_Our younger hostesses_” + +_Pleasing sketch of the Honble. Isabeau Hellup with her dog Lovey-Lad; +from the pencil of Mr. Louth and appearing (syndicated) throughout the +Press of England and America_] + +All guessed—some had arranged—whom Bo was to capture. There were +titles in the list—the more knowing ones had particularly good foreign +titles to put forward. There were also great untitled lumps of money, +still knocking about unmarried. There were even a few of the minor +Exalted Personages. Lady Pattle herself, though she was no fool, could +not help, being a hostess and a woman, having fixed plans of her own. +She had settled on and pinned down and labelled young Lord Ockley, +because he had no money, because he was nice, and because she knew him: +three very good reasons. + +But these good people reckoned without the Hellup blood, which was +good, tested stuff; they had reckoned without its particular qualities +in Bo; above all had they fatally reckoned without the Bow and Quiver +of the Little God—the Unconquered in Battle—who perpetually scatters +the arrangements of possessing men, and falls like a bolt into the +midst of riches. + +It had amused the Little God to bring Bo up against John Maple, and +John Maple up against Bo. It had amused him to shoot at them both; +first from a distance, to try his bow; then good and hard at short +range. They were already quite certain each of the other, before either +of them was quite certain who the other was. They were both married in +heaven—or whatever the process is—I mean, they had both known about +each other from all eternity, while Bo still had no more definite +knowledge of John than that somehow or other he was connected with +“that Mrs. Maple,” and was perhaps vaguely the heir to a Manor House +somewhere or other, with English lawns and oaks, and all the rest of +it: no title—at least, she thought no title. She had not yet thought +much one way or the other about anything connected with him, except +that she knew his soul as she knew her own: and liked it more. + +As for John, he knew she was the daughter of one of these American +lords, and he did not honestly try to distinguish between them. But +he had liked her father. He liked the crispness, the exceedingly +well-brushed close short white hair; the equally well-groomed short +white moustache; the humorous, keen eyes and all the rest that goes +with the type. He liked the short sentences, the lively metaphor, +and he liked the man’s certitude in himself. It was as well. For +considering how fiercely John Maple loved that tall infant he might +have hated the rival affection even of her father. And considering how +much Lord Hellup doted on his daughter, he might most furiously have +disliked anyone else claiming her. + +That Bo had a great fortune was present in John’s mind, but occupied +no place there. It is often like that. He knew her fortune was there, +as one knows that a big cloud is in the sky. It did not occupy his +thoughts as being anything prominent, still less as having any +effects. For remember, he was still very young. If he had thought of it +at all it would have worried him, I fear. But he did not think of it. + +In the adventures of John Maple there had been one very simple motive +running through, which was to earn a living: though he put it to +himself not as earning a living, but as earning, making—_getting_, +anyhow—a certain fixed sum of money, to wit, £20,000, wherewith to buy +back Rackham. + +Aunt Hilda had, in the interval since John had come up to town to make +his way, gone from bad to worse. It wasn’t enough for her to call the +old place Rackham Catchings; she sometimes used “Catchings” by itself. +And when John protested against _that_ innovation (as he had done +on one of his last visits) she had poured out a torrent of horrible +antiquarian stuff which she had got from an archæological society, and +which boiled down to this: that once, in one of the older title deeds, +the word “Catchings” appeared; it seemed to have been used for some +part or other of the estate. She was proud to add that they had also +found a certain Sir Harry Murtenshaw mentioned in a letter (undated, +but in a handwriting of the sixteenth century), and that in this +same letter there was mention of a Catchings. It was true this last +Catchings was in Norfolk; but that didn’t trouble Aunt Hilda. She had +already established her legend. The true name of Rackham was Rackham +Catchings, or even Catchings alone; and it had descended to the Maples +and so to herself diversely, by heiresses and marriage, from Sir Harry +Murtenshaw, Knight; a courtier of Gloriana’s, a jewel in the crown of +the Virgin Queen, an Elizabethan. + +With John’s movements among the rich Aunt Hilda was insufficiently +acquainted. She kept in touch with him, and she was vaguely pleased +to know that whatever tricks he was playing in private to make a +living—and on these she did not yet inquire—he was at any rate, to the +world, her nephew and his father’s son. If he appeared to be living in +London instead of in Sussex, she liked to have it put down to his—or +rather her—opulence. And if he had to refuse many engagements, if he +mysteriously disappeared for days at a time, why, that was again a +proof of his ample leisure and power to choose his own recreations. +She knew, of course, and she half envied, the way in which she heard +him talked about, though it annoyed her more than it pleased her when, +in that world which had been his father’s, they asked her (as they +often did) whether she were not a cousin. For the truth is, that Aunt +Hilda did not know the rich as well as John did. Still, there were few +whom John knew and whom Aunt Hilda had not at least heard of: not many +houses where John was intimate and she had not at least called. She +addressed Lady Pattle by her Christian name, and had more than once +been called Hilda in return. Two warm friendships Mrs. Maple had made +in that world—one with Lord Hellup, who quite frankly admired her; +one with a certain Lord Mere de Beaurivage—or rather, with his wife, +Amathea, whom she had piloted through many straits and narrows. For the +wife of Lord Mere de Beaurivage had to learn the intricacies of high +life rather late, as indeed had her worthy husband. Fortune had come +upon him with horrible rapidity, like a shell, after his fiftieth year. +It was not till the first war Coalition Government that he had appeared +as Sir George Huggins. It was not till the second war administration +that he had come—by the usual cheque—to adorn the House of Lords. His +creation dated some months before Lord Hellup’s. He was senior to Lord +Hellup in the proud hierarchy of our nobility: senior by half a year. + +Though Aunt Hilda could not but revere her dear Amathea’s husband +and have a strong attachment for Hamilcar Hellup, neither of these +noblemen, with wife or daughter, had happened to be at Rackham on +the same occasions as her nephew. She had learnt in roundabout ways +that the Hellups knew John and liked him, though she had not a +suspicion of the growing affair with Bo. As for Lord and Lady Mere de +Beaurivage—either they had not come across the young man at all in the +Great World, or if they had, they had forgotten it: he was no apparent +help to climbing folk. To put it in Lady Mere de Beaurivage’s simple +English phrase, when Hilda had cast out a feeler about it, “Your nevvy? +Not as I knows of, Ilda dear. But there, bless you! faces I knows, +but names I disremember.” Or as his lordship had put it with equal +simplicity, “John Miple? Wot? Sime nime as yer own? Not as I can call +to mind. But lor! There’s so many of ’em!” A sound judgment. + +Such was the ambiguous situation—John on the fringes of Aunt Hilda’s +push; Aunt Hilda’s wishing that she was really received as John was +received. So John was asked with sincere affection to Rackham, but not +too often. When he came he played up, and he even helped Mrs. Maple +when she came to London in her abhorrent task of adding further and +more heavily to the Catchings—for some purpose of her own which as yet +John could not divine. It intrigued him. + +That fixed idea of his that he would be master of Rackham sooner or +later led him to tolerate every grotesque purchase and addition, and to +help her whole-heartedly. It made him know more about the place ... and +he was free to be rid of the whole mass of that rubbish when he should +reign. + +He accompanied her when she went to Burton’s studio to inspect the +absurd carved animals that were to appear on the stone pillars of the +new gate. He gravely approved her choice of the new gate itself, when +it was foisted upon her in the Euston Road—a sham Venetian horror in +new iron, and (oh! my God!) not even forged, but cast. + +He did more. He helped her to buy the Ancestor. + +The Maples, as he knew, had ancestors of a sort. They had the +cattle dealer. They had his son, the worthy Georgian squire who had +sat for the county. Indeed, they had a portrait of him in his wig +extraordinarily badly done by an artist of the local town whom the +gentry patronised in those days. + +There were even other ancestors at Rackham, as ancestors go—for +ancestors in such houses do not mean _real_ ancestors, but any +collaterals. One was a captain of Nelson’s in his uniform and the +other was a very rich lady whom that captain had had the good fortune +to marry after the wars. There was also a horrible dingy thing which +used to hang in the schoolroom, and which John could vaguely remember +someone having told him as a child was “your great-aunt Jane.” + +These had been good enough for Rackham. But they were not good enough +for Rackham Catchings, and Hilda Maple sailed forth in quest of +something more worthy. She set out on the uncharted sea to discover Sir +Harry Murtenshaw, Knight. + +She sought him, just in that place where Oxford Street merges into +Holborn, in a shop where she had had the good fortune to find many +things already: a shop belonging to a gentleman of Esthonian +extraction called Curzon; at any rate, this gentleman (who appeared +in person) had the selling of the goods, and, on this occasion, after +so many others sold to Aunt Hilda, of the Ancestor. And a very good +Ancestor he was. Aged in time, though newly cleaned, painted on canvas +which an expert would have ascribed to our own day, but set in the +proper kind of old frame and duly sooted, fumed, and with nothing to +give him away. + +He had a square, solid face, not unlike a pig’s, well pleased with +itself, and a square beard to match; and he was dressed in a period +which was either the very last days of Elizabeth or the very first days +of James: a man of about the same age as Shakespeare, but without his +genius. He cost Aunt Hilda surprisingly little, though surprisingly +more than he was worth. Whatever name he may have had in real life +he was now, for _her_, Sir Harry Murtenshaw, and she was always very +careful to explain that he was not a real Maple. Which was indeed the +case. + +He was, for _her_, the founder of the family in this sense; that it was +through his daughter, the heiress of Rackham, that the Maples had come +into the property: a touching piece of family history. It had been a +love match; and that was very touching too. + +Then, to the unconcealed annoyance of her nephew, she tacked a ghost +on to Sir Harry. At first a vague ghost, it turned more precise +and became a young relative of the knight’s, who had died a romantic +political death. + +[Illustration: _The Ancestor_ + +_Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight; by Holbein_] + +In a fine innocence upon the date of that eminent Hun, Hilda Maple +accepted the assurance that the portrait was by Holbein, and Sir Harry +Murtenshaw, bluff Englishman that he was, and stout supporter of the +Elizabethan (or Jacobean) settlement, was carried out by two assistants +of Mr. Curzon’s to be packed for delivery to Rackham Catchings. He was +heavy. He was large. He had to go out sideways. He travelled, finally, +upside down: but it in no way affected his imperturbable humour. + +John Maple had helped his aunt to choose the picture; had warned +her that Sir Harry was no ancestor of his, whatever he might be of +his aunt’s husband; had received the naturally sharp reply of that +lady to such a comment; and later, when the great founder of the +fortunes of Rackham was unwrapped, had helped to choose the part of +the panelling into which he was to be incongruously forced, frame +and all. He presided over the dining-room, as an ancestor should, +the new dining-room—which was also the old. For though it was the +new dining-room in Corton’s phrase, and in John Maple’s the sham +dining-room, everything had been done to make it the oldest dining-room +in Sussex. When Hilda Maple told her guests that the picture dated with +the room, and that the panelling built around it was its contemporary, +she was not strictly truthful. For whereas the panelling was of early +1918, Sir Harry (as I have established by deep research) was painted by +a starving Frenchman in Soho as long a time back as 1893. + +Anyhow, there he beamed over the Refectory table, the antique chairs +and all the caboodle, with virile if somewhat vacuous determination in +his contented eyes. It was men such as he, Aunt Hilda would explain to +her guests, who made us what we are. And God have mercy upon us all! +For we also are liars, my readers, yourselves not excepted. + +Pray let my reader remember this also (if I may so burden her memory) +that the Ancestor was but the last of Aunt Hilda’s purchases—and she +had outrun the constable. + +The gentleman of Esthonian extraction, Mr. Curzon, had let the +Ancestor go cheap—at thirty-seven times what he paid for him. But +he had sold Aunt Hilda valuable expert advice, panelling and chairs +as well, and tapestries which were not tapestries, and Jacobean +silver of the last few years (with Hall Marks let in) and Elizabethan +four-posters, Victorian on the carpenter’s side, and even bibelots +and fraudelquins; not to speak of fanfreluches and negligeables. And +for a long time past Mr. Curzon, the Esthonian, had not been selling +these to Aunt Hilda for cash, but for sundry promises of cash in time +to come. And these bore interest. For of such is the Kingdom of the +Esthonians—or, at any rate, of the Curzon sort. + +[Illustration: _Progress of Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight, to his +ancestral home_] + + * * * * * + +I have digressed. I have been misled by the contemplation of Sir Harry +Murtenshaw, Knight (from the brush of Holbein—with a Jacobean ruff and +trunk hose). + +Let me return to the adventures of John, and these shall be brief. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +John had started with his little nest egg of £352, but it would not +last for ever. He had had the wisdom to begin earning at once. He first +took chance jobs at writing for next to nothing. Then he helped a +friend to read proofs. Then he catalogued a library (extremely badly), +but at any rate with a good knowledge of French and German—which +was useful—at 30s. a week. Then he put in a short time, through the +kindness of one of his father’s friends, as assistant to the agent of +an estate; but there he was paid no wages, the experience was held to +be a sufficient reward, so that could not last. Then he spent a rather +longer time, under an assumed name, in a curious little venture with a +chance acquaintance of his, a man of the stage who had a tiny capital; +it immediately dissipated in a cabaret show which failed. It was bad, +but it would have failed even sooner had it been better. + +At last, having earned in rather less than a year somewhat under two +hundred pounds and having spent at least two hundred and fifty, he put +in three splendid weeks at sea without wages, but lodged and fed and +gaining time to think things over. He had come across the poor owner +of a small, old and ill-found ketch which traded with odd cargoes in +and out of London River, pottering up the creeks of the East Coast, and +sometimes standing across for the Hook or Ostend. John had a way with +him, and persuaded this acquaintance to let him sign on for a round +voyage across the North Sea and home by the East Coast ports, picking +up chance ladings and making what she could for her owner: her Mate and +Captain sharing. He was to grub with those officers in the after-cabin, +under one of those many odd titles whereby they excuse a supernumerary +on board. His presence delighted neither. He found the Old Man surly +and the Mate hostile. Yet he enjoyed himself hugely; and there it +was—of all places in the world!—that he discovered his talent and his +earning power, for we each of us have a talent—a saleable talent, I +mean—and happy is the man who discovers his while he is yet young. + +The Mate and he were together in the cabin of that aged ketch during a +long wait outside Harwich for the tide. The Old Man was smoking on deck +watching for the turn. The Mate was more sour than ever that evening, +jealous of such a super-cargo, with his white hands and gentleman’s +accent. Yet it was the Mate who, there and then, brought John his good +fortune, as enemies often do. John Maple was standing by in the dark +corner of the little stuffy place, lit only by a swinging oil lamp, +with no sound but the dull plash of the shallow water outside, and in +his exasperation at something worse than usual which the Mate had just +grumbled at him, he muttered to himself a word not polite, but said +in such a low tone that he hoped it could provoke no quarrel. What it +did provoke in the Mate was an attitude quite unexpected. That worthy +looked up with a sudden startled air, and said in an awed tone, “What +was that? Didn’t you hear summat?” and with that he peered furtively +askance into the darkness. + +“What was that?” said John Maple, rather surlily, thinking he had been +challenged. + +“I ’eard a voice!” said the Mate in scared religious tones, and John, +looking at him, saw that he had gone quite white. + +Those of the Unseen Powers who were looking after John’s affairs shot +into his head the right thing to do, though he hardly knew why it was +the right thing to do. He turned his face round again slowly away from +the Mate, put his hand to his temple, to cover his features, and again +gave that slight muttering; to be correct, it was the word “Swine!” + +He heard something like a muffled shriek from the Mate: + +“There it goes again! It said ‘Mine,’” moaned the Mate, now glaring +wide-eyed at the darkest corner of the cabin, where the reflector of +the lamp threw a deep shadow behind its smoky light. + +“Whose? Eh? ’ose? Am I ’is? What’s ’ee mean?” The Mate may have been +drinking or may have knocked off, which is worse still for the nerves. +But there was no doubt as to his mistaking the direction of the slight +sound which had terrified him. + +John Maple had discovered in those five minutes how easy it was—for him +at least, or in the right surroundings—to ventriloquise. + +“I dursn’t hear it again,” whispered the Mate. + +John Maple could not refuse to oblige, and he obliged for the third +time. The Mate sprang up all tense and said, trembling, that he didn’t +like it. + +“What don’t you like?” said John Maple, pleasant and friendly, to show +that the quarrel was forgotten. + +“Voices,” said the Mate scratching the little swinging table with his +nails nervously. “Don’t you ’ear nothin’?” + +John Maple paused. + +“Yes, I think I did,” he said slowly—which was true enough. + +It was the First Episode, and a very slight one. It had no immediate +sequel. + +On the return voyage (they carried bricks) John Maple was again +successful, not only in the cabin, but once at night on deck, when the +Mate and he had gone forward together; and again, when he had helped to +see whether there was any shifting in the hold (for a cargo of bricks +can work wonders if it shifts), the Mate heard voices. This time the +voices had something to say worth saying. They touched the Mate on +his immortal soul, the immediate perils of life, and advanced a strong +premonition of death. The Mate had fled up and aft, steadied himself +with a glass, and sworn at the end of the ordeal by all the gods below +London Bridge he would not sign on that vessel again. + +The Old Man was not superstitious. He had many of the qualities of +wood: not only its toughness, endurance and colour, but also its lack +of sensibility. John wondered whether this new-found talent would work +on the non-superstitious. + +Well, it had not that fine “first night” success which the Mate had +enjoyed; but it was beyond expectation all the same. + +The Old Man heard very clearly a voice from his own bunk. He was on +the other side of the cabin at the time, though, it is true, his +attention had been directed to the couch. The voice, far off, ghostly +in the darkness, reminded him of the day when he had so nearly drowned +(through no fault of his own, but rather of Islington port), and warned +him of approaching trials. Had the Old Man remembered to whom he had +lately recounted that drowning episode (the only adventure of his life) +he might have had suspicions. As it was, he had none, for he told the +story so often that he could not remember who last had heard it. All +he knew now was that a whisper from the other world—from A Spirit that +knew his past—had bidden him remember and beware. It affected him +damnably. + +His face did not go as white as the Mate’s had done, for it started +with a handicap of fixed mahogany, but it was changed when he looked +round at John and asked him, as the Mate had asked him, those few days +before, whether he had heard anything; and once more John truthfully +said he had. Then the Old Man asked him point-blank whether he +minded—as after all, he had done him the favour of taking him aboard, +and he was only a young chap—whether he minded sleeping in his, the +Captain’s, bunk that night, and giving him his own bunk. And John had +accepted with all the goodwill in the world. He even said it was an +honour. + +When John Maple landed from his short but memorable and very happy +cruise (for he had loved the sea, though it was his first experience +of it), he had no idea that there was a living in the talent he had +discovered—if talent it were. At first he only thought it amusing +that by suggesting to another person where a voice was likely to come +from, and then keeping one’s features still and talking within one’s +mouth, one could make the voice seem to come from out of nothingness. +Then when he tried it on with chance Bohemian friends in London he +found that not everybody could do it as well as he: and most of his +friends could not do it at all. Then came the day when Percy Spegel +(so he chose to spell his name for the moment), hearing him practising +the trick during a little supper at the _Lord Milner_ in Puffin +Lane, watched him with fixed eyes, wherein any expert demon might +have discovered avarice, tenacity, fraud, and other varied characters +consonant with his enormous tie-pin. + +Percy Spegel appealed to his constant parasite, whether John Maple had +not a marvellous talent? To which the parasite agreed. Whether it was +not a pity that such talent should be wholly untrained? To which the +parasite also agreed. Whether it would not be a dreadfully expensive +thing to train that talent? To which the parasite abundantly agreed. +Whether he would not probably be a loser if he attempted to put John +Maple on the Halls? To which the parasite said, he certainly would be. +Whether one was not foolish, out of mere enthusiasm, to risk such loss? +Which the parasite said was only what one would expect of a good fellow +like Percy. + +The upshot of it was that John Maple found himself prepared to sign a +contract of a sort he had never seen before, but familiar enough to +those who live and die by the Halls, wherein he was to earn nothing for +so long—a short period enough—and after that what looked like a very +large sum every week. + +John Maple knew nothing of what the out-goings of this profession are, +or of its temptations. He very luckily accepted, and that was why his +first steady employment—about a year after his return to England from +his father’s death-bed—was in the singular capacity of Lieutenant +Allegri, the world-famed ventriloquist. But such is the gulf between +the two worlds that no one among the rich whom he saw at his leisure +had an idea of the escapade; and no one among the Bohemians had an +idea of his acquaintance with the rich. He had fewer nights in which +he could go out, but he did go out sufficiently. He kept his contract +free; he would not be bullied: and he was so good that he could make +his own terms and times. + +[Illustration: _John Maple as Lieutenant Allegri_] + +The truth is, that if John Maple had been what young men of family in +this situation never are, and that is, devoted to his one talent, he +might have become rich. There are small fortunes made in these things. +He might have bought back Rackham after God knows how many years, if he +had cut himself right away from everything but slaving, and forgotten +every name but his own false one on the Halls. + +It was after a very short time as Lieutenant Allegri that he bought for +his own pleasure a couple of dogs and trained them to do tricks. Then +he had added to their number and taught them more tricks. Then (since +he now knew the trade) he determined to change over, and in spite of +Spegel’s passionate appeals to heaven, he convinced that expert, who +knew human nature if he knew nothing else, that he must take his choice +between losing his own profit, which was considerable, or accepting +John Maple in the future as Don Herado de Madero and his Troupe of +Performing Dogs. + +It was not as good as the ventriloquist show, but it drew better, for +the public is fond of dogs, and Spegel had put it about that it was all +done by kindness, not to say coddling: and the little brutes certainly +looked very happy as they ran about wagging their tails and doing +things which proved them wholly indifferent to pomposity. They barked +also, most winningly, to order, and grinned in the most endearing +fashion. + +There, then, was John Maple’s singular situation at the moment when, +in that other life of his, he and Bo had met and made certain one of +the other. He had told her secretly of his profession; and he had given +her useful tips about Lovey-Lad, for he had become an expert upon dogs. +That Lovey-Lad had recognised in him a mysterious Master of Hounds +raised him enormously in Bo’s eyes. It is to be believed that one of +Don Herado’s troupe met Lovey-Lad in the park and had loyally exalted +the powers of his lord. For certainly John was the only male human +being to whom Lovey-Lad deferred; and Lovey-Lad was the only being on +earth whose opinion Bo respected. + + * * * * * + +But why had Aunt Hilda taken all this enormous trouble about the +Catchings? Why the new beam let into the ceiling, adzed, blackened and +chipped and dated 1487? Why the Ancestor? Why the panelling? Why the +antique chairs? Why the heraldic animals? Why anything? Why, why the +new family ghost? It’s true _that_ cost nothing, but the more solid +stuff cost a great deal. Why all this expenditure? + +Had John Maple known more of the world, and wholly lost his innocence, +he could have answered, as you and I can answer, that there are only +two explanations of such feverish changes, when an old house is pulled +about and made vulgar. Either the Vandal has more money to spend than +she knows what to do with, or the Goth is embarrassed. Either the +barbaric hand is filled with the ruining gold, or the savage heart is +tortured by perpetual demands for payment from creditors and is salting +for a sale. + +Either Aunt Hilda was spending money wantonly, or she was desperate for +money. + +Well, it was the latter. Aunt Hilda was up to the neck in worry. She +didn’t know which way to turn. + +When people change and rechange, and pull down and destroy and +theatricalise, you can tell which of the two motives is at work by a +simple test. If they act spasmodically, first putting this up and then +taking it down, changing an ornament from one place to another, pulling +out a wall and then regretting it and putting it back, they have too +much money. If they pursue one plan, continuously, and load it with +detail they are fighting debt. + +Aunt Hilda was fighting debt. + +Aunt Hilda was making a new Rackham and a new Catchings for the sake +of some purchaser heaven might send her. For Aunt Hilda must find a +purchaser or burst. And that was the truth. + +William Maple, that careful business man, had left things in order +when he died. He had added appreciably to the value of the house and +the estate. He had allowed his wife to cover the brick part of the +front with a false veneer of half-timber because that at least gave it +uniformity with the older part; and he had allowed the new fake to be +toned down artificially so as to marry with the old. That also seemed +reasonable. More he had not allowed. But Hilda Maple, even before his +death, was already talking to her occasional guests about the antiquity +of the place, and what wonders would be revealed when all the old wood +could be uncovered and the later work which hid it could be taken away. + +Her husband had not been dead two months when, in spite of all the +difficulties in getting work done during those last days of the war, +Aunt Hilda lashed out. Even then—my reader will remember, if she is +old enough—people with a pull could get things done. It was the moment +when one of the most luxurious of the new houses near the south coast +in Kent was being built by a politician. The difficulties of life were +not with the rich in those spring days of 1918, and though Hilda +Maple was not in the heart of that old gentry which had once governed +England, she was already close in touch with some of the new vulgarians +who were now beginning to govern England. Her friendship with Amathea +de Beaurivage alone was enough to get her the necessary labour. It was +enormously expensive, of course, but she was full of her new fortune, +and she began to tear down the structure of the house within, and to +ornament, and to build. + +At the same time she did another thing, not unusual in women suddenly +possessed of capital, still less unusual in times when all values are +jumping up and down like the little ball in the circle of the roulette. +She gambled. + +But Hilda Maple, like thousands of others in those days, was gambling +against the politicians, the peace-makers, the bankers, and the +international spouters of the millennium. They could see what was in +the game, for they held and stacked the cards. She—and the thousands of +others—could only see the backs of those cards. + +There had come a moment—and that in a few months—when all was lost and +she had nothing to fall back on but Rackham itself, and Rackham she +must sell. Perhaps when she had spoken to her dying brother-in-law she +had honestly intended not to sell; but necessity knows no law, and she +excused herself to herself by the memory of what she had told him; that +she had a legal right to sell. But the selling of a house, like the +selling of a boat or the selling of one’s own soul, depends on external +effects. We “go on our clothes,” as a great American Leader of Modern +Thought has said. A boat sells on its paint and its brasswork. A house +sells by what furniture and faked wood and “period” front it can show. + +Rackham might barely fetch its £20,000, for its own true worth; but let +it become Rackham Catchings and be varnished and vulgarised enough (not +that Hilda Maple thought it vulgarised—she thought it vastly ennobled) +and there was no knowing what it might fetch—especially from the right +kind of purchaser in these extraordinary times, when men stepped out +of the gutter on New Year’s Day and were in the House of Lords before +Christmas. + +Therefore it was that Aunt Hilda had gone on building, pulling down, +ageing new wood, owing increasing sums for expert advice and goods from +the antique dealers, and in general playing the devil with Rackham. + +She had got the house into the illustrated papers three times already; +first under “Our Elizabethan Heritage”; then under “The Quiet Homes of +England,” and then under “Minor Great English Houses, No. 51: Rackham.” +She herself had haggled a little over the “Minor.” But there she was +wrong; they ought to have haggled over the “Great.” + +Aunt Hilda was not without commercial sense. She had on the occasion +of the last photographing purchased two peacocks and chivvied them on +to the lawn before the people from London snapped the front. She had +even borrowed from one of her few really important friends an enormous +photograph of a Royalty, in a vast silver frame leaning backwards, +which she draped and propped up on a little table, to go nicely into +the picture of the boudoir—little knowing that the word boudoir had +long sunk out of use. But if it comes to that, each of us is out of +fashion to others. Our English society has divided into something like +those moving ways at the old Paris Exhibition of 1889: one stream is +moving at one pace, one at another; and there still survive gentlefolk +who say “napkin,” side by side with those masters of our modern world +who say “serviette.” + +Let me leave the boudoir and the photographs and all the rest of it and +get back to the Debt. + +Aunt Hilda was embarrassed. Damnably! Hence the purchases in London; +hence the antiques; hence the Ancestor. That activity of hers which +had intrigued poor John Maple was plain enough. He would have been +less angry with his aunt had he known the causes of her perpetual +extravagances. + +If you desire to know the amount of Aunt Hilda’s embarrassment, I can +tell it you simply enough. It was, at the moment when she was adding +her last efforts to Rackham, £17,000—and a little more. She had the +cunning common to those who lose money—and make it. She picked up ideas +on sharp dealing by listening to conversation around her. She had +learnt the tricks of the share-shufflers. Therefore she had continued +recklessly. Money was never made to-day by work or saving. The bigger +the overdrafts the better, and loans raised in Jermyn Street were +quicker and handier than mortgages. She would make Rackham Catchings +glorious in the eyes of possible purchasers—Jew, Rastaquouère, new War +Lord, Yankee millionaire—anybody. Then she could sell it, untrammelled, +for three times its worth and five times what she had spent on it. The +money-lenders would get back their loans and interest. There would +still be a large balance over, and with that balance she could buy +herself a sufficient annuity to live the life she desired. But she must +act quickly. Interest mounted up and heavy pressure had begun. + +It is unfortunately true that men pursuing various trades will conceal +their activities under various names. The Esthonian gentleman, Mr. +Curzon, who had sold Aunt Hilda her Ancestor and so much more, had +already (as plain Charles Blunt of Bristol) advanced her money on note +of hand, and as Mr. de Vere of Jermyn Street advanced her more money +to satisfy the clamourings of plain Charles Blunt. Now Mr. de Vere of +Jermyn Street was beginning to press. But she would sell Rackham and +all would be well. + +Such is the heart of woman that she told herself all this was quite +fair to John. He would be her heir—the fact that she would have nothing +to leave him did not alter that. She had made him an honourable offer +to send him to Oxford, and he had refused. She was perpetually asking +him down to Rackham, and wasn’t that kind of her? Indeed, he did not +come half enough. Well, perhaps John was too proud. She respected him +for that. It was the Maple blood—Aunt Hilda by this time had come to +believe that she herself was a Maple. + +So there it was. Aunt Hilda with the hot breath of the pursuer on her +neck; John hating these insane renovations and gewgaws; the purchasers +advancing with open mouths and simple smiles. + +For purchasers Aunt Hilda had—or believed she had. And in these her +faith held fast. + +I have told how dear a friend she had become of Amathea Lady Mere +de Beaurivage, and of her husband, late Sir George Huggins; and now +there was something even warmer in her heart (and certainly something +warmer in his) for that first-rate man of business, Lord Hellup. To +neither, she believed, would Rackham be indifferent now that it had the +Catchings. And as competition is the soul of commerce, she hoped for +sixty—she made certain of fifty—thousand pounds, from the one or from +the other. Even fifty thousand, for what was, at the most, a twenty +thousand pound proposition, was Good Business. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile John Maple was pegging away, irregularly but lucratively, +with the performing dogs for a livelihood, and with an increasing +circle of rich friends for a life. + +He had three names. He was John Maple in that world of the people who +do nothing and have pale love affairs and go their weary round of +the Riviera and the Country Houses and all know each other by their +Christian names. He was Don Herado de Madero on the Halls. He was +Henry Pelton—a name like any other—for his Bohemian world, including +Spegel. One might have thought that it would be worth Spegel’s while +to track him down and find what he did in the big gaps which he left +in his engagements; and so it would have been worth Spegel’s while. +Later on there might have been blackmail, and blackmail is a staple +of the Spegels. Yet Spegel did not take the trouble, simply because +he accepted too facile an explanation of John Maple’s absences and +disappearances. + +His judgment was that the Pelton whom he knew, the Herado de Madero of +the Dogs, suffered from quite incurable drinking bouts. His experience +of quite incurable drinking bouts—it was extensive, for it covered +about half the people he had exploited in his wicked little life—was +that they must be left alone. So when Don Herado (or Pelton) told +him that the dogs would not appear next week; that he must cut out +next Friday; or that Saturday and Monday were washed, Spegel made all +his arrangements accordingly. For Pelton was a great asset, however +irregular. Old ladies who still vote Tory will tell me, no doubt, that +John Maple was thus necessary on the Halls at his own terms because +“blood tells”—the blood of the original cattle-dealer and smith. Their +twin brethren who make money as Labour leaders in the House of Commons +will say, on the platform at least, that John Maple was privileged and +favoured because he had gentle blood—the blood, again, of the smith and +cattle-dealer. But I say that he could do what he liked, cut out days, +shift engagements and live in two worlds because he had talent, and +because on the top of that he was determined to have his own way. Also +because Spegel only cared for money, and because people who only care +for money will give any amount of rope to those whose genius they can +tap. + +Here, then, was John Maple these few years after the war, making good +in his curious way; earning much more than he spent, leading two lives, +proud, and possessing already a solid balance at the bank, firmly +affianced in soul to a great heiress who had as firmly affianced him, +and neither of the children really appreciating where money came into +such affairs. + +In John Maple’s mind, more prominent even than Bo, stood dominating and +overwhelming a figure—the figure of Twenty Thousand Pounds—the Lump +that would redeem Rackham. In the mind of Bo there stood John Maple. +Anyone might have told these two children that all was at sixes and +sevens with their lives. On which account, the wise, might foretell +that these two lovers would win, and that the enormous incongruities of +their lives would be triumphantly reconciled. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +At this very unfinished phase in John Maple’s affairs, with none of the +slats joined and no apparent possibility of making things fit in, but +with a very successful prospect in the only thing that matters to a boy +of his age, and a double talent and the chance of using it, there came +yet another of those invitations to Aunt Hilda’s. He had been there +quite often enough at week-ends during the last year, and it had been +impossible to hide from her that he was earning his living in some +obscure fashion upon the minor stage. Though no one else in her world +knew it. She had shuddered, and refused to hear any details. He would +get over this craze of independence, and anyhow, he was her nephew, and +he knew everybody and he could behave himself. + +She told him to come down on the Friday if he could. He let Spegel +know his wish, for Spegel needed him more than he needed Spegel. So +he made it the Friday. But first he appointed to meet Bo and talk it +over, because he had been told that Lord Hellup was going to Rackham +Catchings. + +They met in her club, where they might talk in peace. + +“Bo, you’re going down with your father to Rackham again, and this time +I’m to be there.” + +“Sure,” said Bo, stroking Lovey-Lad’s head with an intense affection +and gazing into his eyes. + +“Did they tell you?” + +“Yup,” said the beautiful girl. + +“Why didn’t you tell me?” + +“Didn’t see you; didn’t want to; didn’t have to,” was the sufficient +reply. + +“I’m not complaining; only you see, I should have been startled if I +had got to Rackham and found you there and not known.” + +“I was looking for that startle,” said Bo. + +“Yes,” said John, rather masterfully, “but you’ve got to think of me. +She doesn’t know that I know you or your father.” + +“She will,” said Bo simply. “He tells her everything.” + +“I go the day before you,” said John. + +She nodded. He pulled his aunt’s letter out of his pocket. + +“Look here, Bo, who’s this other person—this Amathea she speaks of? +D’you know her?” + +“Nix,” said the young lady simply. + +“Same here,” answered her lover. + +“We pass,” Bo concluded, and sighed. + +“Well, she’s to be there, and her husband—God knows who. And there’s +Lord Hambourne—I think that’s all. I know all about _him_. He was the +psychology expert during the war. He’s a don at Oxford.” + +Bo put both her elbows on the table, in the corner where they sat +apart, framed her large face in her hands, and gazed largely on her +lover. Then recollection came into her eyes. + +“Amathea?” she said. “That’s old Mother Bruvvish.” + +“What?” answered John. “Do you mean to tell me that Aunt Hilda has +fallen to that?” + +Bo nodded. + +“That’s her,” she said. “I remember now. She’s the only Amathea in +London. She’s gotten a sausage neck.” + +“What on earth makes it worth their while to go to Rackham for?” said +he. + +“They’re hunting,” said she. + +“Who’s hunting?” + +“Mother Bruvvish and Pop are: both hunting.” + +“Hunting what?” asked John, a little startled. “Not Aunt Hilda?” + +Bo’s mouth became more quizzical. + +“One of them is,” she said, “but they’re both hunting. Leastways, one’s +fishing.” + +“Fishing for what?” said John Maple again, a little tired. + +“Fishing for Rackham, that’s Amathea,” said Bo, dropping her voice and +leaning backwards. + +“Good God!” said John. + +“You’re right,” said Bo. “Appeal to Him. Call on Him. He might hear.” + +John’s face was crossed by a look of pain, and Bo responded at once. + +“It’s up to you, Dog-Man,” she said. + +“What’s up to me?” asked the Dog-Man. + +“The bluff,” said Bo, nodding. “It’s not a mammoth bluff, neither.” + +“What bluff?” said John. + +Bo grew impatient. + +“Why, you cough in with your third offer,” she said. “You know you’re +famished for the place.” + +“Bo,” said John, too seriously, and almost tragically, “I had meant to +save every penny, to work myself old, and then to go to Aunt Hilda with +the money. When you tell me that your father and Old Huggins are after +it....” + +Bo held up her finger. + +“Get it right, boy,” she said. “Pop’s not crazy for the house, but +he’ll be guided. D’you get me?” + +“No,” said John Maple bluntly, “I don’t.” + +Bo sighed at the obtuseness of men: but it was a safeguard (she +thought) all the same, so she went on patiently and contentedly: + +“The Proud Dame of Rackham can obtain of the Baron, my father, what +boon she craves, fond youth. He’d refuse her nothing, wouldn’t Pop. +Wait till you see him with her. ’Sides which, he’s told me.” + +“Good God!” said John again, but more emphatically and with troubled +wonder. + +“Don’t pray too much the same,” commented the Damsel, “it takes the pep +out.” And she looked at him benignly and in quiet triumph. + +John’s head whirled. Things were coming altogether too quickly. And how +could Bo already know such things when he, the son of the house, had +noticed nothing? It offended his pride. + +But if John were wise he would rejoice to learn so early in life what +most men learn too late: that women know the secret workings of the +mind; that men do not; that women are the informants of men, and that +the wisest men are those who learn through women. + +“And what does Aunt Hilda say about it?” was John’s next question when +he had recovered from his shock. + +“Not much yet,” said Bo. “Pop’s shy. He’s not said anything. But +he will, and if he finds that buying the place at her price is a +persuasive, why, he won’t look twice at her figure; I mean her demand, +her estimate. Though I guess it’s hell-high.” + +A cataract of consequences was pouring before John Maple’s mind. +Aunt Hilda as a mother-in-law was a formidable prospect. But then—a +consoling recollection—Bo could stand up to six mothers-in-law of +her weight.... But if Lord Hellup nourished such plans of belated +re-mating, that would mean his living at Rackham.... No.... Perhaps +Aunt Hilda would angle for the money first—and get it. Even so Lord +Hellup was in the market, and how could he, John, compete with a man so +wealthy and in such a mood? If the other millionaire was after it the +thing was hopeless. + +“You’re sure the Huggins’ are after it, Bo?” he said at length. + +“_She_ is. Lady Mere de Beaurivage is—Amathea is. She doesn’t hide it. +She’s talked of it all around. That’s how Aunt Hilda knows.” + +“Well, then,” said poor John, “it’s all up. The price will go to +anything if they’re both after it, and I’m down and out,” and he leant +back in despair. + +Bo smiled at him serenely. + +“You’ve got to be after it too,” she said. “Name your price.” + +“Do you mean ...” John began incredulously, with a rising anger in him, +“that you are offering me...?” He remembered—for the first time in +weeks—the fortune her mother had left her. + +“Nope,” answered Bo imperturbably. “I’m not offering any damn thing. +You’re offering, Jacko.” + +“But I’ve nothing,” said John. + +Bo sighed wearily. + +“I’ll tell the world,” she said, “that you’re Dumb Dora’s little +brother. Books buy before they sell. But this dazzling boy sells before +he buys. Leastways, Isabeau Hellup does. Yes.” + +“I don’t understand,” said John. + +“So?” cooed Bo sympathetically. “Well, now, catch this: Buy with the +money you’ve got, if you’ve got it, and you have to do without your +money. But buy _without_ money, and there’s no expense at all. All +good. D’ye get me? What’s the Catchings worth?” + +“For heaven’s sake, Bo,” he exploded, “don’t call Rackham ‘the +Catchings!’... I don’t know what Rackham’s worth now they’ve spoilt +it, and I don’t care. I shall pay twenty thousand when I’ve got twenty +thousand; that’s the very most conceivable that anyone can say I owe +Aunt Hilda—or rather my Uncle William, her dead husband—and I’ve a +right to Rackham for ever when I’ve paid that back. I’ll pay that, and +not a penny more—when I’ve got it.... God knows when—but when I’ve got +it....” + +“You’ve got it now, boy,” said Bo. + +“You mean...?” said John, frowning, suspicious again that she was +hinting at helping him. + +“Naw, I don’t. I don’t mean me and I don’t mean Pop. I mean that any +man that got Rackham Catchings—beg pardon, Rackham—for £20,000, has +got all that and perhaps £10,000 more, perhaps another twenty more +thousand. Got it in his lill’ wallet.” And then did Bo with hereditary +talent explain to this child of an English squire how purchase is made +without money, and how in the modern world we buy not with what we +have but with the folly or the error or the precipitation of others. +If he got his aunt to accept £20,000 for the house in Sussex, and if +the option was firm, and in writing, not even the caution of the most +cautious lawyer would boggle at finding the £20,000 for him on such +security. + +“But she won’t fall for it,” went on Bo, shaking her head. “We’re all +fools, and Aunt Hilda’s a large one; but not that out-size. No, _boy_! +That kind’s got to be made to contract.” + +John saw daylight. + +“I shall offer Aunt Hilda £20,000,” he said firmly, “and somehow or +other I’ll see that she gets it—and not a penny more. And I’ll see that +I get Rackham when that’s done.” + +“Bold Babe,” said Bo gently. “Don’t I wish I could bite off a bit of +the under-write!” + +But John knew nothing of such jargon. + +Then did that businesslike young person get up without a word, go +across to the writing-table and come back with a wad of large blank +paper, an ink-pot and a pen. + +“It isn’t headed,” she said—she thought of everything. Then she began +to write and murmured the words for his enlightenment. + + + “THE HOTEL SPLENDIDE. + +“That’s where you’re writing from, Jacko. You’re getting on. + +‘DEAR AUNT HILDA, + +‘We have often spoken of this matter and I am afraid it wounds you....’ +(It does wound her, doesn’t it, Jacko? Poor old thing then!) ‘I’m +afraid it wounds you. But you know my own feeling and I cannot be +silent further upon the matter. That is why I write this. I want to +get it down in black-and-white. You know, when I first offered you +£20,000 for Rackham you only laughed at me.’ She did, didn’t she, +Dog-Man?” + +“I should rather have called it Scorn than laughter,” said the +Master of six Hounds. “Hot, withering scorn. She said I hadn’t got +twenty-thousand pence.” + +“That’s a lie, anyway,” answered Bo. “Why, the ring you gave me was +worth more’n that.” She made a rapid calculation of the pounds in +twenty thousand pence on the blotter and then shook her head. “No, not +a quarter. Anyway, you’re worth more than twenty thousand pence, Jacko?” + +He nodded. + +“But no £20,000 yet awhile. No matter. On with the dance. Let joy be +unconfined,” and she continued writing. + +“‘I now make you a firm offer of £20,000 for Rackham. Ten per cent. on +acceptance, the balance on completion; or alternatively an immediate +three months’ bill for same on signing enclosed. + + “‘Your affectionate nephew.’” + + +She looked up triumphantly. + +“That’s what’s called the Covering Letter, Jacko.” + +John Maple gazed at her in awe. + +“At your age!” he said. + +“It’s all straight, Jacko. I got it out of a book—oh, I forgot—” and +she wrote the word “Enclosure” on the top left-hand corner of the +document, “and it’s best,” she added, “to get a little star of red +paper, gummed, with the word ‘Enclosure’ and stick it outside the +envelope. They all do it.” + +John Maple’s awe increased. + +“Now for that enclosure, Jacko. Oh! It’s dead easy!” + +She wrote on another sheet, again murmuring her words: + + +“MY DEAR JOHN, + +“I have your letter. After full consideration of your offer of £20,000 +for Rackham I have decided to accept it and hereby do so. + + “Your affectionate Aunt.” + + +“Then, Jacko, she shall sign on the dotted line.” + +“Bo,” said John Maple honestly, “I’m frightened of you.” + +“Which is as should be. Now, Jacko, you take these papers, and when you +get out go straight down and get ’em in triplicate and mail the top +copy to Aunt Hilda—with the enclosure. Keep the two others. She’ll get +that letter and that enclosure before you reach there. She’ll get it +first mail to-morrow—and then you can take her first reactions. It’s +always useful. We come in the next day; and then the plot thickens. +Will you obey, Dog-Man?” + +“Oh, yes,” said John Maple in a whirl, “I’ll do what I’m told, but why +should Aunt Hilda accept?—with all that other money before her?” + +Isabeau Hellup leant back in her chair gazing away from the papers +before her through the club window at the park with folded hands. Her +face had changed and taken on religion. + +“I hope the Almighty won’t be hard on me,” she sighed. “Rackham’s yours +morally, isn’t it, Jack?” + +“Yes,” answered John Maple doggedly. + +“Then I guess I’m doing right—we’re doing right, I mean.... You +remember when you told me you’d acted the ventriloquist? You remember +how you made the chimney talk that night at the Bakehams’?” + +“Yes,” said John. + +Bo leant forward and spoke in a lower voice. + +“You remember Aunt Hilda wanting a ghost at Rackham, and how you told +me and how angry you were? This winter? Just after you’d left her?” + +“Yes,” said John, “I can’t bear to think of it.” + +Bo lowered her voice almost to a whisper. + +“_We’ll haunt ’em!_” she said to him. “We’ll haunt ’em good and +hard—and _then_, Jacko,” she leant back again with a conquering smile +on her face, “_then_ Rackham’s yours for the asking.” + +“I don’t understand,” he said. + +“You will,” she nodded. + +She looked at the watch on her wrist, which was of a most +extraordinary shape, six-sided and set round with an enormous number +of very small diamonds; its dial also was far too small. She rose with +abruptness and tugged Lovey-Lad to his feet. They went out together. + +“Well, Jacko,” she said by way of delicate leavetaking in the street, +“we meet again in the Khyber Pass.” It was a phrase she had learned +from a book. She did not know that it dated. And off she sailed. + +As for John Maple, he did just what he was told. He went to the +Splendide. He begged a wad of their paper. He dictated both documents +to the goddess of that roof who transcribes upon her typewriter the +correspondence of guests. He signed the letter and posted it with its +enclosure to Aunt Hilda. That was the Thursday. On the morrow afternoon +he was due to go down to Sussex. But Aunt Hilda would already have had +his letter before he came. She would get it by the first post. + +He would have time “to take her reactions” before the morrow should +bring the three lords, the two millionaires and the light of his own +eyes to what he was more than ever determined should be their home. + +Of Lord Hambourne John did know something, for one of his boyhood’s +English friends whom he had made in Switzerland and who had gone to +Oriel was always laughing at him. It seemed that they called him +“Hambone”—not a very subtle jest, but sufficient for a victim of that +calibre. It also seemed that they did not like him. They thought he +was a cad. They thought he spied upon them. His stammer they forgave, +for that went with his profession. But what they did not forgive +were sundry paragraphs in the Yellow Press of London concerning the +university, which came—as they had got to know in a round-about +manner—from that distinguished professor. They were not fond of his +charlatanism either. There is charlatanism and charlatanism; and a +Professorship of Psychology was more than the ingenuous undergraduate +soul could stomach. The youth of Oxford suspected that it was +impossible to profess Psychology—it was enormously right. They did not +know that even in that department of humbug Lord Hambourne had not read +a tithe of what his continental colleagues would have read. But they +had a vague feeling that there was something wrong. And there was: as +there is with the history, the philosophy, and a good many other things +connected with that ancient seat of learning. + +He puzzled a little over why Aunt Hilda should have asked so poor a +man for that decisive week-end. But Bo could have told him. Aunt Hilda +had two reasons. First, a lord was a lord, and lords more lordly are +not easily lured to such houses as Rackham. Next, Lord Hambourne had +lineage—of a sort—and the other lords would be impressed. + +And who was Lord Mere de Beaurivage? John Maple, in the ignorance and +folly of youth, had jumped—as youth in its ignorance and folly does +jump—to absurd conclusions. He had got his distorted picture from the +conversations of others almost as young as himself. How different +it was from the truth my reader shall soon learn. John had a vulgar +foolish caricature in his mind of innumerable new peers shamelessly +forcing themselves into their rank by bribery during the end of +the war. There are none such. It is an illusion. John saw, in that +imaginary host of vulgarians one vulgarian in no way distinguished from +the rest called “Old Bruvvish.” He was wildly wrong. George, First +Baron Mere de Beaurivage (pronounced “Bruvvish”) was unique. + +John had heard just enough gossip to have told you that remarkable +man’s family name before his elevation to the peerage, or barony—if you +will. It was, as we have heard, Huggins. No doubt John Maple, proud of +his three or four generations of declining squire’s wealth (himself, +remember, sprung from the cattle-dealer) would have sneered at the +origins of George Adolphus Huggins, First Baron Mere de Beaurivage—and +that, I think, is a very good example of how little men know themselves +and their antecedents. For George Adolphus Huggins, as my reader will +learn in a moment, well merited the great position which he had taken +step by step with a few hundreds of others in the social leadership of +Britain. + +From first feeling of Rackham as an ideal Lady de Beaurivage had come +to dwell on it as it was in real bricks and timber. She heard rumours +that Hilda might conceivably sell—but Hilda had seen that those rumours +should be mixed with accounts of her passionate attachments to the +place and her reluctance to leave it. And Hilda had heard rumours +that Amathea was in the market. She had not laboured in vain—but time +pressed. + +Anyhow, John was in for it. He was to go down to Rackham that week-end, +and he was to meet with what I suppose I may call, for the purposes of +my narrative, The Three Peers. + +(They were all Barons, by the way. Since the American invasion even +English gentlemen have begun to distinguish between Barons, Earls, +Viscounts and Marquesses. They always did distinguish Dukes: but to +return to my black sheep.) + +The Three Peers ... Lord Hellup was, after all, Bo’s father, and +what’s more, he had snap. John both admired and got on with him—in +spite of too much quotation from Motley’s _Dutch Republic_, which that +well-read man perpetually carried in his pocket in a cheap edition, now +one volume, now another, feasting his mind upon the heroic conduct of +commercial men in their resistance to mere soldiers. + +Lord Hambourne he knew all about at secondhand. Lord Mere de +Beaurivage, as I have said, he misjudged. But after all, the boy was +less to blame than those who had taught him this disrespectful way of +regarding so great a man. + +Well, he would play up to them all. + +But it is time that I dissipated in my reader’s mind John’s +misapprehension of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, and, if she will excuse me, +I will now proceed to give her a true estimate of that considerable +English peer. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +George Adolphus Huggins was born in a small street off the Old Kent +Road early in the 60’s of the last century. His first introduction +to commercial life was made at the age of twelve as assistant to his +father Jack, or, as one tradition has it, Jim Huggins, who sold fruit +and vegetables from a barrow in that neighbourhood. + +Upon the early demise of both his parents young Mr. Huggins took over +the business, which remained undeveloped to close upon his fortieth +year. Long before that he had married Matilda, or, as she was later +called, Amathea, the daughter of another gentleman and lady in the same +branch of commerce: a strong, full-bodied, upstanding young woman of +whom he was very proud, and whose advice in all matters not connected +with barter and exchange he was ready to follow. They were contented +enough with their lot, suffered no more than the average number of +conflicts with their neighbours, and but rarely allowed these to +develop into physical violence. + +So late, therefore, as the beginning of King Edward’s reign there was +nothing to distinguish the genius of George Adolphus Huggins. He seemed +to be but one costermonger among so many in the great business life +of London. But shortly after the end of the Boer War and King Edward’s +Coronation appeared those manifestations of the exceptional power which +is latent in every great man, and is bound to express itself at last, +however tardily. + +Mr. Huggins, having been chosen for unpaid secretary of a Goose Club +which enjoyed a large membership, found himself in the decline of the +year 1902 possessed of a very considerable capital in trust. Indeed, +it was far more than all his own stock-in-trade was worth, and it is +a great tribute to his sterling qualities that he should have been +entrusted thus by his neighbours with so responsible a task. + +Rightly judging that it was imprudent to keep so much money loose, he +took the advice of a friend somewhat superior in social position, a +pawnbroker from Kipling Street (late Nelson Street), and through his +introduction deposited the money in a bank until that expenditure or +division among the members of the club—known in the Old Kent Road as +“shareout”—should fall due at Christmas. + +At this point took place an episode on which I have found it very +difficult to get exact information, for there are contradictory +versions. + +There is no doubt that the account at the bank had been opened in the +joint names of Mr. Huggins himself and his friend, Mr. Lawson, the +pawnbroker of the neighbourhood. Mr. Lawson for many years complained +in his own circle that he had been defrauded, nor did the complaints +cease until some arrangement was made by the lawyers of Sir George +Huggins (as he had then become) long after the date of the transaction +I am about to describe. We have Mr. Lawson’s own vigorous and repeated +statement that it was by his advice the speculation was made, as how +could that poor fellow Huggins have known anything about it? While he, +Lawson, had had the tip straight from his cousin, who was clerk in a +broker’s office and had obtained early inside information upon the +approaching amalgamation of Paley’s Brewery with Gatton’s. + +Lord Mere de Beaurivage never spoke of the incident, to my knowledge, +save, of course, in privacy to his solicitors; so I have no opportunity +for testing Mr. Lawson’s version of the affair; but his friends assure +me _he_ originated the investment, acting upon the very honourable +motive of adding to the sum he held in trust, and not letting the money +of his neighbours lie idle. + +At any rate, the order to purchase Paley’s Ordinary must have been +given out in both names. What probably happened was that, in the +absence of Mr. Lawson, Mr. Huggins’ order to sell was taken by the +bank; at any rate, the very considerable profit was, I am again assured +by Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s friends, equitably divided; and probably +Mr. Lawson’s grievance lay in the fact that further transactions, in +which he had no share, were undertaken in Mr. Huggins’ own name. + +These further transactions were of a very simple sort. Indeed, +high financial talent is often best seen in the simplicity of its +operations. Mr. Huggins began by repaying in full to the account the +original money due to the members of the Goose Club, which sum was +therefore duly divided and accounted for at the Sacred Season of Peace +and Goodwill to everybody’s satisfaction. + +Meanwhile the remaining profit of £150 Mr. Huggins drew out in cash, +closing his account with the bank, which had indeed always troubled him +a little, as being something mysterious, and at the same time putting +himself a little too much into the power of the other man. + +The surplus cash thus available he put upon a winner called Winsome +Winnie. Not that he had received any information about the powers of +the animal, but because that very phrase had been attached as a pet +name to his only child, a little daughter who had died some years +before. That the odds were 50 to 1 did not alarm this daring spirit. +He divided the proceeds; keeping two-thirds of them, and losing the +remaining third upon yet another horse, the name of which I have not +been able to trace. Disgusted with the turf by this reverse of fortune, +Mr. Huggins, after some hesitation, simply kept the sum of money now at +his disposal. It was just under five thousand pounds, and he kept it in +the large banknotes of the bookie, under the lid of a rather battered +little japanned box, carefully locked, though inspected with his own +eyes from three to five times every day. + +It was impossible that some rumour of his good fortune should not +have spread. He was privately visited by more than one neighbour with +pressing requests for a loan, even at considerable interest; and as he +had every opportunity for judging the prospects of the barrows in his +row, he could, and did, lend with judgment. The loans were at short +term, usually of a week, at the most of a fortnight, and calculated +at a penny in the shilling for each seven days; or, as a special +accommodation for larger customers, a shilling in the pound. + +He extended his operations. He became the Providence of Barrow-men in +South-East London, and soon extended his activities to shopkeepers. + +Mr. Huggins had the supreme gift of discretion. Each operator was left +under the impression that the loan had been made to him as a special +favour, though it was certainly remarked that the lender’s circle of +acquaintance was rapidly extending, and that he had many callers at +his house after business hours, especially of a Saturday. He was wise +enough to make no display, as his wealth increased, and it was greatly +to the credit of his wife Matilda (or Amathea, as she was soon to be) +that she added little to her _parure_, though she could not resist +one particularly fine ostrich feather which she had seen in the shop +of a neighbour, Mrs. Carey, who took in, mended, cleaned, turned, and +otherwise served, the ladies of her neighbourhood. The transaction was +the more tempting, as Mrs. Huggins had kindly helped Mrs. Carey upon +more than one occasion and could, therefore, demand a special price. + +The profession of private banking upon which George Huggins was now +fairly launched is a lucrative one so long as it is confined to a +certain scale. After that, it not only needs a particular _clientéle_, +with offices in the West End and a considerable organisation, +but involves grave risks and a special knowledge of the wealthy +world—especially its younger members. It further requires a public +licence, and is hardly ever conducted without occasional appearances +in court. The financier was wise, therefore, to abandon those direct +methods. He spent a few weeks in settling his affairs, concluding every +transaction with great tenacity and vigour, still maintaining his own +barrow as though nothing were to happen. + +Feigning illness (a legitimate ruse), he put in a caretaker, and +finally sold the humble barrow-stall which had been the foundation of +his fortune and the good-will of a still sufficient trade in vegetables +and fruit. Shortly afterwards his wife and he took a small villa in +the northern suburbs, where he would be free from interruption by any +former friends. There, dressed in the style required by the new state +of life to which it had pleased God to call them, George and Matilda +Huggins acquired a solid circle of new acquaintances, including the +Reverend Percy Hay, the local clergyman. For they were now members of +the Established Church and regular in their attendance. + +George Huggins took the train for the City every week-day morning, +returning rather earlier in the evening than most of his colleagues. He +had at first no office. Later, after many discreet inquiries, he joined +his name to that of a Mr. Jeffreys, General Agent, on a second floor in +Austin Friars: an address which was useful for the receipt and despatch +of correspondence, for telephone orders, and for following the markets +upon the spot. + +It is no derogation of a man who so splendidly made good later on +to admit that during the first two years the total of his capital +slightly diminished. He was disappointed in the Paolo Mine venture, +and deservedly annoyed when the friend who had told him they would +rise came out with a new Rolls Royce, himself having sold the stock +in question. He was also quite wrong upon the fate of the Electricity +Bill, having as yet no acquaintance among politicians. Shortly after, +however, he successfully staged the Roumanian Loan. It was a matter of +only a few thousands, but they were enough to put him well forward of +what he had been when he first took to the City. And then came the +great stroke of his life, of which he is deservedly proud. As it may +not be common knowledge, I will describe it. + +It was the eve of the Great War. Mr. Jeffreys was out at lunch. The +private telephone was rung up, and a Voice asked that, without delay, +a very large bull account should be opened on margin in the stocks +of three named armament firms, a bear ditto in two named foreign +government loans and a solid investment in a controlling company +which had hitherto been under a German directorship. The Voice went +on to explain without reserve, and as to a full confidant, the nature +of his information, introducing two important political names, and +before ceasing confirmed the usual proportion of the proceeds to its +correspondent. Only after all this had been said (and it took a good +two minutes to say it, for the Voice was very eager and even excited), +did the Voice, intrigued by Mr. Huggins’ silence, ask anxiously whether +it had the right number? Mr. Huggins saw no cause to inform It that It +had not. He replaced the receiver on its hook without a word. + +There has grown up a silly modern habit of decrying the genius of our +great commercial men, especially when their fortunes have been rapidly +acquired. Their success is set down to chance, and is besmirched with +imputations of dishonesty. + +I say this modern habit is a vile one, born not only of envy but of +ignorance. For had the calumniators any real knowledge of the men they +run down they would be unable to deny them the same sort of genius as +distinguishes the great Captains of History. + +What George Huggins did on this memorable occasion is an example. + +During the few moments when he was holding the receiver to his ear with +his left hand George Huggins was rapidly noting down the name of the +stocks, the prices, the margins, the dates, with a pencil in his right. + +He immediately left the office. Within a week, all Europe being then +at war, that dreadful calamity had within the mysterious designs of +Providence launched the very moderate fortune of George Huggins into +its advance towards becoming one of the largest of our time. + +For once the great man was bewildered. The first huge sum had come so +simply, so rapidly and so naturally, and in such overwhelming figures, +that he hardly felt himself to be himself. And not a few wild projects +cantered through his brain when, after the settlement, he was racing +northward to Palmers Green in a first-class carriage—which projects, +had he indulged in them, might, I admit, have led to disaster. It was +the strong sense of his wife which saved him, and he was ever grateful +to her. He found her eating tripe and onions, a favourite dish of hers +when she could prepare it after her own fashion (for she had given the +servant a night out), and drinking from a tankard a very excellent +brand of stout laced with gin. + +He shared the meal, and when it was over and she had heard the full +news, she made him his plan of campaign. + +And see how wise she was! The whole thing was simply to be put into +secure Government Stock. She trusted England. Indeed, she was confident +that the war would be over in a few weeks, and of course in our favour. + +Meanwhile until things had settled down, and when he had come to know +(as he soon would with such a fortune) those who pull the strings of +our affairs, he might cautiously distribute his investment, and if he +so willed, increase his now great possessions. But the principal thing +was safety. They were made, he and she. That was the point. But both +remembered in silence that there was no heir. + +The rest came easily enough. George Huggins was talked of. The +simplicity of his manner and the kindness of his heart were remarked. +No foolish hesitation was shown by families whose wealth happened to +be of older growth in inviting him and his wife to their tables. His +spontaneous generosity in the matter of the Belle Vue Hospital gave +him, not a mere knighthood, as the Secretary had suggested, but a +baronetcy. It was as Sir George and Lady Huggins that they entertained +and did what lay in them for their country during the great life and +death struggle of those four years. Before the end of them, Sir George +had occupied during a few fateful weeks one of the more important +ministries, succeeding to a large wholesale grocer, and succeeded in +turn by one of our shrewdest speculators in rising seaside resorts. +He left office through no other cause than the strain which its cares +put upon a man of his years, and, of course, accepted a peerage upon +retiring from the more active duties of public life. + +He was indifferent as to what his title should be. But having recently +constructed (in spite of the building difficulties during the war) a +charming little Jacobean thing at Mere Bruvvish, in Berkshire, the +heralds pointed out to him that the spelling of the name in some early +documents would seem to indicate an original French form, Beaurivage. + +George, First Baron Mere de Beaurivage, therefore became the style +and title of this very eminent, and (I think I may say) very typical +British man of business. + +It was remarked that his simplicity remained conspicuous in spite of +his elevation. Thus he insisted on the plain pronunciation Mere de +Bruvvish—or even Bruvvish alone—attaching to his new title, as it had +to the village where he retired for the week-ends; and it was with +difficulty that he could be persuaded to sign his name with a little +“d” for the “de,” or to separate that particle from the main term of +Beaurivage. He made no efforts to speak an English other than that to +which he had been trained in childhood, and no one acquainted with +the pride of our gentry will doubt me when I say that it was ready to +receive him in his plain and rugged honesty as it would have been had +he spoken in the most exquisite accents of the stage. + +In the now wide circle of their society the Mere de Beaurivages had +been glad to discover a really intimate friend in Hilda Maple. There +was a warm and affectionate sincerity in her relation towards Lady Mere +de Beaurivage which Matilda—Amathea as she now was—sometimes missed in +her grander acquaintances. She felt the atmosphere of Rackham Catchings +to be homely. She admired the close admixture of every modern comfort +with every ancient tradition in these honourable walls—the Ancestor +had got there a little before her—and she often said to herself and to +her husband that when they should build themselves a proper place they +would keep that model in mind. + +Moreover, she had an odd attachment to Sussex; perhaps because she had +once been taken to the Downs behind Brighton for a Board School treat +in her early youth, perhaps because an uncle of hers had been ostler in +the then large stables of the Monarch at Byfield. + +One way and another, Rackham Catchings was half a home in her mind +already. She was glad to feel that Hilda and she were like sisters. Yet +John Maple had never as yet met her during any one of the four or five +times on which she had passed a week-end in the place; and in the rich +houses of London he had only seen the couple once (and even then it was +from some way off) in a crush at Bakeham House. The poor old gentleman +had seemed terribly hot and out of breath after squeezing up those +stairs. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +So John Maple came down to Aunt Hilda’s, for that week-end. Once more +did he put his foot down firmly on Spegel, refusing to do a turn after +the Thursday night, but promising by way of compensation to go into the +Provinces on Tuesday. + +It was on the Friday as he had promised that he went down. He was +offended, as he always was, by the motor-car and the French driver at +the station; he wanted the old coachman (who was dead), and the old +horse (who was worse than dead). He was offended, as he always was, by +the new sham timber front of Rackham Catchings as he came up the drive. +He was in a nasty mood. + +But as for that determination in his heart, on the twenty thousand +pounds, it had turned into cold iron. It was the hardest thing in him. +But it was no longer in the air. Isabeau had done the trick. Upon +my soul, as the too quick, too expensive car shot vulgarly through +those dignified old trees up the new sweep of new drive to the new +unfortunate great door in the devastated front of what had once been +his home, he felt as though the twenty thousand pounds were there in a +purse, to be thrown at his aunt when he should meet her. + +But when he got in he did not meet her. The atheist Gaul who had +driven him smiled cheerfully enough, though in a fashion a little too +manly for his servile position, and handed him his bag from the front +of the car almost as though they were equals—a thing intolerable. It +was at once a worry and a relief to hear that his aunt was out and +would not be back for an hour or two. It was more like home, however, +to be met by Corton and to talk to that old friend. Then he spent the +time remaining wandering through the rooms, noting for the twentieth +time what had been left the same as in his own days of childhood, and +what had been changed. + +Most had been changed, but not all. The schoolroom was just the same, +except that they had put the boxes into it, as though it were derelict. +What had once been the hall with its simple little eighteenth-century +porch of wooden pillars and wooden Pediment had been degraded into a +sort of back entrance, and where the old drive had gone on to it there +was now moss and grass, though it was still hard with the old gravel. + +What had been the main stairs of the house—how he loved the old carved +banisters!—were now the back way to the bedrooms and passages above; +the main staircase was a wicked new oaken thing, chemically stained to +look old, leading up from the new hall. + +That hall itself was a piece of stage scenery. He called up what had +been torn down to make space for all that new big room. He smiled to +remember that it was nothing but the big empty, spare, plastered +cavern where all manner of household wreckage piled up; where also the +beer casks used to be kept in his father’s time. He remembered how he +had kept his bicycle there, and how proud he had been of it when he had +been first allowed to ride it. He remembered having asked leave to keep +his rabbits in there during the cold weather. + +So all that was gone. And in its place was this sham old oak with the +huge great beam—Baltic, not English, and the ridiculous sham date +upon it—and in the dining-room, where he had been allowed on grand +occasions of childhood, in the old dining-room now panelled, damasked +and changed out of recognition, the abominable Ancestor grinning, and +the abominable “refectory” table, long, with carved legs, darkened, and +of the sort called antique. + +He would change all that. + +He was as certain that he would change all that as he was that he had +(virtually) the twenty thousand pounds; and of such is the kingdom of +twenty-three years old. + + * * * * * + +Aunt Hilda came in, not over-pleased with whatever she had been doing. +She had been calling on the county people, and she always felt after +doing that that she was not quite on their scale. + +But before going out to call upon people (and she was so kind that +she had done it in her little car, leaving the big one for John and his +luggage), she had read two letters which had put her out not a little. +The first was John’s with its enclosure—and it made her hot with anger +to think of it. The second was from the Esthonian. He would not wait. +It was a shame, and it was silly. She had virtually sold the place. She +was quite sure that either Lord Hellup or dear Amathea’s husband would +buy. Why, it would probably be decided that very week-end. He could +perfectly well wait. She was sure he was only fussing in order to make +her renew. And _that_ she was determined she would _not_ do. + +[Illustration: _The atheist Gaul_] + +But this criticism of the Esthonian was uncharitable, and also unwise +in Aunt Hilda. The Esthonian was really suffering, for Esthonians who +have Europeans in their debt are yet often in debt themselves to bigger +Esthonians; and such was the condition of this Esthonian. And for all +I know, even the larger Esthonian up above was in debt to yet another +enormous Esthonian, until you got to the centre of the great spider’s +web in New York, to which nowadays even Frankfort and London bow down. + +But anyhow, in this piffling matter of these few thousand pounds the +Esthonian was fussing abominably, and his letter was peremptory. The +date for payment fell in the very next week. He respectfully but very +urgently required her answer. Had she received anything on account? +Had she anything to show him in writing which he could show to others +(for the Esthonian was quite frank in this matter, as he sometimes was +when he thought it profitable to be so). He said he really needed the +money; and he really did—there was no reason why he should pretend not +to; quite the contrary. But it is true that the Esthonian did not need +the money so very much as he pretended. + +Alas! poor Aunt Hilda had no writing yet to show! You cannot show in +writing the growing devotion of an American business man to a fine +figure of an Englishwoman not so old as himself. Nor the growing +appetite for a quiet country place in the wife of a Coalition Peer. + +She had not answered the letter. She had temporised. And that made her +mood more irritable still. + +It was in such a state of human tempers—Aunt Hilda exasperated and +John, as he believed, quiet and firm, but really more exasperated +still—that the meeting between them took place. She poured out tea for +him. He spoke vaguely of London and, knowing well that he was applying +an irritant, he told her with what anxiety to be under her roof he had +put off his engagement upon the Halls. She in her turn had exploded at +him and told him that she wanted to hear nothing about that horrible +side of life, and he had said: + +“Very well, very well. There’s nothing in it, to be sure.” + +She wanted to make the best of her party for her guests. She felt that +her nephew was popular with those whom he knew, and could make himself +popular with those whom he did not. She switched off on to who was +coming. + +“I’ve told you who they are, John, there are only five, and only two +women. I had to ask Lord Hambourne, because he was so kind to me over +that unfortunate business of Oriel when _you_ refused to go to Oxford. +He was _most_ considerate. He made every allowance for you. I’ve always +been intending to have him down at the Catchings, and I’ve not had him +here all that time.” + +John nodded. + +“If only you had gone to Oxford, John, you would have had the advantage +of one of the greatest minds in the world. Lord Hambourne....” + +John interrupted. + +“Yes, I know,” he said. “They call him Hambone.” + +“That’s silly and vulgar,” said Aunt Hilda. + +“It is,” said John. “So is he.” + +“He’s nothing of the sort. I met him often when I ran up there before +you came back to England when I was making the arrangements. He’s one +of the nicest men I have ever met. You only run him down because he’s +poor.” + +“That may have something to do with it,” said John deliberately. + +Aunt Hilda was on the point of violence, when she controlled herself +and turned it off to the other two. + +“Then there’s Lord Hellup, and his daughter Isabeau.” Aunt Hilda looked +at her nephew for a moment, but he gave no response. “Have you met +them?” she said. + +“Yes,” he answered rather surlily. “I’ve met them at the Pattles’.” + +“There are no Pattles,” said Aunt Hilda majestically. “If you mean Lady +Pattle....” + +“Yes, I mean old Mother Pattle,” said John, and Aunt Hilda sighed. + +“Then there’s a man, John, I really want you to meet, and to be careful +about, if only for my sake.” + +John said that for her sake he would do anything. + +“Very young men like you, John, may do things that not only ruin their +own careers, but really hurt other people. I have asked Amathea—Amathea +de Beaurivage that is—and her husband.” + +John looked at her innocently. + +“Why not? Who are they?” + +“You know perfectly well, John,” she said. “The man that was Sir George +Huggins, who did all that splendid work during the war.” + +“Oh, Lord Mere de Boreevarge?” said John, charmingly and spontaneously. +“Yes, I’ve read about him. A great financial brain. I read that only +to-day, as I was coming down, in the paper—which paper, upon my soul, +I forget. Or was it in _The Howl_?—which belongs to Cad Toronto.” + +“For God’s sake, John,” said Aunt Hilda, exasperated, “behave yourself, +at any rate when you meet him! And why do you call him De Bo-ree-varge?” + +“Because it’s spelt that way. And I’ve always read it like that.” + +“Well, I don’t know if you’re telling the truth. But please to +understand that it’s Bruvvish.” + +“I will,” said John solemnly. “I’ll call him Mere Bruvvish, and her, +Lady Mere Bruvvish. Bruvvish all the time.” + +Aunt Hilda got up from her chair and stood in front of the fire looking +at her nephew. She had something to say. It might be the wrong time +to say it, when they were half-quarrelling; but she wanted to get it +over, and perhaps a certain softness of manner would come better after +a passage like this than later on, when the trouble might begin again. + +“John,” she said, “I want to put it to you quite frankly. I think it +would be wrong to hide it from you, though I have a perfect right to do +what I am doing. I want to tell you everything, so that nothing shall +go wrong, because these next few days are so important to me; and to +you too, my dear. And to Rackham Catchings.” + +“Never mind me, Aunt Hilda,” said John quietly. “And for the matter of +that, don’t take too much trouble about the Catchings.” + +Aunt Hilda controlled herself again. + +“Both those men are prepared to make an offer. I shall ask £60,000 for +£50,000. And I happen to know, privately, that both are thinking of it.” + +“I didn’t know Hambone was worth it,” said John quietly. + +“Nonsense,” snapped his aunt. “Hambourne indeed! Lord Hambourne! And +please don’t call him Hambone, like a schoolboy. No! Lord Hellup, and +Amathea and her husband may either, or both, make an offer. There. +I’ve told you, and you ought to know. Remember, John,” she went on +hurriedly, “that you are the only one I have, and when I am gone” +(after which illogical sentence she heaved a profound sigh from her +considerable chest—which had, as might be, thirty more years of life +in it), “it really concerns you as much as it does myself. I tell you +quite frankly, and quite plainly, that I am not going to take less than +£50,000.” + +For half a minute or so John gave no answer. She had said nothing about +his letter. He looked in the fire, as though it were an old friend with +whom he was consulting, and leaned his solid young head on his left +hand. Then he rose slowly in his turn, and without facing Aunt Hilda, +putting both hands upon the mantelpiece and still gazing into the fire, +he said: + +“Aunt Hilda, I can’t offer you £50,000; but you’ve had my letter, there +you have it in black and white, after so much palaver. I can and do +offer you £20,000. It’s firm.” + +The effect of this remark upon Aunt Hilda may be compared to that +produced by the slipping of a piece of ice down the neck of a neighbour +at dinner during an ardent conversation; a practical joke which I hope +is no longer fashionable. The victim is at first oddly shocked, as by +a spasm—then stabbed into language. So Aunt Hilda. After a gasp she +flamed up, turned round, found her nephew no longer staring at the fire +in gentle distraction but facing her, square, firm, and defiant. She +had received his challenge, she repeated the old insult. + +“Twenty thousand pounds? Why, you haven’t got twenty thousand pence!” + +The insolence of his proposition! The insufficiency of it! The wild +impossibility of his being able to fulfil it! His assurance! Why, he +was her dependent—— + +John Maple was like a wrestler in his attitude and in his mood, +standing ready for the spring. He tried hard not to quiver, but he was +quivering all the same. + +“I have said twenty thousand more than once, Aunt Hilda, and now I’ve +written it and given you the paper to accept,” he answered, “I _mean_ +twenty thousand.” + +Her reply was complete. She told him not to make a fool of himself. +They both sat down to cool off. + +“Well, John, it’s no good quarrelling over nonsense, is it?” + +“It isn’t nonsense,” said John. “There may be a day,” he added darkly, +“when you will think better of it.” + +Aunt Hilda groaned. She had not had much to do with young people, but +she had heard they were all like that. She recovered her temper. + +“There may be, John,” she said, laughing uneasily, “but at any rate not +yet, and not for Rackham Catchings.” + +“I didn’t offer it for the Catchings. I know the Catchings would cost +more. I offered it for Rackham.” + +And he went out to cool off further. They saw each other no more till +dinner. + + * * * * * + +At dinner a truce was declared. They talked of anything: principally of +the County. Hilda Maple was longing to do two things: first, to relieve +her nerves by asking him to be particularly good when the guests came +on the morrow, Saturday—but she had had the sense to hold her tongue—it +would only have provoked a new quarrel, and after all, she could trust +John Maple to behave himself if he felt inclined. She also knew that +nothing would prevent his saying something to upset the _ci-devant_ +Huggins and his wife if he did not feel inclined. With Hellup she felt +he was safe, and as he had no particular grudge against lords as +such or dons as such, but rather a natural sympathy with poor men, she +felt he would be safe with Lord Hambourne—though she could not get over +the disrespectful allusion to Hambone; but she thought he might have +picked it up from his Oxford acquaintances in London, and she let it +lie. + +[Illustration: _“Twenty thousand pounds? You haven’t got twenty +thousand pence!” said Aunt Hilda_] + +The second thing she wanted to do was to examine him on this very point +of Lord Hambourne. She herself hardly knew the man. She had observed +that he would go to pretty well any house where he would meet rich +people. She thought, quite rightly, that both the others would like to +meet a brother peer with a few generations behind him. + +She dipped her tongue in honey (if you will excuse the coarseness of +the phrase), and said sweetly to her nephew at dessert: + +“Tell me, John, I think you know Lord Hambourne, don’t you? Or about +him, anyhow? You see, I know him _well_. Only I was told that he was +interested in old furniture and understood it, and I wanted him to +help me a little in that.” (It was true; but it was also true that +she wanted him to help her in impressing his wealthier peers with the +fact that the furniture was old and that the Beam was old and that +the Ancestor was old, and that in general the Catchings were old and +vouched for by that venerable glory the Hambourne peerage.) + +“Oh,” said John, “I’ve met him. And I’ve got friends, as I said, who +have known him at Oxford. And there’s one man in his fourth year whom I +know rather well and he did Psychology with him. Rather likes him. You +know that he does journalism?” + +“Who?” said Aunt Hilda. + +“Hambourne.” + +“No, I didn’t. What do you mean by journalism?” + +“Why, this stuff they call Personal Journalism. He talks about people +whom he’s really met, and also about people whom he pretends to meet. +But he won’t sign. Perhaps it’s a point in his favour, for they’d +pay him double if he did. But the rag he’s on is really so base that +perhaps it pays him one way and another not to sign. You see, his +column’s called ‘Behind the Scenes.’ It’s in _The Howl_.” + +“Oh!” said Aunt Hilda. Her heart had risen slightly at the idea that he +might be useful to advertise her and hers. It sank a little at hearing +under what headline she and hers would appear. + +“He’s not scurrilous, is he?” she said, after a pause. + +“I’m told,” said John Maple, critically and carefully separating his +words, “that he would like to be, and can’t. You see, though he was +very poor he had a good mother and was an only son and (as he was very +poor) he did not go to a Public School. It’s very difficult for that +kind to shake off all their early refinement.” + +Aunt Hilda again restrained herself. + +“Is it true he is an atheist?” + +“Oh, good Lord, _yes_!” protested John Maple. “Why, my dear Aunt Hilda, +what did you expect? He’s a don, Aunt Hilda—and more than that, he +belongs to the old-fashioned lot. After all, he was elected to Burford +nearly thirty years ago.” + +Aunt Hilda pursed her lips firmly. She had not got quite used to the +moral revolution. As for the reaction that is now beginning, she had no +idea of it. + +“But he won’t be blatant, Aunt Hilda,” John went on. “Besides, I know +Lord Hellup wouldn’t mind.” + +“I think,” said Aunt Hilda acidly, “I should know as well as anyone +what Lord Hellup would or would not mind....” Then she stopped +abruptly, for she was getting on dangerous ground. She did not want to +discuss her other two guests and raise a breeze. + +John was less discreet. + +“As for the other one, old Bruvvish,” he began.... But Aunt Hilda cut +him short. + +“We won’t discuss Lord Mere de Beaurivage, if you please, John, though +his wife _is_ a friend of mine. A straightforward, plain, English +gentleman—I think that’s enough said. He never pretends to be what he +is not, and that is one of the hundred reasons why everybody respects +him.” + +It is immensely to John Maple’s credit that he did not here add +the other reasons; but he remained silent. The wine he had drunk, +the influence of the evening, which gave the darkening room a real +antiquity (for Night is an aged thing), the fact that he had his +back to the Ancestor and was facing the oak table—which after all +_was_ old—all this soothed John. In his mind he was already the owner +of Rackham, planning innumerable things, and among these plans he +reprieved some part of the Catchings. Yes, he would keep the oak table; +he might even keep the panelling. But the Ancestor would have to go. +Corrupted by too early an experience of competition, his mind wandered +off (after his aunt had left him to his wine) to what he might make on +the Ancestor. Should it go by auction or how? Then the thought of money +brought him back to the raising of that £20,000. And _that_ brought him +back to Bo. And in contemplation of Bo’s image he pleasantly remained. + +He went to bed early, too sleepy to pursue the thoughts of banks, +solicitors, options and the rest, which that excellent young daughter +of commerce had put into his head. Opportunity would come with the +morrow. + +And it did; as it always does to the young. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +The three parcels of her week-end party were to be separately delivered +to Mrs. Maple in three batches. She was just as well pleased. It was +easier to mix them that way. + +Of the three batches Lord Hambourne would be the first. + +The title of Hambourne is an ancient one. The first Lord Hambourne, +son of a rich King’s Lynn merchant under Edward IV., married into the +Cavells. His son died without issue. + +The title was revived by Henry VIII. towards the end of his reign, for +the ennobling of John Heysham, who had carried out a great part of +the confiscations in the north, and kept a sufficient proportion for +himself. He had no heir, but his only daughter married a younger son of +the Parkers of Luttbury, for whom the title was revived by Elizabeth. +He was a great deal at the Court attracting the attention of the +Queen, after the early death of his wife—some say by poison, others by +disease. He died at the early age of forty-three. He left no heir. + +The title was revived by Charles II. as a reward for the loyalty of Sir +William Malling, a Rutlandshire squire, who had devoted his fortune +to Charles I.’s cause. His son, the second Lord Hambourne of the +third creation, was true to the family tradition and accompanied James +II. into exile. After years of struggling with poverty in the Rue de +Fouare, in Paris, he died, it is to be feared of malnutrition, leaving +no heir. + +The title was revived in the early days of George III. by the managers +for that monarch, who, having a pressing need for support in the House +of Commons, thought it only their duty to close the long and honourable +career of Henry Porter, a large shipmaster turned squire, five times +member for King’s Lynn—of whose burgesses he could always purchase a +considerable majority. He had doggedly voted in the Court interest +until he was thus raised to the peerage. + +When the question of choosing his title arose, a local gentleman of +antiquity and _vertu_ pointed out to him the original connection +between King’s Lynn and the Hambourne name; on which account it is now +generally—and erroneously—believed that the peer of Edward IV. was the +ancestor of our Hambournes of to-day. + +From that day to this, for four whole generations, the title has never +failed. The family fortune was dissipated by the second Lord Hambourne +(of the fifth creation) partly in entertaining the Regent, partly by +losing money at cards to the Regent’s more intelligent friends. The +title passed, just before the accession of Queen Victoria, to a cousin, +possessed of an annuity of some £800 a year and a pleasant house with +an orchard in Kent. + +_His_ eldest son, after a life of honest toil in the Civil Service, +died childless—and of course impecunious. The title passed, just before +the Boer War, to a then young man his nephew, who had just been elected +to a classical Fellowship at Burford College. The lad was not without +initiative; straitened circumstances had perhaps sharpened his wits; +but anyhow, while he was making it his business to talk psychology, to +buy books on psychology, to speak in debates on psychology, and even +to attend the foreign congresses on psychology, certain of his friends +were persuading The Turtle Eaters Company that Oxford was perishing +for the lack of a Chair in Psychology; so when that Chair must be +filled, what claim more obvious than Lord Hambourne’s? The envious who +pointed out how little he knew even of a subject on which there is so +little to be known were silenced by the very true retort that the other +candidates knew nothing. + +With the Great War came his opportunity. It was admitted on all +sides that he had procured for his country the great advantage of +the only telepathic system among the Allies which could compare with +the splendid organisation of the Germans. And while Ragensdorp in +Leipsig was reading, with the success that has rendered him famous, +the deep strategic thoughts of one British Minister after another +during those four and a half years, Lord Hambourne with far greater +success was reading the strategic thoughts of Hindenburg, Ludendorf +and Falkenhayn and communicating them daily to the Cabinet. On the +Continent his powers were less appreciated, and it is to be feared that +the prolongation of the struggle was largely due to the failure of the +Italians and French to do credit to a science with which they were as +yet unfamiliar. + +The Coalition Government rewarded such great services to the country +with a grant of £20,000. It was paid over at once, and the honoured +recipient was on the point of retiring from his arduous academic +duties, when the unexpected fall of the mark destroyed his prospects. +For though Lord Hambourne had accurately read the thoughts of those who +had determined to preserve the German currency, he had never thought +of tapping one master mind in New York, whence alone he would have +received more accurate information on the future of his securities. + +As his very just estimate of the German character had led him to put +the whole of a grateful nation’s offering into the German domestic +loans, he found himself, long before the date of Hilda Maple’s party +at Rackham, possessed of Bonds to Bearer Series 2 Nos. 555201–598237 +of the first German internal 5 per cent. guaranteed reimbursable Peace +Loan, worth anything between 5¾d. and 6d. the lot. + +But though thus denuded of material goods, he had acquired all the +special qualifications of his profession, and even a first-rate +academic manner with a strong stammer, a habit of saying, “Quate! +Quate!” at the ends of most of his sentences, a nickname among the +undergraduates, and a sheaf of stories about him, the subtle humour of +which missed fire outside the University. + + * * * * * + +Lord Hambourne, then, was coming to Rackham on the Saturday early; he +was coming in time for lunch and (being poor) by train. + +He was a very sensible man. He kept very careful accounts. He +calculated that the free lunch at Rackham almost exactly paid for the +return ticket from Oxford (a week-end third)—though, of course, it did +not cover the ticket from London down to Sussex. He took a single for +_that_ journey, on the chance that one of the guests would motor him +back to town on the Monday. In his letter he had told his hostess how +eager he was to be in her county again, and what a pleasure it was to +get off from Oxford and the associations of so much hard work. For Lord +Hambourne had to lecture on psychology for one hour on two days a week +by statute, and very often added a third lecture freely and of his +own accord for a reasonable fee. And, like all dons, he only had six +months’ holiday in the year. To such men in our strenuous University +life the free air and repose of a week-end make all the difference. +He was to be excused, then, for taking that morning train. And as it +trundled him up to Paddington, and he further trundled on from Victoria +(there was an hour between the two, and that saved him the expense of a +cab) he was thinking how many paragraphs Rackham would account for in +his social column. He decided that a house of that calibre was not good +for more than two, and just possibly they might even cut out one of +those. The first he had already begun to scribble in the train: + + “_I ran down to Rackham Catchings this week-end, Mrs. Hilda + Maple’s charming place in Sussex. It is a fifteenth-century + home, quite unspoiled, a rare thing nowadays. Mrs. Hilda + Maple is, of course, the widow of Mr. William Maple, and she + was famous some years ago in London during her distinguished + husband’s lifetime for her_ salons _to which all the great + lights of the day had the_ entrée....” + +and so on. There were about twenty lines of it. If anything happened +he would work in a second paragraph. He hoped, with a doubtful hope, +that something would happen, though it was difficult to see what could +happen with a dull woman like Hilda Maple and a Yankee lord and a war +profiteer (for he had been told who was coming). Still, he hoped—and +his hope was rewarded. A good deal did happen. + +Yet another thought was at the back of the noble Professor’s mind as he +travelled. He wanted to make quite sure that there really was nothing +old—at least, nothing older than the eighteenth century—in Rackham +Catchings. He suspected as much, but he wasn’t certain. He liked to +know those things. It gave him a hold over people. One never knew when +it might turn up useful. + +Lord Hambourne, like most of the academic tribe, had real knowledge in +one matter outside his own subject. He did understand old wood, from +adzed chamfered beams to Misericordes. As for psychology, he knew by +this time as much about it as any other man, for it was now many years +since that rich cousin of his, then in the Ministry, had terrified +the Turtle Eaters Company into founding the Chair. It was quite a new +subject in those days, the last years of Queen Victoria; but he had +kept pace with it, and braced himself to read the duller and nastier +books of our own time. + +I have told how, during the war, he had enjoyed the one brief period +of good pay he had ever known, had ended with a little fortune and had +lost it. + +Now the war was over and he was back again at the old grind, and though +an intelligent man, had become so provincial through long residence +at the University as to imagine that no one guessed his little +supplementary journalistic journal as “Behind the Scenes” in Lord +Toronto’s paper _The Howl_. + +He was favourably impressed with the motor-car which met him. He was +delighted to see, as Rackham burst upon his gaze, that all the antique +part of the front was quite new, and that the old part was not very +old. He sized it up at once for what it was. But he still had fears +that there might lurk within it some mediæval stuff; for, after all, it +was church loot. He had got that from a brother don whose Churchism was +so high that he had gone deep blue. He even knew that the particular +monks from whom it had been grabbed were _Pre-mon-stra-tentians_—a term +which meant nothing to him, and which he always got wrong when he tried +to spell it. + +His hostess greeted him with an enthusiasm to which his poverty was +unaccustomed, and which he rightly put down (for was he not a Professor +of Psychology?) to her slight acquaintance with lords. She had within +five minutes (by way of comparison with Rackham) deftly alluded to his +own ancestral home. It was a subject he detested, because he had not +been able to repair it, and the people who had taken it stoutly refused +to spend a penny on it—let alone badgering him half a dozen times a +year about gutters, pipes and drains. He lost by the ancestral home. +And Lord Hambourne was a man in whose mind subjects connected with the +loss of even small sums of money are very painful. Then he suddenly +thought that since she had looked up the name of his place in some +book, and had shown some faint interest in it, he might use her later +for selling it. He had never been able to find a purchaser yet. + +The ancestral home having been put into its corner, Mrs. Maple all +during lunch rubbed Rackham into the mind of her distinguished guest. +And as lie after lie proceeded from her spate of local history and +personal reminiscence, he deftly plucked out the truths like plums and +pigeonholed them in his mind. + +Enormous as her information had been, she kept a wad or two back for +those who were to come. + +And the Hellups arrived first. They came (“of course,” as Lord +Hambourne would have said in his column), by car, and a very good +car it was; not showy, but exactly suited to its purposes as a car: +elastic, silent and shockless. Hellup was a man who thought comfort +out, and thought it out rightly. + +In one detail only had he not realised his thinking out. And that was +through love of his daughter. For Lovey-Lad had come down with them, +with horrid menace in his eye, all the way from London. He had had +to waste his ferocity upon the landscape; but he looked up to any +mischief as he came in bow-legged, growling, formidable, but reduced +to conventions by a nice smack on the nose from his adoring mistress, +just to make him understand that he was among friends. It would never +have done if he had dug his teeth into the well-displayed and most +sufficient flesh-coloured calves of Aunt Hilda. It was the only thing +that might have caused trouble between her father and herself. + +Now with the appearance of this father and daughter the air changed, +as it does change when, known only privately to pairs, but subtly +influencing others, affection comes under a roof. It was an affection +real upon the part of that crisp, humorous and successful, contented +trans-Atlantic man, sincerely received by his hostess. In Bo I cannot +tell you how freshly intense was affection, nor in John how profoundly +sincere. Alas! that with four such currents of mutual attraction +crossing in the Hall of Rackham, only Lord Hambourne should have failed +to polarise. But, Professor of Psychology though he was, he tumbled +to nothing. Nor, certainly, did Aunt Hilda tumble to John and Bo. And +as for those two young people, they had an intellectual knowledge of +the charming friendship between their elders, but of real appreciation +thereon nothing whatever. They had something better to think of. + +However, as I have said, affection mellowed things, and the air was +kindly when in half an hour after the Hellups an enormous machine, +the size of a cottage, driven by a gentleman whose uniform vaguely +recalled the General Officers of Central American States, and having +by his side yet another uniformed gentleman of a more moderate type, +purred, roared, halted and panted grandly before the door. + +Therein, through large spaces of glass could be seen a huge bunch of +hot-house flowers, set in a silver sconce. It faced in its gay opulence +the owner of the splendid conveyance, Lord Mere de Beaurivage himself. +His considerable though not elongated form was protected from the +inclemencies of the weather by a fur coat and, as to his legs at least, +by the mounted skin of a very fine African lion, the head of which +drooped, fierce, towards his feet, while the hinder quarters performed +the same office of comfort for his wife, who sat upon his left. + +And what a wife! + +Her dress, though the afternoon was yet young, seemed compounded of a +material wherein there entered no small proportion of gold. The hair +upon her head, cut very short (and upon her ample neck even shaved) was +more than sufficient in its amount, and excellently blended, crowning +a large, determined face, in fine contrast with the somewhat more +exhausted but equally expansive visage of her lord. + +As she thus swept up, throned, the stern look of mastery which befits +the mistress of such great possessions still dignified her glance, yet +it dissolved into delighted smiles and half-closed elongated eyes of +joy as she caught sight of dear Hilda unconventionally rushing out to +meet her upon the very threshold. + +John Maple (and his aunt was grateful to him) helped her down from the +car. + +“Darling Hilda!” + +“Oh! Darling Amathea!” + +The two women were clasped in each other’s arms. + +Lord Mere de Beaurivage alighted with more circumspection, considerably +aided by the second of his two dependants, the one in the lesser +uniform, and set foot upon the sacred soil of England with a grunt, +followed by a heavy breathing. For the exertion of such a man in +leaving a vehicle is even more trying to him than his exertion in +mounting one. The lion skin lay deserted upon the floor of the car. The +lion’s master followed his wife hobbling into Rackham Catchings. + +Aunt Hilda gave them time to recover from the enormous fatigues of the +journey, solacing them with tea, impressing them with the dignified +figure of Corton. Then only, when she had gathered them together +(making at the same time certain signs to John with uplifted eyebrows +and sharp glances), did she take them round in a herd, to put a climax +to their rivalry for the house by filling it with history. + +She was a determined woman. The thing had to be done some time, and +the sooner the better, as a foundation for all that had to be wound +up by way of business in a brief week-end. The Esthonian in his +character of Mr. Rupert de Vere of Jermyn Street was upon her: he would +not wait. + +[Illustration: _Fond embrace of Hilda, relict of the late William +Maple, Esquire, of Rackham Catchings in the County of Sussex, and +Amathea, wife of George, First Baron de Beaurivage (pronounced +Bruvvish)_] + +And John followed the flock, looking up with sagacious vacuity at +picture and carving and beam as each was mentioned, and down, as each +was mentioned, at table and at chair and at _bric_ and at _brac_: and +feeling as he had felt on but one other occasion of his life, when Bo +had insisted on his joining a horrible clot of tourists who were doing +the Tower. It was a delightful thought that this trial would not last +so long; for after all Rackham, though more beloved, was not as large +as the Tower. He was glad of that. + +He got what amusement he could out of information startlingly new to +him. He learned more than he thought could be known about Rackham—let +alone the Catchings. He learned that the Hall (where he so vividly +remembered the rabbit hutches, the plaster and the bicycle) dated in +part from the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but with later additions +under James I. He learned that the great beam running across it from +the staircase to the fire-place had upon it the date 1487, and was +probably the oldest dated object in the house. He learned that a little +chair which his father had bought for him when a tiny child because he +had fallen in love with it himself during a visit to London had been +a chair belonging to Queen Anne’s nursery, and given to one of his +forbears by Sarah Duchess of Marlborough. He learned that the damned +panelling was made from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada. These +things he learned, and many more. + +The Fury of Destruction rose in his heart and was struggling with the +Comic Spirit, when, towards the close of the lecture, as they were +waddling back to the drawing-room again, through the dining-room, and +had just heard startling things about the oak table and Ben Jonson—as +Lord Mere de Bruvvish was giving signs of distress—it was a good long +walk for him—as Darling Amathea’s admiring exclamations were growing +a trifle conventional, and as even Lord Hellup’s thirst for facts, +dates and measurements was getting satiated, there came something he +might have expected, for he had heard it before: but now, since that +suggestion Bo had made in London, it struck with unexpected force. That +something was the Ghost. + +It was as they were passing the Ancestor. The regular phrases had +come out, how he was Sir Harry Murtenshaw, how he was by Holbein; how +he combined all the qualities of the great Elizabethans, sea-faring, +patriotism and, above all, prosperity. How (this was carefully insisted +upon) he was not a _direct_ male Ancestor. How the name alone was +enough to show that. How it was his daughter who had brought the +property into the family of Maple—all that, all the regular stuff. +Then, as Aunt Hilda led them back towards the drawing-room, she added: + +“And it is that man, you know, who was the father of the Ghost.” Bo and +her lover shot quick glances at each other. Things were going well. + +Not till those few weeks ago had John heard of that Ghost: and quite +certain was John that Aunt Hilda had not heard of it either. It had +come in with the Ancestor. But I must confess that the Ghost bred in +her nephew, now that it was taking shape, some admiration for Aunt +Hilda. He did not know she had it in her! And he had to confess that so +long as it remained but a story it did put up the value.... + +He was astonished at her power of fiction; for she held them all really +interested in their various ways, with the story of the unfortunate boy +who had been beheaded by the first James, and but for whose premature +cutting off—in the fullest sense of that term—his sister would not +have inherited and the Maples would never have possessed the broad +mud-fields and the rather stunted oaks of Rackham. + +It seems that the poor lad—he was hardly past his twentieth year—got +mixed up in one of the plots in favour of Mary Stuart, and was +therefore executed in 1613. And now, added Aunt Hilda, lowering her +voice by four and a half notes and a bittock, and glancing at the +jewellery upon her fingers, upon that day of the year people say +that they see him, all in a dark cloak, and in the great ruff of +the day—_but without a head_. “It’s in one of the bedrooms,” she +imprudently volunteered. Then to correct that error she hurriedly +added, “But really it’s great nonsense. Servants’ talk, and the gossip +of the more ignorant old people on the farms. They like that sort of +thing,” she concluded with a short laugh—well knowing that other people +liked the old country house ghost—as a legend—besides servants and old +people on farms; and among those others were affectionate American +business men and new war millionaires. + +John Maple wondered whether he would be appealed to in corroboration. +Had she so appealed to him, he would have been torn between his disgust +at her so raising the value of the place to these competing purchasers, +the instinct of treating his aunt with courtesy before her guests, and +the absolute necessity of following Bo’s plan. Luckily she did not risk +it. She was contented to answer the various questions which were put +to her with real interest by Lord Hambourne, who took a professional +interest in such flamboyant lying. He knew enough history to have +spotted the Holbein already and to appreciate that boys do not have +their heads cut off under James I. for plots connected with trying to +save their mothers’ life before they were born. + +Lord Hellup was more avid of details, including measurements; he wanted +to know the exact height of the ghost—up to the neck—the exact day +of the year, the exact spot where he appeared, the exact hour of the +night, and all that; but on these, alas! Aunt Hilda could be of no +service. + +Amathea, delighted to find an added glory to a possession which she +already half felt to be hers, expressed her historic imagination +without restraint, “Lordy!” she said, and “Help!” and “You make me come +over all creepy like!” and further, “Well now, I don’t know what an’ +all!” to the accompaniment of raised hands and of rounded eyes. Her +husband looked as pleased as the fatigue of his recent perambulations +would allow; and pleased he was, for after all, if one was to have an +old family place, one might as well have an old family ghost with it. +Only he was a little anxious about what it would add to the price. + +But to John and Bo there came another and a very different thought. +They must get to work. + +And get to work they did. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +On Sunday mornings Lord and Lady Mere de Beaurivage went to church. +They attended Divine Service. In town it was as often as not the +afternoon (they were hardly of the generation for fasting communion), +but in the country (and people of this exalted rank spend most Sundays +in the country) they received the consolations of religion from eleven +o’clock till close on lunch. They still felt a certain novelty about +the Church of England, for what we begin after our fortieth year always +has a certain novelty about it for the rest of our lives. + +As luck would have it, her ladyship was delighted with the parson. He +had a Cockney accent; he preached no mysterious doctrine; he insisted +on the plain duties we owe to our fellow-men, especially the duty of +charity, and more particularly the wickedness of class hatred. + +But, as luck would have it, his lordship was not quite so sympathetic. +For one thing, he didn’t like the allusion to antagonism between the +East End of London and the West, for he thought (quite justly) that +that was all rubbish, and he guessed that the parson, in spite of his +honest accent, must have lived somewhere in the middle. There he was +wrong. The parson came from Ealing. + +Aunt Hilda was with them, you may be sure. She could go in the best +car and be driven in state, for a lazy morning parked outside God’s +Acre did not incommode the atheist Gaul. That was all to the good, +since a pious driver might have wanted to go to chapel, and Aunt Hilda, +after so many years in Sussex, had learnt how careful one must be of +religious susceptibilities in the Servants’ Hall. + +As they purred back to Rackham Catchings from Rackham Church (by the +long way, avoiding Rackham village, yet narrowly missing two Rackham +children who were playing in the road), Hilda and Amathea agreed upon +the excellence of the parson, the former with enthusiasm (for was she +not the seller?) but the latter (being purchaser) with more caution. +For when you are buying and selling parsons, or anything else, it is +indecent for the purchaser to praise too much: at any rate, in the +higher ranks of society. With our peasantry, let me assure you, it is +quite the other way (for I know all about it, having attended many +markets). They have the nobler, immemorial human habit of the market, +still customary (I am told) with the Chinese. The seller is most humble +and deferential about his cow. The purchaser praises it to the skies. +But, when it comes to cash, reality pierces through the mask and they +are even more grasping than the rich. + +“He’s a wonderful man, Amathea,” sighed Hilda dreamily. “He might have +had a very great career if he had stopped in London.” (Well, reader, +what are you grumbling about?—Ealing is a part of London, isn’t it?) +“But he said he’d had a sort of a call to come down here. And when I +heard that,” she added simply, “of course I thought it my duty to give +him the living.” (Oh, wicked woman! He had been put in long before she +had had anything to do with it!) + +To whom Amathea: + +“_Dearest_ Hilda! You always was that good about the church! Yer right, +too! I haven’t often ’eard better preaching. True it was, and straight +from the heart, in a manner of speaking.” + +“I often think,” said Aunt Hilda, gazing wistfully at the top left +corner of the roof of the motor, as though a vision might appear there, +“that holiness is the most unmistakable thing on earth. Really that +kind of man is the kind of man of whom I feel” (she sought for the +word), “well, that is the kind of man who might in other days than ours +have worked a miracle.” + +“Mayhap he can lay the spook,” said his lordship with a gurgling laugh. +But the suggestion was received in silence by both ladies; so he +pursued it no further, and covered his laugh by choking a little. + + * * * * * + +While their elders were hearing and discussing the sermon, Bo and +John began the conjuration. Lord Hambourne in his official quality of +University Atheist had stayed at home, and so had Lord Hellup in his +more natural quality of Commercial Sceptic. But the young people were +safe enough, without disappearing. Lord Hellup was deep in Motley, far +off, under the garden window of the hall. Lord Hambourne was prowling +about peering at woodwork and glass and sizing up the Catchings without +shame: standing on a chair to examine the date “1487” on the beam, and +remarking that in Rackham alone out of all Europe dates were stamped on +beams by the carpenters of the fifteenth century, and stamped in modern +figures. + +There wasn’t too much time. It was already noon of Sunday, and by the +Monday morning at latest the battle must be won. + +“Bo, we’re haunting this house,” said John. + +“We are,” said Bo. “We haunt in couples.” + +And the delight of her eyes in his presence rejoiced him and lit a +corresponding, less brilliant light in his. + +“How are we to begin?” said her lover. + +“Listen, Jacko,” she answered. “The ghost has got to clinch his fell +work before to-morrow morning; this evening, no less.” + +(I ought to tell you how she was dressed; but I have only the time to +tell you that her skirt was of course a kilt, very short for a kilt, +but a good deal longer than that of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de +Beaurivage.) + +“Well, we’ve got to introduce the ghost early,” said John, “but it’s +broad daylight for hours. What’s your plan?” + +“Boy,” answered the maiden, “you want your thinking done for you.” + +He nodded. + +“You are approved,” Bo answered to that nod. “That’s how the Secretary +writes from the Cabinet to our Ambassador—my Ambassador, but not Pop’s +any longer, ’cause he’s naturalised—you are approved. First now, can’t +you rattle folk by daylight?” + +“More than they want,” he said, “much more than they can bear, Bo.” + +“’Tisn’t ‘they,’” said Bo, “it’s him. The aged Bruvvish. Pop wouldn’t +stand for it. He’s unknown to fear, is my Lord Hellup. He’s as brave as +the lion-tamer’s wife. There are few ghosts on Manhattan Island, Jacko. +It’s the other one you’re for, and that’ll spoil Aunt Hilda’s market. +Badly. D’ye get me? I’ll fix Pop. He shan’t bid. He shall chorus the +apparition.” + +“You’re not going to tell him our plan?” said John in alarm. + +“Nope; ’cause you’ve got to come a surprise on him as the Demon Buyer. +You’ve got to make good. He’ll be just interested and that’ll help roll +the ghost along.” + +[Illustration: _Lord Hambourne is astonished at the modern habits of +the fifteenth century_] + +“You don’t want me to rattle a chain in the passages?” + +“Better’n that,” said Bo. “You begin right away. First chance you have. +Voices, John. Get him to hear voices.” + +“Yes,” said John thoughtfully, “that was the basis, wasn’t it? I’m a +ventriloquist—and a good one.” + +“Oh! Jacko! It’ll hum! He’s going to hear voices. They’ll be subdued, +you know, ’cause they’re from the Other World. He’s going to hear ’em +this very day to get a move on him. Take him off and try him. Then he’s +going to hear them before he goes to bed this very night. And then....” + +At the prospect thus opening illimitably before her this happy child, +glorying in youth, to which all such jests are but too welcome, clasped +her hands in ecstacy. + +“Then, we’ll dress you up for the part and——” + +But as she spoke the noise of the motor at the door interrupted her, +the Church party came in, Lord Hellup arose from Motley, Lord Hambourne +abandoned his examination of antiques, and the conspirators were halted. + +“More at lunch,” Bo whispered hurriedly. “Now you help Lord Mere off +with that coat,” she said loudly, and then added, for John’s advantage, +“and act the Judas.” + +When they had all swarmed into the dining-room for luncheon, though +they were only seven they managed to make what Lord Hambourne called +in his literary productions “a buzz of conversation,” wherein appeared +regularly, like the cry of a tame duck, his own “Quate! quate!” as +he sat next to Amathea. And now and then “Lor!” from her ladyship. +He was explaining to her the three main theories of apparitions: +“Illusions” and the two “Phantasms,” _i.e._ “Phantasms of the dead,” as +distinguished from “Phantasms of the living,” or P.D., and P.L. as (he +assured her) they were called among the experts of psychology. He told +her about Meyer’s theory, Lombroso’s experiments and Julia; also Lodge. +He had the cunning of his kind, and knew that an academic reputation +is built by repeating the very little one has read to the completely +ignorant. + +Lord Hellup had been masterfully captured to sit by the side of the +handsome Hilda, and he was telling her how sure he did love an old +English house, and how it just got him where he wanted it. The handsome +Hilda was putting into her voice such inflections as she felt suitable +to the occasion. + +But John Maple—John Maple was occupied by greater things—one of which +was Bo. + +The further conference of those young people needed secrecy, but that +was not so difficult to attain at a babbling table as one might think, +for Bo and John were covered by the direct syncopated speech of Lord +Hellup and the loud, often stammering, always quacking spate of the +don, as also by the comments, not restrained in tone, big, hearty, +of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage (you may blame me for +calling her First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage if you like, but I pass +the buck to her—it is her own expression). + +However, they had to wait, for hardly had John got as far as the first +few questions when Amathea gave over Lord Hellup to her hostess and +captured John. + +It was not till she had ceased her description of the opening of +Parliament, which had ended by her nudging John Maple jocosely in the +ribs to reward him for a mild jest, and swung round again as on a large +swivel to talk to Lord Hellup, that John was free to turn again to +Isabeau and renew the interrupted crime. + +“Am I talking too loud?” he said, though he might have concocted +with her a plot to murder his sovereign for all that the eager +conversationalists on either flank would have known of it. + +“No, Jacko,” she answered. “They’re bawling and deaf to the world.” + +“I’ll wrap it up, all the same,” he said. “Follow close.” + +And then continued pleasantly, not too emphatically, in this singular +fashion: + +“It’s astonishing how much later we are in Sussex than in town. Did you +notice that? I mean, have you noticed the state of the woods compared +with any square in London? Or the parks? Do you think you could get +hold of a large piece of black cloth after dinner and pleat it so +as to make a sort of cloak? And it’s all nonsense about hearing the +nightingale before the cuckoo. Like that ass said the other day in +‘Nature Notes.’” + +His partner answered with simplicity: + +“I never can get these English birds. I used to think the nightingale +said ‘nightingale,’ just like the cuckoo says ‘cuckoo.’ Yes, I did. +I’ve got exactly what you want. It’s a cloak of my own. You’ve got +black trousers, and you can keep black socks. Only no clocks, you know.” + +At this moment Lord Hellup interrupted to ask across the table: + +“Jacko, what do you say about it?” + +This was the third time the peer had called her nephew Jacko in her +hearing and Aunt Hilda was impressed. + +“About what?” said John cheerfully. + +“Your aunt says that the only difference between making farming pay and +losing on it is the amount of trouble you take.” + +He shook his head. + +“We have neither of us farmed,” he said. + +Then he resumed, to Bo: + +“It’s true, though. You _can_ make it pay, I believe. We’ve got a +neighbour here who makes it pay by asking whether, if I got hold of +some white paper, you could make it into a ruff for me? That’s all +that’s wanted. Making farming pay. We’d stick it on the top of the +cloak. That, and looking carefully after things and not going too much +up to London, and I’m sure anyone could make it pay. I could wear the +whole damn contraption on top of my head, and you would sew the ruff on +top of the neck. Then, as I am sure, thank God....” + +“Thank God!” answered Bo gently. + +“Bo,” interrupted her father again, “here’s Hilda Maple saying we make +farming pay in America.” + +“Don’t you believe it, Hilda,” said the young woman, using the +Christian name for elders, after the modern fashion. “From the tallest +tower of my father’s castle beyond the seas as far as the eye can reach +over our broad lands there is not a hovel but what is derelict.” + +She resumed rapidly to John: + +“What about him?” and nodded towards Corton, who was solemnly pouring +out the better wine for Lord Hambourne, whom he pitied for a gentleman, +and poor. + +“I can believe that,” said John to her emphatically. “Any amount of +derelict farms in New England too. I’m going to see him after lunch. +And when I’ve seen him we three will arrange to meet, because you can’t +really make farming pay on old land. That’s the reason.” + +For ten minutes the plot was interrupted by the next artificial turn +between Amathea and John, which was played upon this occasion to the +tune of the beauty of the English climate and ended with a second +nudge to reward a second jest before the swivel turned to the left +again after the stern law of the tables of the rich. + +Then the two young people clinched the thing. + +“Aunt Hilda has made a wonderful success of the place,” he said. And he +caught his aunt’s eye as he said it. “And I must show you the new rock +garden to-morrow. She put Alpine flowers in it, and a special sort that +they thought could not grow in England, and it’s doing wonderfully. +I’ll take him out there after lunch and haunt him. Then, when he’s +back, we could have a game of billiards, fifty up. Anything up. Then +I’ll bring Corton round to you there. But you can make almost anything +grow in England, in the south at least, here in Sussex, if you take +trouble. Then we will conspire, my dear, it won’t take long.” + +“Take him out—soon—and haunt him,” whispered Bo, as they got up. She +was burning to begin. + +So was John. But he had to restrain himself for an hour. His aged guest +was in the habit of sleeping after the midday meal of a Sunday—he had +done so in the days when Sunday was his one day of rest and he did so +still. He chose a deep chair apart in the Library and there grunted +and snored at peace till half-past three. His host watched and waited. +As he came out, still heavy with sleep, and cramming into his pocket +the large coloured handkerchief with which he had covered his head in +slumber, John met him and took him prisoner, told him they might walk +out gently for a while, as the day was still and pleasant. He led the +way to the hall, put on his victim’s coat with tender care and opened +the door into the garden. + +With the kindest touch in the world he slid his hand and forearm into +the elbow of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, leading him out into the garden +with all the affection of a relative. It is a vulgar, familiar gesture +which he would have sickened to make had not stern duty prescribed it. +He must obey Bo. + +As for his captive, that elderly peer was actually flattered. True, +John Maple was a commoner; but then he was a sort of squire, and as +Amathea wanted the place so badly, and as John Maple was a kind of heir +(the Baron did not know the exact position—perhaps there was an entail, +or something: he didn’t understand these things) it was as well to be +friends. + +John Maple led out through the damnable rhododendrons and across the +accursed rock garden to where Aunt Hilda had arranged a little fountain +with a leaden Cupid in the middle holding a duck which squirted a +fountain of water from its bill. + +“I’d as lief ’ave a rest, Mr. Miple,” said the elder man, “quite a +short walk puffs me.” + +There was a bench, and they sat down. + +The splashing of the water was the only sound. It was still all about. +John Maple remembered how all this bit had looked in his childhood, +not garden but wild undergrowth; how he had cut a fork for a catapult +from a hazel here; and how once on the edge of that scrub, being all +alone, he had looked wide-eyed at a fox lurching by with a sly smile +showing its sharp teeth on its face. + +He saw the old rough again clearly in his mind. It hardened him to +his duty. He must sweep away all that horror of Alpine garden and +rhododendrons and fountain, and replant the wild. But to do that he +must achieve. And to achieve he must move Acheron and the Nether World. + +“It’s very quiet, Lord Mere,” he began, “especially after London.” He +thought with justice that this gambit would suit the mind of his guest. +And his guest replied that he couldn’t a-bear London, except o’ course +for meeting one’s friends; but there, country friends and country ways +were the best. + +“It’s in the quiet of Rackham,” said John, after a little calculated +pause, “that I remember my childhood.” He was violating sacred things, +but he had his duty to do. “I was a nervous child,” he went on. “They +always had to leave a light in my room. And my dear old nurse would sit +awake for hours with the door open of her room down the passage. She +never allowed them to frighten me with the story, you know.” + +“What story?” said Lord Mere, in whose solid mind there were two very +clear categories—nonsense in books and things as reely did ’appen. + +“Oh,” went on John hurriedly, and as though to get over something +unpleasant as quickly as possible, “the story of the ghost, you +know.... _She believed it_—dear old thing. She would have thought it +impious not to believe in spirits. And on the top of that there was the +feeling she had for the family. But she loved me more, and she would +never let me hear of it. But I couldn’t help hearing of it. There was a +foolish maid who spoke once ... and terrified me. And I heard the groom +complaining to my father about the terror of the horses on a certain +night.” + +“What’s that about the ’orses?” asked Lord Mere nervously, and with the +beginning of an ill-ease in his heart. + +“Well, you know,” said John, “animals are supposed to see these things +from the other world sometimes when we can’t. It’s no wonder I was +terrified by the story as a child. I used to dream of it. And once, +you know—well, of course, it’s all nonsense. But children are the prey +of such things.... Once I _did_ think I saw it—just at that season of +the year ... this season ... standing quite clearly in the firelight. +I hadn’t been well, and I think that’s the reason they had put me in +the old room with the big bed, over the drawing-room. So that nurse +could be next door. I had been asleep, and in the middle of a terrible +nightmare. I can’t remember the nightmare, except some confused +impression of violence and,” he sank his head, “a child couldn’t know +the name for it ... but it was the shadow of Death.... I remember that +panic acutely still. I was only ten—I woke up, suddenly—broad awake. I +sat up in the bed trembling—and, oh, Lord Mere” (and here John looked +at the old man’s face and saw it beginning to stare, the head drawn +back a little), “it was an agony I shall never quite forget.... It was +an illusion, I know. But....” + +“Course it was, boy. Course it was, Mr. Miple, I mean.” He wheezed into +an uncomfortable laugh. “Yer know that as well as I does!” + +“Yes, Lord Mere,” said John thoughtfully, “I suppose I know it _now_. +One grows out of these things. But it was abominably real then.... I +don’t know why, but this time of year it still comes back to me.... +Association, I suppose.” + +“Not that you’ve seen nothing since, Mr. Miple?” pursued his lordship +anxiously. + +“No, no, no!” John assured him. “I am sure it was a matter of health, +and I got my health back as I grew up. And you know, I went abroad. So +it became only a memory.” + +The old man was restless. And when John began again, “Of course, they +say that the influence of a violent and horrible death....” Lord Mere +de Beaurivage wanted to change the subject. + +“Yus, yus, yus!” he said hastily, as John helped him to his feet. They +went back slowly towards the house, Lord Mere already hobbling even +after so short a stroll, and John tenderly supporting him by the arm +and treading most leisurely to ease the old man’s way. + +It was after some moments of silence, when they were in the thick +of the rhododendrons on either side, that Lord Mere de Beaurivage +gave a startled twist in the midst of a step, a twist that hurt him +and stopped him as he shot a glance at the thick growth to his left. +He had heard—he thought he had heard—had he heard?—an evil whisper, +sneering little words, not high above the ground, as from the mouth of +something creeping, not human: surely the leaves had never stirred in +that windless afternoon? And the words he had heard, or thought he had +heard, were: “To the house,” or “in the house”—something like that. It +was a sibilant sound. He had heard the word “house” sneered at him.... +Surely he had heard it.... It was a sound such as rustling leaves might +have made.... But then no leaf had stirred. + +He turned his head towards John. He was still halted, and still +breathing heavily. + +“What’s the matter, Lord Mere?” said the young man, with great +sympathy. “I’m afraid I’ve overtired you?” The old fellow shook his +head. + +“No, no. It’s me heart, I think,” he said. “I’m orl right. Let’s be +getting along and doing—along and doing. Get among the others, eh? Get +among the others. More cheerful-like.” + +They were moving away from the rhododendrons now, and into the open. +So much to the good. And there was the house before them. He thought of +that whispered word “house,” and he shuddered. + +Then he shook off the little trouble. It had only been a moment. And +any small beast creeping in the shrubs might have brushed through with +that sibilant sound. + +During what remained of their brief companionship as they made back +towards the porch John Maple cheered his guest in every way. + +_He_ made no allusion to the Abominable Thing. He even appeared to have +forgotten it. + +But Lord Mere de Beaurivage, as he painfully put down his hat and stick +on the oaken chest in the hall, and more painfully crawled out of his +coat with his companion’s aid, had something or other on his mind that +would not away. He turned back suddenly on his way toward the library, +put one arm on John’s shoulder, and looked with a fixed but uncertain +look in his poor old yellow eyes, straight into the frank glance of his +hostess’ nephew. + +“Did yer say it ’ad no ’ed?” he whispered thickly. + +“Oh, Lord Mere,” answered John, “don’t let’s think of it!” He drew +in his breath. “It was a long time ago, and I tell you, I was only a +child. And—and—I’m sleeping here to-night also,” he added, suddenly. +“So the less I think of it the better.” + +Then he watched the broad, squat figure retreating slowly towards +the library door. He saw the painful aged gesture of the gouty hand +upon the knob, the shuffle into the room beyond. He thought he heard +something like a groan, and in his heart he half repented. + +But already that which commanded him was upon him: no less than Bo +herself, swinging into the hall out of the drawing-room like a rather +too tall ray of sunshine. + +“Dog-Man,” she said, “how’s your end? Have you bitten ’em? Have you +bitten ’em good and hard?” + +There was no lack of healthy determination in _this_ conspirator. Women +know their minds. At least, some women do. And especially those of the +kind who make happy marriages. John was learning every hour. But pray +remember that the woman tempted him. + +He was a little ashamed, and he did not meet her eye. + +“I have suggested things, Bo. I did say a few words. Made an +atmosphere.” + +“Was he scared?” persisted his implacable premate. + +“I’m afraid he was,” said John. + +“What did ye tell him, Jacko?” she asked softly, with such affection +that he was relieved. “Did you make it glare?” + +“He couldn’t glare without a head, Bo.” + +“No more could he,” answered the young lady thoughtfully. “Not in +nature, that wouldn’t be. But then, _he’s_ not in nature either, Jacko, +is he? Did ye make Blackie Bogey talk?” + +“No,” said her lover. Then he corrected himself. “He did say a word in +the rhododendrons.” + +“_What?_” answered Bo, delighted. “Oh, that’s good! Push it along. +He’ll babble yet, Jacko. He’ll babble like a brook. He’ll moan and +he’ll groan. He’ll put down old Uncle Hamlet like a one-spot taking a +deuce. You are,” she added, after searching for a compliment at the +back of her mind, “the Bee’s Knees. You are the Cat’s Pyjamas.” + +Even as she spoke she was looking through the open drawing-room door +and the tall French windows towards the big lawn in front of Rackham, +and there she saw a sight which made her seize John Maple’s wrist +suddenly and strongly after a fashion more tolerable to-day from her +sex and age than it would have been half a generation ago. + +“Look, Dog-Man!” she whispered excitedly, and jutted her chin towards +the sight that had thus fixed her eyes. + +“What is it, Bo?” he asked. He saw nothing but his aunt and Lady Mere +de Beaurivage standing on the grass some little way off, and looking up +towards the new-old woodwork of the house. Once more the comprehension +of women came to aid the dullness of men. + +“You haven’t gotten it, haven’t you?” she said compassionately. +“John Maple, heir of Rackham, mark the twain. The Baroness is deep in +converse with the Lady of the Manor upon the green sward. Money’s going +to talk.” + +John Maple understood. + +“You think it’s begun already?” said he. + +Isabeau Hellup nodded, with a fixed certitude. + +“And my noble father will be the next to suffer,” she added. + +“It’s a race, Bo,” said John, “between them and us.” + +“And you’ve got to win by four little plaits of the mane on the steed’s +neck—or the whole neck, if you like. But you’ve got to win, damn you, +Jacko!—you’ve got to win. Now see here. Have you gotten that spell with +Corton yet?” + +“No,” said John. “I can’t do everything at once.” + +“Well,” answered Bo, looking at the impossible watch on her wrist, +“step on the gas and shoot. There’s no time to lose.” + +He agreed. + +“I’m going to fix the coat and the ruff. And I’m going to sew through +the slit in it that dandy little sword which I got from the shield +stack on the stairs; six in a star. There’s only five now. But I put +them straight. No one’ll notice. You run off to Corton.” She paused +and added, “And I’ll add a word to Lord Mere. Just a word. Just a +follow-up, Jacko. ’Nuff said.” + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +Amathea, First Baroness de Beaurivage, stood in ecstacy upon the lawn, +holding darling Hilda’s arm solidly in the crook of hers—two solid +arms well interlocked. In spite of the thickness and the shortness of +her neck, she carried her head a little upon one side, partly from the +intensity of her emotions, more through her conviction that such an +attitude befitted the occasion. + +“Oh, Ilda!” she said, “darling Ilda, wot a gem! What a reel Jule!” Then +she sighed. “I wish the Prime Minister could see it, that I do,” she +continued. “Yer can’t think ’ow ’ot ’e is on old English ’ouses. Why, +I tell you strite, Ilda, show that man an old English ’ouse, and he +just fair goes off the deep end—as the saying is. He said to me once, +he did, ‘Amathea,’ he says—’e calls me Amathea, ’cos Uggins don’t like +him to call me Mattie—yet we’re pals, ye’ know——” and here she nudged +her hostess strongly in the rib with a powerful elbow, and that lady, +having before her one approach to fifty thousand pounds, stalwartly +bore the blow. + +“There’ll never be another like ’im, Ilda,” went on the Baroness +sentimentally, and in a rather lower tone. “Never no more! There’ll +be another in ’is place, no doubt—one passeth and another cometh—as +the good book says. It’s the rule of them great Parliament men, they +pass away like the flowers o’ the field. Yus, and it’s the rule of the +’ole world too.” She shook her head. “Mebbe they’ll get some ’ighbrow +in his room: but we’ll never see the likes of ’im again—not in that +plice. ’Owever, he’s there now, and long may he stick. A treasure, +Ilda.” (Then she was off on the house again.) “To see all that quiet, +and them old trees, and all so peaceful like, and timber on the front +and all—oh, it fair sets me envious. Aren’t you ’appy, Ilda, aren’t you +’appy in a plice like this?” + +Aunt Hilda sighed in her turn, profoundly. + +“Dearest Amathea,” she said, with a Christian squeezing of the arm that +had so lately dealt her such a cruel blow (you are too young, reader, +to know what it will feel like to get a bang in the ribs from the elbow +of a peeress and sister-friend in your fiftieth year), “I shall hate to +leave it.” + +“Oo talks of yer leavin’ it? Why, you’re the queen o’ the place,” +answered the noblewoman, not without guile, but in her business-like +heart she was murmuring, “Artful, artful! That artful!” + +“Sometimes,” said Hilda Maple, disengaging her arm for one moment in +the desire to breathe, and under the excuse of smoothing her kilt, +“sometimes I think that I can’t bear to leave it, and that some day I +might hope.... Then, you know, there comes back to me all that I owe +to the family and the name, and how Rackham ought always to be in Maple +hands.... And then I remember how the poor boy ...” she shrugged her +shoulders, “well, Mattie, you know what _he_ is.” + +“I’m shore he’s an ’andsome, well-set-up young feller,” said Mattie. + +“Yes, yes,” sighed Hilda again. “He’s all that. But you know what he +is. He could never keep the place up. He will never really _earn_. +His poor father was just like him.... That’s why I sometimes think +... well, that I ought to realise and leave the poor lad, when I am +gone ...” (she sighed again, as though she were on the brink of the +grave) “with a solid lump of money behind him anyhow.” She glanced at +her companion. “But well tied up, Mattie—you understand me. Well tied +up. I wouldn’t trust him to keep a penny of it, any more than his poor +dear father.” And Mattie nodded confidence. “Sometimes I think it’s +my duty,” Hilda Maple went on, “to sell.... And then sometimes I feel +torn and distracted....” She clasped her hands, and cast upwards a gaze +which took in the gables of Rackham and the lower part of the sky. “But +to think of Rackham no longer in Maple hands!” The distinguished figure +of Sir Harry Murtenshaw rose before her eyes, the romantic marriage—but +no ghost. She had already forgotten about _Him_. + +Mattie hadn’t. + +“Ow! It’s all so romantic! An’ the gowst an’ all!” resumed that lady, +capturing her hostess’ arm once again and leading her towards the door +of the hall. “I wish we ud ad a gowst at home when I was young, that I +do,” and she shook her head. “But there, you can’t have everything!” + +There was a pause upon the gravel, and the two ladies made their +majestic progress towards the entry of those ancient walls. The one was +ardently longing for an advance—I do not mean a prepayment (for the +moment), but a suggestion of purchase. The other was considering the +best form in which that suggestion might be made. Hilda Maple, having, +if that were possible, the higher breeding, had the more rapid process +of brain; and the initiative came from her. + +“You know, Amathea,” she said gently, reverting to more formality, +“that Lord ... that your husband has spoken of buying the place?” Her +tone was thoughtful, gentle, and a little pensive too. + +“Why, Hilda Maple,” answered the peeress, standing back as though in +amaze, “oo’d ’ave thought it?” + +“Yes,” went on her hostess, still pensive, still subdued, and she +sighed again yet more profoundly than before. “Oh, I wish there +was someone to make up our minds for us, as there was when we were +children! What am I to say? What am I to do? I can’t bear to leave the +place, and yet.... And yet.... I think I know where my duty lies. When +I had several offers for it,” she added, lying gently, “I mean, just +after the war, when there were so many people after it, I refused, +as you know.” (It was the first time Mattie had heard of it—and no +wonder!) “But things were different then; my brother-in-law was alive, +and the boy seemed such a child. And now, of course, when it’s quite +a different place in value, with all the changes I’ve made, and the +improvements, they will come offering me more than they did, and I +shall be tempted. I know I shall. But I do promise you this, Mattie. I +won’t even mention figures till I have given you and your husband first +choice. There! I’ve said it now!” + +“I knew you would!” answered Mattie impulsively, at the door, and +suddenly kissing her friend. “Oh, you’re strite and loyal, you are! +Pity it is there ain’t more like you. It’s what I was saying to the +Prime Minister only the other day, when he said that about Uggins. He +said, ‘Amathea,’ he said (he calls me Amathea, ’cos I won’t let him +call me Mattie—I don’t think it’s right, nor he wouldn’t neither), +‘Amathea,’ ’e says, ‘that ’usband of yours is one of a thousand. And do +you know why I ses it?’ ses he. ‘Because he’s _strite_,’ ses he. ‘He +runs _strite_,’ ses ’e. ‘I tell you, Amathea,’ he ses, ‘a man that runs +strite is a jule.’ And you run strite too, Ilda, you do. That’s what ’e +said. Them was the identical words!” + +So the song ended—as the poet Longfellow somewhere remarks—and the +two ladies strolled into the hall. Amathea, with an agility worthy +of a better cause, rapidly performed the pounding gymnastics which +she called “popping upstairs.” She had certain calculations to make, +certain notes. + +As for Hilda, she was turning towards her room, herself also intent on +certain notes, certain calculations, when she heard a firm and regular +step, which she knew. It was Lord Hellup. He had just caught up his +expensive but reasonable grey hat, and his not demonstrative but costly +gold-headed cane, and was about, as befitted the creases in his clothes +and the exactitude of his coat, to adorn the gardens of Rackham. He +had an hour before tea. He was suddenly aware that Hilda stood before +him. I am sorry to say that he impulsively took her hand, as though he +were meeting her for the first time in some days. But he smiled and +she smiled, and he begged her to show him the rosery of which she had +spoken. + +So they went out together, he sixty or so, she fifty, and the spring +around them both, and in the rosery they talked of roses. + +On the way back Hilda Maple led the way round, still talking in the +manner he found so engrossing, with such refinement, such subtlety, +such charm, as none other but he had noticed in her conversation, +until, turning out of the shrubbery, they found themselves upon the +lawn where so lately Lady Mere de Beaurivage had stood, where Lord +Hellup now was—but with this difference, that Lord Hellup had far too +much respect for womankind to link his arm in Hilda’s; contrariwise, +his hung somewhat awkwardly along his flank. + +Hilda Maple gazed at Rackham with a world of affection in her eyes. +Lord Hellup stood by watching, admiring, nearly worshipping that gaze. +It apprehended the gables of Rackham, and the lower part of the sky. + +“I can’t bear to think of leaving it,” she said in a subdued voice, and +there was a little catch in it, almost like a sob. + +“Why, Mercy!” cried the candid gentleman from overseas, “you’re sure +not thinking of leaving it, Mrs. Maple! Why, we associate you with +Rackham, and Rackham with you, like hand and glove. You’re necessary +to Rackham, Mrs. Maple,” he added, with an emphatic enthusiasm, and he +very nearly continued, “and Rackham’s necessary to you,” when his quick +mind perceived that this would be a blunder. He said, with something +almost like tenderness in his tone, and with a drop of two notes in his +voice, “I could not bear to think of Rackham without you, Mrs. Maple.” + +She sighed—that same sigh. + +“There was a time when I would not have dreamed of it, Lord Hellup,” +she answered. “You know, these things are very difficult to talk +about——” she delicately put the tips of her fingers upon his arm for +a moment, and at once withdrew them. “But now I have begun perhaps +I ought to say it. When they were making all those offers for the +place—just at the end of the war....” + +“Were they _so_?” inquired Lord Hellup with interest, and a most +intelligent look in his eyes. + +“Yes, yes,” said Hilda Maple hurriedly. “Well, I wouldn’t hear of it +then. It seemed to me abominable that Rackham should leave the Maple +name. But then, you know, my brother-in-law was alive then, and John +was only a boy. I refused them. Of course, it’s more valuable now: that +was before I had done anything to the place, and I must say,” she went +on prettily, and smiling at him as she said it, “I have made it what it +used to be. I do think I may be proud of it.” + +“Why, sure, you can,” answered the magnate emphatically. “It’s the +niftiest little nest I’ve seen this side of the water. The more I see +of it, the more I think so. And so does Bo,” he added hurriedly; to +support his judgment lest by any chance his hostess should disagree +with him. He repeated himself. “The niftiest little nest this side the +water.” + +The adjectives and noun were not those which Hilda Maple would herself +have chosen. Rackham Catchings was not so little, after all, and there +was something impertinent about “nifty,” seeing that the foundations +were pre-monstrous, or whatever the word was. But she had that in her +mind which made verbal niceties unimportant. + +“My heart’s been torn, Lord Hellup,” she said, with a rising voice (and +she clasped her hands). “But I think it’s my duty to provide.... You +know what the boy is.” + +“He’s some lad,” replied Lord Hellup politely. It was not what Aunt +Hilda wanted. + +“Yes, yes,” she said, almost impatiently—English people are sometimes +a little like that with their trans-Atlantic cousins. “Oh, I know his +talents, and he’s a dear boy. But,” shaking her head, “he could never +keep up Rackham!” She sighed again. “It’s the same old story. Like +father, like son. He’s like his father before him. I’m afraid it’s +my duty to see when I’m gone that there shall be solid money behind +him—well tied up. When I am gone ...” she added, putting a bell-like +tone into her voice and receiving, what she had expected, an ardent +protest from her companion. + +“Yes, yes,” she sighed, in reply to it, “it may be a long time yet—or +it may not. But I have got to think of the boy.” + +Poor woman! She had got to think of the Esthonian as well! Of him who +was to her Mr. Rupert de Vere. + +“I don’t know—I don’t know,” she went on, in a carefully distracted +voice, and once more she put her hand on Lord Hellup’s arm, this time +less briefly. “We women need advice. No ... I have made up my mind. +It’s my duty to sell.... I even, sometimes, think I ought to take the +price that was offered me last month by that odious tea broker.” + +Lord Hellup had not heard of the tea broker, friend of his hostess +though he was. And why should he—since the tea broker did not exist? +Lord Hellup had passed his life in business. His judgment of prices, +he would often tell himself, might be compared to the glance of an +eagle. He could not help wondering what the odious tea broker man had +suggested for Rackham Catchings. But Hilda was not “talking”—yet. + +They were now off the lawn and upon that gravel path going back to the +door, after another such silence as Amathea also had known in that same +place not very long before. Just as they reached the threshold, Hilda +looked up frankly into her friend’s eyes. There was a suspicion of +tears in her own, which moved that friend profoundly. + +“When once I’m _certain_ it’s my duty to sell, I shall do it,” she +said. She shook her head again sadly. “But I can’t bear to think of +myself without Rackham.” + +“And we,” said Lord Hellup, in a low, deep voice, suitable to the +occasion, and most sincerely moved, “we” (he used the impersonal term) +“could not bear to think of Rackham without you.” He took her hand +again—I am sorry to say that it was his intention to have kissed the +tips of her fingers, but found she had withdrawn them. The peer was +annoyed with the fear that he had perhaps broken some social canon or +other. But Hilda Maple was not cruel, for as she went away, their last +words exchanged, she smiled. + +So much for sixty years and fifty years. Now let us come to +calculations. + + * * * * * + +At the table in her room Lady Mere de Beaurivage did, as she put it to +herself, some figuring. She was an adept at the art, from the days when +she had marked prices in chalk with lightning strokes upon the sides of +the barrow in the Old Kent Road. She had improved in the later days, +when she had cheapened furniture for the new villa of which she had +been so proud in the suburbs, before the Great Change. + +But since the Great Change I must admit that Amathea, Baroness Mere de +Beaurivage had begun to let things slide. The money was there in such +heaps that really it didn’t seem to matter what one did. Her passion +for Rackham had got hold of her. She knew enough of buying and selling +to make certain that the place was within her reach if enough were +offered. It was only a question of what enough was. She could usually +manage her lord, but she knew that in one thing the management was not +always easy; and that one thing was money. For like all those whose +genius has led them to accumulate a considerable fortune rapidly, Lord +Mere de Beaurivage was in some terror of losing it. She remembered +what other friends had paid for houses and what other friends had sold +at. Her desire for the place led her further to remember how often +she had heard of the special value of these modest country houses of +ancient memory; what a drug in the market were the great hulking stone +places of the eighteenth century, and what a demand there was for these +Tudor and timbered gems. + +Before she had done dreaming of it, the good woman had got as her top +price, at the back of her head—counting all—something like £60,000. +After all, it was not her money. And what is £60,000 in two millions? +Besides which, it was only £3,000 a year anyhow; and what’s three +thousand a year when you were born to an uncertain pound a week? The +great thing is to get what you want. Three thousand a year—but that’s +not the way to look at it—£60,000. Why, there are toffs as ull give +that for a trumpery picture! + +And then, there was no one to inherit from them. And she asked herself +sentimentally whether Huggins and she had not the right to enjoy what +was left of their lives. And there could not be anything else like +Rackham. There were not two places like Rackham—not in all England +there weren’t. + +In Amathea’s room, therefore, the figure of Sixty Thousand Pounds had +taken root and had sprung. + +Through a wall not too thick (for it was in the new or Catchings wing, +and the walls were damnably antique) at another desk, Hilda Maple was +making _her_ calculations also. She drew the figures wearily enough. +£20,000 would clear her. What was desperate, what was immediate was de +Vere of Jermyn Street. + +It was to pay the first five hundred, and so get the Esthonian to +renew, all those months ago, just after the Ancestor, that she had +written, on the advice of an acquaintance familiar with antiques, to +Blunt of Bristol, and really Blunt had been very nice about it. She had +a full three months in which to meet it. But when Blunt had to be met +for the renewal—he pressed her courteously by post, she had never seen +him—he pleaded the smallness of his capital; he recommended that very +honourable firm, or rather, private advancer, a Mr. de Vere of Jermyn +Street. And Mr. de Vere had been quite charming. He had advanced enough +to permit Blunt of Bristol to renew for another three months. And he +himself had fixed a very easy date for his own repayment. But that easy +date had fallen due a whole week ago—and how he had pestered her. He +had made her dread the telephone. + +She must have something to show him. Anything in writing. Even a +private note. It was a little desperate; but she did think she could +get it before the break-up on Monday. + +It was not too late, Sunday though it was. She knew from sad +experience that de Vere could use the telephone from his end on a +Sunday afternoon, and she doubted not that she could call him up from +hers. + +She took up the receiver; and sure enough that smooth voice answered in +velvet from the other end. Her own voice as she continued was all as +smooth. + +“Is that Mr. de Vere? Mr. Rupert de Vere? Oh, Mr. Rupert,” settling +down, and still more sweetly, “I am so glad of the opportunity of +telling you—yes, I know. I didn’t want to make you talk business +on a Sunday” (sudden change to an expression of anguish). “Oh, no, +surely, dear Mr. Rupert. Not Monday! Why, that’s to-morrow! Yes, yes” +(pettishly), “I know that’s the date on the paper—a week ago—yes—but +there’s common sense in these matters—no—yes—exactly. Do wait a minute. +I’ve practically sold the place. No, no, Mr. Rupert, you haven’t heard +that so often before. I tell you it’s _virtually_ sold. There’s Lord +Hellup who has virtually accepted—practically. And then, you know, +there’s the other one here too—Lord Mere de Beaurivage—not heard of +him? Oh, nonsense, you must have heard of him! Dear Mr. Rupert, he’s +positively dripping with it. No, no” (shouting) “BRUVVISH—I’ll spell +it” (slowly) “B E A U R I” (angrily). “It’s damnable—you’ve cut me off +... yes, yes, another three minutes. Yes. Oh, are you _there_, Mr. +Rupert? Yes, I know they did, the brutes. I’ll spell it again. B for +buffalo, E for Edward, A for affluent, U for ugly, R for rancid, I for +innocent, V for vulgar—yes, that’s it” (emphatically) “precisely. Sir +George Huggins that was. Yes, only he pronounces it Bruvvish—I thought +you’d know. He’s the man whom the Prime Minister—yes, exactly, dear Mr. +Rupert. Oh, thank you _so_ much. Tuesday, then? I may see you Tuesday? +Oh, that makes _all_ the difference” (peevishly). “Well, you don’t +suppose I can come with the agreement in my pocket! What? Something in +writing? Oh, yes, certainly. Well, then, Tuesday. Thank you so much, +dear Mr. Rupert! Tuesday morning—that’ll be perfect ... G-o-o-d b-y-e.” + +Aunt Hilda hung up the receiver, exhausted, faced the situation, and +muttered bravely, “Hell!” + +Meanwhile her nephew was making history with her butler, Isabeau Hellup +concurring. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +John Maple sought Corton. He found that excellent man seated in his +private room beside the fire, reading _The Spectator_ in cultured ease. +For it was the hour when butlers take their ease. The dignified figure +rose with majestic courtesy at the young man’s knock and entry. + +“You catch me _improviste_, Mr. John,” he said. + +“I interrupt you, Corton,” answered John. “I’m sorry, but it’s urgent, +and it won’t take me long. I’m glad you read _The Spectator_.” + +“That journal is my favourite reading, Mr. John,” answered Corton, with +fine simplicity. “Mrs. Maple is good enough to provide the _News of +the World_ for us. I glance at it, for a summary of what may be called +domestic occurrences. But for judgment and a survey of public life I +prefer _The Spectator_. It is my pabulum.” + +John told him he was quite right. But he added abruptly: + +“Corton, have you ever heard about a ghost at Rackham?” + +“A ghost, Mr. John? Lord, no!” said the old gentleman. “If there was +a ghost,” he added emphatically, “I should have heard of it, I hope! +There _was_ a ghost at Pilford, a little the other side of Lewes, +but,” he added proudly, “they laid _him_.” + +“Oh, yes, I remember the ghost at Pilford. It was a white cow. Came +into their upper garden at night, didn’t it, in the dark of the moon?” + +“That’s right,” answered Corton sagely. “It came twice. But some said +it wasn’t an earthly cow. On the third night that young clerical +gentleman what wore a three-corner cap said he could exercise it and +exercised it. It never came again. I heard the very details, Mr. John,” +he said, lowering his voice. “I heard that from Mr. Worthing, who you +may remember was valet to Sir Charles.” + +John nodded. + +“The young gentleman said some strange, solemn words: there they all +was, after eleven, looking from the terrace, and the cow melted.” He +would have given more of the spectral beast. His voice was already in +tune for the supernatural, when John interrupted him and said: + +“Well, Corton, so there has never been a ghost at Rackham, anyhow. Now +listen. There’s got to be a ghost now, this very day.” + +And he unfolded his plan. + +Corton listened gravely. But he was not yet an ally. He heard what John +had to say, but he didn’t know what Mrs. Maple would think of it. It +was not for him to play practical jokes either. He would do anything to +help Master John, but.... What with one thing and another. + +[Illustration: _Mr. Corton reads “The Spectator”_] + +It was then that John put down his cards. + +“Corton,” he said, “who’s the rightful owner of Rackham?” + +“Why, Master John,” answered the old man, hesitating, “it’s not my +place to say. If I might be so bold as to be free to speak....” + +“Yes, Corton,” interrupted the young man, “if you were free to speak +you would say that _I_ was the rightful owner of Rackham. And you would +say that I was swindled out of it, or at any rate crow-barred out of +it; and that’s an abomination. And you would say that if only I could +pay Aunt Hilda the fair price (and the fair price would be a good deal +less than the £20,000 my father was supposed to owe her husband—he +never borrowed anything like it really) I’d have as good right to +Rackham as my father himself had.” + +Corton made a gesture—too respectful for a nod, too affirmative for a +bow. + +“Well, Corton,” said John sharply, “now don’t you see?” + +But the old man wanted to have the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. + +“Look here, Corton, do you want to see that fellow Bruvvish sitting +here in Rackham, and you turned out, and Lord knows what horrors of his +own brought in? Jazz bands and Wireless?” + +“I had hoped,” said the old man slowly, “to live and die here, Master +John, I had hoped to live on here when I was past my service, if ever. +Your father always said I should, and Mrs. Maple never denied it one +way or the other. This room’s not my very own, sir, it’s yours; but I +don’t think I could live long away from it. It would kill me, sir, if I +may say so with respect. I never thought of strangers in this house. It +wouldn’t be in nature.” + +“Well, there you are, Corton. And the way to prevent that is to prevent +this old brute Huggins from getting the place. Besides which, Corton, +you know as well as I do that Rackham would be itself again if I was +here, as I ought to be, and you as you were when my father was alive, +running the whole place and bullying us to death. Well, there’s only +one way of doing it, and that’s frightening off Lord Rubbish. I have +laid the foundation, and we have only got to go ahead. Now listen to +me, Corton. In about five minutes I shall be in the billiard-room with +Miss Hellup. I have told her. I am going to marry that young lady, +Corton.” + +“Indeed, sir,” said Corton, bowing again, but this time far more +ceremoniously. “I congratulate you, sir. I’ve always heard that these +American young ladies....” + +“You’re quite right, Corton; you’re perfectly right,” said John +hurriedly. “And very beautifully put. Thank you a thousand times. Now +listen again. I tell you in about five minutes I’ve got to meet her in +the billiard-room. When I ring _twice_ will you come? We shall have to +put our three heads together. Do you understand? When I ring _twice_? +And no one else is to come.” + +Corton understood. + +As the young man made to go out of Corton’s room that master of +ceremonies heaved to his feet and was before him at the door. He bowed +yet again as he showed John Maple out. Then, when all was clear, he +sent for the boy. + +“Boy,” he said, “when you hear the bell _twice, twice_, mind you, you +come and tell me. Twice, mind you! Don’t disturb me for once.” + +“Very good, sir,” answered the boy in a voice cracked but most servile. + +His superior rewarded him with an august but very slight nod. + +Some few minutes passed. Corton no longer read _The Spectator_, +passionately absorbing though its pages be. He held it listlessly +drooping in an aged hand, he looked into the fire and remembered his +old master, Henry Maple, and the better days. Then there rose before +his mind the picture of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, and his mouth hardened. + +The bell rang twice. + + * * * * * + +In the billiard-room Bo was pocketing the red all by herself with +admirable precision. When Bo could not do things well she did not do +them at all, which is one way of being efficient. She continued her +series as John catechised her on her short interlude, picking the red +out for her every time and putting it back on spot with the tenderest +care, and admiring her gymnastics at long and short range. + +“Did you speak to him, Bo?” + +“I did that. I asked him whether he had felt something odd about the +corridor upstairs where his room is. He said no. I think he gulped.” + +“What state did you think him in, Bo?” + +“Shaken, Jacko; not badly, but shaken. He didn’t like my talking about +it.” + +“Oh! So I worked it?” + +“Yep! Damn! You can’t do two things at once,” said she, putting down +her cue as the red foolishly lolloped round hanging its head and came +to a disgraceful rest, unsatisfied. John took up the cue and played a +stroke. + +“The others’ve got to hear the balls clicking, so as to know we’re at +work and not to be interfered with,” he said. + +“You’re right,” said Bo. + +“He’s coming. He’s to come when I ring twice. So I’ll ring twice.” + +He rang twice. And in due time with due dignity Corton entered. Bo put +her finger to her lip and John obediently did the same. The elderly +gentleman with some doubt that it might not be very dignified, but also +that it might be his duty, put to his lips in turn a grave and rather +podgy finger. Then John swung the balls together viciously, to make a +prolonged clattering, and they laid their swift plan. + +“If I may say so without forgetting my place, Master John,” said +Corton, when they had begun the preliminaries, “we shall do well to +begin with the household.” + +“The household?” said Bo. + +“Yes, miss. I mean, the lower servants. And then, of course, my own +colleagues, I trust I shall be able to indoctrinate them.” + +John nodded. + +“That’s wise,” he said. “But remember the man we’re shooting at.” + +“Oh, yes, Master John,” said Corton respectfully. “That’s what I +mean. You will be working him, if I may use the word,” and he coughed +gently. “I’ll be bringing a deputation some time later this evening, +sir. They are a little shaken already, Master John, like what you said +his lordship was. Only more so. Especially the cook. She was always +psychic. And then there’s the tweenie—she’ll be useful, because she’s +worse, she has had religion this winter—badly. Only, Master John, I +don’t think I can do anything with that Frenchman. He’s shown no signs. +I fear he is impervious to the influences of the Other World.” + +“I know,” said Bo simply. “Frenchmen are brass.” + +“They give no credit, miss, to the doctrine of eternal punishment.” + +“That’s what I meant,” said Bo. + +“Now, Corton,” John went on, “listen to what Miss Hellup and I have +arranged. I’m going to put on a long black coat she has got for me; and +we’ve taken down one of the swords from the sham armour that Aunt Hilda +bought the other day, and shall stick it through the slit in the coat. +Then she’s made a big ruff. I shall put the whole thing over my head, +and there I shall be. A short man with his head in his chest, or a tall +man without a head—whichever you like. A ruff where his neck ought to +be, but nothing above it.” + +“It was Miss Hellup who thought of that!” said Corton with admiration. + +“No, Corton,” said Bo. “We both thought of it. But it is I who made up +the properties—and they’re dandy.” + +“You’ll keep them carefully concealed, miss—and you, sir—until the +right moment?” said. Corton anxiously. + +The two younger people nodded. John went on. + +“That old gentleman’s going to hear voices, Corton, till they drive him +to bed. And you know that Aunt Hilda has put him into the Armada room?” + +“Yes, Master John,” answered Corton very seriously. “The room that’s +panelled with oak which I hear is derived from the wrecks of the +Spanish Armada, as is also that in the dining-room.” + +[Illustration: _John Maple explains his plan_] + +“That’s right,” said John cheerfully. “That’s where the ghost’s going +to be. For I am the ghost, and I know. There’s just room between the +tapestry on the wall and the red damask hangings at the head of the +four-post bed.” Then he added oddly, “I wish I hadn’t gone in for it. +It feels mean. But I had to take his appetite away, Corton. I don’t +want those millions to eat up Rackham.” + +“You’ll make me despise you, Jacko,” said Bo, with the cruelty of her +sex. “What you want is to make the old brute roaring crazy. If you +don’t, I shall.” + +“I’ll go through with it, Bo,” said Jacko simply. “But I do pity the +old boy all the same. You see, I have had nerves myself—when I was a +child.” + +“And you’ll have them again to-night, if there’s a mirror in the room +and you squint through a button-hole,” Bo answered. “Now, Corton, all +this is bright and right?” + +“Perfectly, miss, absolutely,” said Corton. + +“Well, then, I’ll be getting back and helping some more with this lil’ +haunting, and I’ll go coach Lovey-Lad. I know how to make him whine and +shiver.” + +So did these conspirators part. + + * * * * * + +Still at her desk, the telephone relinquished, the Esthonian for a +moment silenced, Hilda Maple jotted away. + +If she sold for £40,000 she could live modestly and freely for the rest +of her life; she had gone into the prices of annuities at her age, and +she knew what the £20,000 extra when all was paid off could buy. + +If she could sell for £50,000, with a balance of £30,000 over for an +annuity—well and good. Or rather, well and better. + +But time pressed, even if she hooked one of her two fish, she must have +something in writing by the morrow. + +She was a determined woman, and a clear-headed woman, and also by +nature as hopeful as she was decided. She said to herself, as she +jotted figures slowly down on the paper before her, that if she played +her cards at all properly she would have her competing offers before +the evening was out. Then in the morning before her guests went away +she would get a brief note from the firm bidder. She would say it was +more regular, and whoever it was that had promised wouldn’t be able +to refuse that small formality. Then she could breathe again with +something to take up to town on the Tuesday. She would play her cards +first with Bruvvish—there was margin to play with in the devotion of +Lord Hellup. She must take Bruvvish for a foundation. + +Bruvvish therefore she boarded, taking him aside immediately after she +had given him tea, as the sacrificial victim is taken aside after a +draught of honeyed wine. She got him into the library, alone, and fired +a broadside under which he reeled, and from which he could not recover. +She told him that she had divined his desire to purchase Rackham; she +loyally swore that his wife had never breathed a word of it, but she +admitted that Amathea had not been able to conceal her very natural +feeling about the place. They were old friends, were they not? and dear +friends—or she would not be speaking so frankly. + +Well, as he knew, until quite lately she would have thought that +anyone who asked her to sell Rackham was mad. But then, with him and +Amathea it was different. And one thing she had always said: if it +had to go—and if it really was her duty to the boy that she should +sell—at least it should be in the hands of friends, and for the sake +of friends, still more for the sake of feeling that the old place +was still in the same kind of hands, she would take what she would +certainly take from no one else. + +All the great spirit of the Huggins blood rose at that moment, and +before the fatal figures could be uttered, before the foot could be +slipped into the open door, the initiative had passed from Hilda to +the enemy. The mighty man of business spoke. These things have to be +done as with an axe—once, and decisively. He had always read that of +the millionaires in the papers. And since he had become a millionaire +himself he had been determined to live up to it. He settled his head +well down, shortening still further his short neck, he put on the +sullen expression which he associated with financial mastery, and he +said these words: + +“I ’ad thort o’ going to £30,000.” + +Hilda Maple was worthy of herself, and of the occasion. + +“Yes,” she said simply—and then, as though no one had spoken, “as you +say. It is most strange to me how long it takes me to make up my mind. +I will be straightforward with you, Lord Mere. When I was offered sixty +thousand all those years ago....” + +“Sixty thousand!” gasped Lord Mere de Beaurivage. + +Hilda Maple waved her hand impatiently. + +“Sixty thousand, I said. Well, when I was offered it all those years +ago I refused it. Not for the money, mind you—I thought it was a very +fair price, especially as I had not added anything to speak of in those +days. But I could not bear to think of selling the place. They might +have offered me sixty million and it would have been the same. But +now it’s another matter. You know, dear Lord Mere de Beaurivage” (he +quailed beneath her eye), “... that I’m saying it to you because it +_is_ you—you and dearest Amathea. One can’t have many close friends in +this world. And you know too that I’m thinking of the boy. If I knew +that I could get even fifty thousand guineas now, and leave it in safe +hands.... Why.... Yes ...” again she sighed. “I suppose I should yield.” + +“Fifty thousand!” almost shouted Lord Mere de Beaurivage. + +“Yes,” nodded his handsome friend. “Fifty thousand guineas. That’s it. +It’s too little, I know. I know what you’re feeling for me—but can’t +beat up a price. I can’t haggle. I never could bear the details of +business. And if I must suffer, why, it’s like an operation.... I want +something quick, clean, and done with.... So I’d take even that.” + +It was on the tip of his lordship’s tongue to utter the fatal words, +“Yer would, would yer?”—and then her patience would have broken and +there would have been a scene. But he stood in sufficient awe of +superior culture to be restrained in time. All he said was: + +“Well, ma’am—Ilda, I mean—honest and square like ... come ... I do +think when you say fifty thousand pounds....” + +“Guineas,” murmured Hilda Maple. + +“Ho? Guineas?” he muttered savagely. “You’re fair coming it over me! +That’s wot you are, strite—altogether coming it over me!” + +“Oh!” moaned Hilda Maple wearily. “How I hate all this business talk! +_I_ don’t want to sell the place. I wish I’d never mentioned it. And +if it’s going to interrupt our friendship, for God’s sake let’s say no +more about it at all. It’ll be a load off my mind, anyhow, to drop the +whole thing. And there I shall be in Rackham, where I’ve always been. +And it’s my soul’s home. And with John ... here as I grow old ... to +inherit it all from me,” she added, with beautiful sentiment. + +“Don’t misunderstand me, Ilda, don’t misunderstand me,” said the great +man. “We need to be friendly in business, same as in everythink else. +Don’t we? Now s’posin we talk it over quiet-like. Here have I been +talkin’ thirty thousand pounds. Well, I tell ye’ strite, that was just +bargaining. You wouldn’t have me not bargain, would yer? Yer think less +of me, wouldn’t yer?” + +“Oh, I’m tired ... tired, tired!” exclaimed the lady, in tragic tones, +higher than she had yet used, and alarming to the financier, who was +always terrified of women’s whims. “I can’t go into it any more, +George” (she did not often call him George—but she called him George +now). “Really I can’t. I tell you....” She got up and moved as though +she would go. + +“Stye a bit. Wite a bit, Ilda, do!” he cried, hoisting himself out of +his chair. “I’ve got ter tell Mattie somethin, yer know. Now, let’s be +reasonable. We was saying fifty thousand pounds, that’s what you and I +was saying....” + +“‘Guineas,’ I said. No! no! I can’t go on,” burst forth Hilda Maple, +making for the door in her agitation. Then she turned back suddenly and +frankly took his hands. “We won’t quarrel, George, will we? Only don’t +let us talk business any more.” + +And then she was gone. + +His lordship sank back into the big chair from which he had so +painfully raised himself for that moment, and he grumbled to himself +half aloud: + +“All Mattie’s doin’; she’s that keen on the place! Fifty thousand! +Well, it’s a ramp. But now she’s broke off! What am I to say to Mattie?” + + * * * * * + +Hilda Maple, singularly composed after her recital, not unlike King +Lear or any other tragic figure when it gets off into the wings for +its pot of beer, had two things clearly fixed in her mind: first, she +had established her fifty thousand—guineas; there was no doubt of that +at all. She had laid her foundation. Secondly, Lord Hellup would be +spending the time between tea and dressing, as he always did, in the +little Red Room, reading Motley’s _Dutch Republic_—it was astonishing, +she thought, how that great man could read and re-read Motley’s _Dutch +Republic_. But it argued a stable mind. Anyhow, he would be there, in +the little Red Room. And therefore to the little Red Room did Hilda +Maple steal. + + * * * * * + +For once in his life Lord Hellup did not mind being interrupted in his +re-reading for the fiftieth time of the Monstrous Alva, the Divine +William of Orange, the heroic Dutch and the villainous Dagoes. He put +down his book with a snap; he was on his feet at once; he had put a +winning look into his face, and was about to put a winning tone into +his voice to greet her, when Hilda forestalled him. + +“Lord Hellup,” she said, “I have come to ask your advice. No one would +give it more freely or more generously than you, and I would trust your +judgment beyond that of any living person.” + +“Is that so?” replied the peer, with pleasure ringing through the quiet +words. + +“Lord Hellup, I have made up my mind to sell Rackham.” + +“You don’t say?” repeated her guest, in the same courteous intonation. +“That was what I felt scared about when you were talking just now in +the garden. Well, well, so you want to sell Rackham?” + +“Yes. But I come to you—I shall be quite frank, because you can help me +as no one else can....” + +“Help—how?” said his lordship courteously. + +“Why, with your advice, Lord Hellup.” + +His face admitted his relief. + +“You can tell me more justly, and I would trust you more completely—as +I have said—than any living man. Tell me honestly, what ought I to +ask?” + +“If I were making the offer, Mrs. Maple,” said her friend, word by word +and carefully, “I say _if_ I were, or if I were buying for a friend, +say....” Then he broke off. “Or, see here, put it this way. If I were +asked what it would fetch at an auction in a free market——” He paused +and took up another line, and began again almost affectionately, “Or, +see here, if I were trying to get the best price for you....” + +Hilda Maple became impatient. + +“Lord Hellup, it would be much the same figure in any case, wouldn’t +it?” + +“Why, no,” he said thoughtfully. “You see, if I were buying that would +be one thing, and if I were selling for you, that would be another +thing. Then if I were bidding at an auction....” + +Hilda Maple thought, not unwisely, that this might go on for ever. +During all their growing intimacy she had more and more regarded Lord +Hellup as a man of few terse phrases. It seemed there was another side +to him—and this would never do. + +“Lord Hellup,” she said simply and swiftly to bring things to a crisis. +“Tell me plainly. Do you think that if I ask fifty thousand guineas I +am asking too much?” + +“Why, no,” replied the First Baron Hellup, composedly, and weighing his +words. “Strictly speaking, you cairn’t ask too much. Same way, they +cairn’t offer too little.” + +“I’ve been offered more in the past,” said the lady decisively. + +“Well, if you didn’t take it,” he sympathetically answered, “that means +it’s worth more to _you_ than fifty thousand pounds, doesn’t it?” + +“Yes,” she said, “it is. To me, Rackham Catchings is worth untold gold.” + +“Why, then,” said Lord Hellup—and she thought he might have said it +earlier, “fifty thousand pounds doesn’t sound too much, does it?” + +“Guineas,” said Hilda Maple. + +“Yes, guineas,” he replied, “it’s all the same to me. If it’s the way +you say it is, then fifty thousand pounds—guineas, I mean—can’t be too +much, can it?” + +Hilda Maple had come to her conclusion. He was cryptic; he was evasive; +but she had heard that the great American masters of finance were +always so in the first stages of a bargain. But there could be no doubt +about it: fifty thousand guineas had seemed reasonable to this rich man. + +In the silence that followed her mind worked rapidly. He had been +shrewd, and she honoured him for being shrewd. He had been cautious; +but she had no doubt now that he was a buyer, and that she had heard +an authority who would at any rate back her up in her figure of fifty +thousand guineas. He had talked of auctions and of acting for her; +he had said that guineas and pounds were the same to him; she was +content. She felt perhaps a little vaguely that another arrow also had +pierced his heart. Well, there was no harm in that. + +But he hadn’t come forward as buyer with any enthusiasm. The purchase +money for Rackham must be sought from Lord Mere. But she could in a +last resort quote Lord Hellup as having offered. It was stretching a +point, but she could risk it. And when old Bruvvish had settled—as he +would settle—the purchase money would be something of a dowry to bring +even to a man as rich as Hellup was. And anyhow, the market was alive; +she had both a bidder and a valuer now. + +She thanked Lord Hellup warmly and sincerely and took his hand and +shook it, to impress him with her sincerity. He said with warmth how +pleased he had been to be of any service; but not ten minutes later, +when Mrs. Maple had left the room and Bo had come in to see her father, +he confided to that admirable daughter that Englishwomen were hard to +understand. + +“Do you understand them, Bo?” he said. + +“More’n they do me,” said Bo, very truthfully. + +“Now, that woman, Bo—well ... I won’t say all I was going to say; but +she’s an admirable woman, and she comes here and asks me what she ought +to ask for Rackham.” + +“Did you tell her, Pop?” said Bo anxiously. + +“Why,” said her father, in his most genial voice, “I let her talk. I +wouldn’t disappoint her. Whatever she wants to sell the place at she’s +welcome, for what I care. But she’s an admirable woman, Bo. But these +Englishwomen are subtle and difficult to understand.” + +“Now see here, Bo,” said the English peer in carefully modulated slow +accents, “you women understand what we men sometimes can’t. Least, I +can’t. What’s she getting at? What’s it all about?” He paused, and then +added in a tone of despair. + +“These Englishwomen are incomprehensible.” + +Bo popped her cigarette out of her mouth between her fingers and spoke +short words, “She’s getting at you to buy, Pop!” + +“To buy? What?” said the startled Baron. + +“Why, Rackham Catchings. This.” And with the words the lovely girl +struck her right heel sharply against the floor. “All around....” she +made a circle with her finger in the air. “Roof and all. Counting the +little gadgets.” + +“I don’t want it, Bo,” her father said, sitting up and speaking very +earnestly. + +“She wants you to want it,” answered his daughter. + +“What should I do with it?” asked her father in his bewilderment. + +“Don’t you touch it, Pop,” said his daughter decisively. “Leave it on +the hook.... Now if you want to know who _will_ buy Rackham....” + +But her father was musing, and interrupted her. + +“I did some figuring,” he said, “just to pass the time—as I do. And I +make out this place and all the fixings, as it stands, counting the +visitors’ book, would stand me in for more’n two hundred thousand and +less than a quarter of a million dollars.” + +Bo agreed. + +“I don’t know about that,” she said. “Yes, I do, though” (for a thought +had struck her), “I’ve heard what the death duty was—when Henry Maple +died, before she’d built on. They paid duty on £20,000. That’s not a +quarter of a million; that’s only a hundred thousand.” + +“These Britisher Death Duties are appraised damn low,” mused his +lordship. “And there’s been plenty of fixings in the place since then.” + +“You’ll find that she won’t take less than £50,000,” said Bo decisively. + +“Well, she won’t get them from me,” said the devout parent, business +side uppermost for the moment. + +Bo nodded her strong little chin at him. + +“That’s right, Pop. Don’t you touch it.” + +“You said you knew who was buying,” said her father. He was full of +curiosity now that he was on the scent of a deal. + +“Yep,” answered Bo. “It’ll make you jump. And buying gulfs under fifty +too. Oh, some boy!” + +Her father had an incredulous look. + +“Which?” said he. + +She took time to deliver her shot, luxuriously inhaling the smoke of +her cigarette; and then told him. + +“Jacko!” she said. + +“Whattt!” cried the millionaire, almost jumping out of his chair. + +“That’s so,” answered Bo, delighted with the effect. “Jacko. Oh, that +lad’s all planed down, tongued and grooved.” She shook her head. “No +rough lumber.” + +Lord Hellup, as befitted a man who had just been shot, hesitated. He +had too much pride to accept orders off hand, and too much snap as +well. But he hesitated. + +“See here, Bo,” he began slowly, after a long pause, “I’m not saying +a word against Jacko, mind you. That’s your end. I never did believe +in worrying young people, but if he can buy real estate like that, +why....” There was a tone of admiration creeping into his voice which +delighted his daughter’s ear. + +“He’ll buy—settle, and clinch; leave that to him,” she said. “He’s a +little Napoleon, is Jacko.” + +“Still, Bo, one doesn’t gaff Rackham Catchings at £20,000.” + +“_He_ will,” nodded Bo emphatically. “You’ll see. You call _that_ +making good?” + +“Seems so,” said her father, with his eyes on the ceiling. “But I +can’t join the slats. Where’s it coming from?” He looked a little +suspiciously at his daughter. But her sincerity was not to be mistaken. + +“You’re wrong there, Pop,” she said. “Won’t come from me or anywhere I +know of. Only I say: watch Jacko. He’ll have this place, and he’ll have +it for a hundred thousand dollars.” + +“Some boy,” murmured Lord Hellup in his turn. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + +The evening was far advanced. It had long been time for the ladies to +go and dress, especially in such a house as Hilda Maple’s, where things +were well organised, prompt and punctual. But to-day was an exceptional +day. + +It was time for Bo to dress—if dress it can still be called—anyhow, to +wallow in warm water with Smell-Good Crystals added. But business came +before pleasure with Bo. + +She sought John, and led him to where she had ready, prepared and +folded in a nice little parcel, her nice little cloak. She took it out +again and put it over his head, and adjusted the ruff on the top, and +patted the sword-hilt sewn into the slit at the side, and patted the +sheath behind. Then she crowned the headless figure with the ruff. + +“You look dandy, Jacko,” she said. “I could kiss you if there was +anything to kiss.” + +“I can’t see anything,” came a muffled voice from within. + +“There’s an eyelet hole just about opposite your eyes, I guess. Feel +for it with your finger.” + +John obeyed, found it, and so widened it; an iris and pupil, grey and +young, looked forth. + +“Scares me, that does,” said Bo, drawing back. “But he’ll never see +it. You’ll find your way about. Trouble’s about your shoulders—all +slopes down, Jacko—makes you look like an elephant.” + +“A small elephant,” said he. + +“Yes, but broad,” answered the modest child, with a world of affection +in her voice. Then she mused, “Couldn’t we prop up them shoulders, +Jacko?” + +“Might stuff ’em,” said he. “They usually have old copies of _The +Times_ stacked in the box room for packing. _The Times_ makes good +stuffing.” + +The young people went off for the paper, and Bo pinned the crushed +rolls in. She put the cloak over his head again, and poised the ruff. + +“That’s more like,” she said. “You’re my tall, upstanding, spectral +cavalier. You’d be a head taller with a head, Jacko.” + +They debated where to lay the properties, and decided for the lad’s own +room. It was the next but one to his victim’s. + +“And how’ll you get there, Dog-Man?” she asked. + +“I’ll manage to slip in,” he said. “I can squeeze the cloak over my +head between the head of the bed and the wall. And I’ll be waiting in +the little room which opens out of his bedroom, and which they never +use. They always keep the door locked. And they’ve only got trunks in +there. But Corton gave me the key.” + +“Find your own time, Jacko,” she said; and then, snatching a glance at +the impossible watch, she saw that she had barely time. But she guessed +that the other women would be late that night. And she was right. + +It had long been time for Aunt Hilda to dress; but with her also +business came before pleasure; and after she had returned baffled from +the great attack upon the Hellup trenches she knew that something +desperate must be done, dinner or no dinner. Old Bruvvish would still +be in the library—he always went up late. She must get back there at +once, and nail him down, or confess herself defeated. + +Ah! And it had been time longer since for Amathea to dress. For Amathea +had many things to think of in the affair of dressing, including the +choice of hair. But with Amathea also business came before pleasure. +She had seen from the end of the passage darling Hilda come out from +the library, which she herself had been just about to enter, to +convince her husband of the necessity of purchase. She had seen that +hostess make straight for the room where she knew Lord Hellup was +reading his Motley. She divined that the coast was clear; for the +attack on Hellup (which she knew very well was about to take place) +would not be over in ten minutes or in fifteen. Therefore it was +that even at the moment Aunt Hilda’s entry had supplanted Motley’s +_Republic_ in the interest of its reader Amathea was charging for the +library and for a decision. + +Lord Mere de Beaurivage saw his wife coming into the library. He told +himself that it was time for her to dress. He divined some dreadful +purpose in her delay. He saw that she was all smiles, and therefore +dreaded the battle that was to come. + +She had behaved well to him all her life—in the first hard days of +accumulating that little fortune by the private banking in the Old +Kent Road, she had proved as shrewd and as hard as he had, and a loyal +partner; in the big affairs of his later life she had never interfered. +When he had asked her advice, it had been sound. To-day the only cause +of his dread was that he dared not tell her the real reason of his +hesitation: he dared not advance the haunting. No man likes to look +cowardly in the eyes of his wife—not even a new politicians’ peer. + +Corton also had spoken a word or two, very respectfully, explaining a +dark stain on the oak floor, and telling him his own version of the +legend. + +What Corton had said still wreathed like a smoke in his mind, and in +memory he again heard that Voice—had he heard it?—a little too clearly. + +He braced himself for the discussion that was before him; but he +already felt half beaten. + +She sailed in and greeted him kindly; sat down at his side, and told +him radiantly that her dream had come true. Dear Hilda had as good as +said it. + +“But there weren’t any figures, Uggins,” she added, “and that’s just as +well. I like you men to do the figgerin’ part. And you know your way +about that well, you do, don’t you, ducky? You remember ow the Prime +Minister said....” + +But George Huggins, first Baron de Beaurivage was in a hurry. + +“Yes, Mattie, yes, I remember. He was right, too. But, ’struth, Mattie, +her figure’s a corker.” + +“What d’yer mean?” answered the lady anxiously. “Yer not backing out +now, George, are yer? Not breakin’ my ’eart?” + +“Don’t you be so quick,” said he testily. “Wot I said was that her +figures were corkers, and so they were. That woman’s greedy, Mattie,” +he added earnestly, and then he growled, with a sudden reversion to his +youth, “bleeding greedy,” and his wife reproved him. + +“You haven’t got no cause to use soldier language to me, Uncle Uggins,” +she said. “I’ve given you no provercation. And just you be minded of +it!” + +He begged her pardon very humbly. + +“It got the better of me, Mattie, it did. It shan’t again. But there! +Fifty thousand pounds—guineas she put it. Just for this!” And he waved +a short podgy arm vaguely and rheumatically at the book-lined walls. + +Amathea Huggins put into her voice that rich scorn which is rarely +heard west of Temple Bar. + +“Ow! So that’s what sticks in yer gizzard, is it, George Uggins? Fifty +dirty little thousand!” + +“Guineas it was,” growled the peer. + +“Well, guineas,” said Amathea, suddenly rising, her arms akimbo. +“Guineas. Why, George Uggins, you give more’n that for your baronetcy, +you did. D’yer remember what you give for the peerage?” + +“Don’t!” said her husband faintly. “Don’t!” + +“Yes, but I will,” said Amathea. “Wot! Yer stick at a gent’s price for +a beautiful country ’ouse! And its oaks and all, and its park-like +grounds. Like what I’ve read of all my life, and meant to ’ave. Do you +know what I’d give for it, George Uggins? If I ’ad money of my own? But +there, I ’aven’t. I am only just a poor woman, I am. But ’oo ’elped you +make your money, George Uggins? Oo stood by yer side, ever patient, +ever true? But there—I don’t count, I don’t.” + +And here there came out suddenly a little five guinea handkerchief with +real lace all around it, and it was dabbed upon those poor porcine +eyes, while she sank again into her chair and sobs shook her most +substantial frame. “Oo am I? Just a victim, that’s wot I am. Nothing +for me. All the work for me. None of the joy, as you may say. And I +had so set my ’eart on it. And so cheap at that,” she said, suddenly +removing the handkerchief, and switching across from emotion to +reason. “Cheap! Why, George Uggins, can’t you see it’s give away? It’s +like pine-apples at sixpence,” she added, reverting to the days of the +barrow. “There you are a-haggling and a-hesitating, carrying on like +a harea-man. D’you know what I’d ave given? I’d ave given a _undred_ +thousand, I would. What’s a hundred thousand to you, George Uggins? +You’d give it to-morrow for another step-up, you would, and you know +you would. And oo’s it to go to any ’ow?” she added, short-circuiting. +(It was her trump card always, poor woman! That only child who had died +before their wealth had ascended upon them from Hell.) + +And George Huggins, First Baronet, and First Baron Mere de Beaurivage, +in the county of Berks, struck his colours and handed over his sword. + +“Ave it yer own way, old girl,” he said. “Ave it yer own way.” + +She gave him a large Old Kent Road kiss of the kind that pleased him +best even in his old age. And he was glad to have the battle over, even +in defeat. But man as he was, he could not help muttering to himself +(which was both inconsiderate of him, and futile): + +“But oh, strike me, fifty thousand guineas!” Then, “What’s fifty +thousand shillings?” he asked sharply. + +“Never you mind,” said the lady archly. Now that she had got her way +she was full of mature sunshine. “’Taint as much as counts, and you +wait till I’m settled ere, and all the county folk talking on the lawn, +and you coming out and shaking hands and sayin’—wotever it is you ought +to say,” she concluded lamely. Then she added valiantly, “Oh, them’ll +be appy days!” + +In her mind’s eye she saw an endless procession of squires and their +ladies: yes, and one or two of the big Houses too; her Rolls Royces +parked in front of the new garage she was going to build—for they would +have a proper number of cars. She heard the strains of the band.... + +It is not true that women have only two happy days of their lives—the +day of their wedding and the day of their death. They have from +seventeen to twenty others in between, and this was one of Amathea’s. +She left her husband thus rewarded. + +Amathea was fully employing her maid, she was dressing triumphantly. +She had won. + +Poor George lay limp and too large, and too short, enormous, in the +chair. He was conquered. But finding himself alone, he muttered to +himself with some relief: + +“Any’ow, the wimmen’s all gone up to dress now, and there’s an hour’s +peace. I’ll bide here awhile. No need for me to go for half an hour. +Never did take much stock in all them frills. Such nonsense!” + +But hardly had he completed that little monologue when (oh, horror!) +the door was opened with decision, and the formidable Hilda strode in. + +“Oh, Lord Mere,” she said, even before she had sat down beside him, +“I’m sorry, but I _must_ see you a minute. You see, the truth is, I was +rung up on the telephone, and I do honestly think it’s my duty to tell +you....” + +“As wot?” said the unfortunate First Baron, trying to lift himself up +by the arms of the too deep couch of repose, and sinking back again. + +“You see, dear Lord Mere, everything’s so hurried, isn’t it? But you +must hear of this offer, because honestly I think it’d be simply a +_crime_ to take it without letting you know first.... You’re generous, +I know, but you’re the best man of business of our time. You’d despise +me if I didn’t tell you the truth.” Here her guest interrupted +stentoriously. + +“Not as ever I’d despise you, Mrs. Miple. But clear figures I do like.” + +“My dear Lord Mere,” answered his hostess, leaning forward towards him +earnestly, and boldly putting a hand upon his knee, “to be perfectly +frank with you after your frankness with me, I have just heard; they’ve +just offered £60,000.” + +“’Oo’s _they_?” queried her guest, with the courtesy of an older world. + +“And though they made me promise not to say a word,” went on Aunt Hilda +solidly, “I do think it right to tell you.... I admit I don’t like to +lose ... dear Lord Mere ... but I must keep my word. We had nothing +fixed, but after all, I had already offered you the lesser price, +hadn’t I? And you know,” she continued sweetly, and even pensively, “I +think that straight dealing has a moral value of its own. It leaves the +conscience quiet. And that’s worth any number of thousands.” + +“Yus, yus,” grunted the old man. He paid no attention to her nonsense. +He was thinking of Mattie. She would come in and see him again while he +was dressing—bound to do that. He couldn’t a-bear being harried. “Once +and for all!” was his motter. “It had made him what he was, it had.” + +“Look here, Mrs. Miple,” he said, “I don’t know what about your +telephone and all. And I don’t want to. That’s strite, as between +friends. But I’ve got to finish this ’ere business one way or t’other +and I’ve made up my mind. You said fifty thousand, and I’ll give fifty +thousand.” + +“Guineas,” murmured Hilda gently. “Guineas.” + +“Fifty thousand _pounds_,” answered her guest, sitting up and speaking +with a decision that made him look ten years younger, and tapping the +padded arm of the low chair as he did so. + +“Oh, really! Lord Mere....” + +“Fifty thousand _pounds_, ma’am, and we’ll count the dirty lawyers’ +frills for the guineas. Now then, are ye’ agreed?” + +Aunt Hilda had never met big business in its more aggressive mood, and +I weep to tell you that she was cowed. + +“Very well, Lord Mere,” she said. “Very well.” + +“That’s it, ma’am,” said he, riveting the bargain, and at the same time +managing after two efforts to stand up on his poor old gouty legs. +“Fifty thousand pounds.” + +He had never learned the silly little social habits of a class which +he both envied and despised; therefore he made for the door before +his hostess, and she heard him muttering as he went out, leaving her +there at once mightily relieved and mightily offended: “Fifty thousand +pounds. And I wouldn’t have done it for any but Mattie. Fifty thousand +pounds!” + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + +Dressing in his bedroom, poor Lord Mere de Beaurivage was not content. + +He had only done it for Mattie—and he was not content. + +Two quite separate parts of the man were disturbed; first, the old +business part—fifty thousand was monstrously too much: he got feverish +over it (and that delayed his dressing. He never would have a man to +help him). It was monstrous. Good Lord! There was some he knew would +have ’ad it for half. He’d have had it for half himself if he’d been +developing the site. But there—Mattie wanted it. + +Deeper down, and much worse, was the underlying wreathing mist of +terror which came and went, half below his consciousness. It worried +him extremely. Was he doomed to live under such influences the last +poor years of his life? He still delayed his dressing.... But there, +they’d only come down from London at week-ends. There was no nonsense +about the house in Mayfair. That was old, too, but respectable, at any +rate. A man could sleep quiet there. Leastways at the back, away from +the motors. And there! He’d done it for Mattie. + +If it be true that this world is governed by appetite, fear, avarice, +hate, and affection, in this case affection had conquered—for the +moment. + +The poor old boy had nearly finished dressing. He was carefully +brushing a scant white wisp of hair over a bold, broad head. As he did +so he began nervously to start at a sound which he thought was like a +whispering call. He tracked it down; it was only a curtain rustling +slightly along the wall before the open window. Once or twice again he +found himself looking oddly round as though something might be watching +him; but he told himself that one must get rid of all that, or one +could not carry on. + +He was still struggling with the tying of his white tie (though he had +taken innumerable lessons in the art) when Mattie came in, looking +younger than she ought to have looked what with cosmetics and the rest, +and shaded lights. She gave him a powdery kiss to thank him once again; +and he was half-consoled when he came down late into the drawing-room +and found them all awaiting him to go in to dine. + +During dinner, by Bo’s strict orders (for Bo knew a good deal more +about psychology than Lord Hambourne), John said not a word of the +ghost. + +It was sound policy to give the old man rope, and a breathing space. + +The greater would come the final shock of surprise; and surprise is the +essence of victory. John’s marching orders were not to say a word of +it till the women had gone. And even then to play delicately, and not +to force the pace. + +She couldn’t prevent Lord Hambourne making a fool of himself and +speaking of The Thing once or twice. It was his damned profession to +make a fool of himself. Dons all do. She couldn’t prevent her father +asking a question or two about measurements—especially what size of +ruffs they wore in those days, and how they got their food to their +mouths over them, and whether they could see their feet. + +But Hilda Maple had a growing instinct that the subject was dangerous, +and though she had fifty thousand pounds as good as in her pocket, that +same instinct bade her change this sort of conversation whenever it +arose, and, so long as the women remained, it played little part. + +But when they were gone John fulfilled his orders, and over the wine +talked discreetly to his three guests. + +He talked of apparitions, of Sussex tales, of the Fates of houses. He +flattered the Turtle Professor of Psychology by listening eagerly to +his appeals. He managed with great skill to distil some little poison +into Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s not heroic veins—principally by dropping +the subject once or twice rather obviously. He fought on two fronts, +for he knew very well that Lord Hambourne believed in no spirit, +creative or uncreative, finite or infinite, human or divine, and he had +to make Lord Mere de Beaurivage more and more uncomfortably familiar +with a spirit drawing more and more uncomfortably near. + +The men were back in the drawing-room, and the first words they heard +as they entered was Isabeau saying: + +“Well, it may be all talk, as you say, but I didn’t dare look in the +glass since I thought I saw _That_ looking over my shoulder.” + +And Hilda Maple was answering almost angrily: + +“Oh, that’s enough about the whole business, surely! I can’t make out +why anyone should take it seriously.” + +Then, to stop that very nonsense, she bustled at making up four for +bridge. Lord Hambourne was her partner (it would never do to quarrel +with Lord Hellup); and as for Hellup, he was a good counter-weight for +Amathea, whose bridge was not experienced, though at whist she had +flattered herself all her life upon a pretty play, and boasted that at +cribbage she was unequalled. + +Lord Mere de Bruvvish sat apart in a darker recess where burned a +second fire. He was fatigued by certain emotions. He needed repose. +He was still disappointed. The figure, £50,000, still returned to his +mind, and once, as the card-players, whom he would not interrupt by any +remark, brought out their short monologues, “I pass,” “Double,” “She +made it spades,” and the other brilliancies of the exercise, he had a +horrible brief recollection of a little Voice too near the ground, +wickedly evil, in the thick of the rhododendrons. + +Bo kindly determined to bear him company in his loneliness. + +“It’s an oddly quiet night, isn’t it, Lord Bruvvish?” said Bo, seating +herself beside him and talking dreamily. “It feels strange—this +quietness of the country. I don’t know....” But even as she spoke there +came a very faint, very distant, and not pleasant laugh—where from no +one could tell—except John Maple, who was watching the players with +intelligent interest. + +“What ... what’s that?” said Lord de Beaurivage, gripping the arm of +the sofa and sitting up suddenly. + +“What was what?” said Bo innocently. + +“I thought ... I thought I ’eard something—something like someone +laughing, very faint like.” + +“Did you?” said Isabeau. “Well, perhaps someone did. I don’t know....” + +And once again, a little less remote, a little less evanescent, a +little more defined, came the sneering chuckle of something evil. + +Lord Mere de Beaurivage was fairly sitting up. He brought out a big +silk handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and said: + +“There, Miss Hellup! There! I could a-sworn....” + +Then he pulled himself together. He was afraid he was making himself +ridiculous. But he badly needed human support. + +Isabeau rose suddenly with a startled look. + +“Where’s my little dawg?” she said. And as she said it she looked +round, and was able to exchange a sharp glance with her lover. “Oh! +Something’s happened, Lord Mere! Lovey-Lad never leaves me!” + +She went off past John, murmuring to him as she did so, “Hooked!” And +then she said aloud and awfully to the company at large: + +“I feel a presentiment! Something’s happening!” + +John Maple left the bridge players, who only looked up for a moment +from their game, and sat down in the seat that Bo had vacated, next to +his guest. + +“You mustn’t mind Miss Hellup, Lord Mere,” he said. “She’s not like +other girls—about spiritual things, I mean. I think sometimes she +almost _feels_ the other world.” + +“Oh, ah!” answered the old man, his yellow eyes filled with uneasiness. + +“She told me once that the only time she was in a place of great +evil—evil all round her—the first sign was given by her dog. Dogs see +things.” + +“Do they? Well, I ’ave ’eard something like that,” gasped Lord Mere de +Beaurivage. + +Even as he said it there came more distinctly than before the low wail +from the darkness, and the poor old gentleman was almost startled into +speaking; but still on John’s face there was no sign of recognition. +Lord Mere remembered how the doctor had talked to him about blood +pressure and all sorts of other things a few months before, and warned +him that if he heard voices or saw pictures just as he was falling +asleep he was not to be alarmed. But far off at the bridge table he +caught what was being said. It was Lady Mere de Beaurivage asking Lord +Hellup what had troubled Isabeau. + +[Illustration: _Growing nervousness of Lord de Beaurivage_] + +“She got anxious about her dog. She thinks he’s got a terror. He does +sometimes. She thinks he’s seeing something.” + +The inevitable Hambourne broke in where he was least wanted. + +“Animals often feel those influences first,” he said, and then in a +suddenly louder voice, “we inv-v-v-estig-g-gated a house w-w-w-once in +the m-m-m-ost d-d-disg-g-gusting m-m-m-urder....” + +“Lord Hambourne,” said Mrs. Maple sharply, “you’ve made me forget. Was +it a spade?” But Lord Hambourne went on in his stride: + +“A _p-p-partic-c-cularly_ d-d-isg-g-usting m-m-m-urder.” + +“Really, Lord Hambourne,” said his hostess, too brusquely. “I can’t +play if you talk like this. I can’t do two things at once.” + +Lady de Beaurivage was dummy. She heard her husband calling in a +whisper to her: “Mattie!” + +“What’s the matter,” she said, going up to him. + +“Mattie, you didn’t hear nothing—not voices like?” + +“Lor, Bruvvish, don’t be so sudden! You guv me a cold shock all down my +back, you did!” + +“Don’t say you seen nothing, Mattie? You’ve not _seen_ nothing?” + +“No. But I ’ad a sort of creeping-like looking in the glass just now.” + +“Don’t, Mattie, don’t! I can’t a-bear it. Not now. I’ll slip away to +bed soon. I can’t a-bear it.” + +Then came Hilda Maple’s voice calling to her: “Amathea, dear, another +deal,” and Amathea returned reluctantly to the cards. + +John and the old gentleman sat together in silence looking into the +fire. The elder man heard, or thought he had heard ... well ... what? + +He was fighting against the influence. He tried silence, and then an +attempt to speak of other things; when again he heard, or thought he +heard, a Voice, so slight as to be disembodied—a nothingness upon the +air—yet deep and full and of an intolerable sadness. Even as he thought +he heard that voice he saw John start and look into the darker corner, +where the firelight could not play, and where a bookshelf came up +towards the drawn curtains of the window. Lord Mere gave a paralysed +glance, put his hand graspingly on John Maple’s arm, squinted to the +left into that same dark place, and whispered rather than said: + +“Did yer ’ear anything, Mr. Miple?” + +John did not answer at once; when he did he said: + +“Perhaps, Lord Mere....” Then he looked down. “I really don’t know. +It’s better not to let oneself think too much of such things....” + +They talked just so long as gave the old man time to think himself +recovered; when once again, but more certainly, though still distant +and of a phantom sort, the sound came. + +“Oh, Mr. Miple, I ’eard it pline! It said, ‘The Night,’ Mr. Miple! +S’elp me, it did!” + +There was terror in the eyes now, and he was gripping John Maple’s arm +convulsively. John Maple tossed his head slightly as though trying to +be rid of some bad influence. + +“Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes. Shall we move?” + +Then suddenly Isabeau’s voice was heard from the landing as she ran +downstairs, tragically loud: + +“Oh, poor Lovey-Lad! Poor little pup!” she cried. + +The unfortunate bridge players, interrupted again, looked up. + +“You f-found him?” stammered Lord Hambourne. + +“Oh, yes. He was whining and shaking so, I couldn’t bear it. And all +huddled up on the landing, and bristling. He’s there yet. I couldn’t +fix him so’s to get him to come. I tried to carry him, but he was just +crazy. Snapped at me—for the first time in his life—poor li’l fellow!” +Then she lowered her voice, and leaning against the banister at the +end of her descent, she said hysterically: “It’s something in this +room!” + +Lord Mere de Bruvvish fell back in his chair again like a man stunned. +He gasped; he clutched the padded arms on which his hands lay, leaned +back, his breath coming and going as though he had just taken violent +exercise. His head was thrown back, and his eyes were shut. Then he +called quite loudly: + +“Mattie!” + +The bridge party looked round: that excellent wife broke off in the +middle of a hand; she rushed—if such a form can be said to rush—across +the room, and knelt by the chair. + +“What’s the matter, George?” she said. “What’s the matter?” + +“I’m orl right. I shall be orl right. I come over queer,” he said. “I +ought not to have called yer. Go back, dear; go back.” + +“’Ow was ’e took?” said the worthy woman to John Maple. + +“It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing, Lady Mere,” said John, on his +feet. “It was something.... The night ... and this talk of ghosts has +made him nervous.” + +“Mattie,” said the poor man in a low voice, “Mattie, I must go to bed. +You’ll excuse me, ma’am,” he added, turning to his hostess, “but I’m +that tired. I’m not as young as I was.” + +Mattie accompanied him affectionately to the hall, gave him his +candle, and looked at him anxiously. + +“Ye’re tired, dear,” she said, “you’re right when you sye you’re tired.” + +“I’ll be orl right, Mattie,” he said. “Never mind me. You’ll find me +asleep. I’m orl right.” + +But she watched him anxiously, gazing up after him as his unwieldy, +lumbering form went painfully up the stairs, candle in hand. He looked +back at her and smiled. She was a good wife, and as she went back to +the group in the drawing-room she wondered whether she ought not to go +and see to him; she was beginning to share his fears. + +Mrs. Maple was rattled, and she could not hide it. + +“Well,” she said, “so far as it’s possible to count in the middle of +all this, I make it 364.” + +Lord Hambourne thought he would make conversation—but he made it +unfortunately. + +“As I w-w-as s-s-aying j-j-j-ust now, I m-mean ab-b-about the +m-m-murder ...” he began. + +His hostess interrupted him. + +“Yes, it was very nasty,” she said quickly. “But do help me with this. +Do you make it 364?” + +“Quate, quate!” said Lord Hambourne, a little puzzled at such a check. +He added the figures. It was a pleasure to him, for he certainly could +not have paid if he had lost; but he had not lost. + +It was during the following silence, when Hilda Maple was in an agony +lest some further thing should be said to disturb the purchaser of +Rackham Catchings, that Corton came in with the glasses and decanters +on a tray. + +But it was not the Corton of earlier hours. For the first time in +thirty years that great man was showing some lack of self-possession. +He came in too quickly; he was trembling slightly, and as he advanced +he so far forgot himself as to look over his shoulder; and in so doing +he dropped a glass. + +“Good heavens, Corton!” shouted his mistress angrily. “What are you up +to? What’s the matter?” + +“I’m sorry, madam.” His teeth were actually chattering. “I’m not quite +myself to-night, madam.” + +“So it seems,” answered the lady coldly, as he put down the tray. + +Then she wondered whether she was awake or dreaming. For she saw that +honourable servitor make, not for the door, but for the window towards +the lawn, as though he would leave by that strange exit. With a hasty +glance which satisfied her that her guests were occupied, she followed +him and whispered quickly: + +“What _are_ you doing, Corton?” + +“If you please, madam,” said the unfortunate man, glancing with horror +at the door through which he had just come, “I’d rather not go back by +the passage.” + +“Not go back by the passage!” whispered Mrs. Maple angrily and looking +him up and down. “Are you mad?” + +“No, madam. No, not mad. Not mad.” He passed his hand over his +forehead—what great powers are revealed in man sometimes, quite late in +life! Corton was now in the very spirit of the romances upon which he +was modelling himself. “No, madam,” he said again, most tragically, and +with a tremor in his voice, “I am not mad.” + +“Corton,” said Mrs. Maple, “you’re a disgrace. You’re drunk.” + +His only reply was to shake his head sadly. + +“It’s worse in the passage, madam. I couldn’t bear it. I can’t go back +by the passage.” + +“Don’t go on repeating that like a parrot!” said Hilda Maple +passionately in the same low tones. Her guests might notice at any +moment what was going on. She took the bull by the horns and opened +the window herself, for she saw that if she did not act quickly there +would be a scene. “Then go back across the lawn, you fool!” she barked +at him aside; and then loudly and gaily, turning round, she added, to +the company, “You don’t mind my opening the window, do you? It’s an +astonishingly hot and still night for the time of year. Do you mind the +fresh air?” + +Her guests assured Hilda Maple that they did not mind the air. But Lord +Hellup, who had watched the end of the little business, said the wrong +thing. He said it directly to his hostess, and what he said was: + +“That guy’s rattled!” + +“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Mrs. Maple. “You mustn’t mind him. He’s nearly +always like that about eleven o’clock.” + +Lord Hellup was highly interested. + +“Do say? Mebbe that’s because he doesn’t drink enough. When that kind +go dry between whiles their nerves just fray to old collars.” + +It was getting worse and worse. The others were beginning to take +notice, and Lord Hambourne did not fail to come up true to type. He +butted in. + +“In-inhib-b-b-ition,” he began, “with its ac-c-c-ompanying +c-c-c-comp-compl——” But Mrs. Maple cut him short savagely. + +“Don’t, Lord Hambourne! Don’t say any more about it! It’s not that. +It’s religion. He says long prayers after dinner.” + +“That’s not natural—not in a butler,” was Lord Hellup’s comment. + +But Lord Hellup had seen few. + +“P-p-p-raying,” broke in the Professor in his best donnish manner, “is +a w-w-well-known s-s-s-ymptom of re-e-e-ligious mania.” + +“Maybe,” suggested Lord Hellup, “he struck that guy without a head.” + +“There’s no such thing,” Aunt Hilda interrupted abruptly. + +This was too much for Lady de Beaurivage. + +“Why, Ilda,” she said, with real astonishment, “you told Bruvvage and +all of us yourself, and it’s part of the interest of the plice an’ all!” + +“Yes, yes, of course,” said her hostess. “I told you the story—the +legend. Many old houses have them—surely you know that. There’s nothing +really.” + +“In this particular c-c-c-ase,” broke in the unfortunate Hambourne +again, “what with the d-d-dog, it may be suggestion. It’s a kind of +h-h-hyp....” He swallowed after that syllable, tried it again and +added, “nosis.” + +Lord Hellup remarked that if it was anything about the hip, he knew a +bone setter in Park Lane.... Mrs. Maple in despair tried to put an end +to it all by saying, “No, no, no. Lord Hambourne means hypnotic, or +something of that sort. Don’t you, Lord Hambourne?” + +And Lord Hambourne comforted her by quacking out: “Quate, quate.” + +It looked as though the trouble was over; but she had had a bad time. +The telephone bell rang; John Maple took up the receiver and answered +it. He turned to his aunt. + +“It’s from the stables, Aunt Hilda. They want you.” + +“Want me?” said Mrs. Maple incredulously. “What can they want from the +stables at this hour of the night?” She took up the machine. + +“Yes?... Oh, what nonsense!... Yes? Well, they often do get restless +these hot nights.... What! Corton? Corton’s got nothing to do with +it. Don’t listen to a _word_ Corton says.... What’s that? The new +mare’s frantic? Well, go and pat her. What?... Don’t be a coward. Go +and pat her on the neck. Pat her on the crupper. Pat her anywhere.... +Are you there? Are you _there_? (She tapped her foot in her agony.) +ARE YOU THERE? Hullo, why did you go away?... Good, she’s quieter, is +she? Well, don’t bother me any more. Get hold of Alphonse. There’s no +nonsense about _him_,” she added, looking up at her guests. “He’s a +Communist, you know, and knows all about machinery, so he won’t believe +in any of that rubbish. He’ll be a good tonic to those idiots.” + +Again she hoped that she had stopped the rot. But Lord Hambourne failed +not. + +“It’s all d-d-d-eeply interesting,” the academic ass began. “It’s +f-f-f-ascinating. Animals receive sub-sub-sub-liminal m-m-m-essages. +And m-m-y c-c-colleague Pro-pro-fessor J-J-onah has sh-shown that while +m-m-motors are im-p-pervious the equidæ....” But just at that moment +the air was pierced by a very genuine shriek, and it came from Isabeau. +She was pointing at the darkness. + +“Oh! Oh, dear! Something went by the window!” + +“Mercy!” cried the sympathetic Lady Mere de Beaurivage. “I saw it too!” + +Mrs. Maple’s patience was nearly exhausted. + +[Illustration: _Lord Hellup accepting from Lord Hambourne the +interesting scientific discovery that motor-cars are less susceptible +to psychic influence than horses_] + +“My dear Amathea—Isabeau dear, go back. Anyone in the household might +be passing.” + +But, alas! her words were even truer than she knew; for a troop was +upon them. Coming into the shaft of light which streamed from the +window on to the lawn was Corton, and behind that Captain the whole +force of the Offices, and as Corton appeared respectfully at the head +of his regiment, full in the window behind him could be seen the ample +form of the cook, Mrs. Fry, and Betsy Broom, and the housemaids and the +groom, the boy, the footman and all. Only Alphonse was missing. + +Corton, after a sepulchral but respectful cough, and begging leave to +enter, brought them in. + +“My colleague, madam, Mrs. Fry ... and my other colleagues, and the +under-servants, and the maid Broom, madam, insisted upon seeing you +... and I thought it better to accompany them. They would not go by +_that_”—and he waved his hand towards the passage. + +“Go back at once ...” Mrs. Maple had begun, “and I’ll come out to you +...” when Mrs. Fry gave tongue in her turn. + +“I can’t a-bear it no more, ma’am, no, that I can’t! No, not if it was +the Queen herself, so there!” + +“Really, Mrs. Fry!” commanded Mrs. Maple. But her command had no effect. + +“No,” continued Mrs. Fry, in rising tones, “not if it was ’er sacred +Majesty Queen Victoria herself come back to life. I can’t a-bear it.” + +“Oo—oo—ooo!” moaned the maid Broom—and Mrs. Fry made bold to comfort +her. + +“And this poor child, ma’am. She feels it like the others. I done my +best to comfort ’em. I feel like a mother to ’em all, I do, but,” and +here she lowered her voice to a painful whisper and stepped forward, +“wot’s in this ’ouse to-night, ma’am, ain’t flesh and blood.” + +“You’re a pack of fools!” shouted Mrs. Maple, beside herself. But +Corton went on gravely: + +“The murder, madam, perpetrated under these ancient roof trees.” And he +pointed to the antique beam. “Under the reign of the Virgin Queen—it +was perpetrated this very night, madam. I have observed the anniversary +religiously for thirty years—since I was knife boy, madam. And now the +Unquiet Spirit will not rest.” + +“Mr. Corton,” said Mrs. Fry proudly, by way of chorus, “has the whole +story like a book, ma’am.” + +“The blood, ma’am,” continued Corton courageously, while the sobs of +the women behind him increased, and poor Bo put her fingers into her +ears, “the blood flowed down the stairs from under the door of the Blue +Room ... Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s room, madam.” + +But Mrs. Maple was resolved to put an end to it all. + +[Illustration: _Partial, but representative deputation of the domestic +staff of Rackham Catchings protesting against the Headless Thing_] + +“Look here, all of you, it’s sheer bunkum, and dangerous at that. +If you want to sit up all night, I can’t prevent you. Go back across +the lawn, the whole lot of you, and I’ll come with you. And you, +Corton”—she turned to him—“I mean to have an explanation from you.” And +with that she drove the herd before her, back through the night. It is +just to add that her presence was a comfort to them—but not to Corton. + +The guests looked at each other in silence: Lord Hambourne abominably +interested, Lord Hellup discreetly amused, Isabeau shrinking as though +worse were to come, and poor Lady de Beaurivage shaken almost as her +husband had been. Not one had yet spoken. Mrs. Maple’s voice could be +heard far off beyond the lawn in a last word with Corton as she turned +back to the house. She re-crossed the lawn, she entered the room. + +Even as she did so there banged on the floor above a fearful crash as +of a heavy body falling, and with it a loud and horrible cry. Then dead +silence. + +Amathea Lady de Beaurivage dashed to the door with an inspired shriek: + +“It’s my George!” + +The others followed her, and in a rapid, thrusting group they all +rushed through the hall and up the stairs. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + +Upstairs in his bedroom that poor old lonely man—lonely save for his +wife (and how grateful he was for her having treated him as she just +had done, and for her last look at him as he painfully climbed the +stairs)—sat waiting to recover from the ascent. Stairs tried him a +great deal now ... his health was breaking ... he thought. Perhaps +that’s what accounted for what he had been feeling ... what he thought +he had been hearing; and he huddled his shoulders together. He wouldn’t +undress at once—he would rest awhile ... rest awhile ... rest awhile. +He would get steadier then. + +A knock somewhere?... It might have been downstairs, but in his +condition he thought it was at his own door, and it made him jump. + +“Come in!” he said. + +There was no reply; and he went a little white. He steadied himself and +leaned forward painfully to take up the poker and stir the fire. But he +dropped it with a loud clatter that startled him again. + +“Foolishness!” he muttered. + +He heard the knock once again. This time he did not say “Come in!” He +nerved himself to rise painfully from his chair, and threw the door +wide open. There was nothing but empty darkness outside. He shut the +door again and fell rather than sank into the place he had just left. + +“George,” he said to himself, half aloud, “George, pull yerself +together. This’ll never do! You’re ’igh-strung, George, that’s what you +are; remember what the doctor said about yer blood pressing. Wot was it +’e said? He said, ‘No whisky,’ ’e said. Well, I don’t know wot’s right +about that, but I know it steadies me.” He stretched out his arm to +the table by his side, and took up his flask from where it lay on the +table—a large flask with a silver cup, and his coat of arms—supporters +talbots, three mancuses quartered chevron and the devil and all on a +field azure—engraved thereon. It shone under the electric shaded light +on the table and the warmer glow of the fire. Other light in the room +there was none. + +He slowly poured out the strong drink into the silver. + +“It’ll calm yer, George,” he said. + +Below, he heard the noise of many voices. Too many, he thought, for the +few guests. But it was company like. Then he heard people moving across +the lawn. Perhaps some neighbours had come in, and gone again. Then the +voices quieted down. He took his first sip of the whisky, pre-war. + +“That’s better, George,” he said. “That’ll put yer right.” + +His back, as he sat in the deep chair facing the fire, was to the side +door which led to the little box-room. It opened so noiselessly that he +heard no sound, tense though his nerves were. + +He waited a moment, less unmanned, raising the silver cup again for +a second sip—when there came, whether within his mind or from the +air without he could not tell, a hint of rustling, a suspicion of a +Presence in the room—near the bed. The start stopped the cup as he +still held it in his hand, and he poised it in mid-air, staring—there +came the pleading words from very far away: + +“Not again, George! Oh, not again! It’s yer pison!” + +“It’s me mother’s voice,” groaned the old man in a dreadful whisper. + +He let the cup fall to the floor at his feet, careless of the liquor +running out upon the rug. His hand shook, as did his whole body. + +“’Er voice,” he said again, frozen with fear. + +A hand came out from behind the head of the bed—a hand the wrist of +which was draped in black. Lord Mere de Beaurivage did not see it—he +was staring into the air before him—it was Her Voice. + +The hand found the switch, and all was suddenly dark, save for the glow +of the fire. He had heard but the slightest of sounds—he looked round +into that darkness—and there he saw, dreadfully distinct in the half +light which the glowing coals threw upon the dull red damask and the +tapestry—what he had seen too often that day in his unhappy mind. There +IT stood, for the half second in which he still retained his sanity. +He was on his gouty feet groping towards it, his mouth open and giving +small inarticular sounds. IT was there by the side of the bed against +the wall, agleam on the sword-hilt, tall, black, too vague, but the +white ruff standing out glaring—and above that ruff nothing: only the +wall. Even as he looked he saw a hand which appeared from beneath the +cloak slowly moving. He gave a loud shriek and crashed to the ground. + +[Illustration: _Unaffected emotion of George, First Baron de Beaurivage +on the appearance of an historic figure_] + +In a flash the figure had passed the fallen man, and was through the +door into the side room, and had turned the key. But quick as the +motion was, even as he turned the key in the lock the great swirl of +feet was running up the sounding wood of the staircase, the main door +of the bedroom was thrown open, all the lights were turned on, and the +hubbub of guests and servants flocked to what might be the living or +the dead. + +Amathea was the first of them, kneeling by her husband, trying to lift +him up in her arms, calling him by his name, and sobbing loudly. + +Three of the menservants hoisted the motionless form and got it on to +the bed. He was breathing. His eyes opened for a moment, but he stared +vacantly, seeing no one, and with yet another loud cry and a shudder +his head fell back upon the pillow. + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +All that night was a changed world for Rackham: messengers sent hither +and thither; the telephone at work; a nurse from the Cottage Hospital; +another nurse urgently sent for from Lewes; the local practitioner +jumping into his trousers hurriedly after an insufficient sleep, and +also jumping out of his skin for joy when he heard the great name of +his patient; lanterns going back and forth through the spring night, +as one and another was sent upon a further errand; motors purring, +buzzing, hooting, and every human being stirred up to an unnatural +vigil. + +Meanwhile, upstairs Amathea sat steadfast by her husband’s bed, glad +to hear his breathing, for it told her that he lived. She looked like +a vulgar queen of the Renaissance, of the swollen commercial families, +with big lips curved downwards, determined on what she should do. Anger +was flaming in her heart. + +She sent order after order, and Hilda Maple’s servants humbly obeyed. +She had them telephone for an ambulance to be at Rackham Catchings by +nine the next morning—not a second later, or it would be the worse +for them; and it had to be the best ambulance Maxton, who is open all +night, could supply. It was she who had sent for the nurses and the +doctors, often doubling her hostess’ orders. + +She did more. She was determined that her George should return to +recover—if recovery Gawd would grant him—in his own house in Mayfair. +She knew the servants would have gone to bed, and she sent the message +through an all-night office to knock the place up and compel them to +have everything ready against the morning. + +She thought of everything. Yet she did all this from where she sat, +without moving from the bedside, despatching one after another to do +her will. + +It was half-past one o’clock in the small hours before she had +received the final replies. She was still alone in the room, with the +half-conscious, muttering man. She had given terrible commands that +no one was to be admitted till she allowed it; and the nurses and +the doctors were waiting, with the torturedly-anxious Hilda in the +drawing-room below. + +George Huggins stirred. Amathea leaned over the bed and tried to catch +what confused words were coming from those lips which she had known for +a lifetime, and so much loved. The old fellow propped himself up on his +elbow, a momentary gleam of sanity entered his eyes as they looked into +hers. + +“Mattie,” he whispered hoarsely, “is that you?” + +He smiled foolishly. Then his face changed dreadfully, and he went on +in rising tones: + +“It ’ad no ’ed, it ’ad no ’ed, Mattie! Oh! OH! OH!” and with a horrible +groan he sank back, and went on muttering—but half sitting up at +intervals and pointing, and catching her, and saying, “There ’tis! +There ’tis! Keep it awye, Mattie! Keep it awye!” + +She knew what had happened. He had seen IT. Her anger rose, enormous; +but she contained it. She allowed the doctors and the nurses to come +in. Hilda Maple, already stricken with fatigue, and showing her age +under the strain, timidly followed them; but Amathea, Lady Mere de +Beaurivage, on seeing her hostess, called out strongly, “Not that un! +Keep ’er out, keep ’er out!” And poor Hilda had capitulated and retired. + +The servants had gone to bed; Hilda herself lay down, all dressed as +she was, half loosened and no more, to catch if she could an hour or +two of sleep—but sleep came not to her. + +John in his room, after helping to run innumerable messages and +counter-messages, tried to sleep also, and did sleep a little, +fitfully; but his conscience troubled him. + +Lord Hellup thought it his duty to stay awake in the Little Red Room, +and he did so too, with Motley and successive cigars. + +Of all in that household only Isabeau slept placidly, when she had +seen it all fixed up: so great conquerors on the night of victory. +So William of Falaise in his tent after Hastings; so Mr. Gulp, at +the Ritz after the Pugley deal, before he resigned in affluence his +Secretaryship of State. + +While the agony thus proceeded upstairs, Lord Hambourne showed +initiative beyond his academic kind. But he was one whose wits had been +sharpened by poverty. It was not the first time in his life that he had +displayed those qualities which, with better luck, make millions. Had +he not scooped the Chair of Psychology? Here was another little scoop, +and he was going to pick it up. He had got the main event at once, +overhearing two phrases in the frightened muttering of the servant. +Leaving them to their agony upstairs, he himself went quietly into the +deserted drawing-room, took up the telephone and got on to _The Howl_. +It was not too late for a stop-press in that enterprising paper, at any +rate for the London edition. + +Carter was at the other end of the wire. No. It was not to be on the +usual terms. He told Carter with great rapidity in a low, precise tone, +conquering his stammer, what had happened, but he gave neither the +place nor the name. + +No. It was not to be in the contract. It would be a separate +£100—posted that day. Would he accept the verbal promise on the +telephone? He would. Carter could not undertake the responsibility? +Then he must do without the scoop. Oh, he could, could he? All right. +He would trust him. The place was Rackham Catchings, and the old fellow +was Bruvvish himself.... Yes, it _was_ a scoop, wasn’t it? Would Carter +leave word for someone to be there when he rang up again, so that they +could go on with it in the evening paper? It would be difficult for +him to get to the telephone after they were down. He must have someone +there to take it between six and seven o’clock in the morning. Yes, +that was all. + +He hung up the receiver, just in time, as the shuffling of someone +descending came down the stairs, while above altercation and confused +advice filled the air. He managed to get into the hall and to mix with +them before they had noticed his absence. + + * * * * * + +In the grey light of morning Lord Hambourne had taken up the telephone +again. He felt secure. They had all been lying down, dressed as they +were, exhausted, and he himself in his evening clothes, looking +crumpled and dishevelled in the new light, was the only one doing +business. + +He gave rapid advice to Lord Toronto’s other serfs. The old boy was +very bad indeed, he thought he would be moved that morning. He +advised someone from _The Howl_ to be sent to photograph the house and +if possible the scene when the ambulance left. It would make a good +picture. But he warned them that Mrs. Maple had got a policeman in +plain clothes on the place, and there were orders to allow no one to +come near. She didn’t want it in the papers—he laughed, gently, and +there was another much louder laugh at the other end of the wire. No, +he could not send a sketch of the ghost. They must do that. They could +get that little drunken artist of theirs to make a line sketch—just a +long black cloak and a sword and a big Elizabethan ruff, and no head, +and an old curtained bed close by. + +[Illustration: _Distraction of Lord Hambourne on being offered the +usual terms_] + +Even as he was talking he dropped the receiver at the sound of a +piteous wail. It was Betsy Broom, casting her dustpan and brush to the +winds and calling on her maker to deliver her from evil. Lord Hambourne +himself was surprised to find how much his nerves were on edge. Betsy +Broom might have been the ghost, he felt so startled. But he had the +sense to quiet her. + +“Hold your tongue,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?” + +“Oh, sir,” said the unfortunate young woman, “I thought you was the +ghost! That’s the third time I thought I seen it!” + +Lord Hambourne made another of those rapid decisions which I sincerely +hope will sooner or later lead him to an independent income. He did not +like parting with money, and he had very little to part with. But he +decided it was worth his while; and after all, he had won at bridge. He +took a crumpled ten-shilling note out of his waistcoat pocket, and put +it into Betsy’s hand. + +“Betsy,” he said, “if I were you I wouldn’t talk too much about my +telephoning. Their nerves are all on edge, you know.” + +“Yes, sir,” said the simple girl, bobbing and grateful, “I quite +understand.” But she was still trembling. He patted her paternally upon +the shoulder. + +“There,” he said. “It’s all right. Even if there was anything, you +wouldn’t see it after sunrise, you know.” + +“So I’ve always heard, sir,” answered Betsy, with due acknowledgment of +his learning. “That and runnin’ water lays ’em.” + +“Yes, you’re right, Betsy,” he said loftily; and then gently left the +scene of his misdeeds, hoping that the office would not commit the +unpardonable folly of ringing him up. But he ought to have warned them. + + * * * * * + +We still have relics of an age when the Press could be managed by +people of influence, because its owners, though millionaires, were +commonly still climbing. Hilda Maple was of that age. She was quite +secure in her own mind after she had telephoned to five or six London +offices that she could keep the thing out of the papers. There would +be no reporters, at any rate, and it was a relief, and she had seen to +a detective coming to watch the place against photographers. She had +ordered that loudly before she had lain down, and Lord Hambourne had +heard her. + +[Illustration: _Effect of the other world on Miss Broom, housemaid_] + +Therefore it was that, while yet the morning was very young, and while +there was still a dew upon the gardens of Rackham—so quiet that the +second under-gardener could hear the low moans proceeding from the +patient’s bedroom—a figure appeared by a very singular approach, to +wit, pushing its way through the laurels to the west-south-west of the +main approach. It would seem that the figure had avoided the publicity +of the lodge, and preferred its own method of entry, which was by +crawling under a barbed-wire fence, crashing through the brushwood and +finding its way, a little torn and bleeding, to the edge of the lawn in +front of the house. But with great gallantry the figure had borne with +him throughout this adventure a huge contraption, a tripod covered with +a black cloth, and reminiscent of the photography of thirty years ago. +And the name of the figure was Columbus. + +It was not his real name. It was the name facetiously given him in +his good-nature and condescension by his master, Lord Toronto, who, +having asked upon one occasion which serf of his had managed to secure +unexpected photographs, in double quick time, of other people’s very +private and intimate affairs, was respectfully given the efficient +dependant’s name. His lordship had thereupon christened the good serf +Columbus, because he got there, and Columbus he continued to be called. + +It was the method of Columbus, I say, whenever he had to surprise +the vigilance of those whose lack of public spirit prompted them to +elude the Press, to carry with him this huge superstructure upon a +tripod, covered with a black cloth. He knew well enough the attention +it would excite, the gathering of menials ordering him off the place, +even the approach of the police. But its weight and size also meant +that he could not be driven off at a moment’s notice, and during the +altercation nothing was easier than to bring out his little Zeiss +camera on the sly and snap the whole concern, unbeknownst. + +For this also had Columbus everything prepared upon that early morning. +He put himself squarely facing the antique front of Rackham Catchings; +he elaborately fixed the tripod; he covered his head with the cloth; +he went through all the gestures of a performance dear to our fathers. +Nor was he, as one might imagine, incapacitated by this attitude from +watching his foes; for the camera box beneath the cloth was a fake and +in place of its glass a large round hole stared empty, through which +all could be naturally observed. He swept the landscape. He patiently +waited the arrival of the servants, perhaps with police. He had his +expostulations ready in his mind; and, nicely tucked away, concealed +in the hollow between his left arm and his left side, the little Zeiss +that was to do the trick. He wanted “figures in the foreground.” He got +more than he bargained for. + +No servant appeared. But what did at last saunter into the bright +circle framed in black was something very different. By the boots, a +policeman; by the clothes, and especially the sharply pressed trousers, +an advertisement for that which the vulgar call ready-to-wear and the +gentle ready-made; by the hat, a scandal to God and man; by the face, +a fool. My reader has divined him with her customary skill. It was Mr. +Pretherton, the Detective. + +With a fine nonchalance Mr. Pretherton strolled across the green, as +one taking the morning air. He came up to Columbus, still distracted, +still, as it were, careless of mundane things. He lifted a corner of +the black cloth and whispered in the ear of the stooping expert: + +“It may interest you to know that I am a member of the Force in plain +clothes.” + +Columbus answered—to himself: + +“Forty-three and one-tenth, diameter eight,” and proceeded to turn a +little screw which was not there. + +“And the sooner you make off, young man,” went on the redoubtable +Pretherton, lifting the corner of the cloth again, but turning his face +towards the house, as though he were taking part in the photography, +“the better for you, I can tell you.” + +To which Columbus very simply replied, but again to himself and not to +his interlocutor: + +“Double for morning light; cloudy sky, no deep shadows.” + +Upon the scene of this blinded duel there appeared at some little way +off, round a corner of the house, an unexpected ally, and an unexpected +enemy, of the one and the other protagonist. + +They were Bo with the hound Lovey-Lad. + +Bo (Oh, the efficiency of the efficient!) had caught the whole +situation in a moment. She had inherited, here again, that quality in +the eminent peer her progenitor whereby the market may be seized at a +glance. The Press was snapping the house. A bull point for the Bo-Jacko +crowd. That fellow whom she had suspected was interfering; a bear point +for same. To have the tragedy in the papers would complete the ruin of +Aunt Hilda’s market. To keep it out was the object of the interfering +fellow in the policeman’s boots. + +The greatest generals are capable in the heat of action of an ambiguous +order. It must be admitted in defence of Lovey-Lad that he could hardly +have distinguished between the friend and the enemy of his mistress. +When, therefore, he heard from Bo’s arched lips the glad words “Siccum, +boy!” he leapt forward like a shell from a gun, not for the evil +Pretherton, but alas! for the well-working Columbus. And after all, how +should not your bow-legged, hideous, brass-banded bulldog befriend a +common human who might be anybody’s friend and rather go for a monster +with three wooden legs, two trouser ends and no head? + +Through the round empty aperture, where the object glass was not, +Columbus saw his Fate hurtling at him. Without pausing to arbitrate on +moral right, he fled incontinent. And Mr. Pretherton, very innocently +and naturally thinking that someone from the household which he was +serving had supported his effort, laughed heartily at the clumsy +efforts of the devoted prey, who ran regardless, blinded by the black +cloth, straight for the rhododendrons, the first cover he could find. + +But dogs, since they are quite unintelligent, are admirably subject to +discipline. Bo (who had learned the art in childhood and had happily +retained it) put two fingers between her teeth and with a piercing +whistle recalled the well-meaning but mistaken hound. What it must +have cost Lovey-Lad to pull up again upon the common earth, to lose his +quarry, to turn back, slinking—only a dog can know. But the whistle had +been imperative, and he had obeyed. He came back panting, not without +an irresolute halt now and then and a glance back at the strange morsel +he had missed, as Columbus, finding the chase had failed, recovered +himself, folded his cloth upon his arm, and, grasping his tripod, came +forward somewhat timidly to explain. + +But Bo gave him no opportunity. She did not want explanations. She +wanted a frank friendship and excellent publicity for the great Rackham +Catchings tragedy—for the ghost—in the Press of the metropolis; and +notably in that of Lord Toronto, as being to her certain knowledge the +most vulgar of all the six vulgarians who control our great organs of +opinion. + +She could trust Lord Toronto to have it all over London that evening. +Meanwhile she must be rid of Hilda’s policeman. + +The thing had not taken sixty seconds from the moment when Lovey-Lad +had shot forward to the moment when he came back unsatisfied, and +almost daring to growl, and sat on his haunches panting at his +mistress’ feet. Mr. Pretherton was still smiling the smile of triumph, +Columbus was still in hesitating stance, wondering how he would be +received, when Bo gave her second order, without hesitation, rapidly, +and this time more directly, pointing with an unashamed finger at +her victim, and launched the Friend of Man at the Detective. + +[Illustration: _Solid satisfaction of Mr. Pretherton at the pressed +pace of Columbus_] + +Then was it seen with what majesty the British policeman bolts! Note to +what skill, what promptitude, what immediate appreciation of reality, +the public civilian forces of our beloved country are trained! + +The flight of Columbus from Lovey-Lad had been a turtle’s waddle, hasty +though it was, compared with the whizz of the detective. Lovey-Lad +never reached him. He was through the brushwood, under the wire and +over the stone coping in a flash; and, her purpose accomplished, his +mistress called him back to heel. + +What happens in the souls of dogs when they are used for retrievers, +for pointers, for any object at all except their own (and they are +so used all the time)? Is it triumph in their skill, and an obscure +but loyal understanding that they have served their masters, mere +disappointment, bewilderment, or what? I know not. But I fancy a +mixture of all these things, from the description I have had of what +lay upon Lovey-Lad’s features as he came back the second time panting, +still hungry, to his mistress’ feet. He had torn nothing, he had bitten +nothing; but he had gloriously chased him whom he had been sent to +destroy—let that suffice. + +Columbus came back extending a large hand towards Bo with the +self-possession of his kind. Bo took it with the simplicity of hers. +When he thanked her, as one who had saved his life, and when they had +both remarked upon the absurd picture presented by the detective in +his flight, a very few words made clearer still what Bo had already +discovered. With charming good nature the young woman sought out for +the journalist the exact point of vantage whence best Rackham Catchings +might be snapped. She was torn between her desire for a striking +picture which no one could miss and a contradictory desire for early +publication. She saw him register the scene; she accompanied him +without shame to the lodge gate, and then in a moment of inspiration +she made a suggestion consonant with her means, ill-fitted to her +condition. + +“D’you know what edition of your two-cent’ll carry the picture of +Rackham Catchings? Have ye’ seen the story that’s to flare it?” + +He had seen the story. It had gone up straight to London—from Lord +Hambourne. As to the edition, it would be the lunch-time edition at +the latest; he could swear to that—now that she had so kindly seen him +through. + +Bo decided at once, risking a rebuff, and, as you may expect, not in +danger of receiving one. She did not pull out a single pound note, as +a less efficient person would have done; she put the whole leather +case—scented—quietly into his hand, whence it slipped into his pocket +under his eyes. + +“I know what’s in there, Bud,” she said. “And there’ll be as much +again for you when I see it in that edition. It sure must go in. D’you +get me? But who’m I to send it to? What’s your name?” + +[Illustration: _Genuine pleasure of Columbus on observing the haste of +Mr. Pretherton_] + +In an accent not unlike her own the mysterious stranger answered: + +“My name? Nothing! Just you put ‘Columbus’ on the envelope, and the +Baron’ll see it won’t miss me.” + +They nodded cheerfully to each other. And _that_ was all settled. + +Indeed, upon the morrow, after the story had ended and Bo could make +sure that her bargain had been observed, she (a woman who knew exactly +how much she had in that leather wallet at any one time) put into an +envelope the exact equivalent, and, keeping her word, delivered it with +her own hands, sealed up, at Lord Toronto’s hideous building off Fleet +Street, addressed only “Columbus,” demanding no receipt and leaving no +name. + +Nor can I deny that Columbus well earned this treble stream of gold, +the first from his vulgar master, the second and the third from Bo. + +The picture of Rackham Catchings came out enormous on the front page of +_The Howl_: they had the exclusive story; they had the exclusive snaps; +and an admirable caption designed by the Editor himself, a Mr. Emston, +who had been Emstein somewhere in America years ago. That caption ran: + + ELIZABETHAN SPECTRE APPEARS IN + ANCIENT MANOR HOUSE. + + SEEN BY ALL. + + CONCLUSIVE PROOF BY OXFORD PROFESSOR OF + PSYCHOLOGY. + + PROMINENT PEER PROSTRATED. + +On the picture a large black cross deeply marked over poor Mrs. Maple’s +bathroom window, and having a gigantic arrow pointing at it, was +labelled: + + ANCIENT MONASTIC CHAPEL WHERE GHOST + APPEARED. + +And underneath all this, in somewhat smaller letters: + + _Opinions of our Readers._ + +which last were a number of letters dated from all parts of London, +signed by various names, and written somewhat hurriedly by the +sub-editor’s son, who was trying his hand as apprentice serf to Lord +Toronto. + +It would be all over London by one o’clock and the market for Rackham +ruined. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +Bo, returning into the house, met Betsy Broom. Betsy had not yet +recovered from her shock (remember that the morning was still very +young), she had but that moment left the Professor’s presence. She gave +another little shriek, and was prepared to do another Cinquevalli trick +with the dustpan and broom, when Bo dominated her. + +“Doan be a li’l fool!” said Bo, pulling her up. “What’s a-matter with +ye? Scared?” + +“Oh, ma’am! Oh, miss! I thought it was IM again. There! I’m that dazed. +I thought ’is lordship was IM I did, when I found ’im telephoning. I’m +not meself.” + +Bo pounced on the strategic point. + +“Which lordship?” she said. + +“Lord ’Ambourne, miss. ’E were telephoning all about it” (for thus did +Betsy earn the heavy bribe she had received to remain silent). + +“Oh, he was, was he?” said Bo grimly. + +She remembered Lord Hambourne’s notorious connection with _The Howl_, +and how that other eminent peer and colleague, Lord Toronto, was his +paymaster. + +“Thank you, Betsy,” she said. She had given away her wallet in a fine +gesture—as the newspapers have it; but she felt in the pocket of the +little garden coat she was wearing, to shield her from the cold of that +morning. She seemed to remember there was something there. And so there +was. And she pulled out yet another crumpled ten-shilling note. + +Betsy took it gratefully, and curtseyed. + +“Oh, thank you, ma’am—miss, I mean!” she said. There entered into +Betsy’s young life for the first and the last time an experience of +that operation which politicians, share-shufflers, black-mailers, and +other candidates for the House of Lords know in their own peculiar +language as the “Double Cross.” She had had her palm greased by both +sides. Alas! poor innocent child, she went away none the wiser! She +made no use of it. With a little more opportunity she might have been +in the Cabinet; for such accidents of special knowledge and special +payment lead anywhere nowadays. + + * * * * * + +Remember, my sweet reader, that this book is written in 1927. What +Bo did next never would have been done in 1917. And in 1907 it would +have meant what they called in the horrible jargon of their day (still +retained by Lord Hambourne) “social ostracism.” And in 1897 (but +there I am back in my boyhood) it would have been, in the still more +horrible jargon of _their_ day, “unthinkable.” + +She went straight up to the passage on the first floor. She waited a +moment, listening keenly—and hearing nothing—outside the patient’s +room. She went on ten yards, and whispered through the keyhole of +the room where John had just, after hours of struggle, begun to feel +drowsy. She dared not knock. + +“Dog-Man,” was the undertone, “come out.” + +“What? What? What?” said John loudly, starting up. + +“Hush!” she whispered again through the keyhole, “come out.” + +He staggered out, with his fatigue full upon him, and it crossed Bo’s +mind for a moment that he was, if possible, on such an occasion less of +a god. A young beard had begun; his eyes were drooping; and the corners +of his mouth showed strain. But she was loyal, and saw him as he was +really, the divine Jacko, even through this disguise. She put her +finger to her lip, as she had during the conspiracy of the day before, +and led him tip-toe along the thick carpet to her own room in the other +wing. + +There she sat him down. + +“Jacko,” she said, “listen to me. An’ get your piece word-perfect. I’m +telling you. You see there’s going to be a break-up?” + +“Oh, yes,” said John. + +“We’ve won, haven’t we?” + +“So far.... I wish, Bo, that I hadn’t....” + +“Pack that away into your old kit-bag. As you say—so far. Now ye’ve +got to hear the rest. Fat Matt’s gotten an ambulance from London. +It’ll buzz up here at nine. Then there’ll be the great retreat, an’ +the Thunder of the Captains, an’ the Shouting ... as it says in the +Good Book. Then Aunt Hilda’ll be all alone, and jest wanderin’ around. +That’s the time to play the card.” + +“What card?” asked John. + +“I’m telling you,” answered Bo. “Hambone’s ’phoned _The Howl_. The +help told me all about it. She heard him. Told them over the wire. And +they’ve had a picture-man down here snapping the place already. It’ll +be all over London, Jacko. And what’s Aunt Hilda to do then?” + +“Yes, but what am _I_ to do?” said John. + +“What you’re to do, Bone-head, is to walk in and win. There’s no +selling the place for her now. And if she’s still steely-hearted, work +her with your Voice.” + +“I don’t see how I could haunt Aunt Hilda in broad daylight.” + +“No matter. The Lord will find a way. Only follow up, Jacko; follow up. +Have you got the carbons of those letters here?” + +“Yes, in my pocket. She has the originals.” + +“Well, tell her _The Howl’s_ got the story. Rattle her more, someway. +Then she’ll sign.” + +“You think she will?” said John doubtfully. + +Bo nodded with decision. + +“Trust the Young Heiress,” she said. “The child has never failed.” + +But even as she spoke there was commotion on the gravel beneath the +window. It was the ambulance from London, and the whole house was astir. + +The lovers slipped downstairs by the back staircase, reached the hall, +and all the turmoil was upon them. + +Down the main stairs, moving like funeral bearers under a coffin, +staggered sundry males—the driver of the ambulance, his assistant, the +footman, the atheist Gaul—even the local doctor lent a hand. While the +Specialist from London waddled slowly sideways, downwards, next to the +banisters, by way of inept superintendence: for he got the biggest fee. + +On the stretcher under which they staggered lay the unfortunate First +Baron Mere de Beaurivage, still muttering, still raving. + +Bringing up the rear from the head of the stairs and commanding all +things, his spouse, Presiding Goddess, herself storming, dominated the +storm. + +“Ow, tike ’im gently!” she cried. “Treat him tender! ’Andle ’im +like a child!” But even as she spoke the sufferer rent the air with +“A-r-r-r-h!” + +“Don’t jerk ’im, pore lamb!” the peeress went on—the procession had +allowed her to gain three steps downwards. “Don’t jerk ’im, whatever +yer do! Don’t give him a Hoick! Keep his ’ed up, pore dear! Keep the +blood from a-flowing to ’is ’ed!” + +The foremost of the bearers had reached the bottom stair, Amathea, +presiding from above, was half-way down, the doors were fully open, +Corton was flinging wide the entry to the ambulance, when poor Hilda +Maple, a wreck from lack of sleep and all the attention which women of +her age need before they can appear before human kind, made the error +of attempting a pacification. + +“Amathea,” she bleated, “_dearest_ Amathea!...” + +But her adversary blazed out in terrible wrath. + +“You shet yer ’ed!” she yelled, without reserve. “It’s you did all the +’arm, it is!” Then to the procession. “Ow, ’andle him gentler, ’ear him +groan—ow!” Then to her hostess, “Look on wot yer done!” + +“I don’t see what I’ve done,” began Mrs. Maple, but Amathea interrupted +her again. + +“Yer down’t see?” she cried madly. “Yer down’t see orl the ’arm yer’ve +done with yer Demonds and yer Obgoblings and yer lying laow an’ tryin’ +to pass off this ’ouse on us an’ orl?” + +“Amathea ...” began Mrs. Maple again. + +“Don’t you Amathea me, Mrs. Miple!” shouted the peeress, with all the +subtle charm of Aristocracy, as she crashed one hand on a table still +sordid with last night’s glasses, and stretched the other in wild +denunciation. “Don’t you Amathea me! I wish yer’d never been born, nor +I to meet yer! With yer ’umbug and yer lies and yer Black Devil, and +all! Yus, and ’id and concealed from our eyes! But I’ll let yer know! +I’ve priced yer! Yer profiteeress!” + +Poor Hilda tried to stem the torrent, but the peeress’s voice filled +all heaven, and if its owner had had anything to throw she would have +thrown it. + +“Down’t yer mike answer to me, Ilda Miple! I’m Mattie Huggins, I am, +and I’d have yer to know that I could take on a dozen of yer! Any dy of +the week!” + +She put her right arm akimbo and snapped the fingers of her left hand +finely in the air, “That for yer damn Rackham Catchings!” She put her +left arm akimbo and snapped the fingers of her right hand with still +nobler violence, “That for yer old Drury Lane stige barn!” She put both +arms akimbo and leant forward over the end of the banisters shouting +with titanic power, “Burn it down for the insurance, you bitch! Burn it +an’ keep quiet! For yer’ll never get a penny out of hus! And so I tells +yer strite!” + +Her face was crimson, panting and sweating; her voice almost exhausted. +But she had the strength to add, before she turned to the ambulance +and to the last attentions due to her dear one: “Jest you wite till I +tells the Prime Minister about you, Hilda Maple! You’ll see what ’e’ll +do to yer! Yus, he will! Not arf!” And with that, amid the embarrassed, +the horrified, the discreet crowd about her, she sobered down to give +still breathless but intelligible orders, sat herself down in the +ambulance beside her husband, against all rules, and was gone. + + * * * * * + +Rackham Catchings was as quiet as the dusty scene of an explosion when +the rumble is over: but it was as wrecked. And Hilda Maple sat down, +a wreck herself, her elbow upon the table of the hall, her dizzy head +supported in her left hand. + +Lord Hambourne did not fail—he could not fail—upon such an occasion. + +“I’ve c-c-come to say g-g-good-bye,” he grinned, as though it were the +most ordinary morning that ever had dawned. Hilda Maple could hardly +manage to be civil. She half rose, she asked him if he had a vehicle, +she mechanically said she hoped he would come again. + +Hardly had he gone when footsteps approached. It was the cook, heading +her phalanx once again. + +“Not as I’d disturb any Lady in your Circumstances, ma’am,” she +declaimed, “but if you please, ma’am, I must be going this very +day. Ow, never mind the month’s wages,” she added loftily, as Hilda +attempted to speak. “And all these poor things,” waving at the herd, +“they say the same as me.” + +[Illustration: _Wifely protest of Amathea, Lady de Beaurivage, at the +unworthy treatment of her lord_] + +“Not Alphonse?” asked poor Hilda of the crowd, feebly. + +“Not that Toad!” said Mrs. Fry. “Not that I knows on. I won’t speak for +him—I’ll have nothing to do with him. But this day we goes, ma’am, all +of us. We’re all resolved. We won’t sleep under this roof again—for +sleep we can’t.” And there were murmurs and groaning exclamations of +assent from the rest. + +“Not Corton?” said poor Hilda, in a still lower voice. + +“Mr. Corton,” said Mrs. Fry with dignity, “has informed us that he +prefers to speak to you privately. He will then say whatever he has to +say.” + +And with that she sailed out, and with her followed her attendant +nymphs and gentlemen-in-waiting. + +Hilda had hardly time for breathing space when John in his turn +appeared. + +“John,” said the unfortunate woman, “I feel faint.” + +“Of course, Aunt Hilda,” he said sympathetically. “I must give you some +brandy.” + +“It’s a thing I never do,” said Aunt Hilda, as her nephew poured out +a stiff dose from a derelict decanter of the night’s debauch, and +squirted a sufficiency of soda into it. + +“Drink that, Aunt Hilda,” he said. + +“I suppose it’ll do me good,” she answered in a voice still faint. “I +feel more dead than alive.” + +She was breathing heavily. Then she said: + +“Well, John....” + +“I’m still here, Aunt Hilda,” said John dutifully. “Whatever you +want me for, I’m still here. And.... And, Aunt Hilda, I’ll still buy +Rackham.” + +“You’ll still what?” said Aunt Hilda, with the ghost of her former +energy reviving. + +“What I said,” doggedly repeated John, in an echo of so many +insistencies. “I’ll buy Rackham. You’ve got the papers, Aunt Hilda, and +I’ve got a copy of them here.” + +There worked in Hilda Maple’s mind, violently surging one against the +other like opposing strong tides in a strait, the two currents which +have shaken men and women since first they dealt with buying and +selling. She was ruined—no one would buy the place. Her reason told her +in a flash that she was lucky to have such a chance even as this. It +would clear her, at any rate. + +And the other current was her pride—after having stood out for so long, +and after having felt such contempt for the foolish boy. Above them +the figure of the Ancestor grinned fatuously, and the young man of +twenty-three and the woman of fifty sat silent under its gaze. + +John put the papers down upon the table, and his fountain-pen by the +side. + +Then in that silence the Ancestor spoke from his frame. He spoke in a +deep voice, and with a gravity that belied his features. + +[Illustration: _Hilda Maple admits that she is a sinful woman_] + +“Woman! Woman!” he boomed. + +Aunt Hilda swerved round, stared a moment at the incredible Thing, gave +a little squeak like a bird. + +“Woman! Woman!” boomed on Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight, from the depths +of his painted chest. “Is he not the Rightful Heir?” + +“Oh, sir!” came abruptly and strongly in sharp agony from Hilda Maple’s +lips. She sank suddenly upon the floor to her knees and clasped her +fingers convulsively, imploring the clemency of her dreadful visitant, +“Oh, sir, I am a sinful woman!” She buried her face in her hands. Even +as she did so she heard that solemn voice, again for the third time, +and in yet deeper tones: + +“Is he not the Rightful Heir?” + +She reeled a little. John Maple helped her up and seated her. She +signed. + + * * * * * + +“John,” sighed the unfortunate woman, as she laid down the pen, and +when he had handed her his acknowledgment—the instrument of her +release, the paper that would stop the Esthonian’s bark—“leave me, dear +boy. Leave me!” + +“Can’t I...?” he began. + +“No, my dear,” she said feebly. She had never been a tithe so +affectionate to him in all these years, as now when he had done her so +ill a service; and it burnt him with remorse—but there was the strong +image of Bo in the background to keep him to the mark. “Leave me,” she +said. And he walked out with bent head. + + * * * * * + +Hilda Maple broke into a flood of tears, putting her head down upon +her crossed arms, and sobbing freely. She gave full vent to her +relief; and minutes passed before she raised her face again, stained, +distraught—hideous, she was sure. And when she raised it, there stood +respectfully at the door, hesitating whether he should come in, the +tall figure of Lord Hellup. Alone of that household the night vigil had +not ruffled him at all. He had simply changed from his evening dress to +his morning clothes, with all the creases where they should be. He had +shaved, he was as fresh as a daisy. No wonder they make money, and keep +it. But then, they also have hearts of gold. + +As she raised her face he knew at once that he was intruding, and +turned to go. But she, the unfortunate, was on her feet. + +“Hannibal!... I mean, Hamilcar!” she cried, stretching forth her +extended hands. + +He returned. She tottered. And fifty fell into the arms of sixty years. +But there! What difference does ten years make at that time of life? + +[Illustration: “_Hannibal!... I mean, Hamilcar!_”] + + + Transcriber’s Notes: + + • Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + • Perceived typographical errors have been corrected: + + Page Before After + 24 that than + 31 premanent permanent + 56 £17,324 “£17,324 + 70 franfreluches fanfreluches + 86 Rastaqouère Rastaquouère + 99 effectionate affectionate + 100 tomorrow to-morrow + 113 stagged staged + 138 At As + 142 gaze( gaze, + 172 Beaurevage Beaurivage + 209 Jocko Jacko + 214 figure's figures ?? + 215 pitient patient ?? + 215 eart ’eart + 234 or of +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79269 *** diff --git a/79269-h/79269-h.htm b/79269-h/79269-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..309be94 --- /dev/null +++ b/79269-h/79269-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7562 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="UTF-8"> +<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> +<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> +<title>The Haunted House | Project Gutenberg</title> +<link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> + +body { + margin-left: 8%; 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+ border-bottom: thin dashed blue; +} +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79269 ***</div> + + +<div class="h1">THE HAUNTED HOUSE</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="titlepage mb10"> +<div class="center xlarge">CHESTER-BELLOCS</div> +<hr class="title"> +<div class="center xlarge bold"> + The Green Overcoat<br> + Mr. Petre<br> + The Emerald<br> + The Haunted House +</div> +<hr class="title"> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<figure class="figcenter" id="frontispiece"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>An early portrait of Lord de Beaurivage (then Mr.<br> + George Huggins) as an open-air merchant of<br>vegetables and orchard + produce in 1883</figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="titlepage"> + <h1>THE<br> + HAUNTED HOUSE</h1> + + <div><b>BY<br> + <span class="xlarge">HILAIRE BELLOC</span></b></div> + + <div class="large mt5"><i>With Illustrations by</i><br> + <i>G. K. CHESTERTON</i></div> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp15" style="margin-top: 25%; margin-bottom: 4%;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="Coat of arms of Harper & Brothers, with a quote from Plato's Republic in Greek"> +</figure> + + <div class="xlarge"><span class="medium">NEW YORK</span> · <i>Harper & Brothers</i> · <span class="medium">LONDON</span><br> + 1928</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="center xsmall mt10 mb10"> + <b>THE HAUNTED HOUSE<br> + COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY HILAIRE BELLOC<br> + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES<br> + FIRST EDITION<br> + M-B</b> +</div> + +<nav data-epub-type="loi"> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span></p> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<ul class="illustrations"> + <li><a href="#frontispiece">An early portrait of Lord de Beaurivage (then Mr. George + Huggins) as an open-air merchant of vegetables and orchard produce in 1883</a> (<i>Frontispiece</i>)</li> + <li><a href="#i_020">The brothers at Rackham</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_038">Aunt Hilda settling everything</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_056">Neighbour Hellup and Neighbour Jake</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_060">“Our younger hostesses”</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_068">The Ancestor</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_070">Progress of Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight, to his ancestral home</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_078">John Maple as Lieutenant Allegri</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_122">The atheist Gaul</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_130">“Twenty thousand pounds? You haven’t got twenty thousand pence!” + said Aunt Hilda</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_146">Fond embrace of Hilda, relict of the late William Maple, Esquire, of + Rackham Catchings in the County of Sussex, and Amathea, wife of George, First Baron + de Beaurivage (pronounced Bruvvish)</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_156">Lord Hambourne is astonished at the modern habits of the fifteenth century</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_188">Mr. Corton reads <cite>The Spectator</cite></a></li> + <li><a href="#i_194"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>John Maple explains his plan</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_226">Growing nervousness of Lord de Beaurivage</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_236">Lord Hellup accepting from Lord Hambourne the interesting scientific discovery + that motor-cars are less susceptible to psychic influence than horses</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_238">Partial, but representative deputation of the domestic staff of Rackham Catchings + protesting against the Headless Thing</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_242">Unaffected emotion of George, First Baron de Beaurivage on the + appearance of an historic figure</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_248">Distraction of Lord Hambourne on being offered the usual terms</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_250">Effect of the other world on Miss Broom, housemaid</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_256">Solid satisfaction of Mr. Pretherton at the pressed pace of Columbus</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_258">Genuine pleasure of Columbus on observing the haste of Mr. Pretherton</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_268">Wifely protest of Amathea, Lady de Beaurivage, at the unworthy + treatment of her lord</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_270">Hilda Maple admits that she is a sinful woman</a></li> + <li><a href="#i_272">“Hannibal!... I mean, Hamilcar!”</a></li> +</ul> +</nav> + +<main> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch01"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span> + <div class="h1 mb10">THE<br>HAUNTED HOUSE</div> +<h2 id="ch01">CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p>In the English County of Sussex, upon the clay thereof, and upon a +slight eminence of that clay, stood and stands a squire’s house called +Rackham.</p> + +<p>Rackham is a common enough name in that part of the world, attached to +perhaps half a dozen widely-different places and things; downs, woods, +fields. But no one had ever bothered to call Rackham anything extra to +make it a special Rackham. Rackham it had been and remained during its +three hundred years as a cell of Lewes Priory and its four hundred of +various lay owners.</p> + +<p>Its master at the end of the nineteenth century was a certain Mr. Henry +Maple, of a good ordinary position, born to no great fortune, but a +sufficient master of his countryside.</p> + +<p>By birth he was what one might expect, a great-grandson. A Maple who +had begun as a smith and cattle dealer and had gone on as a general +broker, sometimes advancing cash to his fellows and sometimes making a +lucky purchase and sale in stock, had bought out the former immemorial +squires of Rackham when George <abbr title="third">III.</abbr> was king. Those whom he had bought +out were an impoverished <span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>line, whose founder (a Lewes tallow chandler) +had got it, rather more than a century before, after the Civil Wars, +from a ruined cavalier family, which, in its turn, had been started by +a scullion in Thomas Cromwell’s kitchen, who, yet a century earlier, +had nobbled this parcel of his master’s loot during the great break-up.</p> + +<p>So you see that Rackham was just like scores and hundreds of its kind +up and down England, and possessed, after the fashion of any one of the +others, by a very amiable man, a gentleman (which is saying a great +deal), a man formed by Public School and University, and having behind +him two generations of Public School and University, and three of +sufficient wealth.</p> + +<p>Rackham was a rather absurd looking house, but dignified. Half of it +was the original Elizabethan living house, with a few stones left of +the earlier monastic building and great oak beams for its framework, +but transmogrified by eighteenth-century additions and internal +changes. From the lawn in front you saw at one end two low stories of +wood and plaster, a tiled roof above that; at the other a brick wall +pierced at regular intervals by a particularly ugly set of windows. At +the back, looking north, was a dreary stucco addition of kitchens and +offices, greenish with damp weather. The later half of the house, all +brick, had been added, as had certain changes in the older part, before +1790, by the fortunate smith and cattle dealer. The stucco offices to +the north had been <span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>built by his son during the high corn prices of the +Napoleonic wars.</p> + +<p>Inside, the house was what you would expect from such a history. +Nothing whatever told you, even in its oldest part, that there was work +many hundred years old, save the few stones of the monastic building +at the base of a wall, certain beams still exposed in the servants’ +quarters, a box room, and one of the smaller bedrooms. The other beams +had been covered long ago with plaster ceilings. Some of them had +been cut clean away to raise the height of the living-rooms after the +later fashion. There was a bathroom with hot and cold water, which +was thought a fine new thing in the middle of the nineteenth century, +when it had been fitted up. There was a small, rather dingy hall; a +passage running from this to the various living-rooms; one simple +staircase for the family, with rather nicely carved oaken banisters, +and a very much worn and very ugly carpet. There were plenty of books +and plenty of pictures—pictures of all sorts and kinds; many a bad +watercolour by ladies of the place, living and dead; a few portraits +in the drawing-room, one of which, almost black, was reputed to be a +Gainsborough. The house was comfortable, it was homely, and it exactly +suited its master, who was, in the first years of the twentieth +century, a man of about forty, very much liked in the neighbourhood, +and with something of a reputation for scholarship; a widower with one +young child—a boy called John.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span></p> + +<p>Thus lived Henry Maple, on what he felt, as all such men feel, to be +ancestral land descended to him from beyond all human record; and in +sober truth possessed by his own blood for a good deal more than a +hundred years; which is quite a long succession for such English land.</p> + +<p>He was part of it: of the outlook from that slight eminence towards the +Downs ten miles off along the southern sky; of the rather dishevelled +little park (if you liked to call it that) with its ill-kept gravel +way and its little lodge at the gates; of half a dozen farms which had +provided an income sufficient for his father and grandfather before +him, and the rents of which heavily reduced during the depression of +the 80’s had since remained unchanged; sleeping, like most things in +that good world. Part of him also were the two or three horses in +his stables, the two or three vehicles, and particularly the little +brougham in which he drove to the domestic country station three miles +off, where the very asphalt and palings seemed to talk with the Sussex +burr and to think of London, forty miles away, as a place utterly +remote.</p> + +<p>London was not properly part of Henry Maple’s life. He had his club, of +course, for which his father had put him down when he was born, just as +he had put him down for his Public School and for his College. He used +it perhaps twenty times in a year.</p> + +<p>The staff of Rackham was consonant with all <span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>the rest. A butler of much +the same age as his master, and of twenty years’ standing, knowing the +names of wines, but far more familiar with beer. A lad who cleaned +boots, ran messages, and took the blame for mishaps; a few maids; a +fixed, elderly cook called Mrs. Marwell, and a kitchenmaid; and she +that had been the child’s nurse, and still was after a fashion (even +after he had begun to go to a Preparatory School). She was kept on, and +would be kept on till she died.</p> + +<p>There was Rackham; and (one would have said) the benediction of God +upon it. I knew it well enough.</p> + +<p>The first thing that began to threaten such unchangeable things with +change was an unaccountable creeping oddity in the relation of income +to expenditure. Henry Maple, in the intervals of his reading and his +quiet entertainment, heard of it vaguely as “these times.” It might +also be called certain new habits of a changing age; rather more +travel, a few more visitors, farmers coming shame-facedly and very +privately to ask for some small reduction in rent, or rather heavy +piece of repair, which was granted as a matter of course; coming again +a year or two later to ask for another, which was also granted as a +matter of course, but at last with a little misgiving.</p> + +<p>The century was thus nine years old, and his lonely, affectionate +little son, of whom his father made a close companion, was nine years +old also, when Henry Maple realised that there were a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>good many things +he ought to have done to the house and did not from lack of funds—wear +and tear come so gradually. He was used to the fences beginning to look +tumbled down, and to a good deal of grass on the few paths; for the +gardener was getting old, and not over lively.</p> + +<p>Henry Maple had grown used also to an overdraft at his bank; though he +was rather disturbed when, a few years earlier, the manager had told +him in a pleasant conversation that it would be well to fix a limit—and +did so. But he got used to that too.</p> + +<p>He very reluctantly and in rather haphazard, expensive fashion +mortgaged two of the outlying farms; then a third. There came a moment +when he had a little difficulty in meeting the full interest, though it +was in the hands of a family lawyer who was as much a part of his life +as anything else, and had jogged along comfortably enough with him. But +he did at one moment in the year 1905, rather suddenly, need £1,000.</p> + +<p>It had not occurred to him how easily his younger brother, William +Maple, a London solicitor in good practice whom he saw fairly often, +could meet the case, or how willing he would be to do it. It was +William Maple himself who suggested the thing (how he could have heard +of the embarrassment Henry was at a loss to guess, and, indeed, did not +waste much time in guessing). It was after a quiet dinner which the two +brothers had had together, when William was spending a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>week-end at +Rackham, that the proposal was made, and the elder brother accepted it +with real gratitude.</p> + +<p>A second thousand followed, and a third. William came oftener—a +frequent guest. He had married a handsome, rather pushing wife of +a birth like his own, the daughter of the Dean of Lamborough, the +grand-daughter of a large coal-owner of the Midlands; a woman who liked +to know the world and whose increasing acquaintance with sundry rich +people and other sundry talked-of people in London increased, very much +to her husband’s content, and not a little to his advantage.</p> + +<p>Henry Maple had no great liking for his sister-in-law. Her worldliness +jarred on him and she knew nothing of the things he loved. But he never +thought of her unjustly. He invited her frequently enough, and they +were fairly good friends.</p> + +<p>William Maple was what Henry would no doubt have been if Fate had +compelled him (as it never did) to earn his living. But in the twenty +odd years since their common boyhood the difference in habit of mind +and activity had become pronounced. William was precise and methodical; +not unjust, but long grown incapable of anything unbusinesslike or +slack. A bargain was a bargain, and a contract a contract; and the +results of it, if they were turned out to the other man’s loss, were +the other man’s look-out. He could no more separate his family from the +rest of the world in this <span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>general view than he could have separated +one set of figures from another in the jottings of his notebooks. These +he kept carefully from year to year; no one saw them but himself, and +they did all the work that the most elaborate keeping of accounts can +do in a large business.</p> + +<p>It was natural enough in Henry’s eyes that his brother should be easy +in the matter of interest and allow it to be added to the main debt. It +was natural in William’s that this attitude on his own part, which was +not ungenerous, should yet be precisely regulated and never allowed to +breed confusion.</p> + +<p>The losses on all English agricultural work continued; the new habits +continued with them; the slightly increased expenditure; the vague idea +permeating Henry Maple’s mind that the old state of affairs was the +natural and permanent one and would in due course return.</p> + +<p>He knew roughly—after a few more years had passed—that his total +indebtedness to his brother had now come to £7,000; he knew that +the interest had fallen into arrears—to how much the total of the +new interest on those arrears might amount he had but a very rough +conception, and he did not dwell upon it.</p> + +<p>When it had been suggested by William that the mortgages on the +farms might be taken over, so as to make one simple body of all the +obligations, he was more than willing—it kept things in the family. +The fixed figure in his mind of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>£7,000 thus became £10,000; and the +arrears of interest crept on. There was one or two further loans, and +one fine day in 1913 William thought it only right to have a clear +statement, and go into everything in detail with his brother. It was +thus upon a Sunday in August, a year before the quite unimaginable war, +that the critical moment came.</p> + +<p>William had turned over in his own mind during the previous week what +he would say and do. He had everything fixed, tabulated and arranged.</p> + +<p>William Maple had prospered; he had bought one of the dignified old +freehold houses on the river in Cheyne Walk, spending on it rather +more than he would have done, perhaps, had not his wife urged him. The +house was becoming something of a centre in London for people who wrote +and painted and were talked of, for the more important people who had +gone into politics, and even for a few of the very much more important +people whose point was their new wealth. Mrs. William Maple had decided +that the time had come for a proper house in the country as well; but +her husband, for all his success, hesitated at the expense. It was Mrs. +William Maple who suggested that the opportunity lay ready to hand in +Rackham.</p> + +<p>“Henry will never marry again,” she had said. “The longer he keeps that +place the more it will go to pieces. I don’t believe that boy, John, +will come to any good with it. He’s a nice bright child <span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>and I am as +fond of him as you are; but I see what the end of it will be.”</p> + +<p>And William, after a rather long pause, had agreed that she was +right—at any rate as far as his brother’s incapacity for management was +concerned, and the probability of a break-down if things continued as +they were.</p> + +<p>There was no need to do anything harsh or unpleasant, Mrs. William had +said. After all, what with the capital sums advanced and the really +absurd arrears of interest, and the interest on those arrears—let her +husband remember that he very often had to find that himself, when he +was making new investments, and depending upon the bank—the total must +be getting close on £18,000.</p> + +<p>“Not quite that,” William Maple had answered.</p> + +<p>“Well!” Mrs. William had taken him up with a rather sharp sigh, “close +on it, anyhow! And we can’t afford it—you know we can’t. Besides which, +as I say, it would be a blessing all round; and there’s no need to do +anything harsh or unpleasant. You can suggest some arrangement. Henry +might travel for a bit, on whatever more you could let him have, and we +might pay him rent for a while and then see what could be done when we +had room to turn round.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” her husband had answered, “Yes.... Something of that sort could +be done.... Certainly.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span></p> + +<p>Something of that sort had occurred to him also, Had it not? Vaguely? +All but £18,000 was due: allow Henry another £2,000 odd. After all, as +land now was, £20,000 was a very fair amount to allow for Rackham: if +anything too much. There was an enormous amount wanted doing to the +place—he was already beginning to think of it almost as his own. As for +his wife, she was there in spirit already; ordering the place about, +renewing it from cellar to roof, and a squire’s wife, as she should be. +Moreover, she was the good angel of poor Henry, and of his unfortunate +little son. She was saving them from a terrible future.</p> + +<p>William had sat up late that night in his study, getting all the papers +in order, setting down the main figures in an exceedingly clear and +plain fashion. The next day, he had invited himself to Rackham, and the +day after he had driven from the station in the old brougham behind the +old horse with the old coachman, up the dilapidated drive, to the door +which had not been painted since the triumphant conquest of the Boer +Republics, and the nasty slump in Chartereds.</p> + +<p>So there William Maple was, on that Sunday evening of August, 1913, +sitting over brother Henry’s wine and making himself ready for an +explanation.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_020"> + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_020.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>The brothers at Rackham</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Is that the same port?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Henry answered, taking up his glass and looking through it at a +candle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span></p> + +<p>“I thought it had gone off. Father laid it down the day you got into +the Eight,” said William.</p> + +<p>Henry nodded.</p> + +<p>“There is no reason why it should have gone off, though it wasn’t a +particularly good year. Anyhow, it’s all right still.”</p> + +<p>The curtains were not drawn, the big ugly windows of the dining-room +were open to the warm August night. The mahogany reflected the glass +ware and the silver. Henry’s eye rested, unseeing, upon the crest the +fortunate smith and cattle dealer had arranged for, more than a century +ago. It was a scene unchanged; just what it had been for the last +thirty years and more, as far back as the two men could remember, save +for the slightly dingier tint of the walls and the irregular, patchy +fading of the red damask of the curtains. Other little details William +now oddly noticed, though Henry could not have told him they were +there: one of the bell handles had gone from the side of the fire-place +leaving an iron stump, and poor old helmeted Minerva upon a bracket +(Italian she had been, and brought over after the French wars) had lost +the tip of her nose.</p> + +<p>The silence could not go on for ever, and William braced himself to +speak. It was no great effort for him, after all. He had had to do such +things twenty times before, though never in such surroundings nor with +the difficulty—slight to him, but still present—of imperilling the +associations of childhood.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span></p> +<p>“Henry,” he said rather too suddenly, “I want to talk to you about +your own affairs.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Henry gently. “Yes ... what?”</p> + +<p>He had no particular dread of what was coming; he thought it might be +another loan, and that would not be unwelcome. There had been another +little trouble. The water-mill absolutely must be seen to, and he was +afraid it would cost a good deal. George Barrett, the miller, had +spoken of it twice.</p> + +<p>“Henry,” continued William, “I think the time really has come when we +must take stock.”</p> + +<p>It was not quite what Henry had expected. He looked up rather startled +and a little bewildered. But he felt the justice of it. After all, +they had not “taken stock” at all at any time. William took from his +mouth the end of the cigar he had been smoking and ground it slowly on +his plate. He felt in his pocket for papers, but thought better of it. +Looking down at the cloth, so as to avoid his brother’s eye, he said:</p> + +<p>“The total amount, Henry, counting the arrears of interest, you know, +is £17,324 odd.” He paused a minute—“£17,324 ... odd.” Then he pulled +out a half sheet of paper which he had hesitated at just before, pushed +his plate aside, spread the figures out before him, and repeated, “Yes, +£17,324 14<abbr title="shillings">s.</abbr> and 3<abbr title="pence">d.</abbr>”</p> + +<p>What had floated in Henry’s mind for so long was a fixed figure in +large print—£10,000. And after it—in a sort of blur—something or other +that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>might be a few thousand more. £17,324 pulled him up. It was a +good deal more than he had bargained for. Then he remembered sundry +odd sums which, after all, he ought to have added to that £10,000. +There had been the cleaning out of what they called “the Lake” but +the villagers “the Pond”; and yet—now he remembered it—there had been +the big subscription which he had thought only right for the building +of the new bit on to the church. That was years ago and somehow or +other he had not connected it with the main debt. And then, of course, +arrears did mount up. After all, 5 per cent. on £10,000 was £500 a +year, was it not? And there is interest on that interest when it is +not paid. Yes, it was right enough, no doubt. Such was the course of +Henry’s rambling mind, before which now stood a new figure, large, +dominant, £17,324.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said gently, looking up a little timidly, “yes, William, I am +sure you’re right. I’ll look up my figures.” He had not an idea where +they were, nor whether he had them all. +<ins class="edit" id="tn-22" title="original text: '£17,324'">“£17,324</ins>. I’m sure you are +right.”</p> + +<p>William began scribbling at the paper meaninglessly with the point of a +little gold pencil he carried on his watch-chain.</p> + +<p>“You know, Henry, to tell you the honest truth,” he said, “I could not +go beyond £20,000. I will be quite plain with you. We have never had +any secrets from each other. I am not badly off. I don’t say I am. But +what a man is worth <span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>is one thing, and the free money at his disposal +is another. And Hilda, you know—not that I blame her—but she likes to +have her house full of people....” He paused.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Henry gently, “yes, she’s the wife of a rising man. She’s +quite right.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you see,” went on William, with his eyes still averted from his +brother’s, and scribbling away furiously making circles round and round +that figure of £17,324, “the fact is, that I can’t help thinking you +and I might come to an arrangement which would suit both of us....”</p> + +<p>“I don’t doubt it, William,” said Henry gently, and with some +admiration in his voice. He had no idea how these good business men got +on; he felt about them a little as he had felt about the big boys in +the Eleven when he had been a little boy at school. “You have always +been very generous to me, William.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want you to say that, Henry,” said William, decently and +soberly. “I wish I could have done more. At any rate, there it is. And +quite honestly, I shall not be able to go beyond £20,000.”</p> + +<p>What now stood up in Henry’s mind out of the mist was the fact +that there was a margin, a margin of well over £2,000, which he +characteristically put down as “about three.” He was just going to +suggest something about that margin, and how useful it would be to him, +when William spoke again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span></p> + +<p>“Henry,” he said, lowering his voice by a tone or two, and speaking +more slowly, “I don’t want to seem to be giving advice; but I am more +used to precise business +<ins class="edit" id="tn-24" title="original text: 'perhaps that'">perhaps than</ins> +you are; that is inevitable, +seeing the different kind of life I have had to lead.... But ... I am +rather afraid that if we do not look out, the next few years might be +disastrous to you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” answered his brother uneasily, “things are bound to turn, you +know. Only this morning I was reading that wheat had gone up another +2<abbr title="shillings">s.</abbr>—it’s true it’s the time of year for that, but....”</p> + +<p>William interrupted him firmly, looking him straight in the face for +the first time in all his conversation, and bringing his right hand +firmly down upon the table.</p> + +<p>“My dear Henry, <em>no</em>,” he said, “<em>no</em>. I have seen any amount +of this kind of thing. Honestly, it can’t go on. It’s your business, of +course; I don’t want to interfere. But it would relieve me (and I know +I am doing right in suggesting it) if you would undertake the only form +of retrenchment you can.”</p> + +<p>“What?” said Henry bewildered and alarmed. “Sell the place? William? +Sell the place? Sell Rackham?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!” answered William a little wearily, but trying to use a +soothing tone. “No! No! No! Nothing tragic! But why shouldn’t you +see that the place is properly kept in good hands, and you yourself +<em>travel</em>? Travel with the boy? <span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>You used to like travelling, and +it would do <em>him</em> all the good in the world, at his age. A gap +between the Preparatory School and the Public School does no harm, +and he is just in the years when a boy takes in what he sees. It is +astonishing what one can save if one travels for a year or two.”</p> + +<p>“Travel?” repeated Henry, as though in hesitation. He had loved what +little travelling he had had when he was young; the word appealed to +him. But the ties of his own old place suddenly called him back, as did +the now deep rut of daily habit into which his middle age had fallen.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t bear to let it,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “I +couldn’t let Rackham. Besides, who would take it? Who would keep it up?”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, I didn’t suggest that you should let it exactly. I +have an idea, and I want to put it before you, and I want you to think +it over really carefully. There’s no hurry. <em>I</em> would look after +the place. I could be here off and on the whole time, week-ends and +what not. I have got the means and I should like the job. I am fond of +the country, you know; and Hilda....”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean—<em>live</em> here?” said Henry.</p> + +<p>“Well, my dear fellow, only off and on, of course, coming down from +London. But it would be kept up and cost you nothing, and I would see +that it was more or less put to rights, you know. It is a good idea. +And I would set what sum you liked, in reason, as my rent to you +against <span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>your interest as it falls due. And then your farm rentals +would come to you—at least, they’d be set against the interest also.”</p> + +<p>“The rents don’t come to much now,” said Henry gloomily.</p> + +<p>“No; but come—it makes a difference. And you know when one is in a +place one always does something to keep it going and even improve it. +And, you know, as for the balance, I mean <em>up</em> to £20,000, as I +said....”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” answered his brother, a little shortly. Then he mused. +William followed up. He rose from his chair and paced the room.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Henry,” he said, “the long and the short of it is that +something must be done, and surely this is the sensible thing to +do. You know you like it as far as the travelling goes; it would be +delightful for the boy; and then perhaps when the time comes things +will have taken a turn for the better.” For it was William now who +chose to be vague. He was restless, and sat down again, once more +looking his brother in the face. “I have told you, Henry, and surely +you must see it, there <em>must</em> be a crash if you don’t look out. +Living abroad wouldn’t cost you a half—not a third—of what it costs you +to live here, and I’d take it all over—just for the time; and it will +save the boy’s schooling as well. There’s everything to be said for it, +and nothing against it. Come! Think it over.”</p> + +<p>There was a very long silence. By the end of it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>the elder brother had +taken one of those curiously rapid decisions which the undetermined do +take when they are brought up suddenly against realities.</p> + +<p>He simply said:</p> + +<p>“Very well, William.” Then he sighed, and added: “Yes ... I think +you’re right.”</p> + +<p>Another silence followed, during which the younger and more prosperous +man felt like an exhausted swimmer who touches the shore with his feet. +His speech was lighter when he resumed.</p> + +<p>“Well, I am heartily glad of that, Henry. I thank God for it. I do +really think it is the best thing. It is obviously the best thing. If +you had seen what I have seen....”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” said Henry gently. “I know.”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow, we see tragedies in my business which....”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” said Henry again. “I know.”</p> + +<p>“Two years, say, or perhaps three; we could talk about that in good +time. There’s no sort of hurry.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no hurry, of course,” said Henry. “But I would make it this +autumn. These things had better be done soon if they’re to be done at +all.”</p> + +<p>His tone was not hopeless, nor even cheerless: he knew that he would +have to face a very sad day, but it was natural in such a man to expect +an early return of all that he had known.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go south,” he said. “It won’t take you <span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>long to make out the +thing in black and white, will it?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we shan’t need anything very formal, letters will do,” said his +brother. “I tell you what,” he added, “you had better have that balance +of £20,000 pretty soon, so that you can make all your arrangements +before you start; and then we’ll draw up some idea of what annual +balance there may be between the rental and what is due, you know, and +we’ll estimate the rest of your income—there is still a good wad of +father’s German Government loan untouched, isn’t there?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Henry simply. “I’ve still got that, it’s in the bank at +Lewes. They never brought in much—I don’t know how much—about £400 I +think—or £450. I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” answered William, “it’s only the usual first-class government +loan rates, but anyhow, German stuff is as safe as gold.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Henry.</p> + +<p>“You will find the margin ample,” his brother assured him. “Things will +be all quite simple.” They were beginning to seem quite simple to Henry.</p> + +<p>He remembered how cheaply he had travelled in the past, and how he +had enjoyed the little places and the simple habits. He thought of a +year of his own boyhood with his own father in Italy just after the +unification. He began to make pictures in his mind of his boy’s delight +at the mountains and at the beauties of the new lands.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span></p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” he said. “It’s the best thing. Write me the letters when +you choose, and I’ll look over them.”</p> + +<p>And that was the way in which Rackham began its fourth transfer—but, +after all, remained under the same blood.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch02"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span> +<h2 id="ch02">CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p>It was early in the month of June, 1914. Henry Maple was in +Switzerland, not the tourist Switzerland which he hated, but the +pleasant southern slopes of the Jura overlooking the plain, with the +great mountains to the south.</p> + +<p>He was happier than he had been for many years—happier even than at +Rackham. The recent fret of embarrassment, the almost daily shifts and +worries, were ugly memories already faded. In the early part of the +year he had gone back to England alone, and found Rackham already so +nicely set in order by his wealthy brother that he knew not whether to +be pleased at its renewal or pained at the change. But on the whole he +was more pleased; for after all, it was more like the Rackham of his +childhood.</p> + +<p>The provision made during the months of his absence had been ample for +his very few needs. The boy was getting good teaching at Solothurn, and +learning French and German thoroughly; in the autumn he would go on to +the Public School his father and his grandfather had gone to; he might +spend part of the holidays with his uncle, but most (he hoped) here in +the Jura with himself. For they had grown very close together during +this little not unpleasant exile, and the lad <span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>was coming to have +something of a hero-worship for a father who was always tender to him, +always understanding, and seemed to know so very much and to be able to +show him all that was to be discovered in that new world of travel from +which they had just settled down. He was spending perhaps a quarter +of what he had spent in Sussex—he had even saved! And if William had +punctually paid himself his dues, he had as punctually remitted the +balance of the rental and dividends to the Bank in Berne.</p> + +<p>There came the threat of war and the ultimatum to Servia, but Henry +Maple had read too much and knew too much of the past to believe that +war would come.</p> + +<p>War came; and the crash had upon this refined, scholarly +far-too-detached character a strange effect of not unwelcome isolation. +His vague hopefulness was <ins class="edit" id="tn-31" title="original text: 'still premanent'">still permanent</ins>; he had never liked the +Germans; therefore he was sure that they would soon be beaten. He was +secure where he was, and victory would only be a matter of a few weeks.</p> + +<p>The Marne confirmed his judgment. Victory went on being a matter of a +few weeks. But in the autumn came a letter from William, explaining why +the next remittance would be considerably smaller than the last. The +German dividend, of course, had failed. He must not mind if there was +a certain irregularity in the payments. Everything was at sixes and +sevens, and it was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>not at all easy to transfer money; but he could +manage it. He hoped Henry had saved a little, and that the occasional +inevitable delays and the necessary diminution of the total would be +bearable until peace should come—for William agreed it could not be +long delayed. As for the boy, he had better stay safe where he was—he +was getting excellent tuition, and it would not be too late to go on to +his school in England when peace came. He had seen the headmaster and +it would be all right—a few months wouldn’t matter. And after all, John +was barely fourteen.</p> + +<p>Yes; Henry had saved a little, for the first time in his life (and how +proud of it he was!). The lessening of income was a nuisance, but it +hardly meant more than that the saving stopped, and that he had to take +a little more care of his very modest expenditure. He secretly rejoiced +at the suggestion that his son would not have to leave him permanently +just yet, or have to attempt to rejoin him during the holidays under +the very difficult conditions of war-time. Of course, John would go to +school a little late, but he comforted himself by remembering that, +after all, he would have the boy with him so much longer, and that was +a great delight. The delay postponed for the lad one great advantage, +but it gained him others. It was a very good thing for a young +Englishman to have known other countries and other languages well as a +boy, and things would right themselves somehow.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span></p> + +<p>So it went on through the better part of ’fifteen. Remittances came +sufficiently often and of sufficient amount to keep things just barely +going; but no more. Victory was due almost any day—though, it’s true, +it was getting late. Towards the end of the year Henry Maple began +to feel he knew not what difference in his gentle vigour and in his +hopefulness. It was as though the world were losing its taste.</p> + +<p>He put it down to the war—but it was not the war. 1916 went by, and +that internal enemy, whatever it was, took more and more of the man’s +life. Yet he put it down to nothing but the restrictions and fatigues +and anxieties of the time. The progress of the disease was slow, his +son hardly noticed it. To boys of his age a man of over fifty seems +very old, and that his father should now no longer be able to take the +long walks he had, or to read quite so long at a time, seemed to him +nothing but the natural process of age.</p> + +<p>So it went on for two years more. Twice Henry had made the resolution +to get back home to see if—late as it was—the boy couldn’t be got to +his school. Twice he had abandoned that resolution. The increasing +difficulties of travel appalled him, and it must be admitted that a +stronger motive was his clinging to John’s companionship. His brother’s +urgent appeals to him not to move, the assurance that he was better +where he was, and sundry hints in the letters, hints which escaped +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>the censorship, that England might not be quite secure confirmed his +lethargy. His increasing weakness did the rest. He would wait till the +war was over—still confident that it would be over “almost any time +now,” and over in the right way.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>On the 2nd May, 1918, not for the first time, but hardly for more than +the second time in Henry Maple’s life, he was pulled up sharply against +reality. A telegram came from Hilda, saying that William had died +suddenly—a letter would follow.</p> + +<p>The shock fell on a man much nearer death than either he or his child +had imagined. He went down a further step in the descent out of this +life. He had been really fond of his brother; too grateful for a +generosity that had been very much more like an investment; and he was +bound—as such natures are—by the common memories of childhood.</p> + +<p>But there was a good side even to that, and it put some light into the +mind of the dying man—for dying he now was, though slowly. After all, +John was the heir. William had died childless. John was the heir: not +only to dear Rackham and its impoverished fields, but to that solid +fortune which William had created—always subject, of course, to Hilda’s +life-rights: that was only just.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span></p> + +<p>Henry honestly admitted to himself that he had never liked Hilda; she +was too loud for him. He used to say to himself, that she was not quite +a lady. But he would be just; of course she ought to have the usufruct +of the greater part as long as she lived. It was only right. Never +mind: John was the heir. Henry knew of himself, by this time, that he +was dying: but John was the heir, and all was well. The boy was nearly +eighteen, they must be thinking of the University soon: the war could +not go on for ever; and in a way it was a sort of providence, was it +not, that poor William should have gone when he did? And yet, no, that +was a thought he must put away. William would have looked after the +boy, anyhow.... It had better be Oriel. He did not know how Oriel stood +now, but he had been at Oriel himself, and that was reason enough. +Oriel it should be. He had everything arranged.</p> + +<p>He made no doubt at all as to what William’s will would be, though he +had been too delicate to discuss it with him those five years before, +when they had last met; it would be the normal will of an enriched, +childless younger son standing thus in a landed family; there would be +the life interest for Hilda—perhaps large—but the rest of the income +would accumulate for the boy until he was of age; and meanwhile there +would be an allowance for his education. Perhaps Hilda would be made +guardian; he would regret it, but he did not mind. He could not think +long on these <span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>things: he could not concentrate. He awaited the papers.</p> + +<p>Instead of the papers, only a couple of rare letters came through +from his sister-in-law, but all that late summer of 1918 went by, +with the war now at last manifestly closing, the turn of the tide, +the Armistice. At the end of the year Hilda herself, too soon after a +message announcing her coming, was in the sick man’s room.</p> + +<p>She stayed exactly two days in the little house on the slope of the +Jura, just gracious to her nephew, just sufficiently affectionate to +her brother-in-law, and no more. Mrs. William Maple was a business +woman, and she had come to talk business.</p> + +<p>And the business was this. William Maple had left everything to her +absolutely. That was the first point. Yes? (putting up her hand) surely +he did not suspect her? She would do her duty, and she knew what her +duty was. But so far as the legal terms of the will went, there it was. +That was how it stood. It was not her doing. She had known nothing +about it till it was read. Henry must remember it was her husband’s +money, and, for her part, she thought he had done rightly.</p> + +<p>So much for that. Now about Rackham.</p> + +<p>She changed her tone somewhat when she came to this. She was not +exactly ashamed, but she was just a trifle embarrassed. She owed it +to herself to do what she had to do, but she did not like <span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>doing it. +However, these things have to be done, and she was as brief as she was +clear.</p> + +<p>Rackham was gone; hopelessly gone; William had spared his brother the +worry of too much detail. He had very generously provided much more, +really, than the difference between the rents and the interest could +possibly have covered; she had all the papers in due order, and she +had brought with her the accountancy document with a mass of other +papers, which her sick brother-in-law had neither the energy nor the +clearness of mind to follow. He listened patiently as she spoke—yet not +despairingly. He still had something of that hopefulness in him which +had been at once the curse and the alleviation of his not unhappy but +most unfortunate life: for such men trouble rather their descendants +than themselves.</p> + +<p>Hilda made the position plain enough. If she had been—what she thanked +God she was not—a cold, calculating sort of person, there would have +been nothing for it but to sell Rackham; it was not entailed, and even +so, she would have lost thousands on the deal. But she was not like +that. She assured him she was not like that. She was willing to lose +and to take Rackham over as it stood in cancellation of all debts. She +was glad to make the sacrifice. She would not dream of disturbing his +illness with pressure of any kind. A will of his in her favour was one +way. If he disliked that, she wished to be generous; she would <span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>make it +a purchase. She would accept it against the debt.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_038"> + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_038.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Aunt Hilda settling everything</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Henry heard her, and he saw no way out.</p> + +<p>“You will do the right thing by the boy,” he said. “He’s the only +child. Hilda, you will do the right thing, of course?”</p> + +<p>She assured him of that; but what the right thing meant was left vague, +as everything had been left vague in Henry Maple’s life. It mattered +little anyhow, she thought; Rackham was hers to dispose of, and there +was still long life before her. The right thing by the boy meant, let +it be hoped, some regard for his proper upbringing: then, of course, he +would stand somehow vaguely at Rackham, so long as Rackham was their +home, as the heir. So let it stand at that.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>When the end came (it was the foul winter of ’19 that killed him) it +came rapidly enough. But just before that end Henry Maple rallied +singularly in intelligence and decision. It was like that little return +of the flood in certain heavens before the final ebb. It was as though +he had a task to perform.</p> + +<p>Such men postpone: but now there could be no postponement. He spoke to +the boy.</p> + +<p>“John,” he said, “you know that I have been very ill, and you have +seen me getting worse.” He looked at the tall boy—the tall young man, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>he seemed, for the first time, in his father’s eyes; strong in +his eighteen years—and understood how true it is that children are a +mitigation of the memory of death. Something far stronger than his own +youth was there: as tender, but more sturdy, and (he secretly hoped) +more obstinate.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Papa,” said John. He took his father’s hand where it lay upon the +rug of the invalid chair, as a woman might have done. “But you will get +better.”</p> + +<p>Henry Maple slightly shook his head.</p> + +<p>“I have not told you—I have not allowed any of these good people here +to tell you—the doctor was quite right; he knew all about it from the +beginning, and he tells me that it is coming to the end.”</p> + +<p>For the first time in his young life John Maple felt that shock of +emotion which suddenly whitens the face, and he knew that his heart +had stopped beating for the moment. He could not prevent a convulsive +clutch at his father’s hand. The old man looked at him with all the +affection of the past in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Sometimes, John dear,” he said, “I think I have not given you a fair +chance. Then I say to myself that, after all, it was the war, and we +were wiser to stay where we were. It has been very happy here.”</p> + +<p>“It has, Papa,” said John.</p> + +<p>“You have not been lonely, boy?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span></p> + +<p>“Never,” answered John, truthfully enough. “I like our friends here, +and the two Englishmen as much as any. Charles is going to Oxford next +term....” Then he stopped abruptly. It was amazing to him that he had +forgotten in those few words the blow that had fallen, and suddenly, in +spite of himself, he began to cry. His father stroked his hand.</p> + +<p>“It does no harm to cry, boy. It’s all the better. You will feel it +less later. It had to come. But I have a great deal to tell you. You +know we have become much poorer?”</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, of course, Papa. I don’t know much about these things, but +we have lacked nothing.”</p> + +<p>“No, dear boy, but it is not Rackham. Do you remember Rackham well? You +must—you were over thirteen, and big for your age, when you left it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Papa,” said John, still sobbing. “I remember Rackham!”</p> + +<p>“Well, John, it is very difficult to say, but I will try and say it. +Technically—legally—I suppose that is the right word—Rackham is not +mine any more.”</p> + +<p>The boy looked bewildered. That Rackham had been theirs, his father’s, +and his father’s father’s, and so on, and would be his in his turn, +this was a thing he had taken for granted as part of the universe. That +idea had no connotation <span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>of wealth in his mind. It was the very stuff +of his thoughts. The Maples and Rackham were one thing.</p> + +<p>“It could not be helped. I did my best. You know, land went to +pieces.... Your uncle was very generous; he was, really. We should not +have been here, even, but for him. Honestly, John, your Aunt Hilda has +been generous too. I can’t deny that.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by generous, Papa?” said the young man, a little +hardly.</p> + +<p>“Why, my dear,” the other answered, sighing, “I owed her husband, and +therefore I owed her, after her husband died, more than I could pay; +more than there was anywhere. There was a German investment of your +grandfather’s—did you know that?”</p> + +<p>“No, Papa.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s gone, of course. I lost it by your uncle’s advice; he said +it was as safe as gold; but after all, he could not tell. No one could +tell.”</p> + +<p>“Papa,” said John Maple, asking a question of this sort for the first +time in his life, prompted by he knew not what odd premonition of the +future, “what was the sum owed? How much was the money claimed? How +much would be needed to...?”</p> + +<p>His father looked at him with a long look.</p> + +<p>“You’re thinking of getting Rackham back?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, Papa,” he said, startled. He had no <span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>conception of such +powers. He could not even imagine himself earning. “I only wondered.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” said Henry Maple, falling back into his vagueness, “your +aunt will do the right thing. When I am gone, John, go straight back to +her.... You want to know ... what the sum was?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said John. But something fierce in his voice +belied the words.</p> + +<p>“My dear boy, it is easily told. The first sum, you know, the actual +sum, I don’t mean the interest—was £10,000. One bit after another ... +it began during those bad years ... I saw corn sold at Lewes market +for 10<abbr title="shillings">s.</abbr> a sack.... Anyhow, your uncle was really generous. He was, +indeed. He never pressed and the interest ran, without his ever saying +a word about it.... And then, at the end, when what with that, and some +expenses or other ...” he hesitated, as though his memory was working +ill ... “oh, yes, on the church, you know. Well, it wasn’t £20,000.... +But your uncle was generous, boy, do believe it. He gave me the balance +making it up to £20,000. That is what we have had over and above some +of the rentals since we have been here.... There will be £300 or £400 +for you to take in the bank when....” He would not say the words.</p> + +<p>“It was £20,000 altogether?” said John.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said his father. “But, you know, when your aunt came she had all +the papers in order, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>and there’s no denying she had a right to a lot +more than that.”</p> + +<p>The son was silent: he was growing older with every moment of this.</p> + +<p>“<em>She</em> was just, too, John, believe me. They kept the place very +well. It looked twice what it had been, though a little strange ... +when I went back there.... Anyhow, it’s hers now.”</p> + +<p>“Hers?” said John. “Oh, don’t bother, Papa. Don’t trouble. I ought not +to have asked you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear boy, it had to be. Strictly, she could have made me sell. +But in her odd way she’s generous too, I think. Though I can’t pretend +that I ever....” He would not complete the sentence. But from that +moment the boy had an unpleasing image of the woman in his heart.</p> + +<p>“It was her right, John, and she’ll do the right thing by you. She has +no children, and it’s bound to come to you. And, you know, you are to +go to Oriel? She’ll see to that. I make no doubt she’ll see to that. +Settle it with her. And your allowance, my dear boy ... and....”</p> + +<p>He ceased, under a sudden spasm of extreme fatigue.</p> + +<p>“I must stop now, boy.”</p> + +<p>His son kissed him upon the forehead, and thought it oddly cold.</p> + +<p>“It’s late,” the father added, almost in a whisper. “Tell Marie to come +up. I’ll get to bed.”</p> + +<p>And next morning young John Maple, waking late, alarmed that his father +had not rung, went <span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>to his door, and knocked, and heard no answer. That +father was dead.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The English friends in the place told the lonely boy what he should +do, but he was already almost competent to act. Cut off though he +had been from the life of his kind, he had a singularly mature power +of decision, and it was nerved now by a strange, tenacious feeling +in which, as in a composite picture, were inextricably entwined the +beloved memory of the face which he would never see again for ever +(every detail of the funeral remained vivid all his life)—a profound +sense of wrong done him, and a vague, quite formless, but astonishingly +strong intention of <em>action</em>—what action he knew not, nor how +it should be performed, nor where. Even in one so young, sudden and +overwhelming grief adds to the vividness of life intolerably. By so +much as he dwelt—more than in real experience itself—upon his father’s +voice, gesture, everything—by so much was he acutely, violently +sensitive to harsh alien things.</p> + +<p>His aunt had not come out for the funeral. She seemed to show an +intolerable indifference. Bad as the immediate post-war conditions +were, it was inexcusable. The letter he had received from her struck +him like ice; though that woman had never written unkindly in her life, +yet also she <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>had never written kindly. The journey home in those +strange, interrupted days of the spring of ’19, with the delays and +the broken glass in the carriages and the sleepless nights, felt like +an approach to some doom. What would it be like? What would Rackham +be like? What would it have become? He had a fairly clear memory +of the place, though he had not seen it since he was a child—for +five-and-a-half years. His father had told him very vaguely and in a +few sentences that it “looked twice what it had been”; but he evidently +did not like to dwell on any description. He had pictured to himself +one or two consolations—meeting again with Corton, the old butler, and +the rest of them—he supposed they were all still there—the familiar odd +disjointed front of the house, half brick, half timber; the rank grass, +the neglected field beyond the rusty iron palings, the ill-kept lawn +which were for him not decay, but Home.</p> + +<p>His first shock was at the station.</p> + +<p>It was not the old brougham that met him, the old horse that he +remembered; it was a car, too smart for such a place; and the driver, +of all things in the world, a Frenchman, demobilised and (by some +strange snobbery of his aunt’s) smuggled in: imported by the favour of +some Parliamentarian friend of hers.</p> + +<p>The drive was too short. The old ramshackle lodge was gone, and there +was, in its place, a Queen Anne cottage of the worst type. The drive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>was twice as broad as in the old days. The gravel of it clean and new. +Then, at a turn, in a moment—the evening still light—he saw Rackham.</p> + +<p>But was it Rackham? The front was all timber now. And no one could say +whether it was all new or all old. It seemed new, made falsely old. The +windows were old-new, anyhow, for they were criss-cross lattice. It +made him think of the few times he had seen stage scenery, when he had +gone with his father into Berne to the play.</p> + +<p>Corton was there when the door opened. And for the first time in +so many days he rejoiced a moment in the warmth of the old man’s +greeting—but in what surroundings!</p> + +<p>The old hall had gone; the next room had been knocked into it. He could +have believed it the lounge of an hotel for its garishness. There were +strange beams, artificially rough and artificially darkened. There were +pictures on the wall which he had never known. All looked new, most +abominably aping age.</p> + +<p>He was in an ill mood by the time his aunt received him. But that first +evening things went quietly enough. She did her best—it was a poor +best, but she could do no better. She was precise, she was worldly, she +could not bear things to be casual and unfixed; and she was (wrongly) +convinced that the boy before her was but a repetition of his father—of +whose goodness she had felt nothing, for whose vagueness and slackness +she had had all the contempt of her kind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span></p> + +<p>I say, it was a poor best; and for a week—she thought it well to allow +a little time before any business should be talked—the tension grew.</p> + +<p>The breaking-point came one evening after dinner in the +drawing-room—furnished after some antique fashion which John could not +understand and hated—when Hilda Maple, in a tone which seemed to him +rather like the commands of an official than converse with one’s kind, +began to give him her plans for his future. He was to have so much—not +an insufficient allowance—paid thus and thus; he must account for it. +She had seen the authorities at Oriel and the rooms he would have. She +approved of the rooms. Perhaps she would have preferred Christ Church, +but it was his poor, dear father’s wish (she said that as though his +father’s wish was necessarily less worthy than her own—after all, poor +Henry had been at Oriel, hadn’t he?).</p> + +<p>John made no answer. He listened with increasing anger in his heart.</p> + +<p>“They wanted you to read history,” she said, “but I said you would +rather read law. You would, I know. Your uncle would have said that. He +always said that he wished he had read law himself at the University. +He said that it would have saved him three years. And you know, John, +you will have to have a profession.”</p> + +<p>John sat up in his chair and leaned forward slowly towards the April +fire.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span></p> + +<p>“I shall not go to Oxford. I shall find some trade,” he said, in a +slow, determined voice.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” answered his aunt sharply.</p> + +<p>“What I say,” answered her nephew.</p> + +<p>It was not a courteous beginning in her ears, for she felt she was +being enormously kind. After all, she owed him nothing; it was the +other way round; she had lost by him and his.</p> + +<p>“What you say?” she cried, almost angrily. “What you say? I don’t +understand you!”</p> + +<p>“I have got £352 left, Aunt Hilda,” he said, still refusing to meet her +eyes and looking straight into the fire.</p> + +<p>“Well?” said she.</p> + +<p>“It’s enough to turn round on,” he continued.</p> + +<p>“Good heavens, boy! Do you understand that you’re not yet nineteen? +D’you think you are of age? What can one do with three ... really, I +don’t understand what you mean!”</p> + +<p>But in that young mind a very firm determination was growing up. He +knew nothing whatever of the world. But he was prepared to learn it, +and to learn it alone, as soon as might be. He said no more. She +questioned, she spoke so strongly that with a woman less careful of +herself there would have been a storm. But she got no more out of him.</p> + +<p>There followed two days in which neither said much. Hilda Maple did not +reproach herself, but she was a little anxious. She thought herself +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>capable of any situation: but this was new. On the third day John told +her of his determination.</p> + +<p>He was going to London. He would give her his address the moment he had +one; he begged her to let him be. He was sure of himself.</p> + +<p>There passed rapidly through his aunt’s mind the alternatives before +her, and before him. She saw them clearly, as was her talent, and she +made the decision, which was perhaps the only one she could have made.</p> + +<p>He might go. She would not oppose his going. She was still determined +to do her duty in so far as he would meet her—she had a strong sense +of that—there was nothing petulant about the woman, nor any danger +of sudden moods; she had the virtues of the worldly, and their kind +of strength. It was a simple issue—either to use the law—which would +be odious, and would mean a permanent breach in little more than two +years’ time (for she rightly guessed the obstinacy of that deep-voiced, +clear-cut, sturdy figure) or simply to let him run the length of his +tether. She prophesied no disaster; she had the judgment to think that +upon the whole there would be none; though there was a hidden sneer in +her mind as she thought of what occupations this pig-headedness might +drive him to. She told him there would always be a home there when he +needed it; at heart she felt relieved of a burden.</p> + +<p>John, on his side, felt a weight lifted too. And young as he was, he +moderated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span></p> + +<p>“I certainly don’t want to quarrel, Aunt Hilda,” he said. “And I cannot +help telling you that I am grateful to you. You see, when I have made +up my mind——” he talked like one ten years older, and anyone with +a better sense of humour than Hilda Maple could hardly have helped +smiling—“when I have made up my mind—I can’t even think of myself as +changing.”</p> + +<p>So it was settled. They agreed for a fortnight’s interval in which he +should meet his father’s friends of the neighbourhood, and take some +advice as to where he might get rooms in town—as to what he should look +for then.</p> + +<p>John Maple saw and heard and learnt much in that fortnight; and all +he saw and learnt and heard further hardened him in his anger and his +resolve.</p> + +<p>For one thing, he discovered the odious word Catchings. It seems +that Rackham had been rebaptised “Rackham Catchings.” Disgusting +black-letter buffoonery!</p> + +<p>He had first come across it in the village shop, where the young man +with whom he had played as a boy was all obsequiousness to the heir of +such wealth, and had said, bowing and smirking, over a parcel, “Shall I +send it up to the Catchings?”</p> + +<p>“To what?” John had said sharply.</p> + +<p>“To the Catchings, sir—Rackham Catchings? Your house, sir; leastways, +Mrs. Maple’s house.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” John had answered. “Yes, Rackham, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>of course. Where else should +you send it?” And he had turned abruptly out of the familiar door.</p> + +<p>After that he noticed the odious thing in the address of letters +arriving. On the first day he had occasion to write a note he found it +on the paper heading. He saw in the <cite>County News</cite> that some show +or other was to be opened a fortnight hence by Mrs. Maple of Rackham +Catchings. He was beginning to get it on the brain.</p> + +<p>And certainly there had been plenty of Catchings added to Rackham. To +his mind, in those few days during which he still lingered, the new +sham timbered front was the Catchings and the beastly sham panelling +and sham beams of the new rooms, and the odious antique furniture, and +the silly Wardour Street pictures deliberately darkened—all these were +the Catchings. He went over them one by one, listing them in his mind, +and grimly delighted in the coming luxury, distant or near, of tearing +them out by the roots like a lot of bad teeth.</p> + +<p>It was a state of things that did not make for better relations, though +John was careful to keep off any questions on the novelties, even on +the absurd novel name. He would learn its origin in due time. Meanwhile +upon anything that mattered he was stubbornly silent, and sufficiently +talkative on things that did not.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda played her part well enough, determined as he was, and +successful as he was, in preventing an open quarrel. On the day when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>she bade him good-bye at the door, and made him promise to write and +to return often to visit her, she rejoiced that she had not broken her +word to the dead man. She had done her best. And if anything went wrong +with John, why she was always there to help. But there is no denying +that she was relieved.</p> + +<p>As for John, though he had left Rackham silent, he had fallen into a +new mood as the train approached London. Her friends and his father’s +had given him introductions and he had been told of good and reasonable +lodgings; and he had those few hundreds and scores of pounds in his +pocket, which are a fortune on the threshold of one’s twentieth year.</p> + +<p>But quite unchanged in his heart as he travelled still stood the image +of the old Rackham, the real Rackham. And those hurried facts which his +father had passed over as though they were too painful for him—sums of +money: the real sum owed—£10,000, or say £12,000, £13,000 at the very +most—yet £20,000 claimed. Well, £20,000 it legally was and £20,000 he +would adhere to.</p> + +<p>That £20,000 he would find, make, somehow, somewhere.</p> + +<p>At his age £20,000 is like a million, but at his age, also, a million +may be found, made, somehow—somewhere. That £20,000 hardened in his +soul and became the permanent furniture of it.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch03"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span> +<h2 id="ch03">CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p>How young people fall on their legs no one knows—least of all +themselves: no more than cats thrown off a roof. Those who have gone +out into the world on their own before they were twenty know that it +happens, and that is all they can say.</p> + +<p>It happened to John Maple. He went through the string of those +adventures which all such lads go through, indifferent to the squalor +because he was too young; delighted with the uncertainty, and buoyed +up by the novelty of his life. It happened to him also (as it happens +to all such) that he was never cut off from his equals in real life as +such are cut off in melodrama. There was nothing about not darkening +doors again, or shaking dust off feet. He went down often enough to +Aunt Hilda’s (thinking himself a noble fellow enough for tolerating +Rackham). He made better and better friends with Corton, who always +thought of him as the only true Maple. He met his aunt’s friends. His +father’s old acquaintances looked him up, and asked him out in London. +If you had taken a couple of weeks out of the boy’s life and followed +it hour by hour, you would have found such a mosaic as only an early +experience <span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>of that strange kind knows—there are plenty of us alive +to-day who have known it and can remember it. John Maple came to know +them all.</p> + +<p>Lodgings chosen for their peculiarity, their isolation; a single bare +room overlooking London from the height of an old building; a basement; +a dusty studio; one changed for another. Odd acquaintances from the +most different sorts of worlds. Broken-down actors, young men trying +to find work, and trying to forget the time when they were soldiers. +Pompous hosts in huge great mausoleums of houses (bad speculations on +the Crown property at Kensington—white elephants). Dull Bohemian nights +in Chelsea. Much more interesting revolutionary nights sandwiched +between foreign and domestic spies in reeking cellars off Houndsditch. +One or two really interesting parties in the houses of such people, for +instance, as Charles Baker, who had been his father’s friend for years +before the exile, and who was still in Parliament and still ridiculing +it, but whose real point was that he could paint; or tea with another +friend of his father’s of very many years’ standing, Lady Pattle, +the widow of the Admiralty Judge. There he met everybody—and there, +incidentally, he met Bo.</p> + +<p>Lady Pattle liked pretty well everything, but if she liked one thing +more than another it was people who could talk crisply and dress +crisply. She liked them best when they were least English, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>and she +liked them best of all when they were American.</p> + +<p>Now God in His providence had at this very moment provided for Lady +Pattle, and for England, precisely what was most needed in this line.</p> + +<p>Hamilcar Hellup had not begun life upon a few copper coins, still less +had he walked as a barefoot child into New York, because he could not +afford to ride. He had been born of a very good family—that is to say, +of a family that had plenty of lineage (ten generations of it since +the first settlers); moderate in fortune; once Puritan, now atheist, +in religion. He had been brought up with the other lads of the village +under that fine tradition of social equality which for so long was, +and still is, in unspoiled places, the tradition of the United States. +He had made a large fortune without selling any material objects that +anyone had ever seen, dealing shrewdly in paper. He had never cheated +anyone, to his knowledge. What is far more remarkable, very few people +had cheated him; or, at any rate, very few with impunity.</p> + +<p>His delight was to escape from New York and return at too brief +intervals to the place of his birth: and there his confidant was a +playmate who had remained poor and cunning on the soil, one Hiram Jake. +Hiram Jake remained in Hamilcar Hellup’s vision the symbol of his own +people, and years later, when he stole back home on brief escapes from +England, to talk of Mayfair to Hiram <span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>Jake over the broken fence of +that citizen’s lot was cold water in the desert to the millionaire.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_056"> + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_056.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Neighbour Hellup and Neighbour Jake</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>When he was a little over fifty he became a widower, and was left with +an only child, a girl called Isabeau, then twelve years old, and to +enjoy, at eighteen, yet another fortune from her mother. His whole life +changed. He gave up the accumulation of further wealth—and therein was +wise, for he had an enormous lump of it. He came over to Europe with +his daughter. First he travelled with her to many places he himself had +seen in his former journeys; then he put her back into a school in his +own country; his wife would have wished it.</p> + +<p>While Isabeau was thus growing up American, her father, fully +realising, what he had known at the back of his mind since first he had +seen the country, that England was the place where rich men should come +to die, made his arrangements to settle here.</p> + +<p>Nearly seven years had passed since then, and Isabeau, whose name had +very naturally contracted into Bo, was on the point of coming back to +England, when Hamilcar Hellup (he had been Hamilcar J., but he had +dropped the J.—wherein again he was wise) was first pestered by our +hungry politicians to pay them money for a peerage.</p> + +<p>Now Hamilcar, being an American, knew all about such things. The Press +of his native country had told him far more about English politics than +our own Press ever tells Balham or Tooting. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>He knew all about the +politicians, with their tongues hanging out for money—and he preferred +to keep his money to himself. Therefore had Hamilcar been standing on +guard, like a wicket keeper with the gloves on, for now some years: +ready to catch each attack on his purse and throw it back. Hitherto he +had succeeded. Of the last begging interviews, two had been attempted +by a tout of the Prime Minister of the day, very clumsily done, without +a proper introduction; the fellow simply rang the bell and sent in a +card. He was shown out; or, as Hamilcar put it, thrown into the street. +But appetite in politicians is over-mastering, and Hamilcar’s wealth +was notorious, illustrious, quite unconcealed.</p> + +<p>The next attack was delivered in his club. It was delivered by an old +gentleman who had bothered him about a lot of other things. This cadger +was (to change the metaphor) deftly cut through the slips. But the +third attack came, only two days later, in the shape of a florid young +man in the Government, with whom he got on like a house on fire. It was +quite late in the evening during a party in Merton Street, when his +under-secretary suddenly asked him whether he would meet yet another +politician at lunch next day. Hellup very foolishly consented; and +there suffered a most brutal hammering, a torture of direct insistence +that he should pay. But there was plenty <span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>of hard wood in Hamilcar +Hellup, and he stood firm. There was nothing doing.</p> + +<p>What did the trick was Lady Pattle. Lady Pattle had got to know him +just after he had landed. She was a dab at that sort of thing, and she +had managed it sideways, getting him kidnapped to tea in her house +under the guard of her niece and a Lord Chancellor in a large motor. +She had him by the Christian name within a year. She was not for +hurrying things. He was taking her advice during all the second year, +and still more during all the third year; and he had rarely found it +wrong. Lady Pattle it was who told him quite solemnly, after now six +years of acquaintance, that he ought to buy. Lady Pattle it was who +broke down that iron resolve and made Hamilcar Hellup a peer. No other: +Peggy, Lady Pattle.</p> + +<p>Let me cast no suspicion on that honoured name. She took no commission. +She had been specially urged by no one. It was principally from +Hamilcar himself that she had learnt how he had set his teeth, and was +becoming obstinately proud as well as amused in turning the politicians +down. She desired to do only what might be good for him, for she was +really fond of him—and she advised him to yield. Her arguments were +sound. The Prime Minister was asking nothing exorbitant. A dozen new +peers had paid him from twice to ten times as much. Hamilcar was +very rich, and he would not feel it. It was not as if he had run +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>after them; they had run after him; and really a peerage was a solid +advantage—especially for an American.</p> + +<p>“Not Home,” was Hamilcar’s comment; and Lady Pattle had answered +sharply, “No, but you are not living at home.” Whereat Hamilcar had +sighed, for it was true. And in his heart he longed for the wooden +houses and Jake, the playmate of his boyhood, and to see the smoke +rising from his own land, and after that to die.</p> + +<p>“It is not,” she said, “as though you had a boy to take it on after +you. That would be a nuisance. But it will certainly help Bo. She’d +like it. She’s been too young so far to know what it means; but +she’d like it now. And it’s great fun, remember. You go and hear the +debates and if you like you can join in. Anybody can. Then, it helps +you abroad: on the Riviera especially, and in Paris too. Still. Even +to-day. It won’t last, but be an English peer while it lasts.”</p> + +<p>“Raises prices?” said Hamilcar.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>“Not at the kind of places you go to. They couldn’t raise them.”</p> + +<p>What clinched the matter—nothing less would have convinced him—was the +battery she brought up at the end of this memorable conversation.</p> + +<p>“If you don’t pay that little bounder off and have done with it, you’ll +be plagued for the rest of your life. He’s worse in opposition than +in office,” she had said. What that meant Hamilcar <span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>Hellup hardly +understood; but he understood well enough the wisdom of cutting worry. +And that very week he bought the peerage. One thing, however, he stuck +to; he would not change his name. They tried hard to make him, but +he was adamant. The Hellups had been Hellups too long to change, and +Hellup he remained.</p> + +<p>Therefore, when Bo came over from her school, and when Lady Pattle +presented her at Court, and when, with her straightforwardness and +beauty and (to be quite just) her hardness, she had duly impressed +herself upon London, she was the Honourable Isabeau Hellup. Why she was +not Lady Isabeau Hellup was explained to her, and she was reluctant to +accept the explanation. Then did she begin with a great verve a career +of conquest; and her father was prouder of her than of any deal he had +ever made in his life: not excepting the original great Paramount Paper +Merger, in the year ’95.</p> + +<p>Bo had armed herself, as must every woman who proposes to conquer, with +a dog—by name Lovey-Lad, by nature swift and terrible, strong to seize +and to tear, strong also to growl, and of the bulldog breed. He became, +in the few hundreds of newspaper pictures which appeared on both sides +of the Atlantic, her cognitive sign, as is the Lion that of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Jerome, +the Dog that of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Roch, the Eagle that of Jupiter and <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> John, +and an open Bible spread under the left hand that of the late Queen +Victoria at a certain epoch of her reign.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_060"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_060.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption><span class="large">“Our younger hostesses”</span><br><br> + Pleasing sketch of the <abbr title="Honorable">Honble.</abbr> Isabeau Hellup with her dog + Lovey-Lad; from the pencil of Mr. Louth and appearing (syndicated) + throughout the Press of England and America</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span></p> +<p>All guessed—some had arranged—whom Bo was to capture. There were +titles in the list—the more knowing ones had particularly good foreign +titles to put forward. There were also great untitled lumps of money, +still knocking about unmarried. There were even a few of the minor +Exalted Personages. Lady Pattle herself, though she was no fool, could +not help, being a hostess and a woman, having fixed plans of her own. +She had settled on and pinned down and labelled young Lord Ockley, +because he had no money, because he was nice, and because she knew him: +three very good reasons.</p> + +<p>But these good people reckoned without the Hellup blood, which was +good, tested stuff; they had reckoned without its particular qualities +in Bo; above all had they fatally reckoned without the Bow and Quiver +of the Little God—the Unconquered in Battle—who perpetually scatters +the arrangements of possessing men, and falls like a bolt into the +midst of riches.</p> + +<p>It had amused the Little God to bring Bo up against John Maple, and +John Maple up against Bo. It had amused him to shoot at them both; +first from a distance, to try his bow; then good and hard at short +range. They were already quite certain each of the other, before either +of them was quite certain who the other was. They were both married in +heaven—or whatever the process <span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>is—I mean, they had both known about +each other from all eternity, while Bo still had no more definite +knowledge of John than that somehow or other he was connected with +“that Mrs. Maple,” and was perhaps vaguely the heir to a Manor House +somewhere or other, with English lawns and oaks, and all the rest of +it: no title—at least, she thought no title. She had not yet thought +much one way or the other about anything connected with him, except +that she knew his soul as she knew her own: and liked it more.</p> + +<p>As for John, he knew she was the daughter of one of these American +lords, and he did not honestly try to distinguish between them. But +he had liked her father. He liked the crispness, the exceedingly +well-brushed close short white hair; the equally well-groomed short +white moustache; the humorous, keen eyes and all the rest that goes +with the type. He liked the short sentences, the lively metaphor, +and he liked the man’s certitude in himself. It was as well. For +considering how fiercely John Maple loved that tall infant he might +have hated the rival affection even of her father. And considering how +much Lord Hellup doted on his daughter, he might most furiously have +disliked anyone else claiming her.</p> + +<p>That Bo had a great fortune was present in John’s mind, but occupied +no place there. It is often like that. He knew her fortune was there, +as one knows that a big cloud is in the sky. It did not occupy his +thoughts as being anything <span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>prominent, still less as having any +effects. For remember, he was still very young. If he had thought of it +at all it would have worried him, I fear. But he did not think of it.</p> + +<p>In the adventures of John Maple there had been one very simple motive +running through, which was to earn a living: though he put it to +himself not as earning a living, but as earning, making—<em>getting</em>, +anyhow—a certain fixed sum of money, to wit, £20,000, wherewith to buy +back Rackham.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda had, in the interval since John had come up to town to make +his way, gone from bad to worse. It wasn’t enough for her to call the +old place Rackham Catchings; she sometimes used “Catchings” by itself. +And when John protested against <em>that</em> innovation (as he had done +on one of his last visits) she had poured out a torrent of horrible +antiquarian stuff which she had got from an archæological society, and +which boiled down to this: that once, in one of the older title deeds, +the word “Catchings” appeared; it seemed to have been used for some +part or other of the estate. She was proud to add that they had also +found a certain Sir Harry Murtenshaw mentioned in a letter (undated, +but in a handwriting of the sixteenth century), and that in this +same letter there was mention of a Catchings. It was true this last +Catchings was in Norfolk; but that didn’t trouble Aunt Hilda. She had +already established her legend. The true name of Rackham <span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>was Rackham +Catchings, or even Catchings alone; and it had descended to the Maples +and so to herself diversely, by heiresses and marriage, from Sir Harry +Murtenshaw, Knight; a courtier of Gloriana’s, a jewel in the crown of +the Virgin Queen, an Elizabethan.</p> + +<p>With John’s movements among the rich Aunt Hilda was insufficiently +acquainted. She kept in touch with him, and she was vaguely pleased +to know that whatever tricks he was playing in private to make a +living—and on these she did not yet inquire—he was at any rate, to the +world, her nephew and his father’s son. If he appeared to be living in +London instead of in Sussex, she liked to have it put down to his—or +rather her—opulence. And if he had to refuse many engagements, if he +mysteriously disappeared for days at a time, why, that was again a +proof of his ample leisure and power to choose his own recreations. +She knew, of course, and she half envied, the way in which she heard +him talked about, though it annoyed her more than it pleased her when, +in that world which had been his father’s, they asked her (as they +often did) whether she were not a cousin. For the truth is, that Aunt +Hilda did not know the rich as well as John did. Still, there were few +whom John knew and whom Aunt Hilda had not at least heard of: not many +houses where John was intimate and she had not at least called. She +addressed Lady Pattle by her Christian name, and had more than once +been called Hilda in return. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>Two warm friendships Mrs. Maple had made +in that world—one with Lord Hellup, who quite frankly admired her; +one with a certain Lord Mere de Beaurivage—or rather, with his wife, +Amathea, whom she had piloted through many straits and narrows. For the +wife of Lord Mere de Beaurivage had to learn the intricacies of high +life rather late, as indeed had her worthy husband. Fortune had come +upon him with horrible rapidity, like a shell, after his fiftieth year. +It was not till the first war Coalition Government that he had appeared +as Sir George Huggins. It was not till the second war administration +that he had come—by the usual cheque—to adorn the House of Lords. His +creation dated some months before Lord Hellup’s. He was senior to Lord +Hellup in the proud hierarchy of our nobility: senior by half a year.</p> + +<p>Though Aunt Hilda could not but revere her dear Amathea’s husband +and have a strong attachment for Hamilcar Hellup, neither of these +noblemen, with wife or daughter, had happened to be at Rackham on +the same occasions as her nephew. She had learnt in roundabout ways +that the Hellups knew John and liked him, though she had not a +suspicion of the growing affair with Bo. As for Lord and Lady Mere de +Beaurivage—either they had not come across the young man at all in the +Great World, or if they had, they had forgotten it: he was no apparent +help to climbing folk. To put it in Lady Mere de Beaurivage’s <span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>simple +English phrase, when Hilda had cast out a feeler about it, “Your nevvy? +Not as I knows of, Ilda dear. But there, bless you! faces I knows, +but names I disremember.” Or as his lordship had put it with equal +simplicity, “John Miple? Wot? Sime nime as yer own? Not as I can call +to mind. But lor! There’s so many of ’em!” A sound judgment.</p> + +<p>Such was the ambiguous situation—John on the fringes of Aunt Hilda’s +push; Aunt Hilda’s wishing that she was really received as John was +received. So John was asked with sincere affection to Rackham, but not +too often. When he came he played up, and he even helped Mrs. Maple +when she came to London in her abhorrent task of adding further and +more heavily to the Catchings—for some purpose of her own which as yet +John could not divine. It intrigued him.</p> + +<p>That fixed idea of his that he would be master of Rackham sooner or +later led him to tolerate every grotesque purchase and addition, and to +help her whole-heartedly. It made him know more about the place ... and +he was free to be rid of the whole mass of that rubbish when he should +reign.</p> + +<p>He accompanied her when she went to Burton’s studio to inspect the +absurd carved animals that were to appear on the stone pillars of the +new gate. He gravely approved her choice of the new gate itself, when +it was foisted upon her in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>the Euston Road—a sham Venetian horror in +new iron, and (oh! my God!) not even forged, but cast.</p> + +<p>He did more. He helped her to buy the Ancestor.</p> + +<p>The Maples, as he knew, had ancestors of a sort. They had the +cattle dealer. They had his son, the worthy Georgian squire who had +sat for the county. Indeed, they had a portrait of him in his wig +extraordinarily badly done by an artist of the local town whom the +gentry patronised in those days.</p> + +<p>There were even other ancestors at Rackham, as ancestors go—for +ancestors in such houses do not mean <em>real</em> ancestors, but any +collaterals. One was a captain of Nelson’s in his uniform and the +other was a very rich lady whom that captain had had the good fortune +to marry after the wars. There was also a horrible dingy thing which +used to hang in the schoolroom, and which John could vaguely remember +someone having told him as a child was “your great-aunt Jane.”</p> + +<p>These had been good enough for Rackham. But they were not good enough +for Rackham Catchings, and Hilda Maple sailed forth in quest of +something more worthy. She set out on the uncharted sea to discover Sir +Harry Murtenshaw, Knight.</p> + +<p>She sought him, just in that place where Oxford Street merges into +Holborn, in a shop where she had had the good fortune to find many +things already: <span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>a shop belonging to a gentleman of Esthonian +extraction called Curzon; at any rate, this gentleman (who appeared +in person) had the selling of the goods, and, on this occasion, after +so many others sold to Aunt Hilda, of the Ancestor. And a very good +Ancestor he was. Aged in time, though newly cleaned, painted on canvas +which an expert would have ascribed to our own day, but set in the +proper kind of old frame and duly sooted, fumed, and with nothing to +give him away.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_068"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_068.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption><span class="large">The Ancestor</span><br><br> + Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight; by Holbein</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>He had a square, solid face, not unlike a pig’s, well pleased with +itself, and a square beard to match; and he was dressed in a period +which was either the very last days of Elizabeth or the very first days +of James: a man of about the same age as Shakespeare, but without his +genius. He cost Aunt Hilda surprisingly little, though surprisingly +more than he was worth. Whatever name he may have had in real life he +was now, for <em>her</em>, Sir Harry Murtenshaw, and she was always very +careful to explain that he was not a real Maple. Which was indeed the +case.</p> + +<p>He was, for <em>her</em>, the founder of the family in this sense; that +it was through his daughter, the heiress of Rackham, that the Maples +had come into the property: a touching piece of family history. It had +been a love match; and that was very touching too.</p> + +<p>Then, to the unconcealed annoyance of her nephew, she tacked a ghost +on to Sir Harry. At <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>first a vague ghost, it turned more precise +and became a young relative of the knight’s, who had died a romantic +political death.</p> + +<p>In a fine innocence upon the date of that eminent Hun, Hilda Maple +accepted the assurance that the portrait was by Holbein, and Sir Harry +Murtenshaw, bluff Englishman that he was, and stout supporter of the +Elizabethan (or Jacobean) settlement, was carried out by two assistants +of Mr. Curzon’s to be packed for delivery to Rackham Catchings. He was +heavy. He was large. He had to go out sideways. He travelled, finally, +upside down: but it in no way affected his imperturbable humour.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_070"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_070.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Progress of Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight, to his + ancestral home</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>John Maple had helped his aunt to choose the picture; had warned +her that Sir Harry was no ancestor of his, whatever he might be of +his aunt’s husband; had received the naturally sharp reply of that +lady to such a comment; and later, when the great founder of the +fortunes of Rackham was unwrapped, had helped to choose the part of +the panelling into which he was to be incongruously forced, frame +and all. He presided over the dining-room, as an ancestor should, +the new dining-room—which was also the old. For though it was the +new dining-room in Corton’s phrase, and in John Maple’s the sham +dining-room, everything had been done to make it the oldest dining-room +in Sussex. When Hilda Maple told her guests that the picture dated with +the room, and that the panelling built around it was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>its contemporary, +she was not strictly truthful. For whereas the panelling was of early +1918, Sir Harry (as I have established by deep research) was painted by +a starving Frenchman in Soho as long a time back as 1893.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, there he beamed over the Refectory table, the antique chairs +and all the caboodle, with virile if somewhat vacuous determination in +his contented eyes. It was men such as he, Aunt Hilda would explain to +her guests, who made us what we are. And God have mercy upon us all! +For we also are liars, my readers, yourselves not excepted.</p> + +<p>Pray let my reader remember this also (if I may so burden her memory) +that the Ancestor was but the last of Aunt Hilda’s purchases—and she +had outrun the constable.</p> + +<p>The gentleman of Esthonian extraction, Mr. Curzon, had let the +Ancestor go cheap—at thirty-seven times what he paid for him. But +he had sold Aunt Hilda valuable expert advice, panelling and chairs +as well, and tapestries which were not tapestries, and Jacobean +silver of the last few years (with Hall Marks let in) and Elizabethan +four-posters, Victorian on the carpenter’s side, and even bibelots +and fraudelquins; not to speak of <ins class="edit" id="tn-70" title="original text: 'franfreluches'">fanfreluches</ins> +and negligeables. And +for a long time past Mr. Curzon, the Esthonian, had not been selling +these to Aunt Hilda for cash, but for sundry promises of cash in time +to come. And these bore interest. For of such is the Kingdom <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>of the +Esthonians—or, at any rate, of the Curzon sort.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I have digressed. I have been misled by the contemplation of Sir Harry +Murtenshaw, Knight (from the brush of Holbein—with a Jacobean ruff and +trunk hose).</p> + +<p>Let me return to the adventures of John, and these shall be brief.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch04"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span> +<h2 id="ch04">CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p>John had started with his little nest egg of £352, but it would not +last for ever. He had had the wisdom to begin earning at once. He first +took chance jobs at writing for next to nothing. Then he helped a +friend to read proofs. Then he catalogued a library (extremely badly), +but at any rate with a good knowledge of French and German—which +was useful—at 30<abbr title="shillings">s.</abbr> a week. Then he put in a short time, through the +kindness of one of his father’s friends, as assistant to the agent of +an estate; but there he was paid no wages, the experience was held to +be a sufficient reward, so that could not last. Then he spent a rather +longer time, under an assumed name, in a curious little venture with a +chance acquaintance of his, a man of the stage who had a tiny capital; +it immediately dissipated in a cabaret show which failed. It was bad, +but it would have failed even sooner had it been better.</p> + +<p>At last, having earned in rather less than a year somewhat under two +hundred pounds and having spent at least two hundred and fifty, he put +in three splendid weeks at sea without wages, but lodged and fed and +gaining time to think things over. He had come across the poor owner +of a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>small, old and ill-found ketch which traded with odd cargoes in +and out of London River, pottering up the creeks of the East Coast, and +sometimes standing across for the Hook or Ostend. John had a way with +him, and persuaded this acquaintance to let him sign on for a round +voyage across the North Sea and home by the East Coast ports, picking +up chance ladings and making what she could for her owner: her Mate and +Captain sharing. He was to grub with those officers in the after-cabin, +under one of those many odd titles whereby they excuse a supernumerary +on board. His presence delighted neither. He found the Old Man surly +and the Mate hostile. Yet he enjoyed himself hugely; and there it +was—of all places in the world!—that he discovered his talent and his +earning power, for we each of us have a talent—a saleable talent, I +mean—and happy is the man who discovers his while he is yet young.</p> + +<p>The Mate and he were together in the cabin of that aged ketch during a +long wait outside Harwich for the tide. The Old Man was smoking on deck +watching for the turn. The Mate was more sour than ever that evening, +jealous of such a super-cargo, with his white hands and gentleman’s +accent. Yet it was the Mate who, there and then, brought John his good +fortune, as enemies often do. John Maple was standing by in the dark +corner of the little stuffy place, lit only by a swinging oil lamp, +with no sound but the dull plash of the shallow water outside, and in +his exasperation <span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>at something worse than usual which the Mate had just +grumbled at him, he muttered to himself a word not polite, but said +in such a low tone that he hoped it could provoke no quarrel. What it +did provoke in the Mate was an attitude quite unexpected. That worthy +looked up with a sudden startled air, and said in an awed tone, “What +was that? Didn’t you hear summat?” and with that he peered furtively +askance into the darkness.</p> + +<p>“What was that?” said John Maple, rather surlily, thinking he had been +challenged.</p> + +<p>“I ’eard a voice!” said the Mate in scared religious tones, and John, +looking at him, saw that he had gone quite white.</p> + +<p>Those of the Unseen Powers who were looking after John’s affairs shot +into his head the right thing to do, though he hardly knew why it was +the right thing to do. He turned his face round again slowly away from +the Mate, put his hand to his temple, to cover his features, and again +gave that slight muttering; to be correct, it was the word “Swine!”</p> + +<p>He heard something like a muffled shriek from the Mate:</p> + +<p>“There it goes again! It said ‘Mine,’” moaned the Mate, now glaring +wide-eyed at the darkest corner of the cabin, where the reflector of +the lamp threw a deep shadow behind its smoky light.</p> + +<p>“Whose? Eh? ’ose? Am I ’is? What’s ’ee mean?” The Mate may have been +drinking or <span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>may have knocked off, which is worse still for the nerves. +But there was no doubt as to his mistaking the direction of the slight +sound which had terrified him.</p> + +<p>John Maple had discovered in those five minutes how easy it was—for him +at least, or in the right surroundings—to ventriloquise.</p> + +<p>“I dursn’t hear it again,” whispered the Mate.</p> + +<p>John Maple could not refuse to oblige, and he obliged for the third +time. The Mate sprang up all tense and said, trembling, that he didn’t +like it.</p> + +<p>“What don’t you like?” said John Maple, pleasant and friendly, to show +that the quarrel was forgotten.</p> + +<p>“Voices,” said the Mate scratching the little swinging table with his +nails nervously. “Don’t you ’ear nothin’?”</p> + +<p>John Maple paused.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think I did,” he said slowly—which was true enough.</p> + +<p>It was the First Episode, and a very slight one. It had no immediate +sequel.</p> + +<p>On the return voyage (they carried bricks) John Maple was again +successful, not only in the cabin, but once at night on deck, when the +Mate and he had gone forward together; and again, when he had helped to +see whether there was any shifting in the hold (for a cargo of bricks +can work wonders if it shifts), the Mate heard voices. This time the +voices had something to say worth saying. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>They touched the Mate on +his immortal soul, the immediate perils of life, and advanced a strong +premonition of death. The Mate had fled up and aft, steadied himself +with a glass, and sworn at the end of the ordeal by all the gods below +London Bridge he would not sign on that vessel again.</p> + +<p>The Old Man was not superstitious. He had many of the qualities of +wood: not only its toughness, endurance and colour, but also its lack +of sensibility. John wondered whether this new-found talent would work +on the non-superstitious.</p> + +<p>Well, it had not that fine “first night” success which the Mate had +enjoyed; but it was beyond expectation all the same.</p> + +<p>The Old Man heard very clearly a voice from his own bunk. He was on +the other side of the cabin at the time, though, it is true, his +attention had been directed to the couch. The voice, far off, ghostly +in the darkness, reminded him of the day when he had so nearly drowned +(through no fault of his own, but rather of Islington port), and warned +him of approaching trials. Had the Old Man remembered to whom he had +lately recounted that drowning episode (the only adventure of his life) +he might have had suspicions. As it was, he had none, for he told the +story so often that he could not remember who last had heard it. All +he knew now was that a whisper from the other world—from A Spirit that +knew his past—had bidden him remember and beware. It affected him +damnably.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span></p> + +<p>His face did not go as white as the Mate’s had done, for it started +with a handicap of fixed mahogany, but it was changed when he looked +round at John and asked him, as the Mate had asked him, those few days +before, whether he had heard anything; and once more John truthfully +said he had. Then the Old Man asked him point-blank whether he +minded—as after all, he had done him the favour of taking him aboard, +and he was only a young chap—whether he minded sleeping in his, the +Captain’s, bunk that night, and giving him his own bunk. And John had +accepted with all the goodwill in the world. He even said it was an +honour.</p> + +<p>When John Maple landed from his short but memorable and very happy +cruise (for he had loved the sea, though it was his first experience +of it), he had no idea that there was a living in the talent he had +discovered—if talent it were. At first he only thought it amusing +that by suggesting to another person where a voice was likely to come +from, and then keeping one’s features still and talking within one’s +mouth, one could make the voice seem to come from out of nothingness. +Then when he tried it on with chance Bohemian friends in London he +found that not everybody could do it as well as he: and most of his +friends could not do it at all. Then came the day when Percy Spegel +(so he chose to spell his name for the moment), hearing him practising +the trick during a little supper at the <i>Lord Milner</i> in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>Puffin +Lane, watched him with fixed eyes, wherein any expert demon might +have discovered avarice, tenacity, fraud, and other varied characters +consonant with his enormous tie-pin.</p> + +<p>Percy Spegel appealed to his constant parasite, whether John Maple had +not a marvellous talent? To which the parasite agreed. Whether it was +not a pity that such talent should be wholly untrained? To which the +parasite also agreed. Whether it would not be a dreadfully expensive +thing to train that talent? To which the parasite abundantly agreed. +Whether he would not probably be a loser if he attempted to put John +Maple on the Halls? To which the parasite said, he certainly would be. +Whether one was not foolish, out of mere enthusiasm, to risk such loss? +Which the parasite said was only what one would expect of a good fellow +like Percy.</p> + +<p>The upshot of it was that John Maple found himself prepared to sign a +contract of a sort he had never seen before, but familiar enough to +those who live and die by the Halls, wherein he was to earn nothing for +so long—a short period enough—and after that what looked like a very +large sum every week.</p> + +<p>John Maple knew nothing of what the out-goings of this profession are, +or of its temptations. He very luckily accepted, and that was why his +first steady employment—about a year after his return to England from +his father’s death-bed—was in the singular capacity of Lieutenant +Allegri, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>the world-famed ventriloquist. But such is the gulf between +the two worlds that no one among the rich whom he saw at his leisure +had an idea of the escapade; and no one among the Bohemians had an +idea of his acquaintance with the rich. He had fewer nights in which +he could go out, but he did go out sufficiently. He kept his contract +free; he would not be bullied: and he was so good that he could make +his own terms and times.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_078"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_078.jpg" alt="seated on stage with two hand puppets"> + <figcaption>John Maple as Lieutenant Allegri</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The truth is, that if John Maple had been what young men of family in +this situation never are, and that is, devoted to his one talent, he +might have become rich. There are small fortunes made in these things. +He might have bought back Rackham after God knows how many years, if he +had cut himself right away from everything but slaving, and forgotten +every name but his own false one on the Halls.</p> + +<p>It was after a very short time as Lieutenant Allegri that he bought for +his own pleasure a couple of dogs and trained them to do tricks. Then +he had added to their number and taught them more tricks. Then (since +he now knew the trade) he determined to change over, and in spite of +Spegel’s passionate appeals to heaven, he convinced that expert, who +knew human nature if he knew nothing else, that he must take his choice +between losing his own profit, which was considerable, or accepting +John Maple in the future as <span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>Don Herado de Madero and his Troupe of +Performing Dogs.</p> + +<p>It was not as good as the ventriloquist show, but it drew better, for +the public is fond of dogs, and Spegel had put it about that it was all +done by kindness, not to say coddling: and the little brutes certainly +looked very happy as they ran about wagging their tails and doing +things which proved them wholly indifferent to pomposity. They barked +also, most winningly, to order, and grinned in the most endearing +fashion.</p> + +<p>There, then, was John Maple’s singular situation at the moment when, +in that other life of his, he and Bo had met and made certain one of +the other. He had told her secretly of his profession; and he had given +her useful tips about Lovey-Lad, for he had become an expert upon dogs. +That Lovey-Lad had recognised in him a mysterious Master of Hounds +raised him enormously in Bo’s eyes. It is to be believed that one of +Don Herado’s troupe met Lovey-Lad in the park and had loyally exalted +the powers of his lord. For certainly John was the only male human +being to whom Lovey-Lad deferred; and Lovey-Lad was the only being on +earth whose opinion Bo respected.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>But why had Aunt Hilda taken all this enormous trouble about the +Catchings? Why the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>new beam let into the ceiling, adzed, blackened +and chipped and dated 1487? Why the Ancestor? Why the panelling? Why +the antique chairs? Why the heraldic animals? Why anything? Why, why +the new family ghost? It’s true <em>that</em> cost nothing, but the more +solid stuff cost a great deal. Why all this expenditure?</p> + +<p>Had John Maple known more of the world, and wholly lost his innocence, +he could have answered, as you and I can answer, that there are only +two explanations of such feverish changes, when an old house is pulled +about and made vulgar. Either the Vandal has more money to spend than +she knows what to do with, or the Goth is embarrassed. Either the +barbaric hand is filled with the ruining gold, or the savage heart is +tortured by perpetual demands for payment from creditors and is salting +for a sale.</p> + +<p>Either Aunt Hilda was spending money wantonly, or she was desperate for +money.</p> + +<p>Well, it was the latter. Aunt Hilda was up to the neck in worry. She +didn’t know which way to turn.</p> + +<p>When people change and rechange, and pull down and destroy and +theatricalise, you can tell which of the two motives is at work by a +simple test. If they act spasmodically, first putting this up and then +taking it down, changing an ornament from one place to another, pulling +out a wall and then regretting it and putting it back, they have too +much money. If they pursue one plan, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>continuously, and load it with +detail they are fighting debt.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda was fighting debt.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda was making a new Rackham and a new Catchings for the sake +of some purchaser heaven might send her. For Aunt Hilda must find a +purchaser or burst. And that was the truth.</p> + +<p>William Maple, that careful business man, had left things in order +when he died. He had added appreciably to the value of the house and +the estate. He had allowed his wife to cover the brick part of the +front with a false veneer of half-timber because that at least gave it +uniformity with the older part; and he had allowed the new fake to be +toned down artificially so as to marry with the old. That also seemed +reasonable. More he had not allowed. But Hilda Maple, even before his +death, was already talking to her occasional guests about the antiquity +of the place, and what wonders would be revealed when all the old wood +could be uncovered and the later work which hid it could be taken away.</p> + +<p>Her husband had not been dead two months when, in spite of all the +difficulties in getting work done during those last days of the war, +Aunt Hilda lashed out. Even then—my reader will remember, if she is +old enough—people with a pull could get things done. It was the moment +when one of the most luxurious of the new houses near the south coast +in Kent was being built by a politician. The difficulties of life were +not with the rich in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>those spring days of 1918, and though Hilda +Maple was not in the heart of that old gentry which had once governed +England, she was already close in touch with some of the new vulgarians +who were now beginning to govern England. Her friendship with Amathea +de Beaurivage alone was enough to get her the necessary labour. It was +enormously expensive, of course, but she was full of her new fortune, +and she began to tear down the structure of the house within, and to +ornament, and to build.</p> + +<p>At the same time she did another thing, not unusual in women suddenly +possessed of capital, still less unusual in times when all values are +jumping up and down like the little ball in the circle of the roulette. +She gambled.</p> + +<p>But Hilda Maple, like thousands of others in those days, was gambling +against the politicians, the peace-makers, the bankers, and the +international spouters of the millennium. They could see what was in +the game, for they held and stacked the cards. She—and the thousands of +others—could only see the backs of those cards.</p> + +<p>There had come a moment—and that in a few months—when all was lost and +she had nothing to fall back on but Rackham itself, and Rackham she +must sell. Perhaps when she had spoken to her dying brother-in-law she +had honestly intended not to sell; but necessity knows no law, and she +excused herself to herself by the memory of what she had told him; that +she had a legal <span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>right to sell. But the selling of a house, like the +selling of a boat or the selling of one’s own soul, depends on external +effects. We “go on our clothes,” as a great American Leader of Modern +Thought has said. A boat sells on its paint and its brasswork. A house +sells by what furniture and faked wood and “period” front it can show.</p> + +<p>Rackham might barely fetch its £20,000, for its own true worth; but let +it become Rackham Catchings and be varnished and vulgarised enough (not +that Hilda Maple thought it vulgarised—she thought it vastly ennobled) +and there was no knowing what it might fetch—especially from the right +kind of purchaser in these extraordinary times, when men stepped out +of the gutter on New Year’s Day and were in the House of Lords before +Christmas.</p> + +<p>Therefore it was that Aunt Hilda had gone on building, pulling down, +ageing new wood, owing increasing sums for expert advice and goods from +the antique dealers, and in general playing the devil with Rackham.</p> + +<p>She had got the house into the illustrated papers three times already; +first under “Our Elizabethan Heritage”; then under “The Quiet Homes of +England,” and then under “Minor Great English Houses, No. 51: Rackham.” +She herself had haggled a little over the “Minor.” But there she was +wrong; they ought to have haggled over the “Great.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda was not without commercial sense. She had on the occasion +of the last photographing purchased two peacocks and chivvied them on +to the lawn before the people from London snapped the front. She had +even borrowed from one of her few really important friends an enormous +photograph of a Royalty, in a vast silver frame leaning backwards, +which she draped and propped up on a little table, to go nicely into +the picture of the boudoir—little knowing that the word boudoir had +long sunk out of use. But if it comes to that, each of us is out of +fashion to others. Our English society has divided into something like +those moving ways at the old Paris Exhibition of 1889: one stream is +moving at one pace, one at another; and there still survive gentlefolk +who say “napkin,” side by side with those masters of our modern world +who say “serviette.”</p> + +<p>Let me leave the boudoir and the photographs and all the rest of it and +get back to the Debt.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda was embarrassed. Damnably! Hence the purchases in London; +hence the antiques; hence the Ancestor. That activity of hers which +had intrigued poor John Maple was plain enough. He would have been +less angry with his aunt had he known the causes of her perpetual +extravagances.</p> + +<p>If you desire to know the amount of Aunt Hilda’s embarrassment, I can +tell it you simply enough. It was, at the moment when she was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>adding +her last efforts to Rackham, £17,000—and a little more. She had the +cunning common to those who lose money—and make it. She picked up ideas +on sharp dealing by listening to conversation around her. She had +learnt the tricks of the share-shufflers. Therefore she had continued +recklessly. Money was never made to-day by work or saving. The bigger +the overdrafts the better, and loans raised in Jermyn Street were +quicker and handier than mortgages. She would make Rackham Catchings +glorious in the eyes of possible purchasers—Jew, +<ins class="edit" id="tn-86" title="original text: 'Rastaqouère'">Rastaquouère</ins>, new War +Lord, Yankee millionaire—anybody. Then she could sell it, untrammelled, +for three times its worth and five times what she had spent on it. The +money-lenders would get back their loans and interest. There would +still be a large balance over, and with that balance she could buy +herself a sufficient annuity to live the life she desired. But she must +act quickly. Interest mounted up and heavy pressure had begun.</p> + +<p>It is unfortunately true that men pursuing various trades will conceal +their activities under various names. The Esthonian gentleman, Mr. +Curzon, who had sold Aunt Hilda her Ancestor and so much more, had +already (as plain Charles Blunt of Bristol) advanced her money on note +of hand, and as Mr. de Vere of Jermyn Street advanced her more money +to satisfy the clamourings of plain Charles Blunt. Now Mr. de Vere of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>Jermyn Street was beginning to press. But she would sell Rackham and +all would be well.</p> + +<p>Such is the heart of woman that she told herself all this was quite +fair to John. He would be her heir—the fact that she would have nothing +to leave him did not alter that. She had made him an honourable offer +to send him to Oxford, and he had refused. She was perpetually asking +him down to Rackham, and wasn’t that kind of her? Indeed, he did not +come half enough. Well, perhaps John was too proud. She respected him +for that. It was the Maple blood—Aunt Hilda by this time had come to +believe that she herself was a Maple.</p> + +<p>So there it was. Aunt Hilda with the hot breath of the pursuer on her +neck; John hating these insane renovations and gewgaws; the purchasers +advancing with open mouths and simple smiles.</p> + +<p>For purchasers Aunt Hilda had—or believed she had. And in these her +faith held fast.</p> + +<p>I have told how dear a friend she had become of Amathea Lady Mere +de Beaurivage, and of her husband, late Sir George Huggins; and now +there was something even warmer in her heart (and certainly something +warmer in his) for that first-rate man of business, Lord Hellup. To +neither, she believed, would Rackham be indifferent now that it had the +Catchings. And as competition is the soul of commerce, she hoped for +sixty—she made certain of fifty—thousand pounds, from the one or from +the other. Even fifty thousand, for <span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>what was, at the most, a twenty +thousand pound proposition, was Good Business.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Meanwhile John Maple was pegging away, irregularly but lucratively, +with the performing dogs for a livelihood, and with an increasing +circle of rich friends for a life.</p> + +<p>He had three names. He was John Maple in that world of the people who +do nothing and have pale love affairs and go their weary round of +the Riviera and the Country Houses and all know each other by their +Christian names. He was Don Herado de Madero on the Halls. He was +Henry Pelton—a name like any other—for his Bohemian world, including +Spegel. One might have thought that it would be worth Spegel’s while +to track him down and find what he did in the big gaps which he left +in his engagements; and so it would have been worth Spegel’s while. +Later on there might have been blackmail, and blackmail is a staple +of the Spegels. Yet Spegel did not take the trouble, simply because +he accepted too facile an explanation of John Maple’s absences and +disappearances.</p> + +<p>His judgment was that the Pelton whom he knew, the Herado de Madero of +the Dogs, suffered from quite incurable drinking bouts. His experience +of quite incurable drinking bouts—it was extensive, for it covered +about half the people <span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>he had exploited in his wicked little life—was +that they must be left alone. So when Don Herado (or Pelton) told +him that the dogs would not appear next week; that he must cut out +next Friday; or that Saturday and Monday were washed, Spegel made all +his arrangements accordingly. For Pelton was a great asset, however +irregular. Old ladies who still vote Tory will tell me, no doubt, that +John Maple was thus necessary on the Halls at his own terms because +“blood tells”—the blood of the original cattle-dealer and smith. Their +twin brethren who make money as Labour leaders in the House of Commons +will say, on the platform at least, that John Maple was privileged and +favoured because he had gentle blood—the blood, again, of the smith and +cattle-dealer. But I say that he could do what he liked, cut out days, +shift engagements and live in two worlds because he had talent, and +because on the top of that he was determined to have his own way. Also +because Spegel only cared for money, and because people who only care +for money will give any amount of rope to those whose genius they can +tap.</p> + +<p>Here, then, was John Maple these few years after the war, making good +in his curious way; earning much more than he spent, leading two lives, +proud, and possessing already a solid balance at the bank, firmly +affianced in soul to a great heiress who had as firmly affianced him, +and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>neither of the children really appreciating where money came into +such affairs.</p> + +<p>In John Maple’s mind, more prominent even than Bo, stood dominating and +overwhelming a figure—the figure of Twenty Thousand Pounds—the Lump +that would redeem Rackham. In the mind of Bo there stood John Maple. +Anyone might have told these two children that all was at sixes and +sevens with their lives. On which account, the wise, might foretell +that these two lovers would win, and that the enormous incongruities of +their lives would be triumphantly reconciled.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch05"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span> +<h2 id="ch05">CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p>At this very unfinished phase in John Maple’s affairs, with none of the +slats joined and no apparent possibility of making things fit in, but +with a very successful prospect in the only thing that matters to a boy +of his age, and a double talent and the chance of using it, there came +yet another of those invitations to Aunt Hilda’s. He had been there +quite often enough at week-ends during the last year, and it had been +impossible to hide from her that he was earning his living in some +obscure fashion upon the minor stage. Though no one else in her world +knew it. She had shuddered, and refused to hear any details. He would +get over this craze of independence, and anyhow, he was her nephew, and +he knew everybody and he could behave himself.</p> + +<p>She told him to come down on the Friday if he could. He let Spegel +know his wish, for Spegel needed him more than he needed Spegel. So +he made it the Friday. But first he appointed to meet Bo and talk it +over, because he had been told that Lord Hellup was going to Rackham +Catchings.</p> + +<p>They met in her club, where they might talk in peace.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span></p> + +<p>“Bo, you’re going down with your father to Rackham again, and this time +I’m to be there.”</p> + +<p>“Sure,” said Bo, stroking Lovey-Lad’s head with an intense affection +and gazing into his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Did they tell you?”</p> + +<p>“Yup,” said the beautiful girl.</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you tell me?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t see you; didn’t want to; didn’t have to,” was the sufficient +reply.</p> + +<p>“I’m not complaining; only you see, I should have been startled if I +had got to Rackham and found you there and not known.”</p> + +<p>“I was looking for that startle,” said Bo.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said John, rather masterfully, “but you’ve got to think of me. +She doesn’t know that I know you or your father.”</p> + +<p>“She will,” said Bo simply. “He tells her everything.”</p> + +<p>“I go the day before you,” said John.</p> + +<p>She nodded. He pulled his aunt’s letter out of his pocket.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Bo, who’s this other person—this Amathea she speaks of? +D’you know her?”</p> + +<p>“Nix,” said the young lady simply.</p> + +<p>“Same here,” answered her lover.</p> + +<p>“We pass,” Bo concluded, and sighed.</p> + +<p>“Well, she’s to be there, and her husband—God knows who. And there’s +Lord Hambourne—I think that’s all. I know all about <em>him</em>. He was +the psychology expert during the war. He’s a don at Oxford.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span></p> + +<p>Bo put both her elbows on the table, in the corner where they sat +apart, framed her large face in her hands, and gazed largely on her +lover. Then recollection came into her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Amathea?” she said. “That’s old Mother Bruvvish.”</p> + +<p>“What?” answered John. “Do you mean to tell me that Aunt Hilda has +fallen to that?”</p> + +<p>Bo nodded.</p> + +<p>“That’s her,” she said. “I remember now. She’s the only Amathea in +London. She’s gotten a sausage neck.”</p> + +<p>“What on earth makes it worth their while to go to Rackham for?” said +he.</p> + +<p>“They’re hunting,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Who’s hunting?”</p> + +<p>“Mother Bruvvish and Pop are: both hunting.”</p> + +<p>“Hunting what?” asked John, a little startled. “Not Aunt Hilda?”</p> + +<p>Bo’s mouth became more quizzical.</p> + +<p>“One of them is,” she said, “but they’re both hunting. Leastways, one’s +fishing.”</p> + +<p>“Fishing for what?” said John Maple again, a little tired.</p> + +<p>“Fishing for Rackham, that’s Amathea,” said Bo, dropping her voice and +leaning backwards.</p> + +<p>“Good God!” said John.</p> + +<p>“You’re right,” said Bo. “Appeal to Him. Call on Him. He might hear.”</p> + +<p>John’s face was crossed by a look of pain, and Bo responded at once.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span></p> + +<p>“It’s up to you, Dog-Man,” she said.</p> + +<p>“What’s up to me?” asked the Dog-Man.</p> + +<p>“The bluff,” said Bo, nodding. “It’s not a mammoth bluff, neither.”</p> + +<p>“What bluff?” said John.</p> + +<p>Bo grew impatient.</p> + +<p>“Why, you cough in with your third offer,” she said. “You know you’re +famished for the place.”</p> + +<p>“Bo,” said John, too seriously, and almost tragically, “I had meant to +save every penny, to work myself old, and then to go to Aunt Hilda with +the money. When you tell me that your father and Old Huggins are after +it....”</p> + +<p>Bo held up her finger.</p> + +<p>“Get it right, boy,” she said. “Pop’s not crazy for the house, but +he’ll be guided. D’you get me?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said John Maple bluntly, “I don’t.”</p> + +<p>Bo sighed at the obtuseness of men: but it was a safeguard (she +thought) all the same, so she went on patiently and contentedly:</p> + +<p>“The Proud Dame of Rackham can obtain of the Baron, my father, what +boon she craves, fond youth. He’d refuse her nothing, wouldn’t Pop. +Wait till you see him with her. ’Sides which, he’s told me.”</p> + +<p>“Good God!” said John again, but more emphatically and with troubled +wonder.</p> + +<p>“Don’t pray too much the same,” commented the Damsel, “it takes the pep +out.” And she looked at him benignly and in quiet triumph.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span></p> + +<p>John’s head whirled. Things were coming altogether too quickly. And how +could Bo already know such things when he, the son of the house, had +noticed nothing? It offended his pride.</p> + +<p>But if John were wise he would rejoice to learn so early in life what +most men learn too late: that women know the secret workings of the +mind; that men do not; that women are the informants of men, and that +the wisest men are those who learn through women.</p> + +<p>“And what does Aunt Hilda say about it?” was John’s next question when +he had recovered from his shock.</p> + +<p>“Not much yet,” said Bo. “Pop’s shy. He’s not said anything. But +he will, and if he finds that buying the place at her price is a +persuasive, why, he won’t look twice at her figure; I mean her demand, +her estimate. Though I guess it’s hell-high.”</p> + +<p>A cataract of consequences was pouring before John Maple’s mind. +Aunt Hilda as a mother-in-law was a formidable prospect. But then—a +consoling recollection—Bo could stand up to six mothers-in-law of +her weight.... But if Lord Hellup nourished such plans of belated +re-mating, that would mean his living at Rackham.... No.... Perhaps +Aunt Hilda would angle for the money first—and get it. Even so Lord +Hellup was in the market, and how could he, John, compete with a man so +wealthy and in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>such a mood? If the other millionaire was after it the +thing was hopeless.</p> + +<p>“You’re sure the Huggins’ are after it, Bo?” he said at length.</p> + +<p>“<em>She</em> is. Lady Mere de Beaurivage is—Amathea is. She doesn’t hide +it. She’s talked of it all around. That’s how Aunt Hilda knows.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” said poor John, “it’s all up. The price will go to +anything if they’re both after it, and I’m down and out,” and he leant +back in despair.</p> + +<p>Bo smiled at him serenely.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got to be after it too,” she said. “Name your price.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean ...” John began incredulously, with a rising anger in him, +“that you are offering me...?” He remembered—for the first time in +weeks—the fortune her mother had left her.</p> + +<p>“Nope,” answered Bo imperturbably. “I’m not offering any damn thing. +You’re offering, Jacko.”</p> + +<p>“But I’ve nothing,” said John.</p> + +<p>Bo sighed wearily.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell the world,” she said, “that you’re Dumb Dora’s little +brother. Books buy before they sell. But this dazzling boy sells before +he buys. Leastways, Isabeau Hellup does. Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” said John.</p> + +<p>“So?” cooed Bo sympathetically. “Well, now, catch this: Buy with the +money you’ve got, if <span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>you’ve got it, and you have to do without your +money. But buy <em>without</em> money, and there’s no expense at all. All +good. D’ye get me? What’s the Catchings worth?”</p> + +<p>“For heaven’s sake, Bo,” he exploded, “don’t call Rackham ‘the +Catchings!’... I don’t know what Rackham’s worth now they’ve spoilt +it, and I don’t care. I shall pay twenty thousand when I’ve got twenty +thousand; that’s the very most conceivable that anyone can say I owe +Aunt Hilda—or rather my Uncle William, her dead husband—and I’ve a +right to Rackham for ever when I’ve paid that back. I’ll pay that, and +not a penny more—when I’ve got it.... God knows when—but when I’ve got +it....”</p> + +<p>“You’ve got it now, boy,” said Bo.</p> + +<p>“You mean...?” said John, frowning, suspicious again that she was +hinting at helping him.</p> + +<p>“Naw, I don’t. I don’t mean me and I don’t mean Pop. I mean that any +man that got Rackham Catchings—beg pardon, Rackham—for £20,000, has +got all that and perhaps £10,000 more, perhaps another twenty more +thousand. Got it in his lill’ wallet.” And then did Bo with hereditary +talent explain to this child of an English squire how purchase is made +without money, and how in the modern world we buy not with what we +have but with the folly or the error or the precipitation of others. +If he got his aunt to accept £20,000 for the house in Sussex, and if +the option was firm, and in writing, not even the caution <span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>of the most +cautious lawyer would boggle at finding the £20,000 for him on such +security.</p> + +<p>“But she won’t fall for it,” went on Bo, shaking her head. “We’re +all fools, and Aunt Hilda’s a large one; but not that out-size. No, +<em>boy</em>! That kind’s got to be made to contract.”</p> + +<p>John saw daylight.</p> + +<p>“I shall offer Aunt Hilda £20,000,” he said firmly, “and somehow or +other I’ll see that she gets it—and not a penny more. And I’ll see that +I get Rackham when that’s done.”</p> + +<p>“Bold Babe,” said Bo gently. “Don’t I wish I could bite off a bit of +the under-write!”</p> + +<p>But John knew nothing of such jargon.</p> + +<p>Then did that businesslike young person get up without a word, go +across to the writing-table and come back with a wad of large blank +paper, an ink-pot and a pen.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t headed,” she said—she thought of everything. Then she began +to write and murmured the words for his enlightenment.</p> + +<p class="right p2">“<span class="smcap">The Hotel Splendide.</span></p> + +<p>“That’s where you’re writing from, Jacko. You’re getting on.</p> + +<p class="noindent">‘<span class="smcap">Dear Aunt Hilda</span>,</p> + +<p>‘We have often spoken of this matter and I am afraid it wounds +you....’ (It does wound her, doesn’t it, Jacko? Poor old thing +then!) ‘I’m afraid it wounds you. But you know my own feeling +and I cannot be silent further upon the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>matter. That is why I +write this. I want to get it down in black-and-white. You know, +when I first offered you £20,000 for Rackham you only laughed +at me.’ She did, didn’t she, Dog-Man?”</p> + +<p>“I should rather have called it Scorn than laughter,” said the +Master of six Hounds. “Hot, withering scorn. She said I hadn’t +got twenty-thousand pence.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a lie, anyway,” answered Bo. “Why, the ring you gave +me was worth more’n that.” She made a rapid calculation of the +pounds in twenty thousand pence on the blotter and then shook +her head. “No, not a quarter. Anyway, you’re worth more than +twenty thousand pence, Jacko?”</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“But no £20,000 yet awhile. No matter. On with the dance. Let +joy be unconfined,” and she continued writing.</p> + +<p>“‘I now make you a firm offer of £20,000 for Rackham. Ten +per cent. on acceptance, the balance on completion; or +alternatively an immediate three months’ bill for same on +signing enclosed.</p> + +<p class="right">“‘<ins class="edit" id="tn-99" title="original text: 'Your affectionate'">Your affectionate</ins> nephew.’”</p> + +<p class="p2">She looked up triumphantly.</p> + +<p>“That’s what’s called the Covering Letter, Jacko.”</p> + +<p>John Maple gazed at her in awe.</p> + +<p>“At your age!” he said.</p> + +<p>“It’s all straight, Jacko. I got it out of a book—oh,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span> I forgot—” and +she wrote the word “Enclosure” on the top left-hand corner of the +document, “and it’s best,” she added, “to get a little star of red +paper, gummed, with the word ‘Enclosure’ and stick it outside the +envelope. They all do it.”</p> + +<p>John Maple’s awe increased.</p> + +<p>“Now for that enclosure, Jacko. Oh! It’s dead easy!”</p> + +<p>She wrote on another sheet, again murmuring her words:</p> + +<p class="noindent">“<span class="smcap">My Dear John</span>,</p> + +<p>“I have your letter. After full consideration of your offer of +£20,000 for Rackham I have decided to accept it and hereby do +so.</p> + +<p class="right">“Your affectionate Aunt.”</p> + +<p class="p2">“Then, Jacko, she shall sign on the dotted line.”</p> + +<p>“Bo,” said John Maple honestly, “I’m frightened of you.”</p> + +<p>“Which is as should be. Now, Jacko, you take these papers, and when you +get out go straight down and get ’em in triplicate and mail the top +copy to Aunt Hilda—with the enclosure. Keep the two others. She’ll get +that letter and that enclosure before you reach there. She’ll get it +first <ins class="edit" id="tn-100" title="original text: 'mail tomorrow'">mail to-morrow</ins>—and then you can take her first reactions. It’s +always useful. We come in the next day; and then the plot thickens. +Will you obey, Dog-Man?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said John Maple in a whirl, “I’ll do what I’m told, but why +should Aunt Hilda accept?—with all that other money before her?”</p> + +<p>Isabeau Hellup leant back in her chair gazing away from the papers +before her through the club window at the park with folded hands. Her +face had changed and taken on religion.</p> + +<p>“I hope the Almighty won’t be hard on me,” she sighed. “Rackham’s yours +morally, isn’t it, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered John Maple doggedly.</p> + +<p>“Then I guess I’m doing right—we’re doing right, I mean.... You +remember when you told me you’d acted the ventriloquist? You remember +how you made the chimney talk that night at the Bakehams’?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said John.</p> + +<p>Bo leant forward and spoke in a lower voice.</p> + +<p>“You remember Aunt Hilda wanting a ghost at Rackham, and how you told +me and how angry you were? This winter? Just after you’d left her?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said John, “I can’t bear to think of it.”</p> + +<p>Bo lowered her voice almost to a whisper.</p> + +<p>“<em>We’ll haunt ’em!</em>” she said to him. “We’ll haunt ’em good and +hard—and <em>then</em>, Jacko,” she leant back again with a conquering +smile on her face, “<em>then</em> Rackham’s yours for the asking.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You will,” she nodded.</p> + +<p>She looked at the watch on her wrist, which <span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>was of a most +extraordinary shape, six-sided and set round with an enormous number +of very small diamonds; its dial also was far too small. She rose with +abruptness and tugged Lovey-Lad to his feet. They went out together.</p> + +<p>“Well, Jacko,” she said by way of delicate leavetaking in the street, +“we meet again in the Khyber Pass.” It was a phrase she had learned +from a book. She did not know that it dated. And off she sailed.</p> + +<p>As for John Maple, he did just what he was told. He went to the +Splendide. He begged a wad of their paper. He dictated both documents +to the goddess of that roof who transcribes upon her typewriter the +correspondence of guests. He signed the letter and posted it with its +enclosure to Aunt Hilda. That was the Thursday. On the morrow afternoon +he was due to go down to Sussex. But Aunt Hilda would already have had +his letter before he came. She would get it by the first post.</p> + +<p>He would have time “to take her reactions” before the morrow should +bring the three lords, the two millionaires and the light of his own +eyes to what he was more than ever determined should be their home.</p> + +<p>Of Lord Hambourne John did know something, for one of his boyhood’s +English friends whom he had made in Switzerland and who had gone to +Oriel was always laughing at him. It seemed that they called him +“Hambone”—not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>a very subtle jest, but sufficient for a victim of that +calibre. It also seemed that they did not like him. They thought he +was a cad. They thought he spied upon them. His stammer they forgave, +for that went with his profession. But what they did not forgive +were sundry paragraphs in the Yellow Press of London concerning the +university, which came—as they had got to know in a round-about +manner—from that distinguished professor. They were not fond of his +charlatanism either. There is charlatanism and charlatanism; and a +Professorship of Psychology was more than the ingenuous undergraduate +soul could stomach. The youth of Oxford suspected that it was +impossible to profess Psychology—it was enormously right. They did not +know that even in that department of humbug Lord Hambourne had not read +a tithe of what his continental colleagues would have read. But they +had a vague feeling that there was something wrong. And there was: as +there is with the history, the philosophy, and a good many other things +connected with that ancient seat of learning.</p> + +<p>He puzzled a little over why Aunt Hilda should have asked so poor a +man for that decisive week-end. But Bo could have told him. Aunt Hilda +had two reasons. First, a lord was a lord, and lords more lordly are +not easily lured to such houses as Rackham. Next, Lord Hambourne had +lineage—of a sort—and the other lords would be impressed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span></p> + +<p>And who was Lord Mere de Beaurivage? John Maple, in the ignorance and +folly of youth, had jumped—as youth in its ignorance and folly does +jump—to absurd conclusions. He had got his distorted picture from the +conversations of others almost as young as himself. How different +it was from the truth my reader shall soon learn. John had a vulgar +foolish caricature in his mind of innumerable new peers shamelessly +forcing themselves into their rank by bribery during the end of +the war. There are none such. It is an illusion. John saw, in that +imaginary host of vulgarians one vulgarian in no way distinguished from +the rest called “Old Bruvvish.” He was wildly wrong. George, First +Baron Mere de Beaurivage (pronounced “Bruvvish”) was unique.</p> + +<p>John had heard just enough gossip to have told you that remarkable +man’s family name before his elevation to the peerage, or barony—if you +will. It was, as we have heard, Huggins. No doubt John Maple, proud of +his three or four generations of declining squire’s wealth (himself, +remember, sprung from the cattle-dealer) would have sneered at the +origins of George Adolphus Huggins, First Baron Mere de Beaurivage—and +that, I think, is a very good example of how little men know themselves +and their antecedents. For George Adolphus Huggins, as my reader will +learn in a moment, well merited the great position which he had taken +step by step with a few <span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>hundreds of others in the social leadership of +Britain.</p> + +<p>From first feeling of Rackham as an ideal Lady de Beaurivage had come +to dwell on it as it was in real bricks and timber. She heard rumours +that Hilda might conceivably sell—but Hilda had seen that those rumours +should be mixed with accounts of her passionate attachments to the +place and her reluctance to leave it. And Hilda had heard rumours +that Amathea was in the market. She had not laboured in vain—but time +pressed.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, John was in for it. He was to go down to Rackham that week-end, +and he was to meet with what I suppose I may call, for the purposes of +my narrative, The Three Peers.</p> + +<p>(They were all Barons, by the way. Since the American invasion even +English gentlemen have begun to distinguish between Barons, Earls, +Viscounts and Marquesses. They always did distinguish Dukes: but to +return to my black sheep.)</p> + +<p>The Three Peers ... Lord Hellup was, after all, Bo’s father, and what’s +more, he had snap. John both admired and got on with him—in spite of +too much quotation from Motley’s <cite>Dutch Republic</cite>, which that +well-read man perpetually carried in his pocket in a cheap edition, now +one volume, now another, feasting his mind upon the heroic conduct of +commercial men in their resistance to mere soldiers.</p> + +<p>Lord Hambourne he knew all about at secondhand. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>Lord Mere de +Beaurivage, as I have said, he misjudged. But after all, the boy was +less to blame than those who had taught him this disrespectful way of +regarding so great a man.</p> + +<p>Well, he would play up to them all.</p> + +<p>But it is time that I dissipated in my reader’s mind John’s +misapprehension of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, and, if she will excuse me, +I will now proceed to give her a true estimate of that considerable +English peer.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch06"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span> +<h2 id="ch06">CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p>George Adolphus Huggins was born in a small street off the Old Kent +Road early in the 60’s of the last century. His first introduction +to commercial life was made at the age of twelve as assistant to his +father Jack, or, as one tradition has it, Jim Huggins, who sold fruit +and vegetables from a barrow in that neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>Upon the early demise of both his parents young Mr. Huggins took over +the business, which remained undeveloped to close upon his fortieth +year. Long before that he had married Matilda, or, as she was later +called, Amathea, the daughter of another gentleman and lady in the same +branch of commerce: a strong, full-bodied, upstanding young woman of +whom he was very proud, and whose advice in all matters not connected +with barter and exchange he was ready to follow. They were contented +enough with their lot, suffered no more than the average number of +conflicts with their neighbours, and but rarely allowed these to +develop into physical violence.</p> + +<p>So late, therefore, as the beginning of King Edward’s reign there was +nothing to distinguish the genius of George Adolphus Huggins. He seemed +to be but one costermonger among so <span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>many in the great business life +of London. But shortly after the end of the Boer War and King Edward’s +Coronation appeared those manifestations of the exceptional power which +is latent in every great man, and is bound to express itself at last, +however tardily.</p> + +<p>Mr. Huggins, having been chosen for unpaid secretary of a Goose Club +which enjoyed a large membership, found himself in the decline of the +year 1902 possessed of a very considerable capital in trust. Indeed, +it was far more than all his own stock-in-trade was worth, and it is +a great tribute to his sterling qualities that he should have been +entrusted thus by his neighbours with so responsible a task.</p> + +<p>Rightly judging that it was imprudent to keep so much money loose, he +took the advice of a friend somewhat superior in social position, a +pawnbroker from Kipling Street (late Nelson Street), and through his +introduction deposited the money in a bank until that expenditure or +division among the members of the club—known in the Old Kent Road as +“shareout”—should fall due at Christmas.</p> + +<p>At this point took place an episode on which I have found it very +difficult to get exact information, for there are contradictory +versions.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that the account at the bank had been opened in the +joint names of Mr. Huggins himself and his friend, Mr. Lawson, the +pawnbroker of the neighbourhood. Mr. Lawson <span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>for many years complained +in his own circle that he had been defrauded, nor did the complaints +cease until some arrangement was made by the lawyers of Sir George +Huggins (as he had then become) long after the date of the transaction +I am about to describe. We have Mr. Lawson’s own vigorous and repeated +statement that it was by his advice the speculation was made, as how +could that poor fellow Huggins have known anything about it? While he, +Lawson, had had the tip straight from his cousin, who was clerk in a +broker’s office and had obtained early inside information upon the +approaching amalgamation of Paley’s Brewery with Gatton’s.</p> + +<p>Lord Mere de Beaurivage never spoke of the incident, to my knowledge, +save, of course, in privacy to his solicitors; so I have no opportunity +for testing Mr. Lawson’s version of the affair; but his friends assure +me <em>he</em> originated the investment, acting upon the very honourable +motive of adding to the sum he held in trust, and not letting the money +of his neighbours lie idle.</p> + +<p>At any rate, the order to purchase Paley’s Ordinary must have been +given out in both names. What probably happened was that, in the +absence of Mr. Lawson, Mr. Huggins’ order to sell was taken by the +bank; at any rate, the very considerable profit was, I am again assured +by Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s friends, equitably divided; and probably +Mr. Lawson’s grievance lay in the fact <span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>that further transactions, in +which he had no share, were undertaken in Mr. Huggins’ own name.</p> + +<p>These further transactions were of a very simple sort. Indeed, +high financial talent is often best seen in the simplicity of its +operations. Mr. Huggins began by repaying in full to the account the +original money due to the members of the Goose Club, which sum was +therefore duly divided and accounted for at the Sacred Season of Peace +and Goodwill to everybody’s satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the remaining profit of £150 Mr. Huggins drew out in cash, +closing his account with the bank, which had indeed always troubled him +a little, as being something mysterious, and at the same time putting +himself a little too much into the power of the other man.</p> + +<p>The surplus cash thus available he put upon a winner called Winsome +Winnie. Not that he had received any information about the powers of +the animal, but because that very phrase had been attached as a pet +name to his only child, a little daughter who had died some years +before. That the odds were 50 to 1 did not alarm this daring spirit. +He divided the proceeds; keeping two-thirds of them, and losing the +remaining third upon yet another horse, the name of which I have not +been able to trace. Disgusted with the turf by this reverse of fortune, +Mr. Huggins, after some hesitation, simply kept the sum of money now at +his disposal. It was just under five thousand pounds, and he kept it in +the large banknotes <span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>of the bookie, under the lid of a rather battered +little japanned box, carefully locked, though inspected with his own +eyes from three to five times every day.</p> + +<p>It was impossible that some rumour of his good fortune should not +have spread. He was privately visited by more than one neighbour with +pressing requests for a loan, even at considerable interest; and as he +had every opportunity for judging the prospects of the barrows in his +row, he could, and did, lend with judgment. The loans were at short +term, usually of a week, at the most of a fortnight, and calculated +at a penny in the shilling for each seven days; or, as a special +accommodation for larger customers, a shilling in the pound.</p> + +<p>He extended his operations. He became the Providence of Barrow-men in +South-East London, and soon extended his activities to shopkeepers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Huggins had the supreme gift of discretion. Each operator was left +under the impression that the loan had been made to him as a special +favour, though it was certainly remarked that the lender’s circle of +acquaintance was rapidly extending, and that he had many callers at +his house after business hours, especially of a Saturday. He was wise +enough to make no display, as his wealth increased, and it was greatly +to the credit of his wife Matilda (or Amathea, as she was soon to be) +that she added little to her <em>parure</em>, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>though she could not +resist one particularly fine ostrich feather which she had seen in the +shop of a neighbour, Mrs. Carey, who took in, mended, cleaned, turned, +and otherwise served, the ladies of her neighbourhood. The transaction +was the more tempting, as Mrs. Huggins had kindly helped Mrs. Carey +upon more than one occasion and could, therefore, demand a special +price.</p> + +<p>The profession of private banking upon which George Huggins was +now fairly launched is a lucrative one so long as it is confined +to a certain scale. After that, it not only needs a particular +<i lang="fr">clientéle</i>, with offices in the West End and a considerable +organisation, but involves grave risks and a special knowledge of the +wealthy world—especially its younger members. It further requires +a public licence, and is hardly ever conducted without occasional +appearances in court. The financier was wise, therefore, to abandon +those direct methods. He spent a few weeks in settling his affairs, +concluding every transaction with great tenacity and vigour, still +maintaining his own barrow as though nothing were to happen.</p> + +<p>Feigning illness (a legitimate ruse), he put in a caretaker, and +finally sold the humble barrow-stall which had been the foundation of +his fortune and the good-will of a still sufficient trade in vegetables +and fruit. Shortly afterwards his wife and he took a small villa in +the northern suburbs, where he would be free from interruption by any +former friends. There, dressed in the style required <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>by the new state +of life to which it had pleased God to call them, George and Matilda +Huggins acquired a solid circle of new acquaintances, including the +Reverend Percy Hay, the local clergyman. For they were now members of +the Established Church and regular in their attendance.</p> + +<p>George Huggins took the train for the City every week-day morning, +returning rather earlier in the evening than most of his colleagues. He +had at first no office. Later, after many discreet inquiries, he joined +his name to that of a Mr. Jeffreys, General Agent, on a second floor in +Austin Friars: an address which was useful for the receipt and despatch +of correspondence, for telephone orders, and for following the markets +upon the spot.</p> + +<p>It is no derogation of a man who so splendidly made good later on +to admit that during the first two years the total of his capital +slightly diminished. He was disappointed in the Paolo Mine venture, +and deservedly annoyed when the friend who had told him they would +rise came out with a new Rolls Royce, himself having sold the stock +in question. He was also quite wrong upon the fate of the Electricity +Bill, having as yet no acquaintance among politicians. Shortly after, +however, he successfully <ins class="edit" id="tn-113" title="original text: 'stagged'">staged</ins> the Roumanian Loan. It was a matter of +only a few thousands, but they were enough to put him well forward of +what he had been when he first took to the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>City. And then came the +great stroke of his life, of which he is deservedly proud. As it may +not be common knowledge, I will describe it.</p> + +<p>It was the eve of the Great War. Mr. Jeffreys was out at lunch. The +private telephone was rung up, and a Voice asked that, without delay, +a very large bull account should be opened on margin in the stocks +of three named armament firms, a bear ditto in two named foreign +government loans and a solid investment in a controlling company +which had hitherto been under a German directorship. The Voice went +on to explain without reserve, and as to a full confidant, the nature +of his information, introducing two important political names, and +before ceasing confirmed the usual proportion of the proceeds to its +correspondent. Only after all this had been said (and it took a good +two minutes to say it, for the Voice was very eager and even excited), +did the Voice, intrigued by Mr. Huggins’ silence, ask anxiously whether +it had the right number? Mr. Huggins saw no cause to inform It that It +had not. He replaced the receiver on its hook without a word.</p> + +<p>There has grown up a silly modern habit of decrying the genius of our +great commercial men, especially when their fortunes have been rapidly +acquired. Their success is set down to chance, and is besmirched with +imputations of dishonesty.</p> + +<p>I say this modern habit is a vile one, born not only of envy but of +ignorance. For had the calumniators any real knowledge of the men they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>run down they would be unable to deny them the same sort of genius as +distinguishes the great Captains of History.</p> + +<p>What George Huggins did on this memorable occasion is an example.</p> + +<p>During the few moments when he was holding the receiver to his ear with +his left hand George Huggins was rapidly noting down the name of the +stocks, the prices, the margins, the dates, with a pencil in his right.</p> + +<p>He immediately left the office. Within a week, all Europe being then +at war, that dreadful calamity had within the mysterious designs of +Providence launched the very moderate fortune of George Huggins into +its advance towards becoming one of the largest of our time.</p> + +<p>For once the great man was bewildered. The first huge sum had come so +simply, so rapidly and so naturally, and in such overwhelming figures, +that he hardly felt himself to be himself. And not a few wild projects +cantered through his brain when, after the settlement, he was racing +northward to Palmers Green in a first-class carriage—which projects, +had he indulged in them, might, I admit, have led to disaster. It was +the strong sense of his wife which saved him, and he was ever grateful +to her. He found her eating tripe and onions, a favourite dish of hers +when she could prepare it after her own fashion (for she had given the +servant a night out), and drinking from <span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>a tankard a very excellent +brand of stout laced with gin.</p> + +<p>He shared the meal, and when it was over and she had heard the full +news, she made him his plan of campaign.</p> + +<p>And see how wise she was! The whole thing was simply to be put into +secure Government Stock. She trusted England. Indeed, she was confident +that the war would be over in a few weeks, and of course in our favour.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile until things had settled down, and when he had come to know +(as he soon would with such a fortune) those who pull the strings of +our affairs, he might cautiously distribute his investment, and if he +so willed, increase his now great possessions. But the principal thing +was safety. They were made, he and she. That was the point. But both +remembered in silence that there was no heir.</p> + +<p>The rest came easily enough. George Huggins was talked of. The +simplicity of his manner and the kindness of his heart were remarked. +No foolish hesitation was shown by families whose wealth happened to +be of older growth in inviting him and his wife to their tables. His +spontaneous generosity in the matter of the Belle Vue Hospital gave +him, not a mere knighthood, as the Secretary had suggested, but a +baronetcy. It was as Sir George and Lady Huggins that they entertained +and did what lay in them for their country during the great life and +death struggle of those four <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>years. Before the end of them, Sir George +had occupied during a few fateful weeks one of the more important +ministries, succeeding to a large wholesale grocer, and succeeded in +turn by one of our shrewdest speculators in rising seaside resorts. +He left office through no other cause than the strain which its cares +put upon a man of his years, and, of course, accepted a peerage upon +retiring from the more active duties of public life.</p> + +<p>He was indifferent as to what his title should be. But having recently +constructed (in spite of the building difficulties during the war) a +charming little Jacobean thing at Mere Bruvvish, in Berkshire, the +heralds pointed out to him that the spelling of the name in some early +documents would seem to indicate an original French form, Beaurivage.</p> + +<p>George, First Baron Mere de Beaurivage, therefore became the style +and title of this very eminent, and (I think I may say) very typical +British man of business.</p> + +<p>It was remarked that his simplicity remained conspicuous in spite of +his elevation. Thus he insisted on the plain pronunciation Mere de +Bruvvish—or even Bruvvish alone—attaching to his new title, as it had +to the village where he retired for the week-ends; and it was with +difficulty that he could be persuaded to sign his name with a little +“d” for the “de,” or to separate that particle from the main term of +Beaurivage. He made no efforts to speak an English other than that to +which he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>had been trained in childhood, and no one acquainted with +the pride of our gentry will doubt me when I say that it was ready to +receive him in his plain and rugged honesty as it would have been had +he spoken in the most exquisite accents of the stage.</p> + +<p>In the now wide circle of their society the Mere de Beaurivages had +been glad to discover a really intimate friend in Hilda Maple. There +was a warm and affectionate sincerity in her relation towards Lady Mere +de Beaurivage which Matilda—Amathea as she now was—sometimes missed in +her grander acquaintances. She felt the atmosphere of Rackham Catchings +to be homely. She admired the close admixture of every modern comfort +with every ancient tradition in these honourable walls—the Ancestor +had got there a little before her—and she often said to herself and to +her husband that when they should build themselves a proper place they +would keep that model in mind.</p> + +<p>Moreover, she had an odd attachment to Sussex; perhaps because she had +once been taken to the Downs behind Brighton for a Board School treat +in her early youth, perhaps because an uncle of hers had been ostler in +the then large stables of the Monarch at Byfield.</p> + +<p>One way and another, Rackham Catchings was half a home in her mind +already. She was glad to feel that Hilda and she were like sisters. Yet +John Maple had never as yet met her during any <span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>one of the four or five +times on which she had passed a week-end in the place; and in the rich +houses of London he had only seen the couple once (and even then it was +from some way off) in a crush at Bakeham House. The poor old gentleman +had seemed terribly hot and out of breath after squeezing up those +stairs.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch07"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span> +<h2 id="ch07">CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p>So John Maple came down to Aunt Hilda’s, for that week-end. Once more +did he put his foot down firmly on Spegel, refusing to do a turn after +the Thursday night, but promising by way of compensation to go into the +Provinces on Tuesday.</p> + +<p>It was on the Friday as he had promised that he went down. He was +offended, as he always was, by the motor-car and the French driver at +the station; he wanted the old coachman (who was dead), and the old +horse (who was worse than dead). He was offended, as he always was, by +the new sham timber front of Rackham Catchings as he came up the drive. +He was in a nasty mood.</p> + +<p>But as for that determination in his heart, on the twenty thousand +pounds, it had turned into cold iron. It was the hardest thing in him. +But it was no longer in the air. Isabeau had done the trick. Upon +my soul, as the too quick, too expensive car shot vulgarly through +those dignified old trees up the new sweep of new drive to the new +unfortunate great door in the devastated front of what had once been +his home, he felt as though the twenty thousand pounds were there in a +purse, to be thrown at his aunt when he should meet her.</p> + +<p>But when he got in he did not meet her. The <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>atheist Gaul who had +driven him smiled cheerfully enough, though in a fashion a little too +manly for his servile position, and handed him his bag from the front +of the car almost as though they were equals—a thing intolerable. It +was at once a worry and a relief to hear that his aunt was out and +would not be back for an hour or two. It was more like home, however, +to be met by Corton and to talk to that old friend. Then he spent the +time remaining wandering through the rooms, noting for the twentieth +time what had been left the same as in his own days of childhood, and +what had been changed.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_122"> + <img class="illowp50" src="images/i_122.jpg" alt="standing in his chauffer's uniform"> + <figcaption>The atheist Gaul</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Most had been changed, but not all. The schoolroom was just the same, +except that they had put the boxes into it, as though it were derelict. +What had once been the hall with its simple little eighteenth-century +porch of wooden pillars and wooden Pediment had been degraded into a +sort of back entrance, and where the old drive had gone on to it there +was now moss and grass, though it was still hard with the old gravel.</p> + +<p>What had been the main stairs of the house—how he loved the old carved +banisters!—were now the back way to the bedrooms and passages above; +the main staircase was a wicked new oaken thing, chemically stained to +look old, leading up from the new hall.</p> + +<p>That hall itself was a piece of stage scenery. He called up what had +been torn down to make space for all that new big room. He smiled to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>remember that it was nothing but the big empty, spare, plastered +cavern where all manner of household wreckage piled up; where also the +beer casks used to be kept in his father’s time. He remembered how he +had kept his bicycle there, and how proud he had been of it when he had +been first allowed to ride it. He remembered having asked leave to keep +his rabbits in there during the cold weather.</p> + +<p>So all that was gone. And in its place was this sham old oak with the +huge great beam—Baltic, not English, and the ridiculous sham date +upon it—and in the dining-room, where he had been allowed on grand +occasions of childhood, in the old dining-room now panelled, damasked +and changed out of recognition, the abominable Ancestor grinning, and +the abominable “refectory” table, long, with carved legs, darkened, and +of the sort called antique.</p> + +<p>He would change all that.</p> + +<p>He was as certain that he would change all that as he was that he had +(virtually) the twenty thousand pounds; and of such is the kingdom of +twenty-three years old.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Aunt Hilda came in, not over-pleased with whatever she had been doing. +She had been calling on the county people, and she always felt after +doing that that she was not quite on their scale.</p> + +<p>But before going out to call upon people (and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>she was so kind that +she had done it in her little car, leaving the big one for John and his +luggage), she had read two letters which had put her out not a little. +The first was John’s with its enclosure—and it made her hot with anger +to think of it. The second was from the Esthonian. He would not wait. +It was a shame, and it was silly. She had virtually sold the place. She +was quite sure that either Lord Hellup or dear Amathea’s husband would +buy. Why, it would probably be decided that very week-end. He could +perfectly well wait. She was sure he was only fussing in order to make +her renew. And <em>that</em> she was determined she would <em>not</em> do.</p> + +<p>But this criticism of the Esthonian was uncharitable, and also unwise +in Aunt Hilda. The Esthonian was really suffering, for Esthonians who +have Europeans in their debt are yet often in debt themselves to bigger +Esthonians; and such was the condition of this Esthonian. And for all +I know, even the larger Esthonian up above was in debt to yet another +enormous Esthonian, until you got to the centre of the great spider’s +web in New York, to which nowadays even Frankfort and London bow down.</p> + +<p>But anyhow, in this piffling matter of these few thousand pounds the +Esthonian was fussing abominably, and his letter was peremptory. The +date for payment fell in the very next week. He respectfully but very +urgently required her answer. Had she received anything on account? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>Had she anything to show him in writing which he could show to others +(for the Esthonian was quite frank in this matter, as he sometimes was +when he thought it profitable to be so). He said he really needed the +money; and he really did—there was no reason why he should pretend not +to; quite the contrary. But it is true that the Esthonian did not need +the money so very much as he pretended.</p> + +<p>Alas! poor Aunt Hilda had no writing yet to show! You cannot show in +writing the growing devotion of an American business man to a fine +figure of an Englishwoman not so old as himself. Nor the growing +appetite for a quiet country place in the wife of a Coalition Peer.</p> + +<p>She had not answered the letter. She had temporised. And that made her +mood more irritable still.</p> + +<p>It was in such a state of human tempers—Aunt Hilda exasperated and +John, as he believed, quiet and firm, but really more exasperated +still—that the meeting between them took place. She poured out tea for +him. He spoke vaguely of London and, knowing well that he was applying +an irritant, he told her with what anxiety to be under her roof he had +put off his engagement upon the Halls. She in her turn had exploded at +him and told him that she wanted to hear nothing about that horrible +side of life, and he had said:</p> + +<p>“Very well, very well. There’s nothing in it, to be sure.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span></p> + +<p>She wanted to make the best of her party for her guests. She felt that +her nephew was popular with those whom he knew, and could make himself +popular with those whom he did not. She switched off on to who was +coming.</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you who they are, John, there are only five, and only two +women. I had to ask Lord Hambourne, because he was so kind to me over +that unfortunate business of Oriel when <em>you</em> refused to go to +Oxford. He was <em>most</em> considerate. He made every allowance for +you. I’ve always been intending to have him down at the Catchings, and +I’ve not had him here all that time.”</p> + +<p>John nodded.</p> + +<p>“If only you had gone to Oxford, John, you would have had the advantage +of one of the greatest minds in the world. Lord Hambourne....”</p> + +<p>John interrupted.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know,” he said. “They call him Hambone.”</p> + +<p>“That’s silly and vulgar,” said Aunt Hilda.</p> + +<p>“It is,” said John. “So is he.”</p> + +<p>“He’s nothing of the sort. I met him often when I ran up there before +you came back to England when I was making the arrangements. He’s one +of the nicest men I have ever met. You only run him down because he’s +poor.”</p> + +<p>“That may have something to do with it,” said John deliberately.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda was on the point of violence, when <span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>she controlled herself +and turned it off to the other two.</p> + +<p>“Then there’s Lord Hellup, and his daughter Isabeau.” Aunt Hilda looked +at her nephew for a moment, but he gave no response. “Have you met +them?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he answered rather surlily. “I’ve met them at the Pattles’.”</p> + +<p>“There are no Pattles,” said Aunt Hilda majestically. “If you mean Lady +Pattle....”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I mean old Mother Pattle,” said John, and Aunt Hilda sighed.</p> + +<p>“Then there’s a man, John, I really want you to meet, and to be careful +about, if only for my sake.”</p> + +<p>John said that for her sake he would do anything.</p> + +<p>“Very young men like you, John, may do things that not only ruin their +own careers, but really hurt other people. I have asked Amathea—Amathea +de Beaurivage that is—and her husband.”</p> + +<p>John looked at her innocently.</p> + +<p>“Why not? Who are they?”</p> + +<p>“You know perfectly well, John,” she said. “The man that was Sir George +Huggins, who did all that splendid work during the war.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord Mere de Boreevarge?” said John, charmingly and spontaneously. +“Yes, I’ve read about him. A great financial brain. I read that only +to-day, as I was coming down, in the paper—which <span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>paper, upon my soul, +I forget. Or was it in <cite>The Howl</cite>?—which belongs to Cad Toronto.”</p> + +<p>“For God’s sake, John,” said Aunt Hilda, exasperated, “behave yourself, +at any rate when you meet him! And why do you call him De Bo-ree-varge?”</p> + +<p>“Because it’s spelt that way. And I’ve always read it like that.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t know if you’re telling the truth. But please to +understand that it’s Bruvvish.”</p> + +<p>“I will,” said John solemnly. “I’ll call him Mere Bruvvish, and her, +Lady Mere Bruvvish. Bruvvish all the time.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda got up from her chair and stood in front of the fire looking +at her nephew. She had something to say. It might be the wrong time +to say it, when they were half-quarrelling; but she wanted to get it +over, and perhaps a certain softness of manner would come better after +a passage like this than later on, when the trouble might begin again.</p> + +<p>“John,” she said, “I want to put it to you quite frankly. I think it +would be wrong to hide it from you, though I have a perfect right to do +what I am doing. I want to tell you everything, so that nothing shall +go wrong, because these next few days are so important to me; and to +you too, my dear. And to Rackham Catchings.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind me, Aunt Hilda,” said John quietly. “And for the matter of +that, don’t take too much trouble about the Catchings.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span></p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda controlled herself again.</p> + +<p>“Both those men are prepared to make an offer. I shall ask £60,000 for +£50,000. And I happen to know, privately, that both are thinking of it.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know Hambone was worth it,” said John quietly.</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” snapped his aunt. “Hambourne indeed! Lord Hambourne! And +please don’t call him Hambone, like a schoolboy. No! Lord Hellup, and +Amathea and her husband may either, or both, make an offer. There. +I’ve told you, and you ought to know. Remember, John,” she went on +hurriedly, “that you are the only one I have, and when I am gone” +(after which illogical sentence she heaved a profound sigh from her +considerable chest—which had, as might be, thirty more years of life +in it), “it really concerns you as much as it does myself. I tell you +quite frankly, and quite plainly, that I am not going to take less than +£50,000.”</p> + +<p>For half a minute or so John gave no answer. She had said nothing about +his letter. He looked in the fire, as though it were an old friend with +whom he was consulting, and leaned his solid young head on his left +hand. Then he rose slowly in his turn, and without facing Aunt Hilda, +putting both hands upon the mantelpiece and still gazing into the fire, +he said:</p> + +<p>“Aunt Hilda, I can’t offer you £50,000; but you’ve had my letter, there +you have it in black <span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>and white, after so much palaver. I can and do +offer you £20,000. It’s firm.”</p> + +<p>The effect of this remark upon Aunt Hilda may be compared to that +produced by the slipping of a piece of ice down the neck of a neighbour +at dinner during an ardent conversation; a practical joke which I hope +is no longer fashionable. The victim is at first oddly shocked, as by +a spasm—then stabbed into language. So Aunt Hilda. After a gasp she +flamed up, turned round, found her nephew no longer staring at the fire +in gentle distraction but facing her, square, firm, and defiant. She +had received his challenge, she repeated the old insult.</p> + +<p>“Twenty thousand pounds? Why, you haven’t got twenty thousand pence!”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_130"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_130.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>“Twenty thousand pounds? You haven’t got twenty<br>thousand pence!” said Aunt Hilda</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The insolence of his proposition! The insufficiency of it! The wild +impossibility of his being able to fulfil it! His assurance! Why, he +was her dependent——</p> + +<p>John Maple was like a wrestler in his attitude and in his mood, +standing ready for the spring. He tried hard not to quiver, but he was +quivering all the same.</p> + +<p>“I have said twenty thousand more than once, Aunt Hilda, and now +I’ve written it and given you the paper to accept,” he answered, “I +<em>mean</em> twenty thousand.”</p> + +<p>Her reply was complete. She told him not to make a fool of himself. +They both sat down to cool off.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span></p> + +<p>“Well, John, it’s no good quarrelling over nonsense, is it?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t nonsense,” said John. “There may be a day,” he added darkly, +“when you will think better of it.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda groaned. She had not had much to do with young people, but +she had heard they were all like that. She recovered her temper.</p> + +<p>“There may be, John,” she said, laughing uneasily, “but at any rate not +yet, and not for Rackham Catchings.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t offer it for the Catchings. I know the Catchings would cost +more. I offered it for Rackham.”</p> + +<p>And he went out to cool off further. They saw each other no more till +dinner.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>At dinner a truce was declared. They talked of anything: principally +of the County. Hilda Maple was longing to do two things: first, to +relieve her nerves by asking him to be particularly good when the +guests came on the morrow, Saturday—but she had had the sense to hold +her tongue—it would only have provoked a new quarrel, and after all, +she could trust John Maple to behave himself if he felt inclined. She +also knew that nothing would prevent his saying something to upset the +<em>ci-devant</em> Huggins and his wife if he did not feel inclined. With +Hellup she felt he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>was safe, and as he had no particular grudge +against lords as such or dons as such, but rather a natural sympathy +with poor men, she felt he would be safe with Lord Hambourne—though +she could not get over the disrespectful allusion to Hambone; but she +thought he might have picked it up from his Oxford acquaintances in +London, and she let it lie.</p> + +<p>The second thing she wanted to do was to examine him on this very point +of Lord Hambourne. She herself hardly knew the man. She had observed +that he would go to pretty well any house where he would meet rich +people. She thought, quite rightly, that both the others would like to +meet a brother peer with a few generations behind him.</p> + +<p>She dipped her tongue in honey (if you will excuse the coarseness of +the phrase), and said sweetly to her nephew at dessert:</p> + +<p>“Tell me, John, I think you know Lord Hambourne, don’t you? Or about +him, anyhow? You see, I know him <em>well</em>. Only I was told that he +was interested in old furniture and understood it, and I wanted him +to help me a little in that.” (It was true; but it was also true that +she wanted him to help her in impressing his wealthier peers with the +fact that the furniture was old and that the Beam was old and that +the Ancestor was old, and that in general the Catchings were old and +vouched for by that venerable glory the Hambourne peerage.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span></p> + +<p>“Oh,” said John, “I’ve met him. And I’ve got friends, as I said, who +have known him at Oxford. And there’s one man in his fourth year whom I +know rather well and he did Psychology with him. Rather likes him. You +know that he does journalism?”</p> + +<p>“Who?” said Aunt Hilda.</p> + +<p>“Hambourne.”</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t. What do you mean by journalism?”</p> + +<p>“Why, this stuff they call Personal Journalism. He talks about people +whom he’s really met, and also about people whom he pretends to meet. +But he won’t sign. Perhaps it’s a point in his favour, for they’d +pay him double if he did. But the rag he’s on is really so base that +perhaps it pays him one way and another not to sign. You see, his +column’s called ‘Behind the Scenes.’ It’s in <cite>The Howl</cite>.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Aunt Hilda. Her heart had risen slightly at the idea that he +might be useful to advertise her and hers. It sank a little at hearing +under what headline she and hers would appear.</p> + +<p>“He’s not scurrilous, is he?” she said, after a pause.</p> + +<p>“I’m told,” said John Maple, critically and carefully separating his +words, “that he would like to be, and can’t. You see, though he was +very poor he had a good mother and was an only son and (as he was very +poor) he did not go to a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>Public School. It’s very difficult for that +kind to shake off all their early refinement.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda again restrained herself.</p> + +<p>“Is it true he is an atheist?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, good Lord, <em>yes</em>!” protested John Maple. “Why, my dear Aunt +Hilda, what did you expect? He’s a don, Aunt Hilda—and more than that, +he belongs to the old-fashioned lot. After all, he was elected to +Burford nearly thirty years ago.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda pursed her lips firmly. She had not got quite used to the +moral revolution. As for the reaction that is now beginning, she had no +idea of it.</p> + +<p>“But he won’t be blatant, Aunt Hilda,” John went on. “Besides, I know +Lord Hellup wouldn’t mind.”</p> + +<p>“I think,” said Aunt Hilda acidly, “I should know as well as anyone +what Lord Hellup would or would not mind....” Then she stopped +abruptly, for she was getting on dangerous ground. She did not want to +discuss her other two guests and raise a breeze.</p> + +<p>John was less discreet.</p> + +<p>“As for the other one, old Bruvvish,” he began.... But Aunt Hilda cut +him short.</p> + +<p>“We won’t discuss Lord Mere de Beaurivage, if you please, John, though +his wife <em>is</em> a friend of mine. A straightforward, plain, English +gentleman—I think that’s enough said. He never pretends <span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>to be what he +is not, and that is one of the hundred reasons why everybody respects +him.”</p> + +<p>It is immensely to John Maple’s credit that he did not here add +the other reasons; but he remained silent. The wine he had drunk, +the influence of the evening, which gave the darkening room a real +antiquity (for Night is an aged thing), the fact that he had his +back to the Ancestor and was facing the oak table—which after all +<em>was</em> old—all this soothed John. In his mind he was already the +owner of Rackham, planning innumerable things, and among these plans +he reprieved some part of the Catchings. Yes, he would keep the oak +table; he might even keep the panelling. But the Ancestor would have +to go. Corrupted by too early an experience of competition, his mind +wandered off (after his aunt had left him to his wine) to what he +might make on the Ancestor. Should it go by auction or how? Then the +thought of money brought him back to the raising of that £20,000. And +<em>that</em> brought him back to Bo. And in contemplation of Bo’s image +he pleasantly remained.</p> + +<p>He went to bed early, too sleepy to pursue the thoughts of banks, +solicitors, options and the rest, which that excellent young daughter +of commerce had put into his head. Opportunity would come with the +morrow.</p> + +<p>And it did; as it always does to the young.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch08"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span> +<h2 id="ch08">CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p>The three parcels of her week-end party were to be separately delivered +to Mrs. Maple in three batches. She was just as well pleased. It was +easier to mix them that way.</p> + +<p>Of the three batches Lord Hambourne would be the first.</p> + +<p>The title of Hambourne is an ancient one. The first Lord Hambourne, +son of a rich King’s Lynn merchant under Edward IV., married into the +Cavells. His son died without issue.</p> + +<p>The title was revived by Henry <abbr title="eighth">VIII.</abbr> towards the end of his reign, for +the ennobling of John Heysham, who had carried out a great part of +the confiscations in the north, and kept a sufficient proportion for +himself. He had no heir, but his only daughter married a younger son of +the Parkers of Luttbury, for whom the title was revived by Elizabeth. +He was a great deal at the Court attracting the attention of the +Queen, after the early death of his wife—some say by poison, others by +disease. He died at the early age of forty-three. He left no heir.</p> + +<p>The title was revived by Charles <abbr title="second">II.</abbr> as a reward for the loyalty of Sir +William Malling, a Rutlandshire squire, who had devoted his fortune +to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>Charles <abbr title="first">I.</abbr>’s cause. His son, the second Lord Hambourne of the +third creation, was true to the family tradition and accompanied James +<abbr title="second">II.</abbr> into exile. After years of struggling with poverty in the Rue de +Fouare, in Paris, he died, it is to be feared of malnutrition, leaving +no heir.</p> + +<p>The title was revived in the early days of George <abbr title="third">III.</abbr> by the managers +for that monarch, who, having a pressing need for support in the House +of Commons, thought it only their duty to close the long and honourable +career of Henry Porter, a large shipmaster turned squire, five times +member for King’s Lynn—of whose burgesses he could always purchase a +considerable majority. He had doggedly voted in the Court interest +until he was thus raised to the peerage.</p> + +<p>When the question of choosing his title arose, a local gentleman of +antiquity and <i lang="la">vertu</i> pointed out to him the original connection +between King’s Lynn and the Hambourne name; on which account it is now +generally—and erroneously—believed that the peer of Edward IV. was the +ancestor of our Hambournes of to-day.</p> + +<p>From that day to this, for four whole generations, the title has never +failed. The family fortune was dissipated by the second Lord Hambourne +(of the fifth creation) partly in entertaining the Regent, partly by +losing money at cards to the Regent’s more intelligent friends. The +title passed, just before the accession of Queen Victoria, to a cousin, +possessed of an annuity of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>some £800 a year and a pleasant house with +an orchard in Kent.</p> + +<p><em>His</em> eldest son, after a life of honest toil in the Civil +Service, died childless—and of course impecunious. The title passed, +just before the Boer War, to a then young man his nephew, who had +just been elected to a classical Fellowship at Burford College. The +lad was not without initiative; straitened circumstances had perhaps +sharpened his wits; but anyhow, while he was making it his business to +talk psychology, to buy books on psychology, to speak in debates on +psychology, and even to attend the foreign congresses on psychology, +certain of his friends were persuading The Turtle Eaters Company +that Oxford was perishing for the lack of a Chair in Psychology; so +when that Chair must be filled, what claim more obvious than Lord +Hambourne’s? The envious who pointed out how little he knew even of a +subject on which there is so little to be known were silenced by the +very true retort that the other candidates knew nothing.</p> + +<p>With the Great War came his opportunity. It was admitted on all +sides that he had procured for his country the great advantage of +the only telepathic system among the Allies which could compare with +the splendid organisation of the Germans. And while Ragensdorp in +Leipsig was reading, with the success that has rendered him famous, +the deep strategic thoughts of one British Minister after another +during those four and a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>half years, Lord Hambourne with far greater +success was reading the strategic thoughts of Hindenburg, Ludendorf +and Falkenhayn and communicating them daily to the Cabinet. On the +Continent his powers were less appreciated, and it is to be feared that +the prolongation of the struggle was largely due to the failure of the +Italians and French to do credit to a science with which they were as +yet unfamiliar.</p> + +<p>The Coalition Government rewarded such great services to the country +with a grant of £20,000. It was paid over at once, and the honoured +recipient was on the point of retiring from his arduous academic +duties, when the unexpected fall of the mark destroyed his prospects. +For though Lord Hambourne had accurately read the thoughts of those who +had determined to preserve the German currency, he had never thought +of tapping one master mind in New York, whence alone he would have +received more accurate information on the future of his securities.</p> + +<p><ins class="edit" id="tn-138" title="original text: 'At his very'">As his very</ins> just estimate of the German character had led him to put +the whole of a grateful nation’s offering into the German domestic +loans, he found himself, long before the date of Hilda Maple’s party +at Rackham, possessed of Bonds to Bearer Series 2 <abbr title="pence">d.</abbr>Nos. 555201–598237 +of the first German internal 5 per cent. guaranteed reimbursable Peace +Loan, worth anything between 5¾<abbr title="pence">d.</abbr> and 6<abbr title="pence">d.</abbr> the lot.</p> + +<p>But though thus denuded of material goods, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>he had acquired all the +special qualifications of his profession, and even a first-rate +academic manner with a strong stammer, a habit of saying, “Quate! +Quate!” at the ends of most of his sentences, a nickname among the +undergraduates, and a sheaf of stories about him, the subtle humour of +which missed fire outside the University.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Lord Hambourne, then, was coming to Rackham on the Saturday early; he +was coming in time for lunch and (being poor) by train.</p> + +<p>He was a very sensible man. He kept very careful accounts. He +calculated that the free lunch at Rackham almost exactly paid for the +return ticket from Oxford (a week-end third)—though, of course, it did +not cover the ticket from London down to Sussex. He took a single for +<em>that</em> journey, on the chance that one of the guests would motor +him back to town on the Monday. In his letter he had told his hostess +how eager he was to be in her county again, and what a pleasure it was +to get off from Oxford and the associations of so much hard work. For +Lord Hambourne had to lecture on psychology for one hour on two days a +week by statute, and very often added a third lecture freely and of his +own accord for a reasonable fee. And, like all dons, he only had six +months’ holiday in the year. To such men in our strenuous University +life the free air and repose <span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>of a week-end make all the difference. +He was to be excused, then, for taking that morning train. And as it +trundled him up to Paddington, and he further trundled on from Victoria +(there was an hour between the two, and that saved him the expense of a +cab) he was thinking how many paragraphs Rackham would account for in +his social column. He decided that a house of that calibre was not good +for more than two, and just possibly they might even cut out one of +those. The first he had already begun to scribble in the train:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="italics">“I ran down to Rackham Catchings this week-end, Mrs. Hilda +Maple’s charming place in Sussex. It is a fifteenth-century +home, quite unspoiled, a rare thing nowadays. Mrs. Hilda +Maple is, of course, the widow of Mr. William Maple, and she +was famous some years ago in London during her distinguished +husband’s lifetime for her <i lang="fr">salons</i> to which all the great +lights of the day had the <i lang="fr">entrée</i>....”</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">and so on. There were about twenty lines of it. If anything happened +he would work in a second paragraph. He hoped, with a doubtful hope, +that something would happen, though it was difficult to see what could +happen with a dull woman like Hilda Maple and a Yankee lord and a war +profiteer (for he had been told who was coming). <span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>Still, he hoped—and +his hope was rewarded. A good deal did happen.</p> + +<p>Yet another thought was at the back of the noble Professor’s mind as he +travelled. He wanted to make quite sure that there really was nothing +old—at least, nothing older than the eighteenth century—in Rackham +Catchings. He suspected as much, but he wasn’t certain. He liked to +know those things. It gave him a hold over people. One never knew when +it might turn up useful.</p> + +<p>Lord Hambourne, like most of the academic tribe, had real knowledge in +one matter outside his own subject. He did understand old wood, from +adzed chamfered beams to Misericordes. As for psychology, he knew by +this time as much about it as any other man, for it was now many years +since that rich cousin of his, then in the Ministry, had terrified +the Turtle Eaters Company into founding the Chair. It was quite a new +subject in those days, the last years of Queen Victoria; but he had +kept pace with it, and braced himself to read the duller and nastier +books of our own time.</p> + +<p>I have told how, during the war, he had enjoyed the one brief period +of good pay he had ever known, had ended with a little fortune and had +lost it.</p> + +<p>Now the war was over and he was back again at the old grind, and though +an intelligent man, had become so provincial through long residence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>at the University as to imagine that no one guessed his little +supplementary journalistic journal as “Behind the Scenes” in Lord +Toronto’s paper <cite>The Howl</cite>.</p> + +<p>He was favourably impressed with the motor-car which met him. He was +delighted to see, as Rackham burst upon +<ins class="edit" id="tn-142" title="original text: 'his gaze('">his gaze,</ins> that all the antique +part of the front was quite new, and that the old part was not very +old. He sized it up at once for what it was. But he still had fears +that there might lurk within it some mediæval stuff; for, after all, it +was church loot. He had got that from a brother don whose Churchism was +so high that he had gone deep blue. He even knew that the particular +monks from whom it had been grabbed were <em>Pre-mon-stra-tentians</em>—a +term which meant nothing to him, and which he always got wrong when he +tried to spell it.</p> + +<p>His hostess greeted him with an enthusiasm to which his poverty was +unaccustomed, and which he rightly put down (for was he not a Professor +of Psychology?) to her slight acquaintance with lords. She had within +five minutes (by way of comparison with Rackham) deftly alluded to his +own ancestral home. It was a subject he detested, because he had not +been able to repair it, and the people who had taken it stoutly refused +to spend a penny on it—let alone badgering him half a dozen times a +year about gutters, pipes and drains. He lost by the ancestral home. +And Lord Hambourne was a man in whose mind subjects <span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>connected with the +loss of even small sums of money are very painful. Then he suddenly +thought that since she had looked up the name of his place in some +book, and had shown some faint interest in it, he might use her later +for selling it. He had never been able to find a purchaser yet.</p> + +<p>The ancestral home having been put into its corner, Mrs. Maple all +during lunch rubbed Rackham into the mind of her distinguished guest. +And as lie after lie proceeded from her spate of local history and +personal reminiscence, he deftly plucked out the truths like plums and +pigeonholed them in his mind.</p> + +<p>Enormous as her information had been, she kept a wad or two back for +those who were to come.</p> + +<p>And the Hellups arrived first. They came (“of course,” as Lord +Hambourne would have said in his column), by car, and a very good +car it was; not showy, but exactly suited to its purposes as a car: +elastic, silent and shockless. Hellup was a man who thought comfort +out, and thought it out rightly.</p> + +<p>In one detail only had he not realised his thinking out. And that was +through love of his daughter. For Lovey-Lad had come down with them, +with horrid menace in his eye, all the way from London. He had had +to waste his ferocity upon the landscape; but he looked up to any +mischief as he came in bow-legged, growling, formidable, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>but reduced +to conventions by a nice smack on the nose from his adoring mistress, +just to make him understand that he was among friends. It would never +have done if he had dug his teeth into the well-displayed and most +sufficient flesh-coloured calves of Aunt Hilda. It was the only thing +that might have caused trouble between her father and herself.</p> + +<p>Now with the appearance of this father and daughter the air changed, +as it does change when, known only privately to pairs, but subtly +influencing others, affection comes under a roof. It was an affection +real upon the part of that crisp, humorous and successful, contented +trans-Atlantic man, sincerely received by his hostess. In Bo I cannot +tell you how freshly intense was affection, nor in John how profoundly +sincere. Alas! that with four such currents of mutual attraction +crossing in the Hall of Rackham, only Lord Hambourne should have failed +to polarise. But, Professor of Psychology though he was, he tumbled +to nothing. Nor, certainly, did Aunt Hilda tumble to John and Bo. And +as for those two young people, they had an intellectual knowledge of +the charming friendship between their elders, but of real appreciation +thereon nothing whatever. They had something better to think of.</p> + +<p>However, as I have said, affection mellowed things, and the air was +kindly when in half an hour after the Hellups an enormous machine, +the size of a cottage, driven by a gentleman whose <span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>uniform vaguely +recalled the General Officers of Central American States, and having +by his side yet another uniformed gentleman of a more moderate type, +purred, roared, halted and panted grandly before the door.</p> + +<p>Therein, through large spaces of glass could be seen a huge bunch of +hot-house flowers, set in a silver sconce. It faced in its gay opulence +the owner of the splendid conveyance, Lord Mere de Beaurivage himself. +His considerable though not elongated form was protected from the +inclemencies of the weather by a fur coat and, as to his legs at least, +by the mounted skin of a very fine African lion, the head of which +drooped, fierce, towards his feet, while the hinder quarters performed +the same office of comfort for his wife, who sat upon his left.</p> + +<p>And what a wife!</p> + +<p>Her dress, though the afternoon was yet young, seemed compounded of a +material wherein there entered no small proportion of gold. The hair +upon her head, cut very short (and upon her ample neck even shaved) was +more than sufficient in its amount, and excellently blended, crowning +a large, determined face, in fine contrast with the somewhat more +exhausted but equally expansive visage of her lord.</p> + +<p>As she thus swept up, throned, the stern look of mastery which befits +the mistress of such great possessions still dignified her glance, yet +it dissolved into delighted smiles and half-closed elongated <span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>eyes of +joy as she caught sight of dear Hilda unconventionally rushing out to +meet her upon the very threshold.</p> + +<p>John Maple (and his aunt was grateful to him) helped her down from the +car.</p> + +<p>“Darling Hilda!”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Darling Amathea!”</p> + +<p>The two women were clasped in each other’s arms.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_146"> + <img class="illowp60" src="images/i_146.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Fond embrace of Hilda, relict of the late William<br> + Maple, Esquire, of Rackham Catchings in the<br>County of Sussex, and + Amathea, wife of<br>George, First Baron de Beaurivage<br>(pronounced + Bruvvish)</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Lord Mere de Beaurivage alighted with more circumspection, considerably +aided by the second of his two dependants, the one in the lesser +uniform, and set foot upon the sacred soil of England with a grunt, +followed by a heavy breathing. For the exertion of such a man in +leaving a vehicle is even more trying to him than his exertion in +mounting one. The lion skin lay deserted upon the floor of the car. The +lion’s master followed his wife hobbling into Rackham Catchings.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda gave them time to recover from the enormous fatigues of the +journey, solacing them with tea, impressing them with the dignified +figure of Corton. Then only, when she had gathered them together +(making at the same time certain signs to John with uplifted eyebrows +and sharp glances), did she take them round in a herd, to put a climax +to their rivalry for the house by filling it with history.</p> + +<p>She was a determined woman. The thing had to be done some time, and +the sooner the better, as a foundation for all that had to be wound +up <span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>by way of business in a brief week-end. The Esthonian in his +character of Mr. Rupert de Vere of Jermyn Street was upon her: he would +not wait.</p> + +<p>And John followed the flock, looking up with sagacious vacuity at +picture and carving and beam as each was mentioned, and down, as +each was mentioned, at table and at chair and at <em>bric</em> and at +<em>brac</em>: and feeling as he had felt on but one other occasion +of his life, when Bo had insisted on his joining a horrible clot of +tourists who were doing the Tower. It was a delightful thought that +this trial would not last so long; for after all Rackham, though more +beloved, was not as large as the Tower. He was glad of that.</p> + +<p>He got what amusement he could out of information startlingly new to +him. He learned more than he thought could be known about Rackham—let +alone the Catchings. He learned that the Hall (where he so vividly +remembered the rabbit hutches, the plaster and the bicycle) dated in +part from the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, but with later additions +under James <abbr title="first">I.</abbr> He learned that the great beam running across it from +the staircase to the fire-place had upon it the date 1487, and was +probably the oldest dated object in the house. He learned that a little +chair which his father had bought for him when a tiny child because he +had fallen in love with it himself during a visit to London had been +a chair belonging to Queen Anne’s nursery, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>given to one of his +forbears by Sarah Duchess of Marlborough. He learned that the damned +panelling was made from one of the ships of the Spanish Armada. These +things he learned, and many more.</p> + +<p>The Fury of Destruction rose in his heart and was struggling with the +Comic Spirit, when, towards the close of the lecture, as they were +waddling back to the drawing-room again, through the dining-room, and +had just heard startling things about the oak table and Ben Jonson—as +Lord Mere de Bruvvish was giving signs of distress—it was a good long +walk for him—as Darling Amathea’s admiring exclamations were growing +a trifle conventional, and as even Lord Hellup’s thirst for facts, +dates and measurements was getting satiated, there came something he +might have expected, for he had heard it before: but now, since that +suggestion Bo had made in London, it struck with unexpected force. That +something was the Ghost.</p> + +<p>It was as they were passing the Ancestor. The regular phrases had +come out, how he was Sir Harry Murtenshaw, how he was by Holbein; how +he combined all the qualities of the great Elizabethans, sea-faring, +patriotism and, above all, prosperity. How (this was carefully insisted +upon) he was not a <em>direct</em> male Ancestor. How the name alone +was enough to show that. How it was his daughter who had brought the +property into the family of Maple—all that, all the regular <span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>stuff. +Then, as Aunt Hilda led them back towards the drawing-room, she added:</p> + +<p>“And it is that man, you know, who was the father of the Ghost.” Bo and +her lover shot quick glances at each other. Things were going well.</p> + +<p>Not till those few weeks ago had John heard of that Ghost: and quite +certain was John that Aunt Hilda had not heard of it either. It had +come in with the Ancestor. But I must confess that the Ghost bred in +her nephew, now that it was taking shape, some admiration for Aunt +Hilda. He did not know she had it in her! And he had to confess that so +long as it remained but a story it did put up the value....</p> + +<p>He was astonished at her power of fiction; for she held them all really +interested in their various ways, with the story of the unfortunate boy +who had been beheaded by the first James, and but for whose premature +cutting off—in the fullest sense of that term—his sister would not +have inherited and the Maples would never have possessed the broad +mud-fields and the rather stunted oaks of Rackham.</p> + +<p>It seems that the poor lad—he was hardly past his twentieth year—got +mixed up in one of the plots in favour of Mary Stuart, and was +therefore executed in 1613. And now, added Aunt Hilda, lowering her +voice by four and a half notes and a bittock, and glancing at the +jewellery upon her fingers, upon that day of the year people say that +they see him, all in a dark cloak, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>and in the great ruff of the +day—<em>but without a head</em>. “It’s in one of the bedrooms,” she +imprudently volunteered. Then to correct that error she hurriedly +added, “But really it’s great nonsense. Servants’ talk, and the gossip +of the more ignorant old people on the farms. They like that sort of +thing,” she concluded with a short laugh—well knowing that other people +liked the old country house ghost—as a legend—besides servants and old +people on farms; and among those others were affectionate American +business men and new war millionaires.</p> + +<p>John Maple wondered whether he would be appealed to in corroboration. +Had she so appealed to him, he would have been torn between his disgust +at her so raising the value of the place to these competing purchasers, +the instinct of treating his aunt with courtesy before her guests, and +the absolute necessity of following Bo’s plan. Luckily she did not risk +it. She was contented to answer the various questions which were put +to her with real interest by Lord Hambourne, who took a professional +interest in such flamboyant lying. He knew enough history to have +spotted the Holbein already and to appreciate that boys do not have +their heads cut off under James <abbr title="first">I.</abbr> for plots connected with trying to +save their mothers’ life before they were born.</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup was more avid of details, including measurements; he wanted +to know the exact height of the ghost—up to the neck—the exact <span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>day +of the year, the exact spot where he appeared, the exact hour of the +night, and all that; but on these, alas! Aunt Hilda could be of no +service.</p> + +<p>Amathea, delighted to find an added glory to a possession which she +already half felt to be hers, expressed her historic imagination +without restraint, “Lordy!” she said, and “Help!” and “You make me come +over all creepy like!” and further, “Well now, I don’t know what an’ +all!” to the accompaniment of raised hands and of rounded eyes. Her +husband looked as pleased as the fatigue of his recent perambulations +would allow; and pleased he was, for after all, if one was to have an +old family place, one might as well have an old family ghost with it. +Only he was a little anxious about what it would add to the price.</p> + +<p>But to John and Bo there came another and a very different thought. +They must get to work.</p> + +<p>And get to work they did.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch09"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span> +<h2 id="ch09">CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p>On Sunday mornings Lord and Lady Mere de Beaurivage went to church. +They attended Divine Service. In town it was as often as not the +afternoon (they were hardly of the generation for fasting communion), +but in the country (and people of this exalted rank spend most Sundays +in the country) they received the consolations of religion from eleven +o’clock till close on lunch. They still felt a certain novelty about +the Church of England, for what we begin after our fortieth year always +has a certain novelty about it for the rest of our lives.</p> + +<p>As luck would have it, her ladyship was delighted with the parson. He +had a Cockney accent; he preached no mysterious doctrine; he insisted +on the plain duties we owe to our fellow-men, especially the duty of +charity, and more particularly the wickedness of class hatred.</p> + +<p>But, as luck would have it, his lordship was not quite so sympathetic. +For one thing, he didn’t like the allusion to antagonism between the +East End of London and the West, for he thought (quite justly) that +that was all rubbish, and he guessed that the parson, in spite of his +honest accent, must have lived somewhere in the middle. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>There he was +wrong. The parson came from Ealing.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda was with them, you may be sure. She could go in the best +car and be driven in state, for a lazy morning parked outside God’s +Acre did not incommode the atheist Gaul. That was all to the good, +since a pious driver might have wanted to go to chapel, and Aunt Hilda, +after so many years in Sussex, had learnt how careful one must be of +religious susceptibilities in the Servants’ Hall.</p> + +<p>As they purred back to Rackham Catchings from Rackham Church (by the +long way, avoiding Rackham village, yet narrowly missing two Rackham +children who were playing in the road), Hilda and Amathea agreed upon +the excellence of the parson, the former with enthusiasm (for was she +not the seller?) but the latter (being purchaser) with more caution. +For when you are buying and selling parsons, or anything else, it is +indecent for the purchaser to praise too much: at any rate, in the +higher ranks of society. With our peasantry, let me assure you, it is +quite the other way (for I know all about it, having attended many +markets). They have the nobler, immemorial human habit of the market, +still customary (I am told) with the Chinese. The seller is most humble +and deferential about his cow. The purchaser praises it to the skies. +But, when it comes to cash, reality pierces through the mask and they +are even more grasping than the rich.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span></p> + +<p>“He’s a wonderful man, Amathea,” sighed Hilda dreamily. “He might have +had a very great career if he had stopped in London.” (Well, reader, +what are you grumbling about?—Ealing is a part of London, isn’t it?) +“But he said he’d had a sort of a call to come down here. And when I +heard that,” she added simply, “of course I thought it my duty to give +him the living.” (Oh, wicked woman! He had been put in long before she +had had anything to do with it!)</p> + +<p>To whom Amathea:</p> + +<p>“<em>Dearest</em> Hilda! You always was that good about the church! Yer +right, too! I haven’t often ’eard better preaching. True it was, and +straight from the heart, in a manner of speaking.”</p> + +<p>“I often think,” said Aunt Hilda, gazing wistfully at the top left +corner of the roof of the motor, as though a vision might appear there, +“that holiness is the most unmistakable thing on earth. Really that +kind of man is the kind of man of whom I feel” (she sought for the +word), “well, that is the kind of man who might in other days than ours +have worked a miracle.”</p> + +<p>“Mayhap he can lay the spook,” said his lordship with a gurgling laugh. +But the suggestion was received in silence by both ladies; so he +pursued it no further, and covered his laugh by choking a little.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span></p> + +<p>While their elders were hearing and discussing the sermon, Bo and +John began the conjuration. Lord Hambourne in his official quality of +University Atheist had stayed at home, and so had Lord Hellup in his +more natural quality of Commercial Sceptic. But the young people were +safe enough, without disappearing. Lord Hellup was deep in Motley, far +off, under the garden window of the hall. Lord Hambourne was prowling +about peering at woodwork and glass and sizing up the Catchings without +shame: standing on a chair to examine the date “1487” on the beam, and +remarking that in Rackham alone out of all Europe dates were stamped on +beams by the carpenters of the fifteenth century, and stamped in modern +figures.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_156"> + <img class="illowp70" src="images/i_156.jpg" alt="standing on a chair, examining the door beam with a magnifying glass"> + <figcaption>Lord Hambourne is astonished at the modern habits of the fifteenth century</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>There wasn’t too much time. It was already noon of Sunday, and by the +Monday morning at latest the battle must be won.</p> + +<p>“Bo, we’re haunting this house,” said John.</p> + +<p>“We are,” said Bo. “We haunt in couples.”</p> + +<p>And the delight of her eyes in his presence rejoiced him and lit a +corresponding, less brilliant light in his.</p> + +<p>“How are we to begin?” said her lover.</p> + +<p>“Listen, Jacko,” she answered. “The ghost has got to clinch his fell +work before to-morrow morning; this evening, no less.”</p> + +<p>(I ought to tell you how she was dressed; but I have only the time to +tell you that her skirt was of course a kilt, very short for a kilt, +but a good <span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>deal longer than that of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de +Beaurivage.)</p> + +<p>“Well, we’ve got to introduce the ghost early,” said John, “but it’s +broad daylight for hours. What’s your plan?”</p> + +<p>“Boy,” answered the maiden, “you want your thinking done for you.”</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“You are approved,” Bo answered to that nod. “That’s how the Secretary +writes from the Cabinet to our Ambassador—my Ambassador, but not Pop’s +any longer, ’cause he’s naturalised—you are approved. First now, can’t +you rattle folk by daylight?”</p> + +<p>“More than they want,” he said, “much more than they can bear, Bo.”</p> + +<p>“’Tisn’t ‘they,’” said Bo, “it’s him. The aged Bruvvish. Pop wouldn’t +stand for it. He’s unknown to fear, is my Lord Hellup. He’s as brave as +the lion-tamer’s wife. There are few ghosts on Manhattan Island, Jacko. +It’s the other one you’re for, and that’ll spoil Aunt Hilda’s market. +Badly. D’ye get me? I’ll fix Pop. He shan’t bid. He shall chorus the +apparition.”</p> + +<p>“You’re not going to tell him our plan?” said John in alarm.</p> + +<p>“Nope; ’cause you’ve got to come a surprise on him as the Demon Buyer. +You’ve got to make good. He’ll be just interested and that’ll help roll +the ghost along.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span></p> +<p>“You don’t want me to rattle a chain in the passages?”</p> + +<p>“Better’n that,” said Bo. “You begin right away. First chance you have. +Voices, John. Get him to hear voices.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said John thoughtfully, “that was the basis, wasn’t it? I’m a +ventriloquist—and a good one.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Jacko! It’ll hum! He’s going to hear voices. They’ll be subdued, +you know, ’cause they’re from the Other World. He’s going to hear ’em +this very day to get a move on him. Take him off and try him. Then he’s +going to hear them before he goes to bed this very night. And then....”</p> + +<p>At the prospect thus opening illimitably before her this happy child, +glorying in youth, to which all such jests are but too welcome, clasped +her hands in ecstacy.</p> + +<p>“Then, we’ll dress you up for the part and——”</p> + +<p>But as she spoke the noise of the motor at the door interrupted her, +the Church party came in, Lord Hellup arose from Motley, Lord Hambourne +abandoned his examination of antiques, and the conspirators were halted.</p> + +<p>“More at lunch,” Bo whispered hurriedly. “Now you help Lord Mere off +with that coat,” she said loudly, and then added, for John’s advantage, +“and act the Judas.”</p> + +<p>When they had all swarmed into the dining-room <span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>for luncheon, though +they were only seven they managed to make what Lord Hambourne called +in his literary productions “a buzz of conversation,” wherein appeared +regularly, like the cry of a tame duck, his own “Quate! quate!” as he +sat next to Amathea. And now and then “Lor!” from her ladyship. He was +explaining to her the three main theories of apparitions: “Illusions” +and the two “Phantasms,” <i>i.e.</i> “Phantasms of the dead,” as +distinguished from “Phantasms of the living,” or P.D., and P.L. as (he +assured her) they were called among the experts of psychology. He told +her about Meyer’s theory, Lombroso’s experiments and Julia; also Lodge. +He had the cunning of his kind, and knew that an academic reputation +is built by repeating the very little one has read to the completely +ignorant.</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup had been masterfully captured to sit by the side of the +handsome Hilda, and he was telling her how sure he did love an old +English house, and how it just got him where he wanted it. The handsome +Hilda was putting into her voice such inflections as she felt suitable +to the occasion.</p> + +<p>But John Maple—John Maple was occupied by greater things—one of which +was Bo.</p> + +<p>The further conference of those young people needed secrecy, but that +was not so difficult to attain at a babbling table as one might think, +for Bo and John were covered by the direct syncopated speech of Lord +Hellup and the loud, often <span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>stammering, always quacking spate of the +don, as also by the comments, not restrained in tone, big, hearty, +of Amathea, First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage (you may blame me for +calling her First Baroness Mere de Beaurivage if you like, but I pass +the buck to her—it is her own expression).</p> + +<p>However, they had to wait, for hardly had John got as far as the first +few questions when Amathea gave over Lord Hellup to her hostess and +captured John.</p> + +<p>It was not till she had ceased her description of the opening of +Parliament, which had ended by her nudging John Maple jocosely in the +ribs to reward him for a mild jest, and swung round again as on a large +swivel to talk to Lord Hellup, that John was free to turn again to +Isabeau and renew the interrupted crime.</p> + +<p>“Am I talking too loud?” he said, though he might have concocted +with her a plot to murder his sovereign for all that the eager +conversationalists on either flank would have known of it.</p> + +<p>“No, Jacko,” she answered. “They’re bawling and deaf to the world.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll wrap it up, all the same,” he said. “Follow close.”</p> + +<p>And then continued pleasantly, not too emphatically, in this singular +fashion:</p> + +<p>“It’s astonishing how much later we are in Sussex than in town. Did you +notice that? I mean, have you noticed the state of the woods compared +with any square in London? Or the parks? Do <span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>you think you could get +hold of a large piece of black cloth after dinner and pleat it so +as to make a sort of cloak? And it’s all nonsense about hearing the +nightingale before the cuckoo. Like that ass said the other day in +‘Nature Notes.’”</p> + +<p>His partner answered with simplicity:</p> + +<p>“I never can get these English birds. I used to think the nightingale +said ‘nightingale,’ just like the cuckoo says ‘cuckoo.’ Yes, I did. +I’ve got exactly what you want. It’s a cloak of my own. You’ve got +black trousers, and you can keep black socks. Only no clocks, you know.”</p> + +<p>At this moment Lord Hellup interrupted to ask across the table:</p> + +<p>“Jacko, what do you say about it?”</p> + +<p>This was the third time the peer had called her nephew Jacko in her +hearing and Aunt Hilda was impressed.</p> + +<p>“About what?” said John cheerfully.</p> + +<p>“Your aunt says that the only difference between making farming pay and +losing on it is the amount of trouble you take.”</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>“We have neither of us farmed,” he said.</p> + +<p>Then he resumed, to Bo:</p> + +<p>“It’s true, though. You <em>can</em> make it pay, I believe. We’ve got +a neighbour here who makes it pay by asking whether, if I got hold of +some white paper, you could make it into a ruff for me? That’s all +that’s wanted. Making farming pay. We’d stick it on the top of the +cloak. That, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>looking carefully after things and not going too much +up to London, and I’m sure anyone could make it pay. I could wear the +whole damn contraption on top of my head, and you would sew the ruff on +top of the neck. Then, as I am sure, thank God....”</p> + +<p>“Thank God!” answered Bo gently.</p> + +<p>“Bo,” interrupted her father again, “here’s Hilda Maple saying we make +farming pay in America.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you believe it, Hilda,” said the young woman, using the +Christian name for elders, after the modern fashion. “From the tallest +tower of my father’s castle beyond the seas as far as the eye can reach +over our broad lands there is not a hovel but what is derelict.”</p> + +<p>She resumed rapidly to John:</p> + +<p>“What about him?” and nodded towards Corton, who was solemnly pouring +out the better wine for Lord Hambourne, whom he pitied for a gentleman, +and poor.</p> + +<p>“I can believe that,” said John to her emphatically. “Any amount of +derelict farms in New England too. I’m going to see him after lunch. +And when I’ve seen him we three will arrange to meet, because you can’t +really make farming pay on old land. That’s the reason.”</p> + +<p>For ten minutes the plot was interrupted by the next artificial turn +between Amathea and John, which was played upon this occasion to the +tune of the beauty of the English climate and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>ended with a second +nudge to reward a second jest before the swivel turned to the left +again after the stern law of the tables of the rich.</p> + +<p>Then the two young people clinched the thing.</p> + +<p>“Aunt Hilda has made a wonderful success of the place,” he said. And he +caught his aunt’s eye as he said it. “And I must show you the new rock +garden to-morrow. She put Alpine flowers in it, and a special sort that +they thought could not grow in England, and it’s doing wonderfully. +I’ll take him out there after lunch and haunt him. Then, when he’s +back, we could have a game of billiards, fifty up. Anything up. Then +I’ll bring Corton round to you there. But you can make almost anything +grow in England, in the south at least, here in Sussex, if you take +trouble. Then we will conspire, my dear, it won’t take long.”</p> + +<p>“Take him out—soon—and haunt him,” whispered Bo, as they got up. She +was burning to begin.</p> + +<p>So was John. But he had to restrain himself for an hour. His aged guest +was in the habit of sleeping after the midday meal of a Sunday—he had +done so in the days when Sunday was his one day of rest and he did so +still. He chose a deep chair apart in the Library and there grunted +and snored at peace till half-past three. His host watched and waited. +As he came out, still heavy with sleep, and cramming into his pocket +the large coloured handkerchief with which he had covered his head in +slumber, John met him and took him <span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>prisoner, told him they might walk +out gently for a while, as the day was still and pleasant. He led the +way to the hall, put on his victim’s coat with tender care and opened +the door into the garden.</p> + +<p>With the kindest touch in the world he slid his hand and forearm into +the elbow of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, leading him out into the garden +with all the affection of a relative. It is a vulgar, familiar gesture +which he would have sickened to make had not stern duty prescribed it. +He must obey Bo.</p> + +<p>As for his captive, that elderly peer was actually flattered. True, +John Maple was a commoner; but then he was a sort of squire, and as +Amathea wanted the place so badly, and as John Maple was a kind of heir +(the Baron did not know the exact position—perhaps there was an entail, +or something: he didn’t understand these things) it was as well to be +friends.</p> + +<p>John Maple led out through the damnable rhododendrons and across the +accursed rock garden to where Aunt Hilda had arranged a little fountain +with a leaden Cupid in the middle holding a duck which squirted a +fountain of water from its bill.</p> + +<p>“I’d as lief ’ave a rest, Mr. Miple,” said the elder man, “quite a +short walk puffs me.”</p> + +<p>There was a bench, and they sat down.</p> + +<p>The splashing of the water was the only sound. It was still all about. +John Maple remembered <span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>how all this bit had looked in his childhood, +not garden but wild undergrowth; how he had cut a fork for a catapult +from a hazel here; and how once on the edge of that scrub, being all +alone, he had looked wide-eyed at a fox lurching by with a sly smile +showing its sharp teeth on its face.</p> + +<p>He saw the old rough again clearly in his mind. It hardened him to +his duty. He must sweep away all that horror of Alpine garden and +rhododendrons and fountain, and replant the wild. But to do that he +must achieve. And to achieve he must move Acheron and the Nether World.</p> + +<p>“It’s very quiet, Lord Mere,” he began, “especially after London.” He +thought with justice that this gambit would suit the mind of his guest. +And his guest replied that he couldn’t a-bear London, except o’ course +for meeting one’s friends; but there, country friends and country ways +were the best.</p> + +<p>“It’s in the quiet of Rackham,” said John, after a little calculated +pause, “that I remember my childhood.” He was violating sacred things, +but he had his duty to do. “I was a nervous child,” he went on. “They +always had to leave a light in my room. And my dear old nurse would sit +awake for hours with the door open of her room down the passage. She +never allowed them to frighten me with the story, you know.”</p> + +<p>“What story?” said Lord Mere, in whose solid mind there were two very +clear categories—nonsense in books and things as reely did ’appen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span></p> + +<p>“Oh,” went on John hurriedly, and as though to get over something +unpleasant as quickly as possible, “the story of the ghost, you +know.... <em>She believed it</em>—dear old thing. She would have thought +it impious not to believe in spirits. And on the top of that there was +the feeling she had for the family. But she loved me more, and she +would never let me hear of it. But I couldn’t help hearing of it. There +was a foolish maid who spoke once ... and terrified me. And I heard +the groom complaining to my father about the terror of the horses on a +certain night.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that about the ’orses?” asked Lord Mere nervously, and with the +beginning of an ill-ease in his heart.</p> + +<p>“Well, you know,” said John, “animals are supposed to see these things +from the other world sometimes when we can’t. It’s no wonder I was +terrified by the story as a child. I used to dream of it. And once, you +know—well, of course, it’s all nonsense. But children are the prey of +such things.... Once I <em>did</em> think I saw it—just at that season of +the year ... this season ... standing quite clearly in the firelight. +I hadn’t been well, and I think that’s the reason they had put me in +the old room with the big bed, over the drawing-room. So that nurse +could be next door. I had been asleep, and in the middle of a terrible +nightmare. I can’t remember the nightmare, except some confused +impression of violence and,” <span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>he sank his head, “a child couldn’t know +the name for it ... but it was the shadow of Death.... I remember that +panic acutely still. I was only ten—I woke up, suddenly—broad awake. I +sat up in the bed trembling—and, oh, Lord Mere” (and here John looked +at the old man’s face and saw it beginning to stare, the head drawn +back a little), “it was an agony I shall never quite forget.... It was +an illusion, I know. But....”</p> + +<p>“Course it was, boy. Course it was, Mr. Miple, I mean.” He wheezed into +an uncomfortable laugh. “Yer know that as well as I does!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Lord Mere,” said John thoughtfully, “I suppose I know it +<em>now</em>. One grows out of these things. But it was abominably real +then.... I don’t know why, but this time of year it still comes back to +me.... Association, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“Not that you’ve seen nothing since, Mr. Miple?” pursued his lordship +anxiously.</p> + +<p>“No, no, no!” John assured him. “I am sure it was a matter of health, +and I got my health back as I grew up. And you know, I went abroad. So +it became only a memory.”</p> + +<p>The old man was restless. And when John began again, “Of course, they +say that the influence of a violent and horrible death....” Lord Mere +de Beaurivage wanted to change the subject.</p> + +<p>“Yus, yus, yus!” he said hastily, as John helped him to his feet. They +went back slowly towards the house, Lord Mere already hobbling even +after so short a stroll, and John tenderly supporting <span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>him by the arm +and treading most leisurely to ease the old man’s way.</p> + +<p>It was after some moments of silence, when they were in the thick +of the rhododendrons on either side, that Lord Mere de Beaurivage +gave a startled twist in the midst of a step, a twist that hurt him +and stopped him as he shot a glance at the thick growth to his left. +He had heard—he thought he had heard—had he heard?—an evil whisper, +sneering little words, not high above the ground, as from the mouth of +something creeping, not human: surely the leaves had never stirred in +that windless afternoon? And the words he had heard, or thought he had +heard, were: “To the house,” or “in the house”—something like that. It +was a sibilant sound. He had heard the word “house” sneered at him.... +Surely he had heard it.... It was a sound such as rustling leaves might +have made.... But then no leaf had stirred.</p> + +<p>He turned his head towards John. He was still halted, and still +breathing heavily.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, Lord Mere?” said the young man, with great +sympathy. “I’m afraid I’ve overtired you?” The old fellow shook his +head.</p> + +<p>“No, no. It’s me heart, I think,” he said. “I’m orl right. Let’s be +getting along and doing—along and doing. Get among the others, eh? Get +among the others. More cheerful-like.”</p> + +<p>They were moving away from the rhododendrons <span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>now, and into the open. +So much to the good. And there was the house before them. He thought of +that whispered word “house,” and he shuddered.</p> + +<p>Then he shook off the little trouble. It had only been a moment. And +any small beast creeping in the shrubs might have brushed through with +that sibilant sound.</p> + +<p>During what remained of their brief companionship as they made back +towards the porch John Maple cheered his guest in every way.</p> + +<p><em>He</em> made no allusion to the Abominable Thing. He even appeared to +have forgotten it.</p> + +<p>But Lord Mere de Beaurivage, as he painfully put down his hat and stick +on the oaken chest in the hall, and more painfully crawled out of his +coat with his companion’s aid, had something or other on his mind that +would not away. He turned back suddenly on his way toward the library, +put one arm on John’s shoulder, and looked with a fixed but uncertain +look in his poor old yellow eyes, straight into the frank glance of his +hostess’ nephew.</p> + +<p>“Did yer say it ’ad no ’ed?” he whispered thickly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord Mere,” answered John, “don’t let’s think of it!” He drew +in his breath. “It was a long time ago, and I tell you, I was only a +child. And—and—I’m sleeping here to-night also,” he added, suddenly. +“So the less I think of it the better.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span></p> + +<p>Then he watched the broad, squat figure retreating slowly towards +the library door. He saw the painful aged gesture of the gouty hand +upon the knob, the shuffle into the room beyond. He thought he heard +something like a groan, and in his heart he half repented.</p> + +<p>But already that which commanded him was upon him: no less than Bo +herself, swinging into the hall out of the drawing-room like a rather +too tall ray of sunshine.</p> + +<p>“Dog-Man,” she said, “how’s your end? Have you bitten ’em? Have you +bitten ’em good and hard?”</p> + +<p>There was no lack of healthy determination in <em>this</em> conspirator. +Women know their minds. At least, some women do. And especially those +of the kind who make happy marriages. John was learning every hour. But +pray remember that the woman tempted him.</p> + +<p>He was a little ashamed, and he did not meet her eye.</p> + +<p>“I have suggested things, Bo. I did say a few words. Made an +atmosphere.”</p> + +<p>“Was he scared?” persisted his implacable premate.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid he was,” said John.</p> + +<p>“What did ye tell him, Jacko?” she asked softly, with such affection +that he was relieved. “Did you make it glare?”</p> + +<p>“He couldn’t glare without a head, Bo.”</p> + +<p>“No more could he,” answered the young lady <span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>thoughtfully. “Not in +nature, that wouldn’t be. But then, <em>he’s</em> not in nature either, +Jacko, is he? Did ye make Blackie Bogey talk?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said her lover. Then he corrected himself. “He did say a word in +the rhododendrons.”</p> + +<p>“<em>What?</em>” answered Bo, delighted. “Oh, that’s good! Push it along. +He’ll babble yet, Jacko. He’ll babble like a brook. He’ll moan and +he’ll groan. He’ll put down old Uncle Hamlet like a one-spot taking a +deuce. You are,” she added, after searching for a compliment at the +back of her mind, “the Bee’s Knees. You are the Cat’s Pyjamas.”</p> + +<p>Even as she spoke she was looking through the open drawing-room door +and the tall French windows towards the big lawn in front of Rackham, +and there she saw a sight which made her seize John Maple’s wrist +suddenly and strongly after a fashion more tolerable to-day from her +sex and age than it would have been half a generation ago.</p> + +<p>“Look, Dog-Man!” she whispered excitedly, and jutted her chin towards +the sight that had thus fixed her eyes.</p> + +<p>“What is it, Bo?” he asked. He saw nothing but his aunt and Lady Mere +de Beaurivage standing on the grass some little way off, and looking up +towards the new-old woodwork of the house. Once more the comprehension +of women came to aid the dullness of men.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t gotten it, haven’t you?” she said <span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>compassionately. +“John Maple, heir of Rackham, mark the twain. The Baroness is deep in +converse with the Lady of the Manor upon the green sward. Money’s going +to talk.”</p> + +<p>John Maple understood.</p> + +<p>“You think it’s begun already?” said he.</p> + +<p>Isabeau Hellup nodded, with a fixed certitude.</p> + +<p>“And my noble father will be the next to suffer,” she added.</p> + +<p>“It’s a race, Bo,” said John, “between them and us.”</p> + +<p>“And you’ve got to win by four little plaits of the mane on the steed’s +neck—or the whole neck, if you like. But you’ve got to win, damn you, +Jacko!—you’ve got to win. Now see here. Have you gotten that spell with +Corton yet?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said John. “I can’t do everything at once.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” answered Bo, looking at the impossible watch on her wrist, +“step on the gas and shoot. There’s no time to lose.”</p> + +<p>He agreed.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to fix the coat and the ruff. And I’m going to sew through +the slit in it that dandy little sword which I got from the shield +stack on the stairs; six in a star. There’s only five now. But I put +them straight. No one’ll notice. You run off to Corton.” She paused +and added, “And I’ll add a word to Lord Mere. Just a word. Just a +follow-up, Jacko. ’Nuff said.”</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch10"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span> +<h2 id="ch10">CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p>Amathea, First Baroness <ins class="edit" id="tn-172" title="original text: 'de Beaurevage'">de Beaurivage</ins>, +stood in ecstacy upon the lawn, +holding darling Hilda’s arm solidly in the crook of hers—two solid +arms well interlocked. In spite of the thickness and the shortness of +her neck, she carried her head a little upon one side, partly from the +intensity of her emotions, more through her conviction that such an +attitude befitted the occasion.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ilda!” she said, “darling Ilda, wot a gem! What a reel Jule!” Then +she sighed. “I wish the Prime Minister could see it, that I do,” she +continued. “Yer can’t think ’ow ’ot ’e is on old English ’ouses. Why, +I tell you strite, Ilda, show that man an old English ’ouse, and he +just fair goes off the deep end—as the saying is. He said to me once, +he did, ‘Amathea,’ he says—’e calls me Amathea, ’cos Uggins don’t like +him to call me Mattie—yet we’re pals, ye’ know——” and here she nudged +her hostess strongly in the rib with a powerful elbow, and that lady, +having before her one approach to fifty thousand pounds, stalwartly +bore the blow.</p> + +<p>“There’ll never be another like ’im, Ilda,” went on the Baroness +sentimentally, and in a rather lower tone. “Never no more! There’ll +be another <span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>in ’is place, no doubt—one passeth and another cometh—as +the good book says. It’s the rule of them great Parliament men, they +pass away like the flowers o’ the field. Yus, and it’s the rule of the +’ole world too.” She shook her head. “Mebbe they’ll get some ’ighbrow +in his room: but we’ll never see the likes of ’im again—not in that +plice. ’Owever, he’s there now, and long may he stick. A treasure, +Ilda.” (Then she was off on the house again.) “To see all that quiet, +and them old trees, and all so peaceful like, and timber on the front +and all—oh, it fair sets me envious. Aren’t you ’appy, Ilda, aren’t you +’appy in a plice like this?”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda sighed in her turn, profoundly.</p> + +<p>“Dearest Amathea,” she said, with a Christian squeezing of the arm that +had so lately dealt her such a cruel blow (you are too young, reader, +to know what it will feel like to get a bang in the ribs from the elbow +of a peeress and sister-friend in your fiftieth year), “I shall hate to +leave it.”</p> + +<p>“Oo talks of yer leavin’ it? Why, you’re the queen o’ the place,” +answered the noblewoman, not without guile, but in her business-like +heart she was murmuring, “Artful, artful! That artful!”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes,” said Hilda Maple, disengaging her arm for one moment in +the desire to breathe, and under the excuse of smoothing her kilt, +“sometimes I think that I can’t bear to leave it, and that some day I +might hope.... Then, you <span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>know, there comes back to me all that I owe +to the family and the name, and how Rackham ought always to be in Maple +hands.... And then I remember how the poor boy ...” she shrugged her +shoulders, “well, Mattie, you know what <em>he</em> is.”</p> + +<p>“I’m shore he’s an ’andsome, well-set-up young feller,” said Mattie.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” sighed Hilda again. “He’s all that. But you know what he +is. He could never keep the place up. He will never really <em>earn</em>. +His poor father was just like him.... That’s why I sometimes think +... well, that I ought to realise and leave the poor lad, when I am +gone ...” (she sighed again, as though she were on the brink of the +grave) “with a solid lump of money behind him anyhow.” She glanced at +her companion. “But well tied up, Mattie—you understand me. Well tied +up. I wouldn’t trust him to keep a penny of it, any more than his poor +dear father.” And Mattie nodded confidence. “Sometimes I think it’s +my duty,” Hilda Maple went on, “to sell.... And then sometimes I feel +torn and distracted....” She clasped her hands, and cast upwards a gaze +which took in the gables of Rackham and the lower part of the sky. “But +to think of Rackham no longer in Maple hands!” The distinguished figure +of Sir Harry Murtenshaw rose before her eyes, the romantic marriage—but +no ghost. She had already forgotten about <em>Him</em>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span></p> + +<p>Mattie hadn’t.</p> + +<p>“Ow! It’s all so romantic! An’ the gowst an’ all!” resumed that lady, +capturing her hostess’ arm once again and leading her towards the door +of the hall. “I wish we ud ad a gowst at home when I was young, that I +do,” and she shook her head. “But there, you can’t have everything!”</p> + +<p>There was a pause upon the gravel, and the two ladies made their +majestic progress towards the entry of those ancient walls. The one was +ardently longing for an advance—I do not mean a prepayment (for the +moment), but a suggestion of purchase. The other was considering the +best form in which that suggestion might be made. Hilda Maple, having, +if that were possible, the higher breeding, had the more rapid process +of brain; and the initiative came from her.</p> + +<p>“You know, Amathea,” she said gently, reverting to more formality, +“that Lord ... that your husband has spoken of buying the place?” Her +tone was thoughtful, gentle, and a little pensive too.</p> + +<p>“Why, Hilda Maple,” answered the peeress, standing back as though in +amaze, “oo’d ’ave thought it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” went on her hostess, still pensive, still subdued, and she +sighed again yet more profoundly than before. “Oh, I wish there +was someone to make up our minds for us, as there was when we were +children! What am I to say? What am I to do? I can’t bear to leave the +place, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>and yet.... And yet.... I think I know where my duty lies. When +I had several offers for it,” she added, lying gently, “I mean, just +after the war, when there were so many people after it, I refused, +as you know.” (It was the first time Mattie had heard of it—and no +wonder!) “But things were different then; my brother-in-law was alive, +and the boy seemed such a child. And now, of course, when it’s quite +a different place in value, with all the changes I’ve made, and the +improvements, they will come offering me more than they did, and I +shall be tempted. I know I shall. But I do promise you this, Mattie. I +won’t even mention figures till I have given you and your husband first +choice. There! I’ve said it now!”</p> + +<p>“I knew you would!” answered Mattie impulsively, at the door, and +suddenly kissing her friend. “Oh, you’re strite and loyal, you are! +Pity it is there ain’t more like you. It’s what I was saying to the +Prime Minister only the other day, when he said that about Uggins. He +said, ‘Amathea,’ he said (he calls me Amathea, ’cos I won’t let him +call me Mattie—I don’t think it’s right, nor he wouldn’t neither), +‘Amathea,’ ’e says, ‘that ’usband of yours is one of a thousand. And +do you know why I ses it?’ ses he. ‘Because he’s <em>strite</em>,’ ses +he. ‘He runs <em>strite</em>,’ ses ’e. ‘I tell you, Amathea,’ he ses, ‘a +man that runs strite is a jule.’ And you run strite too, Ilda, you do. +That’s what ’e said. Them was the identical words!”</p> + +<p>So the song ended—as the poet Longfellow <span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>somewhere remarks—and the +two ladies strolled into the hall. Amathea, with an agility worthy +of a better cause, rapidly performed the pounding gymnastics which +she called “popping upstairs.” She had certain calculations to make, +certain notes.</p> + +<p>As for Hilda, she was turning towards her room, herself also intent on +certain notes, certain calculations, when she heard a firm and regular +step, which she knew. It was Lord Hellup. He had just caught up his +expensive but reasonable grey hat, and his not demonstrative but costly +gold-headed cane, and was about, as befitted the creases in his clothes +and the exactitude of his coat, to adorn the gardens of Rackham. He +had an hour before tea. He was suddenly aware that Hilda stood before +him. I am sorry to say that he impulsively took her hand, as though he +were meeting her for the first time in some days. But he smiled and +she smiled, and he begged her to show him the rosery of which she had +spoken.</p> + +<p>So they went out together, he sixty or so, she fifty, and the spring +around them both, and in the rosery they talked of roses.</p> + +<p>On the way back Hilda Maple led the way round, still talking in the +manner he found so engrossing, with such refinement, such subtlety, +such charm, as none other but he had noticed in her conversation, +until, turning out of the shrubbery, they found themselves upon the +lawn where so lately Lady Mere de Beaurivage had stood, where Lord +Hellup now was—but with this difference, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>that Lord Hellup had far too +much respect for womankind to link his arm in Hilda’s; contrariwise, +his hung somewhat awkwardly along his flank.</p> + +<p>Hilda Maple gazed at Rackham with a world of affection in her eyes. +Lord Hellup stood by watching, admiring, nearly worshipping that gaze. +It apprehended the gables of Rackham, and the lower part of the sky.</p> + +<p>“I can’t bear to think of leaving it,” she said in a subdued voice, and +there was a little catch in it, almost like a sob.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mercy!” cried the candid gentleman from overseas, “you’re sure +not thinking of leaving it, Mrs. Maple! Why, we associate you with +Rackham, and Rackham with you, like hand and glove. You’re necessary +to Rackham, Mrs. Maple,” he added, with an emphatic enthusiasm, and he +very nearly continued, “and Rackham’s necessary to you,” when his quick +mind perceived that this would be a blunder. He said, with something +almost like tenderness in his tone, and with a drop of two notes in his +voice, “I could not bear to think of Rackham without you, Mrs. Maple.”</p> + +<p>She sighed—that same sigh.</p> + +<p>“There was a time when I would not have dreamed of it, Lord Hellup,” +she answered. “You know, these things are very difficult to talk +about——” she delicately put the tips of her fingers upon his arm for +a moment, and at once withdrew them. “But now I have begun perhaps +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>I ought to say it. When they were making all those offers for the +place—just at the end of the war....”</p> + +<p>“Were they <em>so</em>?” inquired Lord Hellup with interest, and a most +intelligent look in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Hilda Maple hurriedly. “Well, I wouldn’t hear of it +then. It seemed to me abominable that Rackham should leave the Maple +name. But then, you know, my brother-in-law was alive then, and John +was only a boy. I refused them. Of course, it’s more valuable now: that +was before I had done anything to the place, and I must say,” she went +on prettily, and smiling at him as she said it, “I have made it what it +used to be. I do think I may be proud of it.”</p> + +<p>“Why, sure, you can,” answered the magnate emphatically. “It’s the +niftiest little nest I’ve seen this side of the water. The more I see +of it, the more I think so. And so does Bo,” he added hurriedly; to +support his judgment lest by any chance his hostess should disagree +with him. He repeated himself. “The niftiest little nest this side the +water.”</p> + +<p>The adjectives and noun were not those which Hilda Maple would herself +have chosen. Rackham Catchings was not so little, after all, and there +was something impertinent about “nifty,” seeing that the foundations +were pre-monstrous, or whatever the word was. But she had that in her +mind which made verbal niceties unimportant.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span></p> + +<p>“My heart’s been torn, Lord Hellup,” she said, with a rising voice (and +she clasped her hands). “But I think it’s my duty to provide.... You +know what the boy is.”</p> + +<p>“He’s some lad,” replied Lord Hellup politely. It was not what Aunt +Hilda wanted.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” she said, almost impatiently—English people are sometimes +a little like that with their trans-Atlantic cousins. “Oh, I know his +talents, and he’s a dear boy. But,” shaking her head, “he could never +keep up Rackham!” She sighed again. “It’s the same old story. Like +father, like son. He’s like his father before him. I’m afraid it’s +my duty to see when I’m gone that there shall be solid money behind +him—well tied up. When I am gone ...” she added, putting a bell-like +tone into her voice and receiving, what she had expected, an ardent +protest from her companion.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” she sighed, in reply to it, “it may be a long time yet—or +it may not. But I have got to think of the boy.”</p> + +<p>Poor woman! She had got to think of the Esthonian as well! Of him who +was to her Mr. Rupert de Vere.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know—I don’t know,” she went on, in a carefully distracted +voice, and once more she put her hand on Lord Hellup’s arm, this time +less briefly. “We women need advice. No ... I have made up my mind. +It’s my duty to sell.... I even, sometimes, think I ought to take the +price <span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>that was offered me last month by that odious tea broker.”</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup had not heard of the tea broker, friend of his hostess +though he was. And why should he—since the tea broker did not exist? +Lord Hellup had passed his life in business. His judgment of prices, +he would often tell himself, might be compared to the glance of an +eagle. He could not help wondering what the odious tea broker man had +suggested for Rackham Catchings. But Hilda was not “talking”—yet.</p> + +<p>They were now off the lawn and upon that gravel path going back to the +door, after another such silence as Amathea also had known in that same +place not very long before. Just as they reached the threshold, Hilda +looked up frankly into her friend’s eyes. There was a suspicion of +tears in her own, which moved that friend profoundly.</p> + +<p>“When once I’m <em>certain</em> it’s my duty to sell, I shall do it,” she +said. She shook her head again sadly. “But I can’t bear to think of +myself without Rackham.”</p> + +<p>“And we,” said Lord Hellup, in a low, deep voice, suitable to the +occasion, and most sincerely moved, “we” (he used the impersonal term) +“could not bear to think of Rackham without you.” He took her hand +again—I am sorry to say that it was his intention to have kissed the +tips of her fingers, but found she had withdrawn them. The peer was +annoyed with the fear that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>he had perhaps broken some social canon or +other. But Hilda Maple was not cruel, for as she went away, their last +words exchanged, she smiled.</p> + +<p>So much for sixty years and fifty years. Now let us come to +calculations.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>At the table in her room Lady Mere de Beaurivage did, as she put it to +herself, some figuring. She was an adept at the art, from the days when +she had marked prices in chalk with lightning strokes upon the sides of +the barrow in the Old Kent Road. She had improved in the later days, +when she had cheapened furniture for the new villa of which she had +been so proud in the suburbs, before the Great Change.</p> + +<p>But since the Great Change I must admit that Amathea, Baroness Mere de +Beaurivage had begun to let things slide. The money was there in such +heaps that really it didn’t seem to matter what one did. Her passion +for Rackham had got hold of her. She knew enough of buying and selling +to make certain that the place was within her reach if enough were +offered. It was only a question of what enough was. She could usually +manage her lord, but she knew that in one thing the management was not +always easy; and that one thing was money. For like all those whose +genius has led them to accumulate a considerable fortune rapidly, Lord +Mere de Beaurivage was in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>some terror of losing it. She remembered +what other friends had paid for houses and what other friends had sold +at. Her desire for the place led her further to remember how often +she had heard of the special value of these modest country houses of +ancient memory; what a drug in the market were the great hulking stone +places of the eighteenth century, and what a demand there was for these +Tudor and timbered gems.</p> + +<p>Before she had done dreaming of it, the good woman had got as her top +price, at the back of her head—counting all—something like £60,000. +After all, it was not her money. And what is £60,000 in two millions? +Besides which, it was only £3,000 a year anyhow; and what’s three +thousand a year when you were born to an uncertain pound a week? The +great thing is to get what you want. Three thousand a year—but that’s +not the way to look at it—£60,000. Why, there are toffs as ull give +that for a trumpery picture!</p> + +<p>And then, there was no one to inherit from them. And she asked herself +sentimentally whether Huggins and she had not the right to enjoy what +was left of their lives. And there could not be anything else like +Rackham. There were not two places like Rackham—not in all England +there weren’t.</p> + +<p>In Amathea’s room, therefore, the figure of Sixty Thousand Pounds had +taken root and had sprung.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span></p> + +<p>Through a wall not too thick (for it was in the new or Catchings wing, +and the walls were damnably antique) at another desk, Hilda Maple was +making <em>her</em> calculations also. She drew the figures wearily +enough. £20,000 would clear her. What was desperate, what was immediate +was de Vere of Jermyn Street.</p> + +<p>It was to pay the first five hundred, and so get the Esthonian to +renew, all those months ago, just after the Ancestor, that she had +written, on the advice of an acquaintance familiar with antiques, to +Blunt of Bristol, and really Blunt had been very nice about it. She had +a full three months in which to meet it. But when Blunt had to be met +for the renewal—he pressed her courteously by post, she had never seen +him—he pleaded the smallness of his capital; he recommended that very +honourable firm, or rather, private advancer, a Mr. de Vere of Jermyn +Street. And Mr. de Vere had been quite charming. He had advanced enough +to permit Blunt of Bristol to renew for another three months. And he +himself had fixed a very easy date for his own repayment. But that easy +date had fallen due a whole week ago—and how he had pestered her. He +had made her dread the telephone.</p> + +<p>She must have something to show him. Anything in writing. Even a +private note. It was a little desperate; but she did think she could +get it before the break-up on Monday.</p> + +<p>It was not too late, Sunday though it was. She <span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>knew from sad +experience that de Vere could use the telephone from his end on a +Sunday afternoon, and she doubted not that she could call him up from +hers.</p> + +<p>She took up the receiver; and sure enough that smooth voice answered in +velvet from the other end. Her own voice as she continued was all as +smooth.</p> + +<p>“Is that Mr. de Vere? Mr. Rupert de Vere? Oh, Mr. Rupert,” settling +down, and still more sweetly, “I am so glad of the opportunity of +telling you—yes, I know. I didn’t want to make you talk business +on a Sunday” (sudden change to an expression of anguish). “Oh, no, +surely, dear Mr. Rupert. Not Monday! Why, that’s to-morrow! Yes, yes” +(pettishly), “I know that’s the date on the paper—a week ago—yes—but +there’s common sense in these matters—no—yes—exactly. Do wait a minute. +I’ve practically sold the place. No, no, Mr. Rupert, you haven’t heard +that so often before. I tell you it’s <em>virtually</em> sold. There’s +Lord Hellup who has virtually accepted—practically. And then, you know, +there’s the other one here too—Lord Mere de Beaurivage—not heard of +him? Oh, nonsense, you must have heard of him! Dear Mr. Rupert, he’s +positively dripping with it. No, no” (shouting) “BRUVVISH—I’ll spell +it” (slowly) “B E A U R I” (angrily). “It’s damnable—you’ve cut me off +... yes, yes, another three minutes. Yes. Oh, are you <em>there</em>, Mr. +Rupert? Yes, I know they did, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>the brutes. I’ll spell it again. B for +buffalo, E for Edward, A for affluent, U for ugly, R for rancid, I for +innocent, V for vulgar—yes, that’s it” (emphatically) “precisely. Sir +George Huggins that was. Yes, only he pronounces it Bruvvish—I thought +you’d know. He’s the man whom the Prime Minister—yes, exactly, dear +Mr. Rupert. Oh, thank you <em>so</em> much. Tuesday, then? I may see you +Tuesday? Oh, that makes <em>all</em> the difference” (peevishly). “Well, +you don’t suppose I can come with the agreement in my pocket! What? +Something in writing? Oh, yes, certainly. Well, then, Tuesday. Thank +you so much, dear Mr. Rupert! Tuesday morning—that’ll be perfect ... +G-o-o-d b-y-e.”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda hung up the receiver, exhausted, faced the situation, and +muttered bravely, “Hell!”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile her nephew was making history with her butler, Isabeau Hellup +concurring.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch11"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span> +<h2 id="ch11">CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p>John Maple sought Corton. He found that excellent man seated in his +private room beside the fire, reading <cite>The Spectator</cite> in cultured +ease. For it was the hour when butlers take their ease. The dignified +figure rose with majestic courtesy at the young man’s knock and entry.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_188"> + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_188.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Mr. Corton reads <cite>The Spectator</cite></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“You catch me <i lang="fr">improviste</i>, Mr. John,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I interrupt you, Corton,” answered John. “I’m sorry, but it’s urgent, +and it won’t take me long. I’m glad you read <cite>The Spectator</cite>.”</p> + +<p>“That journal is my favourite reading, Mr. John,” answered Corton, with +fine simplicity. “Mrs. Maple is good enough to provide the <cite>News of +the World</cite> for us. I glance at it, for a summary of what may be +called domestic occurrences. But for judgment and a survey of public +life I prefer <cite>The Spectator</cite>. It is my pabulum.”</p> + +<p>John told him he was quite right. But he added abruptly:</p> + +<p>“Corton, have you ever heard about a ghost at Rackham?”</p> + +<p>“A ghost, Mr. John? Lord, no!” said the old gentleman. “If there was +a ghost,” he added emphatically, “I should have heard of it, I hope! +There <em>was</em> a ghost at Pilford, a little the other <span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>side of Lewes, +but,” he added proudly, “they laid <em>him</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I remember the ghost at Pilford. It was a white cow. Came +into their upper garden at night, didn’t it, in the dark of the moon?”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” answered Corton sagely. “It came twice. But some said +it wasn’t an earthly cow. On the third night that young clerical +gentleman what wore a three-corner cap said he could exercise it and +exercised it. It never came again. I heard the very details, Mr. John,” +he said, lowering his voice. “I heard that from Mr. Worthing, who you +may remember was valet to Sir Charles.”</p> + +<p>John nodded.</p> + +<p>“The young gentleman said some strange, solemn words: there they all +was, after eleven, looking from the terrace, and the cow melted.” He +would have given more of the spectral beast. His voice was already in +tune for the supernatural, when John interrupted him and said:</p> + +<p>“Well, Corton, so there has never been a ghost at Rackham, anyhow. Now +listen. There’s got to be a ghost now, this very day.”</p> + +<p>And he unfolded his plan.</p> + +<p>Corton listened gravely. But he was not yet an ally. He heard what John +had to say, but he didn’t know what Mrs. Maple would think of it. It +was not for him to play practical jokes either. He would do anything to +help Master John, but.... What with one thing and another.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span></p> +<p>It was then that John put down his cards.</p> + +<p>“Corton,” he said, “who’s the rightful owner of Rackham?”</p> + +<p>“Why, Master John,” answered the old man, hesitating, “it’s not my +place to say. If I might be so bold as to be free to speak....”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Corton,” interrupted the young man, “if you were free to speak +you would say that <em>I</em> was the rightful owner of Rackham. And you +would say that I was swindled out of it, or at any rate crow-barred +out of it; and that’s an abomination. And you would say that if only I +could pay Aunt Hilda the fair price (and the fair price would be a good +deal less than the £20,000 my father was supposed to owe her husband—he +never borrowed anything like it really) I’d have as good right to +Rackham as my father himself had.”</p> + +<p>Corton made a gesture—too respectful for a nod, too affirmative for a +bow.</p> + +<p>“Well, Corton,” said John sharply, “now don’t you see?”</p> + +<p>But the old man wanted to have the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.</p> + +<p>“Look here, Corton, do you want to see that fellow Bruvvish sitting +here in Rackham, and you turned out, and Lord knows what horrors of his +own brought in? Jazz bands and Wireless?”</p> + +<p>“I had hoped,” said the old man slowly, “to live and die here, Master +John, I had hoped to live on here when I was past my service, if ever. +Your father always said I should, and Mrs. Maple <span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>never denied it one +way or the other. This room’s not my very own, sir, it’s yours; but I +don’t think I could live long away from it. It would kill me, sir, if I +may say so with respect. I never thought of strangers in this house. It +wouldn’t be in nature.”</p> + +<p>“Well, there you are, Corton. And the way to prevent that is to prevent +this old brute Huggins from getting the place. Besides which, Corton, +you know as well as I do that Rackham would be itself again if I was +here, as I ought to be, and you as you were when my father was alive, +running the whole place and bullying us to death. Well, there’s only +one way of doing it, and that’s frightening off Lord Rubbish. I have +laid the foundation, and we have only got to go ahead. Now listen to +me, Corton. In about five minutes I shall be in the billiard-room with +Miss Hellup. I have told her. I am going to marry that young lady, +Corton.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, sir,” said Corton, bowing again, but this time far more +ceremoniously. “I congratulate you, sir. I’ve always heard that these +American young ladies....”</p> + +<p>“You’re quite right, Corton; you’re perfectly right,” said John +hurriedly. “And very beautifully put. Thank you a thousand times. Now +listen again. I tell you in about five minutes I’ve got to meet her in +the billiard-room. When I ring <em>twice</em> will you come? We shall +have to put <span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>our three heads together. Do you understand? When I ring +<em>twice</em>? And no one else is to come.”</p> + +<p>Corton understood.</p> + +<p>As the young man made to go out of Corton’s room that master of +ceremonies heaved to his feet and was before him at the door. He bowed +yet again as he showed John Maple out. Then, when all was clear, he +sent for the boy.</p> + +<p>“Boy,” he said, “when you hear the bell <em>twice, twice</em>, mind you, +you come and tell me. Twice, mind you! Don’t disturb me for once.”</p> + +<p>“Very good, sir,” answered the boy in a voice cracked but most servile.</p> + +<p>His superior rewarded him with an august but very slight nod.</p> + +<p>Some few minutes passed. Corton no longer read <cite>The Spectator</cite>, +passionately absorbing though its pages be. He held it listlessly +drooping in an aged hand, he looked into the fire and remembered his +old master, Henry Maple, and the better days. Then there rose before +his mind the picture of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, and his mouth hardened.</p> + +<p>The bell rang twice.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the billiard-room Bo was pocketing the red all by herself with +admirable precision. When Bo could not do things well she did not do +them at all, which is one way of being efficient. She continued <span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>her +series as John catechised her on her short interlude, picking the red +out for her every time and putting it back on spot with the tenderest +care, and admiring her gymnastics at long and short range.</p> + +<p>“Did you speak to him, Bo?”</p> + +<p>“I did that. I asked him whether he had felt something odd about the +corridor upstairs where his room is. He said no. I think he gulped.”</p> + +<p>“What state did you think him in, Bo?”</p> + +<p>“Shaken, Jacko; not badly, but shaken. He didn’t like my talking about +it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! So I worked it?”</p> + +<p>“Yep! Damn! You can’t do two things at once,” said she, putting down +her cue as the red foolishly lolloped round hanging its head and came +to a disgraceful rest, unsatisfied. John took up the cue and played a +stroke.</p> + +<p>“The others’ve got to hear the balls clicking, so as to know we’re at +work and not to be interfered with,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You’re right,” said Bo.</p> + +<p>“He’s coming. He’s to come when I ring twice. So I’ll ring twice.”</p> + +<p>He rang twice. And in due time with due dignity Corton entered. Bo put +her finger to her lip and John obediently did the same. The elderly +gentleman with some doubt that it might not be very dignified, but also +that it might be his duty, put to his lips in turn a grave and rather +podgy finger. Then John swung the balls together <span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>viciously, to make a +prolonged clattering, and they laid their swift plan.</p> + +<p>“If I may say so without forgetting my place, Master John,” said +Corton, when they had begun the preliminaries, “we shall do well to +begin with the household.”</p> + +<p>“The household?” said Bo.</p> + +<p>“Yes, miss. I mean, the lower servants. And then, of course, my own +colleagues, I trust I shall be able to indoctrinate them.”</p> + +<p>John nodded.</p> + +<p>“That’s wise,” he said. “But remember the man we’re shooting at.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, Master John,” said Corton respectfully. “That’s what I +mean. You will be working him, if I may use the word,” and he coughed +gently. “I’ll be bringing a deputation some time later this evening, +sir. They are a little shaken already, Master John, like what you said +his lordship was. Only more so. Especially the cook. She was always +psychic. And then there’s the tweenie—she’ll be useful, because she’s +worse, she has had religion this winter—badly. Only, Master John, I +don’t think I can do anything with that Frenchman. He’s shown no signs. +I fear he is impervious to the influences of the Other World.”</p> + +<p>“I know,” said Bo simply. “Frenchmen are brass.”</p> + +<p>“They give no credit, miss, to the doctrine of eternal punishment.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span></p> + +<p>“That’s what I meant,” said Bo.</p> + +<p>“Now, Corton,” John went on, “listen to what Miss Hellup and I have +arranged. I’m going to put on a long black coat she has got for me; and +we’ve taken down one of the swords from the sham armour that Aunt Hilda +bought the other day, and shall stick it through the slit in the coat. +Then she’s made a big ruff. I shall put the whole thing over my head, +and there I shall be. A short man with his head in his chest, or a tall +man without a head—whichever you like. A ruff where his neck ought to +be, but nothing above it.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_194"> + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_194.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>John Maple explains his plan</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“It was Miss Hellup who thought of that!” said Corton with admiration.</p> + +<p>“No, Corton,” said Bo. “We both thought of it. But it is I who made up +the properties—and they’re dandy.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll keep them carefully concealed, miss—and you, sir—until the +right moment?” said. Corton anxiously.</p> + +<p>The two younger people nodded. John went on.</p> + +<p>“That old gentleman’s going to hear voices, Corton, till they drive him +to bed. And you know that Aunt Hilda has put him into the Armada room?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Master John,” answered Corton very seriously. “The room that’s +panelled with oak which I hear is derived from the wrecks of the +Spanish Armada, as is also that in the dining-room.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span></p> +<p>“That’s right,” said John cheerfully. “That’s where the ghost’s going +to be. For I am the ghost, and I know. There’s just room between the +tapestry on the wall and the red damask hangings at the head of the +four-post bed.” Then he added oddly, “I wish I hadn’t gone in for it. +It feels mean. But I had to take his appetite away, Corton. I don’t +want those millions to eat up Rackham.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll make me despise you, Jacko,” said Bo, with the cruelty of her +sex. “What you want is to make the old brute roaring crazy. If you +don’t, I shall.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll go through with it, Bo,” said Jacko simply. “But I do pity the +old boy all the same. You see, I have had nerves myself—when I was a +child.”</p> + +<p>“And you’ll have them again to-night, if there’s a mirror in the room +and you squint through a button-hole,” Bo answered. “Now, Corton, all +this is bright and right?”</p> + +<p>“Perfectly, miss, absolutely,” said Corton.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I’ll be getting back and helping some more with this lil’ +haunting, and I’ll go coach Lovey-Lad. I know how to make him whine and +shiver.”</p> + +<p>So did these conspirators part.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Still at her desk, the telephone relinquished, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>the Esthonian for a +moment silenced, Hilda Maple jotted away.</p> + +<p>If she sold for £40,000 she could live modestly and freely for the rest +of her life; she had gone into the prices of annuities at her age, and +she knew what the £20,000 extra when all was paid off could buy.</p> + +<p>If she could sell for £50,000, with a balance of £30,000 over for an +annuity—well and good. Or rather, well and better.</p> + +<p>But time pressed, even if she hooked one of her two fish, she must have +something in writing by the morrow.</p> + +<p>She was a determined woman, and a clear-headed woman, and also by +nature as hopeful as she was decided. She said to herself, as she +jotted figures slowly down on the paper before her, that if she played +her cards at all properly she would have her competing offers before +the evening was out. Then in the morning before her guests went away +she would get a brief note from the firm bidder. She would say it was +more regular, and whoever it was that had promised wouldn’t be able +to refuse that small formality. Then she could breathe again with +something to take up to town on the Tuesday. She would play her cards +first with Bruvvish—there was margin to play with in the devotion of +Lord Hellup. She must take Bruvvish for a foundation.</p> + +<p>Bruvvish therefore she boarded, taking him aside immediately after she +had given him tea, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>as the sacrificial victim is taken aside after a +draught of honeyed wine. She got him into the library, alone, and fired +a broadside under which he reeled, and from which he could not recover. +She told him that she had divined his desire to purchase Rackham; she +loyally swore that his wife had never breathed a word of it, but she +admitted that Amathea had not been able to conceal her very natural +feeling about the place. They were old friends, were they not? and dear +friends—or she would not be speaking so frankly.</p> + +<p>Well, as he knew, until quite lately she would have thought that +anyone who asked her to sell Rackham was mad. But then, with him and +Amathea it was different. And one thing she had always said: if it +had to go—and if it really was her duty to the boy that she should +sell—at least it should be in the hands of friends, and for the sake +of friends, still more for the sake of feeling that the old place +was still in the same kind of hands, she would take what she would +certainly take from no one else.</p> + +<p>All the great spirit of the Huggins blood rose at that moment, and +before the fatal figures could be uttered, before the foot could be +slipped into the open door, the initiative had passed from Hilda to +the enemy. The mighty man of business spoke. These things have to be +done as with an axe—once, and decisively. He had always read that of +the millionaires in the papers. And since he had become a millionaire +himself he had <span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>been determined to live up to it. He settled his head +well down, shortening still further his short neck, he put on the +sullen expression which he associated with financial mastery, and he +said these words:</p> + +<p>“I ’ad thort o’ going to £30,000.”</p> + +<p>Hilda Maple was worthy of herself, and of the occasion.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said simply—and then, as though no one had spoken, “as you +say. It is most strange to me how long it takes me to make up my mind. +I will be straightforward with you, Lord Mere. When I was offered sixty +thousand all those years ago....”</p> + +<p>“Sixty thousand!” gasped Lord Mere de Beaurivage.</p> + +<p>Hilda Maple waved her hand impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Sixty thousand, I said. Well, when I was offered it all those years +ago I refused it. Not for the money, mind you—I thought it was a very +fair price, especially as I had not added anything to speak of in +those days. But I could not bear to think of selling the place. They +might have offered me sixty million and it would have been the same. +But now it’s another matter. You know, dear Lord Mere de Beaurivage” +(he quailed beneath her eye), “... that I’m saying it to you because +it <em>is</em> you—you and dearest Amathea. One can’t have many close +friends in this world. And you know too that I’m thinking of the boy. +If I knew that I could get even fifty <span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>thousand guineas now, and leave +it in safe hands.... Why.... Yes ...” again she sighed. “I suppose I +should yield.”</p> + +<p>“Fifty thousand!” almost shouted Lord Mere de Beaurivage.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” nodded his handsome friend. “Fifty thousand guineas. That’s it. +It’s too little, I know. I know what you’re feeling for me—but can’t +beat up a price. I can’t haggle. I never could bear the details of +business. And if I must suffer, why, it’s like an operation.... I want +something quick, clean, and done with.... So I’d take even that.”</p> + +<p>It was on the tip of his lordship’s tongue to utter the fatal words, +“Yer would, would yer?”—and then her patience would have broken and +there would have been a scene. But he stood in sufficient awe of +superior culture to be restrained in time. All he said was:</p> + +<p>“Well, ma’am—Ilda, I mean—honest and square like ... come ... I do +think when you say fifty thousand pounds....”</p> + +<p>“Guineas,” murmured Hilda Maple.</p> + +<p>“Ho? Guineas?” he muttered savagely. “You’re fair coming it over me! +That’s wot you are, strite—altogether coming it over me!”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” moaned Hilda Maple wearily. “How I hate all this business talk! +<em>I</em> don’t want to sell the place. I wish I’d never mentioned it. +And if it’s going to interrupt our friendship, for God’s sake let’s say +no more about it at all. It’ll be a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>load off my mind, anyhow, to drop +the whole thing. And there I shall be in Rackham, where I’ve always +been. And it’s my soul’s home. And with John ... here as I grow old ... +to inherit it all from me,” she added, with beautiful sentiment.</p> + +<p>“Don’t misunderstand me, Ilda, don’t misunderstand me,” said the great +man. “We need to be friendly in business, same as in everythink else. +Don’t we? Now s’posin we talk it over quiet-like. Here have I been +talkin’ thirty thousand pounds. Well, I tell ye’ strite, that was just +bargaining. You wouldn’t have me not bargain, would yer? Yer think less +of me, wouldn’t yer?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m tired ... tired, tired!” exclaimed the lady, in tragic tones, +higher than she had yet used, and alarming to the financier, who was +always terrified of women’s whims. “I can’t go into it any more, +George” (she did not often call him George—but she called him George +now). “Really I can’t. I tell you....” She got up and moved as though +she would go.</p> + +<p>“Stye a bit. Wite a bit, Ilda, do!” he cried, hoisting himself out of +his chair. “I’ve got ter tell Mattie somethin, yer know. Now, let’s be +reasonable. We was saying fifty thousand pounds, that’s what you and I +was saying....”</p> + +<p>“Guineas,” I said. “No! no! I can’t go on,” burst forth Hilda Maple, +making for the door in her agitation. Then she turned back suddenly and +frankly took his hands. “We won’t quarrel, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>George, will we? Only don’t +let us talk business any more.”</p> + +<p>And then she was gone.</p> + +<p>His lordship sank back into the big chair from which he had so +painfully raised himself for that moment, and he grumbled to himself +half aloud:</p> + +<p>“All Mattie’s doin’; she’s that keen on the place! Fifty thousand! +Well, it’s a ramp. But now she’s broke off! What am I to say to Mattie?”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Hilda Maple, singularly composed after her recital, not unlike King +Lear or any other tragic figure when it gets off into the wings for +its pot of beer, had two things clearly fixed in her mind: first, she +had established her fifty thousand—guineas; there was no doubt of +that at all. She had laid her foundation. Secondly, Lord Hellup would +be spending the time between tea and dressing, as he always did, in +the little Red Room, reading Motley’s <cite>Dutch Republic</cite>—it was +astonishing, she thought, how that great man could read and re-read +Motley’s <cite>Dutch Republic</cite>. But it argued a stable mind. Anyhow, he +would be there, in the little Red Room. And therefore to the little Red +Room did Hilda Maple steal.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span></p> + +<p>For once in his life Lord Hellup did not mind being interrupted in his +re-reading for the fiftieth time of the Monstrous Alva, the Divine +William of Orange, the heroic Dutch and the villainous Dagoes. He put +down his book with a snap; he was on his feet at once; he had put a +winning look into his face, and was about to put a winning tone into +his voice to greet her, when Hilda forestalled him.</p> + +<p>“Lord Hellup,” she said, “I have come to ask your advice. No one would +give it more freely or more generously than you, and I would trust your +judgment beyond that of any living person.”</p> + +<p>“Is that so?” replied the peer, with pleasure ringing through the quiet +words.</p> + +<p>“Lord Hellup, I have made up my mind to sell Rackham.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t say?” repeated her guest, in the same courteous intonation. +“That was what I felt scared about when you were talking just now in +the garden. Well, well, so you want to sell Rackham?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. But I come to you—I shall be quite frank, because you can help me +as no one else can....”</p> + +<p>“Help—how?” said his lordship courteously.</p> + +<p>“Why, with your advice, Lord Hellup.”</p> + +<p>His face admitted his relief.</p> + +<p>“You can tell me more justly, and I would trust you more completely—as +I have said—than <span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>any living man. Tell me honestly, what ought I to +ask?”</p> + +<p>“If I were making the offer, Mrs. Maple,” said her friend, word by +word and carefully, “I say <em>if</em> I were, or if I were buying for a +friend, say....” Then he broke off. “Or, see here, put it this way. If +I were asked what it would fetch at an auction in a free market——” He +paused and took up another line, and began again almost affectionately, +“Or, see here, if I were trying to get the best price for you....”</p> + +<p>Hilda Maple became impatient.</p> + +<p>“Lord Hellup, it would be much the same figure in any case, wouldn’t +it?”</p> + +<p>“Why, no,” he said thoughtfully. “You see, if I were buying that would +be one thing, and if I were selling for you, that would be another +thing. Then if I were bidding at an auction....”</p> + +<p>Hilda Maple thought, not unwisely, that this might go on for ever. +During all their growing intimacy she had more and more regarded Lord +Hellup as a man of few terse phrases. It seemed there was another side +to him—and this would never do.</p> + +<p>“Lord Hellup,” she said simply and swiftly to bring things to a crisis. +“Tell me plainly. Do you think that if I ask fifty thousand guineas I +am asking too much?”</p> + +<p>“Why, no,” replied the First Baron Hellup, composedly, and weighing his +words. “Strictly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>speaking, you cairn’t ask too much. Same way, they +cairn’t offer too little.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been offered more in the past,” said the lady decisively.</p> + +<p>“Well, if you didn’t take it,” he sympathetically answered, “that means +it’s worth more to <em>you</em> than fifty thousand pounds, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “it is. To me, Rackham Catchings is worth untold gold.”</p> + +<p>“Why, then,” said Lord Hellup—and she thought he might have said it +earlier, “fifty thousand pounds doesn’t sound too much, does it?”</p> + +<p>“Guineas,” said Hilda Maple.</p> + +<p>“Yes, guineas,” he replied, “it’s all the same to me. If it’s the way +you say it is, then fifty thousand pounds—guineas, I mean—can’t be too +much, can it?”</p> + +<p>Hilda Maple had come to her conclusion. He was cryptic; he was evasive; +but she had heard that the great American masters of finance were +always so in the first stages of a bargain. But there could be no doubt +about it: fifty thousand guineas had seemed reasonable to this rich man.</p> + +<p>In the silence that followed her mind worked rapidly. He had been +shrewd, and she honoured him for being shrewd. He had been cautious; +but she had no doubt now that he was a buyer, and that she had heard +an authority who would at any rate back her up in her figure of fifty +thousand guineas. He had talked of auctions and of acting for her; +he had said that guineas and pounds were <span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>the same to him; she was +content. She felt perhaps a little vaguely that another arrow also had +pierced his heart. Well, there was no harm in that.</p> + +<p>But he hadn’t come forward as buyer with any enthusiasm. The purchase +money for Rackham must be sought from Lord Mere. But she could in a +last resort quote Lord Hellup as having offered. It was stretching a +point, but she could risk it. And when old Bruvvish had settled—as he +would settle—the purchase money would be something of a dowry to bring +even to a man as rich as Hellup was. And anyhow, the market was alive; +she had both a bidder and a valuer now.</p> + +<p>She thanked Lord Hellup warmly and sincerely and took his hand and +shook it, to impress him with her sincerity. He said with warmth how +pleased he had been to be of any service; but not ten minutes later, +when Mrs. Maple had left the room and Bo had come in to see her father, +he confided to that admirable daughter that Englishwomen were hard to +understand.</p> + +<p>“Do you understand them, Bo?” he said.</p> + +<p>“More’n they do me,” said Bo, very truthfully.</p> + +<p>“Now, that woman, Bo—well ... I won’t say all I was going to say; but +she’s an admirable woman, and she comes here and asks me what she ought +to ask for Rackham.”</p> + +<p>“Did you tell her, Pop?” said Bo anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Why,” said her father, in his most genial voice, “I let her talk. I +wouldn’t disappoint her. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>Whatever she wants to sell the place at she’s +welcome, for what I care. But she’s an admirable woman, Bo. But these +Englishwomen are subtle and difficult to understand.”</p> + +<p>“Now see here, Bo,” said the English peer in carefully modulated slow +accents, “you women understand what we men sometimes can’t. Least, I +can’t. What’s she getting at? What’s it all about?” He paused, and then +added in a tone of despair.</p> + +<p>“These Englishwomen are incomprehensible.”</p> + +<p>Bo popped her cigarette out of her mouth between her fingers and spoke +short words, “She’s getting at you to buy, Pop!”</p> + +<p>“To buy? What?” said the startled Baron.</p> + +<p>“Why, Rackham Catchings. This.” And with the words the lovely girl +struck her right heel sharply against the floor. “All around....” she +made a circle with her finger in the air. “Roof and all. Counting the +little gadgets.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want it, Bo,” her father said, sitting up and speaking very +earnestly.</p> + +<p>“She wants you to want it,” answered his daughter.</p> + +<p>“What should I do with it?” asked her father in his bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you touch it, Pop,” said his daughter decisively. “Leave it on +the hook.... Now if you want to know who <em>will</em> buy Rackham....”</p> + +<p>But her father was musing, and interrupted her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span></p> + +<p>“I did some figuring,” he said, “just to pass the time—as I do. And I +make out this place and all the fixings, as it stands, counting the +visitors’ book, would stand me in for more’n two hundred thousand and +less than a quarter of a million dollars.”</p> + +<p>Bo agreed.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know about that,” she said. “Yes, I do, though” (for a thought +had struck her), “I’ve heard what the death duty was—when Henry Maple +died, before she’d built on. They paid duty on £20,000. That’s not a +quarter of a million; that’s only a hundred thousand.”</p> + +<p>“These Britisher Death Duties are appraised damn low,” mused his +lordship. “And there’s been plenty of fixings in the place since then.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll find that she won’t take less than £50,000,” said Bo decisively.</p> + +<p>“Well, she won’t get them from me,” said the devout parent, business +side uppermost for the moment.</p> + +<p>Bo nodded her strong little chin at him.</p> + +<p>“That’s right, Pop. Don’t you touch it.”</p> + +<p>“You said you knew who was buying,” said her father. He was full of +curiosity now that he was on the scent of a deal.</p> + +<p>“Yep,” answered Bo. “It’ll make you jump. And buying gulfs under fifty +too. Oh, some boy!”</p> + +<p>Her father had an incredulous look.</p> + +<p>“Which?” said he.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span></p> + +<p>She took time to deliver her shot, luxuriously inhaling the smoke of +her cigarette; and then told him.</p> + +<p>“Jacko!” she said.</p> + +<p>“Whattt!” cried the millionaire, almost jumping out of his chair.</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” answered Bo, delighted with the effect. “Jacko. Oh, that +lad’s all planed down, tongued and grooved.” She shook her head. “No +rough lumber.”</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup, as befitted a man who had just been shot, hesitated. He +had too much pride to accept orders off hand, and too much snap as +well. But he hesitated.</p> + +<p>“See here, Bo,” he began slowly, after a long pause, “I’m not saying +a word against Jacko, mind you. That’s your end. I never did believe +in worrying young people, but if he can buy real estate like that, +why....” There was a tone of admiration creeping into his voice which +delighted his daughter’s ear.</p> + +<p>“He’ll buy—settle, and clinch; leave that to him,” she said. “He’s a +little Napoleon, is Jacko.”</p> + +<p>“Still, Bo, one doesn’t gaff Rackham Catchings at £20,000.”</p> + +<p>“<em>He</em> will,” nodded Bo emphatically. “You’ll see. You call +<em>that</em> making good?”</p> + +<p>“Seems so,” said her father, with his eyes on the ceiling. “But I +can’t join the slats. Where’s it coming from?” He looked a little +suspiciously at <span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>his daughter. But her sincerity was not to be mistaken.</p> + +<p>“You’re wrong there, Pop,” she said. “Won’t come from me or anywhere I +know of. Only I say: watch <ins class="edit" id="tn-209" title="original text: 'Jocko'">Jacko</ins>. He’ll have this place, and he’ll have +it for a hundred thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p>“Some boy,” murmured Lord Hellup in his turn.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch12"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span> +<h2 id="ch12">CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p>The evening was far advanced. It had long been time for the ladies to +go and dress, especially in such a house as Hilda Maple’s, where things +were well organised, prompt and punctual. But to-day was an exceptional +day.</p> + +<p>It was time for Bo to dress—if dress it can still be called—anyhow, to +wallow in warm water with Smell-Good Crystals added. But business came +before pleasure with Bo.</p> + +<p>She sought John, and led him to where she had ready, prepared and +folded in a nice little parcel, her nice little cloak. She took it out +again and put it over his head, and adjusted the ruff on the top, and +patted the sword-hilt sewn into the slit at the side, and patted the +sheath behind. Then she crowned the headless figure with the ruff.</p> + +<p>“You look dandy, Jacko,” she said. “I could kiss you if there was +anything to kiss.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t see anything,” came a muffled voice from within.</p> + +<p>“There’s an eyelet hole just about opposite your eyes, I guess. Feel +for it with your finger.”</p> + +<p>John obeyed, found it, and so widened it; an iris and pupil, grey and +young, looked forth.</p> + +<p>“Scares me, that does,” said Bo, drawing back. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>“But he’ll never see +it. You’ll find your way about. Trouble’s about your shoulders—all +slopes down, Jacko—makes you look like an elephant.”</p> + +<p>“A small elephant,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Yes, but broad,” answered the modest child, with a world of affection +in her voice. Then she mused, “Couldn’t we prop up them shoulders, +Jacko?”</p> + +<p>“Might stuff ’em,” said he. “They usually have old copies of <cite>The +Times</cite> stacked in the box room for packing. <cite>The Times</cite> makes +good stuffing.”</p> + +<p>The young people went off for the paper, and Bo pinned the crushed +rolls in. She put the cloak over his head again, and poised the ruff.</p> + +<p>“That’s more like,” she said. “You’re my tall, upstanding, spectral +cavalier. You’d be a head taller with a head, Jacko.”</p> + +<p>They debated where to lay the properties, and decided for the lad’s own +room. It was the next but one to his victim’s.</p> + +<p>“And how’ll you get there, Dog-Man?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I’ll manage to slip in,” he said. “I can squeeze the cloak over my +head between the head of the bed and the wall. And I’ll be waiting in +the little room which opens out of his bedroom, and which they never +use. They always keep the door locked. And they’ve only got trunks in +there. But Corton gave me the key.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span></p> + +<p>“Find your own time, Jacko,” she said; and then, snatching a glance at +the impossible watch, she saw that she had barely time. But she guessed +that the other women would be late that night. And she was right.</p> + +<p>It had long been time for Aunt Hilda to dress; but with her also +business came before pleasure; and after she had returned baffled from +the great attack upon the Hellup trenches she knew that something +desperate must be done, dinner or no dinner. Old Bruvvish would still +be in the library—he always went up late. She must get back there at +once, and nail him down, or confess herself defeated.</p> + +<p>Ah! And it had been time longer since for Amathea to dress. For Amathea +had many things to think of in the affair of dressing, including the +choice of hair. But with Amathea also business came before pleasure. +She had seen from the end of the passage darling Hilda come out from +the library, which she herself had been just about to enter, to +convince her husband of the necessity of purchase. She had seen that +hostess make straight for the room where she knew Lord Hellup was +reading his Motley. She divined that the coast was clear; for the +attack on Hellup (which she knew very well was about to take place) +would not be over in ten minutes or in fifteen. Therefore it was +that even at the moment Aunt Hilda’s entry had supplanted Motley’s +<cite>Republic</cite> in the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>interest of its reader Amathea was charging for +the library and for a decision.</p> + +<p>Lord Mere de Beaurivage saw his wife coming into the library. He told +himself that it was time for her to dress. He divined some dreadful +purpose in her delay. He saw that she was all smiles, and therefore +dreaded the battle that was to come.</p> + +<p>She had behaved well to him all her life—in the first hard days of +accumulating that little fortune by the private banking in the Old +Kent Road, she had proved as shrewd and as hard as he had, and a loyal +partner; in the big affairs of his later life she had never interfered. +When he had asked her advice, it had been sound. To-day the only cause +of his dread was that he dared not tell her the real reason of his +hesitation: he dared not advance the haunting. No man likes to look +cowardly in the eyes of his wife—not even a new politicians’ peer.</p> + +<p>Corton also had spoken a word or two, very respectfully, explaining a +dark stain on the oak floor, and telling him his own version of the +legend.</p> + +<p>What Corton had said still wreathed like a smoke in his mind, and in +memory he again heard that Voice—had he heard it?—a little too clearly.</p> + +<p>He braced himself for the discussion that was before him; but he +already felt half beaten.</p> + +<p>She sailed in and greeted him kindly; sat down at his side, and told +him radiantly that her dream <span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>had come true. Dear Hilda had as good as +said it.</p> + +<p>“But there weren’t any figures, Uggins,” she added, “and that’s just as +well. I like you men to do the figgerin’ part. And you know your way +about that well, you do, don’t you, ducky? You remember ow the Prime +Minister said....”</p> + +<p>But George Huggins, first Baron de Beaurivage was in a hurry.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Mattie, yes, I remember. He was right, too. But, ’struth, Mattie, +her figure’s a corker.”</p> + +<p>“What d’yer mean?” answered the lady anxiously. “Yer not backing out +now, George, are yer? Not breakin’ my ’eart?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you be so quick,” said he testily. “Wot I said was that her +<ins class="edit" id="tn-214" title="original text: 'figure’s were'">figures were</ins> +corkers, and so they were. That woman’s greedy, Mattie,” +he added earnestly, and then he growled, with a sudden reversion to his +youth, “bleeding greedy,” and his wife reproved him.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t got no cause to use soldier language to me, Uncle Uggins,” +she said. “I’ve given you no provercation. And just you be minded of +it!”</p> + +<p>He begged her pardon very humbly.</p> + +<p>“It got the better of me, Mattie, it did. It shan’t again. But there! +Fifty thousand pounds—guineas she put it. Just for this!” And he waved +a short podgy arm vaguely and rheumatically at the book-lined walls.</p> + +<p>Amathea Huggins put into her voice that rich <span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>scorn which is rarely +heard west of Temple Bar.</p> + +<p>“Ow! So that’s what sticks in yer gizzard, is it, George Uggins? Fifty +dirty little thousand!”</p> + +<p>“Guineas it was,” growled the peer.</p> + +<p>“Well, guineas,” said Amathea, suddenly rising, her arms akimbo. +“Guineas. Why, George Uggins, you give more’n that for your baronetcy, +you did. D’yer remember what you give for the peerage?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t!” said her husband faintly. “Don’t!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but I will,” said Amathea. “Wot! Yer stick at a gent’s price for +a beautiful country ’ouse! And its oaks and all, and its park-like +grounds. Like what I’ve read of all my life, and meant to ’ave. Do you +know what I’d give for it, George Uggins? If I ’ad money of my own? But +there, I ’aven’t. I am only just a poor woman, I am. But ’oo ’elped you +make your money, George Uggins? Oo stood by yer side, +<ins class="edit" id="tn-215a" title="original text: 'ever pitient'">ever patient</ins>, +ever true? But there—I don’t count, I don’t.”</p> + +<p>And here there came out suddenly a little five guinea handkerchief with +real lace all around it, and it was dabbed upon those poor porcine +eyes, while she sank again into her chair and sobs shook her most +substantial frame. “Oo am I? Just a victim, that’s wot I am. Nothing +for me. All the work for me. None of the joy, as you may say. And I +had so set +<ins class="edit" id="tn-215b" title="original text: 'my eart'">my ’eart</ins> +on it. And so cheap at that,” she said, suddenly +removing the handkerchief, and switching across from emotion <span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>to +reason. “Cheap! Why, George Uggins, can’t you see it’s give away? It’s +like pine-apples at sixpence,” she added, reverting to the days of the +barrow. “There you are a-haggling and a-hesitating, carrying on like a +harea-man. D’you know what I’d ave given? I’d ave given a <em>undred</em> +thousand, I would. What’s a hundred thousand to you, George Uggins? +You’d give it to-morrow for another step-up, you would, and you know +you would. And oo’s it to go to any ’ow?” she added, short-circuiting. +(It was her trump card always, poor woman! That only child who had died +before their wealth had ascended upon them from Hell.)</p> + +<p>And George Huggins, First Baronet, and First Baron Mere de Beaurivage, +in the county of Berks, struck his colours and handed over his sword.</p> + +<p>“Ave it yer own way, old girl,” he said. “Ave it yer own way.”</p> + +<p>She gave him a large Old Kent Road kiss of the kind that pleased him +best even in his old age. And he was glad to have the battle over, even +in defeat. But man as he was, he could not help muttering to himself +(which was both inconsiderate of him, and futile):</p> + +<p>“But oh, strike me, fifty thousand guineas!” Then, “What’s fifty +thousand shillings?” he asked sharply.</p> + +<p>“Never you mind,” said the lady archly. Now that she had got her way +she was full of mature <span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>sunshine. “’Taint as much as counts, and you +wait till I’m settled ere, and all the county folk talking on the lawn, +and you coming out and shaking hands and sayin’—wotever it is you ought +to say,” she concluded lamely. Then she added valiantly, “Oh, them’ll +be appy days!”</p> + +<p>In her mind’s eye she saw an endless procession of squires and their +ladies: yes, and one or two of the big Houses too; her Rolls Royces +parked in front of the new garage she was going to build—for they would +have a proper number of cars. She heard the strains of the band....</p> + +<p>It is not true that women have only two happy days of their lives—the +day of their wedding and the day of their death. They have from +seventeen to twenty others in between, and this was one of Amathea’s. +She left her husband thus rewarded.</p> + +<p>Amathea was fully employing her maid, she was dressing triumphantly. +She had won.</p> + +<p>Poor George lay limp and too large, and too short, enormous, in the +chair. He was conquered. But finding himself alone, he muttered to +himself with some relief:</p> + +<p>“Any’ow, the wimmen’s all gone up to dress now, and there’s an hour’s +peace. I’ll bide here awhile. No need for me to go for half an hour. +Never did take much stock in all them frills. Such nonsense!”</p> + +<p>But hardly had he completed that little monologue <span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>when (oh, horror!) +the door was opened with decision, and the formidable Hilda strode in.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord Mere,” she said, even before she had sat down beside him, +“I’m sorry, but I <em>must</em> see you a minute. You see, the truth is, +I was rung up on the telephone, and I do honestly think it’s my duty to +tell you....”</p> + +<p>“As wot?” said the unfortunate First Baron, trying to lift himself up +by the arms of the too deep couch of repose, and sinking back again.</p> + +<p>“You see, dear Lord Mere, everything’s so hurried, isn’t it? But you +must hear of this offer, because honestly I think it’d be simply a +<em>crime</em> to take it without letting you know first.... You’re +generous, I know, but you’re the best man of business of our time. +You’d despise me if I didn’t tell you the truth.” Here her guest +interrupted stentoriously.</p> + +<p>“Not as ever I’d despise you, Mrs. Miple. But clear figures I do like.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Lord Mere,” answered his hostess, leaning forward towards him +earnestly, and boldly putting a hand upon his knee, “to be perfectly +frank with you after your frankness with me, I have just heard; they’ve +just offered £60,000.”</p> + +<p>“’Oo’s <em>they</em>?” queried her guest, with the courtesy of an older +world.</p> + +<p>“And though they made me promise not to say a word,” went on Aunt Hilda +solidly, “I do think it right to tell you.... I admit I don’t like to +lose ... dear Lord Mere ... but I must keep <span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>my word. We had nothing +fixed, but after all, I had already offered you the lesser price, +hadn’t I? And you know,” she continued sweetly, and even pensively, “I +think that straight dealing has a moral value of its own. It leaves the +conscience quiet. And that’s worth any number of thousands.”</p> + +<p>“Yus, yus,” grunted the old man. He paid no attention to her nonsense. +He was thinking of Mattie. She would come in and see him again while he +was dressing—bound to do that. He couldn’t a-bear being harried. “Once +and for all!” was his motter. “It had made him what he was, it had.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Mrs. Miple,” he said, “I don’t know what about your +telephone and all. And I don’t want to. That’s strite, as between +friends. But I’ve got to finish this ’ere business one way or t’other +and I’ve made up my mind. You said fifty thousand, and I’ll give fifty +thousand.”</p> + +<p>“Guineas,” murmured Hilda gently. “Guineas.”</p> + +<p>“Fifty thousand <em>pounds</em>,” answered her guest, sitting up and +speaking with a decision that made him look ten years younger, and +tapping the padded arm of the low chair as he did so.</p> + +<p>“Oh, really! Lord Mere....”</p> + +<p>“Fifty thousand <em>pounds</em>, ma’am, and we’ll count the dirty +lawyers’ frills for the guineas. Now then, are ye’ agreed?”</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda had never met big business in its <span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>more aggressive mood, and +I weep to tell you that she was cowed.</p> + +<p>“Very well, Lord Mere,” she said. “Very well.”</p> + +<p>“That’s it, ma’am,” said he, riveting the bargain, and at the same time +managing after two efforts to stand up on his poor old gouty legs. +“Fifty thousand pounds.”</p> + +<p>He had never learned the silly little social habits of a class which +he both envied and despised; therefore he made for the door before +his hostess, and she heard him muttering as he went out, leaving her +there at once mightily relieved and mightily offended: “Fifty thousand +pounds. And I wouldn’t have done it for any but Mattie. Fifty thousand +pounds!”</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch13"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span> +<h2 id="ch13">CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p>Dressing in his bedroom, poor Lord Mere de Beaurivage was not content.</p> + +<p>He had only done it for Mattie—and he was not content.</p> + +<p>Two quite separate parts of the man were disturbed; first, the old +business part—fifty thousand was monstrously too much: he got feverish +over it (and that delayed his dressing. He never would have a man to +help him). It was monstrous. Good Lord! There was some he knew would +have ’ad it for half. He’d have had it for half himself if he’d been +developing the site. But there—Mattie wanted it.</p> + +<p>Deeper down, and much worse, was the underlying wreathing mist of +terror which came and went, half below his consciousness. It worried +him extremely. Was he doomed to live under such influences the last +poor years of his life? He still delayed his dressing.... But there, +they’d only come down from London at week-ends. There was no nonsense +about the house in Mayfair. That was old, too, but respectable, at any +rate. A man could sleep quiet there. Leastways at the back, away from +the motors. And there! He’d done it for Mattie.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span></p> + +<p>If it be true that this world is governed by appetite, fear, avarice, +hate, and affection, in this case affection had conquered—for the +moment.</p> + +<p>The poor old boy had nearly finished dressing. He was carefully +brushing a scant white wisp of hair over a bold, broad head. As he did +so he began nervously to start at a sound which he thought was like a +whispering call. He tracked it down; it was only a curtain rustling +slightly along the wall before the open window. Once or twice again he +found himself looking oddly round as though something might be watching +him; but he told himself that one must get rid of all that, or one +could not carry on.</p> + +<p>He was still struggling with the tying of his white tie (though he had +taken innumerable lessons in the art) when Mattie came in, looking +younger than she ought to have looked what with cosmetics and the rest, +and shaded lights. She gave him a powdery kiss to thank him once again; +and he was half-consoled when he came down late into the drawing-room +and found them all awaiting him to go in to dine.</p> + +<p>During dinner, by Bo’s strict orders (for Bo knew a good deal more +about psychology than Lord Hambourne), John said not a word of the +ghost.</p> + +<p>It was sound policy to give the old man rope, and a breathing space.</p> + +<p>The greater would come the final shock of surprise; and surprise is the +essence of victory. John’s <span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>marching orders were not to say a word of +it till the women had gone. And even then to play delicately, and not +to force the pace.</p> + +<p>She couldn’t prevent Lord Hambourne making a fool of himself and +speaking of The Thing once or twice. It was his damned profession to +make a fool of himself. Dons all do. She couldn’t prevent her father +asking a question or two about measurements—especially what size of +ruffs they wore in those days, and how they got their food to their +mouths over them, and whether they could see their feet.</p> + +<p>But Hilda Maple had a growing instinct that the subject was dangerous, +and though she had fifty thousand pounds as good as in her pocket, that +same instinct bade her change this sort of conversation whenever it +arose, and, so long as the women remained, it played little part.</p> + +<p>But when they were gone John fulfilled his orders, and over the wine +talked discreetly to his three guests.</p> + +<p>He talked of apparitions, of Sussex tales, of the Fates of houses. He +flattered the Turtle Professor of Psychology by listening eagerly to +his appeals. He managed with great skill to distil some little poison +into Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s not heroic veins—principally by dropping +the subject once or twice rather obviously. He fought on two fronts, +for he knew very well that Lord Hambourne believed in no spirit, +creative or uncreative, finite or infinite, human or divine, and he had +to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>make Lord Mere de Beaurivage more and more uncomfortably familiar +with a spirit drawing more and more uncomfortably near.</p> + +<p>The men were back in the drawing-room, and the first words they heard +as they entered was Isabeau saying:</p> + +<p>“Well, it may be all talk, as you say, but I didn’t dare look in the +glass since I thought I saw <em>That</em> looking over my shoulder.”</p> + +<p>And Hilda Maple was answering almost angrily:</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s enough about the whole business, surely! I can’t make out +why anyone should take it seriously.”</p> + +<p>Then, to stop that very nonsense, she bustled at making up four for +bridge. Lord Hambourne was her partner (it would never do to quarrel +with Lord Hellup); and as for Hellup, he was a good counter-weight for +Amathea, whose bridge was not experienced, though at whist she had +flattered herself all her life upon a pretty play, and boasted that at +cribbage she was unequalled.</p> + +<p>Lord Mere de Bruvvish sat apart in a darker recess where burned a +second fire. He was fatigued by certain emotions. He needed repose. +He was still disappointed. The figure, £50,000, still returned to his +mind, and once, as the card-players, whom he would not interrupt by any +remark, brought out their short monologues, “I pass,” “Double,” “She +made it spades,” and the other brilliancies of the exercise, he had a +horrible <span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>brief recollection of a little Voice too near the ground, +wickedly evil, in the thick of the rhododendrons.</p> + +<p>Bo kindly determined to bear him company in his loneliness.</p> + +<p>“It’s an oddly quiet night, isn’t it, Lord Bruvvish?” said Bo, seating +herself beside him and talking dreamily. “It feels strange—this +quietness of the country. I don’t know....” But even as she spoke there +came a very faint, very distant, and not pleasant laugh—where from no +one could tell—except John Maple, who was watching the players with +intelligent interest.</p> + +<p>“What ... what’s that?” said Lord de Beaurivage, gripping the arm of +the sofa and sitting up suddenly.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_226"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_226.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Growing nervousness of Lord de Beaurivage</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“What was what?” said Bo innocently.</p> + +<p>“I thought ... I thought I ’eard something—something like someone +laughing, very faint like.”</p> + +<p>“Did you?” said Isabeau. “Well, perhaps someone did. I don’t know....”</p> + +<p>And once again, a little less remote, a little less evanescent, a +little more defined, came the sneering chuckle of something evil.</p> + +<p>Lord Mere de Beaurivage was fairly sitting up. He brought out a big +silk handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and said:</p> + +<p>“There, Miss Hellup! There! I could a-sworn....”</p> + +<p>Then he pulled himself together. He was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>afraid he was making himself +ridiculous. But he badly needed human support.</p> + +<p>Isabeau rose suddenly with a startled look.</p> + +<p>“Where’s my little dawg?” she said. And as she said it she looked +round, and was able to exchange a sharp glance with her lover. “Oh! +Something’s happened, Lord Mere! Lovey-Lad never leaves me!”</p> + +<p>She went off past John, murmuring to him as she did so, “Hooked!” And +then she said aloud and awfully to the company at large:</p> + +<p>“I feel a presentiment! Something’s happening!”</p> + +<p>John Maple left the bridge players, who only looked up for a moment +from their game, and sat down in the seat that Bo had vacated, next to +his guest.</p> + +<p>“You mustn’t mind Miss Hellup, Lord Mere,” he said. “She’s not like +other girls—about spiritual things, I mean. I think sometimes she +almost <em>feels</em> the other world.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ah!” answered the old man, his yellow eyes filled with uneasiness.</p> + +<p>“She told me once that the only time she was in a place of great +evil—evil all round her—the first sign was given by her dog. Dogs see +things.”</p> + +<p>“Do they? Well, I ’ave ’eard something like that,” gasped Lord Mere de +Beaurivage.</p> + +<p>Even as he said it there came more distinctly than before the low wail +from the darkness, and the poor old gentleman was almost startled into +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>speaking; but still on John’s face there was no sign of recognition. +Lord Mere remembered how the doctor had talked to him about blood +pressure and all sorts of other things a few months before, and warned +him that if he heard voices or saw pictures just as he was falling +asleep he was not to be alarmed. But far off at the bridge table he +caught what was being said. It was Lady Mere de Beaurivage asking Lord +Hellup what had troubled Isabeau.</p> + +<p>“She got anxious about her dog. She thinks he’s got a terror. He does +sometimes. She thinks he’s seeing something.”</p> + +<p>The inevitable Hambourne broke in where he was least wanted.</p> + +<p>“Animals often feel those influences first,” he said, and then in a +suddenly louder voice, “we inv-v-v-estig-g-gated a house w-w-w-once in +the m-m-m-ost d-d-disg-g-gusting m-m-m-urder....”</p> + +<p>“Lord Hambourne,” said Mrs. Maple sharply, “you’ve made me forget. Was +it a spade?” But Lord Hambourne went on in his stride:</p> + +<p>“A <em>p-p-partic-c-cularly</em> d-d-isg-g-usting m-m-m-urder.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Lord Hambourne,” said his hostess, too brusquely. “I can’t +play if you talk like this. I can’t do two things at once.”</p> + +<p>Lady de Beaurivage was dummy. She heard her husband calling in a +whisper to her: “Mattie!”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter,” she said, going up to him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span></p> + +<p>“Mattie, you didn’t hear nothing—not voices like?”</p> + +<p>“Lor, Bruvvish, don’t be so sudden! You guv me a cold shock all down my +back, you did!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t say you seen nothing, Mattie? You’ve not <em>seen</em> nothing?”</p> + +<p>“No. But I ’ad a sort of creeping-like looking in the glass just now.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t, Mattie, don’t! I can’t a-bear it. Not now. I’ll slip away to +bed soon. I can’t a-bear it.”</p> + +<p>Then came Hilda Maple’s voice calling to her: “Amathea, dear, another +deal,” and Amathea returned reluctantly to the cards.</p> + +<p>John and the old gentleman sat together in silence looking into the +fire. The elder man heard, or thought he had heard ... well ... what?</p> + +<p>He was fighting against the influence. He tried silence, and then an +attempt to speak of other things; when again he heard, or thought he +heard, a Voice, so slight as to be disembodied—a nothingness upon the +air—yet deep and full and of an intolerable sadness. Even as he thought +he heard that voice he saw John start and look into the darker corner, +where the firelight could not play, and where a bookshelf came up +towards the drawn curtains of the window. Lord Mere gave a paralysed +glance, put his hand graspingly on John Maple’s arm, squinted to the +left into that same dark place, and whispered rather than said:</p> + +<p>“Did yer ’ear anything, Mr. Miple?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span></p> + +<p>John did not answer at once; when he did he said:</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, Lord Mere....” Then he looked down. “I really don’t know. +It’s better not to let oneself think too much of such things....”</p> + +<p>They talked just so long as gave the old man time to think himself +recovered; when once again, but more certainly, though still distant +and of a phantom sort, the sound came.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Miple, I ’eard it pline! It said, ‘The Night,’ Mr. Miple! +S’elp me, it did!”</p> + +<p>There was terror in the eyes now, and he was gripping John Maple’s arm +convulsively. John Maple tossed his head slightly as though trying to +be rid of some bad influence.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes. Shall we move?”</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Isabeau’s voice was heard from the landing as she ran +downstairs, tragically loud:</p> + +<p>“Oh, poor Lovey-Lad! Poor little pup!” she cried.</p> + +<p>The unfortunate bridge players, interrupted again, looked up.</p> + +<p>“You f-found him?” stammered Lord Hambourne.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. He was whining and shaking so, I couldn’t bear it. And all +huddled up on the landing, and bristling. He’s there yet. I couldn’t +fix him so’s to get him to come. I tried to carry him, but he was just +crazy. Snapped at me—for the first time in his life—poor li’l fellow!” +Then she lowered her voice, and leaning against the banister <span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>at the +end of her descent, she said hysterically: “It’s something in this +room!”</p> + +<p>Lord Mere de Bruvvish fell back in his chair again like a man stunned. +He gasped; he clutched the padded arms on which his hands lay, leaned +back, his breath coming and going as though he had just taken violent +exercise. His head was thrown back, and his eyes were shut. Then he +called quite loudly:</p> + +<p>“Mattie!”</p> + +<p>The bridge party looked round: that excellent wife broke off in the +middle of a hand; she rushed—if such a form can be said to rush—across +the room, and knelt by the chair.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, George?” she said. “What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>“I’m orl right. I shall be orl right. I come over queer,” he said. “I +ought not to have called yer. Go back, dear; go back.”</p> + +<p>“’Ow was ’e took?” said the worthy woman to John Maple.</p> + +<p>“It’s nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing, Lady Mere,” said John, on his +feet. “It was something.... The night ... and this talk of ghosts has +made him nervous.”</p> + +<p>“Mattie,” said the poor man in a low voice, “Mattie, I must go to bed. +You’ll excuse me, ma’am,” he added, turning to his hostess, “but I’m +that tired. I’m not as young as I was.”</p> + +<p>Mattie accompanied him affectionately to the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span>hall, gave him his +candle, and looked at him anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Ye’re tired, dear,” she said, “you’re right when you sye you’re tired.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll be orl right, Mattie,” he said. “Never mind me. You’ll find me +asleep. I’m orl right.”</p> + +<p>But she watched him anxiously, gazing up after him as his unwieldy, +lumbering form went painfully up the stairs, candle in hand. He looked +back at her and smiled. She was a good wife, and as she went back to +the group in the drawing-room she wondered whether she ought not to go +and see to him; she was beginning to share his fears.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maple was rattled, and she could not hide it.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, “so far as it’s possible to count in the middle of +all this, I make it 364.”</p> + +<p>Lord Hambourne thought he would make conversation—but he made it +unfortunately.</p> + +<p>“As I w-w-as s-s-aying j-j-j-ust now, I m-mean ab-b-about the +m-m-murder ...” he began.</p> + +<p>His hostess interrupted him.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it was very nasty,” she said quickly. “But do help me with this. +Do you make it 364?”</p> + +<p>“Quate, quate!” said Lord Hambourne, a little puzzled at such a check. +He added the figures. It was a pleasure to him, for he certainly could +not have paid if he had lost; but he had not lost.</p> + +<p>It was during the following silence, when Hilda <span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>Maple was in an agony +lest some further thing should be said to disturb the purchaser of +Rackham Catchings, that Corton came in with the glasses and decanters +on a tray.</p> + +<p>But it was not the Corton of earlier hours. For the first time in +thirty years that great man was showing some lack of self-possession. +He came in too quickly; he was trembling slightly, and as he advanced +he so far forgot himself as to look over his shoulder; and in so doing +he dropped a glass.</p> + +<p>“Good heavens, Corton!” shouted his mistress angrily. “What are you up +to? What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry, madam.” His teeth were actually chattering. “I’m not quite +myself to-night, madam.”</p> + +<p>“So it seems,” answered the lady coldly, as he put down the tray.</p> + +<p>Then she wondered whether she was awake or dreaming. For she saw that +honourable servitor make, not for the door, but for the window towards +the lawn, as though he would leave by that strange exit. With a hasty +glance which satisfied her that her guests were occupied, she followed +him and whispered quickly:</p> + +<p>“What <em>are</em> you doing, Corton?”</p> + +<p>“If you please, madam,” said the unfortunate man, glancing with horror +at the door through which he had just come, “I’d rather not go back by +the passage.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span></p> + +<p>“Not go back by the passage!” whispered Mrs. Maple angrily and looking +him up and down. “Are you mad?”</p> + +<p>“No, madam. No, not mad. Not mad.” He passed his hand over his +forehead—what great powers are revealed in man sometimes, quite late in +life! Corton was now in the very spirit of the romances upon which he +was modelling himself. “No, madam,” he said again, most tragically, and +with a tremor in his voice, “I am not mad.”</p> + +<p>“Corton,” said Mrs. Maple, “you’re a disgrace. You’re drunk.”</p> + +<p>His only reply was to shake his head sadly.</p> + +<p>“It’s worse in the passage, madam. I couldn’t bear it. I can’t go back +by the passage.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t go on repeating that like a parrot!” said Hilda Maple +passionately in the same low tones. Her guests might notice at any +moment what was going on. She took the bull by the horns and opened +the window herself, for she saw that if she did not act quickly there +would be a scene. “Then go back across the lawn, you fool!” she barked +at him aside; and then loudly and gaily, turning round, she added, to +the company, “You don’t mind my opening the window, do you? It’s an +astonishingly hot and still night for the time of year. Do you mind the +fresh air?”</p> + +<p>Her guests assured Hilda Maple that they did not mind the air. But Lord +Hellup, who had watched the end of the little business, said the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>wrong +thing. He said it directly to his hostess, and what he said was:</p> + +<p>“That guy’s rattled!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Mrs. Maple. “You mustn’t mind him. He’s nearly +always like that about eleven o’clock.”</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup was highly interested.</p> + +<p>“Do say? Mebbe that’s because he doesn’t drink enough. When that kind +go dry between whiles their nerves just fray to old collars.”</p> + +<p>It was getting worse and worse. The others were beginning to take +notice, and Lord Hambourne did not fail to come up true to type. He +butted in.</p> + +<p>“In-inhib-b-b-ition,” he began, “with its ac-c-c-ompanying +c-c-c-comp-compl——” But Mrs. Maple cut him short savagely.</p> + +<p>“Don’t, Lord Hambourne! Don’t say any more about it! It’s not that. +It’s religion. He says long prayers after dinner.”</p> + +<p>“That’s not natural—not in a butler,” was Lord Hellup’s comment.</p> + +<p>But Lord Hellup had seen few.</p> + +<p>“P-p-p-raying,” broke in the Professor in his best donnish manner, “is +a w-w-well-known +<ins class="edit" id="tn-234" title="original text: 's-s-s-ymptom or'">s-s-s-ymptom of</ins> re-e-e-ligious mania.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe,” suggested Lord Hellup, “he struck that guy without a head.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no such thing,” Aunt Hilda interrupted abruptly.</p> + +<p>This was too much for Lady de Beaurivage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span></p> + +<p>“Why, Ilda,” she said, with real astonishment, “you told Bruvvage and +all of us yourself, and it’s part of the interest of the plice an’ all!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes, of course,” said her hostess. “I told you the story—the +legend. Many old houses have them—surely you know that. There’s nothing +really.”</p> + +<p>“In this particular c-c-c-ase,” broke in the unfortunate Hambourne +again, “what with the d-d-dog, it may be suggestion. It’s a kind of +h-h-hyp....” He swallowed after that syllable, tried it again and +added, “nosis.”</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup remarked that if it was anything about the hip, he knew a +bone setter in Park Lane.... Mrs. Maple in despair tried to put an end +to it all by saying, “No, no, no. Lord Hambourne means hypnotic, or +something of that sort. Don’t you, Lord Hambourne?”</p> + +<p>And Lord Hambourne comforted her by quacking out: “Quate, quate.”</p> + +<p>It looked as though the trouble was over; but she had had a bad time. +The telephone bell rang; John Maple took up the receiver and answered +it. He turned to his aunt.</p> + +<p>“It’s from the stables, Aunt Hilda. They want you.”</p> + +<p>“Want me?” said Mrs. Maple incredulously. “What can they want from the +stables at this hour of the night?” She took up the machine.</p> + +<p>“Yes?... Oh, what nonsense!... Yes? Well, they often do get restless +these hot nights....<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span> What! Corton? Corton’s got nothing to do with +it. Don’t listen to a <em>word</em> Corton says.... What’s that? The new +mare’s frantic? Well, go and pat her. What?... Don’t be a coward. Go +and pat her on the neck. Pat her on the crupper. Pat her anywhere.... +Are you there? Are you <em>there</em>? (She tapped her foot in her +agony.) ARE YOU THERE? Hullo, why did you go away?... Good, she’s +quieter, is she? Well, don’t bother me any more. Get hold of Alphonse. +There’s no nonsense about <em>him</em>,” she added, looking up at her +guests. “He’s a Communist, you know, and knows all about machinery, so +he won’t believe in any of that rubbish. He’ll be a good tonic to those +idiots.”</p> + +<p>Again she hoped that she had stopped the rot. But Lord Hambourne failed +not.</p> + +<p>“It’s all d-d-d-eeply interesting,” the academic ass began. “It’s +f-f-f-ascinating. Animals receive sub-sub-sub-liminal m-m-m-essages. +And m-m-y c-c-colleague Pro-pro-fessor J-J-onah has sh-shown that while +m-m-motors are im-p-pervious the equidæ....” But just at that moment +the air was pierced by a very genuine shriek, and it came from Isabeau. +She was pointing at the darkness.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_236"> + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_236.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Lord Hellup accepting from Lord Hambourne the<br> + interesting scientific discovery that motor-cars<br>are less susceptible + to psychic influence than<br>horses</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Oh! Oh, dear! Something went by the window!”</p> + +<p>“Mercy!” cried the sympathetic Lady Mere de Beaurivage. “I saw it too!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maple’s patience was nearly exhausted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span></p> +<p>“My dear Amathea—Isabeau dear, go back. Anyone in the household might +be passing.”</p> + +<p>But, alas! her words were even truer than she knew; for a troop was +upon them. Coming into the shaft of light which streamed from the +window on to the lawn was Corton, and behind that Captain the whole +force of the Offices, and as Corton appeared respectfully at the head +of his regiment, full in the window behind him could be seen the ample +form of the cook, Mrs. Fry, and Betsy Broom, and the housemaids and the +groom, the boy, the footman and all. Only Alphonse was missing.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_238"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_238.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Partial, but representative deputation of the + domestic<br>staff of Rackham Catchings protesting<br>against the Headless + Thing</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Corton, after a sepulchral but respectful cough, and begging leave to +enter, brought them in.</p> + +<p>“My colleague, madam, Mrs. Fry ... and my other colleagues, and the +under-servants, and the maid Broom, madam, insisted upon seeing you +... and I thought it better to accompany them. They would not go by +<em>that</em>”—and he waved his hand towards the passage.</p> + +<p>“Go back at once ...” Mrs. Maple had begun, “and I’ll come out to you +...” when Mrs. Fry gave tongue in her turn.</p> + +<p>“I can’t a-bear it no more, ma’am, no, that I can’t! No, not if it was +the Queen herself, so there!”</p> + +<p>“Really, Mrs. Fry!” commanded Mrs. Maple. But her command had no effect.</p> + +<p>“No,” continued Mrs. Fry, in rising tones, “not <span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>if it was ’er sacred +Majesty Queen Victoria herself come back to life. I can’t a-bear it.”</p> + +<p>“Oo—oo—ooo!” moaned the maid Broom—and Mrs. Fry made bold to comfort +her.</p> + +<p>“And this poor child, ma’am. She feels it like the others. I done my +best to comfort ’em. I feel like a mother to ’em all, I do, but,” and +here she lowered her voice to a painful whisper and stepped forward, +“wot’s in this ’ouse to-night, ma’am, ain’t flesh and blood.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a pack of fools!” shouted Mrs. Maple, beside herself. But +Corton went on gravely:</p> + +<p>“The murder, madam, perpetrated under these ancient roof trees.” And he +pointed to the antique beam. “Under the reign of the Virgin Queen—it +was perpetrated this very night, madam. I have observed the anniversary +religiously for thirty years—since I was knife boy, madam. And now the +Unquiet Spirit will not rest.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Corton,” said Mrs. Fry proudly, by way of chorus, “has the whole +story like a book, ma’am.”</p> + +<p>“The blood, ma’am,” continued Corton courageously, while the sobs of +the women behind him increased, and poor Bo put her fingers into her +ears, “the blood flowed down the stairs from under the door of the Blue +Room ... Lord Mere de Beaurivage’s room, madam.”</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Maple was resolved to put an end to it all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span></p> +<p>“Look here, all of you, it’s sheer bunkum, and dangerous at that. +If you want to sit up all night, I can’t prevent you. Go back across +the lawn, the whole lot of you, and I’ll come with you. And you, +Corton”—she turned to him—“I mean to have an explanation from you.” And +with that she drove the herd before her, back through the night. It is +just to add that her presence was a comfort to them—but not to Corton.</p> + +<p>The guests looked at each other in silence: Lord Hambourne abominably +interested, Lord Hellup discreetly amused, Isabeau shrinking as though +worse were to come, and poor Lady de Beaurivage shaken almost as her +husband had been. Not one had yet spoken. Mrs. Maple’s voice could be +heard far off beyond the lawn in a last word with Corton as she turned +back to the house. She re-crossed the lawn, she entered the room.</p> + +<p>Even as she did so there banged on the floor above a fearful crash as +of a heavy body falling, and with it a loud and horrible cry. Then dead +silence.</p> + +<p>Amathea Lady de Beaurivage dashed to the door with an inspired shriek:</p> + +<p>“It’s my George!”</p> + +<p>The others followed her, and in a rapid, thrusting group they all +rushed through the hall and up the stairs.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch14"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span> +<h2 id="ch14">CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p>Upstairs in his bedroom that poor old lonely man—lonely save for his +wife (and how grateful he was for her having treated him as she just +had done, and for her last look at him as he painfully climbed the +stairs)—sat waiting to recover from the ascent. Stairs tried him a +great deal now ... his health was breaking ... he thought. Perhaps +that’s what accounted for what he had been feeling ... what he thought +he had been hearing; and he huddled his shoulders together. He wouldn’t +undress at once—he would rest awhile ... rest awhile ... rest awhile. +He would get steadier then.</p> + +<p>A knock somewhere?... It might have been downstairs, but in his +condition he thought it was at his own door, and it made him jump.</p> + +<p>“Come in!” he said.</p> + +<p>There was no reply; and he went a little white. He steadied himself and +leaned forward painfully to take up the poker and stir the fire. But he +dropped it with a loud clatter that startled him again.</p> + +<p>“Foolishness!” he muttered.</p> + +<p>He heard the knock once again. This time he did not say “Come in!” He +nerved himself to rise painfully from his chair, and threw the door +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>wide open. There was nothing but empty darkness outside. He shut the +door again and fell rather than sank into the place he had just left.</p> + +<p>“George,” he said to himself, half aloud, “George, pull yerself +together. This’ll never do! You’re ’igh-strung, George, that’s what you +are; remember what the doctor said about yer blood pressing. Wot was it +’e said? He said, ‘No whisky,’ ’e said. Well, I don’t know wot’s right +about that, but I know it steadies me.” He stretched out his arm to +the table by his side, and took up his flask from where it lay on the +table—a large flask with a silver cup, and his coat of arms—supporters +talbots, three mancuses quartered chevron and the devil and all on a +field azure—engraved thereon. It shone under the electric shaded light +on the table and the warmer glow of the fire. Other light in the room +there was none.</p> + +<p>He slowly poured out the strong drink into the silver.</p> + +<p>“It’ll calm yer, George,” he said.</p> + +<p>Below, he heard the noise of many voices. Too many, he thought, for the +few guests. But it was company like. Then he heard people moving across +the lawn. Perhaps some neighbours had come in, and gone again. Then the +voices quieted down. He took his first sip of the whisky, pre-war.</p> + +<p>“That’s better, George,” he said. “That’ll put yer right.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span></p> + +<p>His back, as he sat in the deep chair facing the fire, was to the side +door which led to the little box-room. It opened so noiselessly that he +heard no sound, tense though his nerves were.</p> + +<p>He waited a moment, less unmanned, raising the silver cup again for +a second sip—when there came, whether within his mind or from the +air without he could not tell, a hint of rustling, a suspicion of a +Presence in the room—near the bed. The start stopped the cup as he +still held it in his hand, and he poised it in mid-air, staring—there +came the pleading words from very far away:</p> + +<p>“Not again, George! Oh, not again! It’s yer pison!”</p> + +<p>“It’s me mother’s voice,” groaned the old man in a dreadful whisper.</p> + +<p>He let the cup fall to the floor at his feet, careless of the liquor +running out upon the rug. His hand shook, as did his whole body.</p> + +<p>“’Er voice,” he said again, frozen with fear.</p> + +<p>A hand came out from behind the head of the bed—a hand the wrist of +which was draped in black. Lord Mere de Beaurivage did not see it—he +was staring into the air before him—it was Her Voice.</p> + +<p>The hand found the switch, and all was suddenly dark, save for the glow +of the fire. He had heard but the slightest of sounds—he looked round +into that darkness—and there he saw, dreadfully distinct in the half +light which the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>glowing coals threw upon the dull red damask and the +tapestry—what he had seen too often that day in his unhappy mind. There +IT stood, for the half second in which he still retained his sanity. +He was on his gouty feet groping towards it, his mouth open and giving +small inarticular sounds. IT was there by the side of the bed against +the wall, agleam on the sword-hilt, tall, black, too vague, but the +white ruff standing out glaring—and above that ruff nothing: only the +wall. Even as he looked he saw a hand which appeared from beneath the +cloak slowly moving. He gave a loud shriek and crashed to the ground.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_242"> + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_242.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Unaffected emotion of George, First Baron de + Beaurivage on the appearance of an historic figure</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>In a flash the figure had passed the fallen man, and was through the +door into the side room, and had turned the key. But quick as the +motion was, even as he turned the key in the lock the great swirl of +feet was running up the sounding wood of the staircase, the main door +of the bedroom was thrown open, all the lights were turned on, and the +hubbub of guests and servants flocked to what might be the living or +the dead.</p> + +<p>Amathea was the first of them, kneeling by her husband, trying to lift +him up in her arms, calling him by his name, and sobbing loudly.</p> + +<p>Three of the menservants hoisted the motionless form and got it on to +the bed. He was breathing. His eyes opened for a moment, but he stared +vacantly, seeing no one, and with yet another loud cry and a shudder +his head fell back upon the pillow.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch15"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span> +<h2 id="ch15">CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p>All that night was a changed world for Rackham: messengers sent hither +and thither; the telephone at work; a nurse from the Cottage Hospital; +another nurse urgently sent for from Lewes; the local practitioner +jumping into his trousers hurriedly after an insufficient sleep, and +also jumping out of his skin for joy when he heard the great name of +his patient; lanterns going back and forth through the spring night, +as one and another was sent upon a further errand; motors purring, +buzzing, hooting, and every human being stirred up to an unnatural +vigil.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, upstairs Amathea sat steadfast by her husband’s bed, glad +to hear his breathing, for it told her that he lived. She looked like +a vulgar queen of the Renaissance, of the swollen commercial families, +with big lips curved downwards, determined on what she should do. Anger +was flaming in her heart.</p> + +<p>She sent order after order, and Hilda Maple’s servants humbly obeyed. +She had them telephone for an ambulance to be at Rackham Catchings by +nine the next morning—not a second later, or it would be the worse +for them; and it had to be the best ambulance Maxton, who is open all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>night, could supply. It was she who had sent for the nurses and the +doctors, often doubling her hostess’ orders.</p> + +<p>She did more. She was determined that her George should return to +recover—if recovery Gawd would grant him—in his own house in Mayfair. +She knew the servants would have gone to bed, and she sent the message +through an all-night office to knock the place up and compel them to +have everything ready against the morning.</p> + +<p>She thought of everything. Yet she did all this from where she sat, +without moving from the bedside, despatching one after another to do +her will.</p> + +<p>It was half-past one o’clock in the small hours before she had +received the final replies. She was still alone in the room, with the +half-conscious, muttering man. She had given terrible commands that +no one was to be admitted till she allowed it; and the nurses and +the doctors were waiting, with the torturedly-anxious Hilda in the +drawing-room below.</p> + +<p>George Huggins stirred. Amathea leaned over the bed and tried to catch +what confused words were coming from those lips which she had known for +a lifetime, and so much loved. The old fellow propped himself up on his +elbow, a momentary gleam of sanity entered his eyes as they looked into +hers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span></p> + +<p>“Mattie,” he whispered hoarsely, “is that you?”</p> + +<p>He smiled foolishly. Then his face changed dreadfully, and he went on +in rising tones:</p> + +<p>“It ’ad no ’ed, it ’ad no ’ed, Mattie! Oh! <span class="allsmcap">OH!</span> OH!” and with a +horrible groan he sank back, and went on muttering—but half sitting up +at intervals and pointing, and catching her, and saying, “There ’tis! +There ’tis! Keep it awye, Mattie! Keep it awye!”</p> + +<p>She knew what had happened. He had seen IT. Her anger rose, enormous; +but she contained it. She allowed the doctors and the nurses to come +in. Hilda Maple, already stricken with fatigue, and showing her age +under the strain, timidly followed them; but Amathea, Lady Mere de +Beaurivage, on seeing her hostess, called out strongly, “Not that un! +Keep ’er out, keep ’er out!” And poor Hilda had capitulated and retired.</p> + +<p>The servants had gone to bed; Hilda herself lay down, all dressed as +she was, half loosened and no more, to catch if she could an hour or +two of sleep—but sleep came not to her.</p> + +<p>John in his room, after helping to run innumerable messages and +counter-messages, tried to sleep also, and did sleep a little, +fitfully; but his conscience troubled him.</p> + +<p>Lord Hellup thought it his duty to stay awake in the Little Red Room, +and he did so too, with Motley and successive cigars.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span></p> + +<p>Of all in that household only Isabeau slept placidly, when she had +seen it all fixed up: so great conquerors on the night of victory. +So William of Falaise in his tent after Hastings; so Mr. Gulp, at +the Ritz after the Pugley deal, before he resigned in affluence his +Secretaryship of State.</p> + +<p>While the agony thus proceeded upstairs, Lord Hambourne showed +initiative beyond his academic kind. But he was one whose wits had been +sharpened by poverty. It was not the first time in his life that he had +displayed those qualities which, with better luck, make millions. Had +he not scooped the Chair of Psychology? Here was another little scoop, +and he was going to pick it up. He had got the main event at once, +overhearing two phrases in the frightened muttering of the servant. +Leaving them to their agony upstairs, he himself went quietly into +the deserted drawing-room, took up the telephone and got on to <cite>The +Howl</cite>. It was not too late for a stop-press in that enterprising +paper, at any rate for the London edition.</p> + +<p>Carter was at the other end of the wire. No. It was not to be on the +usual terms. He told Carter with great rapidity in a low, precise tone, +conquering his stammer, what had happened, but he gave neither the +place nor the name.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_248"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_248.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Distraction of Lord Hambourne on being offered the usual terms</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>No. It was not to be in the contract. It would be a separate +£100—posted that day. Would he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>accept the verbal promise on the +telephone? He would. Carter could not undertake the responsibility? +Then he must do without the scoop. Oh, he could, could he? All right. +He would trust him. The place was Rackham Catchings, and the old +fellow was Bruvvish himself.... Yes, it <em>was</em> a scoop, wasn’t +it? Would Carter leave word for someone to be there when he rang up +again, so that they could go on with it in the evening paper? It would +be difficult for him to get to the telephone after they were down. He +must have someone there to take it between six and seven o’clock in the +morning. Yes, that was all.</p> + +<p>He hung up the receiver, just in time, as the shuffling of someone +descending came down the stairs, while above altercation and confused +advice filled the air. He managed to get into the hall and to mix with +them before they had noticed his absence.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the grey light of morning Lord Hambourne had taken up the telephone +again. He felt secure. They had all been lying down, dressed as they +were, exhausted, and he himself in his evening clothes, looking +crumpled and dishevelled in the new light, was the only one doing +business.</p> + +<p>He gave rapid advice to Lord Toronto’s other serfs. The old boy was +very bad indeed, he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>thought he would be moved that morning. He +advised someone from <cite>The Howl</cite> to be sent to photograph the house +and if possible the scene when the ambulance left. It would make a +good picture. But he warned them that Mrs. Maple had got a policeman +in plain clothes on the place, and there were orders to allow no one +to come near. She didn’t want it in the papers—he laughed, gently, and +there was another much louder laugh at the other end of the wire. No, +he could not send a sketch of the ghost. They must do that. They could +get that little drunken artist of theirs to make a line sketch—just a +long black cloak and a sword and a big Elizabethan ruff, and no head, +and an old curtained bed close by.</p> + +<p>Even as he was talking he dropped the receiver at the sound of a +piteous wail. It was Betsy Broom, casting her dustpan and brush to the +winds and calling on her maker to deliver her from evil. Lord Hambourne +himself was surprised to find how much his nerves were on edge. Betsy +Broom might have been the ghost, he felt so startled. But he had the +sense to quiet her.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_250"> + <img class="illowp90" src="images/i_250.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Effect of the other world on Miss Broom, housemaid</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Hold your tongue,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, sir,” said the unfortunate young woman, “I thought you was the +ghost! That’s the third time I thought I seen it!”</p> + +<p>Lord Hambourne made another of those rapid <span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>decisions which I sincerely +hope will sooner or later lead him to an independent income. He did not +like parting with money, and he had very little to part with. But he +decided it was worth his while; and after all, he had won at bridge. He +took a crumpled ten-shilling note out of his waistcoat pocket, and put +it into Betsy’s hand.</p> + +<p>“Betsy,” he said, “if I were you I wouldn’t talk too much about my +telephoning. Their nerves are all on edge, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said the simple girl, bobbing and grateful, “I quite +understand.” But she was still trembling. He patted her paternally upon +the shoulder.</p> + +<p>“There,” he said. “It’s all right. Even if there was anything, you +wouldn’t see it after sunrise, you know.”</p> + +<p>“So I’ve always heard, sir,” answered Betsy, with due acknowledgment of +his learning. “That and runnin’ water lays ’em.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you’re right, Betsy,” he said loftily; and then gently left the +scene of his misdeeds, hoping that the office would not commit the +unpardonable folly of ringing him up. But he ought to have warned them.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We still have relics of an age when the Press could be managed by +people of influence, because <span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>its owners, though millionaires, were +commonly still climbing. Hilda Maple was of that age. She was quite +secure in her own mind after she had telephoned to five or six London +offices that she could keep the thing out of the papers. There would +be no reporters, at any rate, and it was a relief, and she had seen to +a detective coming to watch the place against photographers. She had +ordered that loudly before she had lain down, and Lord Hambourne had +heard her.</p> + +<p>Therefore it was that, while yet the morning was very young, and while +there was still a dew upon the gardens of Rackham—so quiet that the +second under-gardener could hear the low moans proceeding from the +patient’s bedroom—a figure appeared by a very singular approach, to +wit, pushing its way through the laurels to the west-south-west of the +main approach. It would seem that the figure had avoided the publicity +of the lodge, and preferred its own method of entry, which was by +crawling under a barbed-wire fence, crashing through the brushwood and +finding its way, a little torn and bleeding, to the edge of the lawn in +front of the house. But with great gallantry the figure had borne with +him throughout this adventure a huge contraption, a tripod covered with +a black cloth, and reminiscent of the photography of thirty years ago. +And the name of the figure was Columbus.</p> + +<p>It was not his real name. It was the name <span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>facetiously given him in +his good-nature and condescension by his master, Lord Toronto, who, +having asked upon one occasion which serf of his had managed to secure +unexpected photographs, in double quick time, of other people’s very +private and intimate affairs, was respectfully given the efficient +dependant’s name. His lordship had thereupon christened the good serf +Columbus, because he got there, and Columbus he continued to be called.</p> + +<p>It was the method of Columbus, I say, whenever he had to surprise +the vigilance of those whose lack of public spirit prompted them to +elude the Press, to carry with him this huge superstructure upon a +tripod, covered with a black cloth. He knew well enough the attention +it would excite, the gathering of menials ordering him off the place, +even the approach of the police. But its weight and size also meant +that he could not be driven off at a moment’s notice, and during the +altercation nothing was easier than to bring out his little Zeiss +camera on the sly and snap the whole concern, unbeknownst.</p> + +<p>For this also had Columbus everything prepared upon that early morning. +He put himself squarely facing the antique front of Rackham Catchings; +he elaborately fixed the tripod; he covered his head with the cloth; +he went through all the gestures of a performance dear to our fathers. +Nor was he, as one might imagine, incapacitated <span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>by this attitude from +watching his foes; for the camera box beneath the cloth was a fake and +in place of its glass a large round hole stared empty, through which +all could be naturally observed. He swept the landscape. He patiently +waited the arrival of the servants, perhaps with police. He had his +expostulations ready in his mind; and, nicely tucked away, concealed +in the hollow between his left arm and his left side, the little Zeiss +that was to do the trick. He wanted “figures in the foreground.” He got +more than he bargained for.</p> + +<p>No servant appeared. But what did at last saunter into the bright +circle framed in black was something very different. By the boots, a +policeman; by the clothes, and especially the sharply pressed trousers, +an advertisement for that which the vulgar call ready-to-wear and the +gentle ready-made; by the hat, a scandal to God and man; by the face, +a fool. My reader has divined him with her customary skill. It was Mr. +Pretherton, the Detective.</p> + +<p>With a fine nonchalance Mr. Pretherton strolled across the green, as +one taking the morning air. He came up to Columbus, still distracted, +still, as it were, careless of mundane things. He lifted a corner of +the black cloth and whispered in the ear of the stooping expert:</p> + +<p>“It may interest you to know that I am a member of the Force in plain +clothes.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span></p> + +<p>Columbus answered—to himself:</p> + +<p>“Forty-three and one-tenth, diameter eight,” and proceeded to turn a +little screw which was not there.</p> + +<p>“And the sooner you make off, young man,” went on the redoubtable +Pretherton, lifting the corner of the cloth again, but turning his face +towards the house, as though he were taking part in the photography, +“the better for you, I can tell you.”</p> + +<p>To which Columbus very simply replied, but again to himself and not to +his interlocutor:</p> + +<p>“Double for morning light; cloudy sky, no deep shadows.”</p> + +<p>Upon the scene of this blinded duel there appeared at some little way +off, round a corner of the house, an unexpected ally, and an unexpected +enemy, of the one and the other protagonist.</p> + +<p>They were Bo with the hound Lovey-Lad.</p> + +<p>Bo (Oh, the efficiency of the efficient!) had caught the whole +situation in a moment. She had inherited, here again, that quality in +the eminent peer her progenitor whereby the market may be seized at a +glance. The Press was snapping the house. A bull point for the Bo-Jacko +crowd. That fellow whom she had suspected was interfering; a bear point +for same. To have the tragedy in the papers would complete the ruin of +Aunt Hilda’s market. To keep it out was the object of the interfering +fellow in the policeman’s boots.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span></p> + +<p>The greatest generals are capable in the heat of action of an ambiguous +order. It must be admitted in defence of Lovey-Lad that he could hardly +have distinguished between the friend and the enemy of his mistress. +When, therefore, he heard from Bo’s arched lips the glad words “Siccum, +boy!” he leapt forward like a shell from a gun, not for the evil +Pretherton, but alas! for the well-working Columbus. And after all, how +should not your bow-legged, hideous, brass-banded bulldog befriend a +common human who might be anybody’s friend and rather go for a monster +with three wooden legs, two trouser ends and no head?</p> + +<p>Through the round empty aperture, where the object glass was not, +Columbus saw his Fate hurtling at him. Without pausing to arbitrate on +moral right, he fled incontinent. And Mr. Pretherton, very innocently +and naturally thinking that someone from the household which he was +serving had supported his effort, laughed heartily at the clumsy +efforts of the devoted prey, who ran regardless, blinded by the black +cloth, straight for the rhododendrons, the first cover he could find.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_256"> + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_256.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Solid satisfaction of Mr. Pretherton at the pressed pace of Columbus</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>But dogs, since they are quite unintelligent, are admirably subject to +discipline. Bo (who had learned the art in childhood and had happily +retained it) put two fingers between her teeth and with a piercing +whistle recalled the well-meaning <span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>but mistaken hound. What it must +have cost Lovey-Lad to pull up again upon the common earth, to lose his +quarry, to turn back, slinking—only a dog can know. But the whistle had +been imperative, and he had obeyed. He came back panting, not without +an irresolute halt now and then and a glance back at the strange morsel +he had missed, as Columbus, finding the chase had failed, recovered +himself, folded his cloth upon his arm, and, grasping his tripod, came +forward somewhat timidly to explain.</p> + +<p>But Bo gave him no opportunity. She did not want explanations. She +wanted a frank friendship and excellent publicity for the great Rackham +Catchings tragedy—for the ghost—in the Press of the metropolis; and +notably in that of Lord Toronto, as being to her certain knowledge the +most vulgar of all the six vulgarians who control our great organs of +opinion.</p> + +<p>She could trust Lord Toronto to have it all over London that evening. +Meanwhile she must be rid of Hilda’s policeman.</p> + +<p>The thing had not taken sixty seconds from the moment when Lovey-Lad +had shot forward to the moment when he came back unsatisfied, and +almost daring to growl, and sat on his haunches panting at his +mistress’ feet. Mr. Pretherton was still smiling the smile of triumph, +Columbus was still in hesitating stance, wondering how he would be +received, when Bo gave her second order, without hesitation, rapidly, +and this time more directly, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>pointing with an unashamed finger at +her victim, and launched the Friend of Man at the Detective.</p> + +<p>Then was it seen with what majesty the British policeman bolts! Note to +what skill, what promptitude, what immediate appreciation of reality, +the public civilian forces of our beloved country are trained!</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_258"> + <img class="illowp100" src="images/i_258.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Genuine pleasure of Columbus on observing the haste of Mr. Pretherton</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The flight of Columbus from Lovey-Lad had been a turtle’s waddle, hasty +though it was, compared with the whizz of the detective. Lovey-Lad +never reached him. He was through the brushwood, under the wire and +over the stone coping in a flash; and, her purpose accomplished, his +mistress called him back to heel.</p> + +<p>What happens in the souls of dogs when they are used for retrievers, +for pointers, for any object at all except their own (and they are +so used all the time)? Is it triumph in their skill, and an obscure +but loyal understanding that they have served their masters, mere +disappointment, bewilderment, or what? I know not. But I fancy a +mixture of all these things, from the description I have had of what +lay upon Lovey-Lad’s features as he came back the second time panting, +still hungry, to his mistress’ feet. He had torn nothing, he had bitten +nothing; but he had gloriously chased him whom he had been sent to +destroy—let that suffice.</p> + +<p>Columbus came back extending a large hand towards Bo with the +self-possession of his kind. Bo took it with the simplicity of hers. +When he <span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>thanked her, as one who had saved his life, and when they had +both remarked upon the absurd picture presented by the detective in +his flight, a very few words made clearer still what Bo had already +discovered. With charming good nature the young woman sought out for +the journalist the exact point of vantage whence best Rackham Catchings +might be snapped. She was torn between her desire for a striking +picture which no one could miss and a contradictory desire for early +publication. She saw him register the scene; she accompanied him +without shame to the lodge gate, and then in a moment of inspiration +she made a suggestion consonant with her means, ill-fitted to her +condition.</p> + +<p>“D’you know what edition of your two-cent’ll carry the picture of +Rackham Catchings? Have ye’ seen the story that’s to flare it?”</p> + +<p>He had seen the story. It had gone up straight to London—from Lord +Hambourne. As to the edition, it would be the lunch-time edition at +the latest; he could swear to that—now that she had so kindly seen him +through.</p> + +<p>Bo decided at once, risking a rebuff, and, as you may expect, not in +danger of receiving one. She did not pull out a single pound note, as +a less efficient person would have done; she put the whole leather +case—scented—quietly into his hand, whence it slipped into his pocket +under his eyes.</p> + +<p>“I know what’s in there, Bud,” she said. “And <span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>there’ll be as much +again for you when I see it in that edition. It sure must go in. D’you +get me? But who’m I to send it to? What’s your name?”</p> + +<p>In an accent not unlike her own the mysterious stranger answered:</p> + +<p>“My name? Nothing! Just you put ‘Columbus’ on the envelope, and the +Baron’ll see it won’t miss me.”</p> + +<p>They nodded cheerfully to each other. And <em>that</em> was all settled.</p> + +<p>Indeed, upon the morrow, after the story had ended and Bo could make +sure that her bargain had been observed, she (a woman who knew exactly +how much she had in that leather wallet at any one time) put into an +envelope the exact equivalent, and, keeping her word, delivered it with +her own hands, sealed up, at Lord Toronto’s hideous building off Fleet +Street, addressed only “Columbus,” demanding no receipt and leaving no +name.</p> + +<p>Nor can I deny that Columbus well earned this treble stream of gold, +the first from his vulgar master, the second and the third from Bo.</p> + +<p>The picture of Rackham Catchings came out enormous on the front page of +<cite>The Howl</cite>: they had the exclusive story; they had the exclusive +snaps; and an admirable caption designed by the Editor himself, a Mr. +Emston, who had been Emstein somewhere in America years ago. That +caption ran:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span></p> + +<div class="center mt5 mb5"> + <span class="large">ELIZABETHAN SPECTRE APPEARS IN<br> + ANCIENT MANOR HOUSE.</span><br> + <br> + <span class="small">SEEN BY ALL.</span><br> + <br> + <span class="smcap">Conclusive Proof by Oxford Professor of<br> + Psychology.</span><br> + <br> + <span class="large">PROMINENT PEER PROSTRATED.</span> +</div> + +<p>On the picture a large black cross deeply marked over poor Mrs. Maple’s +bathroom window, and having a gigantic arrow pointing at it, was +labelled:</p> + +<div class="center small mt5 mb5"> + ANCIENT MONASTIC CHAPEL WHERE GHOST<br> + APPEARED. +</div> + +<p>And underneath all this, in somewhat smaller letters:</p> + +<div class="center mt5 mb5"> + <i>Opinions of our Readers.</i> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">which last were a number of letters dated from all parts of London, +signed by various names, and written somewhat hurriedly by the +sub-editor’s son, who was trying his hand as apprentice serf to Lord +Toronto.</p> + +<p>It would be all over London by one o’clock and the market for Rackham +ruined.</p> +</section> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<section role="doc-chapter" aria-labelledby="ch16"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span> +<h2 id="ch16">CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p>Bo, returning into the house, met Betsy Broom. Betsy had not yet +recovered from her shock (remember that the morning was still very +young), she had but that moment left the Professor’s presence. She gave +another little shriek, and was prepared to do another Cinquevalli trick +with the dustpan and broom, when Bo dominated her.</p> + +<p>“Doan be a li’l fool!” said Bo, pulling her up. “What’s a-matter with +ye? Scared?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, ma’am! Oh, miss! I thought it was IM again. There! I’m that dazed. +I thought ’is lordship was IM I did, when I found ’im telephoning. I’m +not meself.”</p> + +<p>Bo pounced on the strategic point.</p> + +<p>“Which lordship?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Lord ’Ambourne, miss. ’E were telephoning all about it” (for thus did +Betsy earn the heavy bribe she had received to remain silent).</p> + +<p>“Oh, he was, was he?” said Bo grimly.</p> + +<p>She remembered Lord Hambourne’s notorious connection with <cite>The +Howl</cite>, and how that other eminent peer and colleague, Lord Toronto, +was his paymaster.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Betsy,” she said. She had given away her wallet in a fine +gesture—as the newspapers <span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>have it; but she felt in the pocket of the +little garden coat she was wearing, to shield her from the cold of that +morning. She seemed to remember there was something there. And so there +was. And she pulled out yet another crumpled ten-shilling note.</p> + +<p>Betsy took it gratefully, and curtseyed.</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank you, ma’am—miss, I mean!” she said. There entered into +Betsy’s young life for the first and the last time an experience of +that operation which politicians, share-shufflers, black-mailers, and +other candidates for the House of Lords know in their own peculiar +language as the “Double Cross.” She had had her palm greased by both +sides. Alas! poor innocent child, she went away none the wiser! She +made no use of it. With a little more opportunity she might have been +in the Cabinet; for such accidents of special knowledge and special +payment lead anywhere nowadays.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Remember, my sweet reader, that this book is written in 1927. What +Bo did next never would have been done in 1917. And in 1907 it would +have meant what they called in the horrible jargon of their day (still +retained by Lord Hambourne) “social ostracism.” And in 1897 (but +there I am back in my boyhood) it would have <span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>been, in the still more +horrible jargon of <em>their</em> day, “unthinkable.”</p> + +<p>She went straight up to the passage on the first floor. She waited a +moment, listening keenly—and hearing nothing—outside the patient’s +room. She went on ten yards, and whispered through the keyhole of +the room where John had just, after hours of struggle, begun to feel +drowsy. She dared not knock.</p> + +<p>“Dog-Man,” was the undertone, “come out.”</p> + +<p>“What? What? What?” said John loudly, starting up.</p> + +<p>“Hush!” she whispered again through the keyhole, “come out.”</p> + +<p>He staggered out, with his fatigue full upon him, and it crossed Bo’s +mind for a moment that he was, if possible, on such an occasion less of +a god. A young beard had begun; his eyes were drooping; and the corners +of his mouth showed strain. But she was loyal, and saw him as he was +really, the divine Jacko, even through this disguise. She put her +finger to her lip, as she had during the conspiracy of the day before, +and led him tip-toe along the thick carpet to her own room in the other +wing.</p> + +<p>There she sat him down.</p> + +<p>“Jacko,” she said, “listen to me. An’ get your piece word-perfect. I’m +telling you. You see there’s going to be a break-up?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” said John.</p> + +<p>“We’ve won, haven’t we?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span></p> + +<p>“So far.... I wish, Bo, that I hadn’t....”</p> + +<p>“Pack that away into your old kit-bag. As you say—so far. Now ye’ve +got to hear the rest. Fat Matt’s gotten an ambulance from London. +It’ll buzz up here at nine. Then there’ll be the great retreat, an’ +the Thunder of the Captains, an’ the Shouting ... as it says in the +Good Book. Then Aunt Hilda’ll be all alone, and jest wanderin’ around. +That’s the time to play the card.”</p> + +<p>“What card?” asked John.</p> + +<p>“I’m telling you,” answered Bo. “Hambone’s ’phoned <cite>The Howl</cite>. The +help told me all about it. She heard him. Told them over the wire. And +they’ve had a picture-man down here snapping the place already. It’ll +be all over London, Jacko. And what’s Aunt Hilda to do then?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but what am <em>I</em> to do?” said John.</p> + +<p>“What you’re to do, Bone-head, is to walk in and win. There’s no +selling the place for her now. And if she’s still steely-hearted, work +her with your Voice.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see how I could haunt Aunt Hilda in broad daylight.”</p> + +<p>“No matter. The Lord will find a way. Only follow up, Jacko; follow up. +Have you got the carbons of those letters here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, in my pocket. She has the originals.”</p> + +<p>“Well, tell her <cite>The Howl’s</cite> got the story. Rattle her more, +someway. Then she’ll sign.”</p> + +<p>“You think she will?” said John doubtfully.</p> + +<p>Bo nodded with decision.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span></p> + +<p>“Trust the Young Heiress,” she said. “The child has never failed.”</p> + +<p>But even as she spoke there was commotion on the gravel beneath the +window. It was the ambulance from London, and the whole house was astir.</p> + +<p>The lovers slipped downstairs by the back staircase, reached the hall, +and all the turmoil was upon them.</p> + +<p>Down the main stairs, moving like funeral bearers under a coffin, +staggered sundry males—the driver of the ambulance, his assistant, the +footman, the atheist Gaul—even the local doctor lent a hand. While the +Specialist from London waddled slowly sideways, downwards, next to the +banisters, by way of inept superintendence: for he got the biggest fee.</p> + +<p>On the stretcher under which they staggered lay the unfortunate First +Baron Mere de Beaurivage, still muttering, still raving.</p> + +<p>Bringing up the rear from the head of the stairs and commanding all +things, his spouse, Presiding Goddess, herself storming, dominated the +storm.</p> + +<p>“Ow, tike ’im gently!” she cried. “Treat him tender! ’Andle ’im +like a child!” But even as she spoke the sufferer rent the air with +“A-r-r-r-h!”</p> + +<p>“Don’t jerk ’im, pore lamb!” the peeress went on—the procession had +allowed her to gain three steps downwards. “Don’t jerk ’im, whatever +yer do! Don’t give him a Hoick! Keep his ’ed up, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>pore dear! Keep the +blood from a-flowing to ’is ’ed!”</p> + +<p>The foremost of the bearers had reached the bottom stair, Amathea, +presiding from above, was half-way down, the doors were fully open, +Corton was flinging wide the entry to the ambulance, when poor Hilda +Maple, a wreck from lack of sleep and all the attention which women of +her age need before they can appear before human kind, made the error +of attempting a pacification.</p> + +<p>“Amathea,” she bleated, “<em>dearest</em> Amathea!...”</p> + +<p>But her adversary blazed out in terrible wrath.</p> + +<p>“You shet yer ’ed!” she yelled, without reserve. “It’s you did all the +’arm, it is!” Then to the procession. “Ow, ’andle him gentler, ’ear him +groan—ow!” Then to her hostess, “Look on wot yer done!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see what I’ve done,” began Mrs. Maple, but Amathea interrupted +her again.</p> + +<p>“Yer down’t see?” she cried madly. “Yer down’t see orl the ’arm yer’ve +done with yer Demonds and yer Obgoblings and yer lying laow an’ tryin’ +to pass off this ’ouse on us an’ orl?”</p> + +<p>“Amathea ...” began Mrs. Maple again.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you Amathea me, Mrs. Miple!” shouted the peeress, with all the +subtle charm of Aristocracy, as she crashed one hand on a table still +sordid with last night’s glasses, and stretched the other in wild +denunciation. “Don’t you Amathea me! I wish yer’d never been born, nor +I to <span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>meet yer! With yer ’umbug and yer lies and yer Black Devil, and +all! Yus, and ’id and concealed from our eyes! But I’ll let yer know! +I’ve priced yer! Yer profiteeress!”</p> + +<p>Poor Hilda tried to stem the torrent, but the peeress’s voice filled +all heaven, and if its owner had had anything to throw she would have +thrown it.</p> + +<p>“Down’t yer mike answer to me, Ilda Miple! I’m Mattie Huggins, I am, +and I’d have yer to know that I could take on a dozen of yer! Any dy of +the week!”</p> + +<p>She put her right arm akimbo and snapped the fingers of her left hand +finely in the air, “That for yer damn Rackham Catchings!” She put her +left arm akimbo and snapped the fingers of her right hand with still +nobler violence, “That for yer old Drury Lane stige barn!” She put both +arms akimbo and leant forward over the end of the banisters shouting +with titanic power, “Burn it down for the insurance, you bitch! Burn it +an’ keep quiet! For yer’ll never get a penny out of hus! And so I tells +yer strite!”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_268"> + <img class="illowp75" src="images/i_268.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Wifely protest of Amathea, Lady de Beaurivage, at<br>the unworthy treatment of her lord</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Her face was crimson, panting and sweating; her voice almost exhausted. +But she had the strength to add, before she turned to the ambulance +and to the last attentions due to her dear one: “Jest you wite till I +tells the Prime Minister about you, Hilda Maple! You’ll see what ’e’ll +do to yer! Yus, he will! Not arf!” And with that, amid the embarrassed, +the horrified, the discreet <span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>crowd about her, she sobered down to give +still breathless but intelligible orders, sat herself down in the +ambulance beside her husband, against all rules, and was gone.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Rackham Catchings was as quiet as the dusty scene of an explosion when +the rumble is over: but it was as wrecked. And Hilda Maple sat down, +a wreck herself, her elbow upon the table of the hall, her dizzy head +supported in her left hand.</p> + +<p>Lord Hambourne did not fail—he could not fail—upon such an occasion.</p> + +<p>“I’ve c-c-come to say g-g-good-bye,” he grinned, as though it were the +most ordinary morning that ever had dawned. Hilda Maple could hardly +manage to be civil. She half rose, she asked him if he had a vehicle, +she mechanically said she hoped he would come again.</p> + +<p>Hardly had he gone when footsteps approached. It was the cook, heading +her phalanx once again.</p> + +<p>“Not as I’d disturb any Lady in your Circumstances, ma’am,” she +declaimed, “but if you please, ma’am, I must be going this very +day. Ow, never mind the month’s wages,” she added loftily, as Hilda +attempted to speak. “And all these poor things,” waving at the herd, +“they say the same as me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span></p> +<p>“Not Alphonse?” asked poor Hilda of the crowd, feebly.</p> + +<p>“Not that Toad!” said Mrs. Fry. “Not that I knows on. I won’t speak for +him—I’ll have nothing to do with him. But this day we goes, ma’am, all +of us. We’re all resolved. We won’t sleep under this roof again—for +sleep we can’t.” And there were murmurs and groaning exclamations of +assent from the rest.</p> + +<p>“Not Corton?” said poor Hilda, in a still lower voice.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Corton,” said Mrs. Fry with dignity, “has informed us that he +prefers to speak to you privately. He will then say whatever he has to +say.”</p> + +<p>And with that she sailed out, and with her followed her attendant +nymphs and gentlemen-in-waiting.</p> + +<p>Hilda had hardly time for breathing space when John in his turn +appeared.</p> + +<p>“John,” said the unfortunate woman, “I feel faint.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, Aunt Hilda,” he said sympathetically. “I must give you some +brandy.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a thing I never do,” said Aunt Hilda, as her nephew poured out +a stiff dose from a derelict decanter of the night’s debauch, and +squirted a sufficiency of soda into it.</p> + +<p>“Drink that, Aunt Hilda,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’ll do me good,” she answered in a voice still faint. “I +feel more dead than alive.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span></p> + +<p>She was breathing heavily. Then she said:</p> + +<p>“Well, John....”</p> + +<p>“I’m still here, Aunt Hilda,” said John dutifully. “Whatever you +want me for, I’m still here. And.... And, Aunt Hilda, I’ll still buy +Rackham.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll still what?” said Aunt Hilda, with the ghost of her former +energy reviving.</p> + +<p>“What I said,” doggedly repeated John, in an echo of so many +insistencies. “I’ll buy Rackham. You’ve got the papers, Aunt Hilda, and +I’ve got a copy of them here.”</p> + +<p>There worked in Hilda Maple’s mind, violently surging one against the +other like opposing strong tides in a strait, the two currents which +have shaken men and women since first they dealt with buying and +selling. She was ruined—no one would buy the place. Her reason told her +in a flash that she was lucky to have such a chance even as this. It +would clear her, at any rate.</p> + +<p>And the other current was her pride—after having stood out for so long, +and after having felt such contempt for the foolish boy. Above them +the figure of the Ancestor grinned fatuously, and the young man of +twenty-three and the woman of fifty sat silent under its gaze.</p> + +<p>John put the papers down upon the table, and his fountain-pen by the +side.</p> + +<p>Then in that silence the Ancestor spoke from his frame. He spoke in a +deep voice, and with a gravity that belied his features.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span></p> +<p>“Woman! Woman!” he boomed.</p> + +<p>Aunt Hilda swerved round, stared a moment at the incredible Thing, gave +a little squeak like a bird.</p> + +<p>“Woman! Woman!” boomed on Sir Harry Murtenshaw, Knight, from the depths +of his painted chest. “Is he not the Rightful Heir?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, sir!” came abruptly and strongly in sharp agony from Hilda Maple’s +lips. She sank suddenly upon the floor to her knees and clasped her +fingers convulsively, imploring the clemency of her dreadful visitant, +“Oh, sir, I am a sinful woman!” She buried her face in her hands. Even +as she did so she heard that solemn voice, again for the third time, +and in yet deeper tones:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_270"> + <img class="illowp92" src="images/i_270.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>Hilda Maple admits that she is a sinful woman</figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“Is he not the Rightful Heir?”</p> + +<p>She reeled a little. John Maple helped her up and seated her. She +signed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>“John,” sighed the unfortunate woman, as she laid down the pen, and +when he had handed her his acknowledgment—the instrument of her +release, the paper that would stop the Esthonian’s bark—“leave me, dear +boy. Leave me!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t I...?” he began.</p> + +<p>“No, my dear,” she said feebly. She had never been a tithe so +affectionate to him in all these years, as now when he had done her so +ill a service; and it burnt him with remorse—but there <span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>was the strong +image of Bo in the background to keep him to the mark. “Leave me,” she +said. And he walked out with bent head.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Hilda Maple broke into a flood of tears, putting her head down upon +her crossed arms, and sobbing freely. She gave full vent to her +relief; and minutes passed before she raised her face again, stained, +distraught—hideous, she was sure. And when she raised it, there stood +respectfully at the door, hesitating whether he should come in, the +tall figure of Lord Hellup. Alone of that household the night vigil had +not ruffled him at all. He had simply changed from his evening dress to +his morning clothes, with all the creases where they should be. He had +shaved, he was as fresh as a daisy. No wonder they make money, and keep +it. But then, they also have hearts of gold.</p> + +<p>As she raised her face he knew at once that he was intruding, and +turned to go. But she, the unfortunate, was on her feet.</p> + +<p>“Hannibal!... I mean, Hamilcar!” she cried, stretching forth her +extended hands.</p> + +<p>He returned. She tottered. And fifty fell into the arms of sixty years. +But there! What difference does ten years make at that time of life?</p> + +<figure class="figcenter" id="i_272"> + <img class="illowp80" src="images/i_272.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption>“Hannibal!... I mean, Hamilcar!”</figcaption> +</figure> +</section> + +</main> + +<div class="transnote" id="tn"> + <header class="large center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></header> + <ul> + <li>Perceived typographical errors have been corrected:</li> + <li><a href="#tn-22">page 22</a>: <b>£17,324</b> changed to <b>“£17,324</b> (missing start quote added)</li> + <li><a href="#tn-24">page 24</a>: <b>perhaps that</b> changed to <b>perhaps than</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-31">page 31</a>: <b>still premanent</b> changed to <b>still permanent</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-70">page 70</a>: <b>franfreluches</b> changed to <b>fanfreluches</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-86">page 86</a>: <b>Rastaqouère</b> changed to <b>Rastaquouère</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-99">page 99</a>: <b>Your effectionate</b> changed to <b>Your affectionate</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-100">page 100</a>: <b>mail tomorrow</b> changed to <b>mail to-morrow</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-113">page 113</a>: <b>stagged</b> changed to <b>staged</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-138">page 138</a>: <b>At his very</b> changed to <b>As his very</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-142">page 142</a>: <b>his gaze(</b> changed to <b>his gaze,</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-172">page 172</a>: <b>de Beaurevage</b> changed to <b>de Beaurivage</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-209">page 209</a>: <b>Jocko</b> changed to <b>Jacko</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-214">page 214</a>: <b>figure's were</b> changed to <b>figures were</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-215a">page 215</a>: <b>ever pitient</b> changed to <b>ever patient</b></li> + <li><a href="#tn-215b">page 215</a>: <b>my eart</b> changed to <b>my ’eart</b> (apostrophe added)</li> + <li><a href="#tn-234">page 234</a>: <b>s-s-s-ymptom or</b> changed to <b>s-s-s-ymptom of</b></li> + </ul> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79269 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/79269-h/images/colophon.jpg b/79269-h/images/colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 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