"Alone?" said Sir William, as he came into the room. "Thank Heaven! Have
you had no one?"
"Aunt Anna," Lady Gore replied, in a tone which was comment on the
statement.
"Aunt Anna? What did she come again for?" said Sir William.
"I really don't know," Lady Gore said. "I think to-day it was to tell me
that Rachel and I ought not to worship you as we do."
"I don't know what she means," said Sir William, standing from force of
habit comfortably in front of the fireplace as though there were a fire
in the grate. "I should have thought it was Rachel and I who adored
you."
"She would like that better," Lady Gore replied. "But, oh dear, what a
weary woman she is!"
"She has tired you out," Sir William said. "It really is not a good plan
that your door should be open to every bore who chooses to come and call
upon you. One ought to be able to keep people of that sort, at any rate,
out of one's house."
Lady Gore heaved a sigh.
"Well, it is rather difficult and invidious too," she said, "to try to
keep certain people out when one is not sure who is coming--and it is
rather dull not to see any one," with a little quiver of the lip which
Sir William did not perceive. Then speaking more lightly, "It is a pity
we can't have some kind of automatic arrangement at our front doors,
like the thing for testing sovereigns at the Mint, by which the heavy,
tiresome people would be shot back into the street, and the light,
amusing ones shot into the hall."
"I am quite agreeable," said Sir William, "as long as Aunt Anna is shot
back into the street."
"Ah, how delightful it would be!" said Lady Gore longingly.
"And Miss Tarlton too, please," said Sir William.
"My dear William," Lady Gore said, "Miss Tarlton is quite harmless."
"Harmless?" repeated Sir William; "I don't know what you call harmless.
The very thought of her fills me with impotent rage. A woman who talks
of nothing but photography and bicycling, and goes about with her
fingers pea-green and her legs in gaiters! It's an outrage on society. I
am thankful that Rachel has never gone in for any nonsense of that
sort--nor ever shall, while I can prevent it."
"My good friend," said Lady Gore, "you may not find that so easy."
"I will prevent it as long as she is under my roof," replied Sir
William. "I suppose if she marries a husband with any fads of that sort,
she will have to share them."
"But"--Lady Gore checked herself on the verge of saying, "I don't think
he has," as she suddenly realised what image was called up by the
mention of Rachel's possible husband--"but she might marry some one who
hasn't," she ended lamely.
"Oh dear me, yes," said Sir William, "there is time enough for that; she
is very young after all."
"She is twenty-two," said Lady Gore. "Perhaps that is young in these
days when women don't seem to marry until they are nearly thirty. But I
don't think it is a good plan to wait so long."
"I don't think it's a bad one," said Sir William; "they know their own
minds at any rate."
"They have known half a dozen of their own minds," said Lady Gore. "I
think it is much better for a girl to marry before she knows that there
is an alternative to the mind she has got, such as it is."
Sir William smiled, but did not think it worth while to argue the point.
It was not his province, but her mother's, to guide Rachel's career, and
he was content to remain in comfortable ignorance of the complications
of the female heart of a younger generation. However, he was not allowed
to remain in that detached attitude, for Lady Gore, with the subject
uppermost in her mind preoccupying her to the exclusion of everything
else, could not help adding, "You often see Mr. Rendel at parties, when
you and Rachel go out, I mean?"
"Rendel? Yes," said Gore indifferently. "Why?"
Lady Gore did not explain. "I like him," she said.
"Oh yes, so do I," said Gore, without enthusiasm. "I don't agree with
him, of course. I asked him one day what his Chief was about, and told
him he ought to put the brake on."
"Did he seem pleased at that?" said Lady Gore, smiling.
"He will have to hear it, I'm afraid," said Gore, "whether it pleases
him or not."
"I must say," said Lady Gore, "I can't help admiring Lord Stamfordham. I
do like a man who is strong, and this man is head and shoulders above
other people."
"Head and shoulders above little people perhaps," said Sir William.
"Mr. Rendel says that when once one is caught up in Lord Stamfordham's
train, it is impossible not to follow him."
"Rendel!" said Sir William. "Oh, of course, if you're going to listen to
what Stamfordham's hangers-on say...."
"Oh, William, please!" said Lady Gore. "Don't say that sort of thing
about Mr. Rendel."
"Why?" said Sir William, amazed. "Why am I to speak of Rendel with bated
breath?"
"Because ... suppose--suppose he were to be your son-in-law some day?"
"Oh," said Sir William, staring at her, "is that what you are thinking
of?"
"Mind--mind you don't say it," cried Lady Gore.
"_I_ shan't say it, certainly," cried Sir William, still bewildered;
"but has he said it? That's more to the point."
"He hasn't yet," she admitted.
"Well, he never struck me in that light, I must say," said Sir William.
"I always thought it was you he adored."
"_Cela n'empeche pas_," said Lady Gore, laughing.
"I daresay he would do very well," said Sir William, who, as he further
considered the question, was by no means insensible to the advantages of
the suggestion put before him; "it is only his politics that are against
him."
"I am afraid," said Lady Gore, "that Rachel would always think her
father knew best."
"Afraid!" said Sir William, "what more would you have?"
"My dear William," said his wife, smiling at him, "she might think her
husband knew best, that is what some people do."
"Quite right," said Sir William, looking at her fondly, but believing
with entire conviction in the truth of what he was lightly saying.
At this moment the door opened and a footman came in.
"Young Mr. Anderson is downstairs, Sir William."
"Young Mr. Anderson?" said Sir William, looking at him with some
surprise.
"Yes, Sir William--Mr. Fred," the man replied, evidently somewhat
doubtful as to whether he was right in using the honorific.
"Fred Anderson back again!" said Sir William to his wife. "All right,
James, I'll come directly." "I wonder if his rushing back to England so
soon," he said, as the door closed upon the servant, "means that that
boy has come to grief."
"Let us hope that it means the reverse," said his wife, "and that he has
come back to ask you to be chairman of his company--as you promised, do
you remember, when he went away?"
"So I did, yes, to be sure," said Sir William, laughing at the
recollection. "Upon my word, that lad won't fail for want of assurance.
We shall see what he has got to say." And he went out.
The Andersons had been small farmers on the Gore estate for some
generations. Fred Anderson, the second son of the present farmer, a
youth of energy and enterprise, had determined to seek his fortune
further afield. Mainly by the kind offices of the Gores, he had been
started in life as a mining engineer, and had, eighteen months before
his present reappearance, been sent with some others to examine and
report on a large mine lately discovered on British territory near the
Equator. The result of their investigations proved that it was actually
and most unexpectedly a gold mine, promising untold treasure, but at the
same time, from its geographical situation, almost valueless, since it
was so far from any lines of communication as to make the working of it
practically impossible. The young, however, are sanguine; undaunted by
difficulties, Fred Anderson, in spite of the discouragement and dropping
off of his companions, remained full of faith in the future of the mine,
and of something turning up which would make it possible to work it; in
fact, he had actually gone so far as to obtain for himself a grant of
the mining rights from the British Government. It was for this purpose
that, giving a brief outline of the situation, he had written to Sir
William some time before to ask him for the sum necessary to obtain the
concession. Sir William had advanced it to him. It was when, two years
before, the boy of nineteen was leaving home for the first time that he
had half jestingly asked Sir William whether, if he and his companions
found a gold mine and started a company to work it, he would be their
chairman, and Sir William, to whom it had seemed about as likely that
Fred Anderson would become Prime Minister as succeed in such an
undertaking, had given him his hand on the bargain.
"Well, my boy," said Sir William, and the very sound of his voice seemed
to Fred Anderson to put him back two years--the two years that appeared
to him to contain his life. "How is it you have hurried back to England
so quickly?"
"I will tell you all about it, Sir William," said the boy. "I thought it
best to come over and get everything into shape myself."
"You seem to be embarking on very adventurous schemes," said Sir
William, feeling as he looked at the boy's bright, open face, full of
alert intelligence, that it was not impossible that the schemes might be
carried through.
"I think you will say so, sir, when you have heard what I have to tell
you," said Anderson, resolutely keeping down his excitement in a way
that boded well for his powers of self-control.
"I shall be much interested," said Sir William. "Now, what about those
mining rights? Do I understand that you are the proprietor of a mine on
the Equator, a thousand miles from anywhere?"
"Yes, and no," said Anderson. "At least, yes to the first question; no
to the second."
"What," said Sir William, still speaking lightly, "has the mine come
nearer since we first heard of it?"
"Yes, practically it has," said Anderson, looking Gore in the face.
Then, unrolling the paper which he held in his hand and rolling it the
other way that it might remain open, he laid it carefully out on the
table before Sir William. "I have brought you the map with all the
indications on it, that you may see for yourself." Sir William adjusted
an eyeglass and bent over the map, roused to more curiosity than he
showed.
"This," said the young man, pointing to a large tract in pink, "is
British territory; that is Uganda; here is the Congo Free State. There,
you see, are the Germans where the map is marked in orange. There is
the Equator, and _there_ is the mine. Look, marked in blue."
"That is a pretty God-forsaken place, I must say," remarked Sir William.
"One moment," said Fred. "That thin, dotted ink line running north and
south from the top of Africa to the bottom is the Cape to Cairo Railway,
of which the route has now been determined on, and this," with a ringing
accent of triumph, bringing his hand down on to the map, "is the place
where the railway will pass within a few miles of us."
"What?" said Sir William, starting.
"Yes, there it is, quite close," Anderson answered. "When once it is
there, all our difficulties of transport are over."
Sir William recovered himself.
"Cape to Cairo!" he said. "You had better wait till you see the line
made, my boy."
"That won't be so very long, Sir William, I assure you," said the young
man. "This cross in ink marks where the line has got to from the
northern end, and this one," pointing to another, "from the south, and
they have already got telegraph poles a good bit further."
"Before the two ends have joined hands," said Sir William, "another
Government may be in which won't be so keen on that mad enterprise. As
if we hadn't railways enough on our hands already."
"Not many railways like this one," said the young man. "Did you see an
article in the _Arbiter_ about it this morning? It is going to be the
most tremendous thing that ever was done."
"Oh, of course, yes," said Sir William with an accent of scorn in his
tone. "Just the kind of thing that the _Arbiter_ would have a good
flare-up about. I have no doubt that the scheme is magnificent on paper.
However, time will show," he added, with a kinder note in his voice. He
liked the boy and his faith in achieving the impossible.
"It will indeed," said Anderson. "Only, you see, we can't afford to wait
till time shows--we must take it by the forelock now, I'm afraid."
"Then what do you propose to do next?" said Sir William.
"We are going to form a company," said the boy, his colour rising. "We
are going to have everything ready, and the moment the railway is
finished we are ready to work the mine, and our fortune is made."
"You are going to form a company?" said Sir William, incredulously.
"Yes," Anderson replied. "In a week we shall have the whole thing in
shape, and I hope that when the mine and its possibilities are made
public, we shan't have any difficulty in getting the shares taken up."
"Well, I am sure I hope you won't," said Sir William. "I'll take some
shares in it if you can show me a reasonable prospect of its coming to
anything. But I should like to hear something more about it first."
"You shall, of course," said Anderson, as he took up his map again. "But
it was not about taking shares I came to ask you, Sir William."
"What was it, then?" said Sir William.
"You said," the boy replied, with an embarrassed little laugh, looking
him straight in the face, "that you would be the chairman of the first
company I floated."
"By Jove, so I did!" said Sir William. "Upon my word, it was rather a
rash promise to make."
"I don't think it was, I assure you," the boy said earnestly; "this
thing really is going to turn up trumps."
"Well, let's hope it is, for all concerned," said Sir William. "And what
are you going to call it?"
"Oh, we are going to call it," said Fred, "simply 'The Equator,
Limited.'"
"The Equator! Upon my word! Why not the Universe?" said Sir William.
"That will come next," said the boy, with a happy laugh of sheer
jubilation. "Then, Sir William, will you--you will be our chairman?"
"Oh yes," said Sir William. "A promise is a promise. But mind, I shall
be a very inefficient one. I don't suppose you could find any one who
knew less about that sort of thing than I do."
"Oh, that will be all right, Sir William," the boy said quickly. "There
will be lots of people concerned who know all about it. Now that the
mine is going to be accessible, the right people will be more than ready
to take it up. I just wanted to have you there as the nominal head to
it, because you have always been so good to me, and you have brought me
luck since the beginning."
"Nonsense!" said Sir William. "You'll have only yourself to thank, my
boy, when you get on."
"Oh, I know better than that," said Anderson. Something very like tears
came into his eyes as he took the hand Sir William held out to him, and
then left the room as happy a youth of twenty-one as could be found in
London that day.