“I’m sure,” he said stiffly, “it would have been your guardian’s——”
“—and your uncle’s——”
“—wish that we should live at Palfrey.”
“Is there any reason why we should consider his wishes?”
“Hang it,” said Virgil. “The old fellow’s left us six hundred thousand.”
“And blighted our lives.”
“Oh, not ‘blighted,’” said Pardoner. “You can’t blight three hundred
thousand quid. You can make it a bit sticky, but you can’t blight a sum
like that. It’s—it’s invulnerable.”
“I was speaking of our lives,” said Miss Vulliamy. “Not our legacies.”
“Same thing,” said Pardoner comfortably, passing a somewhat rugged
sculpture across the table. “Same thing. You see. The two are
indistinguishable. Supposing another Will turned up, leaving the lot to
me.” Sarah shuddered. “Exactly. Your life would become a blank—same as
your bank balance.”
“Not for long,” said Miss Vulliamy.
“Why?”
“Because,” said Sarah, with a dazzling smile. “I should sue you for
breach of promise.” Her companion paled. “The damages would
be—er—painfully easy to assess, wouldn’t they?”
Pardoner frowned. Then his face cleared.
“The contingency,” he said, “is happily remote. If it ever happened, I
should give you half, because you’ve the sporting instinct.”
“How much,” said Sarah dreamily, “shall you give June?”
The other started.
“June? Oh, June’s all right. She—she wouldn’t expect anything. I—I
shouldn’t like to offer it. It’ld be—er—indelicate.”
Miss Vulliamy sighed.
“Well, well,” she said, “I expect you know best. Any way, we’ve had a
nice straight talk, haven’t we? I mean, we haven’t minced matters. I’ve
told you that, but for the money, I wouldn’t be seen dead with you; and
you’ve been equally frank.”
Pardoner shifted upon his chair.
“I said,” he protested, “I said you’d a very sweet way. I remember it
perfectly.”
“That,” said Miss Vulliamy, “was your only lapse.” She raised her
straight eyebrows and a faint smile hung upon her red lips. “But for
that, you have been disconcertingly honest.”
Pardoner lighted a cigarette.
“You’re a strange girl,” he said. “One minute you talk like an infant,
and the next like a woman of forty. Which are you?”
“That,” said Sarah, “will be for my husband to discover.”
* * * * *
James Tantamount, Esquire, had died at San Francisco.
The direct cause of death was his consumption of iced melon. The
physician, who travelled with him mainly to pull his stomach out of the
disorders into which the _bon vivant_ was constantly haling that
valuable member, had besought him again and again to eschew the
delicacy. On each occasion James Tantamount had asked him what he
thought he was there for. “Any fool,” he insisted, “can prevent. I can
prevent myself. But I’m not going to. I’m not going to earn your money.
Your job’s to cure—when I’m sick. Stick to it.” It was indeed, I fancy,
as much with the idea of giving his attendant work as with that of
indulging his appetite that he had upon the tenth day of June devoured
two more slices of melon than he was accustomed to consume. If I am
right, his ghost must have been disappointed. The man himself did not
have time. In a word, he had consumed the delicacy, and pausing only to
make a long nose at his physician upon the other side of the table, had
laid down his life and his spoon at the same moment.
His secretary had cabled to London for instructions.
Forsyth and Co., Solicitors, had referred to the Will and replied that
their client was to be buried forthwith, adding that, by the terms of
that remarkable document, if his doctor and secretary desired to receive
the year’s salary apiece which it offered them, they must be prepared to
produce credible testimony that they had followed the coffin attired as
convicts and playing vigorously upon harps.
The heat prevailing at San Francisco had not only precluded any
discussion of the provision, but had made the asportation of the harps a
perfectly hellish business, and only the hilarious encouragement of an
enormous crowd had enabled the two contingent legatees to stagger into
possession.
There, then, you have the late James Tantamount—bluff, greedy,
generous, but blessed or cursed with an incorrigible love of what are
called ‘practical’ jokes. It was not his fault. He had been bred upon
them. To the day of his death he could recall with tearful relish the
memory of his father, amid roars of laughter, pursuing the vicar round
the dining-room, while the doctor blew frantically upon a hunting horn
and other guests arranged recumbent chairs as timber to be leaped. . . .
If such a passionate propensity had not asserted itself in death, it
would have been surprising. To lovers of fun, riches and a Will offer
the chance of a lifetime. The tragedy of it is, they are not alive to
enjoy the jest. When James Tantamount, of Palfrey, left his vast fortune
to his nephew and his ward upon the condition that they should marry, he
knew he was being funny. He had no conception, however, that he was
perpetrating the joke of his career.
The news of the old fellow’s death had sent hopes soaring. It was
generally assumed that his nephew and ward would each receive half of
his fortune. For a few days, therefore, the two enjoyed undreamed-of
popularity, as a highly desirable couple, and frantic efforts were made
by countless matrons to catch their respective eyes. All wrote: some
called: others sent flowers. The hearts that ‘went out’ to them in their
‘irreparable loss’ argued an esteem for the late James Tantamount
hitherto too deep to be expressed.
_There is a grief_, wrote Mrs. Closeley Dore to Virgil, too _deep to
talk about . . . . As soon as you feel able, come and spend a few days
at Datchet. You shall do as you please, and use the house as an hotel.
Bring your man, of course. . . ._
The Closeley Dores had four daughters.
_My child_, wrote Mrs. Sheraton Forbes to Sarah, _I know so well that
dreadful sense of loneliness, which gnaws the aching heart. Come back to
Fairlands with us on Saturday. We will leave you entirely to yourself,
but I should like to think that my dear old friend’s sweet ward had
someone to turn to in this darkest hour. The world is so hard. . . ._
Mrs. Sheraton Forbes had three sons.
It was a dreadful business. . . .
Then the announcement appeared, and the sympathy died down. It was
generally, if grudgingly, admitted that Virgil and Sarah had done the
right thing. Crestfallen mothers, consoled by the reflection that, even
if they had lost the prize, nobody else had won it, agreed that it was
what ‘that old Tantamount’ would have wished. Some said, sniffing, that
his death had drawn the two together.
Finally, the contents of the Will had become public property.
The effect upon the matrons of Mayfair was electrical. With, I think,
the slightest encouragement, the late millionaire would have been burned
in effigy. As for the two legatees, the outburst of execration with
which their determination was posthumously and somewhat illogically
received, beggars description.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Closeley Dore to Mrs. Sheraton Forbes, “my dear, I
can stand worldliness, but I detest indecency. Only a man with the mind
of a Nero could have conceived such an infamous idea. But then he was
always gross. My father, you know, would never have him inside the
house.” She shuddered. “But, for an old relic of the Roaring Forties to
make a degrading suggestion is one thing; for a decently brought up
young man and woman to adopt it is quite another. Those two have no
excuse. It is the apotheosis of immorality. I don’t pretend I’m not
worldly—I am, and I know it. But deliberately to abet one another in
debasing one of the Sacraments of the Church——”
In a voice shaken with emotion, Mrs. Sheraton Forbes replied with a
misquotation from the Solemnization of Matrimony.
It was a dreadful business. . . .
In the Clubs the affair got the laugh of the season. Virgil Pardoner,
who had always been liked, was openly chaffed out of his life and
secretly voted ‘a devilish lucky chap.’ As for the deceased, he was
declared a fellow of infinite jest, and his scheme for ‘keeping the
goods in the family’ boisterously applauded. The sluice-gates of
Reminiscence were pulled up, and memories of ‘Old Jimmy Tantamount’ were
manufactured and retailed by the hour.
In my lady’s chamber Miss Vulliamy was frankly envied.
“I don’t mind admitting,” said Margaret Shorthorn, “that I could have
done with Virgil. They talk about Sarah’s selling herself. Well, what if
she is? We’re all trying to do it. The only difference is that in
Sarah’s case the conditions of sale have been announced in the Press.
Besides, Virgil’s no monster . . . I only wish to heaven I’d had such a
chance.”
“I agree,” said Agatha Coldstream. “If I had to face love in a cottage,
I’ld as soon face it with Virgil as with most men I know. But Virgil
plus half a million. . . .” She raised her black eyes to heaven
expressively. “Besides, I like Sarah. And I’ll tell you one thing—her
pals won’t be the worse off for her good fortune. Those two’ll give
their friends the time of their lives. You see if they don’t.”
So much for Society’s reception of the news.
The attitude of Lincoln’s Inn Fields was not advertised, but, since John
Galbraith Forsyth was a sound judge of character, his opinion may be
recorded.
“Tantamount had no right to make such a Will. I told him so at the time,
and I’ve often regretted since that I didn’t refuse to draw it. He was
playing with fire—hell fire. He might have messed up four lives. And,
if he had, he’ld’ve paid for it. That sort of thing isn’t
forgiven. . . . Now that I’ve seen the parties, my mind’s at rest.
They’re out of the top drawer, both of ’em; and they’re splendidly
matched. They don’t know it—yet, and they don’t like their hands being
forced. For that’s what it is. One’s only human, you know, and in these
lean years six hundred thousand’s a bait you can’t ignore. But they’ll
come through all right. I’m not at all certain, myself, that we couldn’t
have upset the Will. I’d always got the possibility up my sleeve. But
now I shan’t use it.”
Upon the night of their betrothal, neither Miss Vulliamy nor Pardoner
had been at their best. They were uncomfortable and suspicious. They
felt their position. To my mind, it does them real credit that they were
not exceedingly sour. The circumstances were affording a unique occasion
for the expression of irony and distaste. Each was, indeed, a mill-stone
about the other’s neck. Add to this that they had been brought up as
brother and sister, and had never looked upon one another in any other
light, when you will see how easily Bitterness might have taken her seat
at the board. The two had seen each other in the making—without any
frills. . . .
But Sarah and Virgil were two very charming people. After ten minutes
with either of them you felt refreshed. I do not think I can pay them a
higher compliment.
Somebody once said that Miss Vulliamy always looked as though she had
just had a cold shower. It was a good description. Her big blue eyes
were always alight with expectancy, her eager face glowing, her pretty
red mouth upon the edge of laughter. Her little way, too, of raising a
delicate chin stuck fast in your memory, while the length of her
exquisite lashes was almost unfair. Her figure and the slimness of her
legs belonged to idylls. Looking upon the lady, you thought first of the
dawn and then of dew and cool meadows. Sarah would have made an
arresting Naiad. Shepherds who repaired to her fountain would have been
constantly crowded out.
Pardoner was tall, and conveyed the idea of laziness. It was his soft
brown eyes that gave this impression. His thick dark hair and his high
colour had earned him at Oxford the sobriquet of _Rouge et Noir_. An
aquiline nose, and a firm, well-shaped mouth distinguished a handsome
face. The way in which he wore his clothes brought his tailor much
hardly merited custom. His most attractive voice delighted the ear. It
was, in fact, hereby that his personality emerged. When he was silent,
he passed in a well-mannered crowd; when he opened his mouth, other
people stopped talking.
* * * * *
The two met in Bond Street a fortnight later.
“Good morning,” said Virgil. “I bet I’ve been cut by more people than
you.”
“Four,” said Sarah, “since half-past ten.”
“Five and a half,” said her fiancé. “Mrs. Sheraton Forbes had a child
with her under fourteen. This ostracism amuses me to death. Never mind.
How’s Fulke?”
“Desperate,” said Miss Vulliamy. “I knew he would be. He bucked up a lot
when I said he should be our first guest.”
“Did he, indeed?” said Virgil. “Truly a forgiving nature.”
“Yes, he is very sweet,” agreed Sarah. “Couldn’t he be your best man?”
Pardoner fingered his chin.
“I’m afraid he’s too young,” he said slowly. “I must have a compeer.”
“Very well, then,” said Sarah. “He can give me away.”
“That,” said Virgil, “will be a most becoming rôle.”