Few men were, and perhaps no marquis was so unpopular as the Marquis of
Restalrig, Logan's maternal Scotch cousin, widely removed. He was the
last of his family, in the direct line, and on his death almost all his
vast wealth would go to nobody knew where. To be sure Logan himself
would succeed to the title of Fastcastle, which descends to heirs
general, but nothing worth having went with the title. Logan had only
the most distant memory of seeing the marquis when he himself was a
little boy, and the marquis gave him two sixpences. His relationship to
his opulent though remote kinsman had been of no service to him in the
struggle for social existence. It carried no 'expectations,' and did not
afford the most shadowy basis for a post obit. There was no entail, the
marquis could do as he liked with his own.
'The Jews _may_ have been credulous in the time of Horace,' Logan said,
'but now they insist on the most drastic evidence of prospective wealth.
No, they won't lend me a shekel.'
Events were to prove that other financial operators were better informed
than the chosen people, though to be sure their belief was displayed in a
manner at once grotesque and painfully embarrassing.
Why the marquis was generally disliked we might explain, historically, if
we were acquainted with the tale of his infancy, early youth, and
adolescence. Perhaps he had been betrayed in his affections, and was
'taking it out' of mankind in general. But this notion implies that the
marquis once had some affections, a point not hitherto substantiated by
any evidence. Perhaps heredity was to blame, some unhappy blend of
parentage. An ancestor at an unknown period may have bequeathed to the
marquis the elements of his unalluring character. But the only ancestor
of marked temperament was the festive Logan of Restalrig, who conspired
over his cups to kidnap a king, laid out his plot on the lines of an
Italian novel, and died without being detected. This heroic ancestor
admitted that he hated 'arguments derived from religion,' and, so far,
the Marquis of Restalrig was quite with him, if the arguments bore on
giving to the poor, or, indeed, to any one.
In fact the marquis was that unpopular character, a miser. Your miser
may be looked up to, in a way, as an ideal votary of Mammon, but he is
never loved. On his vast possessions, mainly in coal-fields, he was even
more detested than the ordinary run of capitalists. The cottages and
farmhouses on his estates were dilapidated and insanitary beyond what is
endurable. Of his many mansions, some were kept in decent repair,
because he drew many shillings from tourists admitted to view them. But
his favourite abode was almost as ruinous as his cottages, and an artist
in search of a model for the domestic interior of the Master of
Ravenswood might have found what he wanted at Kirkburn, the usual lair of
this avaricious nobleman. It was a keep of the sixteenth century, and
looked as if it had never been papered or painted since Queen Mary's
time. But it was near the collieries; and within its blackened walls,
and among its bleak fields and grimy trees, Lord Restalrig chose to live
alone, with an old man and an old woman for his attendants. The woman
had been his nurse; it was whispered in the district that she was also
his illegal-aunt, or perhaps even, so to speak, his illegal stepmother.
At all events, she endured more than anybody but a Scotch woman who had
been his nurse in childhood would have tolerated. To keep her in his
service saved him the cost of a pension, which even the marquis, people
thought, could hardly refuse to allow her. The other old servitor was
her husband, and entirely under her domination. Both might be reckoned
staunch, in the old fashion, 'to the name,' which Logan only bore by
accident, his grandmother having wedded a kinless Logan who had no
demonstrable connection with the house of Restalrig. Any mortal but the
marquis would probably have brought Logan up as his heir, for the
churlish peer had no nearer connection. But the marquis did more than
sympathise with the Roman emperor who quoted 'after me the Last Day.' The
emperor only meant that, after his time, he did not care how soon earth
and fire were mingled. The marquis, on the other hand, gave the
impression that, he once out of the way, he ardently desired the
destruction of the whole human race. He was not known ever to have
consciously benefited man or woman. He screwed out what he might from
everybody in his power, and made no returns which the law did not exact;
even these, as far as the income tax went, he kept at the lowest figure
possible.
Such was the distinguished personage whose card was handed to Merton one
morning at the office. There had been no previous exchange of letters,
according to the rules of the Society, and yet Merton could not suppose
that the marquis wished to see him on any but business matters. 'He
wants to put a spoke in somebody's wheel,' thought Merton, 'but whose?'
He hastily scrawled a note for Logan, who, as usual, was late, put it in
an envelope, and sealed it. He wrote: '_On no account come in_.
_Explanation later_! Then he gave the note to the office boy, impressed
on him the necessity of placing it in Logan's hands when he arrived, and
told the boy to admit the visitor.
The marquis entered, clad in rusty black not unlike a Scotch peasant's
best raiment as worn at funerals. He held a dripping umbrella; his boots
were muddy, his trousers had their frayed ends turned up. He wore a
hard, cruel red face, with keen grey eyes beneath penthouses where age
had touched the original tawny red with snow. Merton, bowing, took the
umbrella and placed it in a stand.
'You'll not have any snuff?' asked the marquis.
Trevor had placed a few enamelled snuff-boxes of the eighteenth century
among the other costly _bibelots_ in the rooms, and, by an unusual
chance, one of them actually did contain what the marquis wanted. Merton
opened it and handed it to the peer, who, after trying a pinch on his
nostrils, poured a quantity into his hand and thence into a little black
mull made of horn, which he took from his breast pocket. 'It's good,' he
said. 'Better than I get at Kirkburn. You'll know who I am?' His
accent was nearly as broad as that of one of his own hinds, and he
sometimes used Scottish words, to Merton's perplexity.
'Every one has heard of the Marquis of Restalrig,' said Merton.
'Ay, and little to his good, I'll be bound?'
'I do not listen to gossip,' said Merton. 'I presume, though you have
not addressed me by letter, that your visit is not unconnected with
business?'
'No, no, no letters! I never was wasteful in postage stamps. But as I
was in London, to see the doctor, for the Edinburgh ones can make nothing
of the case--a kind of dwawming--I looked in at auld Nicky Maxwell's. She
gave me a good character of you, and she is one to lippen to. And you
make no charge for a first interview.'
Merton vaguely conjectured that to 'lippen' implied some sort of caress;
however, he only said that he was obliged to Miss Maxwell for her kind
estimate of his firm.
'Gray and Graham, good Scots names. You'll not be one of the Grahams of
Netherby, though?'
'The name of the firm is merely conventional, a trading title,' said
Merton; 'if you want to know my name, there it is,' and he handed his
card to the marquis, who stared at it, and (apparently from motiveless
acquisitiveness) put it into his pocket.
'I don't like an alias,' he said. 'But it seems you are to lippen to.'
From the context Merton now understood that the marquis probably wished
to signify that he was to be trusted. So he bowed, and expressed a hope
that he was 'all that could be desired in the lippening way.'
'You're laughing at my Doric?' asked the nobleman. 'Well, in the only
important way, it's not at my _expense_. Ha! Ha!' He shook a lumbering
laugh out of himself.
Merton smiled--and was bored.
'I'm come about stopping a marriage,' said the marquis, at last arriving
at business.
'My experience is at your service,' said Merton.
'Well,' went on the marquis, 'ours is an old name.'
Merton remarked that, in the course of historical study, he had made
himself acquainted with the achievements of the house.
'Auld warld tales! But I wish I could tell where the treasure is that
wily auld Logan quarrelled over with the wizard Laird of Merchistoun.
Logan would not implement the contract--half profits. But my wits are
wool gathering.'
He began to wander round the room, looking at the mezzotints. He stopped
in front of one portrait, and said 'My Aunt!' Merton took this for an
exclamation of astonishment, but later found that the lady (after
Lawrence) really had been the great aunt of the marquis.
Merton conceived that the wits of his visitor were worse than 'wool
gathering,' that he had 'softening of the brain.' But circumstances
presently indicated that Lord Restalrig was actually suffering from a
much less common disorder--softening of the heart.
He returned to his seat, and helped himself to snuff out of the enamelled
gold box, on which Merton deemed it politic to keep a watchful eye.
'Man, I'm sweir' (reluctant) 'to come to the point,' said Lord Restalrig.
Merton erroneously understood him to mean that he was under oath or vow
to come to the point, and showed a face of attention.
'I'm not the man I was. The doctors don't understand my case--they take
awful fees--but I see they think ill of it. And that sets a body
thinking. Have you a taste of brandy in the house?'
As the visitor's weather-beaten ruddiness had changed to a ghastly ashen
hue, rather bordering on the azure, Merton set forth the liqueur case,
and drew a bottle of soda water.
'No water,' said the peer; 'it's just ma twal' ours, an auld Scotch
fashion,' and he took without winking an orthodox dram of brandy. Then
he looked at the silver tops of the flasks.
'A good coat!' he said. 'Yours?'
Merton nodded.
'Ye quarter the Douglas Heart. A good coat. Dod, I'll speak plain. The
name, Mr. Merton, when ye come to the end o' the furrow, the name is all
ye have left. We brought nothing into the world but the name, we take
out nothing else. A sore dispensation. I'm not the man I was, not this
two years. I must dispone, I know it well. Now the name, that I thought
that I cared not an empty whistle for, is worn to a rag, but I cannot
leave it in the mire. There's just one that bears it, one Logan by name,
and true Logan by the mother's blood. The mother's mother, my cousin,
was a bonny lass.'
He paused; his enfeebled memory was wandering, no doubt, in scenes more
vivid to him than those of yesterday.
Merton was now attentive indeed. The miserly marquis had become, to him,
something other than a curious survival of times past. There was a
chance for Logan, his friend, the last of the name, but Logan was firmly
affianced to Miss Markham, of the cloak department at Madame Claudine's.
And the marquis, as he said, 'had come about stopping a marriage,' and
Merton was to help him in stopping it, in disentangling Logan!
The old man aroused himself. 'I have never seen the lad but once, when
he was a bairn. But I've kept eyes on him. He _has_ nothing, and since
I came to London I hear that he has gone gyte, I mean--ye'll not
understand me--he is plighted to a long-legged shop-lass, the daughter of
a ne'er-do-well Australian land-louper, a doctor. This must not be. Now
I'll speak plain to you, plainer than to Tod and Brock, my doers--ye call
them lawyers. _They_ did not make my will.'
Merton prevented himself, by an effort, from gasping. He kept a
countenance of cold attention. But the marquis was coming to the point.
'I have left all to the name, lands and rents, and mines, and money. But,
unless the lad marries in his own rank, I'll change my will. It's in the
hidie hole at Kirkburn, that Logan built to keep King Jamie in, when he
caught him. But the fool Ruthvens marred that job, and got their kail
through the reek. I'm wandering.' He helped himself to another dram,
and went on, 'Ye see what I want, ye must stop that marriage.'
'But,' said Merton, 'as you are so kindly disposed towards your kinsman,
this Mr. Logan, may I ask whether it would not be wise to address him
yourself, as the head of his house? He may, surely he will, listen to
your objections.'
'Ye do not know the Logans.'
Merton concealed his smile.
'Camstairy deevils! It's in the blood. Never once has he asked me for a
pound, never noticed me by word or letter. Faith, I wish all the world
had been as considerate to auld Restalrig! For me to say a word, let be
to make an offer, would just tie him faster to the lass. "Tyne troth,
tyne a'," that is the old bye-word.'
Merton recognised his friend in this description, but he merely shook a
sympathetic head. 'Very unusual,' he remarked. 'You really have no hope
by this method?'
'None at all, or I would not be here on this daft ploy. There's no fool
like an auld fool, and, faith, I hardly know the man I was. But they
cannot dispute the will. I drew doctors to witness that I was of sound
and disponing mind, and I've since been thrice to kirk and market. Lord,
how they stared to see auld Restalrig in his pew, that had not smelt
appleringie these forty years.'
Merton noted these words, which he thought curious and obscure. 'Your
case interests me deeply,' he said, 'and shall receive my very best
attention. You perceive, of course, that it is a difficult case, Mr.
Logan's character and tenacity being what you describe. I must make
careful inquiries, and shall inform you of progress. You wish to see
this engagement ended?'
'And the lad on with a lass of his rank,' said the marquis.
'Probably that will follow quickly on the close of his present affection.
It usually does in our experience,' said Merton, adding, 'Am I to write
to you at your London address?'
'No, sir; these London hotels would ruin the cunzie' (the Mint).
Merton wondered whether the Cunzie was the title of some wealthy Scotch
peer.
'And I'm off for Kirkburn by the night express. Here's wishing luck,'
and the old sinner finished the brandy.
'May I call a cab for you--it still rains?'
'No, no, I'll travel,' by which the economical peer meant that he would
walk.
He then shook Merton by the hand, and hobbled downstairs attended by his
adviser.
'Did Mr. Logan call?' Merton asked the office boy when the marquis had
trotted off.
'Yes, sir; he said you would find him at the club.'
'Call a hansom,' said Merton, 'and put up the notice, "out."' He drove
to the club, where he found Logan ordering luncheon.
'Hullo, shall we lunch together?' Logan asked.
'Not yet: I want to speak to you.'
'Nothing gone wrong? Why did you shut me out of the office?'
'Where can we talk without being disturbed?'
'Try the smoking-room on the top storey,' said Logan, 'Nobody will have
climbed so high so early.'
They made the ascent, and found the room vacant: the windows looked out
over swirling smoke and trees tossing in a wind of early spring.
'Quiet enough,' said Logan, taking an arm-chair. 'Now out with it! You
make me quite nervous.'
'A client has come with what looks a promising piece of business. We are
to disentangle--'
'A royal duke?'
'No. _You_!'
'A practical joke,' said Logan. 'Somebody pulling your leg, as people
say, a most idiotic way of speaking. What sort of client was he, or she?
We'll be even with them.'
'The client's card is here,' said Merton, and he handed to Logan that of
the Marquis of Restalrig.
'You never saw him before; are you sure it was the man?' asked Logan,
staggered in his scepticism.
'A very good imitation. Dressed like a farmer at a funeral. Talked like
all the kailyards. Snuffed, and asked for brandy, and went and came,
walking, in this weather.'
'By Jove, it is my venerated cousin. And he had heard about me and Miss ---'
'He was quite well informed.'
Logan looked very grave. He rose and stared out of the window into the
mist. Then he came back, and stood beside Merton's chair. He spoke in a
low voice:
'This can only mean one thing.'
'Only that one thing,' said Merton, dropping his own voice.
'What did you say to him?'
'I told him that his best plan, as the head of the house, was to approach
you himself.'
'And he said?'
'That it was of no use, and that I do not know the Logans.'
'But you do?'
'I think so.'
'You think right. No, not for all his lands and mines I won't.'
'Not for the name?'
'Not for the kingdoms of the earth,' said Logan.
'It is a great refusal.'
'I have really no temptation to accept,' said Logan. 'I am not built
that way. So what next? If the old boy could only see her--'
'I doubt if that would do any good, though, of course, if I were you I
should think so. He goes north to-night. You can't take the lady to
Kirkburn. And you can't write to him.'
'Of course not,' said Logan; 'of course it would be all up if he knew
that I know.'
'There is this to be said--it is not a very pleasant view to take--he
can't live long. He came to see some London specialist--it is his heart,
I think--'
'_His_ heart!
How Fortune aristophanises
And how severe the fun of Fate!'
quoted Logan.
'The odd thing is,' said Merton, 'that I do believe he has a heart. I
rather like him. At all events, I think, from what I saw, that a sudden
start might set him off at any moment, or an unusual exertion. And he
may go off before I tell him that I can do nothing with you--'
'Oh, hang that,' said Logan, 'you make me feel like a beastly assassin!'
'I only want you to understand how the land lies.' Merton dropped his
voice again, 'He has made a will leaving you everything.'
'Poor old cock! Look here, I believe I had better write, and say that
I'm awfully touched and obliged, but that I can't come into his views, or
break my word, and then, you know, he can just make another will. It
would be a swindle to let him die, and come into his property, and then
go dead against his wishes.'
'But it would be all right to give me away, I suppose, and let him
understand that I had violated professional confidence?'
'Only with a member of the firm. That is no violation.'
'But then I should have told him that you _were_ a member of the firm.'
'I'm afraid you should.'
'Logan, you have the ideas of a schoolboy. I _had_ to be certain as to
how you would take it, though, of course, I had a very good guess. And
as to what you say about the chances of his dying and leaving everything
where he would not have left it if he had been sure you would act against
his wishes--I believe you are wrong. What he really cares about is "the
name." His ghost will put up with your disobedience if the name keeps
its old place. Do you see?'
'Perhaps you are right,' said Logan.
'Anyhow, there is no such pressing hurry. One _may_ bring him round with
time. A curious old survival! I did not understand all that he said.
There was something about having been thrice at kirk and market since he
made his will; and something about not having smelled appleringie for
forty years. What is appleringie?'
Logan laughed.
'It is a sacred Presbyterian herb. The people keep it in their Bibles
and it perfumes the churches. But look here--'
He was interrupted by the entrance of a page, who handed to him a letter.
Logan read it and laughed. 'I knew it; they are sharp!' he said, and
handed the letter to Merton. It was from a famous, or infamous, money-
lender, offering princely accommodation on terms which Mr. Logan would
find easy and reasonable.
'They have nosed the appleringie, you see,' he said.
'But I don't see,' said Merton.
'Why the hounds have heard that the old nobleman has been thrice to kirk
lately. And as he had not been there for forty years, they have guessed
that he has been making his will. Scots law has, or used to have,
something in it about going thrice to kirk and market after making a
will--disponing they call it--as a proof of bodily and mental soundness.
So they have spotted the marquis's pious motives for kirk-going, and
guessed that I am his heir. I say--' Logan began to laugh wildly.
'What do you say?' asked Merton, but Logan went on hooting.
'I say,' he repeated, 'it must never be known that the old lord came to
consult us,' and here he was again convulsed.
'Of course not,' said Merton. 'But where is the joke?'
'Why, don't you see--oh, it is too good--he has taken every kind of
precaution to establish his sanity when he made his will.'
'He told me that he had got expert evidence,' said Merton.
'And then he comes and consults US!' said Logan, with a crow of laughter.
'If any fellow wants to break the will on the score of insanity, and
knows, knows he came to us, a jury, when they find he consulted us, will
jolly well upset the cart.' Merton was hurt.
'Logan,' he said, 'it is you who ought to be in an asylum, an Asylum for
Incurable Children. Don't you see that he made the will long _before_ he
took the very natural and proper step of consulting Messrs. Gray and
Graham?'
'Let us pray that, if there is a suit, it won't come before a Scotch
jury,' said Logan. 'Anyhow, nobody knows that he came except you and
me.'
'And the office boy,' said Merton.
'Oh, we'll square the office boy,' said Logan. 'Let's lunch!'
They lunched, and Logan, as was natural, though Merton urged him to
abstain, hung about the doors of Madame Claudine's emporium at the hour
when the young ladies returned to their homes. He walked home with Miss
Markham. He told her about his chances, and his views, and no doubt she
did not think him a person of schoolboy ideas, but a Bayard.
Two days passed, and in the afternoon of the third a telegram arrived for
Logan from Kirkburn.
'_Come at once_, _Marquis very ill. Dr. Douglas_, _Kirkburn_.'
There was no express train North till 8.45 in the evening. Merton dined
with Logan at King's Cross, and saw him off. He would reach his cousin's
house at about six in the morning if the train kept time.
About nine o'clock on the morning following Logan's arrival at Kirkburn
Merton was awakened: the servant handed to him a telegram.
'_Come instantly. Highly important. Logan_, _Kirkburn_.'
Merton dressed himself more rapidly than he had ever done, and caught the
train leaving King's Cross at 10 a.m.