THE GAME OF BLUFF.
An inscrutable note reached Harry by the last post that night. It was
from Gordon Lowndes, and it ran:--
"Leadenhall Street, E.C.
"May 20.
"DEAR RINGROSE,--If you are still of the same mind about a matter
which we need not name, let me hear from you by return, and I'll
'inspan' the best detective in the world. He is at present cooling
his heels at Scotland Yard, but may be on the job again any day, so
why not on ours?
"Perhaps you will kindly drop me a line in any case, as I await
your instructions.
"Yours faithfully,
"GORDON LOWNDES."
"What is it, my boy?"
"A line from Lowndes."
"Am I not to see it?"
"I would rather you didn't, mother dear."
"You haven't offended him, I hope?"
"Oh, no, it's about something we spoke of in the train; it has come to
nothing, that's all."
And Mrs. Ringrose gathered, as she was intended to gather, that some
iron or other had already been in the fire--and come out again. She
said no more. As for Harry, the final proof of his father's dishonour
had put out of his mind the oath which he had made Lowndes swear in
that almost happy hour when he could still refuse to believe; and the
sting of the reminder, and of the contrast between his feelings then
and now, was such that he was determined his mother should not bear it
with him. But yet, with all the pain it gave, the note from Lowndes
both puzzled and annoyed him; it was as though there were some subtle
thing between the lines, a something in a cipher to which he had not
the key; and he resented being forced to reply. After long
deliberation, however, this was written and rewritten, and taken
stealthily to the pillar in the small hours:--
"Kensington, May 21st.
"DEAR MR. LOWNDES,--I am not of the same mind about the matter
which you very kindly do not name. I hope that neither you nor I
will ever have occasion to name it again, and that you will forgive
me for what I said yesterday before I could believe the truth. I
hardly know now what I did say, but I do honestly apologise, and
only beg of you never to speak, and, if possible, not to think, of
it again.
"Believe me that I am grateful for your kind offer, and more than
grateful for all your goodness to my mother.
"Yours sincerely,
"HARRY RINGROSE."
This had the effect of bringing Lowndes to the flat the following
afternoon, in the high spirits which were characteristic of the normal
man; it was only natural they should have deserted him the day before;
and yet when Harry came in and found him taking tea with his mother,
radiant, voluble, hilarious, the change was such that he seemed to the
boy another being. Humour shone through the gold-rimmed glasses and
trembled at the tip of the pointed nose. Harry had never seen a jollier
face, or listened to so boisterous a laugh; and they were what he
needed, for he had come in doubly embittered and depressed.
He had been to the great house which had supplied his mother with her
groceries for so many years. He had seen a member of the firm, a
gentleman of presence and aplomb, in whose courtly company Harry and
his old clothes were painfully outclassed. The resultant and inevitable
repulse was none the less galling from being couched in terms of
perfectly polite condescension. Harry carried his specimen battle-axe
home in the brown paper he had taken it in, and pitched it upon the
sofa with a wry face before recounting his experience.
Lowndes instantly said that he would get a price for the curios if
Harry would send them along to his office. Whereupon Harry thanked him,
but still looked glum, for a worse experience remained untold.
The boy was in glaring need of new clothes; he could not possibly seek
work in town as he was; and Mrs. Ringrose had characteristically
insisted that he should go to his father's and his own old London
tailors. There was, moreover, some point in such a course, since it was
now known that Mr. Ringrose had settled his tailors' account, with
several others of the kind, on the very eve of his flight; so that in
the circumstances these people might fairly be expected to wait for
their money until Harry could earn it. Elsewhere he would have to pay
ready cash, a very serious matter, if not an impossibility for some
time to come. So Harry was really driven to go where he was known, but
yet so ashamed, that it was only the miserable interview with the
well-groomed gentleman aforesaid which had brought him to the point. He
had called at the tailors' on his way home, chosen his cloth and been
measured, only to be confronted by the senior partner at the door.
"What do you think he wanted?" cried Harry in a blaze. "A guarantee
that they would be paid! I told them they needn't trouble to make the
things at all, and out I came."
Lowndes dashed down his cup and was on his legs in an instant.
"I'll give them their guarantee," said he. "You swallow your tea and
get your hat; we'll take a hansom back to your tailors, and I'll give
them their guarantee!"
Harry was against any such intervention, but Mrs. Ringrose was against
Harry, and in less than five minutes Lowndes had carried him off. In
the hansom the spirits of that mirthful man rose higher than ever; he
sat rubbing his hands and chuckling with delight; but so truculent were
his sentiments that Harry, who hated a row as much as his companion
appeared to like one, was not a little nervous as to what would happen,
and got out finally with his heart in his mouth.
What did happen need not be described. Suffice it that Mr. Lowndes
talked to that master-tailor with extraordinary energy for the space of
about three minutes, and that in several different strains, preparing
his soil with simple reproaches, scarifying with sarcasm, and finally
trampling it down with a weight of well-worded abuse the like of which
Harry had never listened to off the stage. And the effect was more
extraordinary than the cause: the tradesman took it like a lamb,
apologised to Harry on the spot, and even solicited his friend's custom
as they turned to leave the shop. The result opened Harry's mouth in
sheer amazement. After a first curt refusal, Mr. Lowndes hesitated,
fingered a cloth, became gradually gracious, and in the end was
measured for no fewer than three suits and an Inverness cape.
"Couldn't resist it!" said he, roaring with laughter in the cab.
"Trustfulness is a virtue we should all encourage, and I hope,
Ringrose, that you'll continue to encourage it in these excellent
fellows. I've sown the seed, it's for you to reap the flower; and
recollect that they'll think much more of you when you order six suits
than when you pay for one."
"It was extraordinary," said Harry, "after the dressing-down you gave
them!"
"Dressing-down?" said Lowndes. "I meant to dress 'em down, and I'll
dress anybody down who needs it--of that you may be sure. What's this?
Grosvenor Square? Do you see that house with the yellow balcony in the
far corner? That's my Lady Banff's--I gave _her_ a bit of my mind the
other evening. Went to see my Lord on business. Left standing in the
hall twenty minutes. Down came my Lady to dinner, so I just asked her,
as a matter of curiosity, if they took me for a stick or an umbrella,
to leave me there, and then I told her what I thought of the manners
and customs of her house. My Lady had me shown into the library at
once, and made me a handsome apology into the bargain. I guarantee
friend Yellowplush to know better next time!"
Lowndes stayed to supper at the flat, and he became better and better
company as Harry Ringrose gradually yielded to the contagion of his
gaiety and his good-humour. He was certainly the most entertaining of
men; yet for a long time Harry resented being entertained by him, and
would frown one moment because he had been forced to laugh the moment
before. Nor was this because of anything that had already happened; it
was due entirely to the current behaviour of Gordon Lowndes. The man
took unwarrantable liberties. His status at the flat was rightly that
of a privileged friend, but Harry thought he presumed upon it
insufferably.
Like many great talkers, Lowndes was a vile listener, who thought
nothing of interrupting Mrs. Ringrose herself; while as for Harry, he
tried more than once to set some African experience of his own against
the visitor's endless anecdotes; but he never succeeded, and for a time
the failures rankled. It was the visitor, again, who must complain of
the supper: the lamb was underdone, the mint sauce too sweet for him,
and the salad dressing which was on the table not to be compared with
the oil and vinegar which were not. These were the things that made
Harry hate himself when he laughed; yet laugh he must; the other's
intentions were so obviously good; and he did not offend Mrs. Ringrose.
She encouraged him to monopolise the conversation, but that without
appearing to attach too much importance to everything he said. And once
when Harry caught her eye, himself raging inwardly, there was an
indulgent twinkle in it which mollified him wonderfully, for it seemed
to say: "These are his little peculiarities; you should not take them
seriously; they do not make him any the less my friend--and yours." It
was this glance which undermined Harry's hostility and prepared his
heart for eventual surrender to the spell of which Gordon Lowndes was
undoubted master.
"I tell you what, Ringrose," said he, as they rose from the table, "if
you don't get a billet within the next month, I'll give you one
myself."
"You won't!" cried Harry, incredulously enough, for the promise had
been made without preliminary, and it seemed too good to be possible.
"Won't I?" laughed Lowndes; "you'll see if I won't! What's more, it'll
be a billet worth half-a-dozen such as that uncle of yours is likely to
get you. What would you say to three hundred for a start?"
"I knew you were joking," was what Harry said, with a sigh; and his
mother turned away as though she had known it too.
"I was never more serious in my life," retorted Lowndes. "I'm up to my
chin in the biggest scheme of the century--bar none--though I'm not
entitled to tell you what it is at this stage. It's a critical stage,
Ringrose, but this week will settle things one way or the other. It's
simply a question whether the Earl of Banff will or whether the Earl of
Banff won't, and he's going to answer definitely this week. If he
will--and I haven't the slightest doubt of it in my own mind--the
Company will be out before you know where you are--and you shall be
Secretary----"
"Secretary!"
"Be good enough not to interrupt me, Ringrose. You shall be Secretary
with three hundred a year. Not competent? Nonsense; I'll undertake to
make you competent in a couple of hours; but if I say more, you'll know
too much before the time, and I'm pledged to secrecy till we land the
noble Earl. He's a pretty big fish, but I've as good as got him.
However, he's to let us know this week, and perhaps it would be as well
not to raise the wind on that three hundred meanwhile; but it's as good
as in your pocket, Ringrose, for all that!"
Mrs. Ringrose sat in her chair, without a sound save that of her
knitting needles; and Harry formed the impression that she was already
in the secret of the unmentionable scheme, but that she disapproved of
it. He remarked, however, that he only wished he had known of such a
prospect in time to have mentioned it to his uncle at their interview.
"Your uncle!" cried Lowndes. "I should like to have seen his face if
you had! I asked him to take shares the other day--told him I could put
him on the best thing of the reign--and it was as good as a pantomime
to see his face. Apart from his religious scruples, which make him
regard the City of London as the capital of a warmer place than
England, he's not what you would call one of Nature's sportsmen, that
holy uncle of yours. He's a gentleman who counts the odds. I wouldn't
trust him in the day of battle. Never till my dying day shall I forget
our first meeting!"
And Lowndes let out a roar of laughter that might have been heard
throughout the mansions; but Harry looked at his mother, who was
smiling over her knitting, before he allowed himself to smile and to
ask what had happened.
"Your mother had written to tell him I was going to call," said
Lowndes, wiping the tears from his eyes, "and when I did go he wanted
proof of my identity because I didn't happen to have a card on me. I
suppose he thought I looked a shady cuss, so he took it into his head I
wasn't the real Simon Pure. You see, there's nothing rash about your
uncle; as for me, I burst out laughing in his face, and that made
matters worse. He said he'd want a witness then--a witness to my
identity before he'd discuss his sister's affairs with me. 'All right,'
says I, 'you shall have half a dozen witnesses, for I'll call my
underclothes! There's "Gordon Lowndes" on my shirt and collar--there's
"Gordon Lowndes" on my pants and vest--and if there isn't "Gordon
Lowndes" on both my socks there'll be trouble when I get home,' I told
him; and I was out of my coat and waistcoat before he could stop me.
I'd have gone on, too, but that was enough for your uncle! I can see
him now--it was on his doorstep--but he let me in after that!"
Harry had a hearty, boyish laugh which it was a pleasure to hear, and
Mrs. Ringrose heard it now as she had not heard it for two years; for
she had shown that the story did not offend her by laughing herself;
and besides, the boy also could see his uncle, with sable arms
uplifted, and this impudent Bohemian coolly stripping on the doorstep.
His innate impudence was brought home to Harry in different fashion a
moment later, when the visitor suddenly complained of the light, and
asked why on earth there was only one gas-bracket in a room of that
size.
"Because I could not afford more," replied Mrs. Ringrose.
"Afford them, my dear madam? There should have been no question of
affording them!" cried Gordon Lowndes. "You should have brought what
you wanted from your own house."
"But it wasn't our own," sighed Mrs. Ringrose; "it belonged to--our
creditors."
"Your creditors!" echoed Lowndes, with scathing scorn. "It makes me
positively ill to hear an otherwise sensible lady speak of creditors in
that submissive tone! I regard it as a sacred obligation on all of us
to get to windward of our creditors, by fair means or foul. We owe it
to our fellow-creatures who may find themselves similarly situated
to-morrow or next day. If we don't get to windward of our creditors, be
very sure they'll get to windward of us. But to pamper and pet the
enemy--as though they'd dare to say a word about a petty
gas-bracket!--was a perfect crime, my dear Mrs. Ringrose, and one that
showed a most deplorable lack of public spirit. I only wish I'd thought
of your gas-brackets when I was down there the day before yesterday!"
"Why? What would you have done?" demanded Harry with some heat.
"Come away with one in my hat!" roared Lowndes. "Come away with the
chandelier next my skin!"
And he broke into a great guffaw in which Harry Ringrose joined in his
own despite. It was absurd to apply conventional standards to this
sworn enemy of convention. It was impossible to be angry with Gordon
Lowndes. Harry determined to take no further offence at anything he
might say or do, but to follow his mother's tacit example and to accept
her singular friend on her own tolerant terms. Nor was it hard to see
when the lad made amiable resolutions; they flew like flags upon his
face; and Mrs. Ringrose was able to go to bed and to leave the pair
together with an easy mind.
Whereupon they sat up till long after midnight, and Harry, having
relinquished all thought of entertaining Gordon Lowndes, was himself
undeniably entertained. He had seen something of the world (less than
he thought, but still something), yet he had never met with anybody
half so interesting as Lowndes, who had been everywhere, seen
everything, and done most things, in his time. He had made and lost a
fortune in different companies, the names of which Harry hardly caught,
for they set him speculating upon the new Company which was to make his
own small fortune too. Lowndes, however, refused to be drawn back to
that momentous subject. Nor were all the exploits he recounted of a
financial cast; there were some which Harry would have flatly
disbelieved the day before; but one and all were consistent with the
character of the man as he had seen it since.
Great names seemed as familiar to him as his own, and, after the scene
at the tailors', Harry could well believe that Mr. Lowndes had heckled
a very eminent politician to his inconvenience, if not to the alleged
extent of altering the entire course of a General Election. He was also
the very man to have defended in person an action for libel, and to
have lost it by the little error of requesting the judge to "be good
enough to hold his tongue." The consequences had been serious indeed,
but Lowndes described them with considerable relish. His frankness was
not the least of his charms as a raconteur. Before he went he had
confessed to one crime at least--that of blackmailing a surgeon-baronet
for a thousand pounds in his own consulting-room.
"He got a hold of the bell-rope," said Lowndes, "but it was no use his
playing the game of bluff with _me_. I simply laughed in his face. He'd
murdered a poor man's wife--vivisected her, Ringrose--taken her to
pieces like a watch--and he'd got to pay up or be exposed."
For it was disinterested blackmail, so that even this story was
characteristic if incredible. It illustrated what may be termed an
officious altruism--which Harry had seen operating in his own
behalf--side by side with a perfectly piratical want of principle which
Lowndes took no pains to conceal. It was impossible for an
impressionable young fellow, needing a friend, not to be struck by one
so bluff, so masterful, so kind-hearted, and probably much less
unscrupulous than it pleased him to appear; and it was impossible for
Harry Ringrose not to put the kind heart first, as he came upstairs
after seeing Lowndes into a hansom, and thought how joyfully he would
come up them if he were sure of earning even one hundred a year.
And Lowndes said three!
"I am thankful you like him," said Mrs. Ringrose, who was still awake.
"But--we all can see the faults of those we really like--and there's
one fault I do see in Mr. Lowndes. He is so sanguine!" Mrs. Ringrose
might have added that we see those faults the plainest when they are
also our own.
"Sanguine!" said Harry. "How?"
"He expects Lord Banff to make up his mind this week."
"Well?"
"It has been 'this week' all this year!"
Harry looked very sad.
"Then you don't think much of my chances of that--three hundred? I
might have seen you didn't at the time."
"No, my boy, I do not. Of his will to help you there can be no
question; his ability is another matter; and we must not rely on him."
"But you say he has helped you so much?"
"In a different way."
"Well," said Harry after a pause, "in spite of what you say, he seems
quite sure himself that everything will be settled to-morrow. He has an
appointment with Lord Banff in the afternoon. He wants to see me
afterwards, and has asked me to go down and spend the evening with them
at Richmond."
Mrs. Ringrose lay conspicuously silent.
"Who are 'they,' mother?" continued her son. "Somehow or other he is a
man you never associate with a family, he's so complete in himself. Is
he married?"
"His wife is dead."
"Then there are children?"
"One daughter, I believe."
"Don't you know her?"
"No; and I don't want to!" cried Mrs. Ringrose. So broke the small
storm which had been brewing in her grave face and altered voice.
"Why not, mother?"
"She has never been near me! Here I have been nearly two months, and
she has never called. I shall refuse to see her when she does. The
father can come, but we are beneath the daughter. We are in trouble,
you see! I only hope you'll have very little to say to her."
"I won't go at all if you'd rather I didn't."
"No, you must go; but be prepared for a snub--and to snub her!"
The bitterness of a sweet woman is always startling, and Harry had
never heard his mother speak so bitterly. Her spirit infected him, and
he left her with grim promises. Yet he went to bed more interested than
ever in Gordon Lowndes.