FORTY THOUSAND POUNDS
As the Secretary sat in the governess' cart finishing his second cigar,
he reflected that if he had any strength of character he would never
have lent his aid in countenancing a secret marriage between one of his
best friends, and a man, who, he believed, could be proved guilty of
something very nearly approaching treason to the Sovereign whose uniform
he wore; nor, for that matter, would he be waiting for a girl who had
insulted him by her suspicions of the evening before, and who had capped
the climax by taking the refusal of him at her own valuation.
However, his reflections were cut short by the appearance of Miss
Fitzgerald herself, who had not hurried so much as to be flushed or out
of breath, and who had arrived with the fixed intention of keeping the
Secretary away from the Hall during the entire afternoon.
"I'm awfully sorry to have kept you waiting so long," she said, mounting
to the seat which faced him, he driving under her direction. "But you
shall have your reward--for I've two bits of good news for you."
"That's encouraging," he replied, praying inwardly that one of them was
the announcement of Lady Isabelle's marriage.
"In the first place, your friend Mr. Kent-Lauriston has arrived."
The Secretary's face did not express any excess of joy.
"Won't you be glad to see him?" she asked.
"Of course," he replied.
"He's an old friend of yours?"
"My oldest in England."
"How nice that he's here!" she said, a slight frown clouding her brows.
"His coming will mean so much to you."
"Yes," said the Secretary meditatively, "I don't know how much," and
there was silence between them for a while.
"And your second piece of news?" he asked suddenly, recollecting
himself.
"Is, that your pet detestation is going away."
"You refer to Colonel Darcy?"
She nodded.
"Away from here?"
"Away from England."
"Really."
"You know so much about him, I thought you might have heard of it."
"Where is he going?"
"Abroad somewhere."
"Does he take his wife with him?"
She laughed light-heartedly, as though relieved from some oppression.
"No, I fancy not--in fact I think it is rather to escape her."
"Oh!" he said, and relapsed into silence. Then suddenly reverting to his
original train of thought, which Darcy's name suggested, he spoke
abruptly:--
"Why did you ask me to drive with you this afternoon?"
"Because I wanted to talk to you--no, I didn't-- I wanted you to talk to
me."
"About last night?"
"Yes."
"But it's impossible--if you can believe----!" he cried hotly.
"What Bob said, about you and his wife?" she interjected. "I don't, but
it made me very angry just the same. You see, up to last night, you had
been an ideal to me. Then suddenly you proposed to change all our
relations; and just at that moment Bob came in and made those charges,
which, though untrue, showed me how very human you would have to be to
me if I accepted you, and I was bitter and lost my head."
"But if you didn't believe them, why did you refuse to give me a
definite answer?"
"Because you'd brought me face to face with new conditions. I wanted to
readjust myself to them."
"But if you love me---- Do you love me?" he said earnestly.
"Yes, Jim," she replied, with a quiet seriousness that carried
conviction to him, "I do love you."
"Really, love me?"
"Really, more than I have loved any man--ever."
"But then, how can you doubt?" and he turned impulsively towards her.
"You'd better keep both hands on the reins--the pony is only just
broken. As I was saying--I love you--in my way--but that's not all, it's
merely the beginning. If I only had to meet you for the rest of our
lives at afternoon tea and dinner, and we had on our best clothes and
our company manners, there would be no question--but you see there are
breakfasts and luncheons to be considered. Suppose after our honeymoon
was over I was to discover that you wanted to live at West Hempstead, or
dined habitually at the National Liberal Club, or wore ready-made
suits--it might wreck my life's happiness."
Her sincerity had disappeared, and her change in manner grated on him.
He was certain she did not mean what she was saying, but he forced a
laugh in replying:--
"Diplomats are not allowed to belong to political clubs, in the first
place," he said, "and I've been told that well-cut clothes may be met
with even at the N. L. C. Besides, if you loved me, it wouldn't really
matter."
"Ah! But it might, and that's just the point. Either I love _you_, the
real, imperfect, human _you_--and nothing else counts--or else I love
the Secretary of the ---- Legation, in a frock coat or a dress suit,
and everything does count. I've got to determine which. My feminine
intuition will tell me that in an instant some day, and then I can
answer you."
"Let us hope that your feminine intuition will make up its mind to act
quickly then, for I must be getting back to London in a few days."
"Why?" she cried. "What have you to do?"
What indeed, when the canny old messenger the night before had told him
that this beautiful girl was the main spring of the conspiracy he was
here to crush? He did not believe that, but the whole conversation had
revolted him--it was not decent somehow to discuss the most serious
things of life flippantly. His face showed his feelings.
She was quick to take the cue.
"I doubt if you really know yourself," she continued. "Suppose Madame
Darcy were unmarried-- I have sometimes thought----"
"Suppose the impossible," he interrupted. "Suppose you should decide to
drop her husband----"
"I wonder," she said, ignoring his petulant outburst, "if you would mind
my asking you a very frank question?"
"About the Colonel?"
"Yes. You see I've been thinking a good deal of what you said the other
night, but of course one can't throw over old friends without good
cause--merely for marital infelicity--there are always two sides to
those stories, you know. I was wondering if there was anything
else--anything about him which you knew and I wouldn't be likely to--
I've sometimes thought--that perhaps----" she paused and looked
inquiringly at him.
The Secretary longed to tell her the truth; but remembering his Chief's
instructions, and chastened by his late reverse, hardened his heart.
"As for that," he replied guardedly, "he doesn't bear an altogether
savoury reputation, I've understood, but as my personal knowledge of his
affairs dated with his wife's visit to me two or three days ago--my
information is comparatively recent."
She smiled contentedly, and changed the subject, by suggesting that they
should get out and walk. A long hill was before them, and since from the
construction of governess carts the tendency of an up-grade is to put
all the weight at the rear, it seemed advisable to descend.
"To give the pony a fighting chance," as the Secretary suggested.
Miss Fitzgerald complained that it was hot, and, barring the fact of
cruelty to animals, a nuisance to have to climb the hill; saying which,
she took off her hat, giving an unobstructed view of her hair.
If there is any excuse for the fact that the Secretary forgot his good
resolutions, it must lie in the heart of the reader, who perhaps has
been young some time himself, and had the exquisite pleasure of driving
during a long, perfect English afternoon, through glorious wooded lanes,
and all the picturesque antiquity which England alone knows, with a
winsome Irish girl, with a peaches-and-cream complexion, a ravishing
laugh, bewitching blue eyes, and golden hair loose upon her shoulders,
which a madcap wind whipped in his face.
"I think it's glorious," said Stanley, reverting to the landscape, a
little later, when the conversation had turned to less serious topics,
"There's no country like England--but it's comparable to the little girl
of the nursery rhyme--
"When it is good, it is very very good,
And when it is bad, it is horrid."
"I'm glad to see you appreciate it at its true worth. Isn't this scene
perfect--but think of it in a November fog," she said.
"Think of those people wasting their afternoon on the lawn at the Hall,
drinking bitter tea and eating heavy cake."
"I dare say some of them are above those things," replied Belle.
"Lady Isabelle and the Lieutenant?" queried the Secretary.
"Lady Isabelle and the Lieutenant," she acquiesced. "I wonder if there
is really anything serious in that affair?"
She said this to probe Stanley, and, as a result, she put him on his
guard.
"What do you think?" he asked cautiously. "I imagine the Dowager could
never be induced to approve of it."
"The Marchioness!" cried Belle scornfully, as, having reached the summit
of the hill with a long, downward slope before them, they remounted into
the cart. "She doesn't count."
"Oh, doesn't she?" said the Secretary. "She counts a great deal, as"--he
added half to himself--"I ought to know."
They had already turned homewards and were rattling down the hill, and
at that moment they swung at top speed round a corner, to come upon a
wrecked luggage cart, which blocked the whole road. Without hesitation,
Stanley pulled the pony up on its haunches, bringing them to a stop with
a tremendous jerk, within three feet of the obstacle; nearly throwing
them out, and driving, for the time being, all thoughts of their
interrupted conversation from the Secretary's head.
"Why, Tim!" he said, recognising the driver as one of Mrs. Roberts'
servants. "You've had a spill!"
"Axle broke, sir. That's what it is, and if it hadn't been as the
carrier"--indicating a second cart on the further side--"had happened to
come up just now, I don't know as Mister Kingsland would have got his
luggage."
"Lieutenant--Kingsland--is he going away?"
"Why, didn't you know that, sir? Called sudden on the death of his
uncle--Miss Fitzgerald there--she----"
"Don't spend all the afternoon gossiping, Tim," broke in that young
lady, sharply--"but attend to your work. Drive round somehow, can't
you?"--she continued, addressing the Secretary--"or we shall be late for
dinner?"
"Don't you see it's impossible? Besides I want to help Tim."
"Nonsense, turn round and we'll drive back--some other way. Tim and the
carrier can help themselves," she cried petulantly.
"I'm not so sure of that," drawled the driver. "Them chests are powful
heavy--for all the Lieutenant said they contained glass picture
slides--it's more like lead."
"Mr. Riddle's slides, eh?" said Stanley, jumping down, despite his fair
companion's remonstrances. "Then we mustn't let Lieutenant Kingsland go
without them;" and he seized the handle of one of the boxes, and pulling
it off the partially overturned cart, dragged it along the road, while
Miss Fitzgerald sat holding the pony, and biting her lips in
ill-disguised vexation.
"Gad! They are heavy!" admitted the Secretary, as, with the carrier's
help, he swung it into the cart, and returned for another.
Four were transported safely, but in lifting the fifth chest, whose
cover seemed a trifle loose, Stanley turned his foot on a round stone,
and losing his grip on the handle, the chest fell to the ground bottom
side up.
"No great harm done, we'll hope," he said, righting it, and helping the
carrier to lift it beside the others.
"Why, bless me," ejaculated that official, "if there ain't a bran new
sovereign lying in the dust!"
The Secretary regarded it critically, and plunging his hands into his
trousers pockets, fished out a lot of loose change, which he examined
carefully, saying:
"I must have dropped it in bending over; thank you for finding it.
There's a shilling for your trouble." And straightening up, he realised
that Miss Fitzgerald was regarding him intently.
Half an hour later the wreck was sufficiently cleared for them to resume
their homeward way.
The remainder of the afternoon was not a success, including, as it did,
a drive home in the teeth of a wind which had suddenly sprung up; which,
finding them hot and dusty, left them at their destination cold and
cross, and utterly fagged out; Stanley with a twinge of rheumatism,
devoutly hoping that Lady Isabelle had got it over, and Miss Fitzgerald
with a splitting headache, realising that she had lost a move in the
game.
They both looked forward to dinner as a salve for all evils, though when
they entered the drawing-room just in time to go down, they were
naturally surprised, Miss Fitzgerald at being committed to the charge of
Kent-Lauriston, and the Secretary to Lady Isabelle--for the latter of
which arrangements the Dowager was directly responsible--indeed, she had
held an interview with her hostess a few minutes before, which had left
that lady very much excited.
As soon as they were seated at table, he noticed that he was separated
from Miss Fitzgerald as far as might be, so he lost no time in putting
Lady Isabelle at her ease by engaging her in conversation. Knowing what
he did, he felt that to give her a chance to talk about her husband
would be most acceptable to her, and probably useful to him; so, noting
his absence, he told her of accidentally hearing of his departure.
"I suppose," he said, "that as he was carrying so much of value, he'll
stop in London before going north?"
"Of value," she said. "I do not understand."
"Why, five cases of stereopticon slides for Mr. Riddle. I helped the
carrier to reload them, and very heavy they were."
"He said nothing to me of it," she replied; "but he certainly is going
to stop in London one night."
"I wish I'd known, I'd have asked him to cash a cheque for me. It's so
hard to do that sort of thing in the country, and I imagine we bank at
the same place."
"He banks at the Victoria Street branch of the Bank of England. I'm sure
he would have been glad to have done it for you."
"Thanks, but it really doesn't matter," replied Stanley, who, having
thus learned the probable destination of Mr. Riddle's chests of
sovereigns was contented to change the subject, saying: "I do hope that
the Lieutenant unburdened his soul to your mother before he left."
She then told him all the events of the afternoon, even the interview
with her mother, the whole in a conversational tone of voice. The
Secretary sat dazed as the magnitude of what he had let himself in for
dawned upon him; and her Ladyship's eager explanations and apologies,
which presently died down to a whisper, as there came a lull in the
conversation, fell unheeded on his ears. Suddenly he became intuitively
aware that everyone was looking at him--no, at them. His hostess was
making a feeble attempt to smile at him from far down the table--he felt
a horrible premonition of coming catastrophe; he looked at Lady
Isabelle, she was white to the lips.
"My friends," came Mrs. Roberts' voice, trembling a little, "Lady Port
Arthur has just told me some interesting news, with the request that I
would transmit it to you all; so I am going to ask you to drink your
first glass of champagne this evening in honour of the engagement of
Lady Isabelle McLane and Mr. Aloysius Stanley."