The cottage on the borders of Lord Shropshire's park was just as pretty
and just as small as the little lady who lived there. It was
appropriately called "The Nest," although there was no male bird in it
and it was devoid of young ones; but Mrs. Randolph Lennox was so like a
bird, with her trilly soprano voice, her quick dartings here and there
and the peculiar way she had of getting all a-flutter when people
called, that the name of her charming little place--first given by
Kenyon--stuck, and was generally used.
It was perched up on high ground overlooking the gardens of the old
Tudor House,--those wonderful Italian gardens in which Charles II had
dallied with his mistresses on his return from his long, heart-breaking
and hungry exile. It was tree-surrounded and creepers grew up its old
walls to its thickly thatched roof. For many years it had been occupied
by the agent of the estate, until--so it was said--it was won by Mrs.
Lennox from the present Lord Shropshire as the result of a bet.
No one had ever seen Randolph Lennox and many people didn't believe that
he was anything more than a myth; but the little woman gave herself out
as the widow of this man and was accepted as such. Her income was small,
but not so small as to preclude her from playing bridge for fairly large
stakes, dressing exquisitely, riding to the hounds and keeping an
extremely efficient menage, consisting of two maid servants and an
elderly gardener. It enabled her also to spend May and June in London
yearly at a little hotel in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, from which
utterly correct little house she was taken nightly to dinner and to the
theatre by one or other of the numerous young men who formed her
entourage. Never taken actually into the heart of London society, she
managed with quiet skill to attach herself to its rather long limbs,
and her name was frequently to be found in the columns of society papers
as having been seen in a creation by Paquin or Macinka at Ranalagh or
Hurlingham, the opera, or lunching at the Ritz.
At one time the tongue of rumor had been very busy about Mrs. Randolph
Lennox,--"Baby" Lennox as she was commonly called. It was said that she
had been lifted out of the chorus of the Gaiety at the age of nineteen
by His Serene Highness, the Prince of Booch-Kehah; that she had passed
under the control of Captain Harry Waterloo, and eventually, before
disappearing for a time, figured in the Divorce Court as a
correspondent. The tongue of rumor is, however, in the mouth of Ananias,
and as Baby Lennox never spoke of herself except, a little sadly, as a
woman whose brief married life was an unfortunate memory, her past
remained a mystery and people were obliged to accept her for her present
and her future. She was so small--so golden-haired--so large eyed--so
fresh and young and dainty--so consistently charming and birdlike--that
she was the Mecca of very young men. With the beautiful trustfulness of
the male young they believed in her, and over and over again she could
have changed her name to others which were equally euphonious and which,
unlike her own, could be discovered in the Red Book. But as there was no
money attached to them she continued to remain a young and interesting
widow and to live in the little cottage on the hill and to pop in and
out of the Shropshire house as the most popular member of its
kaleidoscopic parties.
Whether there was any truth in the story that the present Lord
Shropshire was related to her in a fatherly way no one will ever know,
except perhaps Nicholas Kenyon, who in his treatment of her was
uncharacteristically brotherly. These two, at any rate, had no secrets
from each other and both regarded life from the same peculiar angle. As
parasites they had everything in common and they assisted each other and
played into each other's hands with a loyalty that was praiseworthy even
under these circumstances.
Nicholas Kenyon's mother--a very large, handsome woman with brilliant
teeth and amazing good-nature, who, even when in the best of health,
never finished dressing till four o'clock in the afternoon and then
never put much on--was undergoing a rest-cure in the west wing of
Thrapstone-Wynyates when the boys arrived for the shooting. For nearly a
year she had been playing auction every night until the very small hours
and had, while in a nervous condition, stumbled across an emotional
pamphlet written by a Welsh revivalist, which sent her straight to bed.
She was really greatly shaken by it and perhaps a little bit frightened.
It did not mince words about the future of women of her type, and she
was shocked. Heaven seemed to her to be a place into which she had the
same inherited right to walk as the Royal Enclosure at Ascot; but this
vehement little book put a widely different point of view before her.
Therefore it happened that the first woman to whom Peter was introduced
was the little widow, "Baby" Lennox, who was acting as hostess.
Two evenings before she met Peter she had received a letter from Kenyon,
which ran as follows:
Carlton Hotel,
Dear Old Girl:
I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. I hear
that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of some very
pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has retired to the
solitude of the west wing. After a busy season she no doubt
wishes to read Wells' new novel of socialism and seduction and
the latest Masefield poems, which always remind me of the
ramblings of rum-soaked sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for
one, shall miss her florid and inaccurate presence and the
deliciously flagrant way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if
father has gathered round him an August house-party on his
usual lines, I look forward to a cheery time,--dog eating dog,
if I may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man with
whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,--Peter Guthrie. He's the
American of whom I have spoken to you before. I am especially
anxious for him to meet you, because, while under the hypnotic
influence of Oxford in all the beauty of late spring, he has
been fool enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is
Guthrie very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being
himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York with him in
October to see if that city can be made to render up some of
its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him to be hanging,
booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such time as I have
found my feet. You have a wonderful way with the very young and
unsophisticated and I shall really be enormously obliged if you
will work your never-failing wiles on my most useful friend and
draw his at present infatuated mind away from the nice,
harmless little girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my
dear, and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of
our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,--the farther the
better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is one of
those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom women are a
wonderful mystery. At present he has refused even to look
through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant and compensating side
of life, and he needs to be brought down from his self-made
pedestal. It will do him good and me a service. Honestly, I
find it more than a little trying to be in such close
association with an Archangel. Turn your innocent blue eyes on
him, Baby dear, and teach him things and, above all, get him
out of this silly, sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he
has money and can procure more and I feel sure that you will
not find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid
specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call 'young
manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts the Savoy, or, for
the matter of that, any other English orchestra into a little
round hole.
Yours ever,
N. K.
Quite unconscious of this scheme, Peter fell into the light-heartedness
of this beautiful old house with his usual gusto. To his unsuspicious
eyes Baby Lennox was quite the most charming woman he had ever met.
He was delighted, a little surprised and even a little jealous at the
relations which existed between Kenyon and his father. He was quick to
notice that they treated each other more like pals or brothers, than
father and son, were entirely open and frank with each other, walked
about arm in arm, played tennis and billiards together and often spent
hours in each other's society, laughing and talking. He noticed, too,
that Kenyon always called his father "Tops," a name which had grown into
daily use from the time when, as a tiny lad just able to talk, the
things that most caught his fancy were Lord Shropshire's riding-boots,
in which he seemed to live, being mostly on horseback. "Nicko" was what
his father called Kenyon,--that and old man or old boy. He wished most
deeply that he and his own father were on such good terms.
If Peter had heard the sort of things these two talked about and
confided to each other, his surprise would have elaborated into
amazement. The elder man took infinite pleasure in telling the one who
was so complete a chip off the same block the most minute details of his
love affairs during the time that he was at Sandhurst for his army
training, while he was in a crack Cavalry regiment and while he knocked
about London and Paris and Vienna before and after his marriage. Also he
revelled in relating his racing and gambling experiences, describing the
more shady episodes with witty phrases and a touch of satire that was
highly entertaining to the younger man. They both agreed, with a
paradoxical sort of honesty, deliberately and inherently, that they were
not straight and accepted each other as such, and the father used
frequently to speculate from which of his dull, responsible and worthy
ancestors he acquired the tendency. It was certainly not from the late
Lord Shropshire, whose brilliant work as a Cabinet Minister in several
Governments and as one of the most valued advisers of Queen Victoria
had placed his name permanently in the annals of his country. "We get it
from one of the women of the family, I suspect, Nicko," he had a way of
saying, after a more than usually excellent dinner. "A dear, pretty
creature who lived a double life with delightful finesse--the great lady
and the human woman by turns. What d'you think, old boy? At any rate,
you and I make no pretences and, 'pon my soul! I don't know which of us
is the better exponent in the delicate and difficult art of sleight of
hand. I wish I were going to America with you. I fancy that we should
make in double harness enough to enable us to retire from the game and
live like little gentlemen. As it is, you'll do very well, I've no
doubt. From what I hear, the country reeks with wealthy young men
waiting to be touched by an expert such as you are. Do some good work,
old fellow, and when you come back you shall lend me a portion of your
earnings, eh?"
They were a strange couple, these two, capable, outwardly charming and
cut out for a very different way of life but for the regrettable
possession of a kink which caused them to become harpies and turn the
weaknesses of unsuspicion of human nature to their own advantage. Some
psychologists might have gone out of their way to find excuses for these
men and endeavor to prove that they would both have run straight but for
the fact that they were always pushed for money. They would, however,
have been wrong. Just as some men are born orators, some with mechanical
and creative genius and some with the gift of leadership, these two men
were born crooked, and under no conditions, even the most favorable,
could they have played any game according to the rules.
The men of the party were all excellent sportsmen and good fellows, and
the women more than usually delightful representatives of English
society. As a matter of fact, the men were all,--like Kenyon's
father,--living on their wits and just avoiding criminal prosecution by
the eighth of an inch. They called themselves racing men, which,
translated into cold English, means that they were people of no
ostensible means of livelihood, who attended every race meeting and
backed horses on credit, taking their winnings and owing their losses
until chased by crook solicitors. They all bore names well known in
English history. They had all passed through the best schools and either
Oxford, Cambridge or Sandhurst. One or two of them were still in the
army. One had been requested to resign from the navy, the King having no
further use for his services, and one was a Member of Parliament, having
previously been hammered in the other house,--that is to say the Stock
Exchange. The women of the party were either wives of these men or not,
as the case may be. At any rate they were good to look at, amusing to
talk to, and apparently without a care in the world. And if Lord
Shropshire, in welcoming Peter to his famous house, had said, like the
spider to the fly, "Come into my parlor so that whatever you have about
you may be sucked dry by us," he would have been strictly truthful.
Several other such men as Peter had gone into that web sound and whole,
but they had come out again with many things to regret and forget.
Who could say whether Peter would escape?