"Well, old boy!" Mr. Fordyce greeted him with. "You should have been
with me and had a good round of golf--but perhaps, though, you have made
up your mind!"
Michael flung himself into his great chair.
"Yes--I have--and I have got a fiancée."
Mr. Fordyce was not disturbed; he did not even answer this absurd
remark, he just puffed his cigar--cigarettes were beneath his notice.
"You don't seem very interested," his host ejaculated, rather
aggrievedly.
"Tommyrot!"
"I tell you, it is true. I have got a fiancée."
"My dear fellow, you are mad!"
"No, I assure you I am quite sane--I have found a way out of the
difficulty--an angel has dropped from the clouds to save me from Violet
Hatfield."
Henry Fordyce was actually startled. Michael looked as though he were
talking seriously.
"But where did she come from? What the--Oh! I have no patience with you,
you old fool! You are playing some comedy upon me!"
"Henry, I give you my word, I'm not--I am going to marry a most
presentable young person at nine o'clock on Thursday night in the chapel
here--and you are going to stay and be best man." Then his excitement
began to rise again, and he got up from his chair and paced up and down
restlessly. "It is the very thing. She wants her money and I want my
freedom. She gets hers by marriage, and I get mine. I don't care a rush
for domestic bliss, it has never appealed to me; and the fellow in
Australia who'll come after me has got a boy who will do all right, no
doubt, for the old place by and by. I shall have a perfectly free time
and no responsibilities--and, thank the Lord! no more women for me for
the future. I have done with the snakes. I shall be happy and free for
the first time for a whole year!"
Mr. Fordyce actually let his cigar go out. This incredible story was
beginning to have an effect upon him.
"But where did she come from?" he asked blandly, as one speaks to a
harmless imbecile. "I leave you here in an abject state of despair,
ready almost to decide upon marrying old Bessie, and I return in an hour
and you inform me everything is settled, and you are the fiancé of
another lady! You know, you surprise me, Michael--'Pon my word, you do!"
Michael laughed, it was really a huge joke.
"Yes, it is quite true. Well, just as I was going to ring and send
James for Bessie to talk it over with her, there was no end of a
smash--as you see--and a girl--a tourist--fell through the secret door.
I haven't opened it for five years. She was running away from a horrid
fellow she was engaged to, it seems, and fled into the passage, and the
door shut after her and she could not get out, so she pushed on in
here."
"It adds dramatic color to the story, the girl being engaged to someone
else--pray go on."
Mr. Fordyce had now picked up his cigar again. This preposterous tale no
longer interested him. He thought it even rather bad taste on the part
of his friend.
"All right!" Michael explained. "You need not believe me if you don't
like. I don't care, since I have done what I wanted to. Bar chaff,
Henry, I am telling you the truth. The girl appears to be a young woman
of decision. She explained at once her circumstances, and it struck us
both that to go through the ceremony of marriage would smooth all our
difficulties. We can easily get the bond annulled later on."
Henry Fordyce put down his cigar again.
"I am off to town to-night. You won't mind, will you?" Michael went on.
"Just to see if everything is all right, and to get her guardian's
consent and a special license, and I shall be back by the six o'clock
train on Thursday in time to get the ceremony over that night; and then,
by the early morning express, if you'll wait till then, we'll go South
together, and so for Paris and freedom!"
Henry actually rose from his chair.
"And the bride?" he asked.
Michael laughed. "Oh, she may go to the moon, for all I care; she leaves
directly after the ceremony with her certificate of marriage, which she
means to brandish in the face of her relations, who are staying at the
Inn, and so exit out of my life! It is only an affair of expediency."
"It is the affair of a madman."
Michael frowned, and his firm chin looked aggressive.
"It is nothing of the kind. You told me yourself that you would rather
marry old Bessie--a woman of eighty-four--than Violet Hatfield; and now,
when I have found a much more suitable person--a pretty little lady--you
begin to talk. My mind is made up, and there is an end of it."
Mr. Fordyce interrupted.
"Bessie would have been much more suitable--a plain pretext; but you
have no idea what complications you may be storing up for yourself by
marrying a young girl--What is the sense in it?" he continued, a little
excited now. "The younger and prettier she is makes her all the more
unsuitable to be used merely as a tool in your game. Confound it,
Michael!"
"And her game, too," his host reminded him. His eyes were flashing now,
and that expression, which all his underlings knew meant he intended to
have his own will at any cost, grew upon his face.
"You forget that in Scotland divorce is not an impossibility and--_I am
going to do it, Henry_. Now, I had better write to old Fergusson, my
chaplain, and tell him to be in readiness, and I suppose I ought to see
my lawyers in Edinburgh, although, as there are no settlements and it is
just between ourselves, perhaps it does not matter about them."
"How old is the girl?" Mr. Fordyce felt it prudent to ask. "It is a
pretty serious thing you contemplate, you know."
"Oh! rot!--she is seventeen, I believe--and for that sort of a marriage
and mere business arrangement, her age is no consequence."
Henry turned to the window and looked out for a moment, then he said
gravely:
"Is it quite fair to her?"
Michael had gone to his writing-table, and was busily scribbling to his
chaplain, but he looked over his shoulder startled, and then a gleam of
blue fire came into his eyes, and his handsome mouth shut like a vise.
"Of course, it is quite fair. She wishes to be free as much as I do. She
gets what she wants and I get what I want--a mere ceremony can be
annulled at any time. She jumped at the idea, I tell you, Henry--I have
not got time to go into the pros and cons of that side of the question,
and I don't want to hear your views or any one else's on the matter. I
mean to marry the girl on Thursday night--and you can quite well put off
going South until Friday morning, and see me through it."
Mr. Fordyce prepared to go towards the door, and when there said, in a
voice of ice:
"I shall do no such thing. I cannot prevent your doing this, I
suppose--taking advantage of a young girl for your own ends, it seems to
me--so I shall go now."
Michael's temper began to blaze with this, his oldest friend.
"As you please," he flashed. "But it is perfect rot, all this high
palaver. The girl gains by it as well as I. I am not taking the least
advantage of her. I shall have to get her guardian's consent, and I
suppose he'll know what he is up to. I have never taken any one's
advice, and I am not going to begin now, old boy--so we had better say
good-bye if you won't stop."
He came over to the door, and then he smiled his radiant, irresistible
smile so like a mischievous jolly boy's.
"Give me joy, Henry, old friend," he said, and held out his hand.
But Henry Fordyce looked grave as a judge as he took it.
"I can't do that, Michael. I am very angry with you. I have known you
ever since you were born, and we have been real pals, although I am so
much older than you--but I'm damned if I'll stay and see you through
this folly. Good-bye." And without a word further he went out of the
room, closing the door softly behind him.
Michael gave a sort of whoop to Binko, who sprang at him in love and
excitement, while he cried:
"Very well! Get along, old saint!"
Then he rang the bell, and to the footman when he came he handed the
note he had written to be taken to Mr. Fergusson, and sent orders for
Johnson to pack for two nights, and for his motor to be ready to catch
the 10:40 express at the junction for London town. Then he seized his
cap and, calling Binko, he went off into the garden, and so on to the
park and to the golf house, where, securing his professional, he played
a vigorous round, and when he got back to the castle again, just before
dinner, he was informed that Mr. Fordyce had left in his own motor for
Edinburgh.