"I've had enough of this, I'm going to get up," Mr. Gage, the
_soi-disant_ Lord Quorn, declared, as Peckover after luncheon devoted a
few minutes of his present complicated existence to visit that
impatient patient.
"No, you don't."
"Won't I?" was the querulous rejoinder. "Why not? The doctor's gone,
and----"
"There's something worse than the doctor come," said Peckover with a
long face.
"I don't know what's worse than the doctor, unless it's the
undertaker," returned Gage.
"Well, I do," said Peckover feelingly. "A most unfortunate thing has
happened. A girl who I was a bit sweet on out there has followed me
over."
Gage whistled. "Then our game's all up. Of course she'll know you are
Quorn and I am not."
"No," replied Peckover subtly. "I have made it all right about that.
Told her there was a mistake and I was not the rightful heir."
"That was smart of you," Gage said with gloomy approval. "Well, what's
the trouble, then. The lady doesn't expect me to marry her, does she?"
"Yes," answered Peckover with intensity, "she does."
"What?" Gage nearly landed out of bed in his surprise. "Me?" Then
laughed incredulously.
"She says she has come six thousand miles to be Lady Quorn and she is
going to be Lady Quorn."
"The deuce she is. How is she going to manage that?"
"By force."
"What?" Gage shouted. "Marry me by force?"
"Yes," answered Peckover seriously. "You see, she has brought her
brother with her, a dare-devil rampaging brute of a bush-ranger, six
foot three tall, and broad in proportion, who sticks at nothing but
your favourite vital part with a bowie knife."
"I'd like to see him," Gage observed scornfully
"You will, if you get out of bed and come downstairs," returned
Peckover impressively. "Also you will have an opportunity of remarking
the havoc he has made with the fire-irons."
"What? Fire-irons?"
"He has been snapping a few pokers and tongs just to show what he will
do with you when he catches you."
"What absurd rot," Gage said with rising exasperation. "I never had
anything to do with the brute's sister."
"But you have got to marry her," rejoined Peckover quite seriously, "or
take the consequences."
"Oh, have I?"
"Yes; you had better stop in bed."
"Had I?" Gage exclaimed, flinging off the clothes. "I rather think
I'll get up and hand the ruffian over to the police, as you don't seem
to have the _nous_ to do it."
"Not I," returned Peckover shrewdly. "Not quite such a fool. Once
open police-court proceedings, and our little arrangement will come out
and be spoilt, even if nothing else happens."
"Well, what are we to do?" Gage demanded, recognizing the weight of his
friend's objection.
"You stop in bed," said Peckover, with an air of authority based upon
expediency.
"D----d if I do," Gage retorted.
"If you don't, you'll have to," replied Peckover with truth underlying
paradox. "A fortnight of the downy is better than six months of the
plank."
"What, stop here for a fortnight?" Gage cried wrathfully. "It's a
regular take in. A rollicking time I'm having for my money;
cold-shouldered, half-drowned, and now tucked up in this beastly bed
for weeks. Where does Lord Quorn come in?"
"Lord Quorn," observed Peckover sententiously, "will go out if Mr.
Carnaby Leo gets hold of him. He has got a museum at home of pickled
ears, and eyes and noses, et cetera, of which he has deprived certain
parties who didn't do as he told them. After all," he added
persuasively, "it is better to stop in bed with the schedule of your
features complete than to get up for a rollick and find some of the
items missing."
"Why the devil didn't you tell me you'd been playing the fool with a
bush-ranger's sister?" Gage snapped savagely. "I wouldn't have looked
at you or your title. You've got my money under false pretences."
"You never gave me time to go into my past history," was the plausible
reply. "You might have known when you took over a peerage you were
letting yourself in for something of the sort. You know it's a way we
have."
"A pretty brilliant way, to get tangled up with bush-rangers," sneered
Gage.
"He didn't come on the scene till an hour ago. I suppose, by the way,"
he suggested mischievously, "you would not care to marry her, and so
see your way to getting out of bed without damage?"
"Marry ten thousand devils! That's not my idea of fun."
"Lalage is a fine figure of a woman," Peckover continued. "Make an
imposing Lady Quorn. Fine mover; takes the drawing-room in three,
including anything that stands in the way. The coronet would suit her
better if she'd let her hair grow."
"Crops her hair short?" Gage enquired, in a tone of infinite disgust at
the picture.
Peckover nodded. "Bit too much of the dragoon for our taste, my boy.
You stop in bed, and let me try to get rid of them."
"I won't stop in bed," returned Gage. "Where are these brutes?"
"Sent 'em down to _The Pigeons_," Peckover answered. "Lady Agatha
wouldn't have 'em in the house. Don't blame her. Their manners aren't
exactly Vere de Vere. Things were a bit awkward at lunch. Carnaby,
the beauty, had been mixing his liquors and fell asleep with his ugly
head in the salad bowl, and the tomato which Lalage aimed at him to
wake him up, missed, and spattered on Bisgood's shirt-front. Lady Aggy
wasn't pleased."
"It's all very well," said Gage sulkily, "but I'm going to get up. The
woman can't make me marry her against my will, nor can the great ox,
her brother."
"No," Peckover agreed, "but he can have a good try for it, and the
process might not be pleasant."
"I never heard such nonsense."
"No; I wouldn't have believed it," said Peckover, "if I hadn't had the
fellow's dukes round my windpipe. He is just a buffalo in trousers.
And if you get up, and shy at the sister, who is a hyaena in petticoats,
you'll know it; that is, if he leaves you in a state to know anything."
"A pretty abominable treat you've let me in for," said Gage sourly.
"But I'm not going to stay in this four-poster. You've got to go and
square this at once. Ask them what they'll take to go back."
"I've offered them a couple of hundred," Peckover replied, "and got
nearly strangled for my trouble."
"Couple of hundred!" said Gage contemptuously. "You'll have to make it
thousands and take it out of your five."
"Oh, I say!" the other protested.
"All right; if you don't," Gage declared resolutely, "I'll chuck the
title and leave you and your friends to fight it out among yourselves.
If she means Lord Quorn she shall have him, but not me, my boy. And
I'm not going to stop between the sheets for any bush-ranger in
Australia or out of it. So there!"