"Tell you what it is, Percival, my boy," said Gage at breakfast next
morning; "I've had about enough of nobility. Grandeur and aristocracy
have too many inconveniences to suit me. I've a mind to clear out, and
hand you back this precious title of yours."
Peckover laughed awkwardly. "Don't do that yet awhile, old man," he
urged. "You haven't given it a fair trial."
"It has given me one," was the prompt and pointed retort. "And it
strikes me if I don't look sharp and get out of the peacock's feathers
I shall soon be pecked to death. That Salolja chap last night was an
eye-opener."
"Unpleasant customer," his friend agreed.
"Unpleasant? Noisy little devil!"
"Barking dogs don't bite," observed Peckover, but without conviction.
"I wouldn't trust him," returned Gage with the firmness the other's
remark lacked. "These Spaniards are the very deuce when they're
jealous. They get simply mad. And nobody on this earth is safe from a
loose madman if he takes it into his head to go for you. Our friend,
the duke, meant business."
"Only so long as you interfere between him and Miss Buffkin," Peckover
agreed.
"How was I to know what I was being let in for?" Gage exclaimed in an
aggrieved tone. "When the old lady mentioned a foreign chap who'd been
dancing after Ulrica I naturally thought it was some monkeyish fellow
who'd squirm if you shook hands too hard, and would cry if you spoke to
him unkindly. She never gave us a hint she'd got a bald Beelzebub with
a voice that sends you the jumps and a homicidal history that gives you
the shivers--to say nothing of that sickening revolver. Ugh! I can
see the gleam of it now, as I've seen it all night. I was on the point
of trying to get in first shot with a champagne bottle."
"Yes," Peckover admitted; "I've spent a pleasanter five minutes than
when he was playing with the highly polished popper."
"Well, much more of this and I go back to plain Mr. Gage," that
gentleman declared in a disgusted tone. "They talk of the fierce light
that beats on royalty, but I didn't know the nobility lived in a
set-piece of fire-works with occasional red-fire."
"They can't all of them do it," argued Peckover.
"They are all of 'em liable to it," Gage returned. "The squibs are
there, only waiting for some little complication to come along and
touch 'em off. It is getting on my nerves, and I'm wondering where the
next little disturbance is coming from."
It seemed almost in answer to his thought that, just as he had voiced
it, Bisgood announced that Lady Agatha Hemyock was in the drawing-room.
Theirs was a late breakfast; still the call was early.
"That's where it's coming from," Peckover observed with an uneasy grin.
Lady Agatha was sympathetically troubled as she shook hands with them.
Her preliminary business was to ask them down to the Moat to tea that
afternoon; but as the men, exchanging significant glances, gladly
accepted the invitation as affording an asylum from any immediate
complications connected with the Duke of Salolja, they both felt that
something more was coming, and of greater moment than a message which a
note would have adequately conveyed. They were not long left in doubt.
"I had another object," said Lady Agatha, pursing her lips and looking
unutterably important, "in paying you this unconventional visit. One
has heard from various sources of the advent of Lady Ormstork to this
neighbourhood. I have even been informed that the lady in question has
gone so far as to call upon you, which is the reason why the Colonel
thought it would be only neighbourly and friendly to give you a word of
warning."
"Anything wrong," Peckover asked apprehensively. His nerves had not
recovered from the previous night's disturbance.
Lady Agatha took a letter from her pocket with business-like
deliberation. "Very wrong--or likely to be," she replied as she slowly
unfolded it, "from what my friend, Lady Bosham tells me. I happened in
writing to mention Lady Ormstork's name as having taken a furnished
house near here, and my friend writes by return imploring me to have
nothing to do with her. A most dangerous woman," she added, presumably
quoting from the closely written letter.
Gage and Peckover caught each other's guilty and apprehensive eyes.
"She has," continued their visitor, confident in the effect she had
produced, "I believe, a young person--a young lady nowadays she would
be called--with her. A Miss Buffkin. A mysterious Miss Buffkin, given
out as an heiress."
"Isn't she an heiress?" Peckover inquired rather foolishly.
Lady Agatha shrugged. "Possibly. That is a matter known only to Lady
Ormstork and Miss Buffkin. But the more vital question is what are
Lady Ormstork's character and intentions."
It was somewhat a relief to both men to find someone else's intentions
called in question.
"Lady Bosham says," proceeded their visitor, "and indeed one has heard
something of the kind vaguely oneself, that Lady Ormstork is notorious
for getting hold of good-looking girls, often of very doubtful origin,
and finding husbands for them--for a consideration."
Both men expressed a surprise which they could scarcely be said to feel.
"According to Lady Bosham, she is a determined and most unscrupulous
woman," continued Lady Agatha, apparently quoting from the report.
"Once she gets people into her toils they find it no easy matter to
extricate themselves."
It occurred to her hearers that there were other titled spreaders of
nets besides the histrionic Lady Ormstork, but they did not say so.
"Of course," said Lady Agatha, with apologetic plausibility, "it is
perhaps a great liberty which I take in venturing to warn you. But
being such close neighbours and friends, and knowing you to be,
comparatively speaking, strangers to this country and some of its less
desirable features, we thought it only right to do so."
"Much obliged to you, I'm sure," responded Gage.
"Quite so," added Peckover.
"Of course," Lady Agatha pursued tentatively, "I am unaware how far
this Lady Ormstork," she spoke the name with withering emphasis, "may
have forced her intimacy upon you. Still, it is better to be
forewarned, even if yours is as yet nothing beyond a formal
acquaintance."
"Just so," Gage agreed with balking irresponsiveness.
"Lady Bosham is very strong on the undesirability of these people's
acquaintance," said Lady Agatha rising. "She, that is, Lady Ormstork,
is a terrible old woman when once she gets her tentacles fixed on the
victim she has marked down. But there, I trust I have said enough to
sensible men like yourselves to put you on your guard."
"Quite," replied Gage, wondering where, in it all, the Duke of Salolja
came in.
Lady Agatha took her leave, having made them promise to come early to
the Moat that afternoon.
The promise was faithfully kept, since it seemed expedient to both men
to avoid their friends from The Cracknels, at any rate till they saw
how their Castilian rival was going to be disposed of.
"They are bound to come up this afternoon as usual," Gage observed to
his friend.
"With that Spanish terror after them, shouldn't wonder," said Peckover.
"We're best out of the way."
"Ethel and Dagmar will be poor fun after Ulrica," Gage remarked
gloomily.
"Tell you what it is, my friend," said Peckover. "The sooner you bring
yourself to consider Ulrica a thing of the past the better chance
you'll have of making old bones. Ethel and Dagmar may not be all our
fancy painted, but at least they haven't got a blood-thirsty Spanish
nob hanging about them with traditions and a nasty way of talking
polite flummery with a revolver playfully pointed at the vital parts of
your anatomy all the time. You won't have a ducal freak poking his
long nose in there."
"Well, we had better go down, have a fling with the second quality
beauties and then clear out of the place till things cool down," said
Gage with the air of a man who has made up his mind.
Accordingly, after an early luncheon, they went down to the Moat, and
flirted so recklessly with the not unduly obdurate young ladies, that
Lady Agatha was induced to dismiss from her mind a grand plan she had
been formulating for the recapture of John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook, and
even went so far as to canvass the respective claims of pink and
apple-green in connexion with the general scheme of colour for a double
bevy of bridesmaids.
It was late, as late for safety as they could make it, when Gage and
Peckover returned home, discussing plans for a sudden flight next
morning.
"Lady Ormstork called?" Gage asked Bisgood carelessly, as he turned
into the smoking-room for a cigarette before going up to dress.
"Yes, my lord. And Miss Buffkin."
"You gave her ladyship my message?"
"Yes, m'lord."
"Did she say anything?"
"Her ladyship said she would wait, my lord, as she had something very
important to tell your lordship."
"Ah," Gage said knowingly. "Did she wait long?"
"Her ladyship and Miss Buffkin are in the drawing-room, my lord."
The cigarette fell from Gage's parted lips, thrust out by a profane
charge which exploded behind it.
"In the----" he turned helplessly to Peckover.
"Percival, old man, they're waiting for us," he gasped.
"Anybody else?" Peckover inquired of Bisgood, with a vision of a pair
of terrific eyes backed by a bald head and set off in front by a long
nose and a gleaming revolver barrel.
"No one else, sir," Bisgood answered with as much surprise as that
functionary ever permitted himself.
"Better scoot, eh?" suggested Peckover in a panic-stricken whisper, as
the butler left them.
"No. Let's go and hear what the old bird has to say," Gage replied,
after a few moment's hesitation. "If any one is equal to tackling that
Spanish nuisance she's the person. Let's go and hear how she takes it."