At this very unfinished phase in John Maple’s affairs, with none of the
slats joined and no apparent possibility of making things fit in, but
with a very successful prospect in the only thing that matters to a boy
of his age, and a double talent and the chance of using it, there came
yet another of those invitations to Aunt Hilda’s. He had been there
quite often enough at week-ends during the last year, and it had been
impossible to hide from her that he was earning his living in some
obscure fashion upon the minor stage. Though no one else in her world
knew it. She had shuddered, and refused to hear any details. He would
get over this craze of independence, and anyhow, he was her nephew, and
he knew everybody and he could behave himself.
She told him to come down on the Friday if he could. He let Spegel
know his wish, for Spegel needed him more than he needed Spegel. So
he made it the Friday. But first he appointed to meet Bo and talk it
over, because he had been told that Lord Hellup was going to Rackham
Catchings.
They met in her club, where they might talk in peace.
“Bo, you’re going down with your father to Rackham again, and this time
I’m to be there.”
“Sure,” said Bo, stroking Lovey-Lad’s head with an intense affection
and gazing into his eyes.
“Did they tell you?”
“Yup,” said the beautiful girl.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t see you; didn’t want to; didn’t have to,” was the sufficient
reply.
“I’m not complaining; only you see, I should have been startled if I
had got to Rackham and found you there and not known.”
“I was looking for that startle,” said Bo.
“Yes,” said John, rather masterfully, “but you’ve got to think of me.
She doesn’t know that I know you or your father.”
“She will,” said Bo simply. “He tells her everything.”
“I go the day before you,” said John.
She nodded. He pulled his aunt’s letter out of his pocket.
“Look here, Bo, who’s this other person—this Amathea she speaks of?
D’you know her?”
“Nix,” said the young lady simply.
“Same here,” answered her lover.
“We pass,” Bo concluded, and sighed.
“Well, she’s to be there, and her husband—God knows who. And there’s
Lord Hambourne—I think that’s all. I know all about _him_. He was the
psychology expert during the war. He’s a don at Oxford.”
Bo put both her elbows on the table, in the corner where they sat
apart, framed her large face in her hands, and gazed largely on her
lover. Then recollection came into her eyes.
“Amathea?” she said. “That’s old Mother Bruvvish.”
“What?” answered John. “Do you mean to tell me that Aunt Hilda has
fallen to that?”
Bo nodded.
“That’s her,” she said. “I remember now. She’s the only Amathea in
London. She’s gotten a sausage neck.”
“What on earth makes it worth their while to go to Rackham for?” said
he.
“They’re hunting,” said she.
“Who’s hunting?”
“Mother Bruvvish and Pop are: both hunting.”
“Hunting what?” asked John, a little startled. “Not Aunt Hilda?”
Bo’s mouth became more quizzical.
“One of them is,” she said, “but they’re both hunting. Leastways, one’s
fishing.”
“Fishing for what?” said John Maple again, a little tired.
“Fishing for Rackham, that’s Amathea,” said Bo, dropping her voice and
leaning backwards.
“Good God!” said John.
“You’re right,” said Bo. “Appeal to Him. Call on Him. He might hear.”
John’s face was crossed by a look of pain, and Bo responded at once.
“It’s up to you, Dog-Man,” she said.
“What’s up to me?” asked the Dog-Man.
“The bluff,” said Bo, nodding. “It’s not a mammoth bluff, neither.”
“What bluff?” said John.
Bo grew impatient.
“Why, you cough in with your third offer,” she said. “You know you’re
famished for the place.”
“Bo,” said John, too seriously, and almost tragically, “I had meant to
save every penny, to work myself old, and then to go to Aunt Hilda with
the money. When you tell me that your father and Old Huggins are after
it....”
Bo held up her finger.
“Get it right, boy,” she said. “Pop’s not crazy for the house, but
he’ll be guided. D’you get me?”
“No,” said John Maple bluntly, “I don’t.”
Bo sighed at the obtuseness of men: but it was a safeguard (she
thought) all the same, so she went on patiently and contentedly:
“The Proud Dame of Rackham can obtain of the Baron, my father, what
boon she craves, fond youth. He’d refuse her nothing, wouldn’t Pop.
Wait till you see him with her. ’Sides which, he’s told me.”
“Good God!” said John again, but more emphatically and with troubled
wonder.
“Don’t pray too much the same,” commented the Damsel, “it takes the pep
out.” And she looked at him benignly and in quiet triumph.
John’s head whirled. Things were coming altogether too quickly. And how
could Bo already know such things when he, the son of the house, had
noticed nothing? It offended his pride.
But if John were wise he would rejoice to learn so early in life what
most men learn too late: that women know the secret workings of the
mind; that men do not; that women are the informants of men, and that
the wisest men are those who learn through women.
“And what does Aunt Hilda say about it?” was John’s next question when
he had recovered from his shock.
“Not much yet,” said Bo. “Pop’s shy. He’s not said anything. But
he will, and if he finds that buying the place at her price is a
persuasive, why, he won’t look twice at her figure; I mean her demand,
her estimate. Though I guess it’s hell-high.”
A cataract of consequences was pouring before John Maple’s mind.
Aunt Hilda as a mother-in-law was a formidable prospect. But then—a
consoling recollection—Bo could stand up to six mothers-in-law of
her weight.... But if Lord Hellup nourished such plans of belated
re-mating, that would mean his living at Rackham.... No.... Perhaps
Aunt Hilda would angle for the money first—and get it. Even so Lord
Hellup was in the market, and how could he, John, compete with a man so
wealthy and in such a mood? If the other millionaire was after it the
thing was hopeless.
“You’re sure the Huggins’ are after it, Bo?” he said at length.
“_She_ is. Lady Mere de Beaurivage is—Amathea is. She doesn’t hide it.
She’s talked of it all around. That’s how Aunt Hilda knows.”
“Well, then,” said poor John, “it’s all up. The price will go to
anything if they’re both after it, and I’m down and out,” and he leant
back in despair.
Bo smiled at him serenely.
“You’ve got to be after it too,” she said. “Name your price.”
“Do you mean ...” John began incredulously, with a rising anger in him,
“that you are offering me...?” He remembered—for the first time in
weeks—the fortune her mother had left her.
“Nope,” answered Bo imperturbably. “I’m not offering any damn thing.
You’re offering, Jacko.”
“But I’ve nothing,” said John.
Bo sighed wearily.
“I’ll tell the world,” she said, “that you’re Dumb Dora’s little
brother. Books buy before they sell. But this dazzling boy sells before
he buys. Leastways, Isabeau Hellup does. Yes.”
“I don’t understand,” said John.
“So?” cooed Bo sympathetically. “Well, now, catch this: Buy with the
money you’ve got, if you’ve got it, and you have to do without your
money. But buy _without_ money, and there’s no expense at all. All
good. D’ye get me? What’s the Catchings worth?”
“For heaven’s sake, Bo,” he exploded, “don’t call Rackham ‘the
Catchings!’... I don’t know what Rackham’s worth now they’ve spoilt
it, and I don’t care. I shall pay twenty thousand when I’ve got twenty
thousand; that’s the very most conceivable that anyone can say I owe
Aunt Hilda—or rather my Uncle William, her dead husband—and I’ve a
right to Rackham for ever when I’ve paid that back. I’ll pay that, and
not a penny more—when I’ve got it.... God knows when—but when I’ve got
it....”
“You’ve got it now, boy,” said Bo.
“You mean...?” said John, frowning, suspicious again that she was
hinting at helping him.
“Naw, I don’t. I don’t mean me and I don’t mean Pop. I mean that any
man that got Rackham Catchings—beg pardon, Rackham—for £20,000, has
got all that and perhaps £10,000 more, perhaps another twenty more
thousand. Got it in his lill’ wallet.” And then did Bo with hereditary
talent explain to this child of an English squire how purchase is made
without money, and how in the modern world we buy not with what we
have but with the folly or the error or the precipitation of others.
If he got his aunt to accept £20,000 for the house in Sussex, and if
the option was firm, and in writing, not even the caution of the most
cautious lawyer would boggle at finding the £20,000 for him on such
security.
“But she won’t fall for it,” went on Bo, shaking her head. “We’re all
fools, and Aunt Hilda’s a large one; but not that out-size. No, _boy_!
That kind’s got to be made to contract.”
John saw daylight.
“I shall offer Aunt Hilda £20,000,” he said firmly, “and somehow or
other I’ll see that she gets it—and not a penny more. And I’ll see that
I get Rackham when that’s done.”
“Bold Babe,” said Bo gently. “Don’t I wish I could bite off a bit of
the under-write!”
But John knew nothing of such jargon.
Then did that businesslike young person get up without a word, go
across to the writing-table and come back with a wad of large blank
paper, an ink-pot and a pen.
“It isn’t headed,” she said—she thought of everything. Then she began
to write and murmured the words for his enlightenment.
“THE HOTEL SPLENDIDE.
“That’s where you’re writing from, Jacko. You’re getting on.
‘DEAR AUNT HILDA,
‘We have often spoken of this matter and I am afraid it wounds you....’
(It does wound her, doesn’t it, Jacko? Poor old thing then!) ‘I’m
afraid it wounds you. But you know my own feeling and I cannot be
silent further upon the matter. That is why I write this. I want to
get it down in black-and-white. You know, when I first offered you
£20,000 for Rackham you only laughed at me.’ She did, didn’t she,
Dog-Man?”
“I should rather have called it Scorn than laughter,” said the
Master of six Hounds. “Hot, withering scorn. She said I hadn’t got
twenty-thousand pence.”
“That’s a lie, anyway,” answered Bo. “Why, the ring you gave me was
worth more’n that.” She made a rapid calculation of the pounds in
twenty thousand pence on the blotter and then shook her head. “No, not
a quarter. Anyway, you’re worth more than twenty thousand pence, Jacko?”
He nodded.
“But no £20,000 yet awhile. No matter. On with the dance. Let joy be
unconfined,” and she continued writing.
“‘I now make you a firm offer of £20,000 for Rackham. Ten per cent. on
acceptance, the balance on completion; or alternatively an immediate
three months’ bill for same on signing enclosed.
“‘Your affectionate nephew.’”
She looked up triumphantly.
“That’s what’s called the Covering Letter, Jacko.”
John Maple gazed at her in awe.
“At your age!” he said.
“It’s all straight, Jacko. I got it out of a book—oh, I forgot—” and
she wrote the word “Enclosure” on the top left-hand corner of the
document, “and it’s best,” she added, “to get a little star of red
paper, gummed, with the word ‘Enclosure’ and stick it outside the
envelope. They all do it.”
John Maple’s awe increased.
“Now for that enclosure, Jacko. Oh! It’s dead easy!”
She wrote on another sheet, again murmuring her words:
“MY DEAR JOHN,
“I have your letter. After full consideration of your offer of £20,000
for Rackham I have decided to accept it and hereby do so.
“Your affectionate Aunt.”
“Then, Jacko, she shall sign on the dotted line.”
“Bo,” said John Maple honestly, “I’m frightened of you.”
“Which is as should be. Now, Jacko, you take these papers, and when you
get out go straight down and get ’em in triplicate and mail the top
copy to Aunt Hilda—with the enclosure. Keep the two others. She’ll get
that letter and that enclosure before you reach there. She’ll get it
first mail to-morrow—and then you can take her first reactions. It’s
always useful. We come in the next day; and then the plot thickens.
Will you obey, Dog-Man?”
“Oh, yes,” said John Maple in a whirl, “I’ll do what I’m told, but why
should Aunt Hilda accept?—with all that other money before her?”
Isabeau Hellup leant back in her chair gazing away from the papers
before her through the club window at the park with folded hands. Her
face had changed and taken on religion.
“I hope the Almighty won’t be hard on me,” she sighed. “Rackham’s yours
morally, isn’t it, Jack?”
“Yes,” answered John Maple doggedly.
“Then I guess I’m doing right—we’re doing right, I mean.... You
remember when you told me you’d acted the ventriloquist? You remember
how you made the chimney talk that night at the Bakehams’?”
“Yes,” said John.
Bo leant forward and spoke in a lower voice.
“You remember Aunt Hilda wanting a ghost at Rackham, and how you told
me and how angry you were? This winter? Just after you’d left her?”
“Yes,” said John, “I can’t bear to think of it.”
Bo lowered her voice almost to a whisper.
“_We’ll haunt ’em!_” she said to him. “We’ll haunt ’em good and
hard—and _then_, Jacko,” she leant back again with a conquering smile
on her face, “_then_ Rackham’s yours for the asking.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“You will,” she nodded.
She looked at the watch on her wrist, which was of a most
extraordinary shape, six-sided and set round with an enormous number
of very small diamonds; its dial also was far too small. She rose with
abruptness and tugged Lovey-Lad to his feet. They went out together.
“Well, Jacko,” she said by way of delicate leavetaking in the street,
“we meet again in the Khyber Pass.” It was a phrase she had learned
from a book. She did not know that it dated. And off she sailed.
As for John Maple, he did just what he was told. He went to the
Splendide. He begged a wad of their paper. He dictated both documents
to the goddess of that roof who transcribes upon her typewriter the
correspondence of guests. He signed the letter and posted it with its
enclosure to Aunt Hilda. That was the Thursday. On the morrow afternoon
he was due to go down to Sussex. But Aunt Hilda would already have had
his letter before he came. She would get it by the first post.
He would have time “to take her reactions” before the morrow should
bring the three lords, the two millionaires and the light of his own
eyes to what he was more than ever determined should be their home.
Of Lord Hambourne John did know something, for one of his boyhood’s
English friends whom he had made in Switzerland and who had gone to
Oriel was always laughing at him. It seemed that they called him
“Hambone”—not a very subtle jest, but sufficient for a victim of that
calibre. It also seemed that they did not like him. They thought he
was a cad. They thought he spied upon them. His stammer they forgave,
for that went with his profession. But what they did not forgive
were sundry paragraphs in the Yellow Press of London concerning the
university, which came—as they had got to know in a round-about
manner—from that distinguished professor. They were not fond of his
charlatanism either. There is charlatanism and charlatanism; and a
Professorship of Psychology was more than the ingenuous undergraduate
soul could stomach. The youth of Oxford suspected that it was
impossible to profess Psychology—it was enormously right. They did not
know that even in that department of humbug Lord Hambourne had not read
a tithe of what his continental colleagues would have read. But they
had a vague feeling that there was something wrong. And there was: as
there is with the history, the philosophy, and a good many other things
connected with that ancient seat of learning.
He puzzled a little over why Aunt Hilda should have asked so poor a
man for that decisive week-end. But Bo could have told him. Aunt Hilda
had two reasons. First, a lord was a lord, and lords more lordly are
not easily lured to such houses as Rackham. Next, Lord Hambourne had
lineage—of a sort—and the other lords would be impressed.
And who was Lord Mere de Beaurivage? John Maple, in the ignorance and
folly of youth, had jumped—as youth in its ignorance and folly does
jump—to absurd conclusions. He had got his distorted picture from the
conversations of others almost as young as himself. How different
it was from the truth my reader shall soon learn. John had a vulgar
foolish caricature in his mind of innumerable new peers shamelessly
forcing themselves into their rank by bribery during the end of
the war. There are none such. It is an illusion. John saw, in that
imaginary host of vulgarians one vulgarian in no way distinguished from
the rest called “Old Bruvvish.” He was wildly wrong. George, First
Baron Mere de Beaurivage (pronounced “Bruvvish”) was unique.
John had heard just enough gossip to have told you that remarkable
man’s family name before his elevation to the peerage, or barony—if you
will. It was, as we have heard, Huggins. No doubt John Maple, proud of
his three or four generations of declining squire’s wealth (himself,
remember, sprung from the cattle-dealer) would have sneered at the
origins of George Adolphus Huggins, First Baron Mere de Beaurivage—and
that, I think, is a very good example of how little men know themselves
and their antecedents. For George Adolphus Huggins, as my reader will
learn in a moment, well merited the great position which he had taken
step by step with a few hundreds of others in the social leadership of
Britain.
From first feeling of Rackham as an ideal Lady de Beaurivage had come
to dwell on it as it was in real bricks and timber. She heard rumours
that Hilda might conceivably sell—but Hilda had seen that those rumours
should be mixed with accounts of her passionate attachments to the
place and her reluctance to leave it. And Hilda had heard rumours
that Amathea was in the market. She had not laboured in vain—but time
pressed.
Anyhow, John was in for it. He was to go down to Rackham that week-end,
and he was to meet with what I suppose I may call, for the purposes of
my narrative, The Three Peers.
(They were all Barons, by the way. Since the American invasion even
English gentlemen have begun to distinguish between Barons, Earls,
Viscounts and Marquesses. They always did distinguish Dukes: but to
return to my black sheep.)
The Three Peers ... Lord Hellup was, after all, Bo’s father, and
what’s more, he had snap. John both admired and got on with him—in
spite of too much quotation from Motley’s _Dutch Republic_, which that
well-read man perpetually carried in his pocket in a cheap edition, now
one volume, now another, feasting his mind upon the heroic conduct of
commercial men in their resistance to mere soldiers.
Lord Hambourne he knew all about at secondhand. Lord Mere de
Beaurivage, as I have said, he misjudged. But after all, the boy was
less to blame than those who had taught him this disrespectful way of
regarding so great a man.
Well, he would play up to them all.
But it is time that I dissipated in my reader’s mind John’s
misapprehension of Lord Mere de Beaurivage, and, if she will excuse me,
I will now proceed to give her a true estimate of that considerable
English peer.