Amathea, First Baroness de Beaurivage, stood in ecstacy upon the lawn,
holding darling Hilda’s arm solidly in the crook of hers—two solid
arms well interlocked. In spite of the thickness and the shortness of
her neck, she carried her head a little upon one side, partly from the
intensity of her emotions, more through her conviction that such an
attitude befitted the occasion.
“Oh, Ilda!” she said, “darling Ilda, wot a gem! What a reel Jule!” Then
she sighed. “I wish the Prime Minister could see it, that I do,” she
continued. “Yer can’t think ’ow ’ot ’e is on old English ’ouses. Why,
I tell you strite, Ilda, show that man an old English ’ouse, and he
just fair goes off the deep end—as the saying is. He said to me once,
he did, ‘Amathea,’ he says—’e calls me Amathea, ’cos Uggins don’t like
him to call me Mattie—yet we’re pals, ye’ know——” and here she nudged
her hostess strongly in the rib with a powerful elbow, and that lady,
having before her one approach to fifty thousand pounds, stalwartly
bore the blow.
“There’ll never be another like ’im, Ilda,” went on the Baroness
sentimentally, and in a rather lower tone. “Never no more! There’ll
be another in ’is place, no doubt—one passeth and another cometh—as
the good book says. It’s the rule of them great Parliament men, they
pass away like the flowers o’ the field. Yus, and it’s the rule of the
’ole world too.” She shook her head. “Mebbe they’ll get some ’ighbrow
in his room: but we’ll never see the likes of ’im again—not in that
plice. ’Owever, he’s there now, and long may he stick. A treasure,
Ilda.” (Then she was off on the house again.) “To see all that quiet,
and them old trees, and all so peaceful like, and timber on the front
and all—oh, it fair sets me envious. Aren’t you ’appy, Ilda, aren’t you
’appy in a plice like this?”
Aunt Hilda sighed in her turn, profoundly.
“Dearest Amathea,” she said, with a Christian squeezing of the arm that
had so lately dealt her such a cruel blow (you are too young, reader,
to know what it will feel like to get a bang in the ribs from the elbow
of a peeress and sister-friend in your fiftieth year), “I shall hate to
leave it.”
“Oo talks of yer leavin’ it? Why, you’re the queen o’ the place,”
answered the noblewoman, not without guile, but in her business-like
heart she was murmuring, “Artful, artful! That artful!”
“Sometimes,” said Hilda Maple, disengaging her arm for one moment in
the desire to breathe, and under the excuse of smoothing her kilt,
“sometimes I think that I can’t bear to leave it, and that some day I
might hope.... Then, you know, there comes back to me all that I owe
to the family and the name, and how Rackham ought always to be in Maple
hands.... And then I remember how the poor boy ...” she shrugged her
shoulders, “well, Mattie, you know what _he_ is.”
“I’m shore he’s an ’andsome, well-set-up young feller,” said Mattie.
“Yes, yes,” sighed Hilda again. “He’s all that. But you know what he
is. He could never keep the place up. He will never really _earn_.
His poor father was just like him.... That’s why I sometimes think
... well, that I ought to realise and leave the poor lad, when I am
gone ...” (she sighed again, as though she were on the brink of the
grave) “with a solid lump of money behind him anyhow.” She glanced at
her companion. “But well tied up, Mattie—you understand me. Well tied
up. I wouldn’t trust him to keep a penny of it, any more than his poor
dear father.” And Mattie nodded confidence. “Sometimes I think it’s
my duty,” Hilda Maple went on, “to sell.... And then sometimes I feel
torn and distracted....” She clasped her hands, and cast upwards a gaze
which took in the gables of Rackham and the lower part of the sky. “But
to think of Rackham no longer in Maple hands!” The distinguished figure
of Sir Harry Murtenshaw rose before her eyes, the romantic marriage—but
no ghost. She had already forgotten about _Him_.
Mattie hadn’t.
“Ow! It’s all so romantic! An’ the gowst an’ all!” resumed that lady,
capturing her hostess’ arm once again and leading her towards the door
of the hall. “I wish we ud ad a gowst at home when I was young, that I
do,” and she shook her head. “But there, you can’t have everything!”
There was a pause upon the gravel, and the two ladies made their
majestic progress towards the entry of those ancient walls. The one was
ardently longing for an advance—I do not mean a prepayment (for the
moment), but a suggestion of purchase. The other was considering the
best form in which that suggestion might be made. Hilda Maple, having,
if that were possible, the higher breeding, had the more rapid process
of brain; and the initiative came from her.
“You know, Amathea,” she said gently, reverting to more formality,
“that Lord ... that your husband has spoken of buying the place?” Her
tone was thoughtful, gentle, and a little pensive too.
“Why, Hilda Maple,” answered the peeress, standing back as though in
amaze, “oo’d ’ave thought it?”
“Yes,” went on her hostess, still pensive, still subdued, and she
sighed again yet more profoundly than before. “Oh, I wish there
was someone to make up our minds for us, as there was when we were
children! What am I to say? What am I to do? I can’t bear to leave the
place, and yet.... And yet.... I think I know where my duty lies. When
I had several offers for it,” she added, lying gently, “I mean, just
after the war, when there were so many people after it, I refused,
as you know.” (It was the first time Mattie had heard of it—and no
wonder!) “But things were different then; my brother-in-law was alive,
and the boy seemed such a child. And now, of course, when it’s quite
a different place in value, with all the changes I’ve made, and the
improvements, they will come offering me more than they did, and I
shall be tempted. I know I shall. But I do promise you this, Mattie. I
won’t even mention figures till I have given you and your husband first
choice. There! I’ve said it now!”
“I knew you would!” answered Mattie impulsively, at the door, and
suddenly kissing her friend. “Oh, you’re strite and loyal, you are!
Pity it is there ain’t more like you. It’s what I was saying to the
Prime Minister only the other day, when he said that about Uggins. He
said, ‘Amathea,’ he said (he calls me Amathea, ’cos I won’t let him
call me Mattie—I don’t think it’s right, nor he wouldn’t neither),
‘Amathea,’ ’e says, ‘that ’usband of yours is one of a thousand. And do
you know why I ses it?’ ses he. ‘Because he’s _strite_,’ ses he. ‘He
runs _strite_,’ ses ’e. ‘I tell you, Amathea,’ he ses, ‘a man that runs
strite is a jule.’ And you run strite too, Ilda, you do. That’s what ’e
said. Them was the identical words!”
So the song ended—as the poet Longfellow somewhere remarks—and the
two ladies strolled into the hall. Amathea, with an agility worthy
of a better cause, rapidly performed the pounding gymnastics which
she called “popping upstairs.” She had certain calculations to make,
certain notes.
As for Hilda, she was turning towards her room, herself also intent on
certain notes, certain calculations, when she heard a firm and regular
step, which she knew. It was Lord Hellup. He had just caught up his
expensive but reasonable grey hat, and his not demonstrative but costly
gold-headed cane, and was about, as befitted the creases in his clothes
and the exactitude of his coat, to adorn the gardens of Rackham. He
had an hour before tea. He was suddenly aware that Hilda stood before
him. I am sorry to say that he impulsively took her hand, as though he
were meeting her for the first time in some days. But he smiled and
she smiled, and he begged her to show him the rosery of which she had
spoken.
So they went out together, he sixty or so, she fifty, and the spring
around them both, and in the rosery they talked of roses.
On the way back Hilda Maple led the way round, still talking in the
manner he found so engrossing, with such refinement, such subtlety,
such charm, as none other but he had noticed in her conversation,
until, turning out of the shrubbery, they found themselves upon the
lawn where so lately Lady Mere de Beaurivage had stood, where Lord
Hellup now was—but with this difference, that Lord Hellup had far too
much respect for womankind to link his arm in Hilda’s; contrariwise,
his hung somewhat awkwardly along his flank.
Hilda Maple gazed at Rackham with a world of affection in her eyes.
Lord Hellup stood by watching, admiring, nearly worshipping that gaze.
It apprehended the gables of Rackham, and the lower part of the sky.
“I can’t bear to think of leaving it,” she said in a subdued voice, and
there was a little catch in it, almost like a sob.
“Why, Mercy!” cried the candid gentleman from overseas, “you’re sure
not thinking of leaving it, Mrs. Maple! Why, we associate you with
Rackham, and Rackham with you, like hand and glove. You’re necessary
to Rackham, Mrs. Maple,” he added, with an emphatic enthusiasm, and he
very nearly continued, “and Rackham’s necessary to you,” when his quick
mind perceived that this would be a blunder. He said, with something
almost like tenderness in his tone, and with a drop of two notes in his
voice, “I could not bear to think of Rackham without you, Mrs. Maple.”
She sighed—that same sigh.
“There was a time when I would not have dreamed of it, Lord Hellup,”
she answered. “You know, these things are very difficult to talk
about——” she delicately put the tips of her fingers upon his arm for
a moment, and at once withdrew them. “But now I have begun perhaps
I ought to say it. When they were making all those offers for the
place—just at the end of the war....”
“Were they _so_?” inquired Lord Hellup with interest, and a most
intelligent look in his eyes.
“Yes, yes,” said Hilda Maple hurriedly. “Well, I wouldn’t hear of it
then. It seemed to me abominable that Rackham should leave the Maple
name. But then, you know, my brother-in-law was alive then, and John
was only a boy. I refused them. Of course, it’s more valuable now: that
was before I had done anything to the place, and I must say,” she went
on prettily, and smiling at him as she said it, “I have made it what it
used to be. I do think I may be proud of it.”
“Why, sure, you can,” answered the magnate emphatically. “It’s the
niftiest little nest I’ve seen this side of the water. The more I see
of it, the more I think so. And so does Bo,” he added hurriedly; to
support his judgment lest by any chance his hostess should disagree
with him. He repeated himself. “The niftiest little nest this side the
water.”
The adjectives and noun were not those which Hilda Maple would herself
have chosen. Rackham Catchings was not so little, after all, and there
was something impertinent about “nifty,” seeing that the foundations
were pre-monstrous, or whatever the word was. But she had that in her
mind which made verbal niceties unimportant.
“My heart’s been torn, Lord Hellup,” she said, with a rising voice (and
she clasped her hands). “But I think it’s my duty to provide.... You
know what the boy is.”
“He’s some lad,” replied Lord Hellup politely. It was not what Aunt
Hilda wanted.
“Yes, yes,” she said, almost impatiently—English people are sometimes
a little like that with their trans-Atlantic cousins. “Oh, I know his
talents, and he’s a dear boy. But,” shaking her head, “he could never
keep up Rackham!” She sighed again. “It’s the same old story. Like
father, like son. He’s like his father before him. I’m afraid it’s
my duty to see when I’m gone that there shall be solid money behind
him—well tied up. When I am gone ...” she added, putting a bell-like
tone into her voice and receiving, what she had expected, an ardent
protest from her companion.
“Yes, yes,” she sighed, in reply to it, “it may be a long time yet—or
it may not. But I have got to think of the boy.”
Poor woman! She had got to think of the Esthonian as well! Of him who
was to her Mr. Rupert de Vere.
“I don’t know—I don’t know,” she went on, in a carefully distracted
voice, and once more she put her hand on Lord Hellup’s arm, this time
less briefly. “We women need advice. No ... I have made up my mind.
It’s my duty to sell.... I even, sometimes, think I ought to take the
price that was offered me last month by that odious tea broker.”
Lord Hellup had not heard of the tea broker, friend of his hostess
though he was. And why should he—since the tea broker did not exist?
Lord Hellup had passed his life in business. His judgment of prices,
he would often tell himself, might be compared to the glance of an
eagle. He could not help wondering what the odious tea broker man had
suggested for Rackham Catchings. But Hilda was not “talking”—yet.
They were now off the lawn and upon that gravel path going back to the
door, after another such silence as Amathea also had known in that same
place not very long before. Just as they reached the threshold, Hilda
looked up frankly into her friend’s eyes. There was a suspicion of
tears in her own, which moved that friend profoundly.
“When once I’m _certain_ it’s my duty to sell, I shall do it,” she
said. She shook her head again sadly. “But I can’t bear to think of
myself without Rackham.”
“And we,” said Lord Hellup, in a low, deep voice, suitable to the
occasion, and most sincerely moved, “we” (he used the impersonal term)
“could not bear to think of Rackham without you.” He took her hand
again—I am sorry to say that it was his intention to have kissed the
tips of her fingers, but found she had withdrawn them. The peer was
annoyed with the fear that he had perhaps broken some social canon or
other. But Hilda Maple was not cruel, for as she went away, their last
words exchanged, she smiled.
So much for sixty years and fifty years. Now let us come to
calculations.
* * * * *
At the table in her room Lady Mere de Beaurivage did, as she put it to
herself, some figuring. She was an adept at the art, from the days when
she had marked prices in chalk with lightning strokes upon the sides of
the barrow in the Old Kent Road. She had improved in the later days,
when she had cheapened furniture for the new villa of which she had
been so proud in the suburbs, before the Great Change.
But since the Great Change I must admit that Amathea, Baroness Mere de
Beaurivage had begun to let things slide. The money was there in such
heaps that really it didn’t seem to matter what one did. Her passion
for Rackham had got hold of her. She knew enough of buying and selling
to make certain that the place was within her reach if enough were
offered. It was only a question of what enough was. She could usually
manage her lord, but she knew that in one thing the management was not
always easy; and that one thing was money. For like all those whose
genius has led them to accumulate a considerable fortune rapidly, Lord
Mere de Beaurivage was in some terror of losing it. She remembered
what other friends had paid for houses and what other friends had sold
at. Her desire for the place led her further to remember how often
she had heard of the special value of these modest country houses of
ancient memory; what a drug in the market were the great hulking stone
places of the eighteenth century, and what a demand there was for these
Tudor and timbered gems.
Before she had done dreaming of it, the good woman had got as her top
price, at the back of her head—counting all—something like £60,000.
After all, it was not her money. And what is £60,000 in two millions?
Besides which, it was only £3,000 a year anyhow; and what’s three
thousand a year when you were born to an uncertain pound a week? The
great thing is to get what you want. Three thousand a year—but that’s
not the way to look at it—£60,000. Why, there are toffs as ull give
that for a trumpery picture!
And then, there was no one to inherit from them. And she asked herself
sentimentally whether Huggins and she had not the right to enjoy what
was left of their lives. And there could not be anything else like
Rackham. There were not two places like Rackham—not in all England
there weren’t.
In Amathea’s room, therefore, the figure of Sixty Thousand Pounds had
taken root and had sprung.
Through a wall not too thick (for it was in the new or Catchings wing,
and the walls were damnably antique) at another desk, Hilda Maple was
making _her_ calculations also. She drew the figures wearily enough.
£20,000 would clear her. What was desperate, what was immediate was de
Vere of Jermyn Street.
It was to pay the first five hundred, and so get the Esthonian to
renew, all those months ago, just after the Ancestor, that she had
written, on the advice of an acquaintance familiar with antiques, to
Blunt of Bristol, and really Blunt had been very nice about it. She had
a full three months in which to meet it. But when Blunt had to be met
for the renewal—he pressed her courteously by post, she had never seen
him—he pleaded the smallness of his capital; he recommended that very
honourable firm, or rather, private advancer, a Mr. de Vere of Jermyn
Street. And Mr. de Vere had been quite charming. He had advanced enough
to permit Blunt of Bristol to renew for another three months. And he
himself had fixed a very easy date for his own repayment. But that easy
date had fallen due a whole week ago—and how he had pestered her. He
had made her dread the telephone.
She must have something to show him. Anything in writing. Even a
private note. It was a little desperate; but she did think she could
get it before the break-up on Monday.
It was not too late, Sunday though it was. She knew from sad
experience that de Vere could use the telephone from his end on a
Sunday afternoon, and she doubted not that she could call him up from
hers.
She took up the receiver; and sure enough that smooth voice answered in
velvet from the other end. Her own voice as she continued was all as
smooth.
“Is that Mr. de Vere? Mr. Rupert de Vere? Oh, Mr. Rupert,” settling
down, and still more sweetly, “I am so glad of the opportunity of
telling you—yes, I know. I didn’t want to make you talk business
on a Sunday” (sudden change to an expression of anguish). “Oh, no,
surely, dear Mr. Rupert. Not Monday! Why, that’s to-morrow! Yes, yes”
(pettishly), “I know that’s the date on the paper—a week ago—yes—but
there’s common sense in these matters—no—yes—exactly. Do wait a minute.
I’ve practically sold the place. No, no, Mr. Rupert, you haven’t heard
that so often before. I tell you it’s _virtually_ sold. There’s Lord
Hellup who has virtually accepted—practically. And then, you know,
there’s the other one here too—Lord Mere de Beaurivage—not heard of
him? Oh, nonsense, you must have heard of him! Dear Mr. Rupert, he’s
positively dripping with it. No, no” (shouting) “BRUVVISH—I’ll spell
it” (slowly) “B E A U R I” (angrily). “It’s damnable—you’ve cut me off
... yes, yes, another three minutes. Yes. Oh, are you _there_, Mr.
Rupert? Yes, I know they did, the brutes. I’ll spell it again. B for
buffalo, E for Edward, A for affluent, U for ugly, R for rancid, I for
innocent, V for vulgar—yes, that’s it” (emphatically) “precisely. Sir
George Huggins that was. Yes, only he pronounces it Bruvvish—I thought
you’d know. He’s the man whom the Prime Minister—yes, exactly, dear Mr.
Rupert. Oh, thank you _so_ much. Tuesday, then? I may see you Tuesday?
Oh, that makes _all_ the difference” (peevishly). “Well, you don’t
suppose I can come with the agreement in my pocket! What? Something in
writing? Oh, yes, certainly. Well, then, Tuesday. Thank you so much,
dear Mr. Rupert! Tuesday morning—that’ll be perfect ... G-o-o-d b-y-e.”
Aunt Hilda hung up the receiver, exhausted, faced the situation, and
muttered bravely, “Hell!”
Meanwhile her nephew was making history with her butler, Isabeau Hellup
concurring.