The Earl of Kingsmead lay flat on his stomach on the warm, short grass
by the carp-pond, and studied therein the ponderous manoeuvres of an
ancient fish, believed by the people thereabouts to be something over
two hundred years old. Carp had a great charm for Lord Kingsmead; so had
electricity; so had toads; so had buns, and stable-boys, and pianolas,
and armour, and curates, and chocolates.
Everything was full of interest to this interesting nobleman, and the
most beautiful part of it was that there was beyond Kingsmead and the
very restricted area of London that he had hitherto been allowed to
investigate, a whole world full of things strange, undreamed-of,
delightful, and, best of all, dangerous, to the study of which he meant
to dedicate every second of the time that spread between that moment as
he lay on the grass and the horrid hour when he should be carried to the
family vault surrounded by sobbing relations.
For Tommy Kingsmead was one of those most unusual persons who understand
the value of life as it dribbles through their fingers in seconds,
instead of, like most people, losing the vibrant present in a useless
(because invariably miscalculated) study of the future.
This morning he had devoted to a keen investigation of several matters
of palpitating interest.
Had Fledge, the butler, who had apparently been at Kingsmead since the
beginning of the world, any teeth, or did his flexible, long lips hide
only gums? Until that day the problem had never suggested itself to
Fledge's master, but when it did, it roused in him a passion of
curiosity that had to be satisfied, after the failure of a series of
diplomatic attempts by the putting of a plain question.
"I say, Fledge."
"My lord?"
"--You never _do_ really open your mouth, you know--except, I suppose,
when you eat----"
"Yes, my lord."
"You just, well--fumble with your lips. So--I say, Fledge, _have_ you
any teeth?"
And Fledge, possibly because he was a man of principle, but probably
also because he suspected that his master's next words might take the
form of an order to open his mouth, told the truth. He had three teeth
only.
"And look here, Fledge, why do William's toes turn out at such a fearful
angle?"
Pledge's heart was in the plate-closet at that moment, but his patience
was monumental.
"I don't know, my lord--unless it's because 'e's only just left off
being knife-boy--they get used to standing at the sink a-washing up, my
lord, and William's feet is large, so I dessay he turned 'is toes out in
order to get near and not splash."
This elucidation appeared plausible as well as interesting to
Kingsmead, and he felt that in learning something of the habits of the
genus knife-boy he had added to his stock of human information, which he
undoubtedly had.
Then at lunch there had been the little matter of Bicky's dressmaker's
bill. The mater had been her crossest, and Bicky her silentest, and the
bill, discussed in French, a disgusting and superfluous language, the
acquirement of which Kingsmead had used much skill in evading, lay on
the table. It lay there, forgotten, after the two ladies had left the
room, but Kingsmead was a gentleman. So, later he had sought out his
sister and coaxed her into telling him the hair-raising sum to which
amounted the "two or three frocks" she had had that summer.
He had also learned that Mr. Yelverton, the Carrons, the Newlyns, and
Théo Joyselle were coming that afternoon, and what the _real_ reason was
that had made the Frenshaws wire they could not come. It had not at all
surprised him to hear that the reason given in the wire was utterly
false, for, like other people, Kingsmead was bound by his horizon.
On the whole, his day had been a busy one, and the valuable acquisitions
of knowledge that I have mentioned, together with a few scraps of
information on stable and garage matters, had brought him quite
comfortably up to four o'clock, when, as he idled across the lawn, that
rum old carp had caught, and held, his eye.
It was a very warm day in October, a day most unusual in its mellow
beauty; soft sunshine lay on the lawn and lent splendour to the not very
large Tudor house off to the left.
The air of gentle, self-satisfied decrepitude worn by the old place was
for the moment lost, and it looked new, clean-cut and almost gaudy, as
it must have done in the distant days when it was young. It was a
becoming day for the ancient building, as candle-light is becoming to an
old beauty and brings back a fleeting and pathetic air of youth to her
still lovely features.
Above, the sky was very blue, and the ruminating silence was broken only
by the honk-honk of a distant motor. The carp, impeded in his lethargic
progress by the thick stem of a water-lily, had stood still (if a fish
can be said to stand) for a century--nearly five minutes--his silly old
nose pointing stubbornly at the obstacle.
"_It_ won't move, so you'll have to," observed Kingsmead, wriggling a
little nearer, "Oh, I say _do_ buck up, or you'll never get there----"
And the carp, quite as if he understood, did buck up, and slid away into
the shadow of the rhododendrons.
Kingsmead rose slowly and picked up his cap. What should he do next? The
puppies weren't bad, nor the new under-gardener who swore so awfully at
his inferior, nor----
"Hello, Tommy."
"Hello, Bicky."
Brigit Mead wore a short blue skirt, brown shoes, a pink wash-silk
blouse made like a man's shirt, and a green felt hat that obviously
belonged to someone else. She was dressed like thousands of English
girls, and she looked as though the blood in her might be any in the
world but English. Hers was an enigmatic, narrow, high-bred face,
crowned by masses of dry black hair, and distinguished from any other
face most people had ever seen by the curved line of her little nose and
the colourless darkness of her very long, half-closed, heavily lashed
eyes. She looked sulky, disagreeable, and secretive, but she was
strangely and undeniably beautiful. Her long, thin-lipped mouth was too
close shut, but it was of an exquisite satin texture, scarlet in colour,
and when she said "Hello, Tommy," it melted into the most enchanting and
indescribable curves, showing just a glimpse of pointed white teeth.
Kingsmead studied her gravely for a moment.
"Been crying?"
"Yes."
"That bill?"
"Yes, that bill, you horrid little boy. There's a long worm in your
hair."
Kingsmead removed the worm.
"Mater been nasty?"
"Beastly."
"_H'm_. I say, Bick, I saw Ponty yesterday."
Brigit, who had turned and was gazing across the lawn, looked at him
without moving her head, a trick which is not at all English.
"Did you, now?"
"I did. He is dining here, he says. He is also sending you some flowers.
I told him," added the boy dreamily, "that we had lots ourselves."
After a moment, as she did not speak, he went on, "Poor old thing, why
did you poggle him so awfully, Bicky? You really _are_ a horrid girl,
you know."
"I didn't poggle him."
She did not turn, she did not smile, and the sombreness that was the
dominant expression of her face was strange to see in a girl of her age.
"Well----" Kingsmead's small countenance, so different from hers in its
look of palpitating interest and curiosity, suddenly flushed a deep and
a beautiful red. "I say, old girl," he broke out, "_are_ you going to?"
And she, silent and unresponsive as she was, could not avoid answering
him.
"Well, Tommy dear--I don't know, but I suppose I shall."
"I don't like him, poor thing, and I wish you--mustn't."
"That's exactly the word. I fear I must." Her eyes nearly closed as she
refused to frown. "This kind of thing can't go on for ever."
"You mean the mater. Well, look here, Bicky, she'll be better when
Carron is here--she always is."
"Oh, Tommy----"
"But she _is_. She obeys him rather, don't you think? I suppose because
he was a friend of father's. Is she really very bad to-day?"
"Yes."
"Well, why don't you ask him to tell her to chuck it? I say, dear old
thing, I wish I were nine years older!"
"If you were, I should be thirty-four!"
"I meant about the beastly money."
She laughed. "Funny little kiddie! _You_ aren't going to have any money
either. If we lived within our means we'd be enjoying life in a villa in
some horrible suburb. We are hideously poor, Kingsmead."
She so rarely called him by his name that the boy felt alarmed.
Pontefract, with his red neck and his short legs, seemed suddenly very
near.
"Isn't there anyone else?" he blurted out, as she led the way towards
the house. "I mean, any other chap with money?"
"No one with as much. And then, he isn't so very bad, Tommy. He's
good-natured. Think of Clandon, or--Negroponte!" Her shudder was
perfectly genuine.
"But Pontefract is so thundering old!"
She made no reply, and after a minute he went on: "What about Théo
Joyselle?"
"My dear child, he is three years younger than I, even counting in bare
years! And in reality I am twenty years too old for him. Silly little
boy, don't bother about me." And her face, as she smiled down at her
brother, was very pleasant as well as very beautiful.
"But he has money----"
She nodded.
"And----"
"How did you know that, imp?"
"Having eyes to see, I saw. And I'd like to be an In-law to Victor
Joyselle. I'd make him play to me all day. I say, I suppose she wouldn't
let us run up to hear him to-morrow?"
"Not she."
He sighed, and it was a grown-up sigh issuing from a child's throat, for
he loved music and had read the programme.
"How glorious the last one was! Upon my word, if I were you, I'd marry
Théo just to be that man's daughter-in-law."
Again she laughed and laid her hand on his head.
"Good old Thomas. He's a Norman peasant, remember--probably eats with
his knife. Oh, here's a motor--and it is Théo himself."
"Yes, speak of an angel and you hear his horn."
"Shall I tell him of your plan?" she teased as the motor slowed up.
But Tommy had disappeared, and in his place, small, freckled, and
untidy, it is true, but a gentlemanly host welcoming his mother's guest,
stood Lord Kingsmead.