We were going to beard the Scarlett lion in his den!
CHAPTER V
THE KNITTING WOMAN OF DUN MOAT
"I must and _shall_ have this place!" Terry said, as our humble taxi drove through the glorious old park, and came in sight of the house.
There were the old-world gardens; the statues; the fountains (it was a detail that they didn"t fount!); there were the white peac.o.c.ks (moulting); there was the moat so crammed with water-lilies that if the Scarletts had eaten the carp, they would never be missed. There were the "exquisite oriels," and above all, there was the twisted chimney!
An air of tragic neglect hung over everything. The gra.s.s needed mowing; the flowers grew as they liked. Gla.s.s was even missing from several windows. Still, it was miraculously the twin of the place we had described in our embarra.s.singly perfect "ad."
As we stood in front of the enormous, nail-studded door, and Terry pressed again and again an electric bell (the one modern touch about the place), he had the air of waiting a signal to go "over the top."
"You look fierce enough to bayonet fifty Boches off your own bat!" I whispered.
"Lady Scarlett _is_ a Boche, isn"t she?" he mumbled back. And just then--after we"d rung ten times--an old woman opened the door--a witch of an old woman; a witch out of a German fairy-book.
The instant I saw her, I felt that there was _something wrong_ about this house. From under wrinkled lids the woman peered out, ratlike; and though her lips were closed--leaving the first word to us--her eyes said, "What the devil do you want? Whatever it is, you won"t get it, so the sooner you go the better."
We had planned that I should start the ball rolling, by mention of my grandmother"s name. But Terry was bursting with renewed interest in life, and the woman was answering his question before I had time to speak. "Let the place? No, sir! His lordship refuses all offers. It is useless to make one. He does not see strangers."
"We are not strangers," I rapped out with all Grandmother"s haughtiness.
"Tell Lord Scarlett that the Princess di Miramare, grand-daughter of Mrs. Raleigh Courtenaye, wishes a few words with him."
_That_ was the way to manage her! She came of a breed over whom for centuries Prussian Junkers had power of life and death; and though she spoke English, it was with the precise wording of one who has learned the language painfully. In me she recognized the legitimate tyrant, and yielded.
We were admitted with reluctance into a magnificent hall which magically matched our description: stone-paved, with a vaulted roof, and an immense oriel window the height of two stories. While our gaze travelled from the carved stone chimney-piece to ancient suits of armour, and such Tudor and Jacobean furniture as remained unsold, a slight sound attracted our attention to the "historic staircase," with its "dog-gates."
A woman was coming down. She had knitting in her hand, and had dropped one of her needles. It was that which made the slight noise we"d heard; and Terry stepped quickly forward to pick it up.
His back was turned to me as he offered the stiletto-like instrument to its owner, so I could not see his face. But I could imagine that charming smile of his, as he looked up at the figure on the stairs. Just so might Sir Walter Raleigh have looked when he"d neatly spread his cloak for Queen Bess; and if he had happened to ask a favour then, it would have been hard for the sovereign to resist!
The woman coming downstairs did not resemble any portrait of the Virgin Queen. She was stout and short-necked; and with her hard, dark face, her implacable eyes, and her knitting, was as much like Madame Defarge in modern dress as a German could be. But even Madame Defarge was a woman!
And probably she used her influence now and then in favour of some handsome male head, preferring to see female ones pop into the sawdust!
Her face softened slightly as she accepted the needle, and stiffened again as I came forward.
"My husband is occupied," she said, in much the same stilted English as that of her old servant. "He sends his compliments to the Princess di Miramare and her friend, and hopes both will excuse him. If it is an offer for our place you have come to make, I must refuse in his name. We do not wish to move."
Her tone, her expression, gave to her words the solemnity of an oath sworn by a houseful of Medes and Persians.
It seemed that there was nothing left for us to do, save bow to Lady Scarlett"s decision, and retire defeated to our taxi. But I felt that my reputation as a Brightener was at stake, with Terry"s hopes. If we failed, instead of brightening I should have blighted him for ever! That couldn"t, shouldn"t be!
All there was of me yearned for an inspiration, and it came.
"My friend, Captain Burns, wouldn"t ask you to move," I heard myself saying. "He"s so anxious to have Dun Moat that he"d offer you any rent within reason, and would invite you to select some retired rooms for yourselves, where you might live undisturbed by the tenant. This house is so large it occurs to me that such an arrangement wouldn"t be uncomfortable."
Terry flashed me a look of amazement, which turned to acquiescence; and the surprise on Lady Scarlett"s face was encouraging. Evidently no one else had made such a suggestion. She seemed not only astonished, but tempted.
For a moment she reflected; then admitted that my proposal was a new one. She would submit it to her husband. They would talk it over if we cared to wait. We did care to; and the lady vanished like a stout ghost into the dimness of stony shadows.
Terry said that he felt his head growing gray, hair by hair, with suspense; but when Lady Scarlett came back at last no change could be seen by the naked eye.
"My husband and I will consider your proposal," she said, "provided the price is satisfactory, and taking it for granted that we agree on the rooms for our occupation. We should want those known as the "garden court suite." And we should ask one hundred and fifty pounds a week, for a possible term of ten weeks, on the proviso that we could terminate the tenancy with a fortnight"s notice at any time after the first month."
I was dumbfounded. The place, unique and beautiful as it was, had been allowed to run down so disastrously, and everything outside and inside seemed to be in such a state of disrepair, that it was worth at most a rent of thirty guineas a week. Terry might call himself rich, but surely he"d not consent to being rooked to that extent, in order to be landlord to his love. I expected him to protest, to bargain, and beat the lady down. But he brushed the financial question away like a cobweb, and began to haggle about the rooms.
"The money part will be all right," he said. "But I want a lady to come here--a lady who"s been ill. She must have the prettiest rooms there are: something overlooking the moat, with jolly oriel windows and plenty of old oak."
Lady Scarlett smiled. "There is no obstacle to that! The suite I specify is at the far end of the house, in a comparatively modern wing, and most people would think it the least desirable. We like it because it is compact and private. We can keep it going with one servant. It is called the "garden court suite" because it is built round a small square. There is a separate outside entrance, as well as one door communicating with the house. The suite has generally been occupied by a bachelor heir."
As she talked, Terry reflected. "Look here, Lady Scarlett!" he exclaimed, just contriving not to break in. "I"ve half a mind to confide in you. The truth is, I want to pose as the owner of this place. I suppose you wouldn"t sell it?"
"We could not if we would," replied the daughter of the German wine-seller. "It is entailed and the entail cannot be broken till our son comes of age."
"That settles _that_! But you said beforehand, nothing would induce you to turn out----"
"No money you could offer: not a thousand, not ten thousand a week--at least, at present. The garden court suite is the one solution."
"Well, so be it! But--I beg your pardon if I"m rude--could you--er--seem not to be there? Could I say I"d lent the rooms to someone I didn"t like to turn out? If you"d consent, I"d make it two hundred a week."
Lady Scarlett"s blackberry-and-skim-milk eyes lit. "You want the lady to believe that you have bought Dun Moat?"
For answer, he told her of our advertis.e.m.e.nt, and the result. I thought this a mistake. You"d only to look at the woman to see that she"d no sense of humour; and to confide in a person without one is courting trouble. Besides, I still had that impression of _something wrong_. I had no definite suspicion; but why had the Scarletts, poor as they were, determined to stick to the house? However, I could no more have stopped Terry Burns when he got going than I could have stopped a torrent by throwing in rose-petals. Which shows how he had changed. The worry a few days ago would have been to get him going!
As Lady Scarlett listened she knitted, with strong, predatory hands.
Language, they say, is used to conceal thought. So, it occurred to me, is knitting. I felt, watching her as a wise mouse should watch a cat, that she was making up her mind to some action more beneficial to herself than Terry. But for my life I couldn"t guess what. She seemed to weave a knitted screen between my mind and hers!
In the end, however, she announced that for two hundred pounds a week her family could--to all intents and purposes--blot itself temporarily out of existence, in the suite of the garden court. The American lady might believe them to be poor relations of Captain Burns, or even servants, for all she cared! Having arrived at this conclusion, she proposed fetching her husband, that an agreement of an informal kind might be drawn up. Again she vanished; and when Lord Scarlett appeared, it was alone.
There were a number of ancestral portraits hanging on the walls of the great hall: fox-faced men, most of them, with a prevailing, sharp-nosed, slant-eyed type; and "Bertie" Scarlett was no exception to the rule. As he came deliberately down the stairway which his wife had descended, I remembered a scandal of his youth that Grandmother had sketched. He"d been in a crack regiment once, and though desperately poor had tried to live as a smart man about town. At some country-house party he"d been accused of cheating at baccarat. The story was hushed up, but he had left the army; and people--particularly royalties--had looked down their noses at him ever since. His tweeds were shabby now, and he was growing middle-aged and bald; all the same he had the air of the leading man in a _cause celebre_. I hadn"t liked his wife, and I liked him as little!
He made the same point as hers: that the agreement might be terminated by him (_not_ by the tenant) with a fortnight"s notice, given at any time after the first month. This was a queer proviso, as queer as the family resolve to remain on the spot. And it seemed to me that one was part and parcel of the other, though I couldn"t see the link which united the two.
As for Terry, he puzzled over none of these things. He wanted the place even on preposterous terms. When Lord Scarlett had drawn up an agreement, his signature flashed across the paper like a streak of lightning, so wild was he to rush back to London bearing the news to his princess. Lord Scarlett--sure of his mad client--offered to have the agreement polished up in legal form without further bother for Captain Burns, and we were free to go.
Terry could talk of nothing on the way home but his marvellous luck.
_Hang_ the money! He"d have paid twice as much, if need be. The next thing was to smarten the place: buy some more "historic" furniture to fill the gaps made by sales, send down a decorator to see what beds, etc., needed renovating, have an expert look at the drains and the central heating (long unused) which had been put in with German money, engage a staff of servants for indoors and out; get hold of two or three young peac.o.c.ks whose tails hadn"t moulted.
"If I don"t care how much I spend, don"t you think we can make an earthly paradise of the place in a week?" he appealed.
"We?" I echoed. "Why, I thought my part was played!"
His grieved eyes reproached me. What? After going so far, I was going to desert him in the midst of the woods? He begged me to stand by him till all was ready to receive the Princess. If I didn"t, something was sure to go wrong.