"Yes. I would not speak of it to everybody; in fact, I have spoken of it to no one; but recently, examining some doc.u.ments in my muniment-room, I made a discovery as interesting to me as it must be to you. Our ancestors three hundred years ago--in 1600, to be exact--were fellow conspirators."
"Ah, the old Gowrie game, to capture the King?" asked Logan, who had once kidnapped a cat.
His knowledge of history was mainly confined to that obscure and unexplained affair, in which his wicked old ancestor is thought to have had a hand.
"That is it," said the visitor--"the Gowrie mystery! You may remember that an unknown person, a friend of your ancestor, was engaged?"
"Yes," said Logan; "he was never identified. Was his name Harris?"
The peer half rose to his feet, flushed a fine purple, twiddled the obsolete little grey tuft on his chin, and sat down again.
"I think I said, Mr. Logan, that the hitherto unidentified a.s.sociate of your ancestor was _a member of my own family_. Our name is _not_ Harris--a name very honourably borne--our family name is Guevara. My ancestor was a cousin of the brave Lord Willoughby."
"Most interesting! You must pardon me, but as n.o.body ever knew what you have just found out, you will excuse my ignorance," said Logan, who, to be sure, had never heard of the brave Lord Willoughby.
"It is I who ought to apologise," said the visitor. "Your mention of the name of Harris appeared to me to indicate a frivolity as to matters of the past which, I must confess, is apt to make me occasionally forget myself. _n.o.blesse oblige_, you know: we respect ourselves--in our progenitors."
"Unless he wants to prevent someone from marrying his great-grandmother, I wonder what he is doing with his Tales of a Grandfather _here_,"
thought Logan, but he only smiled, and said, "a.s.suredly--my own opinion.
I wish I could respect _my_ ancestor!"
"The gentleman of whom I speak, the a.s.sociate of your own distant progenitor, was the founder of our house, as far as mere t.i.tles are concerned. We were but squires of Northumbria, of ancient Celtic descent, before the time of Queen Elizabeth. My ancestor at that time--"
"Oh bother his pedigree!" thought Logan.
"--was a young officer in the English garrison of Berwick, and _he_, I find, was _your_ ancestor"s unknown correspondent. I am not skilled in reading old hands, and I am anxious to secure a trustworthy person--really trustworthy--to transcribe the ma.n.u.scripts which contain these exciting details."
Logan thought that the office of the Disentanglers was hardly the place to come to in search of an historical copyist. However, he remembered Miss Willoughby, and said that he knew a lady of great skill and industry, of good family too, upon whom his client might entirely depend.
"She is a Miss Willoughby," he added.
"Not one of the Willoughbys of the Wicket, a most worthy, though unfortunate house, nearly allied, as I told you, to my own, about three hundred years ago?" said the Earl.
"Yes, she is a daughter of the last squire."
"Ruined in the modern race for wealth, like so many!" exclaimed the peer, and he sat in silence, deeply moved; his lips formed a name familiar to Law Courts.
"Excuse my emotion, Mr. Logan," he went on. "I shall be happy to see and arrange with this lady, who, I trust will, as my cousin, accept my hospitality at Rookchester. I shall be deeply interested, as you, no doubt, will also be, in the result of her researches into an affair which so closely concerns both you and me."
He was silent again, musing deeply, while Logan marvelled more and more what his real original business might be. All this affair of the doc.u.ments and the muniment-room had arisen by the merest accident, and would not have arisen if the Earl had found Merton at home. The Earl obviously had a difficulty in coming to the point: many clients had. To approach a total stranger on the most intimate domestic affairs (even if his ancestor and yours were in a big thing together three hundred years ago) is, to a sensitive patrician, no easy task. In fact, even members of the middle cla.s.s were, as clients, occasionally affected by shyness.
"Mr. Logan," said the Earl, "I am not a man of to-day. The cupidity of our age, the eagerness with which wealthy aliens are welcomed into our best houses and families, is to me, I may say, distasteful. Better that our coronets were dimmed than that they should be gilded with the gold eagles of Chicago or blazing with the diamonds of Kimberley. My feelings on this point are unusually--I do not think that they are unduly--acute."
Logan murmured a.s.sent.
"I am poor," said the Earl, with all the expansiveness of the shy; "but I never held what is called a share in my life."
"It is long," said Logan, with perfect truth, "since anything of that sort was in my own possession. In that respect my "scutcheon, so to speak, is without a stain."
"How fortunate I am to have fallen in with one of sentiments akin to my own, unusual as they are!" said the Earl. "I am a widower," he went on, "and have but one son and one daughter."
"He is coming to business _now_," thought Logan.
"The former, I fear, is as good almost as affianced--is certainly in peril of betrothal--to a lady against whom I have not a word to say, except that she is inordinately wealthy, the sole heiress of--" Here the Earl gasped, and was visibly affected. "You may have heard, sir," the patrician went on, "of a commercial transaction of nature unfathomable to myself--I have not sought for information," he waved his hand impatiently, "a transaction called a Straddle?"
Logan murmured that he was aware of the existence of the phrase, though unconscious of its precise meaning.
"The lady"s wealth is based on a successful Straddle, operated by her only known male ancestor, in--Bristles--Hogs" Bristles and Lard," said the Earl.
"Miss Bangs!" exclaimed Logan, knowing the name, wealth, and the source of the wealth of the ruling Chicago heiress of the day.
"I am to be understood to speak of Miss Bangs--as her name has been p.r.o.nounced between us--with all the respect due to youth, beauty, and an amiable disposition," said the peer; "but Bristles, Mr. Logan, Hogs"
Bristles and Lard. And a Straddle!"
"Lucky devil, Scremerston," thought Logan, for Scremerston was the only son of Lord Embleton, and he, as it seemed, had secured that coveted prize of the youth of England, the heart of the opulent Miss Bangs. But Logan only sighed and stared at the wall as one who hears of an irremediable disaster.
"If they really were betrothed," said Lord Embleton, "I would have nothing to say or do in the way of terminating the connection, however unwelcome. A man"s word is his word. It is in these circ.u.mstances of doubt (when the fortunes of a house ancient, though t.i.tularly of mere Tudor _n.o.blesse_, hang in the balance) that, despairing of other help, I have come to you."
"But," asked Logan, "have things gone so very far? Is the disaster irremediable? I am acquainted with your son, Lord Scremerston; in fact, he was my f.a.g at school. May I speak quite freely?"
"Certainly; you will oblige me."
"Well, by the candour of early friendship, Scremerston was called the Arcadian, an allusion to a certain tenderness of heart allied with--h"m--a rather confident and sanguine disposition. I think it may console you to reflect that perhaps he rather overestimates his success with the admirable young lady of whom we spoke. You are not certain that she has accepted him?"
"No," said the Earl, obviously relieved. "I am sure that he has not positively proposed to her. He knows my opinion: he is a dutiful son, but he did seem very confident--seemed to think that his honour was engaged."
"I think we may discount that a little," said Logan, "and hope for the best."
"I shall try to take that view," said the Earl. "You console me infinitely, Mr. Logan."
Logan was about to speak again, when his client held up a gently deprecating hand.
"That is not all, Mr. Logan. I have a daughter--"
Logan chanced to be slightly acquainted with the daughter, Lady Alice Guevara, a very nice girl.
"Is she attached to a South African Jew?" Logan thought.
"In this case," said the client, "there is no want of blood; Royal in origin, if it comes to that. To the House of Bourbon I have no objection, in itself, that would be idle affectation."
Logan gasped.
Was this extraordinary man anxious to reject a lady "multimillionaire"
for his son, and a crown of some sort or other for his daughter?
"But the stain of ill-gotten gold--silver too--is ineffaceable."
"It really cannot be Bristles this time," thought Logan.