The Ransoms, machine manufacturers from St. Louis, had made matters worse. Such wealth!--such careless, vulgar, easily gotten wealth!--heaped up by means that seemed to the outsider so facile, and were, in truth, for all but a small minority, so difficult. A commonplace man and a frivolous woman; yet possessed, through their mere money, of a power over life and its experiences, such as he, Faversham, might strive for all his days and never come near. It might be said of course--Herbert Ransom would probably say it--that all men are worth the wages they get; with an obvious deduction in his own case. But when or where had he ever _got his chance_--a real chance? Visions of the rich men among his acquaintance, sleek, half-breed financiers, idle, conceited youths of the "cla.s.ses,"
pushed on by family interest; pig-headed manufacturers, inheritors of fortunes they could never have made; the fatteners on colonial land and railway speculation--his whole mind rose in angry revolt against the notion that he could not have done, personally, as well as any of them, had there only been the initial shove, the favourable moment.
He envied those who had beaten him in the race, he frankly admitted it; but he must also allow himself the luxury of despising them.
Melrose was late.
Faversham rose and hobbled to the window, his hands on his sides, frowning--a gaunt figure in the rainy light. With the return of physical strength there had come a pa.s.sionate renewal of desire--desire for happiness and success. The figure of Lydia Penfold hovered perpetually in his mind. Marriage!--his whole being, moral and physical, cried out for it. But how was he ever to marry?--how could he ever give such a woman as that the setting and the scope she could reasonably claim?
"A bad day!" said a harsh voice behind him, "but all the better for business."
Faversham turned to greet his host, the mental and physical nerves tightening.
"Good morning. Well, here I am"--his laugh showed his nervousness--"at your disposal."
He settled himself in his chair. Melrose took a cigarette from the table, and offered one to his guest. He lit and smoked in silence for a few moments, then began to speak with deliberation:
"I gather from our conversations, Faversham, during the last few weeks that you have at the present moment no immediate or pressing occupation?"
Quick colour leapt in Faversham"s lean cheek.
"That is true. It happens to be true--for various reasons. But if you mean to imply by that, that I am necessarily--or willingly--an idler, you are mistaken."
"I did not mean to imply anything of the kind. I merely wished, so to speak, to clear the way for what I have to propose."
Faversham nodded. Melrose continued:
"For clearly it would be an impertinence on my part were I to attempt--suddenly--to lift a man out of a fixed groove and career, and suggest to him another. I should expect to be sent to the devil--and serve me right. But in your case--correct me if I am wrong--you seem not yet to have discovered the groove that suits you. Now I am here to propose to you a groove--and a career."
Faversham looked at him with astonishment. The gems, which had been so urgently present to his mind, receded from it. Melrose in his skullcap, sitting sideways in his chair, his cigarette held aloft, presented a profile which might have been that of some Venetian Doge, old, withered and crafty, engaged, say, in negotiation with a Genoese envoy.
"When you were first brought here," Melrose continued--"your presence, as Undershaw has no doubt told you--of course he has told you, small blame to him--was extremely distasteful to me. I am a recluse. I like no women--and d----d few men. I can do without them, that"s all; their intimate company, anyway: and my pursuits bring me all the amus.e.m.e.nt I require. Such at any rate was my frame of mind up to a few weeks ago. I don"t apologize for it in the least. Every man has a right to his own idiosyncrasies. But I confess that your society during the last few weeks--I am in no mood for mere compliment--has had a considerable effect upon me. It has revealed to me that I am no longer so young as I was, or so capable--apparently--of entertaining myself. At any rate your company--I put it quite frankly--instead of being a nuisance--has been a G.o.dsend. It has turned out that we have many of the same tastes; and your inheritance of the treasures collected by my old friend Mackworth"--("Ah!" thought Faversham, "now we come to it!")--"has made from the first, I think, a link between us. Have I your a.s.sent?"
"Certainly."
Melrose paused a moment, and then resumed. The impression he made was that of one rehearsing, point by point, a prepared speech.
"At the same time, I have become more aware than usual of the worries and annoyances connected with the management of my estates. We live, sir, in a world of robbers"--Melrose suddenly rounded on his companion, his withered face aflame--"a world of robbers, and of rapine! Not a single Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry in these parts that doesn"t think himself my equal and more. Not a single tenant on my estate that doesn"t try at every point to take advantage of his landlord! Not a single tramp or poacher that doesn"t covet my goods--that wouldn"t murder me if he could, and sleep like a baby afterward. I tell you, sir, we shall see a _jacquerie_ in England, before we are through with these ideas that are now about us like the plague; that every child imbibes from our abominable press!--that our fools of clergy--our bishops even--are not ashamed to preach. There is precious little sense of property, and not a single rag of loyalty or respect left in this country! But when you think of the creatures that rule us--and the fanatics who preach to us--and the fools who bring up our children, what else can you expect! The whole state is rotten! The men in our great towns are ripe for any revolutionary villainy. We shall come to blood, Faversham!"--he struck his hand violently on the arm of his chair--"and then a dictator--the inevitable round. Well, I have done my part. I have fought the battle of property in this country--the battle of every squire in c.u.mbria, if the dolts did but know their own interests. Instead they have done nothing but thwart and bully me for twenty years. And young Tatham with his County Council nonsense, and his popularity hunting, is one of the very worst of them!
Well, now I"ve done!--personally. I daresay they"ll crow--they"ll say I"m beat. Anyway, I"ve done. There"ll have to be fighting, but some one else must see to it. I intend to put my affairs into fresh hands. It is my purpose to appoint a new agent--and to give him complete control of my property!"
Melrose stopped abruptly. His hard eyes in their deep, round orbits were fixed on Faversham. The young man was mainly conscious of a half-hysterical inclination to laugh, which he strangled as he best could. Was he to be offered the post?
"And, moreover," Melrose resumed, "I want a secretary--I want a companion--I want some one who will help me to arrange the immense, the priceless collections there are stacked in this house--unknown to anybody--hardly known, in the lapse of years, even to myself. I desire to unravel my own web, so to speak--to spin off my own silk--to examine and a.n.a.lyze what I have acc.u.mulated. There are rooms here--containing _masterpieces_--unique treasures--that have never been opened for years--whose contents I have myself forgotten. That"s why people call me a madman. Why? What did I want with a big establishment eating up my income?--with a lot of prying idiots from outside--museum bores, bothering me for loans--common tourists, offering impertinent tips to my housekeeper, or picking and stealing, perhaps, when her back was turned!
I bought the things, and _shut them up_. They were safe, anyway. But now that process has gone on for a quarter of a century. You come along. A chance--a freak--a caprice, if you like, makes me arrange these rooms for you. That gives me new ideas--"
He turned and looked with sharp, slow scrutiny round the walls:
"The fact is I have been so far engaged in h.o.a.rding--heaping together.
The things in this house--my extraordinary collections--have been the nuts--and I, the squirrel. But now the nuts are bursting out of the hole, and the squirrel wants to see what he"s got. That brings me to my point!"
He turned emphatically toward Faversham, leaning hard on a marqueterie table that stood between them:
"I offer you, sir, the post, the double post, of agent to my property, and of private secretary, or a.s.sistant to myself. I offer you a salary of three thousand a year--three thousand pounds, a year--if you will undertake the management of my estates, and be my lieutenant in the arrangement of my collections. I wish--as I have said--to unpack this house; and I should like to leave my property in order before I die.
Which reminds me, I should of course be perfectly ready to make proper provision, by contract, or otherwise, so that in the event of any sudden termination of our agreement--my death for instance--you should be adequately protected. Well, there, in outline, is my proposal!"
During this extraordinary speech Faversham"s countenance had reflected with tolerable clearness the various impressions made by it--incredulous or amused astonishment--bewilderment--deepening gravity--coming round again to astonishment. He raised himself in his chair.
"You wish to make me your agent--the agent for these immense estates?"
"I do. I had an excellent agent once--twenty years ago. But old Dovedale stole him from me--bribed him by higher pay. Since then I have had nothing but clerks--rent-collectors--rascally makeshifts, all of them."
"But I know nothing about land--I have had no experience!"
"A misfortune--but in some ways to the good. I don"t want any c.o.c.ksure fellow, with brand-new ideas lording it over me. I should advise you of course."
"But--at the same time--I should not be content with a mere clerk"s place, Mr. Melrose," said Paversham, a momentary flash in his dark eye.
"I am one of those men who are better as princ.i.p.als than as subordinates.
Otherwise I should be in harness by now."
Melrose eyed him askance for a moment--then said: "I understand. I should be willing to steer my course accordingly--to give you a reasonable freedom. There are two old clerks in the estate-office, who know everything that is to be known about the property, and there are my solicitors both in Carlisle and Pengarth. For the rest, you are a lawyer, and there are some litigations pending. Your legal knowledge would be of considerable service. If you are the clever fellow I take you for, a month or two"s hard work, the usual technical books, some expert advice--and I have little doubt you would make as good an agent as any of them. Mind, I am _not_ prepared to spend unlimited money--nor to run my estates as a Socialist concern. But I gather you are as good a Conservative as myself."
Faversham was silent a moment, observing the man before him. The whole thing was too astounding. At last he said: "You are not prepared, sir, you say, to spend unlimited money. But the sum you offer me is unheard of."
"For an agent, yes--for a secretary, yes--for a combination of the two, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances, the market offers no precedents. You and I make a market--and a price."
"You would expect me to live in this house?"
"I gather these rooms are not disagreeable to you?"
"Disagreeable! They are too sumptuous. If _I_ did this thing, sir, I should want to do it in a businesslike way."
"You want an office? Take your choice." Melrose"s gesture indicated the rest of the house. "There are rooms enough. But you will want some place, I imagine, where you can be at home, receive friends--like the young lady and her mother yesterday--and so on."
His smile made him more Ogreish than before.
He resumed:
"And by the way, if you accepted my proposal, I should naturally expect that for a time you would devote yourself wholly to the organization of the collections, inside the house, and to the work of the estate, outside it. But you are of an age when a man hopes to marry. I should of course take that into account. In a year or two--"
"Oh, I have no immediate ideas of that kind," said Faversham, hastily.
There was a pause. At the end of it Faversham turned on his companion. A streak of feverish colour, a sparkling vivacity in the eyes, showed the effect produced by the conversation. But he had kept his head throughout the whole interview, and a certain unexpected strength in his personality had revealed itself to Melrose:
"You will hardly expect me, sir, to give an immediate answer to these proposals?"