"I didn"t know your lordship had any."
Now that wasn"t a pleasant answer to receive. The Marquis of Twickenham ought to have some friends. What made it worse was the way in which he said it. However I dissembled my emotions.
"Not one?"
"Whom would your lordship have called a friend of yours?"
Although there was the suggestion of a sneer, which I resented, it was an inquiry which I was quite unable to answer. I wanted all the information to come from him. I endeavoured to cap his sneer with another.
"Well, if it comes to that, I don"t know that there was any one who owed me money."
"I should imagine that there was not." Directly he said that, I knew that I had blundered--that, in fact, it had been only too notorious that the owing was all the other way. Presently he added something which did not tend to sweeten my temper.
"By the way, my lord, it is only right that I should tell you--since I should not be doing my duty were I to withhold the information--that there are certain matters in which your lordship was concerned which have not been forgotten--one in particular which your lordship will probably bear in mind."
When a man hits me, I hit him back. When the discussion"s over I ask him to explain his reasons; not before. Business first, pleasure after. If a man makes it his business to decorate my features, I make it mine to endeavour to induce him to wish he hadn"t. It had been growing on me that the Marquis of Twickenham was a blackguard on lines which weren"t just mine, and that I"d no intention of bearing the burden of sins I was not inclined to. I leaned my elbows on the table, and I eyed my man of affairs.
"Foster!"
"My lord?"
"Look at me!"
"I am looking, my lord."
He was, with, I fancied, a certain surprise.
"You remember the sort of man I was?"
"I do."
"I"ll tell you the sort of man that I"ve become. Are you listening?"
"Your lordship sees I am."
"I"ve become a man who resents any attempt on the part of any other man to take a liberty. You understand?"
"I trust, and believe, that your lordship will not find a trace of such a disposition in me."
"You have taken more than one liberty since you"ve been inside this room."
"My lord!"
"Do you remember what a nauseous little brat you were when you were two?"
"I!--My lord, I don"t understand!"
"No?--Perhaps your memory doesn"t carry you so far back. Mine doesn"t carry me back fifteen years. In my presence don"t let yours. Do you understand that? Another point. I don"t quite know why I"ve come back.
I may go away next week for another fifteen years."
"I cordially hope that your lordship won"t."
"I hope, Foster, that you"re not getting old. Old men are apt to dodder.--How do you like the expression of that hope? Sounds personal, doesn"t it? In the same sense, yours did to me.--We"re apt to hope that other people won"t do what they want to, but we resent that hope when it"s applied to us. I hope you"re not getting old. But as the relations which exist between us hardly justify me in attempting to interfere with the tribute which you pay to the pa.s.sing years, I trust that I retain a remnant of courtesy sufficient to induce me not to meddle with matters with which I have no personal concern. I feel sure that, in that sense, you have almost as much courtesy as I have.
Oblige me, Foster, by keeping a small stock of it on hand.--I was saying that I may go away again next week for another period of fifteen years; or I may not. It may amuse me to take up what is called my proper position in the country. If I choose to do so, I a.s.sure you that, with my money, and my rank, and the way I shall set about doing things, fifteen years ago won"t count. Don"t let them count with you."
All the same I could see that there was something which had happened in the days of auld lang syne which was slithering about on the end of his tongue; and, to be frank, I was a trifle curious to know what it was. But after the sesquipedalian sentence I"d discharged at his head, for very shame"s sake I couldn"t ask, nor let him say. So I got rid of him instead.
The next day we journeyed together down to Cressland, to see how things had gone since the last time I was there. What a place for a man to have all his own! Twenty thousand acres in the heart of England, with a mediaeval castle in which to sleep o" nights. There was another great property in Scotland, something in Ireland, and a villa at Cannes; besides oddments here and there. When I remembered that the princ.i.p.al part of my income came from London ground rents I thanked my stars that I hadn"t to keep all the land I owned clean and wholesome with just my own pair of hands.
When I"d made an end of spying out some of the wonderful things which I possessed, back I came to town with Foster. When we parted at the station I dare say he thought I was going straight back home--that is, to the family mansion in St. James"s Square. But I wasn"t: I didn"t.
My objective was Mary. But I had to cover my tracks on the road to her. It wouldn"t do to have it discovered that directly the Marquis of Twickenham disappeared at one end Mr. James Merrett came out at the other. That night I spent in Brighton. In the morning up to town.
Dropped into a little crib where I store a few trifles which I"m not peculiarly anxious that other people should know about, and changed into the garments of James Merrett. Got on to the top of an omnibus.
Then outside another. Landed finally in the neighbourhood of Little Olive Street.
I was well aware that, use whatever precautions I might, I was still taking on a pretty considerable risk. But then I"d got to be a kind of a dealer in hazards. Been gambling in them my whole life long. And since I"d turned myself into a family man some of them had a.s.sumed rather curious shapes. They say that the pitcher which goes often to the well gets broken at last. Maybe. Perhaps I"d had a chip or two already. But that"s part of the game.
I sailed along the pavement as if I hadn"t a thing in the world to fear. I"m sure that no one who"d taken stock of me would have supposed my conscience wasn"t as clear as the average. Reached No. 32. Turned the handle of the front door, and walked right in. There was Mary in the sitting-room, with a pile of sewing on a table in front of her, just as I expected.
"Well, my girl," I said, "how"s things?"
I put my hat down on a chair; up she jumped, over went the sewing, and into my arms she flew.
"James! James!"
I got my arms right round her, and I held her tight; you bet I did. I didn"t say much, but I supplied the deficiency in another way.
Presently I did make a remark.
"Why, my girl, you look--well, I really think you"re getting pretty."
"James!"
She turned the colour of a strawberry that"s just getting ripe--the cream showing through the red. Every time I pay her a compliment she seems to tingle right to the roots of her hair. It"s an old joke, my pretending to discover that she"s getting pretty--as though she hadn"t always been that vision of all that"s fair in woman, of which, until I met her, I had only dreamed!--but every time I make it she looks that sweet she reminds me of a meadow on the slope of a hill, in which the spring flowers are tipped with dew.
I gave the youngsters a turn.
"Hollo! I do believe you"re that little boy of mine whose name was Jimmy."
"Dad! dad! I knew you"d come home soon, "cause I did ask G.o.d so hard last night to sent you."
"And--isn"t that girl named Pollie?"
"Tourse it is! tourse it is! Ooo know it is."
There they were, dancing about me, as fine a pair of youngsters as you"d meet in a long day"s journey.
"It"s a most extraordinary thing; what does make these pockets of mine stick out? I wonder what it is inside."
Then there was the business of turning those pockets of mine inside out, and discovering that there was something in every one of them.