The King's Men Part 5

"Never," answered Mr. Windsor.

"Since the farmers have taken to shooting the foxes," continued Mr.

Jawkins, "the n.o.ble old sport has gone all to pieces, even here; but you drive four-in-hand, I hope. I have ordered a beautiful new break for your use. But you will see, sir, all I have done for you. Now, if you are at leisure for the list of the guests whom I have been able to engage. When you have gone over it with me, Mr. Windsor, I think that you will admit that it is a charming country-house party to have got together on such short notice. First, you see, we have the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Bayswater. I have engaged them for the first three days of your stay here to give _eclat_ to your hospitality, at the price of a diva and her accompanying tenor, I must admit. It is their very first appearance professionally, and I think that I have done very well by you."

Mr. Windsor gave a little groan, which Mr. Jawkins did not seem to notice, however, as he continued:

"I fear that His Grace will not be in the best of spirits at first. He is a grand type of a great n.o.bleman, however, and worth double the money which we pay him. Her Grace is of one of the few families in Great Britain which are found in the Almanach de Gotha. She is like a magnificent old ruin, almost feudal in fact, and as proud as Lucifer.

Her stare is said to be withering, and the poise of her head makes a man's tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth."

"And I shall have to take her in to dinner for the next three days?"

groaned Windsor.

"Of course, my dear sir; but, believe me, you will enjoy it more than Her Grace will," replied Jawkins. "Next comes the Archbishop of Canterbury in point of order on my list, though he is of higher rank than their Graces. Since the disestablishment of the Church, and the forfeiture of the Church properties, he has, of course, been much straitened financially. He must have a comfortable room and a warm fire, and will conduct family prayers. There is some doubt about his coming, though, I see, as he is far from well, but it will be easy to get a prelate at short notice; I have dozens on my list, ready at call. Next we have Lord Carrington, who is not very good company, but of wonderfully fine family. His ancestors came over with William the Conqueror, but as he has only 200 a year, he was not loath to put himself under my charge. He is exceedingly particular as to his food and drink, and is one of the best card-players in London. He used to make a fine income from his cards; indeed, he does now in I. O. U.'s. By the way, he inquired whether you played 'piquet' or 'bezique,' from which I infer that he is looking for an antagonist with ready money."

Mr. Windsor laughed and slapped his knee with his thin, bony hand.

"Ah! the wind sets in that corner, does it?" he asked.

"I am afraid so," answered Jawkins.

"I do not mind taking chances, I admit," said Windsor; "but in the stock-market I am in the position of the banker at the gaming-table. The odds are in my favor. While at piquet this n.o.ble lord can get the better of me. Who else have you, Jawkins?"

"I forgot my greatest prize, sir," said Jawkins, handing Mr. Windsor a photograph. "What do you think of her?"

Mr. Windsor looked at the picture with a peculiar smile.

"She is a fine woman, Jawkins. We have as fine, however, in the States.

Who is she?"

"Mrs. Oswald Carey, to be sure. Have you never seen her face before, Mr.

Windsor? She is considered to be the most beautiful woman in London. Her husband, of course, is left there; he cares only for brandy and soda and baccarat, and would be very much in the way. I believe that he used to have a place under government, but was ousted last year, probably for cause, wonderful as that seems now. But she is a charming woman, and I find that she is the most sought after of any one on my list--that is to say, with the hosts; though the hostesses sometimes object to her, simply from envy of her good looks, for her good name cannot be questioned while her husband is satisfied with her."

Mr. Windsor hummed a little; he was too new to the world of society not to have old-fashioned views on the subject of a woman's fame.

"Go on with the list, please, Jawkins; time flies, and your presence must be required to arrange the drawing-rooms."

"Very well, Mr. Windsor. Then Sir John Dacre, one of the biggest men in England; I never have understood, sir, how I got him on my list. He is so proud that I should have fancied that he would have--saving your presence, sir--have broken stones in the street rather than bread as a hired guest. For he is a n.o.ble fellow."

"Some woman at the bottom of it?" asked Mr. Windsor, carelessly.

"Something mysterious, certainly, for he absolutely refused to take any fee," replied Mr. Jawkins. "Next comes Colonel Charles Featherstone, a wild, scatter-brained soldier, who lost all his fortune in speculation in your American cotton and grain futures. He is a great friend of John Dacre, and they joined me at the same time. I am really giving you the gems of my whole collection."

A flush of triumph spread over the man's round face as he continued his list. "Next, I have three of the 'artiste' cla.s.s, and here I am not so successful, though to be sure I pick them up for almost nothing. There is Erastus Prouty, who does the satirical 'society' articles and collects fashionable gossip for the _Sat.u.r.day Review_, a sn.i.g.g.e.ring, sneering chap, with a single eye-gla.s.s and immense self-conceit. He called me a cad in his paper once, but I am above personal feeling, and do not cut the man off from his income. Then, you have Herr Diddlej, the great Norwegian pianist, who will shatter your piano in half an hour; and, finally, Sydney, the wit, who, by the way, has disappointed me greatly, as he has not made a repartee in a twelvemonth, nor has he set the table in a roar. I reasoned with him the other day on the subject, and gave him fair warning that this visit should be his last chance.

Still, I pity the man; he is a great _bon vivant_, and if he should lose his reputation as a wit I fear that he would have to go to a workhouse or on the London _Punch_. I have finished the list. How does it please you?"

"I never say that I have made money until the shares are sold and paid for," answered Mr. Windsor. "Your list sounds well, but I think I like the old-fashioned way of asking friends to stay with me better. Still, your plan is novel."

Mr. Jawkins seemed hurt, as an author would who had looked up from reading the finest pa.s.sage in his epic only to perceive that his auditor was asleep and not spellbound. Jawkins believed in the "_idee_" Jawkins as Napoleon did in his destiny.

"By your leave, Mr. Windsor, I shall go to my own room to arrange my toilet, and then I must see about the disposition of the furniture, bibelots and pictures, and attend to the preparations for the reception of the guests. You need not meet them until just before dinner, when I shall be on hand to present them to you. I cannot be here after to-night. I must start to-morrow morning for Hampshire, where Prince Petroloff demands my services. You see, I am a hard-worked man, Mr.

Windsor."

"So you are for an Englishman, Mr. Jawkins. Then I suppose that it is necessary that you should attend to all the details of your profession personally. By the way, my daughter tells me that she has asked young Geoffrey Ripon, who used to be on the British Legation at Paris, where we were two summers ago. You must arrange for him at the dinner-table."

"Ah, the Earl of Brompton! He is not a client of mine, but I have my eye on him. His earthly possessions consist of about five acres of land, a tumble-down hut near by, and a double-barrelled shotgun, and he lost his secretaryship when the new administration made its clean sweep of the offices. They said he was going to marry a rich girl once, I believe."

"It seems that he did not," said Mr. Windsor, rising from his seat.

Mr. Jawkins bowed and bustled from the room, and Mr. Windsor soon heard his sharp voice ordering the army of workmen in the adjacent rooms with the precision and authority of a field-marshal.

The situation amused and at the same time disconcerted the humorous American, as he settled back in a chair before the great wood fire which crackled in the chimney. Though the chair was soft and yielding he did not look comfortable, for men with long, bony, angular figures never seem to look at their ease.

Abraham Windsor's name twenty years before the date of this story would not have added to the marketable value of the most modest promissory note in the money markets of Chicago, to which city he had come fresh from his father's farm in upper Illinois; but at this time it was a tower of strength in financial quarters, and men counted his wealth by tens of millions.

He was the Jupiter of the financial world, and men said that when his iron-gray locks fell over each other, as he nodded, Wall Street trembled and Lombard Street crashed; so that it seemed only from forbearance that he did not sweep all the chips upon the great gaming-table of the world into his deep pockets. His sudden trip to Europe had caused much discussion. Some knowing ones whispered that he had bought a controlling interest in the Bank of England from the a.s.signees in bankruptcy of the Brothkinders, with the object of making a panic in trade by a sudden raise of the rate of discount to six per cent; others, that he had come over to unload upon the British public his shares in the Hudson Bay and Cape Horn Railroad Company.

He was amused by the wild rumors, for he had, in truth, come to England with no deep-laid scheme or motive, but simply because his daughter had ordered his doing so; for while Abraham Windsor ruled the shares market and the world of speculation, a certain young woman ruled him, and the hard-headed man of affairs, who could outwit an Israelite banker, was as wax under her dainty fingers. At the close of the last season at Newport, Miss Margaret had ordered her father, as she poured out his coffee at breakfast, to engage a country house in England for the winter. Mr. Windsor looked up from the New York _Herald_, which likened him to his Satanic Majesty in one column and described his new steam yacht in another, and he said, "Aye, aye, miss," to her order.

And straightway after breakfast he went to the Casino Club and telephoned to Jarley Jawkins for his list of estates to rent in England, for he knew full well that whether Wall Street or the heavens crashed Miss Maggie's orders were to be obeyed. She selected Ripon House from Jawkins's list, and her father hired it, although he had a leaning toward Windsor Castle, which the Republic wished to lease for a term of years, or to sell upon easy terms.

Every one in Paris two years before had said that the penniless young Englishman, Lord Ripon, wished to make a rich marriage, and that the capricious Miss Windsor, after having broken, cracked or temporarily discouraged a sufficient number of hearts, was at last ready to accept a lord and perhaps a master. But in the middle of the season the British Legation was recalled, and Geoffrey, after a few words of farewell, disappeared, and from the day of his leaving Paris Miss Windsor had heard nothing of him. She did not know herself whether she cared for him; he was good-natured and amusing, and she liked to have him talk to her and be her slave, but when he was gone, the world was not a blank to her.

Still, it piqued her that Lord Brompton had effaced himself so completely from her life. "He might, at least, have written to let me know that he lived," she kept thinking. Of course she knew the name of his old estate, and she knew that he owned the porter's lodge and the few acres around it, for he had told her once that he still owned a little box in England, and that when the worst came to the worst he intended to crawl into it and shut the lid. When Jawkins sent his list of estates for rent, and she saw the name of Ripon House on it, her heart gave a little jump. Mr. Windsor had, of course, known of the affair between Lord Geoffrey and his daughter, and had neither approved nor disapproved of it. He knew that, if she made up her mind to marry, he would be consulted only as a matter of form. When she had informed him on their arrival that Lord Brompton was living in the neighborhood, and that she meant to invite him to dinner very soon, the shrewd old man smiled grimly, and acquiesced in her plan.

As her father sat musing before the fire, the door opened suddenly, and Maggie bounded into the room.

"Has Jawkins arrived, papa?" she asked.

"Yes; we have just been going over his list of guests together. By the way, Maggie, is your young man to be our guest?"

"Oh, papa!" Maggie exclaimed, perching herself upon one of his knees and stroking his chin with one of her dimpled hands, "how can you be so ill-bred as to speak of any one as my young man? Surely I have no proprietary rights over any man, save one very nice old fellow, who is so loyal to his sovereign that he never thinks of complaining of the injustice of taxation without representation."

"You reverse the ordinary process with me; subjects have been wont to blow up their sovereigns," answered her father, with a chuckle, "and you blow up me. You have not told me about Lord Brompton. It is a long time since you have seen him before to-day."

"Two whole years. He seems so dispirited."

"At not having escaped you?"

"Oh, you wicked old capitalist; not at all. At having been so long separated from me. It was very pleasant to see him again. He is such a friend of mine. I should say that he interested me more than any of the others."

"Ah, that unfortunate panorama of others," laughed her father.

"Yes, poor fellows," said Maggie, a little regretfully, "but then I think that most of them had an eye to the main chance, papa. Lord Brompton has not, I know."

Mr. Windsor smiled.

"I hope not, my dear. What is he doing here?"

"What the world has forgotten to do; what he can do more graciously than any man I know--nothing," she answered.