The Man Who Lost Himself Part 11

"I think you placed it here, my Lord." He produced it.

When he was gone Jones opened the book; it was one of Coutt's.

He knew his banker now as well as his solicitor. Then he sat down, and taking Rochester's note from his pocket began to study the handwriting and signature.

He made a hundred imitations of the signature, and found for the first time in his life that he was not bad at that sort of work.

Then he burnt the sheets of paper he had been using, put the cheque book away and looked at the clock; it pointed to eleven.

He switched out the lights and left the room, taking his way upstairs.

He felt sure of being able to find the bed-room he had left that morning, and coming along the softly lit corridor he had no difficulty in locating it. He had half dreaded that the agile valet in the sleeved jacket might be there waiting to tuck him up, but to his relief the room was vacant.

He shut the door, and going to the nearest window pulled the blind up for a moment.

The moon was rising over London, and casting her light upon the Green Park. A huge summer moon. The sort of moon that conjures up ideas about guitars and balconies.

Jones undressed, and putting on the silk pyjamas that were laid out for him, got into bed, leaving only the light burning by the bedside.

He tried to recall the details of that wonderful day, failed utterly, switched out the light, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER X

LADY PLINLIMON

The most curious thing in the whole of Jones' extraordinary experiences was the way in which things affecting Rochester affected him. The coldness of the club members was an instance in point. He knew that their coldness had nothing to do with him, yet he resented it practically just as much as though it had.

Then again, the case of Voles. What had made him fight Voles with such vigour? It did not matter to him in the least whether Voles gave Rochester away or not, yet he had fought Voles with all the feeling of the man who is attacked, not of the man who is defending another man from attack.

The att.i.tude of Spicer and the other scamp had roused his ire on account of its want of respect for him, the supposed Earl of Rochester.

Rochester's folly had inspired that want of respect, why should he, Jones, bother about it? He did. It hit him just as much as though it were levelled against himself. He had found, as yet to a limited degree, but still he had found that anything that would hurt Rochester would hurt him, that his sensibility was just as acute under his new guise, and, wonder of wonders, his dignity as a Lord just as sensitive as his dignity as a man.

If you had told Jones in Philadelphia that a day would come when he would be angry if a servant did not address him as "my Lord," he would have thought you mad. Yet that day had come, or was coming, and that change in him was not in the least the result of sn.o.bbishness, it was the result of the knowledge of what was due to Rochester, Arthur Coningsby Delamere, 21st Earl of, from whom he could not disentangle himself whilst acting his part.

He was awakened by Mr. Church pulling up his window blinds.

He had been dreaming of the boarding-house in Philadelphia where he used to live, of Miss Wybrow, the proprietress, and the other guests, Miss Sparrow, Mr. Moese--born Moses--Mr. Hoffman, the part proprietor of Sharpes' Drug Store, Mrs. Bertine, and the rest.

He watched whilst Mr. Church pa.s.sed to the door, received the morning tea tray from the servant outside, and, placing it by the bed, withdrew.

This was the only menial service which Mr. Church ever seemed to perform, with the exception of the stately carrying in of papers and letters at breakfast time.

Jones drank his tea. Then he got up, went to the window, looked out at the sunlit Green Park, and then rang his bell. He was not depressed nor nervous this morning. He felt extraordinarily fit. The powerful good spirits natural to him, a heritage better than a fortune, were his again. Life seemed wonderfully well worth living, and the game before him the only game worth playing.

Then the Mechanism came into the room and began to act. James was the name of this individual. Dumb and serious and active as an insect, this man always filled Jones' mind with wonderment; he seemed less a man than a machine. But at least he was a perfect machine.

Fully dressed now, he was preparing to go down when a knock came to the door and Mr. Church came in with a big envelope on a salver.

"This is what you requested me to fetch from Jermyn Street, my Lord."

"Oh, you've been to Jermyn Street?"

"Yes, my Lord, directly I had served your tea at quarter to eight, I took a taxi."

"Good!" said Jones.

He took the envelope, and, Church and the Mechanism having withdrawn, he sat down by the window to have a look at the contents.

The envelope contained letters.

Letters from a man to a woman. Letters from the Earl of Rochester to Sapphira Plinlimon. The most odiously and awfully stupid collection of love letters ever written by a fool to be read by a wigged counsel in a divorce court.

They covered three months, and had been written two years ago.

They were pa.s.sionate, idealistic in parts, drivelling. He called her his "Ickle teeny weeny treasure." Baby language--Jones almost blushed as he read.

"He sure was moulting," said he, as he dropped letter after letter on the floor. "And he paid eight thousand to hold these things back--well, I don't know, maybe I'd have done the same myself. I can't fancy seeing myself in the _Philadelphia Ledger_ with this stuff tacked on to the end of my name."

He collected the incriminating doc.u.ments, placed them in the envelope, and came downstairs with it in his hand.

Breakfast was an almost exact replica of the meal of yesterday; the pile of letters brought in by Church was rather smaller, however.

These letters were a new difficulty, they would all have to be answered, the ones of yesterday, and the ones of to-day.

He would have to secure the services of a typist and a typewriter: that could be arranged later on. He placed them aside and opened a newspaper.

He was accustomed enough now to his situation to be able to take an interest in the news of the day. At any moment his environment might split to admit of a new Voles or Spicer, or perhaps some more dangerous spectre engendered from the dubious past of Rochester; but he scarcely thought of this, he had gone beyond fear, he was up to the neck in the business.

He glanced at the news of the day, reading as he ate. Then he pushed the paper aside. The thought had just occurred to him that Rochester had paid that eight thousand not to shield a woman's name but to shield his own. To prevent that gibberish being read out against him in court.

This thought dimmed what had seemed a brighter side of Rochester, that obscure thing which Jones was condemned to unveil little by little and bit by bit. He pushed his plate away, and at this moment Mr. Church entered the breakfast room.

He came to the table and, speaking in half lowered voice said:

"Lady Plinlimon to see you, your Lordship."

"Lady Plinlimon?"

"Yes, your Lordship. I have shown her into the smoking room."

Jones had finished breakfast. He rose from the table, gathered the letters together, and with them in his hand followed Church from the breakfast room to the smoking room. A big woman in a big hat was seated in the arm chair facing the door.

She was forty if an hour. She had a large unpleasant face. A dominating face, fat featured, selfish, and made up by art.

"Oh, here you are," said she as he entered and closed the door. "You see I'm out early."

Jones nodded, went to the cigarette box, took a cigarette and lit it.