The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood Part 40

"Our promise was conditional on Mariquita's consent," said La Zandunga, with clever evasion. "That you have never been able to obtain."

"I should have secured it in time but for this scoundrel who has come between me and my affianced bride. He'll have to settle with me, whoever he is," and so saying, Benito came closer to McKay, whom hitherto he had not recognised. "The Englishman!" he cried, starting back.

"Very much at your service," replied McKay, shortly. "I am not afraid of your threats. I think I can hold my own with you as I have done before."

"We shall see," and with a muttered execration, full of hatred and malice, he rushed from the place.

When, an hour or two later, Mrs. Wilders hunted him up at the Redhot Sh.e.l.l Ramp, she found him in a mood fit for any desperate deed. But, with native cunning, he pretended to show reluctance when she asked him for his help.

"Who is it you hate? An Englishman? Any one on the Rock?" he said.

"And what do you want done? I have no wish to bring myself within reach of the English law."

"It is an English officer. He is here just now, but will presently return to the Crimea."

"What is his name?" asked Benito, eagerly, his black heart inflamed with a wild hope of revenge.

"McKay--Stanislas McKay, of the Royal Picts."

It was his name! A fierce, baleful light gleamed in Benito's dark eyes; he clenched his fists and set his teeth fast.

"You know him?" said Mrs. Wilders, readily interpreting these signs of hate.

"I should like to kill him!" hissed Benito.

"Do so, and claim your own reward."

"But how? When? Where?"

"That is for you to settle. Watch him, stick to him, dog his footsteps, follow him wherever he goes. Some day he must give you a chance."

"Leave it to me. The moment will come when I shall sheathe my knife in his heart."

"I think I can trust you. Only do it well, and never let me see him again."

CHAPTER XXII.

MR. HOBSON CALLS.

The _Arcadia_ went direct from Gibraltar to Southampton, where Mrs.

Wilders left it and returned to London.

It was necessary for her to review her position and look things in the face. Her circ.u.mstances were undoubtedly straitened since her husband's death. She had her pension as the widow of a general officer--but this was a mere pittance at best--and the interest of the small private fortune settled, at the time of the marriage, on her and her children, should she have any. Her income from both these sources amounted to barely 300 a year--far too meagre an amount according to her present ideas, burdened as she was, moreover, with the care and education of a child.

But how was she to increase it? The reversion of the great Wilders estates still eluded her grasp; they might never come her way, whatever lengths she might go to secure them.

"Lord Essendine ought to do something for me," she told herself, as soon as she was settled in town. "It was not fair to keep the existence of this hateful young man secret; my boy suffers by it, poor little orphan! Surely I can make a good case of this to his lordship; and, after all, the child comes next."

She wrote accordingly to the family lawyers, Messrs. Burt and Benham, asking for an interview, and within a day or two saw the senior partner, Mr. Burt.

He was blandly sympathetic, but distant.

"Allow me to offer my deep condolence, madam; but as this is, I presume, a business visit, may I ask--"

"I am left in great distress. I wish to appeal to Lord Essendine."

"On what grounds?"

"My infant son is the next heir."

"Nay; surely you know--there is another before him?"

"Before my boy! Who? What can you mean? Impossible! I have never heard a syllable of this. I shall contest it."

It suited her to deny all knowledge, thinking it strengthened her position.

"That would be quite useless. The claims of the next heir are perfectly sound."

"It is sheer robbery! It is scandalous, outrageous! I will go and see Lord Essendine myself."

"Pardon me, madam; I fear that is out of the question. He is in Scotland, living in retirement. Lady Essendine's health has failed greatly under recent afflictions."

"He must and shall know how I am situated."

"You may trust me to tell him, madam, at once; and, although I have no right to pledge his lordship, I think I can safely say that he will meet you in a liberal spirit."

So it proved. Lord Essendine, after a short interval, wrote himself to Mrs. Wilders a civil, courtly letter, in which he promised her a handsome allowance, with a substantial sum in cash down to furnish a house and make herself a home.

Although still bitterly dissatisfied with her lot, she was now not only fortified against indigence, but could count on a life of comfort and ease. She established herself in a snug villa down Brompton way--a small house with a pretty garden, of the kind now fast disappearing from what was then a near suburb of the town. It was well mounted; she kept several servants, a neat brougham, and an excellent cook.

There she prepared to wait events, trusting that Russian bullet or Benito's Spanish knife might yet rid her of the one obstacle that still stood between her son and the inheritance of great wealth.

It was with a distinct annoyance, then, while leading this tranquil but luxurious life, that her man-servant brought in a card one afternoon, bearing the name of Hobson, and said, "The gentleman hopes you will be able to see him at once."

"How did you find me out?" she asked, angrily, when her visitor--the same Mr. Hobson we saw at Constantinople--was introduced.

"Ah! How do I find everything and everybody out? That's my affair--my business, I may say."

"And what do you want?" went on Mrs. Wilders, in the same key.

"First of all, to condole with you on the loss of so many near relatives. I missed you at Constantinople after Lord Lydstone's sad and dreadful death."

Mrs. Wilders shuddered in spite of herself.

"You suffer remorse?" he said, mockingly.