The Twickenham Peerage Part 63

There were peas in his lordship's shoes: unboiled. It is a fact that on the homeward way he proposed to treat himself, in Paris, to what he called a little amus.e.m.e.nt. Those peas spoilt all his pleasure. At the Moulin Rouge, while the ladies whirled their skirts and leered, and the music blared, the shadow of his monastic vigils obscured it all.

Wherever he turned he saw the white Figure on the huge black cross, which had so often loomed down at him in the midnight darkness from over the altar in the chapel; against which, as the Prior said, in his frenzied fervour he had longed to dash his head. When, like a guilty thing, he stole from the unfestive revels he saw a priest standing on the pavement without; the sight of whom filled him with such unreasoning terror that he took to his heels and ran.

Luck had always been against him. Not all the evil he had done had been brought to light, but he was convinced that a most unfair proportion had been dragged into the noontide glare. The majority of men go with even their trivial peccadilloes undiscovered to the grave.

In his case seven dirty things out of every ten he did were sure to get him into trouble. Did a man promise him a thrashing, dodge though he might, he was sure to light upon that man at the very moment when he least desired his presence. An instance of which aggravating species of misfortune occurred upon his homeward way.

Hardly had the boat left Boulogne harbour than he ran against a man to whom he had lost a bet--or two--which he had never paid. A bookmaker.

There were three or four items outstanding against him in that particular book when the Viscount Sherrington--as his lordship then was--encountered its owner in the ring at Doncaster, and expressed a desire to once more back his fancy. The bookmaker would have none of him until the Viscount protested, with many oaths, that if he lost he would not only pay that particular bet, but all else he owed. But although he lost he did not pay. Whereupon the bookmaker took an early opportunity to inform him that wherever and whenever he met him he would favour him with his candid opinion of his character.

The average declaration of the kind is merely a figure of speech--or many gentlemen, who are now of the elect, would have to peep round every corner before they turned into a street. It was more than fifteen years since they had met, and during five of those years his lordship had been a penitent of quite exceptional strength. In the case of any other man there would probably have been a stare, a muttering beneath the breath, and then an end. But his lordship was not like any other man; his luck was his own. That bookmaker had a most aggressive memory, and he had been drinking. So when he perceived who it was who had all but trodden on his toe he addressed him much above a whisper.

'What, yer? Slippery?'

'Slippery' was the nickname by which his lordship had been known in certain circles once upon a time, but was not a style of address at all suited to a person of p.r.o.nounced piety who had just emerged from prolonged cloistral seclusion.

Then and there, in the presence of quite a number of persons, that bookmaker gave utterance to his loud-voiced opinion of the man who had made that bet with him more than fifteen years before.

The Marquis set foot on his native soil with a distinct feeling of depression. If he was going, to have many encounters of that kind, better, after all, the religious life. In the cloister self-respect is an offence, and self-abas.e.m.e.nt the order of the day. It is different in the world. There men dislike to be kicked in public, nor do they even wish to have people informed that they deserve a kicking. In that respect, if in no other, his lordship was one of the crowd.

So, to raise his spirits, when he reached town he had a good dinner, and a large quant.i.ty of wine. The result, again, was neither what he expected nor desired. Seeking that feeling of conviviality which should follow a feast, he got indigestion instead. As he paid the reckoning he was painfully conscious that if the waiter would only include a couple of liver pills with the change he would do him a genuine service.

Hence he was hardly in a mood to make a triumphal return to the home of his fathers, particularly as that return was attended with circ.u.mstances which might be described as delicate. He had decided to put in an appearance at St. James's Square that very night. When he found himself in the street his resolution wavered. The glare and tumult bewildered him. He was more than half afraid of the kaleidoscopic crowd. When a man, who has crucified himself during a period extending over years, drops off his cross, he is hardly in a mood to appreciate at once London as it is at night. Besides, the place was strange. He saw changes on every hand; and when he had at last concluded to try and play the man, he had to ask his way to his own home. And then he lost himself upon the road.

He found himself, however, when he entered the sombre purlieus of St.

James's Square. That was familiar ground. Wherever he had gone he had carried a picture of it in his brain. So far as he could see, for the place was more in shadow than in light, it was unchanged. He walked right round. As he went, a backwater from the past rushed over him, bearing him on its current to the days that were. He seemed to see himself once more a lad. With uncomfortable clarity of vision, he saw what kind of lad he was. He shuddered; and, as he neared his father's house, drew back ashamed. It was almost as if an invisible barrier had prevented his close approach. Round the square he went again. As, coming from the other direction, he approached Twickenham House a second time, he saw a man come through the door; a man who stood upon the pavement for a moment to shake his fist at the building which he had just quitted. Then, wheeling round upon his heels, he came smartly forward. As his lordship observed the approaching figure he was conscious of an odd sensation of amazement--of shock--as if he were staring at something which was not to be explained by the ordinary definitions which we use in our everyday experience, and which he more than half suspected was a trick played him by his eyes.

When they came close together the two men stopped short. Each regarded the other with surprise which, for a moment or two, was speechless.

Then the newcomer spoke.

'You're me. What price San Francisco? How goes it, my Lord Marquis?'

There was an interval before the answer came. This took the form of an inquiry.

'What are you doing here?'

'Relinquishing the t.i.tle. And you?'

'I'm returning home.'

Mr. Merrett whistled.

'Seems as if I might have known you were coming back from the husks and swine, my dropping on to you like this. Anyhow, you're welcome.

You come along with me; I'll post you up to date.'

Mr. Merrett, slipping his hand through the other's arm, wheeled him right round. His lordship offered no remonstrance. Not even when, having entered a hansom which Mr. Merrett had hailed, that gentleman directed the cabman to drive to an address in the Euston Road.

Scarcely a word was exchanged by the strange companions on the road.

Possibly each found his attention fully occupied by a mental revision of this latest phase in the situation. The peer asked a single question as the vehicle stopped.

'What place is this?'

'This is Parkinson's Private Hotel; strictly temperance, and respectable to a fault.'

Mr. Merrett seemed well known in the establishment. He merely stopped to greet a matronly female who met them in the hall, then, leading the way upstairs, entered a s.p.a.cious apartment on the first floor, which was furnished as a bed- and sitting-room. The gas was lighted; a bright fire burned in the grate. Mr. Merrett, locking the door, drew a heavy curtain in front of it.

'Now, my dear Double, you and I will have a little pleasant conversation.'

Their likeness to each other, as they stood face to face in the well-lighted room, was an ill.u.s.tration of what nature can do when she is in a freakish mood. In height, build, even in feature, there was so close a resemblance that it was not difficult to understand the ease with which either might be mistaken for the other. And yet in carriage and expression there was so marked a difference that, when seen together, it was the unlikeness rather than the likeness which struck one most. Ease of bearing, strength, decision, boldness, were as striking characteristics of the one man as they were wholly lacking in the other. Quickness, resource, courage, were unmistakably attributes of Mr. Merrett, just as plainly as hesitation, doubt, pliancy, were the distinguishing marks of the prodigal peer.

Mr. Merrett's quick eye summed up his lordship in a trice.

'You haven't changed. Those developments haven't taken place in your character which I've announced. It's a pity; so it is.'

'What do you mean?'

'It's to tell you what I mean that I've brought you here.'

Mr. Merrett told. As first one spoke, then the other, the same peculiarity was noticeable in their voices as in their persons. The unlikeness, with the likeness. The tone was the same; so that frequently any one, standing outside the door, for instance, would not have been able to say which of the twain was speaking. But Merrett spoke with an odd clearness, looking the person whom he addressed straight in the face; he had a trick of making his words convey their full natural meaning and more. The peer's utterance, on the other hand, was apt to be both rapid and indistinct; his glance continually wandered; one suspected, as one listened, that words coming from his mouth were both meaningless and valueless.

'And do you mean to tell me that you've been playing at being Marquis of Twickenham in my place?'

'I do. It hasn't been much of a game, but, as Marquis, I'm worth about a hundred and fifty thousand of you. That's the cold truth.'

'You don't lack a.s.surance.'

'I do not. All I ask is to agree with you.'

'And you have the--the impudence to tell me that you've been making free with my money?'

'Free's the word. And the amount's been named. It might have been larger. But I'm a modest man. It will serve.'

'You are aware of the consequences to which you have made yourself liable?'

Mr. Merrett took out, from a pocket-book, a slip of blue paper; which, unfolding, he held out in front of him.

'See that? That's the bill on which you forged your father's name.

Now, sir, for a man who takes a liberty of that kind with his own father I have no use. But a prison has. You've had a run for your money--a fifteen years' run. Now that run's over. In a nice warm cell in a police station you'll find your billet for to-night, and then from one of His Majesty's jails you'll have no chance of running for probably the next fifteen years.'

'Why do you talk to me like that? Do you--do you think you frighten me?'

'I'm quite sure I frighten you. It can't be nice to come back to find the danger staring you in the face from which you ran. A man finds prison less cheerful at your time of life than when he was younger.'

'What do you want for the bill?'

'Nothing. It's not for sale. All I want is an understanding. We can't be friends--I never could be friends with a man who forged his father's name--but we can be on terms of common agreement.'

'You've placed me in a most awkward situation.'

'Not a bit of it. I've placed you in a better situation than you were in all your life. The Marquis of Twickenham is more respected at this moment than ever before. It's understood that he's turned over a new leaf; that he's a reformed character; that his character has developed in a manner which is altogether beyond the expectations of his friends. And it's got to be generally known that any one who takes liberties with him does so at his peculiar peril. You've only got to go to Twickenham House, and enter the front door, letting them think that you've come back from a stroll, to find yourself received with an air of deference--which I'm sure that you'll find welcome. You'll have no questions asked, especially no nasty ones. You'll just find yourself on rollers.'