The Wicked Marquis Part 35

She would have been the most miserable creature on earth married to a clod."

"Ay, she's been here to show herself," Vont muttered, "down in a motor-car, in furs and silks, like a creature from some world that I know not about. She's talked as you've talked. I've listened to the pair of you. I thrust my daughter out of the garden and bade her go away and learn the truth. And you--well, I just take leave to say that as I cursed you nigh on a score of years ago, and have cursed you in my heart ever since, so I curse you now!"

"But are you going to sit there every day doing it?" the Marquis enquired, a little irritably.

"This house and garden are mine," Richard Vont replied stolidly, "although you've done your best to beggar me by taking them away. When I choose, I shall sit here. When I choose, I shall sit and watch you with your guests, watch you morning, noon and night. I've one wish in my heart, hour by hour. Maybe that wish will reach home, Marquis of Mandeleys. If it does, you'll see them all in black along the churchyard path there, and hear the doors of your vault roll open."

"You're a little mixed in your similes, my friend," the Marquis remarked, "because, you know, if those things happen--to me, I shall be the one person who doesn't hear them. Still, I gather that you are implacable, and that is what I came to find out. What astonishingly fine hollyhocks!" he observed, as he turned away. "I must go and look at my own."

For a moment there was tragedy in Vont's clenched fists and fierce, convulsive movement forward. The Marquis, however, without a backward glance, lounged carelessly away and, finding Let.i.tia, strolled with her to the walled garden.

"The man is impossible," he proclaimed. "It is obviously his intention to sit there and make himself a nuisance. Well, we get used to everything. I may get used to Richard Vont."

Let.i.tia hesitated for a few moments.

"Father," she said, "there are certain subjects which are not, as a rule, mentioned, but if you will permit me--"

The Marquis stopped her.

"My dear, please not," he begged, a little stiffly. "Remember, if you will, that I have little in common with the somewhat modern school of thought indulged in by most of your friends. There are certain subjects which cannot be discussed between us. Let us hear what Mr.

Hales has to say."

Hat in hand, the head gardener had hastened down to meet them, and under his tutelage they explored his domain. His master murmured little words of congratulation.

"I have done my best, your lordship," the man observed, "but Mr.

Merridrew has been cruel hard on me for bulbs and seeds and plants, and as to shrubs and young trees, he'll not have a word to say."

The Marquis nodded sympathetically.

"We may be able to alter that next year, Hales," he promised. "Mr.

Merridrew, I know, has had great trouble with the tenants for the last few quarters. Next year, Mr. Hales, we will see what we can do."

The gardener once more doffed his cap and received the intelligence with gratified interest. Over the top of the hill, a small governess'

cart, drawn by a fat pony, came into sight, and Let.i.tia waved her hand to the girl who was driving.

"It's Sylvia Laycey," she murmured. "Now how on earth can that child still be at Broomleys, if Mr. Thain is really here?"

Sylvia explained the matter as she drove into the great stableyard, Let.i.tia walking on one side of her and the Marquis on the other.

"Of course we've left Broomleys," she told them, "but we are staying with the Medlingcourts for three or four days. They asked us at the last moment. And then your letter came, Let.i.tia--just in time. I'm simply crazy to come and stay with you. Let.i.tia, you lucky girl! You are going to be here all the time! I am simply foolish about him!"

"About whom?" Let.i.tia asked indifferently.

"Why, Mr. David Thain, of course! He's the nicest thing I've ever talked to. He lunched with us on Thursday--but of course you're in love with him, too, so there'll be no chance for me."

Let.i.tia's laugh was half amused, half scornful.

"If you are in earnest, Sylvia," she said, "which doesn't seem very likely, I can a.s.sure you that you need fear no rival. Mr. Thain does not appeal to me."

"We have nevertheless found Mr. Thain," the Marquis observed, suddenly reminding them both of his presence, "a very agreeable and interesting acquaintance."

Sylvia made a little grimace. She thrust her arm through Let.i.tia's and drew her off towards the lawn, where some chairs had been brought out under a cedar tree.

"You are such a wonderful person, Let.i.tia," she said, "and of course your father's a Marquis and mine isn't. But I thought, nowadays, Americans were good enough for anybody in the world, if only they had enough money."

"Both my father and I, you see," Let.i.tia observed, "are a little old-fashioned. I have never had any idea of marriage, except with some one whose family I knew all about."

"Of course," Sylvia declared, "I am a horrid Radical, and I think I'd sooner not know about mine. If Mr. Thain's antecedents were unmentionable, I should adore him just the same, but, as I know your father would remind me in some very delicate fashion if he were here, the situation is different. You don't mind talking about him, do you, Let.i.tia, because that's what I've come for?"

"Well, I'll listen," Let.i.tia promised, as she settled herself in an easy-chair. "I really don't know what I should find to say, except that he's moderately good-looking, has quite nice manners, and money enough to buy the whole county."

"You are fearfully severe," Sylvia sighed. "Of course, I've been talking rot, as I always do, but we did find him charming, Let.i.tia, both Daddy and I. He was so simple and unaffected, and he drove me into Fakenham and bought cutlets for our luncheon. When I come to think of it," she went on, with a look of horror in her face, "I believe he paid for them, too."

"He can well afford to," Let.i.tia laughed.

The Marquis came to them across the lawn. He held in his hand an open telegram.

"From Grantham, my dear," he said to Let.i.tia. "It appears that he is bored with town and proposes to come down to-morrow night instead of waiting until Sat.u.r.day. I have replied that he will be very welcome.

Mrs. Foulds will really have to bestir herself. I have a line from Caroline, too, to ask if she may stay for a couple of days on her way to Harrogate."

Let.i.tia rose to her feet. The cloud which had fallen upon her face was doubtless owing to housekeeping cares. The Marquis, shading his eyes with his hand, was gazing across the park.

"Really," he remarked, a little drily, "I shall have to hint to our new neighbour that turf which is several hundred years old is not meant to be cut up like prairie-land. He sits his horse well, though."

Sylvia jumped quickly up and Let.i.tia gazed in the direction which her father had indicated. David, on his black horse, was riding across the park towards Broomleys.

CHAPTER XXV

The Marquis, as he sat at his study table after lunch, was not inclined to regard his first day at Mandeleys as a success. The only post of the day had been delivered, and the letter for which he was waiting with an anxiety greater than he even realised himself, was still absent. There was a letter, however, from Mr. Wadham, which afforded him some food for thought. It was a personal letter, written by the head of the firm, and he perused it for the second time with a frown upon his forehead.

_My dear Lord Mandeleys:_

I have ventured, in your interests, to do what my son tells me you yourself felt some hesitation in doing--namely, I have made enquiry through a firm of stockbrokers who make a speciality of American oil shares, as to the Pluto Oil Company, Limited, of whose shares you have made so large a purchase. I find that no development of this property has taken place, very little, if any, machinery has been erected, no oil has ever been discovered in the locality or upon the estate. May I beg of you that, to avoid disastrous consequences, you at once see your friend from whom you purchased these shares, and endeavour to make some arrangement with him to take them off your hands, as they were doubtless tendered to you by false representations.

I am quite sure that I need not point out to your lordship that I write you this letter entirely without prejudice and in the interests of the Mandeleys name and estates.

There could be no possibility of the drafts executed by your lordship being met, unless the shares themselves provided the funds, which, under the existing conditions, appears impossible.

Respectfully yours, STEPHEN WADHAM.

The Marquis looked out upon the lawn. There was in his memory, too, a recent and serious conversation with Mr. Merridrew, concerning the acc.u.mulating charges for dilapidations upon the property. He watched David playing croquet with Sylvia Laycey with a deepening frown upon his face, glanced from them to where Let.i.tia sat, apparently absorbed in a book which she was reading, and from her he looked through a side window towards that hated little demesne across the moat, where Richard Vont, in his shabby brown velveteen suit, with his white hair and his motionless figure, seemed to dominate the otherwise peaceful prospect.

Somehow or other, both outlooks irritated him almost as much as his own mental condition. The hard pressure of circ.u.mstances was a.s.serting itself in his mind. He found himself struggling against an insidious longing to see Let.i.tia in Sylvia's place. In his way he was superst.i.tious. He even began to wonder whether that silent, ceaseless hate, that daily litany of curses, could really in any way be responsible for the increasing embarra.s.sments by which he was surrounded, that great, dumb anxiety which kept him with wide-open eyes at night and sent him about in the daytime with a constant, wearing pain at his heart.

He turned at last wearily away from the window, rose to his feet, opened the French doors which led out into the gardens, and strolled across the lawn to where Let.i.tia was seated. She laid down her book and welcomed him with a smile which had in it just a shade of fatigue.