The Wicked Marquis Part 37

He pa.s.sed through it and turned to make his farewells. Her left hand was resting upon the iron railing, her right supported her parasol.

She nodded to him a little curtly.

"You promised," he reminded her, "that some day you would come over and help me about the garden."

"Did I?" she answered. "Well, remind me sometime, won't you?"

"Why not now?" he persisted.

She shook her head.

"I have to go and consult with Mrs. Foulds as to where to put all our visitors. Charlie Grantham is coming with aunt, I think, and we have so many rooms closed up. Don't fall into the moat. There's a bridge just to the left."

She turned away, and David watched her for several moments before he swung round. He was conscious of a sudden and entirely purposeless feeling of anger, almost of fury. From the higher slopes of the park he turned and looked once more towards Mandeleys. Let.i.tia had evidently forgotten her household duties. She had thrown herself back in her chair and was once more apparently engrossed in her book.

CHAPTER XXVI

David Thain, a few hours later, lounged in a basket chair in the one corner of his lawn from which he could catch, through the hedge of yew trees, a furtive glimpse of Mandeleys. By his side stood a small coffee equipage and an unopened box of cigars; in the distance was the vanishing figure of the quiet-mannered and very excellent butler with whom a famous registry office had endowed his household. It was an hour of supreme ease. An unusually warm day was succeeded by an evening from which only the warmth of the sun had departed, an evening full of scents from flowers and shrubs alike, an evening during which the thrushes prolonged their music until, from somewhere in the distant groves at the back of the house, a nightingale commenced, like the tuning up of an orchestra, to make faint but sweet essays at continued song. It was as light as day but there were stars already in the sky, and a pale, colourless moon was there, waiting for the slowly moving mantle of twilight. David Thain was alone with his thoughts.

They had started somewhere in the background, in the first throb and excitement of life, in the moment when his lips had framed that horrible oath which held him now in its meshes. Then had come the real struggle, years of brilliant successes, the final coup, the stepping in a single day on to one of those pedestals which a great republic keeps for her most worshipped sons. Always it seemed to him that there was that old man in the background, waiting. At last had come the question. Yes, he was ready. He had come to England a little protesting, a little incredulous, always believing that those fierce fires which had burned for so long in the grey-haired, patient old man would have burned themselves out, or would become softened by sentimental a.s.sociations as soon as he set foot in his native place.

David's awakening was complete and disconcerting. The fury of Richard Vont showed no signs of abatement. He found himself committed already to one loathsome enterprise--and there was the future. He looked down gloomily at the magnificent pile below, with its many chimneys, its stretching front and far-reaching wings, and some echo of the bitterness which raged in the old man who sat and watched at its gates, found an echo in his own heart. He remembered the amus.e.m.e.nt with which that subtle but absolutely natural air of superiority, on the part of father and daughter alike, had first imbued him. Their very kindness, the frank efforts of the Marquis, as well as of Lady Let.i.tia, to lead him into some channel of conversation in which he could easily express himself was the kindness of those belonging to another world and fearing lest the consciousness of it might depress their visitor. And with his resentment was mingled another feeling; not exactly acquiescence--his American education had been too strong for that--but admiration for those inherent gifts which seemed to bring with them a certain grace, carried into even the smaller matters of life. Perhaps he exaggerated to himself their importance as he sat there in the soft gathering twilight, poured out his neglected coffee and still played with his unlighted cigar. The rooks had ceased to caw above his head.

Some of the peace of night was stealing down upon the land. In the windows of Mandeleys little pinp.r.i.c.ks of light were beginning to show.

The iron hand-gate which led from the park into his domain was suddenly opened and closed. The way led through a grove of trees and through another gate into the garden. He turned his head and watched the spot where the figure of his visitor must appear. It was curious that from the first, although his common sense should have told him how impossible such a thing was, he had an intuitive presentiment as to who this visitor might be. He laid down the unlighted cigar upon his table and leaned a little forward in his chair. First he heard footsteps falling softly upon a carpet of pine needles and yielding turf, slowly too, as though the movements of their owner were in a sense reluctant.

And then a slim, tall figure in white--a familiar figure! He was up in a moment, striding forwards. She had already pa.s.sed through the gate, however, and was moving towards him across the lawn.

"Lady Let.i.tia!" he exclaimed.

She nodded.

"Please don't look as though I'd done anything so terribly unusual,"

she begged. "What a pleasant spot you have chosen for your coffee!"

David's new treasure proved fully equal to the occasion. From some unseen point of vantage he seemed to have foretold the coming of this visitor, and prepared to minister to her entertainment. Lady Let.i.tia sank into her chair and praised the coffee.

"So much better than the stuff we have been trying to drink," she told David. "I must bring dad round one evening. He loves good coffee.

How beautiful your trees are!"

"Your trees," he reminded her.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"It seems ages since I was here," she remarked. "Sylvia was away when we were down last, and dad and Colonel Laycey were annoyed with one another about some repairs. You don't want any repairs, do you, Mr.

Thain?"

"I have arranged to do whatever is necessary myself," David told her, "in consideration of a somewhat reduced rent."

"I am glad you consider it reduced!" Let.i.tia observed. "Of course, you think I am mad to come and see you like this, don't you?" she added a little aggressively.

"Not in the least," he replied. "I should not have ventured to have expected such a visit, but now that you are here it seems quite natural."

"After all, why isn't it?" she agreed. "I walked round the garden once, thinking about a certain matter in which you are concerned, and then I walked in the park, and it occurred to me that you would probably be sitting out here, only a few hundred yards away, just as you are doing, and that you could, if you would, set my mind at rest."

"If I can do that," he said, "I am very glad that you came."

"I am going to unburden my mind, then," she continued. "It is about those shares you sold father, Mr. Thain."

His manner seemed, to her quick apprehension, instantly to stiffen.

Nevertheless, he was expectant. He was willing to go through a good deal if only he could hear her voice for once falter, if even her tone would lose its half-wearied, half-insolent note, if she would raise her eyes and speak to him as woman to man.

"The Pluto Oil shares," he murmured. "Well?"

"Of course, father hadn't the least right to buy them," she went on, "because we haven't a penny in the world, and he couldn't possibly pay for them unless they fetched as much, when the payment fell due, as he gave for them. I am rather stupid at these things, Mr. Thain, but you understand?"

"Perfectly!"

Her long fingers stole into the cigarette box. She accepted a light from him and leaned back once more in her chair.

"Father," she proceeded, "has the most implicit faith in everybody.

The fact that you are an American millionaire was ample proof to him that anything in the way of shares you possessed must be worth a great deal more than their face value. I do not know what led to his buying them--you probably do. Did he asked for any a.s.surances as to their intrinsic value?"

"I warned him," David said, "that they were entirely a speculation. He asked my advice as to some way of raising a large sum of money, much larger than he could hope to gain by any ordinary enterprise. I presumed that he was willing to speculate and I suggested these shares.

They certainly are as speculative as any man could desire."

"Are they worth any more now than when father bought them?" she enquired.

"To the best of my belief they have not moved," he replied. "As a matter of fact, they have not yet had a chance to prove themselves."

"They are still worth a dollar a share, then?"

"They are worth a dollar a share as much as they were when your father bought them."

She turned her head and looked at him.

"My father," she said, "declines to ask you any questions. He would consider it in bad taste to suggest for a moment that he felt any uneasiness with regard to the necessary payment for them. He is none the less, however, worried. He was foolish enough to tell his lawyers about them, and lawyers, I am afraid, have very little faith in him as a business man. The result of the enquiries they made was most depressing."

"It probably would be," David a.s.sented.

"Forty thousand pounds' worth of shares," Let.i.tia continued, "which are worth as much now as when my father bought them, are, I suppose, nothing to you. I wondered whether you would object to have them back again? I think that it would relieve my father's mind."

Thain was silent for a moment. He had lit a cigar now and was smoking steadily.

"You have not much idea of business, Lady Let.i.tia," he remarked.

"Business?" she repeated, with a note of surprise in her tone. "How should I have? There are certain matters of common sense and of honour which I suppose are common to every one of reasonable intelligence.

There did not seem to me to be any principle of business involved in this."