The Wicked Marquis Read online

  CHAPTER XV

  The Duchess, a few mornings later, leaned back in her car and watchedthe perilous progress of her footman, dodging in and out of the trafficin the widest part of Piccadilly. He returned presently in safety,escorting the object of his quest. The Duchess pointed to the seat byher side.

  "Can I take you or drop you anywhere?" she asked. "Please don't lookas though you had been taken into custody. I saw you in the distance,walking aimlessly along, and I really wanted to talk to you."

  David for a moment indulged in the remains of what was almost a boyishresentment.

  "I have to go to the Savoy," he explained, "and I was rather intendingto walk across St. James's Park."

  "You can walk after your lunch," she insisted. "If you walk before, itgives you too much of an appetite,--afterwards, it helps yourdigestion, so get in with me, and I will drive you to the Savoy."

  He took his place by her side with a distinct air of resignation. TheDuchess laughed at him.

  "You are a very silly person to dislike other people so," sheadmonished. "If you begin to give way to misanthropy at your time oflife, you will be a withered up old stick whom no one will want to bedecent to, except to get money out of, before you're fifty. Don't youknow that the society of human beings is good for you?"

  "There isn't a medicine in the world one can't take too much of," Davidventured, smiling in spite of himself.

  "To the Savoy, John," his mistress directed. "Tell Miles to driveslowly. To abandon abstruse discussions," she continued, leaning back,"have you regarded my warning?"

  "Which one?" he demanded.

  "I mean with reference to my brother. I happen to have come across himonce or twice, during the last few days. On Wednesday he was in themost buoyant spirits--for him. He had the air of a man who hasaccomplished some great feat. If you only knew how amusing Reginald isat such times! His manner isn't in the least different, but you knowperfectly well that he is thinking himself one of the most brilliantcreatures ever born. There is a note of the finest and most delicatecondescension in the way he speaks. I am perfectly certain that if hehad happened to come across the Chancellor of the Exchequer onWednesday, he would have discussed finance with him in a patronisingfashion, and probably offered him a few hints as to how to reduce theNational Debt."

  "On Wednesday this was," David murmured.

  "And on Friday," the Duchess continued, "he was a different man. Hecarried himself exactly as usual, but his footsteps were falling likelead. He looked over the eyes of every one, and there was that queer,grey look in his face which helps one to remember that, notwithstandinghis figure, he is nearly sixty years old. What have you been doing tohim, Mr. Thain?"

  "Nothing that would account for his latter state," David assured her.

  "When did you see him last?" she asked.

  "On Thursday."

  "Where?"

  David hesitated.

  "At Trewly's Restaurant."

  "He was lunching or dining with some one?"

  "Dining."

  The Duchess nodded.

  "Of course! With a lady, wasn't it?"

  "Is this a fair cross-examination?" David protested.

  "My dear Mr. Thain, don't be absurd," his companion admonished. "Everyone in London and out of it has known of my brother's friendship withMarcia Hannaway for years. As a matter of fact, we all approve of itimmensely. The young woman, although she must be getting on now, is avery clever writer, and I think that the influence she has exercisedupon Reginald, throughout his life, has been an excellent one. So thatwas Thursday night, eh?"

  David assented. He was looking out of the window of the car, as thoughinterested in the passing throngs.

  "I will tell you something," the Duchess continued. "You have heard, Idare say, of the lawsuits down at Mandeleys, and of that keeper'scottage within a hundred yards from the lawn, and of the old man Vont,who has come back just as bitter as ever? That girl is his daughter."

  "The Marquis seems to have displayed the most extraordinary fidelity,"David remarked.

  "My dear Mr. Thain," was the emphatic reply, "they have been the makingof one another's lives. It is the sort of thing one reads more of inFrench memoirs than meets with in actual life, but I can assure youthat Reginald would be absolutely miserable without her, and she--well,see what she has become through his influence and companionship. Yetthey tell me that that old man has come back to his ridiculous cottage,and sits there in the front garden, reading the Bible and blasting thevery gooseberry bushes with his curses against Reginald. Mostuncomfortable it will be, I should think, when you all get down there."

  "Nothing that you have said alters the fact," David reminded her, "thatVont's daughter has been all her life, and is to-day, in an invidioussituation with regard to your brother."

  The Duchess's eyebrows were slightly raised.

  "And why not?" she asked, in genuine surprise. "Of course, I don'tclaim to be so absolutely feudal in my ideas as Reginald, but I stillcannot find the slightest disadvantage which has accrued to the youngwoman from her position."

  "I have been brought up myself in a different school," David saidquietly, "in the school Richard Vont was brought up in. I see nodifference fundamentally between a Marquis and a gamekeeper, and to methe womenkind of the gamekeeper should be as sacred to the Marquis asthe womenkind of the Marquis to the gamekeeper."

  The Duchess laughed good-humouredly.

  "I have always insisted," she declared, "that America is the mostbackward country in the world. So many of you come to Europe now,though, that one would have thought you would have attained to a morecorrect perspective of life. But you are certainly much more amusingas you are. No, be quiet, please," she went on. "I didn't call foryou to enter into general discussions. I just wanted to know aboutReginald. Of course, you have discovered already that I amridiculously fond of him, and I am trying to find out what isdepressing him so much. Do you know what I am most afraid of?"

  "I have no idea," David confessed. "The workings of your mind seem tolead you to such unexpected conclusions."

  "Don't be peevish," she replied. "What I am really more afraid of thananything is that Marcia Hannaway will leave him."

  "Why?"

  The Duchess shrugged her shoulders.

  "She is twenty years younger than Reginald, and she has made forherself an entirely new place in life. That is the wonderful goal awoman reaches who has brains and is enabled to put them to somepractical use. She has a circle of friends and admirers andsympathisers, already made. Now Reginald is a dear, but his outlookupon life is almost whimsical, and I have always wondered whether hewould be able to hold a woman like this to the end. The only thingis," she concluded ruminatively, "that the affair has been going on forso long, and is so well known, that it would be positively indecent ofher to break it off. Don't you think so, Mr. Thain?"

  David looked at the Duchess and shook his head.

  "Honestly," he admitted, "I can't give an opinion. I thought Iunderstood something of human nature before I came into touch with youand those few members of your aristocracy whom I have met through you.But frankly, to use a homely metaphor, you take the wind out of mysails. I don't know where I am when you lay down the law. There issomething wrong between us fundamentally. I was brought up the sameway Vont was brought up. Things were right or wrong, moral or immoral.You people seem to have made laws of your own."

  "It's time some one revised the old ones," his companion laughed."However, I can see that you can be no help to me about Reginald, andhere we are at the Savoy. By-the-by, I've never seen you except withmen. Have you no women friends? Are none of those charming littlemusical comedy ladies I see through the windows there expecting you astheir host?"

  "They look very attractive," David admitted, smiling back at hiscompanion, "but I am, in reality, lunching alone. I came here becauseI know my stockbroker lunches every day in the grillroom, and I want tosee him."

  "How
pathetic!" she sighed. "I really believe that I have a duty inconnection with you."

  "At any rate," he promised, as he held out his hand, "there is a manhere who will serve us some American lobster which is very nearly thereal thing."

  "Don't make me feel too gluttonous," she begged, as she stepped out."I really am not in the habit of inviting myself to luncheon like this,but the fact of it is--"

  She hesitated. He passed behind her into the little vestibule.

  "Well?"

  "Well, I rather like you, Mr. David Thain," she whispered. "You won'tbe vain about it, will you, but all the financiers I have ever met havebeen so extraordinarily full of their money and how they made it. Youare different, aren't you?"

  "I am content if you find me so," he answered, with rare gallantry.

  David ordered a thoroughly American luncheon, of which his guestheartily approved.

  "If you Americans," she observed, "only knew how to live as well as youknow how to eat, what a nation you would be!"

  "We fancy that we have some ideas that way, also," he told her."Wherein do we fail most, from your English point of view?"

  "In matters of sex," the Duchess replied coolly. "You know so muchmore about lobster Newburg than you do about women. I suppose it isall this strenuous money-getting that is responsible for yourignorance. No one over here, you see, tries for anything very much."

  "You certainly all live in a more enervating atmosphere," Davidadmitted.

  "Tell me about your younger days?" she demanded.

  "There is nothing to tell in the least interesting," he assured her."My people were poor. I was sent to Harvard with great difficulty by arelative who kept a boot store. I became a clerk in a railway office,took a fancy to the work and planned out some schemes--which came off."

  "How much money have you, in plain English?" she asked.

  "About four millions," he answered.

  "And what are you going to do with it?"

  "Buy an estate, for one thing," he replied. "Fortunately, I am veryfond of shooting and riding, so I suppose I shall amuse myself."

  "Are those your only resources?" she enquired, with a faint smile.

  "I may marry."

  "Come, this gets more interesting! Any lady in your mind yet?"

  "None whatever," he assured her, with almost exaggerated firmness.

  "You'd better give yourself a few years first and then let me choosefor you," she suggested. "I know just the type--unless you change."

  "And why should I change?"

  "Because," she said, eying him penetratively, "there is at presentsomething bottled up in you. I do not know what it is, and if I askedyou wouldn't tell me, but you're not quite your natural self, whateverthat may be. Is it, I wonder, the result of that twenty years'struggle of yours? Perhaps you have really lost the capacity forgenerous life, Mr. Thain."

  "You are a very observant person."

  "Trust me, then, and tell me your secret sorrow?" she suggested. "Icould be a very good friend, Mr. Thain, if friends amuse you."

  "I have lived under a shadow," he confessed. "I am sorry, but I cannottell you much about it. But in a sense you are right. Life for mewill begin after the accomplishment of a certain purpose."

  "You have a rival to ruin, eh?"

  "No, it isn't that," he assured her. "It happens to be something ofwhich I could not give you even the smallest hint."

  "Well, I don't see how you are going to get on with it down atBroomleys," she observed. "What a horrid person you are to go there atall! You might as well bury yourself. You have the wealth of a MonteCristo and you take a furnished villa--for that's all it is! Perhapsyou are waiting till the mortgages fall in, to buy Mandeleys? Or didmy warning come too late and is Letitia the attraction?"

  He was conscious of her close observation, but he gave no sign.

  "I have seen nothing of Lady Letitia," he said, "but even if she werecontent to accept my four millions as a compensation for my otherdisadvantages, it would make no difference."

  "Any entanglements on the other side?" she asked airily.

  "None!"

  The Duchess finished her lobster and leaned back in her chair. Throughher tiny platinum lorgnette she looked around the room for severalmoments. Then a little abruptly she turned again to him.

  "Really," she said, "people are doing such mad things, now-a-days, thatI am not at all sure that I am right in putting you off Letitia. Itwould be frightfully useful to have four millions in the family. Andyet, do you know," she went on, "it's queer, isn't it, but I don't wantyou to marry my niece."

  "Why not?"

  "How crude!" she sighed. "I really shall have to take a lot of troublewith you, Mr. David Thain. However, if you persist--because Letitia ismy niece."

  "And you don't like me well enough," he asked, "to accept me as ahusband for your niece?"

  She laughed at him very quietly.

  "Are you very ingenuous," she demanded, "or just a little subtle?Hadn't it occurred to you, for instance, that I might prefer to keepyou to myself?"

  "You must forgive me if I seem stupid," he begged, "or unresponsive. Idon't wish to be either. I can understand that in America I might be aperson of some interest. Over here--well, the whole thing isdifferent, isn't it? Apart from my money, I know and realise howignorant I am of your ways, of the things to do here and how to dothem. I feel utterly at a disadvantage with every one, unless theyhappen to want my money."

  "You are too modest, Mr. Thain," she declared, leaning a little towardshim and dropping her voice. "I will tell you one reason why youinterest me. It is because I am quite certain that there is somethingin your life, some purpose or some secret, which you have not confidedto any living person in this country. I want to know what it is. Itisn't exactly vulgar inquisitiveness, believe me. I am perfectlycertain that there is something more of you than you show to peoplegenerally."

  David was conscious of an odd sense of relief. After all, the womanwas only curious--and it was most improbable that her curiosity wouldlead her in the right direction.

  "You are very discerning, Duchess," he said. "Unfortunately, I have noconfidence to offer you. The one secret in my life is some one else'sand not my own."

  "And you never betray a confidence?" she asked, looking at himsteadfastly. "You could be trusted?"

  "I hope so," he assured her.

  Their lunch passed on to its final stages. The Duchess smoked aRussian cigarette with her coffee, and it seemed to him thatimperceptibly she had moved a little nearer to him. Her elbows wereupon the table and her hands clasped. She seemed for a moment to studyone or two quaint rings upon her fingers.

  "A few more questions, and I shall feel that we know one another," shesaid. "Just why have you left America and this wonderful pursuit ofwealth?"

  "Because there were no more railways in which I was interested," heanswered, "nor any particular speculation or enterprise that appealedto me. I have more money than I can ever spend, and I know very wellthat if I remained in America I should have no peace. I should be atarget for years for every man who has land to sell near railways, orshares to sell, or an invention to perfect. As soon as I decided towind up, I decided also that it was necessary for me to clear rightaway. Apart from that, England and English life attracts me."

  "And this purpose?" she enquired. "This secret--which is somebodyelse's secret?"

  "Such as it is," he replied, "it belongs to this country."

  "How old are you?" she asked suddenly.

  "I am thirty-seven," he told her.

  She sighed. Her slightly tired blue eyes seemed to be looking throughthe little cloud of cigarette smoke to the confines of the room.

  "A magnificent age for a man," she murmured, "but a little ghastly fora woman. I was thirty-nine last birthday. Never mind, one has thepresent. So here are you, in the prime of life, with an immensefortune and no responsibilities. If Disraeli had been alive, he wouldhave written a novel abo
ut you. There is so much which you could do,so much in which you could fail. Will you become just a man about townhere, make friends partly in Bohemia and partly amongst some of us,endow a theatre and marry the first chorus girl who is too clever foryou? Or--"

  "I am more interested in the 'or,'" he declared rashly.

  She turned her eyes slightly without moving her head, and knocked theash from her cigarette into her plate.

  "Let us go," she said, a little abruptly. "I am tired of talking here.If you really wish to know, you can accept the invitation which I shallsend you presently, and come to Scotland."