The Wicked Marquis Part 17

Let.i.tia nodded.

"And a very charming girl, too," she declared. "You'll most certainly fall in love with her. Everybody does when she comes up to stay with me."

"Falling in love isn't one of my ordinary amus.e.m.e.nts," he observed a little drily.

"Superior person!" she mocked.

The d.u.c.h.ess suddenly appeared upon the balcony.

"Look here," she said, "there's been quite enough of this. Mr. Thain came especially to see me. Every one else has gone."

"I wonder if that might be considered a hint," Let.i.tia observed, glancing at the watch upon her wrist. "All right, aunt, I'll go. You wouldn't believe, Mr. Thain," she added, b.u.t.toning her gloves, "that one's relations are supposed to be a help to one in life?"

"You're only wasting your time with Mr. Thain, dear," her aunt replied equably. "I've studied his character. We were eight days on that steamer, you know, and all the musical comedy young ladies in the world seemed to be on board, and I can give you my word that Mr. Thain is a woman-hater."

"I am really more interested in him now than I have ever been before,"

Let.i.tia declared, laughing into his eyes. "My great grievance with Charlie Grantham is that he cannot keep away from our hated rivals in the other world. However, you'll talk to me again, won't you, Mr.

Thain?"

David was conscious of a curious fit of reserve, a sudden closing up of that easy intimacy into which they seemed to have drifted.

"I shall always be pleased," he said stiffly.

Let.i.tia kissed her aunt and departed. The d.u.c.h.ess sank into her empty place.

"I am going to be a beast," she began. "Have you been lending money to my brother?"

"Not a sixpence," David a.s.sured her.

The d.u.c.h.ess was evidently staggered.

"You surprise mo," she confessed. "However, so much the better. It won't interfere with what I have to say to you. I first took you to Grosvenor Square, didn't I?"

"You were so kind," he admitted.

"Now I come to think of it," she reflected, "I remember thinking it strange at the time that, though I couldn't induce you to go anywhere else, or meet any one else, you never hesitated about making Reginald's acquaintance."

"He was your brother, you see," David reminded her.

"It didn't occur to me," she replied drily, "that that was the reason.

However, what I want to say to you is this, in bald words--don't lend him money."

David looked once more across the tops of the trees.

"I gather that the Marquis, then, is impecunious?" he said.

"Reginald hasn't a s.h.i.+lling," the d.u.c.h.ess declared earnestly. "Let me just tell you how they live. Let.i.tia has two thousand a year, and so has Margaret, from their mother. Margaret's husband, who is a decent fellow, won't touch her money and makes her an allowance, so that nearly all her two thousand, and all of Let.i.tia's, except the few ha'pence she spends on clothes, go to keeping an establishment together. Reginald has sold every sc.r.a.p of land he could, years ago.

Mandeleys is the only estate he has left, and there isn't a square yard of that that isn't mortgaged to the very fullest extent. It's always a scramble between his poor devils of lawyers and himself, whether there's a little margin to be got out of the rents after paying the interest. If there is, it goes, I believe, towards satisfying the claims of a lady down at Battersea."

"A lady down at Battersea," David replied. "Is it--may I ask--an old attachment?"

"A very old one indeed," the d.u.c.h.ess replied, "and, to tell you the truth, it's one of the most reputable things I know connected with Reginald. He is inconstant in everything else he does, and without being in any way wilfully dishonest, he is absolutely unreliable. But this lady at Battersea--she belonged to one of his tenants or something--I forget the story--has kept him within reasonable bounds for more years than I should like to say-- What do you see over there, Mr. Thain?" she broke off suddenly, following his steadfast gaze.

David dropped his eyes from the clouds. His fingers relaxed their nervous clutch of the sides of his chair.

"Nothing," he answered. "I am interested. Please go on."

"Reginald has stuck at nothing to get money," the d.u.c.h.ess continued.

"He has been on the board of any company willing to pay him a few guineas for his name. I believe things have come to such a pitch in that direction that the most foolhardy investor throws the prospectus away if his name is on it. He has drained his relatives dry. And yet, if you can reconcile all these things, he is, in his way, the very soul of honour. Now, having told you this, you can do as you please. If you lend him money, you'll probably never get it back. If you've any to chuck away, I can show you a hundred deserving charities. Reginald without money is really a harmless and extraordinarily amusing person.

Reginald in search of money is the most dangerous person I know. That is what I wanted to tell you, and if you like now you can run away. My hairdresser is waiting for me, and he is just a little more independent than my chef. Stop, though, there's one thing more."

The d.u.c.h.ess had rung a bell with her foot, and a servant was waiting at the windows to show David out. The latter turned back.

"You are not making a fool of yourself with Let.i.tia, are you?"

David was very white and cold for a moment. He looked his hostess in the face, and, as she expressed it afterwards, froze her up.

"I am afraid that I do not understand you, d.u.c.h.ess," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly!" she replied. "Remember that I am your oldest friend in this country, and I say what I like to everybody. You avoid most women as you would the plague--most women except Let.i.tia. I've warned you against the father. Now I am warning you against the daughter. And then you can go and lose your heart to one and lend a million to the other, if you want. Let.i.tia, for all her apparent amiability, is the proudest girl I ever knew. I hope you understand me?"

"Perfectly!"

"Let.i.tia will marry for money, all right," her aunt continued. "She understands that that is her duty, and she will do it. But it will be some one--you will forgive me, Mr. Thain--with kindred a.s.sociations, shall I say? Let.i.tia, fortunately, takes after her father. She has no temperament, but a sense of family tradition which will give her all the backbone she needs."

"Is there any other member of the family," David began--

"Don't be a silly boy," the d.u.c.h.ess interrupted, "because that's what you are, really, in this world and amongst our stupid cla.s.s of people.

You are just as nice as can be, though. Run along, and don't forget that you are coming to dine on Friday. You'll meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he's going to try and persuade you to settle down here, for the sake of your income tax."

"Another plunderer!" David groaned. "I am beginning to feel rather like a lamb with an exceedingly long fleece."

"You would look better with your hair cut," the d.u.c.h.ess remarked, as she waved her hand. "Try that place at the bottom of Bond Street. The Duke always goes there. A Mr. Saunders is his man. Better ask for him. You'll find him at the top end of the room."

CHAPTER XIII

There was just one drop of alloy in the perfect contentment with which the Marquis contemplated his new prospects, and that was contained in a telephone message from Mr. Wadham, Junior, which he received upon the afternoon of David's call upon the d.u.c.h.ess.

"I must apologise for troubling your lords.h.i.+p," Mr. Wadham began. "I know your objection to the telephone, but in this instance it was quite impossible to send a message."

"I accept your apology and am listening," the Marquis declared graciously. "Be so good as to speak quite slowly, and don't mumble."

Mr. Wadham, Junior, cleared his throat before continuing. He was a little proud of his voice, although its rise and fall was perhaps more satisfactory from the point of view of a Chancery Court than from one who expected to gather the sense of every syllable.

"I am ringing up your lords.h.i.+p," he continued, "concerning the large batch of shares in the Pluto Oil Company of Arizona, which you entrusted to us for safe keeping, and for deposit with the bank against the advance required last Monday."