The Wicked Marquis Part 14

The Marquis waved his hand.

"My dear young friend," he explained, "it was not necessary for me to resort to banks. Mr. Thain suggested voluntarily that I should give him my note of hand for the amount. He quite understood that a man whose chief interest in the country is land does not keep such a sum as forty thousand pounds lying at his banker's."

Mr. Wadham groped for his hat.

"The shares shall be deposited, and the interest, of course, paid," he murmured. "I am sorry to have troubled your lords.h.i.+p in the matter."

"Not at all, not at all," the Marquis replied genially. "Very pleased to see you at any time, Mr. Wadham, on any subject connected with the estates. Ah!" he added, glancing at a card which a footman at that moment had brought in, "here is my friend, Mr. David Thain. You must meet him, Mr. Wadham. Such men are rare in this country. They form most interesting adjuncts to our modern civilisation. Show Mr. Thain in, Thomas."

David Thain duly arrived. He shook hands with the Marquis and was by him presented to Mr. Wadham.

"Mr. Wadham is my legal advisor--or rather a junior representative of the firm who conduct my affairs," the Marquis explained. "I have just handed him over my shares in the Pluto Oil Company, for safe keeping."

"Very glad to know you, Mr. Thain," the young lawyer observed, reverently shaking hands. "One reads a great deal of your financial exploits in the newspapers just now."

"I really can't see," David replied, "that your press men are much better over here than in the States. In any case, Mr. Wadham, you mustn't believe all you read."

"You will give my regards to your father and the other members of your firm," the Marquis concluded, with the faintest possible indication of his head towards the door. "I shall probably have some instructions of an interesting nature to give you before long, with regard to the cancellation of, at any rate, the home estate mortgages. Ah, here is Thomas! Very much obliged for your attention, Mr. Wadham."

The lawyer made his adieux in somewhat confused fas.h.i.+on, and left the room with an ignominious sense of dismissal. The Marquis glanced at the clock.

"I am a creature of habit, Mr. Thain," he said. "At twelve o'clock I walk for an hour in the Park. Will you give me the honour of your company?"

"Anywhere you say," David a.s.sented. "There was just a little matter I wanted to mention--nothing important."

"Precisely," the Marquis murmured, ringing the bell. "You will return to lunch, of course? I shall take no denial. My daughter would be distressed to miss you. Gossett," he added, as they moved out into the hall, "my coat and hat, and tell Lady Let.i.tia that Mr. Thain will lunch with us. Have you any idea, Gossett," he added, as he accepted his cane and gloves, "how to make c.o.c.ktails?"

"I have a book of recipes, your lords.h.i.+p," was the somewhat doubtful reply.

"See that c.o.c.ktails are served before luncheon," the Marquis instructed. "You see, we are not altogether ignorant of the habits of your countrymen, Mr. Thain, even if in some cases we may not ourselves have adopted them. A c.o.c.ktail is, I gather, some form of alcoholic nourishment?"

Thain indulged in what was, for him, a rare luxury--a hearty laugh. He threw his head back, showing all his white, firm teeth, and the little lines at the sides of his eyes wrinkled up with enjoyment. Suddenly a voice on the stairs interposed.

"I must know the joke," Let.i.tia declared. "How do you do, Mr. Thain?

A laugh like yours makes one feel positively delirious with the desire to share it. Father, do tell me what it was?"

"To tell you the truth, my dear," the Marquis replied, quite honestly, "I am a little ignorant as to the humorous application of a remark I have just made."

"It was your father's definition of an American inst.i.tution, Lady Let.i.tia," David explained, "and I am afraid that its humour depended solely upon a certain environment which I was able to conjure up in my mind--a barroom at the Waldorf, say."

"Another disappointment," Let.i.tia sighed.

"Mr. Thain is lunching with us, dear," her father announced.

"So glad," Let.i.tia remarked, nodding to Thain. "We shall meet again, then."

She pa.s.sed out of the front door, and David, who was very observant, noticing several things, was silent for the first few moments after her departure. She appeared, as she could scarcely fail to appear in his eyes, charming even to the point of bewilderment. Yet, although the wind was cold, she had only a small and very inadequate fur collar around her neck. Her tailormade suit showed signs of constant brus.h.i.+ngs. There was a little--a very modest little patch upon her shoes, and a very distinct darn upon her gloves. David frowned in puzzled fas.h.i.+on as he turned into the Park. Some of his boyish antipathies, so carefully nursed by his uncle and fostered by the atmosphere in which they lived during his early days in America, flashed into his memory, only to be instantly discarded. He remembered the drawn blinds, the weedy walks of Mandeleys; the hasty glimpse which he had had of silent, empty rooms and uncarpeted ways in the higher storeys of the mansion in Grosvenor Square.

"I am not a person," the Marquis observed, as they proceeded upon their promenade, "who needs a great deal of exercise, but I am almost a slave to habit, and for many years, when in town, it has been my custom to walk here for an hour, to exchange greetings, perhaps, with a few acquaintances, to call at my club for ten minutes and take a gla.s.s of dry sherry before luncheon. In the afternoons," he went on, "I occasionally play a round of golf at Ranelagh. Are you an expert at the game, Mr. Thain?"

"I have made blasphemous efforts," David confessed, "but I certainly cannot call myself an expert. Perhaps what is known as the American spirit has rather interfered with my efforts. You see, we want to get things done too quickly. Golf is a game eminently suited to the British temperament."

"You are doubtless right," the Marquis murmured. "That loitering backward swing, eh?--the lazy indisposition to raise one's head? I follow you, Mr. Thain. Your call this morning, by-the-by," he went on.

"You have some news, perhaps, of these Pluto Oils?"

David shook his head.

"I came to see you," he announced, "upon a different matter."

CHAPTER XI

The Marquis was occupied for several minutes in exchanging greetings with pa.s.sing acquaintances. As soon as they were alone again, he reverted to his companion's observation.

"There was a matter, I think you said, Mr. Thain, which you wished to discuss with me."

"I was going to ask you about Broomleys," David replied.

The Marquis was puzzled.

"Broomleys? Are you referring, by chance, to my house of that name?"

"I guess so."

"But, my dear Mr. Thain, you surprise me," the Marquis declared. "When did you hear of Broomleys?"

"I should have explained," David continued, "that I spent this last week-end at Cromer. There I visited an agent and told him that I would like to take a furnished house in the neighbourhood. I motored over, at his suggestion, to see Broomleys, and the tenant, Colonel Laycey, kindly showed me over. He is leaving within a few days, I believe."

"Dear me, of course he is!" the Marquis observed genially. "I had quite forgotten the fact--quite forgotten it."

The Marquis saluted more acquaintances. He was glad of an opportunity for reflection. The Fates were indeed smiling upon him! A gleam of antic.i.p.atory delight shone in his eyes as he thought of his next interview with Mr. Wadham, Junior! On his desk at the present moment there lay a letter from the firm, announcing Colonel Laycey's departure and adding that they saw little hope of letting the house at all in its present condition.

"It would be a great pleasure to us, Mr. Thain," the Marquis continued pleasantly, "to have you for a neighbour. Did the agent or Colonel Laycey, by-the-by, say anything about the rent?"

"Nothing whatever," David replied. "The Colonel pointed out to me various repairs which certainly seemed necessary, but as I am a single man, the rooms affected could very well be closed for a time. It was the garden, I must confess, which chiefly attracted me."

"Broomleys has, I fear, been a little neglected," the Marquis sighed.

"These stringent days, with their campaign of taxation upon the landed proprietor, have left me, I regret to say, a poor man. Colonel Laycey was not always considerate. His last letter, I remember, spoke of restorations which would have meant a couple of years' rent."

"If I find any little thing wants doing urgently when I get there,"

David promised carelessly, "I will have it seen to myself. If the rent you ask is not prohibitive, it is exactly the place I should like to take for, say, a year, at any rate."

"You are a man of modest tastes, Mr. Thain," the Marquis observed.

"The fact that you are unmarried, however, of course renders an establishment an unnecessary burden. You will bear in mind, so far as regards the rent of Broomleys, Mr. Thain, that the house is furnished."

"Very uncomfortably but very attractively furnished, from what I saw,"