Anthony Lyveden Part 32

_10th Jan., 1789._

_SIR,_

_Your letter leaves me no hope but that you have been most grossly betrayed. Should you so desire, I will render you indisputable proofs that the Marquess of Bedlington hath no need of funds, much less hath delivered in any's favour a bond for the vast sum declared in your letter. In a word, though the name subscribed to the bond be that of Bedlington, it was not the Marquess' hand that set it there. Who hath done you this injury, I know not, but Time hath shown that his lords.h.i.+p's twin brother, Lord Stephen Rome, lately decd., with whom the Marquess was justly at variance, more than once scrupled not to a.s.sume his brother's person and t.i.tle to compa.s.s his own ends...._

At the mention of the twin brother, Mr. Justice Molehill raised his keen grey eyes to stare at the lamp.

"Rome," he said softly. "Rome. That's right. It was at the _Grand Hotel_. And Anthony Lyveden was the name of the sole legatee. I knew I'd heard it before."

Mrs. b.u.mble's parlourmaid was counting upon her pink fingers.

"Sunday twenty-eight, Monday twenty-nine, to-day thirty.... Yes.

To-morrow's the first of December."

George Alison regarded his wife.

"Let us hope," he said gloomily, "that it's a better month. In the course of the last four weeks I've had seventeen punctures, I've endured a miscarriage of justice which has undoubtedly shortened my life, and I've lost as good a pal as ever I struck."

"To hear you speak," said Betty, "any one would think that Anne and I had enjoyed ourselves. It's been just as bad for us."

The chauffeur shook his head.

"You rave," he said shortly. "In the first place, what have you to do with tires?"

"If we haven't had the punctures," was the reply, "we've heard enough about them."

"Yes," said Anne. "It's been almost as bad as golf. 'What I did at the fourteenth hole.'"

"In the second place," said George, "women adore irregularity. I can conceive nothing more delectable to the feminine appet.i.te than the spectacle of Justice derailed. The apotheosis of our esteemed friend and late colleague, Mr. Albert Morgan, has afforded you two more indirect gratification than anything I can remember."

"Gratification?" almost screamed the two girls.

"Gratification," said George. "If I'd come home and said he'd pleaded guilty and been sent down for five years, you'd have been all depressed. In the third place----"

"Monstrous," said Betty. "Don't laugh, Anne. As if the very thought of that man walking about free didn't make my blood boil."

"It made it run cold last time," observed her husband. "Same principle as a geyser, I suppose.... Well, as I was saying, in the third place, what was Anthony to you?"

"One of the best," said Betty stoutly. "That's what he was."

Her husband wrinkled his nose.

"My point is that he was a man's pal. He was nice to you because he'd been properly brought up, but..."

Mournfully he pa.s.sed his cup to be refilled.

"Go on," said Betty silkily. "I wouldn't miss this for anything."

Suspiciously George regarded her.

"Well," he said defiantly, "he hadn't much use for women."

Mrs. Alison turned to her sister-in-law and nodded scornfully at her husband.

"Our wiseacre," she said.

"All right," said the chauffeur. "Don't you believe me. He as good as told me so the day before he left, but I suppose that doesn't count."

Gurgling with merriment, his sister rose from the table and, coming behind the speaker, set her hands on his shoulders.

"And I suppose that's why he 'wished to leave the neighbourhood,'" she said, laying her cheek against his. "Betty and I were too much for him. Which reminds me, Bet, you and I ought to go to Bell Hammer and take those books back."

Her brother screwed his head round and looked at her.

"You're not suggesting that Valerie----"

"Sent him away?" said Anne. "Heaven knows. But he's just crazy about her, isn't he, Bet?"

The parlourmaid nodded.

"And she?" queried Alison.

"Loves him to distraction," said Anne.

"Which is why she lets him push off?" said George. "I see. And I suppose, if they'd hated one another like poison, they'd have been married by now. You know, this is too easy."

"Ah," said Betty, with a dazzling smile, "but then, you see, women adore irregularity."

Her husband, who was in the act of drinking, choked with emotion.

That the household was once more without a footman was a hard fact.

Major Anthony Lyveden, D.S.O., was gone. His period of service at The Shrubbery had come to an abrupt end upon the previous day. His notice had not expired, but when he received an offer which was conditional upon his immediate departure from Hawthorne, he had laid the facts before Mr. b.u.mble and left two days later. All efforts to persuade him to leave an address were unavailing. This was a pity, for, ten minutes after he and Patch had left for the station, there had arrived for him a letter from a firm of solicitors that numbered many distinguished clients, and The Honourable Mr. Justice Molehill among them.

Since Anthony will never read that letter, neither will we. We will leave it where it is now, where it will lie, I dare say, until the crack of doom--behind the overmantel in the servants' parlour, gentlemen, with its back to the wall.

Anthony, then, was gone, and Patch with him. The Judge had been gone some time. Mr. Morgan also had left the neighbourhood, and was earning good money in the West End by the simple expedient of wearing the Mons medal, to which, never having seen "service," he was not ent.i.tled, and perambulating the gutters of South Kensington with a child in his arms.

The child was heavy and cost him sixpence a day, but, as an incentive to charity, it left the rendering of "Abide with Me," upon which Mr.

Morgan had previously relied, simply nowhere.

Lady Touchstone and Valerie were still at Bell Hammer. More than once the latter had revived her suggestion of a visit to the South of France. Each time Valerie had applauded the idea and then promptly switched the conversation on to another topic.... Women understand women, and with a sigh her aunt resigned herself to the prospect of a winter in Hamps.h.i.+re. Return to Town she would not. London was not what it had been, and the vanities of the metropolis fell dismally short of the old pre-War standard. You were robbed, too, openly, wherever you went. With tears in their eyes, shopkeepers offered you stones instead of bread, and charged you for fishes. Besides, unemployment was booming, routs were frequent, rioting was in the air.... Lady Touchstone decided that, if she was not to snuff the zephyrs of Nice, the smell of the woods of Bell Hammer was good enough for her nostrils.

If Lyveden had lost weight, Miss French had gained none. The blow that had fallen all but a month ago had hit her as hard as him. Yet, of the two, her plight was less evil. Each of them had dropped in their tracks, which is to say that, while Lyveden had fallen upon the rough ground of bare existence. Miss French had fallen into the lap of luxury.

I am prepared to be told that this should have made no difference--that creature comforts cannot minister to a broken heart. But, sirs, the flesh and the spirit are thicker than that. The iron must have entered uncommon deep into the soul for the body no longer to care whether the bath-water run hot or cold.

For all that, the girl was desperately unhappy. That she should have been bracketed with Anne was bad enough; that they should have been wooed in the same nest, to say the least, smacked more of business than of love: that it was her nest, of which, of her love, she had made the man free, was infamous. It was such treatment as she would not have expected at the hands of a counter-jumper--a deserter--a satyr.