The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 46

"A million and a quarter!" said the poor peer. "And if I don't catch him, somebody else will."

Meanwhile, Captain Jack Clare, an extremely popular young officer of dragoons, was in the depths of despair. He was the younger brother of Lord Montacute, whose family was poor; he loved Lady Ella Santerre, whose family was still poorer. The heads of the families had forbidden the match for financial reasons. He had stolen an interview with Ella, and had found that she bowed to the decision of the seniors.

"It is all quite hopeless and impossible," she had said. "Good-bye, Jack!"

As he rode dispiritedly away, he could not see, for the intervening trees, that she was kneeling in the fern and crying.

_II.--A Peer in Difficulties_

The Lady Ella slipped an arm about her father's neck.

"You are in trouble, dear," she said. "Can I help you?"

"No," said the poor n.o.bleman. "There's no help for it, Beggs says, and they'll have to cut down the timber in the park. Poverty, my dear, poverty."

This was a blow, and a heavy one.

"That isn't the worst of it," said Windgall, after a pause. "I am in the hands of the Jews. A wretched Hebrew fellow says he _will_ have a thousand pounds by this day week. He might as well ask me for a million."

"The diamonds are worth more than a thousand pounds, dear," she said gently.

"No, no, my darling," he answered. "I have robbed you of everything already."

"You must take them, papa," she said in tender decision. She left him, only to return in a few minutes' time with a dark s.h.a.green case in her hands. The earl paced about the room for a minute or two.

"I take these," he said at last, "in bitter unwillingness, because I can't help taking them, my dear. I had best get the business over, Ella.

I will go up to town this afternoon."

During the whole of his journey the overdressed figure of Kimberley seemed to stand before the embarra.s.sed man, and a voice seemed to issue from it. "Catch me, flatter me, wheedle me, marry me to one of your daughters, and see the end of your woes." He despised himself heartily for permitting the idea to enter his mind, but he could not struggle against its intrusion.

Next day Kimberley entered his jewellers to consult him concerning a scarf-pin. It was a bull-dog's head, carved in lava, and not quite life-size. The eyes were rubies, the collar was of gold and brilliants.

This egregious jewel was of his own designing, and was of a piece with his general notions of how a millionaire should attire himself.

As he pa.s.sed through the door somebody leapt from a cab carrying something in his hands, and jostled against him. He turned round apologetically, and confronted the Earl of Windgall.

His lords.h.i.+p looked like a man detected in a theft, and shook hands with a confused tremor.

"Can you spare me half an hour?" he asked. Then he handed the package to the shop-man. "Take care of that," he stammered. "It is valuable. I will call to-morrow."

That afternoon Kimberley accepted an invitation to stay at Shouldershott Castle.

He was prodigiously flattered and fluttered. When he thought of being beneath the same roof with Lady Ella, he flushed and trembled as he had never done before.

"I shall see her," he muttered wildly to himself. "I shall see her in the 'alls, the 'alls of dazzling light." It is something of a wonder that he did not lose his mental balance altogether.

When he was daily in the presence of Ella, the little man's heart ached with sweet anguish and helpless wors.h.i.+p and desire. Yet before her he was tongue-tied, incapable of uttering a consecutive sentence. With her sister, Lady Alice Santerre, who had been the intended bride of the deceased heir to the Gallowbay Estate, Kimberley felt on a different footing. He had hardly ever been so much at ease with anybody in his life as this young lady made him.

Kimberley's own anxious efforts at self-improvement, Lady Alice's good-natured advice, and the bold policy of the earl, who persuaded him to undergo the terrors of an election, and get returned to Parliament as member for Gallowbay, gradually made the millionaire a more presentable person. He learned how to avoid dropping his h's; but two vices were incurable--the shyness and his appalling taste in dress.

The world, meanwhile, had guessed at the earl's motives in extending his friends.h.i.+p to Kimberley, and the little man's name was knowingly linked with that of Lady Alice. Kimberley came to hear what the world was saying through meeting Mr. Blandy, his former employer. Mr. Blandy invited him to his house, honoured the occasion with champagne, drank freely of it, and became confidential.

"The n.o.ble earl'll nail you f' one o' the girls, Kimbly. I'm a lill bit 'fected when I think, seeing my dear Kimbly 'nited marriage n.o.ble family. That's what makes me talk like this. I b'leeve you're gone c.o.o.n already, ole man. 'Gratulate you, allmy heart."

Kimberley went away in a degradation of soul. Was it possible that this peer of the realm could be so coa.r.s.ely and openly bent on securing him and his money that the whole world should know of it? What had Kimberley, he asked himself bitterly, to recommend him but his money?

But then, triumphing over his miseries, came the fancy--he could have his dream of love; he had cried for the moon, and now he could have it.

_III.--Ella's Martyrdom_

The earl's liabilities amounted roughly to ninety thousand pounds. The princ.i.p.al mortgagee was insisting upon payment or foreclosure, and there was a general feeling abroad that the estate was involved beyond its capacity to pay.

Kimberley learned these circ.u.mstances in an interview with Mr. Begg. A few days afterwards he drove up desperately to the castle and asked for a private interview with his lords.h.i.+p.

"My lord," he said, when they were alone, "I want to ask your lords.h.i.+p's acceptance of these papers."

The earl understood them at a glance. Kimberley had bought his debts.

"I ask you to take them now," Kimberley went on, "before I say another word."

He rose, walked to the fire, and dropped the papers on the smouldering coal. The earl seized the papers and rescued them, soiled but unsinged.

"Kimberley," he said, "I dare not lay myself under such an obligation to any man alive."

"They are yours, my lord," replied Kimberley. "I shall never touch them again. You're under no obligation to me, my lord. But"--he blushed and stammered--"I want to ask you for the hand of Lady Ella."

It took Windgall a full minute to pull himself together. He had schooled himself to the trembling hope that Alice might be chosen; but Ella!

"Forgive me," he began, "I was unprepared--I was not altogether unprepared--" Then he lapsed into silence.

"I will submit your proposal to my daughter," he said after a time, "but--I am powerless--altogether powerless."

Kimberley went home in a tremor of nervous anxiety, and Windgall sent for his daughter.

"I want you to understand, my dear," he began nervously, "that you are free to act just as you will. Mr. Kimberley gave these into my hands this morning"--showing her the papers. "He gave them freely, as a gift.

If I could accept them I should be free from the nightmare of debt. But in the same breath with that unconditional gift, he asked me for your hand in marriage."

She kept silence.

"You know our miserable necessities, Ella," he pleaded. "But I can't force your inclinations in a matter like this, my dear."

She ran to him, and threw her arms about his neck.

"If it depends upon me to end your troubles, my dear, they are ended already."

"Shall I," he asked lamely, "make Kimberley happy?"