The Red Hand of Ulster Part 16

"I hardly see Tottie Pringle as the next Lady Kilmore," said G.o.dfrey; "but, of course, that's the game."

I do not believe it. Tottie Pringle--I do not for a moment believe that she ever allowed G.o.dfrey to kiss her--does not look the kind of girl who--

"You'll make my excuses to Conroy, won't you, Excellency? Tell him--"

"What is the exact amount of the over-draft?" I said; "he'll probably want to know."

"Better not say anything about that," said G.o.dfrey. "Tell him I had a business engagement."

G.o.dfrey's necessity gave me my opportunity. I had Conroy all to myself after dinner, and I sounded him very cautiously about the t.i.tle. The business turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. At first Conroy was singularly obtuse. He did not seem to understand what I was hinting at. There was really no excuse for him. Our surroundings were very well suited for delicate negotiations. I had given him a bottle of champagne at dinner. I had some excellent port on the table afterwards. My dining-room is a handsome apartment, a kind of large hall with a vaulted roof. The light of the candles on the table mingled in a pleasantly mysterious way with the twilight of the summer evening. The long windows lay wide open and a heavy scent of lilies crept into the room. The lamp on the sideboard behind me lit up the impressive portrait of my great grandfather in the uniform of a captain of volunteers, the Irish volunteers of 1780. Any one, I should have supposed, would have walked delicately among hints and suggestions in such an atmosphere, among such surroundings. But Conroy would not. I was forced at last to speak rather more plainly than I had intended to. Then Conroy turned on me.

"What does your Government think I should want the darned thing for?"

he said.

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose the usual reasons."

"What are they?" said Conroy, "for I'm d.a.m.ned if I know."

"Well," I said, "when you put it that way I don't know that I can exactly explain. But most people like it. I like it myself, although I'm pretty well used to it. I imagine it would be much nicer when you came to it quite fresh. If you happen to be going over to London, you know, it's rather pleasant to have the fellow who runs the sleeping-car bustling the other people out of the way and calling you 'my lord.'"

Conroy sat in grim silence.

"There's more than that in it," I said. "That's only an example, quite a small example of the kind of thing I mean. But those little things count, you know. And, of course, the extra tip that the fellow expects in the morning wouldn't matter to you."

Conroy still declined to make any answer. I began to feel hot and flurried.

"There are other points, too," I went on. "For instance a quite pretty girl called Tottie Pringle wants to marry my nephew G.o.dfrey--at least he says she does--simply because he'll be Lord Kilmore when I'm dead.

You've met my nephew G.o.dfrey, so you'll realize that she can't possibly have any other motive."

"What," said Conroy, "does your Government expect me to do in return for making me attractive to Tottie Pringle?"

"It's not my Government," I said. "I'm not mixed up with it or responsible for it in any way."

"I always understood," said Conroy, "that you are a Liberal."

"Everybody understands that," I said, "and it's no use my contradicting it. As for what the Government wants you to do, I haven't been actually told; but I fancy you'd be expected to stop giving subscriptions to Lady Moyne."

"Is that all?"

"That's all I can think of. But, of course, there may be other things."

"I reckon," said Conroy, "that your Government can't be quite fool enough to mind much about what Lady Moyne does with my money. The pennies she drops into the slot so as to make Babberly talk won't hurt them any."

This was very much my own opinion. If I were a member of the government--I rather think I actually was, a few weeks later--Babberly would merely stimulate me.

"You can tell your Government from me--" said Conroy.

"It's not my Government."

"Well tell _that_ Government from me, that when I want a t.i.tle I'll put down the full market price. At present I'm not taking any."

Next day Conroy went off with Crossan in his motor car. He did not come back. I got a telegram from him later in the afternoon asking me to forward his luggage to Belfast. I forget the excuse he made for treating me in this very free and easy way; but there was an excuse, I know, probably quite a long one, for the telegram filled three sheets of the paper which the post-office uses for these messages.

Conroy's sudden departure was a bitter sorrow and disappointment to G.o.dfrey. He came up to dinner that night with three new pearl studs in the front of his s.h.i.+rt.

"What I can't understand," he said, "is why a man like Conroy should spend his time with your upper servants; people like Crossan, whom I shouldn't dream of shaking hands with."

"I'm afraid," I said, "that he's not going to give you that job you hoped for."

"He may," said G.o.dfrey. "I think he liked me right enough. If only he could be got to believe that Power is robbing him right and left."

"But is he?"

"He's doing what practically comes to the same thing. Once Conroy finds out--and he will some day--I should think I'd have a middling good chance of getting his secretarys.h.i.+p. He must have a gentleman for that job, otherwise he'd never be able to get along at all. I don't suppose he knows how to do things a bit. He evidently doesn't know how to behave. Look at the way he's gone on with Crossan since he's been here. Now if I were his secretary--"

G.o.dfrey mumbled on. He evidently has hopes of ousting Bob Power. He may possibly succeed in doing so. G.o.dfrey has all the cunning characteristic of the criminal lunatic.

Three days later he got his chance of dealing with Bob Power. The _Finola_ anch.o.r.ed in our bay again and Bob Power was in command of her.

CHAPTER XIV

Bob Power spent the afternoon with us. Strictly speaking, I ought to say he spent the afternoon with Marion. I only saw him at tea-time. He let me understand then that he would like to stay and dine with us. I felt that I ought to be vexed at the prospect of losing another quiet evening. Conroy had cost me two evenings. My visit to Castle Affey, my political March Past, and my expedition to Dublin had robbed me of nine others. I could ill afford to spare a twelfth to Bob Power. Yet I felt unreasonably pleased when he promised to dine with us. There is a certain flavour of the sea about Bob, a sense of boisterous good fellows.h.i.+p, a joyous irresponsibility, which would have been attractive to me at any time, and were singularly pleasant after my political experiences. I was not at all so well pleased when a note arrived from G.o.dfrey in which he asked whether he too could dine with us.

He arrived long before dinner, before I had gone upstairs to dress, and explained himself.

"I heard," he said, "that Power was up here, so I thought I'd better come too."

"How lucky it is," I said, "that Pringle didn't invite you to-night."

"I shouldn't have gone if he had. I should have considered it my duty to come here. After all, Excellency, some one ought to look after Marion a bit."

"For the matter of that," I said, "some one ought to look after Tottie Pringle."

"You never can tell," said G.o.dfrey, "what silly fancy a girl will take into her head, and that fellow Power is just the sort who might--"

G.o.dfrey nodded sagaciously. It has always been understood that G.o.dfrey is to marry Marion at some future time. I have always understood this and, on personal grounds, dislike it very much; though I do not deny that the arrangement is convenient. My t.i.tle is not a very ancient or particularly honourable one, but I do not like to think of its being dragged in the gutter by a pauper. If G.o.dfrey married Marion he would have the use of her income. G.o.dfrey has certainly understood this plan for the future. He may treat himself occasionally to the kisses of Tottie Pringle, but he is not the man to allow kissing to interfere with his prospect of earning a competence. Whether Marion understood her fate or not, I do not know. She always endured G.o.dfrey with patience. I suppose that this condition of affairs gave G.o.dfrey a certain right to nod sagaciously when he spoke of looking after Marion. But I resented both his tone and the things he said. I left him and went up to dress.

Marion's behaviour during the evening fully justified G.o.dfrey's fears, though I do not think that anything would have excused him for expressing them to me. She was amazingly cheerful during dinner, and in so good a temper, that she continued smiling at G.o.dfrey even when he scowled at her. Bob Power was breezily agreeable, and I should have thoroughly enjoyed the stories he told us if I had not been conscious all the time that G.o.dfrey was frowning at my right ear. He sat on that side of me and Bob Power on the other, so my ear was, most of the time, the nearest thing to my face that G.o.dfrey could frown at.

After dinner Bob and Marion behaved really badly; not to G.o.dfrey, but to me. No one could behave badly to G.o.dfrey because he always deserves worse than the worst that is done to him. But I am not a very objectionable person, and I have during the last twenty-two years shown a good deal of kindness to Marion. I do not think that she and Bob ought to have slipped out of the drawing-room window after singing one short song, and left me to be worried by G.o.dfrey for the whole evening. Only one way of escape presented itself to me. I pretended to go to sleep. That stopped G.o.dfrey talking after a time; but not until I had found it necessary to snore. I heard every word he said up to that point. I woke up with a very good imitation of a start when Bob and Marion came in again. That happened at ten o'clock, and Bob immediately said good night. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances G.o.dfrey stays on till nearly eleven; but that night he went away five minutes after Bob left.

Next morning there was trouble. It began with Marion's behaviour at breakfast. As a rule she is a young woman of placid and equable temper, one who is likely in the future to have a soothing effect on her husband. That morning she was very nearly hysterical. When we went into my study after breakfast she was quite incapable of work, and could not lay her hands on any of the papers which I particularly wanted. I was irritated at the moment, but I recognized afterwards that she had some excuse, and in any case my morning's work would have been interrupted.

At half-past ten I got a note from G.o.dfrey--written in pencil and almost illegible--in which he asked me to go down to see him at once.

He said that he was in severe pain and for the time confined to bed.