Kitabı oku: «Lord Loveland Discovers America», sayfa 20

"Haven't you? I'm not so sure about that," said Lesley, with an inflection in her voice that Val couldn't quite understand. "And I'm not sure you haven't learnt your lesson rather well."

"Which one?" enquired Loveland, ruefully; but she could not have understood the question, for she went on talking as if it had not been asked.

"You must be able to do something," she said, her dimples well in control.

"You've seen that I can't act, but – well, I can shoot pretty straight."

"Ah, I don't know anyone who keeps a shooting gallery."

"And ride decently."

"Nor anyone who wants a riding master. Oh, but – now can you drive a motor-car?"

"Yes," said Loveland.

"Good. Do you understand the mechanism of cars?"

"Of two or three. As well as – or better than most chauffeurs, I think, if that isn't being conceited again."

"I'm not finding fault with you tonight for conceit. Would you take quite a temporary job as chauffeur, in – in a private family, with a sal – oh, I might as well say wages! of $25 a week and your board and lodging besides?"

"If I could get the first week in advance, I might send everybody to Chicago – with what we've got out of the stolen play," Loveland said.

"Never mind the stolen play. In Sidney Cremer's name, I forgive you all, now I know the circumstances. No more to be said about that."

"You must know him very well indeed, to speak for him so positively," broke in Loveland, gloomily.

"I do," said Lesley. "You can have the first week's wages in advance, and the second, too. The car's a Gloria."

"My last was a Gloria."

"You mean – Lord Loveland's?"

"Oh, yes, I mean Lord Loveland's. Some men do make chauffeurs of their valets and vice versa. And you know, the real Loveland was hard up – or thought he was. I begin to see now, that he didn't know what being hard up meant."

"Even English peers can live and learn – while they're young, I suppose," said Lesley, meditatively. "But we were talking about you, weren't we? Do you accept the situation I offer you?"

"You offer?"

"Well, for my friend, Sidney Cremer. Sidney has just bought a new car, and sent it to us. I'm allowed to use it for awhile, as much as I like."

"He's coming, then?"

"We expect Sidney to be with us for some time – with my aunt and me."

"I'm hanged if I'll be his servant!" Val exclaimed, with something of his old vehemence.

"Oh! Very well, Mr. Gordon. I thought you were really in earnest, or I wouldn't have made the suggestion."

"So I am. But – "

"There's often a 'but' in such cases, isn't there? I admit it wouldn't be a particularly agreeable position for a man who has – er – "

"Posed as a peer," Loveland finished for her, bitterly.

"You put the words into my mouth. I was going to say – you seemed so anxious to do something to help the others, and this is the only thing I can think of by which you could make money quickly and – "

Ed Binney's pale face and Lillie's wistful eyes seemed to float in the air before the unhappy Loveland. "Very well," he said, "I will be Mr. Cremer's chauffeur. I've taken his play. I'll take his money; I'll take his food; I'll live under his roof, and I'll serve him as well as I can. And I'll only ask you to believe one decent thing of me, Miss Dearmer: that it isn't for my own sake."

"It will be my food you eat," said Lesley, sweetly. "And my roof which will give you shelter."

Loveland drew in his breath hard, as they looked at each other. Yes, it would be her roof, and her food. That was the worse for him, because it made it more and more plain that Sidney Cremer must be very near and dear to her.

"It's quite settled, then?" she asked pleasantly.

"It's quite settled," he echoed. "For a fortnight."

There were no dimples at play in Lesley's cheeks; but one might almost have said that her eyes laughed.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A Protégé of Miss Dearmer's

Lesley Dearmer and her aunt were staying that night at Ashville with their friends, and next morning everything was arranged. Loveland explained that, in a fortnight, at latest, he would certainly be released from the bondage of his embarrassments, therefore he would take service as Mr. Cremer's chauffeur only for that length of time, thus giving his employers a chance to find a good man for a permanent engagement. He received from Lesley the two weeks' wages in advance, and the fifty dollars – a far larger amount than he had touched since landing – seemed to him a respectable sum. Ten dollars he kept for his own necessities, and the rest he divided among the members of the broken company.

The profits from the three performances of "Lord Bob" paid the hotel bills for all, and left a few dollars over. Lumped together, there was enough to take Lillie de Lisle, Ed Binney, Miss St. Clare, and the Winters to Chicago, leaving something to tide each one through a week or two of idleness.

Lillie, Ed, and Miss St. Clare could hardly express their gratitude to Loveland, and the words they said to him warmed his heart as it had never been warmed before. There was a queer kind of happiness in sacrificing himself for others that came as an absolutely new sensation to Val. He wondered at it, feeling the glow of it, and was dimly conscious that the hardships he endured had unexpected compensations.

As for Pa and Ma Winter, they were less openly grateful, seeming to take what was done for them more or less as a right; and they would assuredly have protested vigorously had Loveland favoured his friends, Miss de Lisle and Ed Binney, beyond what they – the Winters – had received. Their attitude, however, mattered little to Val. They were old and unfortunate, and he was sorry for them, as he was learning to be sorry for those upon whom the world was hard: besides, Lillie and Ed, and perhaps Miss St. Clare, would have refused to accept anything beyond what the Winters shared; and both assured Val that one day, before long, they would repay him all.

Lillie was in touch with Bill again; therefore, in spite of the uncertain future, she was not unhappy. She had written to Bill the day after Loveland joined the company, had sent him a photograph of herself, and a collar for Shakespeare, the best that could be bought for fifty cents in Modunk. Bill had answered to Ashville, and though neither had any prospects, both had unlimited hope, now that they were sure of the love and loyalty which had outlived discouragements, absence, and unprosperous years. Lillie was going to Chicago, and Chicago might have something to offer. Bye and bye – who could tell? – she and Bill, "the best man she ever knew," might come together. Meanwhile, they could go on loving each other.

The girl went off buoyed up with hope; and Ed Binney had friends in Chicago. He would rest a little, and be "all right," he said to Val, shaking hands over and over again in the moment of goodbye.

To reach Lesley Dearmer's home it was necessary to travel for an hour in a slow local train which lingered lovingly at each tiny station by the way, and then to drive for six miles in a carriage. This last stage of the journey ended at the Hill Farm, as Mrs. Loveland's place was called; and the Hill Farm lay in charming country not far from Louisville.

Loveland was instructed to meet the two ladies at the train, and receive his railway ticket, having seen his friends off for Chicago; and at noon of the day after her surprise visit to the theatre, Miss Dearmer's newly appointed chauffeur was waiting for his employer at the Ashville station.

In his hand was the battered bag which had called forth the contempt of Jack Jacobus, and in his heart were shame, rebellion, jealousy, and joy, mingled with several other emotions, none of which he could have defined – least of all the joy.

He reminded himself that there could now be no possible satisfaction in his nearness to Lesley. She did not like him enough to believe in him. She had practically admitted that she accepted the estimate of strangers, and the circumstantial evidence which made him seem a fraud. She had not denied her engagement to Sidney Cremer, whose servant Loveland had pledged himself to be, and she even showed – or Val imagined it – a mischievous pleasure in the situation. She had not had the grace to say, "I know this is all horrid, and humiliating to you. I'm sorry, and will try to help you make the best of it."

Why should she say so, indeed, when she believed him to be no better than an adventurer, punished for a mean attempt at deceiving? Regarded from that point of view, he ought to be grateful to Miss Dearmer for trusting him far enough to take him on as a chauffeur. But he was not grateful. He thought that, on the contrary, he was very angry; yet he was not quite sure. And if he were angry, it was a strange kind of anger that he felt.

He had to wait for some time on the platform before Miss Dearmer appeared, and then she came towards him alone.

"Auntie is saying goodbye to our Ashville friends," she explained. "I – they're not going to stop with us till the train goes. I thought for several reasons it would be better not, and they quite understand. Before you meet my aunt, I want a little talk with you. I haven't told her, or the others, that you – that there's any connection between you and the newspaper story about – the Marquis and his adventures."

"Thank you. That was considerate," said Val, somewhat sarcastically. "What have you told Mrs. Loveland, then?"

"That's what I want to talk with you about. I said I'd met you before, and was sorry to find now that you'd had misfortunes, losing your money, and other things that had put you into an uncomfortable position. Auntie was in her stateroom on board ship till the last morning, and then I didn't point you out to her. If she saw you at all, she didn't notice you particularly, and besides she's very near sighted. If there'd been any danger of her recognising you, she would have done so at the theatre last night, when you were playing 'Lord Bob.' She knows only that you're Mr. Gordon, and that to help you a little, I've asked you to act as chauffeur for a short time, till you can get something better."

"And till Mr. Cremer can get someone better," Loveland capped her words.

"You have to be tried first," smiled the girl, "before we can tell whether you're good, better – or best. Meanwhile Aunt Barbara's just trusting me. She always does, for she's used to what she calls my funny ways, and she's found out that there's some sense in them. My experiments generally turn out successes."

"Then I'm to consider myself one of your experiments?"

"Decidedly," laughed Lesley. "And I mean you to be a success – a great success. Now I'm going to Auntie. I think we'd better travel in different cars, for she hasn't quite got used yet to the idea of a gentleman chauffeur. I've told her that they're the fashion, and she's prepared to take you on faith. But the first time she travels in your company you had better be in the motor."

With that, the girl pressed a railway ticket into his hand, and he was left not knowing whether he were more inclined to laughter or to cursing. But the train came at this moment, and he had no time to analyse his mood.

At Louisville a carriage was waiting for Mrs. Loveland and Miss Dearmer. It was a brougham, and there was room in it only for themselves and their handbags. The chauffeur was told off to a hired vehicle, for which his employers would pay.

Once outside the suburbs of the big town, the country was pretty, and reminded Val so strongly of England that it brought on an attack of homesickness.

The Hill Farm might almost have been an English farm, with its rambling, red-brick house, apparently of the Georgian period, its square-paned windows and its pillared porch draped with a tangle of grapevine and Virginia creeper. Val had seen farm-houses at home, converted by the younger sons of gentlemen into pleasant if modest mansions; and the gracious elms, the sturdy old oaks and generous apple trees might all have been transplanted from an English landscape.

Val arrived only a few minutes later than Lesley and Mrs. Loveland; and the girl was waiting for him in the open door-way when his hack drove up.

"This is a big, old house," said Lesley, coming out into the porch – "at least, it's old for America. It's stood for about a hundred and fifty years, and there's lots of room in it. You will live in the west wing. In a few minutes Uncle Wally will show you where to go. Already we've given directions to have your quarters got ready, but while the servants are busy there you may as well come out with me, and have a look at – at – Sidney's new car. I hope you'll like it. Here, Uncle Wally, take Mr. Gordon's bag."

This order was a surprise to Loveland. He had supposed that the "Uncle Wally," who was presently to be his guide, would turn out to be a relative of Miss Dearmer's, perhaps the master of the house; but it was a very ancient and very black darkey, dressed in a sombre old-fashioned livery, who came forward, all white grin and low bows.

The knuckly black hand relieved Loveland of the shabby bag, but there was no contempt either for the bag or its owner on the mild old face of the grey-headed negro, who was as perfect and well trained a servant in his way as any butler in an English country house. Evidently he, too, had been told that this was a "gentleman chauffeur," to be treated like a gentleman; and Loveland was grateful to his hostess, feeling a sudden impulse towards happiness, until with a shock, he remembered Sidney Cremer.

"When will Mr. Cremer arrive?" he asked Lesley, as they walked together across a sloping lawn, towards the stables.

"Oh, Sidney's very much at home here," she answered lightly, "you may see him at any time. Meanwhile, you won't mind driving the car for me, will you?"

"I think you know whether I'll mind that or not," said Loveland, almost more to himself than to the girl. "If only there were no Sidney Cremer – "

"I have an idea you won't dislike Sidney when you meet him," Lesley said, kindly.

"A man's chauffeur has no right to an opinion about him – at least, that's what I used to think myself," said Val.

"And now – and now are your ideas changing? Do you begin to feel just a tiny bit, that 'rank's but the guinea stamp,' and 'a man's a man for a' that'? For if you do, after all it won't have done you any harm to come to America," said Lesley.

"It's riches here, not rank, which counts apparently," Loveland retorted. "And that's just as bad."

"Riches don't count with me," said Lesley.

"Cremer must be very rich," grumbled Loveland, apparently apropos of nothing.

"Sidney makes a good deal of money out of novels and plays – at least, it seems a good deal to me, but maybe it wouldn't to you. Perhaps Sidney's earnings amount to about twelve or fifteen thousand of your English pounds a year – and he's saved quite a lot, too, for he's been popular as a playwright and novelist in America and England for several years now."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Loveland. "What a lucky beggar!"

"That just expresses it – a 'lucky beggar' – for he was almost a beggar at the time he made his first success. He was dependent on his relations when a child, for his father and mother died when he was a baby, leaving him not a penny, and he was brought up with the idea of being a school teacher, which he would have hated."

"Success like that often spoils people," said Val, frankly ungracious in his jealousy.

"I don't think it's spoiled Sidney," replied the girl. "He has heaps of faults, but I shouldn't call him conceited or vain."

"Shall you be married soon?"

Lesley smiled, and her dimples twinkled. "It isn't decided yet. But I daresay it will be soon. Now, I suppose with the grand ideas you used to talk to me about, twelve or fifteen thousand pounds a year, and a few loose thousands lying around would seem like shabby genteel poverty to you."

"Don't hit a man when he's down," said Loveland. "If I had only half as much as Mr. Cremer, I could do the things I want most to do."

"What are they?" asked Lesley. For it was still some distance to the stable which was also, for the present, garage as well, and she walked slowly on the moist grass, picking her way, step by step, with leisurely daintiness.

"Nowadays, the things I feel I should like most to do are to restore our poor old tumbled-down home, and get rid of my debts."

"You say 'nowadays.' Have you changed your mind lately?"

"I've changed almost everything – except these everlasting tweeds! I know, of course, that my affairs will come right in one way, presently. I shall get back to England before my leave's up: but I shan't go back the same man. The things that pleased me most before, won't be the things to please me most in future. I feel that, somehow."

"Things will come right only in one way, for you?" she echoed.

"Only in one way. I've lost the chance of all that's the best worth having – if I ever could have had such a chance."

"You're too young to give up hope. Almost as young as Sidney Cremer."

"What? – he's younger than I am?"

"Sidney is twenty-three."

"And has been a successful novelist and playwright for three years? He's a sort of infant phenomenon."

"Think of Pitt," Lesley reminded him, smiling.

"Once you said you didn't like men under twenty-six – they seemed so raw."

"I ought to be flattered that you should remember my sayings of 'once.' You see, though, Sidney's quite different from – other men, especially to me. But here we are at the stables. We'll talk about Sidney's car, instead of Sidney."

"Just one question first!" exclaimed Loveland, stopping short in front of the old-fashioned but neatly kept stables, and spacious Southern barn. "I know I haven't any right to ask it, but – were you engaged to Cremer when we crossed together on the Mauretania?"

"My relations with Sidney were then exactly what they are now," replied the girl, with a pretty primness that made her mouth look as if she had just said, "prunes, prisms, propriety."

His last hope gone – since Lesley had not accepted Cremer out of pique – Loveland was silenced.

A darkey groom, who came forward grinning, opened the doors of an inverted loose-box, and showed a fine black and scarlet motor-car, glittering with varnish, brass, and newness.

Deeply interested, or feigning interest, Lesley made Loveland lift the shining bonnet and explain detail after detail of the mechanism.

"It sounds fascinating!" she said at last. "The monster only arrived three days ago, though it – or ought I to say 'she'? – was on order months and months ago. Two or three chauffeurs have come in from Louisville to be interviewed (you see, Sidney trusts my judgment just as Auntie does!) but I wasn't satisfied with them."

"Perhaps you won't be satisfied with me?" suggested Val.

"Oh, you're only a temporary chauffeur," she answered. And though it was rather cruel to remind the lonely young man in a strange land how soon he was to lose his only friend, the girl smiled as she spoke. "I must just put up with you as you are. You've quite impressed me with what you know about the machine part. I daresay you can drive. Your manner and appearance are quite nice; and besides – "

"Besides – what?" Val almost snapped at her.

"It seems as if it was meant to be, as Uncle Wally says when he breaks a dish. And I'm wondering whether I shall be brave enough to let you teach me to drive. Sidney will want me to know how, I'm sure."

Loveland suddenly felt a wild longing to kill Sidney Cremer, the successful novelist-playwright, and to smash Sidney Cremer's beautiful new car.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sidney Cremer's Chauffeur

No letter was forwarded to the Hill Farm from the theatre at Bonnerstown, for the very good reason that Miss Moon, having found one for Mr. P. Gordon, opened, read, and out of sheer spite, destroyed it with its several enclosures.

The envelope was addressed in Bill Willing's inappropriately beautiful handwriting, and there was a short note from him, saying that he had great pleasure in enclosing two letters just arrived from England; also that he sent his "undying love to Lillie de Lisle."

One of the English letters blazed to the actress's dazzled eyes with a gilded coronet, and began, "My own darling Val, how can you ever forgive me for not answering your poor, dear cablegram, but of course I thought it was from that horrible wretch Foxham. It seems now, he sold your ticket for the Baltic, and sailed for Australia. All sorts of reports came in about him directly after you must have sailed, and I learn now that even before you left, James Harborough suspected him, because of some forged cheque he'd heard of – I'm really too confused and upset to remember how or when or what. But in any case it was most remiss of James not to have instantly warned you against the man, even on the slightest suspicion."

This was only the beginning of the coroneted letter, which had no paragraphs and very few punctuations. Jealous still, Miss Moon was relieved to see that the signature was "Your adoring mother," but she was at a loss to understand allusions to duchesses and other persons of title. Indeed, it would have appeared to her like a "property" letter to be read on the stage by an aristocratic hero of melodrama, had it not been for the post office order for three hundred dollars, which it contained. It was a genuine order, as Miss Moon might have been inclined to prove for herself, if she had had any hope of obtaining the money, which she had not; therefore the next best thing was to throw the document into the fire, that Gordon might not benefit by it.

The other letter enclosed had no coronet, not even a crest; but the paper was very nice, smelled faintly of spring flowers, and had for an address a number in Park Lane, which Miss Moon had read of in English novels as a street mostly inhabited by elderly millionaire villains who persecuted poor, but beauteous heroines. The writing was pretty, and the letter was signed "Your affectionate cousin, Betty." At the end was a postscript in a different hand, which seemed somehow to suit the rather dashing signature – "Jim."

This second letter was even more difficult than the first for an uninitiated person to understand, and it irritated Miss Moon to a high pitch of nervousness.

"Cousin Betty" seemed to be explaining and justifying a thing that "Jim" had done.

"It was partly a joke, and partly earnest, but it had a good motive," wrote Betty. "I guessed, the morning your really very conceited letter about the New York introductions came, that Jim had something quaint up his sleeve, to spring upon you when you'd arrived in America, but I didn't know what. To tell the truth, Val, I was even more disgusted than Jim, by your cool way of assuming that you had only to show yourself on the other side, to pick and choose among all the nicest as well as richest girls. I should have loved to box your ears, and I said 'Of course we won't give him any letters, and I'll tell him just what we think of him. Then maybe he won't go.' But Jim said 'Yes, we will give him the letters, and he shall go. We may find another way of teaching him a lesson, a way that will do him good if he's worth being done good to.'

"That was all, and as Jim didn't refer to the subject again after we posted the letters of introduction, the conversation slipped my mind. I didn't think any more about it until weird things began to be copied into London papers from New York ones, and your mother wired Jim to ask what, if anything, could be done to punish Foxham. You see, she thought you were on the Baltic.

"Jim soothed all her worries, so you needn't be anxious about her, as of course you would if you thought she'd been alarmed. When I saw paragraphs in the papers I talked to Jim, and it was only then that he told me what he'd done; how it was all his fault really, and he was very sorry, because everything had turned out a lot worse for you than he'd ever dreamed of wanting it to be. 'Fate took a hand in the game, and played it for all it was worth,' Jim said.

"It seems that Foxham, your man, asked Jim to cash a cheque signed by you, one night not long ago (don't you remember when he and I were at Battlemead, and you came down for Saturday to Monday?). Jim suspected something wrong, but wouldn't speak to you till he'd made sure, because that wouldn't have been fair, and Foxham was such an invaluable valet. A few days later, when Jim was making enquiries about the man, he found out that the horrid creature had actually impersonated you at two or three hotels, and run up bills in your name. It was the very evening before your letter about America came that Jim got the first part of this information, and day by day more kept coming in, up to the time when we heard Foxham had given you notice. All along Jim was thinking out the idea of that lesson for you – the joke that was to be half in earnest – and then, when Mr. VanderPot couldn't sail in the Mauretania, the whole plan was mapped out, without a word being said, even to me.

"Of course, I want to assure you again (and Jim will write a postscript) that he meant nothing worse to happen to you than a disappointment, and a blow to your conceit. He telegraphed to several of the people to whom you had letters, saying that if a person turned up calling himself by your name, before the Baltic landed, they'd better wait and make sure before being nice to you, that you weren't your own absconding valet sailing under false colours. He didn't say it wouldn't be you, and he supposed that his friends would simply hang back for a few days, making no sign, thus giving you to think that you weren't as important in America as you'd fancied. He imagined, too, that the heiress business wouldn't come off quite as easily as you expected, and that altogether you might be a little sobered down. As for your trouble with the bank, we know now, that this is what happened: It turns out that Henry van Cotter has lately become a partner in the bank which corresponds with yours in London, and having got Jim's wire about the valet (probably at the same time when instructions arrived from the London and Southern), naturally he told his people to be prepared, and not to pay. How could Jim think of such a thing happening – or that Mr. van Cotter and the others would run about gossiping of what he told them as a mere supposition? It must have been too dreadful for you at the hotel! – and as for that Mr. Milton, I'm sure he is a horror.

"Then, it was another contretemps that neither Jim nor I saw the newspapers at first. We'd gone off on a motor trip, as the weather was lovely, and were darting all about Cornwall and Wales, starting so early every morning, and not arriving at hotels till so late at night, that we didn't bother with the papers for nearly a week. Of course the minute Jim knew what had been going on, he wired everywhere, and wrote long letters of explanation, too (a little earlier than he'd originally meant), to put an end to the misunderstanding he'd set in motion. But meanwhile you'd disappeared from New York. Poor dear, my heart quite bleeds for you! And yet – and yet – I wonder if all that you've gone through is entirely a matter for regret?"

It was here, after the "Affectionate Cousin Betty" signature, that the other handwriting began.

"I wonder, too? I want to know what you think about it. Now it's all explained, and you see just where and how much I'm to blame for what's past, you may or may not be inclined to forgive me for trying to play Providence, that good might come of evil. But if there are any things which you don't regret, perhaps you'll partly understand – yourself and me. Anyhow, I apologise, having now done my best to atone, in case you want to go back to New York in a blaze of glory and be made a lion of. Meanwhile, I await your verdict, and am – as the writers of anonymous letters are supposed to sign themselves – 'your friend and well-wisher,' Jim."

Again Fate had "taken a hand in the game," and used Miss Moon as catspaw. Into the fire in her bedroom at Bonnerstown went all those elaborate explanations; and Loveland did not dream that he had only to communicate with the bank in New York to receive apologies and a sum of money which, after his vicissitudes, would have seemed a fortune. He had not even a prophetic "pricking in his thumbs" while his mother's post office order for three hundred dollars – sixty pounds – gaily burned in a Bonnerstown stove. He had no suspicion that New York Society – or an important section of it – was wearing sackcloth and ashes on his account. No instinct told him that even while the letters and money order were being reduced to ashes, Tony Kidd was concocting a glorious "story" about the Marquis of Loveland, which would ring through the country; neither did he know that Lesley Dearmer, whether believing him a genuine article or not, had sent him an anonymous donation which lay unclaimed at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Of all these things was he ignorant, and Lesley (sure that he had never received her offering) would have seen Sidney Cremer's forty horse-power Gloria burnt before her eyes rather than confess what she had done. Nevertheless, she was enjoying herself very much, and if Cremer's chauffeur went about with an unsmiling face it did not depress her spirits, unless for a minute at a time when she was particularly and foolishly soft-hearted. She knew that all the chauffeur's bodily wants were being well cared for at the Hill Farm. He had a comfortable bedroom and a little sitting-room attached, in the far corner of the west wing, which was the newest part of the old red brick house. She did not suggest his wearing the costume of a chauffeur, but sent him by Uncle Wally a fur-lined overcoat and motoring cap which she said, Sidney Cremer had ordered for the future driver of his car. Mr. Gordon's meals were served in his own small sitting-room, and he had plenty of books to read. Had it not been that Miss Dearmer wished to drive Cremer's automobile, Val would have seen little of her; but she took two lessons a day.