CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH LOVE FLIES OUT OF THE WINDOW
Hughie closed the door on Joan, and breathed a gentle sigh of relief. Hewas spoiling for a fight, and he had just got his hands free, so tospeak. Brief but perfect satisfaction lay before him.
He resumed his position in front of the fire. Mr. Haliburton sat on anoak table and swung his legs.
"Now, Marrable--" began the latter briskly.
Hughie interrupted him.
"Mr. Haliburton," he said, "you heard my intimation to Miss Gaymer justnow?"
"I did," said Mr. Haliburton.
"Well, I should like to repeat it to you. The marriage which has beenarranged--by you--will not take place. That's all."
"That," replied Mr. Haliburton easily, "is a matter for Joan andmyself--"
"We will refer to my ward as Miss Gaymer for the rest of thisinterview," said Hughie stiffly.
"Certainly. To resume. You see, Marrable, although you were appointedMiss Gaymer's guardian by the eccentric old gentleman who bears the samename as yourself, your authority does not last for ever. I understandthat the lady will shortly become her own mistress."
"She will."
"In which case she will have the control of her own property."
"That is so."
"Well,"--Mr. Haliburton paused, and flicked the ash off hiscigarette,--"don't you think that this display of authority on yourpart, considering that it is subject to a time-limit, is ratherridiculous?"
"I have only one observation to make on that point," said Hughie coolly,"and that is, that I have made no display of authority of any kind."
"My dear sir," said Mr. Haliburton, raising his histrionic eyebrows,"aren't you forbidding the banns?"
"I have never forbidden anything. I have merely stated that the matchwill not come off."
"Don't let us quibble, man!" said Haliburton impatiently. He got off thetable. "Look here, Marrable, there is no need for you and me to bemealy-mouthed in this matter. Let's be frank. You want this girl: so doI. She can't marry both of us, so she must pick one. She has picked me:I have her word for it. She says she cares for me more than any man inthe world, and would tramp the roads with me. And I with her! Why,man--"
As he uttered these noble words Mr. Haliburton struck an attitudewhich many young women in the front row of the pit would haveconsidered highly dramatic, but which merely struck the prejudiced andunsympathetic male before him as theatrical in the extreme.
"Drop it!" said Hughie. "You make me quite sick."
He spoke the truth. He did not know whether Haliburton's rhapsody restedon any assured foundation or not. But in any case Joan's fresh andinnocent youth was a very sacred thing, and even the suggestion that shecould have anything in common with this glorified super made him feelphysically unwell.
Mr. Haliburton broke off, and smiled.
"Marrable," he said, almost genially, "we understand each other! I seeyou want plain English. I said just now that we were both fond of thegirl. So we are. But I fancy we are both a bit fonder of her little bitof stuff--eh? Now, you have been handling the dibs for a matter ofeighteen months, I understand. You have feathered your nest prettycomfortably, from all I hear. Don't be a dog in the manger! Let yourfriends into a good thing too!"
The mask was off with a vengeance. Hughie swallowed something andthanked God that, if his wanderings among mankind had taught him nothingelse, they had taught him to hold himself in till the time came. Hesaid:--
"Haliburton, I have told you several times that I do not forbid thisengagement; because, as you have very acutely pointed out, my _veto_does not last for ever; but the match is not coming off, for all that.Before you go I will explain what I mean. I don't want to, because theconsequences may be serious, both for Miss Gaymer and myself; but itwill show you how absolutely determined I am to make a clean sweep ofyou.
"I should like to say in the first place that I should never have stoodbetween Miss Gaymer and _any_ man, so long as I honestly thought hecould make her happy--not even a man whom I personally would regard asan ass or an outsider. But there are limits to everything, and youstrike me as being the limit in this case. I have been making inquiriesabout you, and I now know your antecedents fairly well. You apparentlyare an actor of sorts, though all the actors of my acquaintance lookdistinctly unwell when your name is mentioned. However, whatever youare, I should be sorry to see any woman in whom I take an interestcompelled to spend even half an hour in your company. In fact, if youhad not originally come down here as a friend of Lance Gaymer's,--overwhom, by the way, I find you once had some hold,--I should have askedCaptain Leroy's permission to kick you out of the place some time ago!"
Mr. Haliburton looked a little uncomfortable. He held a good hand, butHughie was obviously not bluffing. He had an uneasy feeling that theremust be an unsuspected card out somewhere.
"To come to the main point," continued Hughie, "I want this engagementto be declared off by _you_, not by me. What is your price?"
Mr. Haliburton breathed again. Bribery? Was that all? He repliedbriskly:--
"How much have you got?"
"Is a thousand pounds any use?" asked Hughie.
"Twenty might be," replied the lover.
"My limit," said Hughie, who was not a man to haggle about what Mr.Mantalini once described as "demnition coppers," "is five thousandpounds."
"Talk sense!" said Mr. Haliburton briefly.
"The offer," continued Hughie steadily, "is open for five minutes. Ifyou accept it I will write you a cheque now, and you will sit down andwrite a letter formally breaking off, on your own initiative, anyengagement or understanding you may have entered into with Miss Gaymer,and undertaking never to come near her again; and I will see she getsit. If not--well, you'll be sorry, for you'll never make such a goodbargain by any other means."
Haliburton eyed him curiously.
"Is this your own money you are offering me?" he said.
"It is," said Hughie, looking at his watch. "Three minutes left."
"Won't it make rather a hole in your capital account?"
"It will. In fact, hole won't be the word for it! But it will be worthit."
Intelligence dawned upon Mr. Haliburton.
"I see," he said slowly. "You expect to recoup yourself later,when--when the marriage settlements are drawn up, eh? Or perhaps," headded sarcastically, "eighteen months of careful trusteeship have putyou in a position to afford this extravagance!"
Hughie was surprised at his own self-control. Only the little pulsewhich Joan had noticed beat assiduously in his right temple.
"Fifteen seconds!" he said. "Do you take this offer, Mr. Haliburton?"
"No."
"Right!" Hughie put his watch back into his pocket and regarded themisguided blackmailer before him rather in the manner of a benevolentpoliceman standing over a small boy with a cigarette.
"Your last few remarks," he said, "have been so offensive that I knowyou would not have had the pluck to make them unless you thought you hadme absolutely under your thumb. But I may as well proceed to my finalmove, and terminate this interview. I am very averse to taking thisparticular step, because its results may be awkward, as I said, for MissGaymer. That is why I offered you practically all the available money Ihave to call the deal off. But I see I can't help myself. Now,Haliburton,--by the way, I forgot to mention that your real name isSpratt: you seem to have become a big fish since you took tofortune-hunting,--I am going to make you break off your engagement. I amgoing to pay you a high compliment. I am going to give you a piece ofinformation, known only to myself and Miss Gaymer's banker, for whichyou will ultimately be very grateful, and the knowledge of which willcause you, when you get outside (which will be very soon now), to kickyourself for a blamed fool because you did not accept my first offer."
Mr. Haliburton-Spratt shuffled his feet a trifle uneasily, and Hughiecontinued:--
"You seem to be suffering from an aggravated attack of
the prevailingimpression that Miss Gaymer is an heiress. Her fortune has beenvariously estimated by tea-table experts at anything from forty to ahundred thousand pounds. I will now tell you what it really is. Get offthe table: I want to open that dispatch-box."
Mr. Haliburton, conscious of a slight sinking sensation just below thesecond button of his waistcoat, moved as requested, and Hughie took outof the box a bank-book and a bulky letter.
"When I came home from abroad," he said, "I found this letter awaitingme. It is from my uncle. The following passage will interest you: '... Ihave realised practically all my personal estate, and have placed thecash to your credit on Joey's behalf'--Joey is the name," he explainedpunctiliously, "by which Miss Gaymer is known to her intimatefriends--'at the Law Courts Branch of the Home Counties Bank.... Therest of my property is set down and duly disposed of in my will, andcannot be touched until my death is authenticated.'"
"I hope there was a respectable sum in the bank," said Mr. Haliburton,his spirits rising again.
Hughie opened the pass-book.
"When I went to the bank in question," he said, "and asked to be allowedto see the amount of my balance, I was handed this pass-book. From ityou will gather the exact value of Miss Gaymer's fortune at the momentwhen I took over the management of her affairs."
He handed the book to Mr. Haliburton. That devout lover glanced eagerlyat the sum indicated on the balance-line--and turned a delicate green.
"You see?" said Hughie calmly, taking the book back. "One hundred poundssterling! A poor exchange for five thousand, Mr. Haliburton!"
"Where is the money?" said Haliburton thickly.
"That I can't tell you. But you will see by the book and this dulyendorsed cheque,"--he picked a pink slip out of the dispatch-box,--"thatthe sum of thirty-nine thousand, nine hundred pounds--the amount he hadput in a few days before, less one hundred--was drawn out of the bank,in a lump, by my uncle himself the day before he sailed. Why he did it,I can't imagine. He must have changed his plans suddenly. All I know isthat he has put me in a very tight place as a trustee, and you in a muchtighter one as a suitor, Mr. Haliburton!"
He took the cheque from the hands of the demoralized Haliburton, andclosed the dispatch-box.
There was a long silence. At length Hughie said:--
"I presume I may take it that you now desire to withdraw from thisengagement?"
"You may!" said Mr. Haliburton emphatically. He was too deeply chagrinedto play his part any longer.
Hughie surveyed him critically.
"You're a direct rascal, Spratt," he said; "you are no more hypocriticalthan you need be. But you're a rascal for all that. Well, I won't keepyou. Good afternoon!"
But Mr. Haliburton's quick-moving brain had been taking in the alteredsituation, with its strong and weak points so far as he himself wasconcerned. He had not lived by his wits twenty years for nothing.
"I suppose," he observed, reseating himself on the corner of thewriting-table, "it would be indiscreet to inquire from what source theyoung lady, with a capital of one hundred pounds sterling, is at presentderiving an income of apparently three or four hundred a year?"
"Not only indiscreet, but positively unhealthy," said Hughie, turning adusky red. His fingers were curling and uncurling.
Mr. Haliburton directed upon him what can only be described as adepredatory eye.
"Don't you think, Mr. Marrable," he said, "that it would be a good thingto--_square_ me? I could do with that five thousand. This is acensorious world, you know; and scandalous little yarns are apt to getabout when a young lady accepts--_Hrrrumph!_"
It was the last straw. Hughie's iron restraint snapped at last. Both hisand Mr. Haliburton's impressions of the next few moments were distinctlyblurred, but at the end of that period Hughie, breathing heavily andfeeling as if he had just won a valuable prize in a consolation race,found himself facing Jimmy Marrable, who had entered the door just asLove (as represented by Mr. Haliburton) flew out of the window.
"Hallo, Hughie!"
"Hallo, Uncle Jimmy! Half a mo'!"
Mr. Haliburton, seated dizzily in a rose-bed in the garden, heardHughie's step returning to the French window above his head. Awalking-stick suddenly speared itself in the soil beside him, and a pairof gloves and a Homburg hat pattered delicately down upon his upturnedcountenance; while Hughie's voice intimated that there was a swift andwell-cushioned train back to town at six-twenty.
Then, closing the window and leaving Mr. Haliburton to extract himselftenderly from his bed of roses, cursing feebly the while and ruminatingbitterly upon the unreliability of proverbial expressions, Hughie turnedto the room again. It had just occurred to him that in the heat of themoment he had been a trifle cavalier in his reception of a relative whomhe had not seen for ten years, and who he imagined had been dead forfour.
Half an hour later Jimmy Marrable enquired:--
"Would it be too much to ask whom you were throwing out of the windowwhen I came in?"
"Friend of Joey's," said Hughie briefly. "And now, Uncle Jimmy," headded, with clouding brow,--the joy of battle was overpast, and thehorizon was dark with the wings of all kinds of chickens coming home toroost,--"I should like to inform you that you and your financial methodshave put me in a devil of a hole. I want an explanation."
"Right. Fire away!"
"Well, when I took on the job bequeathed to me by you of administeringJoan's affairs, I discovered that instead of being an heiress, thechild was practically penniless. For some idiotic reason best known toyourself, you no sooner put money into the bank for her than youdragged it all out again. Consequently I discovered that I was bookedto manage the affairs of a girl whom everybody thought to be thepossessor of pots of money, but whose entire capital"--he picked up thepass-book--"amounted in reality to one hundred pounds sterling."
"Correct!" said Jimmy Marrable. "Proceed!"
"If," continued Hughie in an even and businesslike tone, "Joan had beenprepared to marry me, the money wouldn't have mattered, as she couldhave had mine. Unfortunately that event did not occur."
"Did she know she hadn't any money when you asked her to marry you?"enquired Jimmy Marrable.
"No."
"And did she go on refusing you after you had informed her she was apauper?"
Hughie had seen this question coming from afar. He turned a delicatecarmine. His uncle surveyed him, and nodded comprehendingly.
"Quite so!" he said. "Quite so! You never told her."
"No," said Hughie, "I hadn't the heart. It seemed like--like trying tocoerce her into marrying me. No, I just let her imagine that she had atidy little fortune invested, and that she could live on theinterest--three hundred a year. I--I found that sum for her, and shetook it all right. After all, she was a woman, and women will swallowalmost anything you tell them about money matters. If they jib atall, all you have to do is to surround yourself with a cloud oftechnicalities, and they cave in at once. I think Joey was a _little_surprised at not getting more, for she had thought herself a bit of anheiress; but she never said a word. In fact, she was so kind about itthat I saw she was convinced I had made a mess of things somewhere, andmust be protected accordingly. She put it all down to my usualincompetence, I suppose,--as far as I can see, she considers me a bornfool,--and accepted the situation loyally."
"She would do that," said Jimmy Marrable.
"Well," continued Hughie, "Joan was all right, but everybody else wasthe devil. An awful girl friend of hers, called Harbord--"
"I know--twelve per cent!" gurgled Jimmy Marrable.
"Yes. Well, she came and gave me beans to begin with. Then young Lancebegan to suspect me,--he never could stand me at any price,--and he cameand raised Cain one day at a luncheon party I was giving--but, by theway, that's all right now; Lance has come round completely. Even theLeroys couldn't conceal their conviction that I had made a bunglesomewhere--an honest bungle, of course, but a bungle. And finally anunutterable sweep called Haliburton came along. I knew something ofhim--so much
, in fact, that it never occurred to me that there wasanything to fear from him. But he got the master-grip on me when everyone else had failed. Joey--our Joey--fell in love with him and promisedto marry him!"
"I have heard nothing of this. What sort of fellow is he?" enquiredJimmy Marrable.
"Much the same type, I should say, as the late lamented Gaymer, senior."
"Are you sure--about her falling in love?" continued Jimmy Marrable, ina puzzled voice.
"Looks like it," said Hughie. "I was away yesterday, and got back earlythis morning. I found a note from Joey on my dressing-table, saying thatHaliburton had proposed to her, and that she was sending him along to meto ask for my consent. She wouldn't have gone as far as that if shedidn't--if she didn't"--His voice shook. "It was a pill for me, UncleJimmy!"
"What did you do?" said Jimmy Marrable.
"I did this. I knew quite well that if Joey--loved him"--the words camefrom between his clenched teeth--"she would stick to him, blackguard ornot. She's that sort."
"She is. Well?"
"I came to the conclusion that if there was to be a rupture of theengagement it must come from him."
"You made him break it off?"
"Yes."
"How? By throwing him out of the window?"
"No. That would have been no good if he was really after her money. Isimply told him the truth--the whole truth--about her bank balance, andso on. That did it. He backed out all right."
Jimmy Marrable rubbed his hands.
"And then?"
"And then ideas began to occur to him--"
"Exactly. He began to ask questions--to make innuendoes--"
"Yes. I then threw him out of the window. It was some consolation. Thatis the story."
Hughie turned away, and gazed dejectedly into the fender. PresentlyJimmy Marrable remarked:--
"And meanwhile the fat is in the fire?"
"It is," said Hughie bitterly. "Uncle Jimmy, what _will_ she think?Everything is bound to come out now,--that fellow will run about tellingeverybody,--and when she hears of the cruel position I've placed her inshe'll never speak to me again. We shan't even be ordinary good friendsnow. Poor little girl! I've done her the worst turn a man can do awoman; and I would have _died_ for her--cheerfully!"
Hughie leaned against the tall mantelpiece and dropped his head upon hisarms. "Joey! Joey!" he murmured to himself, very softly.
Jimmy Marrable retired to a remote corner of the room, where he spentsome time selecting a cigar from Jack Leroy's private locker. Presentlyhe returned. Observing that his nephew was apparently not quite ready toresume the conversation, he spent some time in lighting the cigar,bridging over the silence with a rumbling soliloquy.
"It is a blessing to be back on dry land again," he observed, "wherecigars will keep in decent condition. No more green weeds for me! What Ilike is a good crisp Havana that splits open if you squeeze the end,instead of--"
Hughie once more stood erect on the hearthrug. The fit had passed.
Jimmy Marrable eyed him curiously.
"Hughie, boy," he said, "it was a mad, mad scheme. Why did you do it?"
Hughie turned upon him, and blazed out suddenly.
"Why?" he cried. "Because there was nothing else to do! Do you think Iwould let our Joey--no, damn it! _my_ Joey--go out as a governess or achorus-girl--yes, she actually suggested _that_!--when I could keep herhappy and comfortable by telling one little white lie? It may have beena mad thing to do; but it was a choice of evils, and I'd do it again! Sostuff that up your cigar and smoke it!"
"Silly young owl!" remarked Jimmy Marrable. He lit his cigar withfastidious care, and continued:--
"I suppose you want an explanation from _me_ now?"
"Yes."
"Well, the withdrawal of that money was an eleventh-hour notion. Itsuddenly occurred to me that you, with your imbecile ideas about honourand filthy lucre, and so forth, might feel squeamish about making loveto a girl with a fat bank balance. So just before I sailed I drew themoney out, imagining that by so doing I should be removing the onlyobstacle to a happy union between you and Joey. The entire affair wasintended to be a walk-over for you. Between us, we seem to have made abonny mess of things. Hughie, we Marrables are not cut out for femininefancywork."
"What is to be done now?" said Hughie gloomily.
"I have thought of that," said Jimmy Marrable. "When a man gets in ahopeless tangle of any kind, his best plan is to ask a woman to help himout. That is what we shall have to do. Wait here a few minutes."
He turned towards the door.
"Mildred Leroy won't be in for half an hour yet," called Hughie afterhim, "so it's no good looking for her."
"All right!" replied Jimmy Marrable's voice far up the stairs.