Stranleigh's Millions/The Earl at Play
V
THE EARL AT PLAY
In India, Edward the Seventh is an Emperor; in Great Britain he is a King, but on the Island of Guernsey, he is merely Duke of Normandy. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other portions of the British Empire display the medallion of Edward the Seventh on their coinage, but the Guernsey penny shows no head of Emperor, King or Duke.
Lord Stranleigh was an Earl in every portion of the King's dominions except one, and that was the beautiful little coast town of Pebblesdale, the home of stalwart sea fishermen, said, when caught young, to be the very best recruits for His Majesty's navy. In this idyllic spot Lord Stranleigh was known as Tom Pitts, and was probably the most popular young fellow in the neighbourhood.
Hardly a fisher lass in the place but would have married him if he had asked her, yet Tom caused no heartburnings, for it became universally known that he was not a lady's man; Thomas Pitts, hard-working mariner and able seaman, preferred to spend his scant leisure time yarning and smoking with his fellow-fishermen, or, alas, sometimes acting as chairman of a jovial gathering at the Mermaid, the one public house which Pebblesdale possessed, and on these occasions rumour has it that much old ale was drunk, and that Tom had been known to descend the steep village street late at night, singing vociferously that he wouldn't go home till morning.
Professor Bronson Marlow had returned from his yachting trip down along the African coast with his health practically re-established. The doctor claimed credit for it, but Stranleigh insisted that the air of the Atlantic Ocean had been the best physician. Stranleigh had got back from the Naval Review at Cadiz, and the two men met in his town house just off Piccadilly. The man of science wished to bid farewell to his friend, and thank him once again for his practical assistance in a time of need.
"I'm all right now, and must be getting back to work again," he said.
"Not on your life," flippantly replied Stranleigh.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, that is a slang phrase, but I'm using it as it stands, meaning that your life might be jeopardised if you began work too soon. Your health is not re-established, and you are to spend another month with me as the final and supreme physician."
"I must begin my researches again. Time is flying, and I'm eager for the laboratory once more."
"Nonsense; time is standing still, and it's going to stand still for another month, so far as you are concerned. I will take you to Pebblesdale as an after cure. Then, if you wish to return to 'Stinks,' as we used to call chemistry in Oxford, you may do so, but you shall not spend the month of August in any London laboratory."
"Where's Pebblesdale?" asked the man of science.
"Never mind where it is, but it's you for Pebblesdale, as they say out west. I've engaged rooms for you at Mother Simpson's, where from your window there is an outlook on the coolest and bluest portion of the Atlantic Ocean, with plenty of ozone to breathe."
"That would be very nice, Lord Stranleigh, but"
"Listen to me," cried his lordship. "Don't interrupt. I've engaged two rooms, as I told you. Pebblesdale is a working village—toilers of the sea, as Victor Hugo would call them. There is no fashionable society in the place. It is quite unknown to the tourist world; no trippers, no promenade, no music-hall or pavilion, no pier, except myself, and I'm spelt p, double e, r, and, besides, the inhabitants haven't the least idea I'm a peer. To them I'm a fishmonger's clerk in Billingsgate, badly used by my employers, yet given two months each year, during which time I am supposed to win over the fishers of Pebblesdale to the sending of their catch to the great London fish-market, which they steadfastly refuse to do."
That's all very delightful. Lord Stranleigh, and I should like, if I had the time"
"Again you're interrupting. I dropped in to-day to my friends, Hatchards', the booksellers, of Piccadilly, and I said to them, 'Send down at once all the scientific books that have been published this year. Send the bale to Professor Marlow, c/o Mrs. Simpson, Shrimp Cottage, Pebblesdale.' These choice books have gone, Professor, and they are waiting for you; at least, they'll be waiting for you when you arrive, because we can't travel to-morrow, being it's Bank Holiday. Although my friends now and then notice deplorable democratic tendencies in me, there's one democratic institution I hate, and that is our four Bank Holidays, which make travel impossible for a man who likes his comfort as well as I do. So to-morrow you and I will take a stroll through deserted London, and next day we'll set off for Pebblesdale."
The books did the trick. The Professor's eyes sparkled at the very mention of them. "Well," he said, "I suppose it wouldn't do me any harm to put in a month by the seashore, and if the books are there the time won't be misspent."
For heaven's sake, Professor, don't make good resolutions, and, remember, you are going to Pebblesdale primarily for the strengthening of the body and not for the improvement of the mind. I'm taking a lot of trashy novels myself, and please God I'll not hear an original remark till I'm back in London again. A story lasts for a hundred years in Pebblesdale, and a joke twice as long. You'll listen to all the old yarns at the pub, if you are wise, and not devote yourself too much to science. You'll find the ale excellent at the bar, and will forget there are such vile things in this world as champagne, brandy, and liqueurs."
Next day they strolled up to Chelsea and walked along the Embankment together. A group of navvies and bargees were leaning over the granite parapet, gazing down at the river ten or twelve feet below. They were laughing uproariously.
"I suppose," said the Professor, "that's the kind of company we'll have at Pebblesdale."
Don't you believe it. The Pebblesdale people are clean and decently dressed, and their talk contains nothing of the luridness that doubtless marks the language of these chaps. I wonder what they are laughing at? Some poor wretch drowning, very likely. That's their idea of a joke," and by mutual impulse the two young men crossed to the riverside pavement and looked down upon the Thames.
The tide was out, and they saw below them a broad strip of pebbly ground on which a very pretty girl had set her easel and camp-stool close to the wall, apparently so that she might not be observed by the passers-by. On a drawing block had been painted a picture of the river in the foreground, Battersea church and bridge to the rear. If it had been an oil-painting perhaps the handful of mud from the gutter above that had been dropped upon it might have been washed off, but it was a delicate water-colour, and that act of vandalism had ruined it. The mud, too, had splashed the young woman's dress, a white costume suitable for the first of August.
The girl's pretty face was aflame with indignation, and it was evident she had some ado to keep back the tears. She had risen from her camp-stool and was trying to remove the mud from her gown, but the ineffectiveness of her methods seemed to cause great mirth among the hooligans looking over the parapet, one of whom had, doubtless, thrown the mud.
Lord Stranleigh strolled towards the group with his hands in his pockets.
"That was a brave act," he said quietly. "Whoever had the courage to defy that little girl and throw mud on her clothes and on her picture must have been an heroic soul thus recklessly to challenge a girl's anger."
"What's that got to do with you?" said a great, hulking brute, whose hands were black with mud^ circumstantial evidence, at least, that he was the perpetrator of the excellent joke.
The bargee made use of several sanguinary expressions, and then returned to his original question, "What's that got to do with you?"
Meanwhile he wiped the mud off his huge paws on to his trousers, lowered his head, and took a threatening step forward, while Lord Stranleigh was daintily peeling off his gloves.
"I say," whispered the Professor, "don't let us get into a street row. These men have been drinking. We must escort the girl away and let it go at that."
"There are various kinds of science," said Stranleigh. "You are master of one branch, and I of another. You can floor me with your intellect, but you can't with your fists. Just let this chap and me settle our differences our own way."
"I arsk you," said the bargeman in louder and more truculent tones, "what's this got to do with you?"
"Sir, you deserve an answer," said Stranleigh with great gentleness. "Any thing's got to do with me that I interfere in. Understand? I've interfered. It is now your privilege to knock me down. Come on the shingle, where the police can't see us, and do it."
There was a great laugh from the bargee's comrades, but one of them said admiringly:
"That's the way to talk. Get down the steps."
Stranleigh ran down the steps to the shingle, lifted his hat to the girl, and said:
"Would you mind taking a stroll towards Battersea Bridge? My friend above and I have a little difference of opinion on a point of etiquette."
"You're surely not going to fight?" cried the girl with alarm.
"Oh, dear no, I shouldn't think of such a thing. I'm merely going to play with him."
"Shall I take my easel and camp-stool?"
"No, don't trouble about them. Are you a professional painter?"
"I'm trying to be."
"Then I wish to buy this mud-stained picture as a souvenir of the occasion."
"Oh, it's completely spoilt," she said. "I'll do you another."
"I want this one. My name is Tom Pitts. Will you tell me yours?"
"I am Alice Drummond," she answered, a little surprised at his abruptness.
"May I introduce to you my friend, Professor Bronson Marlow, of the University of London? He wanted to see Carlyle's house. Perhaps you would show it to him. I don't know where it is myself."
The girl laughed a little.
"Oh, I don't mind, but I'm sure you intend to fight, and I'd rather you wouldn't."
"My dear girl," said Stranleigh, earnestly, "that fellow looks like an elephant, but he hasn't the slightest chance with me—not the remotest. The thing will be all over in about three seconds. I'll escort you up the steps if I may." And he did so.
"Professor, I have just told this young lady that my name is the unromantic one of Tom Pitts, but you, Professor, possess a name worth acknowledging. Miss Alice Drummond—Professor Marlow. Painter and man of science, I make you acquainted."
"If you wish to see Carlyle's house, come this way," said the girl; and they departed together.
"Now, my bulky friend, if you will come down-stairs, we'll settle this little matter. No, I don't want anyone else to descend. You all stop up there, where you'll see better, and keep an eye out in both directions for the police, will you? Five minutes' bout, this round. Anybody got a watch?"
"If we had," said one, "we wouldn't show it with you about."
"That's right. Nothing like being cautious. Very well, shout when you think the five minutes are up."
Stranleigh took off his coat, and threw it on the camp-stool. The big fellow disdained any such compliment to his opponent.
"Come on, you !" and here followed a number of descriptive epithets that were not only coarse, but uncomplimentary.
Stranleigh sprang at him like a tiger-cat, landed one right-hander in his left eye, and a left-hander in his right eye, in such quick succession that the man staggered and threw up his hands, only to get a right-hander square in the mouth, then a left-hand blow at the point of the jaw, and a terrific right-hander, as the man's head turned sideways, under the ear that sounded like the back of an axe striking an oak post. The bargee fell as a tree falls, and lay there.
"How's that, umpire?" cried Stranleigh, smiling up at the man who would have taken care of a watch if he had it. "What's the time?"
"Blimey!" cried the man, "you never gave him a chance. Is that what you call science?"
"No," said Stranleigh, "there's no science about that at all; simply straight slogging. If any other of you chaps want to see a bit of science, I'll take you on."
But they weren't having any, they said. It was Bank Holiday, and they'd come out to enjoy themselves.
"One of you had better fill his hat with water and throw it into this chap's face. He's perfectly happy just now, but it might be well to get him out of his trance, and tell him he should keep himself in better condition."
As he came up the steps they made respectful way for him.
"Good-day to you, gentlemen. Thank you very much for seeing fair play and keeping an eye out for the police. Neither you nor I want any bobbies interrupting a little friendly sport."
"Right you are, my lord," said one, little dreaming how accurate he was in his salutation.
Stranleigh walked along the Embankment, carrying the painter's kit as if it had been the spoils of combat. He asked a man he met where Carlyle's house was situated, and the stranger obligingly pointed out the end of Cheyne Row.
"Go up that street," he said, "and you'll find the house to the right. I don't know its number, but anyone will tell you which it is. I think there's a tablet on it, but I'm not sure. They've made a museum of it, and you can get in for a shilling."
Stranleigh thanked him. He found Marlow and the artist on the opposite side of the street from Carlyle's house, engaged in a friendly conversation, and not looking at the celebrated building at all.
"Hello!" cried Marlow. "Is it over already?"
"Then there wasn't a fight, after all?" chimed in the girl. "I'm so glad."
"I told you there would be no battle," replied Stranleigh. "Here are camp-stool and easel, quite intact."
"Thank you very much. Did you bring my drawing-block? Oh, yes, there it is under your arm. Why, your knuckles are bleeding!"
"So they are. I hadn't noticed it. But that's nothing. I just gave him a biff under the ear, and got a scratch in doing it. And now, miss, I want this picture."
"Oh, the picture is ruined. Let me draw you one worth while, and I'll very gladly send it to you if you'll give me your address."
"My address is Tom Pitts, Pebblesdale-on-Sea."
"Oh, I thought you were a Londoner?"
"I am a fisherman, madam."
"Yes, with rod and line."
"Oh, no; I am quarter owner of the Laughing Jane, as staunch a fishing boat as ever put out to sea, and sometimes my share in the catch is as much as four pounds a week."
"I wish I did so well. Of course, you don't work on your fishing boat—that is, you don't haul in nets, and that sort of thing."
"Indeed, I do. You can't make four pounds a week and sit idly on the beach. You look as if you didn't believe that; but, you see, it's Bank Holiday, and I'm up in London for the day, and when a man comes to London he must dress as Londoners do."
"Well, you certainly succeed marvellously, Mr. Pitts."
"I don't deny that I'm more than an ordinary fisherman. I am supposed to possess a talent for organisation, and I've organised that little town so that we make the most of ourselves. We don't send our fish to Billingsgate, but deal direct with the public, and I write the advertisements that appear from time to time in the newspapers. As a boy I had a good schooling, if I do say it myself. The men make more by their fishing than ever they did before I took hold. Then the women have been taught lace-making, and Pebblesdale is acquiring quite a reputation as one centre of the lace trade. Why, you can buy our work in Bond Street. Both men and women depute me to do the business part of the combination, and this brings me a good deal to London, although I always grudge the time spent away from Pebblesdale, which is one of the most beautiful little places in all England. It lies in a steep valley, running down to a little cove that forms the harbour for our fishing boats. You should come and paint in Pebblesdale, Miss Drummond."
"I wish I could, but I can't afford it."
"I shall give you two pounds for this picture, Miss Drummond."
"Oh, but you can't afford that!"
"Yes, I can. I tell you I make a lot of money, with commissions and all that, aside from my share in the Laughing Jane."
"Pd be very glad to receive ten shillings each for my pictures."
"How many could you paint in a month?"
"Oh, thirty or forty, if I worked hard."
"We fishermen will buy them."
The girl laughed joyously.
"Fishermen don't buy water-colours," she said.
"They ought to; they make their living on the water. But, you see, I sell, as I told you, on commission. If you promise me forty pictures by the end of August, I'll give you twenty pounds now, and take my chance of selling them for more than ten shillings each."
The girl laughed heartily. Painters are a merry, care-free folk, even when they are poor.
"You must surely think I am a highway robber. The price you offer is absurd, and you would never see a tithe of your money back again. I cannot accept so much, but give me ten pounds and I'll go to Pebblesdale the day after to-morrow, and hand over to you all the work I do there."
"It's a bargain! Here's two five-pound notes, and I will divide with you whatever I get beyond the ten pounds."
"Agreed, so long as you allow me to share equally in the loss, should there be a loss."
"Oh, there won't be any loss."
"You seem very confident, Mr. Pitts; but it's one thing to sell fish, which is a necessity, and quite another to sell water-colours, which are a luxury. Have you any prospective purchaser in mind?"
"Yes, a dozen of them."
"Tell me the name of one."
"You wouldn't know their names if I mentioned them. Fishmongers in Billingsgate, most of them."
"Billingsgate? I thought their speciality was language rather than art."
"The Billingsgate people are all rich, and they do love to decorate their homes with pictures of fishermen, out of whom they make their money. They grind us poor mariners dreadfully, and that's why we won't sell 'em our fish."
"But if you refuse to sell them fish, how can you expect them to buy pictures? I should feel less anxious, Mr. Pitts, if you were looking to the West End rather than to Billingsgate for the return of your money."
"I have West End connections, too."
"Do you mean picture dealers? I warn you at the beginning that they have been unable to sell the work of my brush for even the ten shillings each."
"I won't trouble with dealers at all, Miss Drummond. My plan is to go to the purchaser direct and hypnotise him."
"On whom will you make your first attempt?"
"Why, Miss Drummond, what a sceptical person you are! Don't you believe what I'm telling you? You cross-examine me as if you were a King's Counsel."
The girl smiled upon him radiantly.
"It is only my anxiety lest you should lose money through me. Of course, I believe you, although I find it rather difficult to credit you with being a deep-sea fisherman. Now, do satisfy a woman's curiosity, and tell me the name of anyone in the West End whom you can hypnotise into buying my work."
"Well, there's—there's—there's Lord Stranleigh, for instance."
"Oh, do you know Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood?"
"I'm acquainted with him; I can't assert that I know him very intimately—that is to say, I don't quite understand the man, but I think I can sell him pictures."
"Are you aware that at Stranleigh Park he owns one of the finest collections of paintings in the world?"
"Yes, and I've seen the collection; but Stranleigh himself knows nothing about art. In many ways he's a stupid ass, but I'm sure I can palm off your water-colours on him."
This reply seemed to amuse Alice Drummond immensely.
"You have at last convinced me that you are really a fisherman," she said, "and not a courtier, as your Bond Street coat seems to indicate. Yes, Tom Pitts is your name, after all, although at first I did not believe it."
No one knew better than Stranleigh that he failed to shine in the presence of women, and this knowledge caused his avoidance of them. The straightforwardness of expression which men liked in him seemed less acceptable with the women. He had been thinking only of the girl's wares and their disposal, and thus clumsily stumbled upon an expression that slighted her art. He had practically said that Lord Stranleigh would buy her pictures because he knew no better. Tom Pitts reddened with confusion at the remembrance, but at the moment could conjure up no method of reparation. Hang it all, he thought, even the greatest statesman was easier to converse with than this unknown slip of a girl, who saw in your sentences much more than you intended to place there.
"Are you as good at figure-drawing as at landscapes?" stammered Tom Pitts.
"Better, I think."
"Then Pebblesdale will give you the chance of your life. Both men and women there are splendid, with any amount of character in their faces. There's old Ned Stover, for instance. If you can get his thousand and one wrinkles into a portrait, I can sell it for a big price to the Duke of Belmont."
"Dear me, what aristocratic acquaintances you possess! First the Earl of Stranleigh, and now the Duke of Belmont. How did you make their acquaintance?"
"I supply them both with fish. We dispatch fresh fish every night in boxes at six o'clock, and they are served hot to these noblemen at breakfast."
"And is the Duke interested in portraits of the men who catch his breakfast for him?"
"Well, you see, Miss Drummond, it's this way. Old Ned Stover is the principal character of Pebblesdale. He knocked off work several years ago because he got it into his head that he was the real Duke of Belmont."
"A claimant, is he?"
"Yes. He admits that the reigning Duke is the son of the late Duke, but insists that he, Ned Stover, is the elder son by a former and secret marriage, disowned by the haughty nobleman because Stover's mother was of low degree. There seems no doubt that Ned Stover was born on the estate of the late Duke, but there appears to be a trifling difficulty in proving the secret marriage. This has baffled Ned for some time now, and his latest assertion is that the present Duke made away with the proofs."
"Did the Duke of Belmont ever meet Ned Stover?"
"No, but he is much interested in him, receiving every now and then threatening letters from him, asking him to step aside and give place to the rightful heir. The present Duke, who is a nice young fellow of about my own age, is vastly amused by Ned's pretensions, and I am sure he would buy a picture of him. At Pebblesdale I sometimes pretend to be the rich Earl of Stranleigh, which causes great hilarity at the tavern, except with old Stover, for he's in deadly earnest, and he knows I'm just fooling."
"Well, Mr. Pitts, I hope to paint so excellent a picture of the bogus Duke of Belmont that the real Duke will be satisfied with it. Thank you so much for your kindness to me. My only anxiety is that I may disappoint you in my water-colours of Pebblesdale, a place which I am sure you are very fond of."
She held out her hand with a smile of farewell.
"There is no fear of your disappointing anybody," said Tom, confidently, taking the offered hand and bidding her good-bye. "I'll see you the day after to-morrow, then?"
Alice Drummond then took leave of the Professor. The two young men strolled to the end of the street, and walked down the Embankment, the house of the great Carlyle not only ignored, but forgotten by them. Stranleigh's hands were clasped behind him, and his head was bent. For a long time neither spoke, then his lordship raised his head.
"What a trivial thing will produce happiness," he said, abruptly.
"Really?" queried the Professor, quizzically. "Has your meeting with Miss Drummond, then, made you a happy man?"
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of myself, but of her. That girl, for the first time in her life, gets her foot on the ladder of success, and it's all been done for a paltry ten-pound note."
"Two fives, to be accurate," corrected the Professor, with some indefinite inflection of dissatisfaction in his voice that made Stranleigh look quickly at him.
"I predict," continued Tom Pitts, "that Lord Stranleigh will take an interest in her work, and will probably engage a gallery in Bond Street and finance an exhibition of her water-colours."
"I have not the slightest doubt of it," commented Marlow. "She is an exceedingly pretty girl."
"Pretty? Is she?"
"Isn't she?"
"I—I really hadn't noticed. I'm very sorry if that is the case."
"Why?"
"Because it will interfere with her work. That's just the trouble about a pretty woman. She marries some inane individual, and whatever talent she possesses becomes merged in domesticity. It annoys me to learn that she is pretty."
"Oh, come now, Lord Stranleigh, aren't you just putting it on a little?"
"Putting what on?"
"This pretence of immunity."
"Immunity from what?"
"From the dangers or delights that pertain to feminine loveliness."
"Oh, that! Naturally I am a most susceptible fellow, but women do not like me."
The Professor laughed derisively.
"Tell that to the marines," he said.
"What else am I doing? You'll be a marine to-morrow. I'm a marine already. But what I'm telling you is perfectly true. That's one reason I never go to Homburg, or Baden-Baden, or Wiesbaden, or Marienbad, or any of those fashionable places in summer. There's Charlie Belmont, for instance; every summer he goes to whatever spot the King chooses as a Royal residence pro tem., and he tells me he has the time of his life. Of course, he's a Duke, and I'm only an Earl."
"Don't boast. You're no Earl; you're merely a fisherman."
"True. I had forgotten for the moment. Well, Belmont paints the delights of society in most entrancing hues, but he's popular with the women. You see, I don't know how to talk to them. I'd speak to a woman as if she were a man, and quite reasonably she doesn't like that. Remember what a foolish remark I made to Miss Drummond, in the greatest of innocence, intimating that Stranleigh was no judge of art, and would buy her pictures because I asked him to, not through their merit at all. Of course, I see now that I should have claimed for Stranleigh the greatest artistic judgment, and should have added, 'Therefore he'll buy your water-colours'; but I never think of these things till an hour afterwards. At the present moment I have a woman problem on my hands that I don't know how to solve. Did you ever meet Mackeller's wife?"
"I didn't know he was married."
"Yes, he married an American girl—a Miss Sarsfield-Mitcham. Awfully clever she is, and, they tell me, a raving beauty."
"Haven't you seen her?"
"Yes, often."
"Well, isn't she a beauty?"
"I tell you, I'm no judge. I suppose she is. All the time I was in America I never spoke to a woman. Now, Mrs. Mackeller has taken a violent dislike to me. Peter is so honest and transparent that I can see right through him, and I know she's filling his mind with prejudice against me. There was a little business arrangement in America which she wanted Peter to pull off, and which Peter was perfectly willing to pull off, but suddenly Peter, like a man who can't swim wading in an unknown river, stepped out of his financial depth. I was compelled to plunge in and drag him out by the hair of the head. She's never forgiven me for that."
I should think it would have been just the other way about."
"That's because you don't understand women."
"I thought it was you that didn't understand them?"
"I understand them well enough to keep away from them. It is they who don't understand me. Now, I can't allow that clever woman from Connecticut to destroy Peter's friendship for me, which she is busily engaged in doing."
"Is that why you're palling on with me?"
"Partly, but chiefly for your own personal charm. I am going to teach Peter an awful lesson. She does not understand Peter's limitations, and I do. He is an excellent person to carry out another man's ideas. You can depend absolutely on his honesty and on his industry, but to plan out a successful campaign of his own, he is not worth that!" and Stranleigh snapped his fingers in the air. "Success wouldn't have turned Peter's head, but that woman is rapidly doing so, and I'm going to put a stop to it."
"How?"
"By simply doing nothing."
"I don't understand."
"Peter, if left alone, will sink out of his financial depth again. I shall let him rise the first time, the second time, and the third time, but I'll stand on the bank of the stream, with my hands in my pockets. If I am to plunge in and save Peter, it will be only at her request."
"Do you think that will make her love you?"
"I don't want her love. I don't care twopence what she thinks of me, but I wish to retain her husband's friendship."
"That's quite an interesting situation, Lord Stranleigh; but, do you know, I think you'll get the worst of it. You are very successful in dealing with men, but beware of the woman in the case."
"Oh, there is no reason why I should beware. I shall simply do nothing. No harm can come to the man who doesn't venture."
They walked on for a few minutes in silence. At last Stranleigh said:
"Of course, you are quite right, Professor. I am certain to be defeated in a contingency such as we were discussing. If Peter were in trouble, I'd help him out automatically, before I even thought of the missus. So let's plan no revenges and teach no lessons, but take life as it comes. London in August is enough to addle anybody's brain, and is exerting its effect on mine. To-morrow we'll be beside the deep, blue, cool, honest sea, and then good health to the body, and good-bye to unworthy thoughts in the mind."
Next morning Lord Stranleigh breakfasted in his own room, and came down equipped for the automobile, followed by a servant carrying a valise, and bearing over his arm a fur overcoat for the Professor.
At half-past twelve that day the motor stopped at a rustic porter's lodge, from which an old woman came out and opened the gate. The lodge stood on the edge of a widely extending forest, into the depths of which an excellent private road penetrated, and up this avenue Henri guided his machine until, in a clearing of the wood, he stopped before an uninhabited hunting lodge, surrounded by a wide verandah. The chauffeur jumped down, received the key from his master, and unlocked the door; then he unstrapped the portmanteau, and took this and a well-filled lunch-basket inside. The two travellers discarded overcoats, caps, and goggles. Stranleigh bade farewell to the chauffeur, telling him that unless he heard to the contrary he was to bring the automobile from London to the lodge at one o'clock on the 2nd of September, and finally counselled Henri not to drink too much wine of the country during the month he was to spend in his native city of Tours. Receiving these admonitions and instructions, Henri circled round the stone house with his machine, and disappeared down the forest road, all the more eagerly because the hot lunch ordered on the way thither would be ready for him by the time he reached a village inn ten miles distant.
Meanwhile Stranleigh and the Professor enjoyed the cold repast that had been put up for them in London, washed down by a wine whose equal they would not meet in the place to which they were bound. After a comforting smoke on the verandah Stranleigh retired within and presently emerged, divested of the clothes of Bond Street, and dressed in a hand-me-down suit such as a Billingsgate clerk would have considered his Sunday best. The Professor laughed heartily at the transformation, but Stranleigh assured him that this array was considered the height of fashion in Pebblesdale, and was the despair of the one tailor in the place who vainly strove to emulate its elegance.
"But wait," he added, "till you see me some stormy day in my dripping oilskins, then you'll realise that a man's a man for a' that."
The two now set out along a forest path that, after a brisk half-hour's walk, led them to a door in the stone wall, which Stranleigh unlocked and passed out into a country lane. Following this for an hour, they came within sight and smell of the sea, then, descending and descending, they arrived at the picturesque little village in the cove, climbing up from the shore between towering hills, musical with the babble of a stream near at hand, and the distant thunder of big breakers on the sands. There were not many people to be seen as the two walked down the one street of the place into which the country road had led. Stranleigh conducted his companion to Mother Simpson's, where he himself lodged when he was ashore.
"Aye, Tom, here ye be again, large as life and twice as handsome," greeted the old woman with a laugh. She always accosted him thus, and seemed to regard the phrase as a witticism of the first order.
"Yes, Mother Simpson, and I've brought you a lodger. Are his two rooms ready?"
"To be sure, Tom."
"Have any boxes arrived?"
"No, Tom, they haven't."
"Ah, well, Marlow, they'll be here to-morrow. The carrier will leave them at your door. Meanwhile, whatever you want for to-night you'll have to borrow from me. What time's high tide, Mrs. Simpson?"
"Twenty-three minutes after four o'clock."
"Very well, we'll enjoy an early tea, and go down afterwards to the beach and see the lads bring in the boats. The Laughing Jane, I hope, is all right, Mrs. Simpson?"
"Oh, yes, Tom, and doing better than ever this season. She's a-waiting for ye."
"There, you see, Professor, in spite of what we were saying yesterday about women, there's one awaiting me, and her name's Laughing Jane, Any news, Mrs. Simpson? Everybody well?"
"Yes, all about the same, Tom. Not many changes now at Pebblesdale. You heerd about the taking away of old Granny Gummage?"
"No; is she dead?"
"Dead she is, Tom. Cut off like a flower of the field in her ninety-seventh year."
"Ah, well, we must be reconciled to that sort of thing, mother."
"Yes, and it shows us our own time's coming. You won't have heerd the news about Ned Stover."
"No, don't tell me old Ned's dead too. I've been looking forward to meeting him."
"Dead? No, not a bit of it, and he's supporting the pub just as usual, though the old woman does drag him away every now and then, but he have had a letter yesterday morning from the London lawyers, saying that if he don't stop this pretending to be the Duke of Belmont they'll put him in jail."
"Oh, heavens, they can't do that, because we haven't a jail in Pebblesdale, and we won't allow Ned to go out of our jurisdiction. What does old Ned say about it?"
"He tried to let on that he's not frightened. He says it's against the law to put a man in jail except by habeas-corpus, or something like that. He's learned in the law, is old Ned. He was going away this morning to see a lawyer, but his wife wouldn't let him. She's in a rare stew about it, and calls him an old fool, and says he's more like an idiot than a nobleman."
"Oh, I've known the terms to be synonymous," put in Tom Pitts, although the phrase missed fire so far as Mother Simpson was concerned.
"Yes, old Mrs. Stover was up at the tavern this morning, threatening the innkeeper, and saying that the pub was the ruin of her husband, but the innkeeper, he says, that Ned Stover will be the ruin of the pub unless he either drinks less or pays better."
"That was a nasty one. What did she say?"
"She said she'd see he drank less, whether he paid up his back score or not, and she led old Ned away by the ear, and they do say he hasn't been let out all day."
"Well, when the lads return from the sea this afternoon we must rescue him from feminine influence. What with the suffragettes and Mrs. Stover, we poor men can't call our souls our own. The tap-room would be a dreary place of an evening lacking old Ned. We must get up a subscription and settle his score, so that Stover may start even once again."
The old woman shook her head, as if these sentiments were not to be commended, and under the cover of her disapproval Tom Pitts departed to his room, and when next the Professor saw him he had on, not only the jersey, coarse trousers, and long sea-boots of a fisherman, but also seemed to have acquired the rolling gait of a mariner on land.
After a plain and frugal supper, Tom Pitts conducted his friend up the street to the Mermaid Inn, locally known as "the pub." The Professor was rather silent. The whole place felt new to him, and he wasn't quite sure whether he liked it or not. The fare promised to be plentiful, but coarse; the inhabitants were rough, uncouth, unintellectual. He could not understand what a man like Stranleigh found to enjoy in their company. Stranleigh, however, was very joyous, and apparently happy. He said enthusiastically that he would head a rescue party to free old Stover from the custody of his commandeering wife. The divorce of the old man from his mug of ale was a thing not to be contemplated—an exercise of tyranny that freemen must put down.
Because of a turning to the left in the mounting street, the inn as viewed from the shore seemed to stand across the road, and the long, low window of its common room gave a constant view of the sea, for toilers of the deep are always uneasy if cut off from sight or sound of the element that provides the means of life, and also, alas! sometimes the means of death. At night this red-curtained window sent forth a lurid invitation down the street; a signal of danger, as the Salvation Army captain called it, but the sea captains regarded it as the opposite. They were safe in port when they saw its friendly gleam.
When the two strangers pushed open the door and entered the low-ceilinged assembly room, Tom Pitts saw at once that his projected forlorn hope was unnecessary. Old Stover sat in his usual corner, with his long-stemmed churchwarden clay pipe in his hand, and a tankard of ale on the little shelf at his elbow. Most of those present had already greeted Tom Pitts at the landing of the boats, but again they welcomed him with a kind of subdued hilarity. It was palpable that a mitigated gloom hung over the conference, and the evening was yet too young for sufficient malt to have been consumed to lift the pall. Old Stover, usually the voluble braggart of the evening session, reclined mute in his wooden arm-chair. At the middle of the long table sat the wizened, comically antique figure of the village school-master, with writing materials before him, and the one mug of ale, which he never exceeded, beside them. He looked as if he had stepped out of a page of Sir Walter Scott, and at the moment of the entry his wrinkled face showed a state of suspended perplexity.
"Well, lads," cried Tom Pitts, as the barman shoved across the counter of the tap-room his flagon of ale, "here's to you all! Is this a Quakers' meeting? What's gone wrong?"
"Owd Ned," said one, "has chucked oop t' sponge. He's had a printed letter from London lawyers, threatening he with jail, so he's a-writing of 'em that he's got no claim to be Duke of Belmont. Schoolmaster's just finished t' letter to t' lawyers."
"Gracious powers!" cried Tom Pitts, "you're never going to knuckle under like that?"
The old man cleared his throat once or twice, all his former loquacity gone.
"It's the missus," he growled. "Says her's going to stand no more dommed nonsense. Her says I be no more Duke of Belmont nor she is. Her be a respectable woman, her says, wi' none of her kin ever in jail, and her's not going to begin now."
"Let's see the London letter," demanded Tom.
It was handed to him, and with unnecessary care he scanned it over, for it was no news to him, coming, as it did, not from the Duke of Belmont's solicitors, but from the least employed firm of his own, and dictated by himself. The letter was typewritten, which added to its fearsome authority in the eyes of those present, they never having seen such a document before.
"Now let me look at the reply," and the school-master handed to Tom the written sheet. It was a complete and abject renunciation of Stover's claim, and only awaited his signature. There was a smile on Tom's lips as he tore it carefully into four pieces and threw the fragments into the empty fireplace.
"That's no kind of letter to write to a lawyer shark. Why, don't you see that those London men are frightened to death?"
"They threatened me with jail," murmured old Stover.
"Of course they did. That's one of their tricks—and a very dangerous trick it is, as we'll show them. Now, schoolmaster, take a dip of ink and a fresh sheet. Write at the head, 'Pebblesdale, 2/8/1907.’"
"What's twenty-eight?" asked old Stover, suspiciously, but nevertheless with interest arousing.
"It means," explained the schoolmaster, "the second day of the eighth month."
"That's right," corroborated Pitts; then, to his gaping audience, "You see, it shows that we're in a hurry. We have no time to write the second of August, so we just dash down '2/8' with an inclined line between the figures."
The crowd drew a long, simultaneous breath of satisfaction. Their unwavering admiration of Tom Pitts's business genius was being justified.
"Now, before you begin the letter, write at the top, and underscore it with two lines, 'without prejudice,' and it won't do any harm if you enclose the phrase in quotation marks. It throws an air of learning over the sheet."
The schoolmaster's wrinkled brow corrugated more intensely. The new-fangled date had marked the limit of his learning. The "without prejudice" went beyond its boundaries. He looked up helplessly at the dictator.
"When you write 'without prejudice' in a letter," explained Tom Pitts, with a smile, "nothing stated in that communication can be used against you. It's a legal method of giving away your cake and keeping it. The contents of the letter cannot be read out in court."
The men were so deeply interested in this verbal weapon, of which heretofore they had never heard, that for the moment they forgot either to drink or smoke.
"What did I tell 'ee, old man?" cried one with enthusiasm. "Didn't I say, 'You wait till Tom Pitts comes'? Didn't I say that?" he appealed to the rest, who nodded.
"We all said it," amended one.
"Go on, schoolmaster," commanded Tom, unmoved by the compliment he had received.
"‘Gentlemen,—Yours of the thirty-first ultimo to hand, and contents noted. I beg to point out that your threat touching my imprisonment is illegal. You are at liberty to put me in jail if you can, but threatening to do so is actionable.’"
"I think it would be better t' other way about," grumbled Ned Stover, "so that they could talk all they liked about putting me in jail, but couldn't do it. What about habeas corpus?"
"Oh, that doesn't come into force until you're safely in quod, Stover. Now, let me get on with the letter. 'This crisis is a case for compromise. If you will let me know what you are prepared to do on a cash basis, I will give you my decision by return of post. Yours most sincerely.' Now, you sign that, Ned, and we'll bring them to time."
The letter, by general acclaim, was one of the most crafty documents ever written. It was triumphantly signed, sealed, stamped, and delivered to the one post-box of the place, which stood at the corner of the pub. The crew of the Laughing Jane now crowded around Tom Pitts. He belonged to them.
Was he going with them that night? Sure. Then they would be ready to start for the fishing-grounds at four o'clock in the morning. This being the case, everyone left the pub early, so that they might indulge in a bit of sleep.
As the Professor and Tom walked down the unlighted street, the former asked:
"How far away is the railway station?"
"A little more than five miles; but you don't need to worry about your boxes. They'll be delivered by the carrier at Mother Simpson's in the morning."
"It isn't that," said Marlow. "Miss Drummond is coming to-morrow."
Tom Pitts stood stock still.
"By Jove! so she is! I had forgotten all about her. Are you going to meet her?"
"I think it would be only a neighbourly kind of thing to do."
"Certainly. Make my excuses to her, and tell her that the exigencies of a struggle for existence on the briny prevents me from accompanying you. And, by the way, in the morning tell Mother Simpson to look up a room for her, will you?"
"Yes, I will."
Next day Marlow walked across country to the station and met the only train that arrived from London. Following his advice, Alice Drummond sent on her impedimenta with the carrier, and then Marlow, jocularly quoting the words "There ain't no 'buses running," and so forth, was told that the girl much preferred to walk, therefore the two dawdled together until they reached the sight of the sea and the head of the declivity that led down into Pebblesdale.
The young woman was enthusiastic in her admiration of the place, and spoke of colour values, tones, atmosphere, and such-like jargon, which was as unknown to the Professor as his scientific nomenclature would have been incomprehensible to her.
The box of books was duly delivered by the carrier, but remained unopened, for the very good reason that the young Professor wished to see something of Pebblesdale, which was also Miss Drummond's desire, and he made himself useful by carrying easel and camp-stool.
When the reply came from London to Stover's "without prejudice" letter, Tom Pitts was out at sea, and his boat would not return until high tide early in the morning. There is no eight-hour day in the fishing business. The letter from the lawyers was also captioned "without prejudice," so, as the innkeeper remarked, Stover and his opponents were in for an unprejudiced discussion. To such a section of Pebblesdale's inhabitants as were at home, the legal gentlemen, without entering into the complex intricacies of the case, offered Mr. Stover twenty-five pounds cash down to settle the matter. And here arose an example of the inconsistency of woman. Mrs. Stover demanded that her husband should accept the offer by telegraph, whereas the consensus of opinion among the rest was that as Tom Pitts was conducting the correspondence, no reply should be sent until he returned. She, however, emphatically asserted that she had not the doddering admiration for Tom Pitts that blinded the rest of the population.
Who was he? she'd like to know; and, indeed, a correct answer to that question would have brought the town nearer to the root of the matter than it was aware of. The old man himself visibly hankered after the ready money, and in this he was aided and abetted by the innkeeper, who saw a chance at last of having his score cleared off; but the rest were unanimously against this disloyalty to Tom. Still, the combination was no match for Mrs. Stover, who herself had followed her husband to the pub, determined that the acceptance should be sent off at once. Her vehemence silenced, if it did not convince, the opposition, so the aged schoolmaster set about penning a reply, when right on top of the old woman's victory the door was pushed open and in came Tom Pitts himself. He explained his unexpected advent by saying he was sure a reply would have been received, and so he had left the Laughing Jane in the offing, and came ashore in the dinghy.
"What have you got to say about it, I'd like to know?" demanded Mrs. Stover, placing her arms akimbo, and facing him with battle on her brow.
Tommy smiled genially upon her.
"Nothing at all, Mrs. Stover—nothing at all. Of course, that's why I meddle. It's human nature. I knew you would muddle it, if left to yourselves."
"Muddle, indeed!" cried the virago. "Don't you think I've got as much sense as ever you had in your silly pate?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Stover, and a great deal more, of course; but, you see, I understand those London lawyers, and please remember that if your husband the Duke"—she sniffed contemptuously at this, but Tom went on—"if your husband the Duke had replied as you wished him to do the other day, he would have given the whole show away. Now, if they've made your husband any offer at all, it's so much to the good."
"Why, they've offered him twenty-five pounds cash down, and put 'without prejudice' on their letter, too," said one of Pitts's friends.
"There! What did I tell you?" cried Tom. "Those people are frightened out of their wits. You ought to be proud of your husband, Mrs. Stover. Twenty-five pounds, eh? Now, just look how he's made them come up to time."
Old Stover nodded his head sagely.
"That's what I've been a-telling of her," he said.
The agreement with Tom was so unanimous that for a moment the old fishwife was disconcerted.
"You'd—you'd refuse the money?" she stammered.
"Oh no, Mrs. Stover, I'd accept it."
"Well, bless your silly brains, that's just what I told him to do."
"Quite right, Mrs. Stover, but I wouldn't accept it in full of all demands."
"Aha," was the simultaneous exclamation of the crowd, and they nudged each other. "Our Tom will make them sit up."
"Are you ready to write?" demanded Tom of the schoolmaster.
"Quite ready, Mr. Pitts."
"Then put 'without prejudice' again, and the date. 'Gentlemen,—Yours to hand, and contents noted.' Always begin that way. It adds to their panic. It shows we know something of our business out here."
"‘Contents noted,'" repeated the schoolmaster.
"‘The twenty-five pounds is good enough as far as it goes, and I shall be obliged if you will enclose a post-office order for that amount in your next letter.’"
"Good man!" cried the assemblage.
"‘But what am I to do when the twenty-five pounds is gone? Why, my score at the Mermaid Inn is half that amount.’"
"No, no, Tom, that be a lie," protested old Stover, while his wife's eyes blazed.
"It isn't anything like that, Tom," corroborated the inn-keeper.
"But don't you see that in London it makes Ned Stover a man of importance? 'Aha,' they'll say, 'twelve pounds ten for drinks? He do be a-going it.’"
This argument appealed strongly to the breathless onlookers.
"‘What I demand is the twenty-five pounds paid down, and one pound a week for life, which must reach me here not later than Friday four times a month, and a pound a week for her grace the Duchess, my wife.’"
The Duchess appeared about to make some remark, and opened her capacious mouth, which, after a moment's thought, she closed with a snap.
"That's two pounds a week," said old Stover.
"Exactly."
"Well, it seems to me it should all be paid to the head of the family," he growled.
"You drunken sot!" exclaimed his angry wife, but Tom Pitts held up his hand.
"I'm quite agreeable to that," he said. "Schoolmaster, make the two pounds payable to Mrs. Stover."
"‘The head of the house,' I said," roared Ned, so enraged that he broke the stem of his pipe.
"That's the way I'm putting it, Ned," and everyone present laughed, except the two persons concerned, and the innkeeper, who wished to keep friends with all parties.
"How have you written it, schoolmaster?"
"I've put it down, Mr. Pitts, as you first dictated it. One pound to Mr. Stover, and one to Mrs. Stover."
"Then I think we'll let it stand that way as fair to all parties. We've got those London people on the run, so don't you think, Mrs. Stover, it's better to stand up for a regular income than accept the twenty-five pounds off-hand?"
"Yes, if they'll do it," she admitted.
"Of course they must. They'll jump at that settlement, fearing you will demand the whole Belmont estate, besides the ducal coronet and the family diamonds."
There was great jubilation in Pebblesdale when the London lawyers, in their next letter, formally capitulated, sending the twenty-five pounds as requested, and advising him that a sum of money had been paid to a noted insurance company, who would send every Thursday a postal order each to Mr. and Mrs. Stover. If Tom had wished to stand for membership in the Rural District Council, he would have been elected without a single dissenting vote so far as Pebblesdale was concerned, and to show that sudden wealth does not possess the corroding influence attributed to it, Mrs. Stover, assured of a steady income, became much less of a termagant than she had hitherto been accounted.
The Professor never attended the nightly gatherings at the pub after his first visit, but on the other hand he did not open his box of scientific books, so far as Tom Pitts could learn, although he actually borrowed from the latter some of the novels which had been brought from London. Tom laughed genially as he handed them over.
"Is Miss Drummond able to paint, when you are stretched on the sands reading to her?"
"Quite," replied the Professor laconically.
"I said from the first she was clever."
"And I said from the first she was beautiful, and now add that she is charming."
"Congratulations, my boy, and many of them."
Tom Pitts strode down the sands towards his boat, and heaved a sigh before he heaved the anchor.