The Great Discovery/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I.
IF you please, sir, a gentleman to see you, sir.”
The statement had been repeated twice, with equally little effect, and the third repetition was supplemented by a discreet, but determined, cough. Mr. Ashley looked up from the ponderous volume in which he was absorbed, and adjusted his pince-nez. Even then he did not give the impression of being fully conscious of his surroundings. There was a pleasant, half-plaintive vagueness about him, which, by the feminine visitors at Ashley Chase, was considered poetic, and by his family exasperating.
“Well, James, what is it?” he asked mildly. “Why don't you knock when you come in? You startle me so.”
“If you please, sir, I did knock—three times,” the butler replied, with patient imperturbability; and then added, in case his previous efforts had been fruitless: “There's a gentleman to see you, sir.”
Mr. Ashley took hasty refuge in his book. An alarmed snail could not have offered a more determined appearance of inaccessibility.
“I'm busy; I can't see any one.”
“If you please, sir, he said it was most important. He has come all the way from London to see you.”
“Tell him I'm out.”
“He said he would wait. I'm afraid he must have seen you through the window, sir.”
Mr. Ashley started with annoyance, gave an aggrieved glance at the pleasant prospect through the open French windows, and closed his book.
“Very tiresome. One is never free from intruders. There, give me his card. I suppose I had better see who he is.” The thin slip of pasteboard between his fingers, he remained for moment in contemplative silence. “Samuels,” he muttered discontentedly. “Samuels. I wonder what on earth he wants to worry me about now? Send him up, James.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the interval of waiting, Mr. Ashley prepared to receive his visitor. With the assistance of a Venetian glass over the mantelpiece, he patted his tie and arranged his scanty strands of gray hair into a semblance of profusion. Then he went back to his study table, and fell into an attitude which suggested a gentle detachment from all things earthly.
“Mr. Samuels, sir.”
Mr. Ashley gave a start, as though Mr. Samuels, of all people, was the last person in the world he expected. Having got over his surprise, however, he extended a white, hospitable hand in the direction of the newcomer.
“Ah, Samuels, very pleased. Take a seat, won't you?”
Samuels—a short, thick gentleman of obvious Hebraic descent, whose town clothes seemed as out of place as himself—accepted the offer of the chair, though with a gingerly diffidence which left him perched precariously on the edge.
“Thanks. Sorry to have to disturb you, Mr. Ashley.”
“Don't mention it. I'm afraid you have had a long journey.”
“Long, Mr. Ashley—but necessary.”
Mr. Ashley evidently did not like the word. He pushed a cigar box across the table.
“Help yourself, won't you?”
“No, thanks, Mr. Ashley; I don't smoke when I'm out on business. And this is strict business, I'm afraid.”
“Oh!”
Mr. Ashley stared out onto the shady park, and became once more gently absent-minded. His visitor drew out a pocketbook, extracted some unattractive-looking documents, and laid them on the table.
“All these are pressing for payment, Mr. Ashley,” he said. “I have chosen out the most important, in order to give you some idea as to how matters stand. I should be glad if you would give me your close attention, sir. The outlook is not of the brightest.”
Something in his tone aroused Mr. Ashley to a rather troubled attention. He turned round, his pale-blue eyes full of a childish alarm.
“What do you mean, Samuels?”
“Well, here is Marchand's bill for one thousand pounds. They have waited two years, and you can't expect them to go on waiting. I've kept them quiet with promises of a rather visionary character, and now they're getting troublesome. They're only one of a whole bunch, but they have got to be settled. That's what I've come down about.”
Mr. Ashley's pince-nez dropped with his jaw
“My dear, good fellow, do you expect me to charm money out of the earth? Where do you expect me to get one thousand pounds from?”
“Mortgage, perhaps,” suggested Mr. Samuels, with a comprehensive glance round the handsomely furnished room.
“Mortgage? Why, the place is up to its neck in mortgages already!”
Mr. Samuels' thick eyebrows went up a point.
“You didn't tell me that, Mr. Ashley.”
“Good gracious! Why should 1? It wasn't necessary.”
“Considering I have to befoozle your creditors, it was very necessary, indeed,” Samuels retorted. “It puts me in an ugly position, Mr. Ashley.”
“Nonsense! The people shall be paid—in time. They must have a little patience. I give you my word they shall all get their money.”
“I'd rather you gave me some idea how you propose doing it.”
Mr. Ashley stopped in his restless pacing about the room, and confronted his guest with a weak air of triumph.
“You shall know, by all means. I suppose you have heard of the Trefelds Gold Exploration Company.”
Samuels nodded.
“It's a good thing, eh?”
“For some people.”
“Well, I've got twenty thousand pounds in it. Now, what do you think?”
What Mr. Samuels thought was not very clear. Beyond that his heavy features had grown suddenly red, he gave no sign.
“Might I ask how Trefelds stood when you bought them?” he asked placidly.
“At one hundred and thirty pounds. I was told they would be worth double in a few months. When the rise comes I shall sell out, and then Marchands and the whole troublesome lot shall have their money. At the same time”—his manner became pompously reproving—“you can tell Marchands that they need not expect any more of my custom. I do not allow my tradespeople to dictate to me”
“Excuse me, Mr. Ashley; have you looked at the papers this morning?”
“No. What the devil”
“If you had looked,” persisted Mr. Samuels doggedly, “you would have seen that Trefelds stood at sixty-seven.”
“A passing depression. I was told to expect it.”
Mr. Samuels rose.
“I don't know who your informant was, but he must be a mighty cunning fish,” he said. “It's my unpleasant duty to inform you, Mr. Ashley, that to all intents and purposes your precious Trefelds aren't worth so much paper. You've been done in the eye, Mr. Ashley—badly done in the eye—and that's the truth.”
The truth staggered Mr. Ashley as a gust of wind staggers a small and unsteady bark in a quiet sea.
“Good heavens, man—nonsense! You said yourself it was a good thing”
“For somebody, Mr. Ashley. If they weren't good things for somebody these little enterprises wouldn't ever see the light. No doubt the wire puller has made a nice little pile out of Trefelds. But you're not the wire puller; you're the wired, Mr. Ashley, and that's the truth.”
The elder man sank slowly into his chair.
“You mean,” he jerked out, “you mean the twenty thousand pounds has gone?”
“It looks like it, sir.”
“The scoundrel!” said Mr. Ashley, with great bitterness.
After that there was a silence in which the sleepy buzz of a stray bumblebee sounded loud and proportionately irritating. From somewhere outside, a woman's voice drifted in through the open window. Mr. Ashley passed his shaking hand over his forehead
“My daughter!” he groaned. “My daughter! What shall I do?”
“Pull yourself together,” was the practical answer. “There's no use in bursting it at her all at a go. Besides”
Mr. Samuels broke off in his wise discourse. A slight, graceful young figure had sprung up between him and the peaceful landscape, and Mr. Samuels was connoisseur enough to catch his breath. Frankly he had not thought it possible that his weak, ineffectual client should have such a daughter. Perhaps in the laughing gray eyes there was a touch of the parental dreaminess, but the mouth and chin were firm, and even the small, straight nose suggested tenacious purpose. And the whole was undoubtedly beautiful. Mr. Samuels, who had dabbled in art as a financial pastime, considered her “classic”—a masterpiece—and for a moment he stared at her, open-mouthed, unaccountably ill at ease. She, too, looked at him, the laughter dying out of her eyes and giving place to an expression of troubled perplexity.
“I beg your pardon, dad,” she said. “I didn't know you had visitors. I only wanted to say good-by.”
Mr. Ashley cleared his throat. Like most weak men, he set a high value on his dignity, and his dignity was at stake. But the recent blow had stunned him and jolted his memory into confusion
“Good-by, my dear? I didn't know you were going out—ah, yes, of course—the hunt.” His eyes, traveling vacantly in her direction, suddenly brought him the realization that she wore a riding habit, and an unsteady smile trembled on his lips. “Stupid of me, eh? Who is taking you?”
“Peter de Warren,” she answered. “He is driving me over in his motor, and Smith is to take the horses.” Her brows betrayed a faint impatience. “I would rather have ridden,” she added, “but Peter is so persistent. He worries till he gets what he wants.”
She gave a short laugh, half amused, half annoyed, and Mr. Ashley rose, steadying himself with his hand on the table.
“Eh, yes, a tiresome young man, and his father—there, never mind. Take care of yourself; don't do anything headstrong.”
“Father, aren't you well?”
Her startled question stung his pride into action.
“Perfectly well. Don't be foolish, Enid. I—I am a little tired. Mr. Samuels and I have been talking business. Now, be off with you, or you will be late.”
His tone of parental protection was not without its absurdity. To Mr. Samuels' shrewd eyes, there was more of the child in the father than in the girl, whose face already betrayed the woman. Her eyes seemed to be endeavoring to penetrate the position, and Mr. Samuels, happening to meet them, flinched involuntarily.
“Very well,” she said, with a sudden quiet. “I won't disturb you. Good-by.”
She kissed her father gravely on the forehead, acknowledged Mr. Samuels' existence with a slight bow, and was gone the way she had come. The moment the sound of her quick, decided step had died away, Mr. Ashley collapsed into his chair.
“It is terrible,” he said, “terrible! It is my deathblow. I shall never live to tell her.”
Mr. Samuels shrugged his shoulders ponderously.
“That won't help her much,” he remarked. “You have got her into the mess, and you had better try and pull her out. But it's a downright pity.”
“What do you mean?”
“A lovely picture ought to have a lovely frame,” was the picturesque answer. Mr. Samuels drew nearer, and rubbed a square finger along the beading of the table. “By the way, who's this Peter de Warren?” he asked abruptly.
“Peter” Mr. Ashley shifted angrily in his chair. “A young man—a puppy, and the son of a—a—confound it! Why do you ask? Do you think I'm in the mood to discuss my neighbors' history?”
“Anything to do with old Mortimer de Warren?” the agent persisted tranquilly.
“His son. My dear Samuels”
“Old Mortimer is worth a million or two,” the other went on, as though there had been no interruption. “He has got his finger into every pie I know of, and he has nabbed most of the plums, as some of us know to our cost. He's a wire puller, Mr. Ashley. He might be useful.”
Ashley looked up, the peevish anger still flickering.
“I really don't know what you mean,” he said.
Samuels jerked his thumb in the direction of the garden, and then laid his hand significantly on the region of his heart.
“Anything thereabouts?” he asked.
Mr. Ashley rose. Some men are born theatrical, and he was of the class. In the instinctive, delighted recognition of an effective situation, he forgot his troubles, and even his own self-pity.
“Mr. Samuels,” he said, “you are going beyond your prerogative. Ruined I may be, but I am neither a scoundrel nor the wicked father of romance. I shall never force my child into a distasteful marriage—even if I could,” he added, betrayed into an anticlimax. “Your suggestion is absurd—insulting.” He frowned, conscious of having missed fire, and Mr. Samuels spread out his hands in Oriental deprecation.
“I apologize,” he said. “I am your agent, and it is my business to look after your affairs, which are in a deplorable condition. All you have said is very elevating, but it won't wash clothes or pay bills. When you find yourself and your daughter enjoying furnished apartments down Bayswater way, you may think better of what I have said.” He picked up his top hat and smoothed its shiny surface with a loving hand. “In the meantime, I have done my duty,” he went on. “There are the accounts; you can look them over at your leisure. I can't keep the people quiet any longer, and, knowing what I know, I shan't try. It wouldn't be straight, and it wouldn't be business. At the same time”—he hesitated, his small eyes fixed steadily on the carpet—“if I could give them an idea that there was a rich match in sight, I might do something. I might do a great deal. They'd wait—and De Warren has a liberal hand, they say. Afterward you could settle down quietly”
“Sir!”
The agent heaved up his shoulders.
“It's the only way out that I can see,” he said, “and I think if you explain the situation to Miss Ashley she'd take it. Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon!”
Mr. Ashley retained his haughty attitude by the table until the door closed. Then he collapsed, with his face buried in his arms, and wept like a child.