The Twickenham Peerage
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'I'm not dead. As you'll find if you don't soon feed me. Where's every one-or any one?'
'The Marquis has gone to Cressland.'
'Who's gone to Cressland?'
'Your lordship's brother. I-I've got in the way of calling him the Marquis.'
'Then get out of it. What's he gone to Cressland for?'
'Well, my lord, it's not generally known in the house, but I believe he's gone to look at your lordship's coffin.'
'To look at my what?'
'At the coffin, my lord, which your lordship's supposed to be in.'
'Inside or out?'
'I rather think the coffin's to be opened. I imagine some doubt has arisen.'
'If I'm the doubt, I have arisen. Well. Gayer, I'll talk to you another time. At present I want something to eat.'
'Something shall be ready within five minutes. Would your lordship like to go upstairs while it's being prepared?'
'I don't mind.'
'Your lordship's brother occupies the blue room, would your lordship like the oak room?'
'I don't care. Anything will do-for the present.'
I emphasised the last three words, to prepare his mind for the alterations which were at hand. Directly I got into the oak room I knew that if I was to continue to reside in that establishment there'd have to be as many as several. I don't like old-fashioned houses: I don't believe I like old-fashioned anything. If I had my choice, I'd have every thing, and every one, about me up-to-date with the procession; not a mile and a half behind it. That great grim room, with the black oak walls, and the catafalque of a bed wouldn't suit me one little bit. I'd sooner have it a study in rose-coloured silk.
Things had begun well. The mischief was that experience had inclined me to the belief that a good beginning meant a bad ending. Still it was something to have been recognised by Mr. Gayer. It was also something to have learned what was taking place at Cressland. I'd no notion what had caused suspicion to be aroused. If, within a fortnight, Mr. Smith's conscience had pricked him to that extent, then he must be possessed of an outsize in consciences. Anyhow they'd find that it wasn't me who'd been putting in a stay at the family mausoleum.
As I was going downstairs I heard the sound of children's laughter coming from a room above. It sounded queer in that old house. Youth seemed out of place within those black walls. But I'd soon change all that. Youth's what I keep betting on all the time. Where it don't go, I don't go either.
'There are children in the house,' I said to Gayer, as he was settling me at table.
'There are, my lord. They came yesterday. I hope they didn't annoy your lordship.'
'No; they didn't annoy me.' The idea of children annoying me made me smile. I never met a child yet with whom I wasn't on terms of friendship at first sight. 'Send down to Mr. Foster and tell him to come up to me at once.'
'Mr. Stephen Foster?'
'Mr. Stephen. I suppose he's alive.'
'Oh, yes, my lord, and very well. If your lordship will excuse my saying so, he'll be as much surprised to see your lordship as gratified. He told me with his own lips that he was present at your lordship's deathbed.'
'Was he? One day I may return the compliment. Perhaps I'll be present at his. Has he gone with my brother to Cressland?'
'Not that I'm aware of. In fact, I don't believe he knows Lord Reginald has gone.'
'Then fetch him along to me.'
They fetched him along in such fashion that he arrived as I was finishing lunch. I made a hasty meal, for I was aware that a curious interview was close ahead. I can do as much on an empty stomach as most men; but all the same when serious business is on hand, I like to have it comfortably filled. And I'd made up my mind from the very first that I'd have one meal in Twickenham House if I never had another.
Gayer came into the room with an air.
'Mr. Foster has arrived, my lord.'
'Show him in here.'
There appeared the pertinacious old buffer who'd tried to worry me into signing a will. It didn't require more than half an eye to see he was all of a tremble.
'Hollo, Foster! I hear that you recently assisted at my decease.'
'I-I 'He came two or three steps more forward so that he could inspect me at closer quarters. 'It is the Marquis of Twickenham! But-I don't understand.'
'Nor I. I've come back to make a little stay, and I'm received as if I were a ghost.'
'The truth is, we have been made the victims of a most audacious fraud. Your lordship has returned at a most opportune moment. I was just about to hand over the conduct of affairs to Lord Reginald.'
'The deuce you were.'
'It's-it's a most incomprehensible business altogether.' He took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow; agitation actually made him perspire. 'I have advanced Lord Reginald a considerable sum of money.'
'My money or your own?'
'Your lordship's money. But, of course, you can call upon me to refund. I can only plead in mitigation that I supposed myself to have stood beside your deathbed, and to have seen your lordship actually expire. A gigantic imposition has been practised; though how, at present, I altogether fail to understand.'
'How much has he had?'
'I'm afraid as much as twenty thousand pounds.'
'What's he done with it?'
'I have reason to believe that the major part of it has been transferred to Mr. Howarth.'
'What, Douglas! Does he think I'm dead?'
'Mr. Howarth was the prime mover-' He stopped. 'I wish to say nothing-speaking, as I do, as one in the dark-which I may have to recall hereafter, so I will simply observe that it was Mr. Howarth who discovered you.'
'Discovered me?'
'Discovered, that is, the person who pretended to be you.'
'You don't mean to say that Douglas Howarth mistook another man for me?'
'He did.'
'Was the fellow so like me, then?'
'Now that I am actually standing in your lordship's presence I perceive that there are points of difference. But the resemblance was so strong that at the time I was deceived, as were the others.'
'This is a very funny story, Foster.'
'It is. And to you, my lord, I am aware that it must seem strange indeed. A thorough investigation will have to be made, when I think your lordship will allow that I was not deluded so easily, or so egregiously, as may at present appear.'
'On that point, as matters stand, I can, of course, say nothing. But since I've always understood that you were a smart man, Foster, I take it that the man who took you in must have got up early. How much has gone besides that twenty thousand?'
'Nothing. You will find everything in perfect order. The estate was never in a more flourishing condition. And there is a very large sum standing to your lordship's credit.'
'In cash?'
'In investments which are as good as cash.'
'I like your end better than your beginning.'
'May I ask where, all this time, your lordship has been?'
'You may.'
'Your absence has been the cause of great anxiety. Where has your lordship been?'
'Foster, do you remember that I never did like answering questions?'
'I have a clear recollection of that trait in your lordship's character.'
'I've got it still-that trait. I said you might ask, and you have asked; so that's over and done with. What's the next business on the paper?'
We talked figures. Very pleasant figures they were-from my point of view. I learnt more from Mr. Stephen Foster about things I wanted to learn than I should have thought would have been possible in such a very few minutes. It never seemed to enter his head for a single instant that he was being had a second time. His one desire apparently was to rid himself of the consequences of his original blunder as completely as he possibly could. He wanted me, in short, to still give him credit for shrewdness, even though on one occasion he had lacked discretion. And I gave it him. Not ungrudgingly; for that, I felt, would have been to display an undue willingness to overlook his error. But I allowed him to think, by degrees, that his observations were carrying conviction to my mind, and that I perceived that, after all, he was not such a fool as I had at first supposed.
While we were still talking some one came into the room with a rush. It was Lord Reginald-with his hat on his head. I guess he was in too much of a flurry to have thought of removing it.
'What is this I hear? Foster! Who is this?'
He spoke with a bit of a splutter, as though his words tumbled over each other, he was in such a hurry to get them out.
'Lord Reginald, this is your brother-the Marquis of Twickenham.'
I rather fancy Foster gave me the whole of my title because it was like a slap in the face to the young gentleman at the door. There was no love lost between the pair. My affectionate relative frowned till his eyebrows met at the top of his nose.
'Twickenham!'
I wasn't uneasy, and I wasn't flurried. Though this was an odd way of meeting-and greeting-one's brother. It was plain he'd rather I'd kept away. So I just turned in my chair, and I looked at him; this time up and down; and I did a drawl.
'This Reggie? 'Pon my word, how you have grown!'
He came forward to the table, leaning against it with both hands, and bending over it to stare.
'Are you-are you-Foster, are you sure this is my brother?'
'There is certainly no doubt this time, Lord Reginald.'
'But-but-what infernal trick has been played on us?'
'That is what I propose immediately to learn.'
I chimed in.
'And I also.'
'Possibly,' suggested Foster, 'Howarth may be able to offer an explanation.'
I came in.
'Douglas! Don't tell me that Douglas mistook another chap for me. It's too thin.'
'We all mistook him.'
'All? Who's all? What did you know about it? I don't believe you know me now. You were a nice little boy when I saw you last, and I shouldn't have recognised you; that moustache does make a difference. I don't feel flattered. You seem to have been in a deuce of a hurry to take it for granted I was dead. Sorry to disappoint you, but do wait till I've had my innings.'
'Where have you been all these years?'
'What the deuce has that to do with you?'
'We never heard from you; we thought you were dead.'
'It was because you didn't think that I was dead that you arranged that some one else should die instead of me. It's lucky for you that I've come now. If I'd waited till you'd got both your fists in the money-box there might have been trouble. And do you mean to say that you've got some rank outsider down at Cressland in a coffin which bears my name?'
'I don't mean to say anything of the kind.'
'Then who have you got? Are you suggesting that you've got me?'
'That-that's the most infernal part of it! A pretty trick's been played by some one! It's not a man at all.'
'Not a man? Is it a woman?'
'It's a confounded doll!' I leaned back in my chair and laughed. He didn't seem to like it. 'It's all very well to laugh, but it's got up so confoundedly like you that-that-' He hesitated; then brought it out with a plunge. 'Look here, Twickenham, has all this been a joke of yours?'
Although I didn't know it, the question offered me the greatest chance I had had-or was to have. If I'd only owned up that it was a joke, and I'd been amusing myself by bamboozling Howarth, and all the lot of them, I believe-well, I believe it might have been easier. But we're bats-even those of us who have the keenest sight; and I didn't see at the moment what the result of a negative would be. So I let him have it straight from the shoulder; the funniest part being that I thought I was doing something cute.
'What do you mean? Or, rather, perhaps you hadn't better tell me what you do mean. We might both of us be sorry. I don't want to prosecute my only brother; but when, to cover your own action, you suggest that I've been conspiring to defraud myself for your benefit, it's a trifle steep. Especially as Foster tells me you've already got hold of twenty thousand pounds.'
He put himself on a chair by the table, and he covered his face with his hands.
'I wish I was dead!' was the observation which he made.
While Foster and I were watching him some one else appeared at the door-Augustus FitzHoward.
CHAPTER XXIII
SURPRISES
Seeing FitzHoward gave me just a little something of a turn. I got then and there the first faint glimmer at the mistake I'd made. But as it's a motto of mine to put on an extra size in smiles each time I'm downed, I just sat tight and wondered who he was. There didn't seem to be much in the wonder line about him. He came sailing straight across at me, his hand stretched out. 'Mr. Babbacombe!'
His tone betokened joy. I knew FitzHoward. I wasn't responsive.
'Who's this person with his hat on his head? Has it become the rule here for men to enter a room with their hats on?'
This was one for Reggie as well as Fitz. Both hats were off before I'd hardly finished. Fitz's enthusiasm seemed a little damped. His hand went back.
'Mr. Babbacombe, I-I was afraid you were dead.'
'What are you talking about? Foster, I hope I don't happen to have dropped into the wrong house by any chance. First I'm mistaken for a ghost, then-for the deuce knows who.'
Fitz kept staring at me as if he couldn't stare enough.
'You're either Montagu Babbacombe or his ghost!'
'Sorry, but I don't chance to be either. And as I've not the pleasure of your acquaintance, and don't desire your intrusion here, allow me to remind you that the street's handy. Foster, touch the bell.'
Foster touched the bell. Reggie interposed.
'Twickenham, this gentleman, Mr. FitzHoward, has rendered me a very great service in exposing the fraud that has been practised.'
I sat tight. A footman appeared.
'Show Lord Reginald's acquaintance to the front door.'
Poor Fitz was all of a fluster.
'I'm a man who requires no second hint that my room's preferred to my company, but if you're not Montagu Babbacombe I'll eat my hat.'
He clapped it on to his head as if to illustrate his meaning. Reggie stopped him as he was going.
'I am very much obliged to you, Mr. FitzHoward, for what you have done for me; and trust to be able to avail myself of an early opportunity to tender you my thanks in a more suitable form.'
'My lord, you are welcome. Any little service I may do you I am always yours to command.'
Out marched Fitz, with banners flying. I turned my attention to Reggie.
'Reggie, to save trouble later on, may I call your attention to two points? The first is, that I'm not dead. The second is, that I should be obliged by your not using my house as if it were your own. As I have still something which I wish to say to Foster, will you have the extreme kindness to allow me to say it?' He was turning away with-I'll bet a pound! – unfraternal feelings in his breast-strange how little brotherly affection some men have-when a thought occurred to me. 'By the way, where's Douglas?'
'He's ill.'
'Ill? Since when?'
'Since this morning.'
'I asked you where he was.'
'He's at home with Violet.'
'Violet? Is that that young sister of his?'
'Young? She's old enough to be my promised wife.'
As I looked at him he eyed me with quite a disagreeable expression in his eyes. I whistled.
'Is that so? Indeed! I really think that I begin to see how extremely desirous it was that I should be dead. What a happy family you would have been! So sorry I'm alive. Dead men's shoes always are slow travellers. Thank you, Reggie. I shall perhaps see you again a little later on.'
I feel convinced he'd have liked to hit me as he went out. There's an utter lack in some people's bosoms of that true sympathy, the absence of which strikes a fatal blow at the very root of the family system. It's a fact; I've noticed it before. Why, because your brother merely twists your nose off your face, should you resent it? It's that kind of feeling which tears an united family asunder.
I improved the occasion with Foster; filling him, I feel sure, with a profound conviction that there wasn't much difference between the Marquis of fifteen years ago and his lordship of to-day. I had to be him all the way along; and I was. When I'm playing a character I like to be thorough. When I'd been thorough enough I shunted Foster.
I felt a sort of desire to be alone. I'd been in some funny places, but this did seem as though it was going to be the funniest. It looked as if this was going to be the Julius Cæsar kind of thing. As if there wasn't to be any opposition at all. I'd only had to hang up my hat in the hall to become king of the castle. When I'd wanted all that a chap had got I'd always been game to fight him; but I wasn't used to his handing it over to me, without so much, even, as a trifling argument, with a remark that it was mine. It looked as if I was in for a real good thing.
And yet-human nature's a freak; you never know where to class it! – and yet, I wasn't sure that I felt so inclined to kick up my heels as I expected. The Marquis of Twickenham was an uncommonly fine person to be: for those who liked to be the Marquis of Twickenham. I hadn't been him much more than an hour, and already I was beginning to wonder if I did. There were houses and lands, and money at the bank, and servants to kick, and sacred duties to play old Harry with; but-well, I was starting to doubt if there was freedom. The kind of freedom I was used to, which has always been to me like the air I've breathed. On my davy, I didn't wonder that lying scoundrel made a bolt of it. A chap like that would have been clean wasted in Twickenham House. Maybe he wasn't all the fool I took him for.
One thing was sure, I was going to be as free as I could manage. What was the use of being lord of all if I wasn't above grammar? If there came over me an inclination to dine in my shirt sleeves he'd be a bold man who would try to stop me. And yet, as I went up again to that oak room, I was uncomfortably conscious that, after all, circumstances might prove too strong; and that underneath that roof I'd have to be decent. It wasn't an inspiriting kind of thought, and I plumped down into an armchair with the solemn conviction strong upon me that the first thing the Marquis of Twickenham had got was the hump.
I hadn't been there two minutes before old Gayer came in and wanted to know if he should valet me. Here was an occasion on which it was necessary to begin where I meant to go. The idea of having that old fossil messing about gave me the twitters. So I spoke to him like a father.
'Gayer, you're a man in the prime of life.'
I stopped, so as to give him his chance.
'I'm an old man now, my lord.'
'Oh, no, you're not; and I'll tell you how I know. If you'd seen one twenty-fifth part as much of the world as I have, you'd know at a glance that I am the kind of man who does everything for himself that can be done. It's because you're so young that you don't see it.'
'But your lordship will have a body servant?'
'What'll you bet on it? Come! I don't like the man who won't stand shoulder to shoulder with his own opinion; what are you laying?'
'Well, my lord, I'm not a betting man.'
'Sorry to hear it, Gayer-because I am. Lay my boots against yours on any little game you like. A man of your age ought not to have allowed the higher branches of a religious education to remain so neglected. Good-bye. When I want you I'll ring; I suppose there are bells to be broken. And I don't want you, or any one, till I do ring. Hear, and then bear that carefully in mind.'
He'd hardly gone, with something about him which seemed to say he couldn't altogether make me out-I've noticed that look on people a good many times; I don't know how it gets there; I'm sure I'm simple to the breaking point-I say that dear old Mr. Gayer had hardly gone, when somebody started fumbling at the handle of the door, and presently open it came with a rush. When I saw that handle start jigging about I said to myself-
'Here's Gayer's venerable grandfather come to know if he can curl my hair. From the way he's playing upon that handle, I should say he'd got a touch of the shakes. I'll give him another touch before I've done with him.'
It struck me that the old-servant ticket was going to be run for all that it was worth. The sooner I buried the entire boiling, whether at Cressland or elsewhere, the more comfortable the Marquis would be. This conviction had me at grips; and I was just about to give it due and proper expression, when who should come flying into the room but-Jimmy! My Jimmy!
I do believe that that was the first time in my life I was ever really taken by surprise. I'm not the sort of person that's easily amazed. Always expecting the unexpected I get used to meeting it when it comes. But that time it had me fair. As we stared at each other I don't know which of the two was the more astonished. But he's a spry kid, is Jimmy. He knows his father when he sees him. And when he had got it clear that it was me, he came at me with a run.
'Dad!' he cried. 'Dad!'
Now I was in a quandary. I was getting into the region of the unusual. I wanted to put my arms about that boy, lift him on to my knee, and say, 'Hollo, Jimmy!' But if I went on like that, the show'd be busted. He'd go about telling people that I was his father. One of his father's two thousand and forty-five names was Montagu Babbacombe. I'd faced it out that I wasn't acquainted with any party of that name; supposing, when I said so, that I'd counted the cost. But this was an item which hadn't figured in the bill as I'd got it down at all. If I wasn't careful the Marquis would have to walk downstairs. So I kind of compromised.
'Little boy, whose little boy are you?'
'I'm your little boy-yours! yours! yours!'
He put his hands on my knees, and began to caper about as if he was happy. Now I'd been in the habit of playing with that small child a kind of a game in which I'd ask him whose little boy he was, pretending I didn't know; and he'd say, 'Yours! yours! yours!' He thought I was playing that game with him then. Which was where he was wrong.
'You take a good deal for granted, young gentleman.'
'I don't! I don't! I don't!'
He flung himself against me, still thinking I was playing the game.
'I say you do. May I ask how you've come here!'
'I came with Pollie.' Before I could stop him or guessed what he was going to do, he was off to the door, which he had left wide open, and had started to bawl,' Pollie! Pollie! Here's dad! Here's dad!'
Children have a pleasant habit of bawling. But I don't think I was ever so struck by it as I was then. I was after him like a shot.
'Here, I say. You mustn't make that noise!'
I might as well have talked to the wall. When he'd got a thing to mention he was bound to mention it-at the top of his voice.
'I'm playing hide-and-seek with Pollie, and she won't know where I am. Pollie! Pollie! Here's dad!'
I had to throw him up in the air before he'd stop. By then it was too late. Tearing down the stairs came Pollie, my heart in my mouth for fear she'd tumble, and if I'd shut the door in her face she'd have dashed herself against it. I had to let her in, and shut the door behind her when she was in, and hope that there was nobody about with long ears and sharp wits.
'Allow me to ask what you young persons mean by behaving in this extraordinary manner; for whom do you take me?'
'You're dad! dad! dad!'
There they were, bouncing about me like two indiarubber balls. They still thought I was playing the game. The worst of it was, I almost felt as if I was, myself. I could hardly keep my countenance, in spite of the stake which was dependent on it.
'Pray may I inquire why you call me dad?'
'Tause you are!' cried Pollie. 'Give me a tiss!'
I picked up the small bundle of girl and kissed her; till her laughter might have been heard on the other side of the square. While I was still engaged in this operation the door was opened again. When I turned to see who might be this fresh disturber of my privacy, there was Mary.
Then I knew the fat was in the fire. This was quite a different kettle of fish. Playing the fool with those two children was one thing. Admitting myself to be Mr. James Merrett, after my repudiation of Mr. Montagu Babbacombe, was altogether another. I hadn't time to consider; to ask myself what was the meaning of her presence there. It was a case of act first and think afterwards. That was what I did.