Читать книгу The Veiled Man - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 10

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Lord Cawthorne called the following day upon the Marquis of Fane. Invincibly reserved even with his life long friends and those in his own family whom he loved best, Lord Fane impressed most strangers disagreeably. Lady Dorothy wondered very much how he would impress the Earl. As she watched that young man from her bedroom window sweep up the drive, her curiosity became a fever that needed treatment to protect her from dangerous results. "I've got to know," she cried excitedly, and ran downstairs. Two minutes later she had carefully concealed herself behind some heavy drapes in an alcove of the Cliff House's smallest reception room. She knew her father's habits from A to Z. She had not long to wait. Lord Cawthorne entered on a servant's heels, treading rather heavily, for he was tired. Nodding in answer to the footman's obsequious direction, he glanced languidly about the room and yawned. "Confound calls! Thank heaven, this is the last for to-day!" he muttered, and sank wearily upon a lounge. He confronted Dorothy, who had already discovered a peep-hole in her curtains. She studied him with critical attentiveness, searching his face for flaws. She wanted to find some so badly that she consoled her failure with the reflection, "Handsome men are generally only clothes props and he is too handsome to be anything else!"

Lord Cawthorne threw his head back and opened gaping jaws. As the yawn proceeded to its close, he tapped with two lean brown fingers upon his front teeth and groaned out the air of a music hall refrain. It was a song without words and utterly unmusical, but Dorothy was enchanted. "What next?" she wondered.

He stood up, crossed the room and stopped before a picture of herself. Lady Dorothy had forgotten it, else it would have been removed in time. Her face flamed. "I know I'll faint," she gasped mentally; but instead of fainting she watched him.

"Dashed like my little typewriter girl; by gad!" muttered the Earl, quite audibly. He put his head on one side and then on the other. "Only at a glance, though," he continued after grave consideration. "This one's nose is not skew-whiffy at the top like mine!"

Dorothy flamed again. With a shudder of rage she put her finger on her nose to reassure herself. It was perhaps just tenderly tip-tilted. But, "skew-whiffy at the top!" Her eyes burned so for a moment that she could hardly see. "The brute!" shouted her heart.

The Earl continued to study the picture, but he spoke no more, though he sometimes smiled. Dorothy hated his smiles, they seemed to her contemptuous of the little typewriter. It was a positive relief when the door opened and her father, calm, stately and old-worldly serious, marched gravely towards his visitor.

The Earl swung round. The Marquis paused six paces distant, clicked his heels and bowed, his body inclining from stiff knees, toes out-pointed, heels together. He was a handsome man, but prematurely old, and preternaturally solemn. Dorothy glanced at the Earl and with difficulty suppressed a cry of ecstacy; the young man looked so astonished and ill at ease.

"Lord Cawthorne," said the Marquis. His voice was gentle, but indescribably cold.

"Lord Fane."

"It is with pleasure that I exercise the privilege of welcoming your lordship to England!" The Marquis bowed again as ceremoniously as before. His tones were absolutely uninflected. He spoke in fact like a machine. The Earl bowed too, but far less gracefully. "Thanks—v—very much," he stammered.

"Pray be seated!"

Lord Cawthorne sank thoughtfully into the indicated chair. The Marquis took another at a formal distance.

"Unfortunately, Lord Cawthorne, we are passing through a period of such political upheaval and industrial effervescence that a man of the serious bent which I am advised you possess must necessarily be saddened at the outset of your life amongst us."

For the last twenty years, England, in the Marquis of Fane's eyes, had been in a constant state of political upheaval and dangerous industrial excitement.

Lord Cawthorne, however, was not aware of his companion's idiosyncrasy.

"I suppose you refer to the return of a labor member for Howth?" he asked.

"Rather to the wind whose direction is demonstrated by such straws. When I was a lad, Lord Cawthorne, the people declined to be ruled, except by their natural superiors. Those—alas for their passing!—were happy days. Now—to our national shame be it said—Demos aspires to supervene and govern its superiors. There are even demagogues who dare to prate of abolishing the House of Lords!"

"Is that so?"

"Indeed!"

"They'll tone down, I expect," remarked the Earl. "Australia, for instance, has been practically run by the Labor party for years past. There has been a good deal of socialistic legislation introduced, but the Upper Houses still stand."

"They will ultimately be abolished."

"No doubt," said Lord Cawthorne, his tones cheerfully indifferent, "and probably here too. Every dog has his day, you know, and our class has had a pretty good run for its money, don't you think?"

The Marquis looked as nearly shocked as his impassiveness would permit.

"You are a philosopher, I perceive," he said with deep gravity. "But will your philosophy uphold you to endure unmoved the spectacle of our decaying constitution when you are more intimately informed of the disease that gnaws at its heart-strings. I assure you, Lord Cawthorne, that respect for rank and name is already a dead letter in our land."

"You don't say so," rejoined the Earl. "Now I've been particularly struck with the servility of poor people, who are, I suppose, the masses—and unpleasantly, too. I love dignity in a man, and hate the lack of it."

"Ah!" There was an ominous pause, but the Earl did not look at his companion.

"I have a few small farmer tenants," he explained presently. "They came along to welcome me when I arrived. They were so cringing that it was a positive relief to discover after a bit that each had an axe to grind, although they cringed worse than ever then. I must say I prefer the independent spirit of the south, where a man asks for what he wants with his pipe in his mouth."

Lady Dorothy was curiously thrilled. Lord Cawthorne voiced sentiments which she had been brought up to detest, and now for the first time she realised that she had never succeeded in learning her lesson. She conceived an honest interest in the young Earl, dating from that moment.

The Marquis, outwardly a mask, was inwardly perturbed. Could Lord Cawthorne possibly be in sympathy with the unhinged times? It behoved him to inquire.

"Dignity is at all times admirable," he observed. "But, in my opinion, it is best displayed in submitting uncomplainingly to the inevitable."

"I quite agree with you, Lord Fane."

The Marquis bowed. "Providence," said he, "has imposed upon mankind unequal burdens. But we all serve."

"True." The Earl looked tired. The Marquis bowed again.

"Unhappily, the masses always forget in considering their evil state that we are all, high and low, the bondmen of fate, irresponsible alike for our existence and the conditions into which an accident of birth has introduced us. Unjust in ignorance, they ascribe their misfortunes to aristocrats, whence have arisen and will again arise revolutions, bloodless and bloody, whose only effect has been, and can but be, to forge fresh chains for the necks of succeeding generations. How much better, wiser, and more dignified to—er—er——" he searched in vain for a word.

"Exactly," said the Earl politely.

"I am glad to learn, my lord, that you are not a democrat. Too many of our class are time-servers already."

"Oh, I believe in letting each man strive as he pleases. In the long run people are certain to find their level; anyway, whatever comes or goes, there is always bound to be an aristocracy of intellect, and that sure knowledge should console us all."

The Marquis was dubious. "Still, if—all men were permitted to follow their bents——" he paused, frowning thoughtfully.

The Earl smiled. "If we all followed our bent in a bee-line, Lord Fane, I guess about three-fourths of the world would be digging in the bowels of the earth."

"True, too true; man's aspirations are mostly base."

The Earl arose; he was bored to death. "I have enjoyed your conversation very much," he hypocritically declared; "but really I must be going."

"Permit me to offer you some refreshment first. Nay, I insist."

"I don't drink; your lordship will laugh at me, but such is the fact."

The Marquis had not laughed for years; he had seldom felt less inclined than now.

"A cup of tea," he suggested, in his gentle, frozen voice.

"Please excuse me; I've been swilling tea all day."

The Marquis bowed resignedly and rang the bell. "I sincerely trust, Lord Cawthorne, that you will confer upon my poor house the honor of your presence here at dinner, at an early date. My daughter, Lady Dorothy Foulkes, who is at present paying me a visit, will be charmed to make your acquaintance."

"I shall be delighted, Lord Fane. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Lord Cawthorne."

The Marquis, keeping a respectable distance from his guest, executed another of his ceremonious bows. The Earl tried to imitate him and departed without attempting to achieve a handshake, feeling, as he afterwards expressed himself, "just as if someone had rammed a poker down his spine."

Lady Dorothy watched her father with a handkerchief rolled up in her mouth. The Marquis was evidently troubled. He walked twice up and down the floor. The kerchief bravely smothered the girl's giggles. The Marquis, after a long moment, put up his hands to his collar as if he found it difficult to breathe. In his eyes there was a tragedy. Dorothy saw—and stopped giggling.

"My cursed shyness—has lost me—one more friend. That young man, clever as he is, thinks me nothing but a stilted, heartless prig," thought the Marquis aloud. Then his hands fell to his sides, and with a listless shoulder shrug, he walked slowly, and oldly, from the room.

Dorothy came out from her hiding place with a countenance transfigured. "Dads, my poor, dear, darling dads," she muttered. Her eyes were full of tears.