Читать книгу The House of Mammon - Fred M. White - Страница 12

X. — THE LORD AND MASTER.

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Mrs. Sairson came timidly into her husband's dressing-room. All the same, there was a tinge of pink in the delicate color of her checks, and her eyes were steadfast. Sairson, struggling into a Norfolk jacket, gave her a surly nod. He looked a grotesque character in the rough Harris tweeds he affected when in the country.

If there were any choice, as Nest said candidly, she preferred her father in frock coat and silk hat, even if he were striding along a country lane.

"There is something I want to say to you, John," Mrs. Sairson began.

"Well, say it," Sairson responded gruffly. "You're entitled to your own opinion, I suppose."

"Would you be so good as to tell me why you asked Lord Laurisdale here?"

"Well, upon my soul, there is no reason in you women. Here you are with all that money can give you. Here am I, slaving from morning till night, so that you can live in luxury. All the return I get is a complaint that the place is too dull for words. You shut yourselves up as if you were royal princesses, and grumble because nobody calls on you. And now that I have managed——"

"You know that nobody calls on us," Mrs. Sairson protested quickly. "Nobody knows the truth, perhaps, but sooner or later these things always leak out. You do not appreciate the finer feelings, so I will ask you to remember that I do. Lord Laurisdale's presence in the house is an insult to me."

Sairson stared at his wife with undisguised astonishment.

"What in the name of fortune do you mean?" he asked. "An insult! Why?"

"Because Lady Laurisdale has never called upon me. On the contrary, she has pointedly avoided us. Not that I mind, not that I should act in any other way if the positions were reversed. If Laurisdale Castle were at a distance and Lord Laurisdale were here on a matter of consequence, it would be a different thing. But seeing that he lives only across the road, so to speak——"

"Upon my word, you women are enough to drive a man distracted. Why not say the same about young Cecil Lugard, who, I understand, is my guest at the present moment?"

A spasm of pain quivered on Mrs. Sairson's lips.

"That is a different matter altogether," she went on. "Mr. Lugard is a bachelor, with no home of his own for the present. He really is here on business. But it would have been easy for Lord Laurisdale to go to his own home, seeing that the castle is so close."

"He couldn't do it, because we had a lot of important business to discuss last night. Besides, he's all right. If he lived here the Countess would have called long ago—he told me so."

"Did he really! And you believe him? I am not so simple as you seem to think, John. I have been a loyal wife to you and a loyal mother to your children; but that does not blind me to the truth. I know as well as if I could read your very mind that you have drawn Lord Laurisdale into your net, and that you are going to ruin him as you have ruined scores before him. You mean to take advantage of his reckless generosity, and at the same time compel him to recognise me. You intend to make him coerce his wife to call here."

Sairson exploded angrily. He prided himself upon his diplomacy; it was hateful to have it exposed in this way. It was unendurable to feel that his diplomacy was both futile and obvious. For if his wife could see as much, then all the world, too, would read between the lines.

"You are a fool," he said sulkily. "A child in these matters. If I refused to help Laurisdale, somebody else would. Moreover, look at the advantages of it. You and the girls will make a powerful friend. Don't imagine Lady Laurisdale is such a fool as to turn her back on ready money. Besides, she's coming here to lunch to-day, and there's an end of it."

"To lunch, John! Without being asked? Without even the formality of a call?"

"Oh curse your calls and formalities!" Sairson roared. "I tell you her ladyship is coming. She's as deep in the mire as her noodle of a husband. A certain money-lender I know of could sell her up to-morrow. She's proud and haughty, but her nose will come to the grindstone at the prospect of the bailiffs sprawling in the yellow drawing-room. That's why her ladyship will come to-day, and deuced glad of the chance. Well, what do you want?"

The question was flung at Angela, who stood pale and slender in the doorway. She flushed under the words, and a defiant flush of color crept into her cheeks.

"I could not help hearing what you said, father," Angela replied. "Mother is right. She is always right in these matters. Surely, we have had enough humiliation without this great indignity being thrust upon us. When I think of what I have suffered, I am astonished that I remained in the house."

"Only do so for the sake of your mother and sister, I suppose?" Sairson sneered.

"But, father, I would not remain another moment," Angela replied passionately; "I would rather starve. I would prefer to be a barmaid—even a barmaid can retain her self-respect. Yet I was happy enough at one time. I had everything that a girl could need. I had the love of a good man then——"

"Tossed you aside like an old glove and took to drink," Sairson laughed.

"He did nothing of the kind," Angela protested. "He found out the truth before it was too late. When I saw that he hesitated, I refused to marry him. You can say that he refused to marry me—it is all the same. If you had been a convict, it would have made no difference. Convicts expiate their crimes and they reform sometimes. But they do not pursue a path of successful cold-bloodedness; they do not parade their vices and take pride in them. And Jack Barr offended you in the altercation."

"He presumed to dictate to me, curse him!" Sairson muttered.

"Well, call it that if you like. You refused, and we were parted—Jack and I. You swore you would ruin him, would bring him to his knees and make him ask for me like a pauper asking for a piece of bread."

"Yes, and I kept my word," Sairson said doggedly.

"You did, at the cost of my happiness. You ruined Jack Barr, but you did not bring him to his knees. You broke his spirit, and drove him the way men go sometimes. Last night he would have killed you had I not been near to restrain him."

"Your presence saved his life, Angela."

"It is a falsehood!" Angela cried. "You were mortally afraid of him. One had only to look at your face to see that. Now a similar cruelty will be perpetrated on Nest."

"What! Is she going to make a fool of herself, too?" Sairson bellowed.

"What I have dreaded for years has happened," Mrs. Sairson said. "Nest has found a lover. We met Mr. Cecil Lugard some time ago; he was Mr. Franklin then, but he has come into his money and taken his mother's name. They have fallen in love with one another; indeed, Nest has confessed as much to me."

For the first time Sairson looked uneasy. His swaggering manner vanished.

"Funny that Nest should pair off with a Lugard," he muttered, "a nephew of the man who once owned this place. I hope he won't he such a fool as Barr."

"He has a high sense of honor," Mrs. Sairson remarked. "He says that General Lugard was robbed of the place by a money lender called Blaydon. He declares that certain papers have fallen into his hands, and that in time he hopes to prove it was usury, and land Blaydon in gaol. He means it, and he says he is bound to succeed. It was a pretty story, John, a very pretty story to come from the lips of the man who wants to marry Nest."

Sairson strode downstairs moodily. All the light had gone out of him for the time. He had an uneasy feeling that his womankind had got the better of him. If was long past the usual hour for breakfast, and Nest and Lugard had already gone to church. Laurisdale, pale and puffy, was making some pretence at despatching, a poached egg and tea.

"Nice morning," he said. "'Pon my word, it's a pity to be cooped up in the house on a day like this. I sent a line to my wife as soon as I rose, and she's sent to say that she will be delighted to come to lunch at 2 o'clock."

Sairson made some suitable reply. There was a suggestion of triumph in his eyes as he sat down to the table.

"Very glad to hear it," he said; "nothing like being neighborly. Shall I send the car over?"

"No occasion for that," Laurisdale replied. "It's only a mile or so, and I promised to meet her at the avenue. Quite Darby and Joan, what?"

Sairson smiled grimly to himself. He had a fair idea of the reception Laurisdale was likely to meet with. The smile was more pronounced as Sairson watched his guest swagger down the drive on his errand.

"You won't mind it so much when you get used to it, my lady," he soliloquised. "I'll give you a taste of John Sairson's real quality and see how you like it. When you find how Blaydon's clutches pinch, you will be glad to come and black John Sairson's boots."

Lady Laurisdale, a tall figure in grey, stood at the end of the avenue. There was something in the carriage of her head and the set of her face that caused Laurisdale to stammer as he spoke.

"Mornin', Blanche," he said. "Rum go this, what? Not the kind of thing I should like for you; but, really, the women are not half bad. Mother a Belham, I'm told; though where she picked up Sairson is one of the things a fellow can't understand."

"Adversity makes us acquainted with a strange bedfellows," Lady Laurisdale said, with a bitterness that caused her husband to wince. "I suppose you have got into such a mess with your affairs in London that you were forced to make up to these people? Well, I have been taken in to dinner at the house of a duchess by a little Jew with dirty nails, so I suppose I can put up with the wife of a money-lender."

Laurisdale relief was almost too transparent.

"You are a good sort, Blanche," he said. "As for my conduct, I am sorry I have neglected you so much. I'll turn over a new leaf as soon as the theatre takes a change for the better."

Lady Laurisdale laughed as if something amused her.

"To be frank, I was not thinking of you at all," she said. "As you spend everything at the Cosmos, the debts here naturally accumulate. You haven't to face that, but I have, and I am just as deep in the mud as you are in the mire. We are a nice pair, Laurisdale. Some day I shall take to keeping paying guests and accepting money for getting them presented at Court. Lead the way, please."

Laurisdale lighted a cigarette with an assumption of carelessness, but he was feeling ashamed of himself. A few minutes later Mrs. Sairson came into the drawing-room, pale and silent, and determined to be on her guard. Lady Laurisdale held out her hand with a frank smile.

"We are all more or less slaves to circumstances," she said. "I make no apology for not calling before. I can nee you are a Belham at a glance. Do you know that my mother was connected with the family?"

The House of Mammon

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