Читать книгу Gerald Cranston's Lady - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 7

Table of Contents

At eight fifteen precisely, Christopher Rennie returned to his duties. His master, according to inevitable custom, had finished breakfast and was lighting the first cigarette of the day.

Rennie drew back the brocaded window-curtains, revealing, through lace brise-bise, the dun early-morning dullness of a crisp December day. “Maybe we’ll have it sunny for the wedding, sir,” he ventured.

Cranston allowed himself one of his rare smiles. Though Rennie’s enthusiasm for the wedding left him cold, Rennie’s personal interest pleased him. He liked his servants to be devoted. That was one of the qualities for which he paid them their high wages.

An Italian waiter, peremptorily summoned, came to clear away the breakfast things. Meanwhile, the valet waited for his orders.

“I want you to telephone to my mother’s,” said Cranston as soon as the waiter was out of the room. “Find out from her maid how she slept, and say I’d like her to telephone me during the morning.”

“Very good, sir.”

“When you’ve done that—you needn’t come back if she’s all right—go up-stairs to Mr. Harold’s room—it’s Number Four Fifty-five on the third floor—and tell him I shall be working till half-past nine. Make him understand that I don’t want to be disturbed till then.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And tell the hall-porter that I’m expecting Mr. Tillotson at half-past eight. When he comes, he’s to be shown straight up here. Mr. John Hardcastle is calling at ten. He can come up, too. Any other visitors are to send up their cards. Is that clear?”

“Pairfectly, sir.” Christopher Rennie, memorizing these instructions, hesitated a moment before asking, “What time shall you dress, sir?”

“Twelve o’clock, sharp. Mr. Harold will take lunch with me. Here. At twelve forty-five. Tell the head waiter it’s to be a light meal. Get on to Lees at the garage; remind him that he’s to bring the Rolls to the Arlington Street entrance. One thirty, sharp! Havers is fetching my mother in the Clement-Talbot. You needn’t say anything about that. I told Havers myself—last night. And, Rennie—”

“Yes, sir?”

“There’ll be a seat for you at the back of the church. You’ll find the ticket for it on my dressing-table. Lees’ll pick you up here after he’s taken us on, and bring you to Rorkton House. Don’t forget to bring my kit-bag with you. And tell the luggage-porter he’s not to be later than three forty-five at St. Pancras. Mr. Harold will be there. In case he’s late, the porter can register the trunks to Oakham. That’s all. You can go.”

The valet disappeared. Cranston, extinguishing his cigarette, stepped to the windows; opened them, and passed out upon his balcony, below which, deep as a cañon, ran Piccadilly.

Already, even as Rennie had predicted, a lemon-colored sun peeped up through the dissolving cloud-films. The leafless trees of Green Park were faintly rimed with hoar-frost. Reveling in the strength of his lungs, Gerald Cranston breathed deep of the frosty air. Now, once again, as his blue eyes looked out over Piccadilly, beyond Devonshire House to the roofs of Mayfair, imagination flickered up in him. Among those roofs, in Aldford Street, should be his own roof-tree. And from under that roof-tree he would conquer this London. “Our home,” thought Gerald Cranston. “Mine—and Hermione’s. An orderly home—disciplined. Yes—I’ll buy the place—to-day.”

A knock on the sitting-room door disturbed concentration; and, turning back from the window with the usual “Come!” on his lips, he found Tillotson, his confidential secretary, already in the room.

Stanley Tillotson was a dapper little man of the ex-officer type. The brown eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses were alert with intelligence, and his complexion, though a trifle pallid, indicated the stamina necessary to his job; while the lips under his blond toothbrushed mustache—lips that opened thin above irregular teeth as he gave his chief good morning—seemed made for the preserving of secrets.

“Morning, Tillotson.” Cranston’s voice was curt. “You’re three and a half minutes late. Where’s the post?”

“In the office, sir.” Tillotson knew better than to excuse himself. “I thought I’d see if you wanted anything urgently before I opened the letters.”

“There’s nothing urgent. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

The secretary limped away, trailing his injured foot; and Cranston, concentrating on him as he went, thought: “Wonder why he resents being here at half-past eight? Womanizes, I expect. That’s the trouble with most of them——”

He returned to the balcony, and stood there, arranging his thoughts, for the allotted ten minutes. Then he stepped back, closed the windows with one deft movement of his capable hands, and made his way out of the sitting-room, across the hall of the suite.

The fourth room of that suite had been metamorphosed, at Cranston’s expense, into an office. It struck him, as he entered it, that the bass-wood roll-top desk at which Tillotson was seated, the oak typewriter-stand, and the plain mahogany table, bare except for its big leather-lined paper-box and its telephone, contrasted rather strangely with the white carte-en-pierre wall-decorations, the bronze bracket-lights, and the red carpet. “Have to do something better for Aldford Street,” he thought, closing the door carefully behind him, and sitting down to his table with a terse, “Ready, Tillotson?”

“In a moment, sir.” The secretary slit the last of the many envelopes, inspected its contents, added them to the largest of the three piles of papers in front of him, picked up the three piles, rose, and faced his chief. “About the wedding stuff, sir,” he began, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Circulars, and that sort of thing. You won’t bother with them, I presume?”

“No. Burn the lot. Any bills?”

“About a dozen, sir.”

“Read them over, please.”

Tillotson detailed the accounts, and Cranston either passed them with a curt, “That’s O.K. Pay it,” or queried them with a curter, “That’s wrong. The price was twenty guineas. Write and tell him so.”

This routine over—an unpaid bill was Cranston’s pet detestation—there remained some dozen letters, to each of which he devoted a minute’s attention. As he indicated his answer to the last of them—“That’s a service charity, isn’t it? Send ’em a tenner”—the telephone-bell rang; and Tillotson, having answered it, announced: “Mrs. Cranston wishes to speak with you, sir.”

Stanley Tillotson, though he had been in Cranston’s service a full year, never failed in his amazement at the change which overcame his employer’s crisp, businesslike voice whenever he spoke with his mother. It changed now, as he handed over the receiver and listened to the bantering:

“Hullo, Mother, is that you? ... Up already, eh? ... That’s good.... Slept like a top! That’s better still.... Listen: I’ve arranged about your car. It’ll be at Phillimore Gardens at a quarter past one. Don’t panic. That’ll give you oceans of time. And have a good lunch first. The reception’s sure to be a dog-fight.... Of course, old lady. I arranged that, too. The front pew on the lectern side! And mind you make for the vestry the moment we do.”

Cranston, with a quiet smile, replaced the receiver; but when he next spoke the smile had vanished, and his voice was curter, more businesslike than ever.

“Tillotson,” he said, “I’ve decided to buy that house off Park Lane. Fifteen-A Aldford Street. Get on to Trollope’s as soon as their office opens. Ask for Mr. Jones, tell him I’ll give him the thirty thousand, providing his client accepts in writing by eleven o’clock this morning. Tell Mr. Jones that if the acceptance is legally binding I’ll pay three thousand deposit at once, and the balance on completion. Write that down, and give me Harrison’s report.”

Tillotson, from a drawer of the desk, produced the architect’s report on Aldford Street; and Cranston, having scrutinized it, went on:

“Hardcastle’s coming at ten o’clock with my will. I’ll tell him to send you the deeds. The moment he sends them—before, if he sanctions it—instruct Harrison to send out his specifications for tender. Tell him I want to see the estimates. If I’m still away, he must send them on to me. Make it very clear that the thing’s urgent. To-day’s the twelfth of December. I’ve got to be in by the twelfth of March. Tell Harrison to put a penalty clause in his building contracts. He’ll understand what I mean. Got all that?”

“Yes, sir.” Tillotson, scribbling hieroglyphic shorthand, never looked up from his note-book, as Cranston’s mind switched to a fresh subject.

“About Cosgrave. That’s urgent, too. It’s an accountant’s job. Write to Sir James Guthrie—you know, Guthrie, Jellybrand & Guthrie. Explain that Lady Hermione’s solicitors, Poole, Cartwright & Poole, have their instructions to let him have a copy of the estate-accounts. Tell Sir James Guthrie I’d like him to look over them personally; and have one of his clerks prepare an exact balance-sheet of incomings and outgoings for the last five years, by the end of the week. When it’s ready, he’s to send it direct to me at Studley Farm.”

“Very good, sir.” Almost before Tillotson had scribbled his last hieroglyphic, Cranston had switched again.

“And take this telegram, please. ‘McManus, Liverpool. Sell my entire holding in Coronation Cotton ordinary and preferred at best price obtainable. No limit. Remit proceeds usual channels.’ You’ll code that, of course.”

The curt businesslike voice paused for a moment; and Tillotson, rather diffidently, broke in on its pause: “Excuse me for interrupting, sir. But perhaps you haven’t seen the ‘Financial Times’ this morning. There’s a stop-press which says Coronations have declared thirty-three and a third per cent for the half-year.”

“Thanks.” Pleased again—Tillotson, as Rennie, was certainly worth his high wages—Gerald Cranston relaxed very nearly to intimacy. “Thanks. But I saw that three quarters of an hour ago. The thing’s either a fake—or worse. I’ve suspected it for some time. Sorry I ever touched the shares! Get that wire off by nine forty-five, please. That’ll give the Liverpool market just time to boil up. Now go on.”

They went on till nine thirty brought Rennie with the information, “Mr. Harold’s waiting in the sitting-room, sir.”