Delphi collected works o.., p.265
Delphi Collected Works of Grant Allen, page 265
At the close of his six weeks, therefore, more angry than ever, he returned to town, now almost empty, at the tag-end of the season; and proceeded, before even he went home to Linda, to inspect the progress of the recent improvements at Powysland House itself. Great works in decoration and refurnishing had long been going on there — at Linda’s expense, of course — that woman was doing it. She had given Morris and Liberty carte blanche, with her new-fangled notions, to restore the forgotten glories of the old Georgian Montgomeries. Oriental brasses and Persian tiles now adorned the walls. Fresh backgrounds of stamped leather panelling threw up the family portraits by Romney and by Reynolds, everything in the latest æsthetic style. The Duke smiled grimly as he glanced at the peacock hangings and the pomegranate brocades, bran-new as her own gentility, which the landlady of Clandon Street was lavishing on the ancestral home of all the house of Powysland. Would she ever live there herself, he wondered, to enjoy to the full this bastard Yankee magnificence? Or would Phillipps and Wardell’s private inquiry office set all doubts at rest at once as to the part she was playing with that arch-rascal Maclaine? — Maclaine, who strolled down so calmly to the office in Whitehall each morning, cigarette in mouth, all unconscious of the malign web an English Duke and two private detectives were weaving merrily round his unsuspicious soul in the recesses of Belgravia.
From the wall, ten generations of Montgomeries smiled blandly down upon their ill-starred descendant. The Duke looked at the stamped leather panels by their side, and felt he had disgraced them. Charles Stuart Montgomery, first of the race, a son of Charles II. by ‘a saucy Welsh playhouse wench,’ as Pepys racily called her, gazed reproachfully into his eyes from the middle of a huge bag-wig, by Kneller. His grace had paid for that portrait with part of the money he received from Sir Theophilus Wragge, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of London, and a man of might in the provision trade, for making interest with the Secretary of State to grant his firm that lucrative commissariat contract for the army in Flanders. By his side hung saucy Nan Montgomery herself, created by Charles first Baroness Llanfyllin, and afterwards Countess of Bala in her own right — with long taper fingers of the exquisite Lely type and pattern. A little beyond her, again, George Adolphus, third Duke, in flowing white curls, reflected, apparently, on the inadequate sum for which he had just sold his vote and his boroughs to the insatiable Walpole. Opposite him stood the full length of Ernest, sixth Duke, better known to the world as the mad Marquis of Llanfyllin, who rode and won in that famous steeplechase before the Prince Regent, when no less than five noble necks were broken simultaneously. And here was Lord George, who grew fat on his winnings from Fox at faro; and there was Lady Jane, who sold herself for £15,000 a year to the daft Earl of East Lothian. This round face was Augustus, who parted with the Berwyn estate to pay his gambling debts; and that innocent youth was Edward, Lord Trefaldwyn, who mortgaged the family property at Bala to squander the proceeds on his French mistresses. The Duke gazed with respect on all those aristocratic ancestors, and wondered in his heart how a man so well descended as himself could ever have come down to the level of the Clandon Street landlady.
One point at Powysland House, however, annoyed the Duke very much. The head servant in charge, as he was on the point of leaving, mustered up courage to hope his grace wouldn’t be offended, but a good many people, who looked like lawyers’ clerks or money-lenders’ agents, had been calling around at the house lately, and they were particularly anxious to know exactly when his grace would be back from Norway. Well, some of ’em asked most precise and confidential questions as to whether it was the Duke himself, or the Duchess for him, who was putting in all the new furniture and decorations and such-like.
His master turned upon him with an angry face. ‘How the devil do you know, sir,’ he cried, ‘they were lawyers’ clerks or money-lenders’ agents, eh? How the devil did you know them? Who the devil told you I had anything to do of any sort with either? And if I did, what the devil do you mean by daring to speak to me to my face about it?’
The man, doubled up into himself by the Duke’s outburst of passion, mumbled something inarticulate under his breath about thinking his grace would like to know all that had happened in his absence, and retired precipitately towards his own quarters.
But the episode left an angry man none the less angry than before. The Duke strode down the steps and out into the street from his own house in a still haughtier temper than the one with which he had entered it. Was it come to this, then, that a Powysland must ask for a paltry advance of money from a woman who had dragged the pride of the Montgomeries in the dust of Clandon Street? That a Powysland must drive a sharp bargain for hard cash to condone this strange episode of secret correspondence and stolen interviews between his own wedded wife and a beggarly clerk in a Government office? Perish the thought! Honour forbid it! Sooner than that —— Adalbert Montgomery paused as he walked, and stood still for a moment in the street, knocking his stick against the pavement. The evil genius of his house was whispering to his mind faint echoes of diabolical old ancestral suggestions.
From the iron grill of Powysland House the Duke turned into Whitehall. He cast an angry glance at the Board of Trade, and, hailing an empty hansom that happened to pass by — for as yet he was in London incognito, having travelled up alone from Hull by the night express without his valet or his luggage — drove off in a turmoil of stormy feeling to a dingy, gloomy office in a street off Covent Garden.
He was expected at the office, for he had telegraphed on to announce his coming, and a hang-dog looking fellow, in a gray felt hat, took him jauntily up into a first-floor room to converse alone with him. The conversation didn’t serve to dispel the Duke’s ill-humour. He listened with a very bad grace indeed, while the man in the gray felt hat recounted at length the history of his observations. To do the Duke justice, this whole affair revolted his finer feelings. Jealousy had urged him to set a watch upon his wife, but pride made him hate the loathsome idea that this greasy, slippery, oleaginous detective should dare to play the spy on the Duchess of Powysland. Let her be twenty times over by birth a Clandon Street lodging-house-keeper — nay, let him have picked her up casually out of the vilest den of St. Giles’s or the New Cut — still, if he, Adalbert Montgomery, Duke of Powysland, chose to make that woman his wife, his wife she was, and a lady of the highest rank in England accordingly. So what did this low-bred, cunning, sneaking, fawning eavesdropper mean by venturing to take note of her goings-out and her comings-in for a wretched bribe of dirty, mercenary money? He loathed the instruments his passion compelled him to employ. He would have loved to kick the man, as he stood there smiling and cringing, and rubbing his hands in the conscious delight of having important revelations to make to his employer about the Duchess. But he was forced to listen with some outer show of politeness, at least, or even to ask the fellow questions, from time to time, about this vile and skulking apology for a trade of his.
‘And when did you first see her grace conversing with either of them?’ the Duke inquired in a very dry voice, after some opening preliminaries. Even if he found that woman ten thousand times unfaithful to him, he must teach this low brute to pay proper respect to an English Duchess.
‘In the park, on the afternoon of the third,’ the man answered glibly. ‘She was driving — —’
‘Her grace driving!’ the Duke corrected, with emphasis, in a mechanical way.
‘Her grace was driving in her carriage, and Harrison, he was a-sitting on the chairs by the side — —’
‘Mr. Harrison,’ the Duke corrected dryly once more. Persons who were on bowing terms with himself or the Duchess should not be alluded to by inferiors with such cheap familiarity.
‘Mr. Harrison was a-sitting there,’ the man went on, accepting the rebuff meekly, ‘when her grace drew up her victoria and smiled at him quite pleasant-like. Then Mr. Harrison rose,’ and he continued to tell, in his own fashion, at very great length, and with many added suggestions of obvious premeditation, the story of that chance encounter of Linda’s by the side of the stream of afternoon promenaders.
The Duke listened attentively, though with marked impatience.
‘And how soon after that did Mr. Maclaine begin to call at Onslow Gardens?’ he asked very coldly, hating himself for the question.
The man went off at once into a full and glib account, aided by his note-book, of the exact number of calls Basil had made at the house, and of her grace’s singular avoidance of evening engagements from the moment ‘the suspected party,’ as he called him, had begun to pay at all frequent visits to the Duchess.
While he spoke, the Duke’s brow grew darker and darker. He was profoundly wounded in his most susceptible passion. He had sold himself for money, he felt, and this woman had betrayed him. There was only one way out of it now, he knew; but that way, being a Montgomery, he wouldn’t hesitate to take. Never would he humble himself to receive any longer one farthing of pay from this creature, who had borrowed his name and his title only to disgrace them forthwith among the low associates of her earlier days. He wouldn’t touch her money — not a sou, not a cent, not a doit, not a stiver of it. It was hateful to think he should have to stoop to such base means of discovering her relations with these men; but she herself had forced it upon him against his will. However, she would never be able to make merry at his expense, and live on in society upon the strength of her brief glory as a Duchess of Powysland. He would expose and disgrace her, without disgracing himself. There was one way yet open. And that way he was determined, if all went well, to follow. He would punish the woman, indeed! He would humble her! He would crush her!
‘Very well, Phillipps,’ he said slowly, with a resolute air, drawing out his purse. ‘How much do I owe you for all this up to date? I’ll pay you now on account, and you can continue, straight on, your observations. Don’t let that rascal Maclaine escape. I shall bring him to book yet. But, remember, all this must still be strictly confidential.’
For even so, he was too proud a man, for his own sake alone, to let the world think he suspected his Duchess.
And then, with his soul all seething within him, he turned out of the dingy, gloomy office once more, and strolled aimlessly down to a seat on the Embankment.
It was the first place that occurred to him, or, rather, the first place he happened to light upon. He was well out of the crowd there, and more alone than he could have been at the club or any other of his accustomed haunts. He wanted time to think — time to make up his mind for action. He hardly knew how to comport himself under these painful circumstances. Should he go home once more to Onslow Gardens and meet Linda again? or should he take rooms at once at some hotel in town, and thereby definitely proclaim open war against her?
Either course was difficult and beset with danger. One was very irksome, very wounding to his pride. But he must stop and think. That’s the worst of being a Duke, you know. You get so few chances of solitude in life. A whole body of pestering people are always following you up, and dogging your steps, and bothering you. It was quite a relief to him to sit down, unrecognised, on this bench on the Embankment, and find time to think a moment how next to shape his course of action. But his brow was hot and his brain seething.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
HEADS OR TAILS.
He sat there long, musing, and, indeed, he had cause. Everything on earth was going against him. He was deeply in debt once more — chiefly debts of honour, to be sure; but he owed also no small obligations to those obliging money-lenders. It was the Montgomery nature to spend whatever your hand could grasp, and then run in debt again as deep as your creditors and the bank would allow you. To owe no man anything would have been to any inheritor of the Montgomery blood a sheer physical impossibility. Why, it was hardly safe for the Duke even to be seen in town. Heaven knows what mad tricks some of his bill-discounting friends might not be tempted to play him. In these degenerate days even dukes get dunned in open court for payment. And then there would be no course open for him but to accept with a very bad grace Linda’s hard cash. And, sooner than that —— The Duke paused and reflected.
As he sat there, immersed in deep thought, and unobservant of all that passed around, a voluble female voice burst suddenly in upon his silent reverie. It was a familiar voice, clear, cold, and piercing.
‘What, you here, my dear Duke!’ it cried in tones like a musical bell, but very quick and articulate, accompanied by a well-gloved hand thrust out to greet him. ‘Why, what an extraordinary place to find you, of all men, on a day like this! I thought you were away in Norway, beguiling the wary grouse or the wily salmon. The Morning Post says so. That’s always the way with whatever one reads about one’s friends in the papers. If ever by any chance you see a paragraph that refers to yourself or any one of your acquaintance, and you’re in a position to check it, it invariably turns out upon examination to be either incorrect or else grossly exaggerated. I give you that, gratis, as my universal experience of the journals of my fatherland.’
The Duke looked up and saw — Mrs. Bouverie-Barton.
He groaned inwardly. This was indeed a most inopportune interruption. Can an unhappy Duke never be left alone, then, to his own devices for ten minutes together? And Mrs. Bouverie-Barton, too, of all people on earth! That well-known hostess and clever society talker would put it about over the whole of London before the world was six hours older, that he was in town once more, on view at the Embankment; and he must make up his mind at once accordingly whether to go back like an obedient slave to Linda, or openly to renounce her. He hated to have his hand forced in this way. But Mrs. Bouverie-Barton was just the sort of woman who always forced one’s hand, confound her! The Duke had hardly patience enough to be commonly polite to the wretched woman.
‘So I was in Norway till four days ago,’ he answered somewhat testily, taking the well-gloved hand in his with very languid interest. ‘I am there still, for that matter, so far as society — and the Duchess are concerned; for I’ve come back incognito. I’ve just returned to town by way of Hull; landed last night, ran up early this morning alone, and had business down here — of a confidential nature — with my agents. I haven’t been home yet to see my wife; indeed, I — I was thinking of popping in to surprise the Duchess.’
‘Oh, indeed!’ Mrs. Bouverie-Barton replied, with a significant emphasis. ‘So she doesn’t know you’re coming! Well now, that is interesting! And what a very funny place to find you ruminating whether or not you’ll make up your mind to go home to her!’
The Duke looked up sharply.
‘Mrs. Bouverie-Barton,’ he said with a half-angry air, ‘you’re quite too much of a psychologist for me. Too clever by half, I call you. I object to being read at sight as if I were an open book. I never told you I was ruminating anything of the sort ... And if it comes to that, what brings you down so far into the City too? It’s as least as much out of your beat as mine. I don’t expect to meet a lady of your tastes hanging about loose like this on the Embankment.’
Mrs. Bouverie-Barton took off her glove deliberately — she had pretty white hands for a woman of her age, round and plump, but delicate — and displayed before his eyes a manuscript roll of foolscap she was carrying with most affectionate care in her music-bag.
‘I’ve just been down to a publisher’s to show him this,’ she said, with a little air of triumph, ‘for a clever young friend of mine — oh! immensely amusing — in fact, Rabelaisian. It’s a book that’s going to take the world by storm at once, I can tell you — a piece of the most rollicking cynical humour by a mere lad of twenty-four, as witty as a Beaumarchais. They’re simply delighted with it at Hall and Evershed’s. And, coming back, I chanced by pure accident to turn this way. And turning this way, I had the great good luck to hit at once upon an idle acquaintance.’
And she beamed upon him so sweetly as she spoke, that even that angry jealous man felt himself almost disarmed by her smile for half a moment. Very fine teeth for her age, Mrs. Bouverie-Barton’s.
‘But what’s been happening in town while I have been away?’ he asked, with languid interest, or pretence at interest, for he cared just at present for nothing on earth but this one pressing problem of his own existence. ‘I know I’ve come to the right source, anyhow, for the fullest information.’
Mrs. Bouverie-Barton laughed good-humouredly.
‘Well, I do hear most things that go on in town,’ she answered with conscious pride in his recognition of her talents as a collector and dispenser of gossip. ‘Let me see. What’s fresh? Sabine Venables is married at last to that leader-writing Harrison man. Oh, that was before you went away, of course. I remember now, I broke bread with you at the wedding. My poor head’s getting dreadfully muddled. Well, they’re pulling very well together, I believe, as far as they’ve gone. You see, that’s a marriage for love. Love always answers. Hubert Harrison was after her years ago, of course, about the same time when one Lord Adalbert Montgomery — you recollect the incident — was debating with himself whether or not to tie himself for life to her.’
