Charity Girl (16 page)

   It was at the end of a singularly unrewarding day, when the Viscount sat down to dine in solitary state in his own house, that his deeply sympathetic butler, distressed by his master's sad lack of appetite, and extremely harassed expression, racked his own brains, and was suddenly inspired to present him with the most promising advice of any that had yet been proffered. He said, as he refilled the Viscount's glass: 'Has it occurred to your lordship that Lord Nettlecombe may have retired to his country seat for the summer months?'

   The Viscount, who had been lost in gloomy consideration of the difficulties which confronted him, looked up quickly, and ejaculated: 'Good God, what a fool I am! I'd forgotten he had one!'

   'Yes, my lord,' said Aldham, placing a cheesecake before him. 'I have only a few minutes ago remembered it myself. So while you were partaking of your first course I took the liberty of consulting the
Index to the House of Lords,
which I recalled having seen on your lordship's bookshelves, and although this volume is ten years old I fancy the information it contains may still be relied upon. It states that Lord Nettlecombe's country seat is situated in the County of Kent, not far from Staplehurst. One cannot suppose that it will be difficult to find, for it is known as Nettlecombe Manor.'

   'Thank you!' said the Viscount warmly. 'I am very much obliged to you! Indeed, I don't know where I should be without you! I'll post off to Staplehurst tomorrow morning!'

   He did so, demanding his breakfast at an unfashionably early hour, so that his chaise had gone beyond the stones before such members of the ton who still remained in London had emerged from their bedchambers. His postilions had no difficulty at all in locating Nettlecombe Manor, for a few miles before Staplehurst was reached a signpost pointed the way to the house. It was approached by a narrow lane, bordered by high, straggling hedges, and with grass growing between the wheel-ruts. This did not hold out much promise that my Lord Nettlecombe's house would justify the description of it as a 'Country seat', but it was found to be, if not a mansion, quite a large house, set in a small park, and approached by a short carriage-drive, which led from a pretty little lodge, and showed signs of having undergone extensive weeding operations. When the chaise drew up before the main entrance, and the Viscount jumped lightly down from it, he saw that the house was being repaired, a circumstance which, as he later said acidly, should have been enough to inform him that whoever was residing in the house he was not Lord Nettlecombe.

   This was soon proved to be the case. My lord had hired the house to a retired merchant, whose wife, he informed Desford, had been mad after what he called a grand Country Place for years. 'Mind you, my lord,' he said, with a fat chuckle, 'what
she set her heart on was a swapping big house
, like Chatsworth, or some such, but I told her to her head that ducal mansions was above my touch, even if his grace was wishful to hire it, which, so far as I am aware of, he ain't. All to one, it took pretty nigh on two years before we found this place, and I was so sick and tired of jumbling and jolting all over the country to look at houses that wasn't one of them what we wanted, nor what they was puffed off to be by the agents, that when I saw this place I'd have hired it, even if I hadn't taken a fancy to it, which I own I did. Of course I saw in no more than a pig's whisper that there was a lot wanted doing to it, but, lord, I said to myself, it'll give me something to do when I retire from my business, and if I don't have anything to do it's likely I'll get to be as blue as megrim. What's more, I was able to drive a bargain with his lordship's man of business, though not,' he added, with a darkling look, 'as good a one as I'd have driven if I'd known what I know now about the house! Well, if you're one of his lordship's friends, sir, I wouldn't wish to say anything unbecoming, but you wouldn't credit the way everything's been let go to rack and ruin!'

   'I'm not one of his friends, and I do credit it!' Desford said promptly, before Mr Tugsley could continue his discourse. 'I have a – a matter of business to discuss with him, and hoped I might find him here when I called at his London house, and discovered that he had gone out of town. If you know where he is to be found I should be very much obliged to you if you would furnish me with his direction.'

   'Well, that I can't do, but I
can tell you his lawyer's name
,
and his direction, so if you'll do us the honour to step into th
e next room, which Mrs T. calls the Green Saloon, but which to my way of thinking is just a parlour, and partake of a morsel of refreshment, I'll go and see if I can't find it for you.'

   The Viscount thanked him, but would have declined the offer of hospitality had he not perceived that Mr Tugsley's feelings would be hurt by a refusal. He never willingly wounded the susceptibilities of his social inferiors, so he accompanied his host into the adjoining room, bowed to Mrs Tugsley just as though (as she later informed her husband) she had been a duchess, and even endured, with an air of courteous interest, twenty minutes of her somewhat overpowering conversation, during which time he drank a glass of wine, and ate a peach. The table was loaded with dishes, but he contrived to refuse them all without giving offence, saying (with perfect truth) that although he couldn't resist the peach, he never ate a nuncheon.

   It was plain that Mrs Tugsley had social ambitions, and her efforts to impress him led her to ape what she supposed to be the manners of the haut ton, and to interlard her conversation with the names of a number of titled persons, generally describing them as 'such a sweet creature!' or 'a perfect gentleman', and trying to convey the impression that she was well-acquainted with them. The Viscount responded with easy civility, and allowed no trace either of disgust or boredom to appear in his demeanour, but he was thankful when Mr Tugsley returned, bearing a slip of paper on which he had transcribed the name and direction of Lord Nettlecombe's lawyer. This he handed to Desford, recommending him not to let the old huckster burn him. Mrs Tugsley begged him not to talk in such a vulgar way, and wondered (with a minatory frown at him) whatever his lordship must be thinking of him. But Desford laughed, and said that he was much obliged to Mr Tugsley for the warning, adding that if Lord Nettlecombe's man of business was as hardfisted as he was himself he must be a very neat article indeed.

   He parted from the Tugsleys at long last on the best of good terms, and neither of them suspected that he had been chafing to get away from Nettlecombe Manor for the greater part of an hour. There could be little hope of his reaching London before Mr Crick had shut up his office, and, since the following day would be Sunday, none at all of his being able to consult Mr Crick until Monday.

   In the event it was not until Monday afternoon that he inter-viewed Mr Crick, for when he drove to that practitioner's office early in the morning it was to be met by the intelligence that Mr Crick had been summoned to attend another of his clients. The apologetic clerk who informed Desford of this circumstance was unable to say when he would return to his office, but he did not think it would be before noon. He asked, with another of his deprecatory bows, if my lord would wish him to desire Mr Crick to call in Arlington Street, to learn his pleasure; but the Viscount, to whom it would not have oc curred to visit his own, and his father's, man of business, unhesitatingly refused this offer
,
saying that the matter on which he wished to see Mr Crick was merely to discover from him the present whereabouts of Lord Nettlecombe. 'And that,' he added, with his pleasant smile, 'I daresay
you
may be able to tell me!'

   But it was immediately apparent that this information the clerk was either unable or unwilling to disclose, so there was nothing for it but to withdraw, leaving his card, and saying that he would return later in the day.

   'Which,' said Stebbing, as he resumed his place beside the Viscount in the tilbury, 'will give this Crick plenty of time to play least-in-sight.'

   'I wish to God you'd come out of the sullens!' retorted Desford, in some exasperation. 'You've been glumping ever since we left Hazelfield, and I'm sick of it! Why the devil should he want to play least-in-sight?'

   'That's more than I can tell, my lord, but what the both of us knows is that he's my Lord Nettlecombe's man of business, and if my lord ain't cut his stick I'm a bag-pudding! Which I ain't!'

   'You may not be a bag-pudding, but you're one of the worst surly-boots it has ever been my ill-fortune to encounter!' said Desford roundly. 'I know very well what made you turn knaggy, but what I do not know is what business it is of yours if I choose to lend my aid to Miss Steane, or to any one else!'

   Chastened by the Viscount's most unusual severity, Stebbing muttered an apology, but since the Viscount cut short his sub sequent stumbling attempt to excuse himself by saying curtly: 'Very well, but don't let it happen again!' he did not venture to speak again until Arlington Street was reached, when, as he received the reins from his master, he asked with unprecedented humility at what hour my lord wished his tilbury to be brought to the door for his second visit to the City.

   'I shan't need it again: I'll take a hack,' replied Desford.

   'Very good, my lord,' said Stebbing woodenly. 'It is just as your lordship pleases, of course. Though if you prefer to drive yourself, you could take young Upton with you, in my place.'

   Neither this speech, nor his expression, could have led any uninitiated person to suppose that he passionately desired to be reconciled with his master, but the Viscount was not un-initiated, and he relented, well-aware that Stebbing's gruffness and fre quent attempts to scold and bully him sprang from a very real regard for him; and that to take the undergroom in his place would be to wound him to the heart. So, after eyeing him sternly for a moment, he laughed, and said: 'Don't try to play off your tricks on me, you old humbugger! Think I don't know you? Bring it round at two o'clock!'

   Stebbing was so much relieved by this sure sign that the Viscount was no longer angry with him that when he again took his place beside him in the tilbury he comported himself with such anxious civility that the Viscount, if he had not known that such unnatural subservience was unlikely to last for long, would have adjured him to abandon it. In fact, it showed signs of desert ing him when the Viscount handed the reins to him outside the grimy building in which Mr Crick had his office, saying that he expected to be with him again in a very few minutes. He then said that he was sure he hoped his lordship would find Mr Crick, and demanded to know what his lordship was meaning to do if he didn't find him. But the Viscount only laughed, and walked into the building.

   The clerk bowed him into Mr Crick's room, where he was received by that practitioner with the greatest civility. Mr Crick begged him to be seated; he apologized for having been absent from his office that morning; but he did not furnish him with Lord Nettlecombe's direction. He said that he was fully con-versant with my lord's affairs, and did not doubt that if my Lord Desford would condescend to divulge the nature of the business he wished to discuss with my lord he would be able to deal with it.

   'What I wish to discuss with him is not a business matter,' said the Viscount. 'It is private, and personal, and can only be answered by himself.'

   He spoke perfectly pleasantly, but there was an underlying note of determination in his voice which did not escape Mr Crick, and appeared to discompose him. He coughed genteelly, and murmured: 'Quite! Exactly so! Naturally I understand...But I assure your lordship that you need have no hesitation in disclosing it to me. A delicate matter, I apprehend? You might not be aware – perhaps I should tell you that my client honours me with his entire confidence.'

   'Yes?' said the Viscount politely.

   Mr Crick fidgeted with the pounce-box, straightened a sheet of paper, and finally said: 'He is – er – quite a
character,
my lord, if I may so put it!'

   'I'm not – yet! – acquainted with him, but I have always understood him to be a deuced odd fish,' agreed the Viscount.

   Mr Crick uttered a little titter, but said it wouldn't become him to agree, though he was bound to own that Lord Nettlecombe had some rather odd ways. 'He has become quite a recluse, you know, and almost never receives anyone, except Mr Jonas Steane – and not even him at present.' He sighed, and shook his head. 'I regret to say that he and Mr Steane had a difference of opinion a few weeks ago, which resulted in his lordship's going off to Harrowgate, and leaving me with instructions to deal with any matters that might arise during his absence. He stated in – in what I may call unequivocal terms that he did not wish to see Mr Steane, or, in fact,
anyone, or t
o receive any communications whatsoever – even from me!'

   'Good God, he must be short of a sheet!' exclaimed the Viscount.

   'No, no, my lord!' Mr Crick said hastily. 'That is, not if you mean to say that he's
deranged,
which, I collect,
is
your meaning! He has a – a somewhat untoward disposition, and has what I venture to say are some rather odd humours, but he is very shrewd – oh, very shrewd indeed! – in all worldly matters! Extremely long-headed, or, as he would say himself,
up to
all the rigs!'
He tittered again, but, as the Viscount remained unre sponsive to this evidence of Lord Nettlecombe's humour, changed the titter into a cough, and said, with a confidential drop of his voice: 'His – his eccentricities derive, I believe, from the unfortunate circumstances of his
private
life, which has not, alas, been a happy one! It would be improper in me to expatiate on this subject, but I need not scruple to tell your lordship (for it is common knowledge) that his marriage was not attended by that degree of connubial bliss which one has so frequently known to soften a somewhat harsh disposition. And the very unsteady character of his younger son was a source of great pain to him – oh,
very great pain! One had hoped that h
e would find consola tion in Mr Jonas Steane, but, unfortunately, he did not care for Mr Jonas's wife, so that his relationship with Mr Jonas has sometimes been a trifle strained, though there has never been any serious quarrel between them, until – But more I must not say on that head!'