CHAPTER VI
WE MAKE READY THE WEDDING GARMENT
This was Connoley's story, just as he wrote it. Strange enough I never set eyes on the man after that time in Paris; and within a month from the day he gave us the paper we were in Derbyshire, and Sir Nicolas Steele was in a fair way to do the best deal he ever did in his life. How it came about that fortune checkmated him once more I shall now try to tell, simply saying that while no man was ever more surprised than I was to find myself, after twelve months' exile, so to speak, again comfortably settled in a great country house, so was I sure from the start that the affair would never come to a head, and that Janet Oakley would never be Lady Steele.
We had been in Paris six months, living anyhow, but avoiding any thing which could remind London of our existence, when my master received the invitation, and determined to accept it.
"’Tis good luck entirely," said he, "for there will be no one in Derbyshire in July, and I'll be glad to see the back of these Frenchmen for a while. Bedad, 'tis possible that the old man will adopt me. He has a pretty daughter any way, and that's a good beginning."
I said nothing, though I thought that he ran some risk in going to England just then; and three days after we were at Melbourne station driving to the house of Mr. Robert Oakley, than whom there is no better horseman nor more honorable gentleman in all Derbyshire, or Europe for that matter. Nicky would listen to no advice at that time; nor did he answer my suggestions with any thing but a laugh.
"Indeed, and 'tis a ladies' school ye should have kept," he would say. "Ye're over fearful for any decent business, and that's a fact. Is it ghosts ye look to see when we're at the White House?"
I did not answer him, but I was still sure that we were wrong in leaving Paris, and when we had been Mr. Oakley's guests for a month, he had reason to think as I did. For it was then that we received the telegram I am going to speak about, and that I shall never forget. The moment it came into my hands I knew the game was up; and he didn't need to read many times to agree with me.
"Hildebrand," said he, when I went up to his room with it just after the first gong for dinner had struck, "what the devil are you pulling a long face about now? Man, I'd think from your countenance that you were come to wake and not to marry me. Is it a tale you want to tell in all the house?"
"No tale, sir," said I, "but what's worse than a tale—a bungle. And you won't blame me, I'm sure. It was done against my advice all along. Now you see what's come of it."
He took the telegram in his hands and sat, half-dressed as he was, upon the bed to read it. I don't think, even then, that he understood it at all, for he looked it up and down, and turned it over and over, just as if there was more written upon the back of it.
"Well," said he at last, "and if I can make heads or tails of it, put me in Hanwell!"
"Then you don't read it properly, sir," said I; "can't you see that it's not for me at all?"
"Then whom, pray, is it for?"
I took the telegram and read it to him. It was in these words: "Return to Datcham at once—meet you there." But there was no signature nor any mark that would have betrayed the sender.
"Now, sir," said I, holding the message still in my hands, "isn't it plain to you?"
"Be hanged if it is!" said he.
He was always a very poor thinker, was Sir Nicolas Steele, but that night he was stupid beyond ordinary. I had no patience with him, and yet, goodness knows, it was not a night for temper.
"Look, sir," said I, "it's all as plain as the signboard of an inn. That telegram is meant for Lord Heresford, over at Altenham Lodge. There's been a bungle at the post-office, and what was meant for him has come to me, while, likely as not, what was meant for me has gone to him."
He saw it now, and his face went white as a sheet.
"Then," said he, "you think that he'll get to know we are here?"
"That depends upon what my telegram said. Better to have sleeping dogs lie, sir. We might have lived here a month just as snug and safe as aboard your own yacht. And it was any odds you'd have got through without talk—leastwise until the wedding was done."
He heard me testily, beginning to dress himself anyhow, just as he always did when trouble was at our heels.
"Well," said he, after some time, "that may be all true, and he may come here; but what then, Hildebrand, what then?"
"Ah! that's for you to say, sir. It seems to me that we shall want a change of air again. He is not a merciful man, is Lord Heresford—and this isn't the first time he's bundled us out neck and crop, as you know well."
"As I know well—confound him! But what if I wouldn't go? what if I snapped my fingers in his face? You can't forget the wedding's for Saturday, and this is Wednesday night. Is it in two days that he's to confirm his word? Bedad! I've the best of him any way, bring what tale he may."
"Sir," said I, now quite angry with him, "that's child's talk. Do you forget Margaret King so soon? You may, but he's a longer memory."
He sat down on the bed again, but he looked for all the world like a broken man. If there was one word to bring Sir Nicolas Steele to his senses, it was mention of Margaret King, and the trouble that had come with her.
"Hildebrand, Hildebrand," said he, "’tis a mortal unlucky man I am, for sure. To think that Heresford of all others should be here in Derbyshire, and me wanting three days to my marriage! What we're to do, Heaven knows!"
"It's late to talk of it," said I, "for, if he's coming, he'll be here with the morning—and we'll be on the road before this time to-morrow. Let's hope for the best, sir. It's just possible there was nothing in the other telegram to set him thinking."
"Is that likely?" he asked eagerly.
"It should not be," said I; "my brother's no fool, and this is no mistake of his. But he wouldn't have looked for Heresford of all others to read what was meant for me. What I'd better do, sir, is to go down to the village at once and get the other telegram. You, meanwhile, put a good face on it. We shall want all that before we've done."
"That's true," said he, in a very melancholy voice, "but I'd have given a thousand to have pulled this affair off. She's a sweet little woman, for sure. Bedad, 'tis the devil's own luck that's with us, upon my life!"
"Indeed, and it is, sir," said I, "and our own fault, too, I'm thinking. It was never my idea that you should try to get Lord Heresford out of Derbyshire."
"Faith, you speak true. If we'd have let him alone, we'd be right as a trivet now. And Saturday gone, we might have snapped our fingers in his face. Well, well, it's my own fault. I've just a poor head for scheming, Hildebrand, and that's the plain fact. But I count upon you. You'll go down to the village at once?"
"I'll be down and back again while you're at dinner, sir," said I.
"And if your brother said nothing compromising"
"In that case you're as safe here as anywhere. But I'm doubting that he didn't."
"You're quick to make the worst of it," said he very gloomily; and with that I left him to finish his dressing.
It being dinner time, there were few about the place to take any notice of my doings; and I slipped through the park, and so, by the long drive, to the Melbourne Road without a word to any man. Though it was late in July, the evenings were long-drawn, and when I stood upon the hilltop, the windows of the old house below seemed ablaze with the red light of the sun. I could see Mr. Robert Oakley and his daughter waiting in the garden, as I thought, for Sir Nicolas; and while I stood a minute to watch them, I realized for the first time the whole of our misfortune.
"Three days more," said I to myself, "and rogue or no rogue, Sir Nicolas, you could have stood with any man in that house. But who knows now where you will be this time to-morrow night? under lock and key, perhaps, or in the train for Paris? Oh, Fortune, Fortune, what a slut you are!"
I said this to myself, turning out of the lodge gate, and giving "good-night" to the keeper. It seemed only a week ago since we had driven up that same drive, and had been received by Mr. Oakley and his daughter just as if we were princes. And yet it was a month or more, and we had lived that time with never a man to come up to the White House—for that was the name of Mr. Oakley's place—to tell them that they had better make enquiries about their guest. A fine gentleman, as I have said, was that Mr. Oakley. We'd met him two winters back at Cannes, where my governor's riding caught his eye, as well it might, for there is no better horseman breathing than Nicky Steele. The friendship was warm from the first. Mr. Oakley was no man of the world, and knew nothing of what the world was talking about. And my master, like all Irishmen, had the gift of the gab. Talk! you'd think he was a boy of eighteen, and not a man hob-nobbing with the tail end of the thirties, as I know he must be. And it was no surprise to me that the young lady—Miss Janet her name was—stood friends with us so quickly. She'd lived all her life among boobies; and here was a man who knew every city worth the knowing, and could tell her tales of half the people in Europe. I said to myself often when I saw them walking in the old garden together—"Nicky, it really does look as if we're to be settled for life this time," and indeed I could not help but think we were to pull it off, the way things were going at the White House. So far as I knew, there was not a creature in the county who could say any thing about us. Mr. Oakley himself would listen to no gossip. He liked my master's boyish frankness and big-hearted ways. And if ever Sir Nicolas Steele was hard hit by a girl, it was by Janet Oakley.
Unbelieving as I was, all these things had half persuaded me that my master was right and I was wrong, for all went smooth and the day was fixed, and what was to be put in the papers was given to me, who lit my pipe with it. From the first we had stipulated for a quiet marriage, for my master pretended that he had just lost his only brother, who died at Castle Rath, County Kerry,—he really died three years ago, but our grief was still young,—and being in mourning, he asked for a plain wedding, with a few county folk to see him off, and neither ball nor party to make a splash. Mr. Oakley didn't much like this, for it was a boast of his that he would fill all Derbyshire with "sixty-three" port when his daughter married; but he gave way to Sir Nicolas, and the affair was kept as quiet as possible. This was lucky, since there were plenty who would have come all the way from London to make things pleasant; and for the matter of that, we'd have been hard pressed to fake up presents enough for a show. As it was, I had to buy a few little things in town and to send them down by my brother, Jerome Bigg; but the county folk rained plate and jewelry on Janet Oakley, and old Mr. Robert's gifts were worth two hundred and fifty to pawn any day.
Things were just in this way when the week-before the wedding arrived. I remember the Saturday night well—how Sir Nicolas told them that he had sent instructions for bonfires on all the hills in Kerry; and how, notwithstanding his young brother's death, his people were coming to the castle by hundreds to drink a bumper to Janet Oakley. He was always good to play the winning game, was my master; and that we were winning hand over fist at the White House no man could deny. Once married to that rosy-cheeked miss, who knew no more of the world than a child of seven, Sir Nicolas might have laughed at his friends. That old Oasley would have stood by him I did not doubt, if once the thing were done. And when that night I saw Janet kissing her husband that was to be on the stairs leading to the picture gallery, I said to myself, "Kiss away, miss, for there'll be tears to follow, quick enough."
I'd been pretty busy during the day, beginning to get my master's clothes ready for the following Saturday. It was near to twelve o'clock at night when I sat down to a glass of whiskey and water and a pipe, and to a copy of a local paper left by the butler in my room. This I read a while, and it was when I was running my eye over the fashionable intelligence that I saw the news about Lord Heresford. They said he was staying at Altenham Lodge,—the Earl of Holford's place, about ten miles from us,—and when I read the paragraph my heart jumped just as if it was coming into my mouth.
"Good Lord!" said I, "what a thing for a man to read!" For, you see, of all men in Europe I'd least soon have met in Derbyshire, Lord Heresford was the man. He knew well enough the whole history of the Margaret King affair; he knew why we left Dublin suddenly two years ago. Just as Sir Nicolas hated him—and Nicky could hate a man—so he hated us. I didn't doubt that he'd come a hundred miles to show us up, and here he was in Derbyshire, and we wanting a week of the marriage. The devil himself couldn't have dealt us shabbier luck.
I must have sat on my bed two hours, thinking what was to be done. After all, it seemed to me that we should be better advised to leave the matter alone. If Heresford had been in Derbyshire a week without scenting us, why should he not remain another week? Any way, we could do nothing to move him; and I saw that any word of us might bring a hornet's nest about our ears.
"You leave it alone, sir," said I to Sir Nicolas next morning; "just go on as you are. But don't be driving about the county, and when you ride, let it be in the park here. That's all the advice I can give you."
"’Tis precious bad luck any way, Hildebrand," said he, "and I don't know that we oughtn't to do something. You don't forget that he's only eight miles from here. He'll not be remaining another week and know nothing of us. Faith, that would be a miracle."
"It's the best course, sir," said I; "let sleeping dogs lie, as I've often told you. Eight miles in the country are eight miles. How should he hear of you now if he's not done it by this time?"
He was not satisfied, and all the Sunday he thought of it. There are few who would call Nicky Steele a coward, but this Heresford was like a whip to him. He lost his laugh that day, and for the most part he spent the hours in his bedroom. When I went up to him at night, he had made up his mind, and nothing that I could say would turn him from his purpose.
"Hildebrand," he cried, "we must get this jabbering old idiot out of Derbyshire, and we mustn't lose time about it."
"Will you please to tell me how that's to be done, sir?" I asked.
"To be done, man—you've no more wits than a pig"—he always spoke impatient like this; "why, fetch him back to his place at Datcham with a telegram. Isn't that how it's to be done? Look, now, the wedding's for Saturday—this is Sunday. Let your brother wire to him on Wednesday from London. No name, of course, and no address. Just the simple words—'Return home at once.' That 'll fetch him to Surrey on Thursday, and before he's time to think of it we'll have done the trick. Faith, 'tis a good idea, too, and lucky that one of us did not leave his wits in Paris. Why, man, a child could see it."
I did not argue with him, hoping to find him in better mind next morning; but the more he thought of it, the more he liked the idea, and so it came about that on Tuesday he had his way, and I wrote to my brother Jerome in London telling him to telegraph to Heresford at Altenham. But it was my notion to add the words—"meet you there," for, said I, that will put him off the scent, and he will think that his lawyer or some one wishes to see him on big business. In this way the whole telegram would read, "Return to Datcham at once—meet you there," and might after all, I thought, help us over a stiff place. Any way, I posted the letter to Jerome on the Tuesday in time for the London post, but it was not until the Wednesday evening that the answer came, and hit us, so to speak, fair between wind and water. I saw what had happened directly I looked at the thing. Either Jerome had addressed his telegram wrongly, or the muddle was made at the post-office. Be that as it might, I had got the message intended for Heresford, and he must have got the message intended for me.
"Now," said I to myself, as I went down the village road that night, "was ever such a thing heard of—that we should go out of our way to bring that old busybody buzzing about the White House? And just when we seemed set for the best innings we'd ever played! It's enough to make a man cut his throat."