CHAPTER XIV
HELEN RANGER
IT was a matter of business, and not very pleasant business, which made me acquainted with Helen Ranger. The firm of Stryke and Hodgson, or rather the Strykes, for Hodgson only came into the firm ten years ago, have been the lawyers of the Dymchurch family for over a hundred years. They have drawn up their marriage settlements and wills and leases, bought and sold property, and conducted two right of way cases for them. One morning in November the present Lord Dymchurch, a young man of twenty-five who enjoys the reputation of leading a somewhat rackety life, came to the office, gave his name, and told the clerk that he particularly wanted to see the youngest member of the firm. I am not a member of the firm; but the clerk brought him to me. I took it that my cousin had sent him.
"Good morning," he said, shaking hands with me with uncommon cordiality. "I didn't want to see any of the old jossers, because it's rather an awkward business—in fact it's a woman."
He sat down; and his looks did not give me a pleasant impression of him. He was a fat young man with pink cheeks, thick lips, a turned-up nose, and close-set, rogue's eyes.
"It's like this—rather a mess," he said pulling nervously at his neat little black mustache. "I'm going to marry my cousin, Miss Littlestone; and as soon as the engagement is announced, another girl, her name's Helen Eanger, will cut up rough and make a devil of a fuss—bring a breach of promise case, or something of that kind. I know she will. That means that my marriage with my cousin will be queered. She won't stand that kind of thing at all."
"And you wish me to arrange the matter?"
"Yes; I want you to handle her for me. She must be kept quiet—bought off. You see, marrying my cousin means another ten thousand a year," he said ingenuously.
I liked him less than ever. I marveled that there should be two women in the little brute's life; and I thought very poorly of, at any rate the judgment, of both of them.
"What sum am I commissioned to offer her?" I said.
His face fell as he said, "There's no way out of buying her off I'm afraid. You can't see any way, can you? There are some silly letters of mine, written when I first knew her—a year ago. And I've given myself away in them hopelessly. I was awfully gone on her. But can't you see any other way?"
"Not at present. I have not seen the lady. But you tell me that she is the kind of woman who will bring an action for breach of promise."
"Oh, she is. She has a great deal of character. But I want to pay her as little as possible; I'm not gone on her now."
I began to admire his simple directness and to desire the pleasure of kicking him.
"If she is still attached to you, it would probably make a difference to the amount you would have to pay," I said.
"Oh, she's attached to me all right. It's I who've cooled off," he said with a fatuous air.
"You say she has lots of character. You had better tell me about her. The more I know about her the more effectually can I deal with the matter."
"Well, she is the daughter of a farmer at Glyde Park, my Somersetshire property, you know. Her people have been tenants of ours for ages. They're a red-headed lot; and they've always given our agents plenty of trouble; and they don't get on well with their neighbors. They're pretty wild—terrors, you know. And when I was down at Glyde a year ago, in September, I came across her. And we used to meet on the quiet, in the woods—the usual thing, you know. And I got awfully gone on her. She could have been Lady Dymchurch, if she hadn't been so ignorant. I would have married her; upon my soul, I would. But she didn't know the ropes; and I say that life's like bridge, if you don't know the game, you're bound to lose. The end of it was, when I left Glyde—I stayed a month longer there than I meant to—she came up to London to me three days later."
"I suppose she came up to get married," I said.
"That was what she thought," he said with a cunning leer.
He was certainly a shameless young blackguard.
I dare say that my face told him that he had given me some such impression of himself; for he said hastily, "Of course she's had a very good time. I've spent a couple of thou sand on her, if I've spent a penny."
"What sort of a temper has she?" I said after a pause.
"The usual red-headed temper. She just blazes if she's crossed," he said.
"That's better than a sulky, vindictive one. How old is she?"
"She 's twenty-three."
"And up to how much am I to go?" I said.
He wriggled in his chair; then he said unhappily, "Up to five thousand if you want."
It seemed to me that I had all the information the intelligence of my client was likely to afford me; and I told him that I would call on the lady and endeavor to make terms with her.
He took his leave; and I was uncommonly glad to see his back.
Later in the morning I told my cousin of our interview and my instructions. He said that he had not given orders that Lord Dymchurch was to come to me; but that since I had begun on the matter I had better go through with it.
"I'm beginning to think, John, that we shall have to give you more of this delicate work in which we have to deal with ladies," he said with a grin.
"You have not yet received your wooden sword," I said.
"Wooden sword?"
"Yes; they presented the Roman veteran with a wooden sword when they retired him," I said.
"Ah, the classics," said Howard in an indulgent tone.
Being an unpleasant business, the sooner I carried out Lord Dymchurch's instructions the better. Accordingly that afternoon I took a taxicab to Camdem Hill, where Helen Ranger lived. The house was a little villa, of as decorous an appearance as any of its neighbors. A trim maid opened the door, and showed me into a drawing-room furnished with all the luxury the exuberant imagination proper to the expensive upholsterer can suggest. I sat down in a comfortable easy chair and waited in considerable discomfort for a very tiresome quarter of an hour. I had had very little experience in negotiations of the kind I was about to attempt.
At last Miss Helen Eanger came into the room; and the sight of her was an agreeable surprise. She had red hair, indeed, very red hair, a mass of it; but it was silken and lustrous. She had the clear skin which generally goes with red hair; her green eyes were large and full of light under their dark eyelashes; her mouth was rather large with full lips; her forehead was low and very white; her nose was a little turned-up but well shaped with delicately cut nostrils. She was rather above middle height with an admirable figure. She seemed to me to diffuse a strong glow of vigorous life. Indeed, with her voluptuous air she set me thinking that, could Venus be red-haired, here was, for painter or sculptor, a very model of the goddess.
She greeted me in a low, soft voice; and as gently as I could I told her my unpleasant business.
Her nostrils dilated, an angry flush covered her white cheeks, and her eyes sparkled as I unfolded it; and at the end she cried, "The little beast! The miserable little beast and liar! So this is the end of all his promises. Promises? Why, he has sworn to marry me again and again. He's actually written to me, 'I swear I'll marry you'—more than once."
"Lord Dymchurch does not deny that," I said.
"Deny it? He couldn't—the miserable little beast. And this is all it comes to, all his swearing. He wants his neck wringing. Oh, if I hadn't quarrelled with my brother!"
She paused; and I said nothing. We should talk to the point only when her anger had abated a little.
She rose and went to the window and looked out of it for two or three minutes. Twice she muttered, "Why couldn't he leave me alone? Why couldn't he leave me alone?"
Then she dabbed at her eyes with a scrap of a handkerchief, and turned to me:—
"I won't let the little beast play fast and loose with me. He promised to marry me; and he shall," she said in a calmer tone.
"It is so hard to make anyone marry anybody if they don't want to. And honestly I don't think that there is any chance of Lord Dymchurch's marrying you," I said in a quiet, meditative tone.
"But I can bring an action against him. I can let the whole world know what a lying blackguard he is," she said. "Oh, I knew nothing—nothing—when he persuaded me to come to London; but I've learnt a good deal since. Oh, I can make it hot for him; and I will."
"You can make it very unpleasant indeed," I said. "But is it worth while?"
"You seem to forget that if I did have the law of him, my brothers would learn all about it; and they'd kill him—they would, truly. Why, they'd most likely kill me, too."
"That would be a great pity. And with regard to Lord Dymchurch too, if you care enough for him to marry him, you can hardly want him killed," I said.
"Want to marry him? I'm sick of the little beast—sick to death. And I've known for weeks that this was coming," she cried; and thereupon she burst into a storm of weeping.
It made me extremely uncomfortable; and I said all the soothing things I could think of. They were not many.
At last she grew calmer, and still sobbing she said, "I ought to marry him—sickening little beast as he is."
"I'm afraid it's no good talking of it," I said.
"It isn't. I know him," she said.
"Well, wouldn't it be better to make the best of a bad job?" I said. "You can certainly, as you say, make it hot for Lord Dymchurch. But what will you gain by it?"
She declared that she hated to be "bested," that she could not bear to let the miserable little beast crow over her, that she would punish him. I dwelt on the injury she would do herself by publishing her wrongs, so much greater really than the injury she would do him; that she would have heavy law costs to pay and would lose money. She said that she did not care about that.
The maid brought in tea and over it she grew quieter.
At last I thought her quiet enough to tell her that Lord Dymchurch was prepared to repair handsomely the wrong he had done her, as far as money could repair it.
"Well," she said slowly with a vindictive air. "It will hurt the little beast to make him pay. He hates spending money on anyone but himself."
"He thought three thousand pounds," I said; for I felt bound to do my best for my client, though my sympathies were entirely with this beautiful creature.
"Then he thought wrong—quite wrong," she said sharply. "I will have five thousand and this house and the furniture, all for my own. I have learnt enough in the last year to know that this is the least a breach of promise case would cost him. Oh, his friends have taught me a lot of things in the last year; and so has he."
"Five thousand pounds is a great deal of money," I said solemnly.
"Three thousand?" she said thoughtfully. "He would never have offered as much as that without some extra reason for getting rid of me. Three hundred more like—I know him. There must be something I don't know of. I tell you what; you tell him that next week I shall want six thousand and the week after seven. That'll buck the little beast up."
I said all the usual things that the interests of my client demanded, but I did not stir her from her position. Indeed, in the struggle to maintain it—I pressed her hard—she forgot her mortification and disappointment; and in the end she bade me good-by with her face flushed with smiling triumph.
I came away from her, thinking what a pity it was that a miserable little beast, as she so aptly called Lord Dymchurch, should have gone so far to spoil the life of so fine a creature. I did not indeed think that he had done her irremediable harm—as yet. But she was certainly stranded; whether with the five thousand pounds she would certainly have from him, she would get out again into the open sea of life and make a fair and prosperous voyage was doubtful. With a better training, the training of a gentle-woman, she would indeed have been a glorious creature.
I did not go back to the office; and I did not write to Lord Dymchurch that night. I went home and took Pamela down to Richmond.
The next morning Lord Dymchurch rang me up on the telephone; and when I told him that I had seen Helen Ranger, he said that he would come down at once and hear the result of my negotiation.
When he was ushered into my office, he greeted me curtly, and said, "I suppose she was furious."
"She was very angry at first," I said.
"And afterwards she was cut up. Poor girl; it is hard on her; but hang it all a man must look after himself," he said with an air of fatuous self-satisfaction.
"She naturally regrets losing you," I said dryly. "But I found that she had formed a very sound estimate of the strength of her position. She is not greatly inclined to make terms; she is rather inclined to bring an action against you, and injure you by the publicity entailed by it."
"I told you she had a beast of a temper," he said, pulling nervously at his mustache.
"Well, in the end I persuaded her to make terms. She will compromise the matter for £5,000 in cash and the house in which she is living just as it stands, furniture and all."
He swore like a groom; he grumbled and groused; declaring that he would not pay her a penny more than five thousand pounds.
I let him grouse his fill; then I said, "Well, my lord, it's for you to decide; but Miss Ranger said that her price would go up a thousand pounds a week. I think that she meant it; but of course you know her better than I. Doubtless it would be better to let the matter rest for a day or two; and I will see her again. Or perhaps you would like to see her yourself. Since she is fond of you, you may be able to beat her down."
"I'm hanged if I see her!" he cried. "Why, I've been expecting her to come and see me—all last night and this morning."
"Well, I will see her myself on Thursday. At the same time I feel bound to tell you that I have very little hope of getting her to make easier terms."
He swore again. Then he flung out of the office, declaring that he would not pay a penny more than five thousand.
I thought that he would. It lay with Helen Ranger to fix the price; and seeing that he had this match with his wealthy cousin in view, he would be wise to accept the terms offered. I even thought that if he slept on her proposal, he would accept it without further delay. As a matter of fact he had to sleep on it twice. On the third morning I received a packet from him by express messenger. It contained a letter from him instructing me to settle the matter out of hand, his check for £5,000, and the title-deeds of the house. He had employed another firm, a shady firm, to buy it for him; and I observed, not without pleasure, that they had made him pay through the nose for it.
I wired to Helen Ranger that her terms were accepted, that I would call on her with the documents that afternoon; and I had them drawn up at once. In the afternoon I took them to her. They were duly signed and witnessed; she gave me the letters; and I gave her the check.
Then she said, smiling a little ruefully, "Well, that's a good riddance anyhow. You'd never believe that less than a year ago I fancied myself in love with the little beast."
"Doubtless he has his charm," I said gravely.
"His charm! His fiddlesticks!" she cried. "You're laughing at me. But of course his title has. I thought it would be a great thing to be Lady Dymchurch. But, my word, what a price to pay! To have that little beast always hanging about."
"Well, our business being finished, I don't mind admitting that I think you're well out of it," I said, smiling.
"Oh, I am," she said. "But now, tell me what I am to do with this money?"
I drew her up a list of safe investments, and explained to her what her income would be. She asked me several questions which showed her of a better intelligence than I had suspected.
When at last I bade her good-bye, she said, "You're too good for a lawyer, and much too good-looking."
I was pleased to leave her in such a cheerful temper; and it did not seem to me likely that I should ever see her again.