CHAPTER VII
LADY DREWITT SPEAKS HER MIND
AS Payne threw open the door on the following afternoon, Beresford thought he detected a look of sympathy upon his features, and he mentally decided that the first-footman had narrated in the servants'-hall the conversation in the Park of the previous afternoon.
"Well, Payne, how's the rheumatism?" he enquired.
"It's been a little better lately, sir; I've taken to drinking water."
"Good heavens! with nothing in it?"
Payne shook his head and smiled sadly.
"We shall hear of your starting a temperance hotel next," said Beresford, as Payne led the way to the morning-room.
"God forbid, sir," he said fervently; then, throwing open the door, he announced Beresford.
"What is the meaning of this, Richard?" demanded Lady Drewitt, before Payne had time to close the door behind him.
"The meaning of what, Aunt Caroline?" asked Beresford, as he seated himself.
"You know perfectly well what I mean," said Lady Drewitt grimly. "Why are you in town?"
"I've had pneumonia, and the doctor ordered me to Folkestone, so"
"Then why didn't you go there?" demanded Lady Drewitt uncompromisingly.
Beresford racked his- brains for some reason he could give as to why he had not gone direct to Folkestone.
"You see," he began hesitatingly, then with inspiration, "I had to come to town to get some clothes." He looked down at his well-groomed person.
"You don't want clothes at Folkestone in June," snapped Lady Drewitt.
"Men do, Aunt Caroline," said Beresford; "it's only the seaside-girl who does without."
"Don't be indelicate." Then after a pause she continued, "You come and tell me you are about to become a tramp, and the next I hear is that you are living at the Ritz-Carlton. I want to know what it means."
"To be frank, Aunt Caroline, it means that the country-side was too exciting for me. It requires a constitution of bronze and a temperament of reinforced concrete."
"When you see your way to talk sense, Richard, I shall possibly be able to understand you." Lady Drewitt folded her hands in her ample black silk lap and waited.
"I doubt it," said Beresford pleasantly. "As a matter of fact I entirely fail to understand myself."
"You are my sister's only son."
He recognised the grim note of duty in his aunt's voice. As he did not reply she continued:
"And it is my duty to"
"Couldn't we leave duty out of the question," he suggested, "at least for the present?"
"I demand an explanation, Richard," continued Lady Drewitt inexorably.
"There's very little to tell," said he. "I started out on my adventure, and at the end of the first day I got pneumonia. That meant five weeks spent at 'The Two Dragons,' with a sort of musical-comedy doctor and an insane nurse. Incidentally it cost me well over fifty pounds. I then decided that the country was too exciting for me, so I came back to town for a rest."
"But why are you staying at the Ritz-Carlton?"
"It does as well as any other place," was the response, "although I must confess that in poaching eggs they are not inspired, but then I never liked eggs; still, their bisque à l'écrevisse leaves little room for criticism."
"What does it cost you there?"
"I really haven't been into the financial aspect of the affair," said Beresford. "I should say roughly from twenty-five to thirty pounds a week. It's really quite moderate as things are."
Lady Drewitt gasped; but recovered herself instantly.
"And you have about two hundred pounds left," she said, making a swift mental calculation.
"One hundred and twenty-five pounds three-and-sixpence-halfpenny, to be strictly accurate," responded Beresford. "I take stock of my finances every morning. I should add, in justice to myself, that I owe not any man."
"So that at about the end of four weeks you will be"
"Impoverished, but as the Season will be over and"
"What do you propose to do?" demanded Lady Drewitt.
"As a matter of fact," he said candidly, "I don't propose to do anything in particular. I'm just drifting."
"How are you going to live?" Lady Drewitt was not to be denied.
"I hadn't thought of it."
Lady Drewitt was clearly nonplussed.
"You can't live without money," she announced presently.
"Need we dot all the 'i's' and cross all the 't's'?" he enquired smilingly. "I might try a barrel-piano with a ticket on it announcing that I am a cousin of Lord Drewitt and nephew of Lady Drewitt."
"Don't be a fool, Richard," was the uncompromising response. "Do you expect me" she paused.
"On the contrary," he said quietly, "I have never expected anything of you, Aunt Caroline. That is why we have always been such excellent friends."
For a moment Lady Drewitt eyed Beresford severely.
"I shall have to consult Drewitt and your cousin, Edward Seymour," she announced.
"I beg of you not to," he said. "Poor Drewitt is fully occupied in dodging the heiresses you hurl at his head, and as for Edward, I never could place any reliance in the opinion of a man with extravagant tastes and no chin. Besides, he is an echo of his wife, who is a reflection of you."
"What do you mean?"
"They neither of them have a will of their own," said Beresford, "and always reflect your opinions."
"I shall consult Drewitt," announced Lady Drewitt.
"I'm afraid it's of no use. I consulted him myself yesterday afternoon."
"And what did he say?"
"He suggested that I might take a sort of reversionary interest in the heiresses that were produced for his approval. He thought I might begin on Miss Ida Hopkins; but he was frankly pessimistic. He doubted if I could refrain from trying to count her freckles."
"Don't be flippant, Richard." Lady Drewitt was annoyed. "You have your career to consider. You are young."
"But I was a failure at Whitehall," he added.
"If you don't like the Foreign Office," persisted Lady Drewitt, "why don't you do something else?"
"There is so little open to a man with all the limitations of a university education."
"I'm afraid you're lazy." Lady Drewitt's tone implied no doubt whatever.
"No," said Beresford evenly, "I don't think I can be accused of being lazy; it's merely that I don't want to do anything. I'm tired of all this praise lavished on industry. I shall be just as happy in the next world as those inventive geniuses who first conceived screw-tops for bottles, or the sock-suspender. I"
"You are talking nonsense."
"I'm afraid I am," was the smiling retort.
"You have already thrown up an excellent appointment for no reason whatever."
"On the contrary, Aunt Caroline, I threw it up for a very excellent reason. I wanted to develop my soul."
"Fiddlesticks."
Beresford shrugged his shoulders.
"I confess I had reckoned without pneumonia," he added.
"I told you that you would catch cold, or something of the sort," said Lady Drewitt with unction.
"You did, Aunt Caroline; I give you every credit for pre-vision."
"And now you come back to London, spend your money buying new clothes and in expensive living, and at the end of a month you'll be a beggar."
"Impoverished was the word, aunt. One can be impoverished without begging."
"But how are you to live?"
"I didn't say I was going to live. I might possibly die artistically of starvation."
"Why don't you go to the colonies?" demanded Lady Drewitt.
"I have never been enthusiastic about the colonies," he replied. "I dislike Australian wines, Canadian cheese, New Zealand mutton, and in France it was a South African who saved my life. Then to add insult to injury the authorities gave him the D.C.M. No, Aunt Caroline, the colonies no more exist for me than they do for the Kaiser."
"Then what are you going to do?" persisted Lady Drewitt.
"Frankly I haven't the foggiest idea," he admitted, as Payne entered, followed by Rogers with the tea-tray, which he proceeded to place beside Lady Drewitt. For a few moments there was silence, during which Payne and Rogers withdrew. "No sugar, please," said Beresford, as Lady Drewitt poised a lump over his cup.
"If you would go to the colonies, Richard, I might be prepared to"
"Give me your blessing, exactly, Aunt Caroline," interrupted Beresford suavely. "I have, however, made it a rule ever since we have been acquainted to value your good opinion more than your largesse."
"What do you mean?"
"You are too shrewd not to appreciate that wealth has strange and devious influences. It causes to flow the milk of human kindness, it makes one's contemporaries strangely tolerant, it permits the possessor to say things that would otherwise not be tolerated. In short, it does quite a lot of things. No, I have never expected your wealth, nor do I want it. Your advice, like greatness, is thrust upon me; but I prefer to meet you on equal terms."
For a moment there was a strange look in Lady Drewitt's eyes, as she stared fixedly at her nephew.
"You're a fool, Richard," she said with decision. "You always were a fool; but"
"I am at least an honest fool. I must have another one of those cream cakes," he added. "You see a man with only four weeks of social life can eat anything. He hasn't to think of his waist-measurement."
Lady Drewitt regarded him with a puzzled expression.
"I shall have to see Drewitt about you," she announced.
"He is too fully occupied with his own concerns. When we discussed the reversionary interest in his heiresses, he asked me what I had to give in return, and I had to confess that all I possessed was a temperament. No woman wants a husband with a temperament, at least, she's not prepared to pay for it."
"I shall speak to your cousin Edward Seymour," announced Lady Drewitt with decision.
"I assure you it will be of no use, Aunt Caroline. With that long fair moustache of his, Edward always reminds me of a dissipated and diminutive Viking. There are, however, always Drew's heiresses," he said as he rose. "If you will put in a good word for me, say that I'm tame, with no particularly bad habits, don't like cards, seldom take cold, and am as domesticated as a foundling cat, I feel I have a chance." He held out his hand, and Lady Drewitt extended hers with reluctance.
"Richard, you're a fool," she announced with almost vindictive decision. He smiled, bowed and closed the door behind him.
"Payne," he remarked as the butler opened the door for him, "there are worse things in life than rheumatism;" and he went down the steps leaving Payne to digest the remark.
As Beresford walked along Curzon Street he saw the Edward Seymours approaching; their mission was too obvious to require explanation. They were calling on Lady Drewitt to hear the result of the interview with her prodigal nephew.
"Well," sneered Edward Seymour in the tone he invariably adopted to Beresford, "have you enjoyed yourself?"
"Immensely, thank you, Edward," was the smiling reply. "It always does me good to hear Aunt Caroline talk of you."
"Talk of me." There was eagerness and anxiety in Edward Seymour's voice, as he looked sharply at Beresford, and then apprehensively in the direction of his wife.
"What did dear Aunt Caroline say about Edward?" enquired Mrs. Edward sweetly.
"I'm afraid" began Beresford, then paused. "I'm afraid I couldn't repeat it before you, Cecily."
Mrs. Edward looked at him sharply. Into Edward Seymour's eyes had crept a look of vindictive malice.
"It's only his lies," he said to his wife. "He's jealous of me."
Beresford looked him up and down appraisingly. The little man squirmed under the smiling scorn he saw in his cousin's eyes.
"Yes," said Beresford, "I think that must be the explanation. Good-bye," and lifting his hat he passed on, feeling refreshed as a result of the encounter.
With something like trepidation Edward Seymour followed his wife into Lady Drewitt's morning-room. It was always an ordeal for him to meet his aunt. She never hesitated to express her supreme contempt for the husband of her favourite niece.
"Dear Aunt Caroline," gushed Mrs. Edward. "We've just seen Richard. I'm afraid he has been worrying you."
"Sit down, Cecily," she commanded; and Mrs. Edward subsided into a chair. "Don't fidget, Edward," she snapped, turning irritably to her nephew.
Edward Seymour started back from the album he was fingering, as if some one had run a hat-pin into him.
"Make him sit down and be quiet, Cecily," said Lady Drewitt complainingly. At a look from his wife Edward Seymour wilted into a chair.
"What did Richard say to you?" demanded Lady Drewitt.
"He didn't say anything, Aunt Caroline," began Mrs. Edward tactfully, "but"
"He was very rude to me," interrupted Edward Seymour peevishly.
"What did he say?" demanded Lady Drewitt, fixing her uncomfortable nephew with her eye.
"It was his manner," Mrs. Edward hastened to say. "His manner is always very—very rude to poor Edward."
Lady Drewitt gave expression to a noise suggestive of a horse clearing its nostrils of fodder-dust.
"He's mad," muttered Lady Drewitt half to herself; "but he's got the real Challice independence."
"I'm afraid he worries you a lot, dear Aunt Caroline," said Mrs. Edward, alarmed lest out of the kindness of her heart Lady Drewitt should take a too generous view of Beresford's shortcomings.
"He doesn't worry me nearly so much as Edward does fidgeting," snapped Lady Drewitt, fixing Edward Seymour with her eye. "Why on earth do you bring him with you, Cecily?"
Mrs. Edward threw a warning glance at her husband, then catching her aunt's eye she smiled at him indulgently, much as if he had been a favourite dog whose removal from the room was under discussion.
For half an hour Mrs. Edward strove to extract from Lady Drewitt what had taken place during her interview with Beresford; but without result. Lady Drewitt was not without shrewdness. Cecily Seymour was useful to her as a target for her arrows of scorn; but she possessed no illusions as to the nature of her niece and nephew's devotion. The uncompromising independence of Beresford, although it angered her, at the same time commanded her respect. She was a woman, and the strong masculine personality of Beresford appealed to her in spite of herself. She demanded subservience; yet scorned those who gave it. She strove to break spirits, all the time instinctively admiring those that refused to be broken.
As the Edward Seymours took their leave Lady Drewitt said
"Cecily, don't bring Edward again, he fidgets too much."
On the way home Mrs. Edward made it clear to her lord that if Aunt Caroline failed in what they hoped she would not fail, it would be entirely due to his constitutional inability to keep still.
"I'm sorry," he said miserably.
"You're not, you do it on purpose," she retorted in a tone which convinced him that on the other side of their front-door there awaited him tears, and yet more tears.