He Falls on His Feet
THE morning was remarkably fine and Lord Raymes in a mellow humor. Seated on the terrace in a basket-chair he complacently surveyed his famous Italian garden and the deer park undulating beyond.
"You look happy, Raymes," remarked Lady Custerd.
"I am a philosopher," he replied.
She seemed skeptical.
"Does that really help one to feel happy?" she inquired.
"You have just quoted an instance."
Her eyes made a circuit of the park and garden and then turned on him reprovingly.
"But you have no excuse for being discontented."
He waved his hand to indicate the scene.
"If I were not prohibited by the injunctions of my grudging forefathers from cutting down my timber, if the market price of venison made those brutes worth the expense of keeping 'em, and if I had the moral courage to convert these flower-beds into a vegetable garden I should be a well-to-do man. It is philosophy alone that enables me to make these reflections as seldom as possible."
"Oh, but Raymes, you would never dream of doing anything of the kind!"
"I have dreamt, but always awakened to bleak reality."
He looked at her steadily and added: "And then there is Tony."
Lady Custerd turned upon him with a touch of indignation.
"Tony hasn't done anything he shouldn't for a long time now!"
"For quite six months," he agreed.
"Well, what do you think of that?"
"Very ominous."
"Raymes!" she exclaimed. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Do you remember our once contemplating with a shiver those foolhardy peasants cultivating the slopes of Vesuvius?"
"Perfectly. But what"
"An eruption must be almost due."
Lady Custerd deemed this scarcely fair. Her nephew had passed through the perils of a three years' residence at Oxford with several intervals of irreproachable conduct. All things considered, that might be called a creditable record; and as soon as Commem week was over the dear boy was returning at last to the seat of his ancestors. The occasion was surely one for joy, rather than criticism. "Of course it is a pity he hasn't taken a degree," she admitted.
His father smiled.
"He was sent to Oxford to avoid the risk."
Lady Custerd looked startled.
"But, surely, it could have done him no harm!"
"Think what it might have done the degree. There are critics abroad already, I believe."
She regarded him austerely.
"I do not pretend to understand you when you talk in this strain. But, surely, you will be glad to see your boy again?"
"Yes," he said, "he is all right to look at—the back view especially."
"Is that all you have to say!"
"No," he admitted, "I must confess frankly that I am both relieved and surprised to find Tony escaping from Oxford with only one entanglement and a paltry five hundred pounds' worth of bills. I hope, Gwendolen, you do not think me superstitious, but I assure you that ever since that poor boy exchanged his first pocket-knife for a brown-paper parcel with nothing inside, I have had a premonition that he would never be Lord Chancellor of England."
But there are plenty of other good positions," Lady Custerd began, when she was interrupted by the appearance of a footman with a telegram.
"No answer," said Lord Raymes. He dismissed the footman and gazed thoughtfully into space.
"The next blow has fallen," he observed in a few minutes.
"What blow? On whom?" she exclaimed.
"Tony; on me," he replied.
"Is that from him?"
He read the wire aloud:
Come Oxford immediately. Good news. Tony
"But he says good news!" she cried.
"He thought there was something in the brown-paper parcel," he answered.
As he spoke he rose and turned toward the house.
"But, of course, you'll go?" she asked.
"I cannot escape my fate by merely staying at home," he answered. "I must now go and pack."
"Then you are going to spend the night?"
"No."
"What are you taking with you then?"
"My check-book."
Half an hour later his lordship drove to the station, and in the early afternoon arrived at the ancient city of Oxford. As he passed through a quadrangle of his son's college he observed in a group of sunshades evidences of Commem.
"Ah, woman, woman!" he murmured.
Tony's door was opened by the devoted Algernon.
"Tony in?" his parent inquired.
"Not at this moment, but—er—I've been waiting for you all day."
"Ever since breakfast?"
"Practically."
"That was Tony's idea, I presume?"
"Yes."
"I know his handiwork," said Lord Raymes amiably. "He sent off his wire at ten-fifeen, and I suppose told you to expect me any time after nine-forty-five."
"Oh," said Algie, a trifle disconcerted, "that—er—I suppose that was rather absent-minded. But I assure you, sir, it wasn't his fault."
"I am aware of his misfortune," sighed Lord Raymes.
Algie stared.
"This one?"
"No; I don't even know her name. Who is she?"
Algernon collected himself. "I didn't really mean, sir, that it was his misfortune. In fact, it's quite the other way on."
"Her misfortune?"
"No, no, you quite misunderstand me! 'Pon my word, really you do. Tony has landed on his feet this time, and no mistake!"
"Poor devil! You don't say so?"
"Yes, rather! Such a nice little woman, and any amount of money."
"Have you seen it?"
"Oh, but she has told him. Her late husband"
Lord Raymes was startled at last.
"A widow!" he cried.
"A ripping little widow, sir, I assure you."
"They all are," sighed his lordship.
"Hardly a trace of American accent"
"American! I know, I know, my boy. Twenty-nine last birthday, I presume?"
"By Jove, you're exactly right, sir!"
"Comes of an ancient English family?"
"Er—yes."
"Moves in the best American and foreign society?"
"O' course, or Tony wouldn't have taken to her."
"That is a guarantee. How long has he been acquainted with this paragon?"
"Only three days. Quick work, wasn't it?"
"If I were an American, or any other sort of widow, I'd back myself to catch poor Tony in three hours."
Lord Raymes gazed thoughtfully, but apparently not unhopefully, at the ceiling. Then he lowered his eyes suddenly and inquired:
"Does she know he is a younger son?"
Algie hesitated.
"Well—er—the fact is, Lord Raymes, that's the thing dear Tony wants you to break to her. He hasn't had the—er"
"Heart?"
"That's it; he hasn't had the heart to tell her she won't actually be a peeress."
Lord Raymes smiled again.
"But do you mean to say she hasn't looked him up in a peerage or almanac or something?"
"Well, you see, the fact is she doesn't know our English ways very well."
"And yet she moves in the best society? Well, Algie, it only shows what verdant oases there are in that desert."
Algernon looked sympathetic. Tony had often told him his father was no longer the man he had been.
"Where is she staying?" inquired Lord Raymes.
"Well, in a—er—I rather fancy it's a kind of boarding-house. But, of course, that's only because"
"With her maid?"
"N-no, she can't have brought her maid."
"She's spending money on Tony like water, I suppose, eh?"
"Well, that's hardly her part of the business, is it?"
"Letting him spend money on her, though?
"Tony is devilish generous."
"Perfectly devilish," Lord Raymes agreed. "And the lady doesn't discourage him?"
"Do they ever?"
Lord Raymes held out his hand and shook his young friend's cordially.
"Algie," he declared, "I have hopes of you, after all."
A high-pitched feminine voice and a swish of skirts on the stairs interrupted them.
"I am ready for her," said Lord Raymes. "Thank you, Algie."
The young man felt gratified, though puzzled.
A small lady, trim-waisted and large-busted, with reddish-brown eyes and a plump and saucy face, paused in the doorway and shot his lordship a sparkling glance.
"My!" she exclaimed enthusiastically.
High over her towered the athletic form of Tony, smiling with the proud modesty of a conqueror. His face was pinker, his girth of chest greater, and his mustache decidedly developed since he wooed and won fair Emmy Ruggles; otherwise he seemed little altered.
"Mrs. Yarkles—my father," he introduced.
"So pleased to meet you, Lord Raymes—so vurry pleased," said Mrs. Yarkles. Lord Raymes bent gallantly over her hand.
"So you mean to rob me of my Tony?" he smiled.
"I mean to borrow him for a little while, Lord Raymes, with your permission," she sparkled.
"Ah," said he, "you American heiresses! You carry off our brightest and our best."
The sprightly lady turned to her betrothed.
"See there, Tony!" she cried. "That's what your poppa thinks of you! Don't that make you feel good?"
"Haw!" smiled Tony modestly, "you mustn't take everything the guv'nor says as meaning just the same as if Algie or me had said it. He's one of the best, all the same, though."
"I can see that!" rippled the heiress. "The real aristocracy, and no mistake, Tony!"
"Um," said Tony affectionately, yet a trifle awkwardly.
In his suavest accents Lord Raymes suggested:
"Supposing, Tony, you leave the charming Mrs. Winkles"
"Yarkles!" cried the heiress.
"I beg your pardon—the charming Mrs. Yarkles and myself to enjoy a few minutes' conversation?"
"Can you trust him all alone with me, Tony?" flashed the widow.
"Oh, he's all right," said Tony seriously.
He drew his father aside for a few moments.
"I wanted to tell you more about her myself," he began.
"Thanks," said his father. "I know her perfectly already."
Tony stared.
"Knew her before, d'ye mean?"
"Some kindred spirits understand each other in five minutes."
"Oh, ah, I see—right O!"
The two young men went out, and instantaneously a curious change came over Lord Raymes' expression. He smiled upon the widow as amiably as before, but as it were, less aristocratically.
"It's no go, my dear," Lord Raymes remarked.
The lady surveyed him with a countenance that had likewise altered.
"Do you mind saying that again slowly," she requested.
He changed the form of the assurance.
"Dear lady, it is no use at all."
She drew herself up haughtily.
"I do not understand you," she replied.
Lord Raymes adjusted his manner accordingly.
"It is lucky that my dear son is marrying a fortune. That is all I meant."
"It is not what you said."
"Ah, we gay deceivers!" he smiled.
"Are you talking through your hat—or what?"
"Let us come to business," he suggested mildly. "How much do you propose to settle on my boy?"
"Well, I never!"
"Never thought of that, you mean?"
"I guess your estates are entailed, aren't they?"
"On my eldest son."
The lady showed symptoms of extreme agitation.
"But—why I thought Tony"
She paused.
"My youngest child," he explained.
"He has deceived me!"
"Did he say he was my heir?"
"He never told me he wasn't!"
"Tony is coming on," he smiled.
The lady assumed a very sudden briskness.
"Say!" she exclaimed. "See here, what's Tony got, anyway?"
"What you provide him with."
"Nothing more?"
"His wardrobe might fetch something."
She looked at him defiantly.
"I suppose you think I'm worth millions!"
"At a rough estimate I put your income at ten dollars a week."
Mrs. Yarkles sank into an easy chair.
"Some one's been talking!"
"Only observing," he assured her.
She meditated for a few moments.
"Say, what about my injured feelings?"
He drew from his pocket his solitary article of luggage.
"How much are they injured?" he inquired.
It was about half an hour later when the two men returned to find Lord Raymes alone.
"Well, Tony," he said philosophically, "it cost a little more this time."
His son stared at him blankly, and then round the room.
"Where's she gone?"
"To her milliner's, I hope. That hat was a trifle rusty."
"I say, I'm going to look for her."
"No, my dear boy," said his father kindly, yet firmly, "you are returning home with me. You might meet another widow if I let you loose."
Algie opened his eyes.
"You don't mean it's off again?"
Lord Raymes regarded him appreciatively.
"Yes, Algie, you are certainly coming on."
"I say, you know," said Tony gloomily, "this is getting to be a bit of a bore."
"Think what it must be for the ladies," his father replied soothingly.
"Yes, by Jove!" said Algie cheerily; "just think of that, brave boy! You give as good as you get, don't you know."
"And even the giving falls on me," added Lord Raymes. Anthony regarded his comforters with newborn wisdom.
"Looked at like that, there is something in it," he agreed.
Undoubtedly Tony had fallen on his feet.