_ PART II CHAPTER VI. A BARGAIN
"Luck!" said Rupert gloomily. "There never is any where I am concerned."
This in response to a question from his brother-in-law as to the general progress of his affairs. He sat in Mordaunt's writing-room, with one of Mordaunt's cigars between his lips, and a decidedly sullen expression on his good-looking face.
"I'm sick of everything," he declared. "I'm going to chuck the Army. It's never done anything for me. There's no chance of active service, and I loathe garrison work."
"The only question being, what else are you fit for?" said Mordaunt.
Rupert threw him a quick look. "I'll be your bailiff, if you like," he said. "I could do that."
Mordaunt raised his brows at the suggestion. "That is an idea that never occurred to me," he remarked.
"Why not? You want a bailiff, don't you?"
"A reliable one," said Mordaunt.
Rupert jumped in his chair as if he had been stung. "What the devil do you mean?"
"I mean"--Mordaunt regarded him steadily--"that I shouldn't care to trust my affairs to a man who can't look after his own."
Rupert's eyes flashed. "I am not to be trusted, then?"
Mordaunt continued to regard him, quite unmoved.
"You had better ask yourself that question, my dear fellow," he said. "You are better qualified to answer it than I am."
Rupert relaxed again, dropping back listlessly. "I suppose you are right. I certainly don't make a great success of things. I believe I should get on better with you than with anyone else. But if you feel like that about it, there is no more to be said."
"You really want to be taken seriously, do you?" Mordaunt said.
"Of course I do!" Rupert turned towards him again with the lightning change of mood characteristic of him. "You must forgive me for being a bit touchy, old chap. It's this infernal thundery weather. May I have another drink?" He helped himself without waiting for permission. "Of course I want to be taken seriously. It's a billet that would suit me down to the ground. I know the place, every inch of it, and, as you know, I'm fond of it. I would look after your interests as though they were my own."
Mordaunt smiled. "But do you look after your own?"
Rupert clinked some ice into his tumbler, and thoughtfully watched it float.
"You've been so jolly decent to me," he said at length, "that I haven't the face to bother you with my affairs again."
"I suppose that means you are in difficulties," his brother-in-law remarked.
He nodded without looking up. "I'm never out of 'em. It's not my fault. It's my beastly bad luck."
"Of course," said Mordaunt dryly.
Rupert bobbed the ice against his glass and spilt some whisky-and-water in so doing. He looked decidedly uncomfortable.
"I can't help it," he said. "I was born in Queer Street, and I've lived there all my life. You fellows who are simply rolling in wealth haven't the smallest notion what it means."
"What is the good of saying that?" Mordaunt sounded impatient for the first time. "You know as well as I do that if you had twenty thousand a year you would spend twice the amount."
Rupert glanced at him sideways. "Hullo!" he said softly. "Beginning to size us up, are you?"
"I'm beginning to think"--Mordaunt spoke with force--"that your sense of honour is as much a minus quantity as your wealth."
"Honour!" Rupert looked up in genuine astonishment.
"Yes, honour," Mordaunt repeated grimly. "Do you call it honourable to run up debts that you have no possibility of paying?"
Rupert turned crimson. "Look here! I'm not going to stay here to be insulted," he said hotly. "I haven't asked for your help, and I'm damned if I'd take it if you offered it--after that."
He was on his feet with the words, but Mordaunt remained seated. "You can do as you like," he said quietly. "If you choose to take offence, that is your affair. I helped you before because I knew you were hard up and I was sorry for you. But there is no occasion for you to be hard up now. And I am not sorry for you this time. I think you deserve to be kicked."
"You be damned!" said Rupert fiercely.
Mordaunt's brows went up. He looked full into the boy's heated face, and though he said no word Rupert turned slowly white under the look. In the dead silence that followed he stood as tense as though he expected a blow. Yet Mordaunt made no movement, spoke no word.
It was Rupert who broke the silence finally, broke it hurriedly, stammeringly, as though it had become unbearable. "All right, old chap. I didn't mean quite that. But you--you shouldn't badger me. I'm not used to it."
"Sit down," Mordaunt said.
He obeyed awkwardly, and to cover his discomfiture took up his glass to drink. But before it reached his lips Mordaunt spoke again.
"Rupert!"
He started a little, and again the liquid splashed over.
"Put that down!" Mordaunt said.
Again dumbly he obeyed.
Mordaunt leaned forward and drew the glass out of his reach. "It has never been my intention to badger you," he said. "But I reserve to myself the privilege of telling you the truth. That is the fourth drink I have seen you mix this afternoon."
"I'm perfectly sober," Rupert asserted quickly.
"Yes, I know. But you are not as cool as you might be." Very keenly Mordaunt's eyes surveyed him, but they were not without a hint of kindness notwithstanding. "I mustn't call you a young fool, I suppose," he said, "but really you are not overwise. Now, what about these affairs of yours? Shall we go into them now or after tea?"
Rupert shrugged his shoulders sullenly. "I don't know that I care to go into them at all."
The kindliness went out of Mordaunt's eyes and a certain steeliness took its place. "As you like," he said. "Only let it be clearly understood that I will have no borrowing from Chris. I have forbidden her to lend money to any one of you. If you want it, you must come direct to me."
Rupert shifted his position, and looked out of the window. Down in the garden Chris was dispensing tea to three of his brother-subalterns, assisted by Noel. Bertrand was seated by her side, alert and watchful, ready at a moment's notice to come to her aid. It was his customary attitude, and it had been so more than ever since the death of Cinders. There was a protecting brotherliness about him that Chris found infinitely comforting: He understood her so perfectly.
She had not wanted to emerge from her seclusion to entertain her brother's friends on that sunny Sunday afternoon, but he had gently persuaded her. A change had come over Chris during the past four days. The violence of her grief had spent itself on the night that she and Noel had mingled their tears over the loss of their favourite, and she had not alluded to it since. She accepted her husband's sympathy with gratitude, but she shrank so visibly from the smallest allusion to her trouble that he found no opportunity for expressing it. He would not intrude it upon her. It was not his way, and she made him aware that for this also she was grateful.
But it was plainly from Bertrand that she drew her chief comfort. His very presence seemed to soothe her. He was just the friend she needed to help her through her dark hour.
That she fretted secretly Mordaunt could not doubt, but she was so zealous to hide all traces of it from him that he never detected them. He only missed her gay wilfulness and the sunshine of her smile. She responded to his tenderness even more readily than usual, but she did not open her heart to him. There seemed to be a barrier intervening that she could not bring herself to pass.
In his own mind he set this fact down to a certain feminine unreasonableness, imagining that she could not forget his share in the tragedy that had affected her so deeply. He trusted to time to soften the painful impression, and meanwhile, with his habitual patience, he set himself to wait till the physical strain had passed and the very sweetness of her nature should bring her back to him. He knew that all Bertrand's influence would be exercised in this direction, and his faith in his young secretary's discretion was considerable. Their brief conversation on the night of the disaster had rooted it more firmly than ever. Bertrand was so essentially a man of honour that he trusted him in all things as he trusted himself. Their code was the same, and their friendship of the kind that endures for life. If there were one thing on earth before all others upon which Trevor Mordaunt would have staked his all, it was this Frenchman's loyalty to himself. He was as staunch as Chris's brothers were unstable. He believed him to be utterly incapable of so much as an underhand impulse. And he was content that Chris should have for friend this man who was so close a friend of his own, upon whose nobility of character he had come to rely as a power for good that could not fail to raise her ideals and deepen in her that sense of honour which was still scarcely more than an undeveloped instinct in her soul.
His eyes followed Rupert's to the open window. The sound of chaffing voices rose clearly on the summer air, mingled with the chink of tea-cups.
"Shall we go?" Mordaunt said.
Rupert looked round with a laugh. "Did you see that ass Murphy stand on his head to drink his tea? It's his pet accomplishment. Yes, all right; let's go."
He got up, glanced at the whisky-and-soda on the table, then impulsively linked his arm in that of his brother-in-law, all his sullenness gone like a storm-cloud.
"You're quite right, old fellow. I have had as much of that stuff as is good for me. Forgive me for being such a bear. I didn't mean it."
Mordaunt paused. He had never dealt with anyone quite so bewilderingly changeable before. "I wish I knew how to treat you," he said, after a moment.
"Oh, pitch into me! It's the only way." Rupert's smile flashed suddenly upon him. "I've been an ungrateful brute, and I'm ashamed of myself. Seriously, Trevor, I'm sorry. I sometimes think to myself it's downright disgusting the way we all sponge on you. It's deuced good of you to put up with it."
Mordaunt still regarded him with close attention. But there was no doubt in his mind as to the boy's sincerity: he only wondered how long this contrite mood would last.
"I am always willing to help you to the best of my ability," he said. "But I think you might play the game. I can't keep pouring water into a sieve."
"It's not to be expected," Rupert agreed. "And I hate asking you for more money. I'm an absolute cur to do it. But--" he broke off, and pulled his hand free--"for goodness' sake, man, if you can--just this once--"
Mordaunt crossed the room to his writing-table, unlocked a drawer, took out a cheque-book.
"How much?"
"I say, you are a good chap!" Rupert protested. "Can you make it a hundred?"
"Will that settle everything?" Mordaunt asked.
"Oh, well--practically everything."
Mordaunt wrote the cheque in silence. He handed it over his shoulder finally to the boy behind him.
"It's for a hundred and fifty. I hope that will see you through. And look here, Rupert, do for Heaven's sake pull up and keep within bounds. I am quite willing to help you to a reasonable extent, but you must do your part, too. You are living at an insane rate. Do you keep an account of your expenditure?"
"Of course I don't!" Rupert seemed astonished at the question. "What on earth would be the good of that? It wouldn't reduce my expenses."
Mordaunt laid his cheque-book back in the drawer. "And you think you would make a good bailiff?" he said.
"Oh, that's different. Of course, you must have accounts for the management of an estate. You would have no cause to complain of me there. Are you going to think it over, I say?"
Mordaunt turned in his chair. "You really wish me to do so?"
"Rather!" Rupert spoke with enthusiasm. "If you knew how deadly sick I am of the life I live now!" he added, with strong disgust. "It's beastly hard work, too, in a sense, and nothing to show for it."
"I should work you hard myself," Mordaunt observed.
"I shouldn't mind that. I'd work like a horse here. It's what I've always wanted to do."
"And kick like a horse, too, if I ventured to find fault," said Mordaunt, smiling a little.
"No, I shouldn't. I'd take it like a lamb. Come, man, I've apologized."
There was a note of reproach in Rupert's voice. Mordaunt left his writing-table and faced him squarely.
"I'll make a bargain with you," he said. "If you can manage to keep straight between now and Christmas, and you are of the same mind then, I will take you on. Is it done?"
Rupert thrust out a hand with a beaming countenance. "Done, old fellow! And a thousand thanks! I'll do my part somehow if it kills me. Hullo, I say! There's Chris calling! Hadn't we better go?"
He was plainly desirous to end the interview, and Mordaunt did not seek to prolong it. "Come along, then!" he said. And they went out together arm-in-arm to join the group upon the lawn.
Two hours later, just before Rupert and his friends started upon their return journey, Bertrand happened to enter Mordaunt's writing-room, and was surprised to find the eldest Wyndham standing by the table with a glass of whisky-and-soda to his lips.
The surprise was mutual, and on Rupert's side so violent that he dropped the glass, which shivered upon the floor. He uttered a fierce exclamation as he recognized the intruder.
Bertrand was profuse in his apologies. "But I had no idea that there was anyone here! A thousand pardons, Mr. Wyndham! It was unfortunate--but very unfortunate. I am come only for Mr. Mordaunt's keys, which he left here by accident. I will ring for Holmes. He will remove this _debris_. And you will have another drink, yes?"
"I can't wait," Rupert said, almost inarticulately.
He remained standing at the table trying to compose himself, but he was white to the lips.
Bertrand regarded him with quick concern. "Ah, but how I have alarmed you!" he said. "My shoes are of canvas, and they make no sound. Will you, then, sit down for a moment, while I pour out another glass of whisky?"
He drew forward a chair with much solicitude, and took up a fresh glass. But Rupert swung away, turning his back upon him.
Prom the front of the house came the hoot of the waiting motor. Plainly his comrades were waxing impatient.
"But you will drink before you go?" urged the courteous Frenchman. "I am desolated to have deprived you--"
Rupert turned his face for an instant over his shoulder. It was no longer white, but crimson and convulsed with anger. His hands were clenched.
"Oh, go to the devil!" he cried violently, and with the words stamped furiously from the room.
Bertrand was left staring after him, petrified with amazement--too astounded to be angry.
At the end of a lengthy pause he turned and pocketed Mordaunt's keys, and rang the bell for Holmes to clear up the mess on the floor.
"_Mais ces anglais_!" he murmured to himself, with a whimsical shrug of the shoulders. "_Comme ils sont droles_!" _