Rotherham stopped. Peaslake, enduring that disconcerting stare, rapidly searched his conscience, found it clean, and registered a silent vow to send the new footman packing if he had dared yet again to alter the position of so much as a pen on my lord’s desk.

“Peaslake!”

“My lord?”

“If anyone else should come to visit me while I remain under this roof, I have ridden out, and you don’t know when I mean to return!”

“Very good, my lord!” said Peaslake, not betraying by the faintest quiver of a muscle his heartfelt relief.

There was never anything at all equivocal about his lordship’s orders, and no one in his employment would have dreamt of deviating from them by a hairsbreadth, but this particular order cast the household, two days later, into a quandary. After a good deal of argument, some maintaining that it was not meant to apply to the unexpected visitor left by the head footman to cool his heels in one of the saloons, and others asserting that it most certainly was, Peaslake fixed the head footman with a commanding eye, and recommended him to go and discover what his lordship’s pleasure might be.

“Not me, Mr Peaslake!” said Charles emphatically.

“You heard me!” said Peaslake awfully.

“I won’t do it! I don’t mind hearing you, and I’m sorry to be disobliging, but what I don’t want to hear is him asking me if I’m deaf, or can’t understand plain English, thanking you all the same! And it ain’t right for you to tell Robert to go,” he added, as the butler’s eye fell on his colleague, “not after what happened this morning!”

“I will ask Mr Wilton’s advice,” said Peaslake.

This announcement met with unanimous approval. If any member of the establishment could expect to come off scatheless when his lordship was in raging ill-humour, that one was his steward, who had come to Claycross before his lordship had been born.

He listened to the problem, and said, after a moment’s thought: “I fear he will not be pleased, but I am of the opinion that he should be told of it.”

“Yes, Mr Wilton. Such is my own view,” agreed Peaslake. He added dispassionately: “Except that he said he did not wish to be disturbed.”

“I see,” said Mr Wilton, carefully laying his pen down in the tray provided for it. “In that case, I will myself carry the message to him, if you would prefer it?”

“Thank you, Mr Wilton, I would!” said Peaslake gratefully, following him out of his office, and watching with respect his intrepid advance upon the library.

Rotherham was seated at his desk, a litter of papers round him. When the door opened, he spoke without raising his eyes from the document he was perusing. “When I say I don’t wish to be disturbed, I mean exactly that! Out!” he snapped.

“I beg your lordship’s pardon,” said the steward, with unshaken calm.

Rotherham looked up, his scowl lifting a little. “Oh, it’s you, Wilton! What is it?”

“I came to inform you, my lord, that Mr Monksleigh wishes to see you.”

“Write and tell him I’m ruralizing, and will see no one.”

“Mr Monksleigh is already here, my lord.”

Rotherham flung down the paper he was holding. “Oh, hell and the devil confound it!” he exclaimed. “Now what?”

Mr Wilton did not reply, but waited placidly.

“I shall have to see him, I suppose,” Rotherham said irritably. Tell him to come in!—and warn him he isn’t staying more than one night!”

Mr Wilton bowed, and turned to leave the room.

“One moment!” said Rotherham, struck by a sudden thought. “Why the devil are you being employed to announce visitors, Wilton? I keep a butler and four footmen in this house, and I fail to see why it should be necessary for you to perform their duties! Where’s Peaslake?”

“He is here, my lord,” responded Mr Wilton calmly.

“Then why didn’t he come to inform me of Mr Monksleigh’s arrival?”

Mr Wilton neither blenched at the dangerous note in that harsh voice, nor answered the question. He merely looked at his master very steadily.

Suddenly a twisted grin dawned. “Pigeon-hearted imbecile! No, I don’t mean you, and you know I don’t! Wilton, I’m blue-devilled!”

“Yes, my lord. It has been noticed that you are a trifle out of sorts.”

Rotherham burst out laughing. “Why don’t you say as sulky as a bear, and be done with it? I give you leave! You don’t exasperate me by shaking like a blancmanger merely because I look at you!”

“Oh, no, my lord! But, then, I have known you for a very long time, and have become quite accustomed to your fits of the sullens,” said Mr Wilton reassuringly.

Rotherham’s eyes gleamed appreciation. “Wilton, are you never out of temper?”

“In my position, my lord, one is obliged to master one’s ill-humour,” said Mr Wilton.

Rotherham flung up a hand. “Touché! Damn you, how dare you?”

Mr Wilton smiled at him. “Shall I bring Mr Monksleigh to you here, my lord?”

“No, certainly not! Send Peaslake to do so! You can tell him I won’t snap his nose off, if you like!”

“Very well, my lord,” said Mr Wilton, and withdrew.

A few minutes later, the butler opened the door, and announced Mr Monksleigh, and Rotherham’s eldest ward strode resolutely into the room.

A slender young gentleman, dressed in the extreme of fashion, with skin-tight pantaloons of bright yellow, and starched shirt-points so high that they obscured his cheekbones, he was plainly struggling with conflicting emotions. Wrath sparkled in his eyes, but trepidation had caused his cheeks to assume a somewhat pallid hue, He came to a halt in the middle of the room, gulped, drew an audible breath, and uttered explosively: “Cousin Rotherham! I must and will speak to you!”

“Where the devil did you get that abominable waistcoat?” demanded Rotherham.

17

Since Mr Monksleigh had occupied himself, while left to wait in the Green Saloon, in composing and silently rehearsing his opening speech, this entirely unexpected question threw him off his balance. He blinked, and stammered: “It isn’t ab-bominable! It’s all the c-crack!”

“Don’t let me see it again! What do you want?”

Mr Monksleigh, touched on the raw, hesitated. On the one hand, he was strongly tempted to defend his taste in waistcoats; on the other, he had been given the cue for his opening speech. He decided to respond to it, drew another deep breath, and said, in rather too high-pitched a voice, and much more rapidly than he had intended: “Cousin Rotherham! Little though you may relish my visit, little though you may like what I have to say, reluctant though you may be to reply to me, I will not submit to being turned away from your door! It is imperative—”

“You haven’t been turned away from my door.”

“It is imperative that I should have speech with you!” said Mr Monksleigh.

“You are having speech with me—a vast deal of speech! How much?”

Choking with indignation, Mr Monksleigh said: “I didn’t come to ask you for money! I don’t want any money!”

“Good God! Aren’t you in debt?”

“No, I am not! Well, nothing to signify!” he amended. “And if I hadn’t had to come all the way to Claycross to find you I should be quite plump in the pocket, what’s more! Naturally, I didn’t bargain for that! There’s no way of living economically if one is obliged to dash all over the country, but that wasn’t my fault! First there was the hack, to carry me to Aldersgate; then there was my ticket on the mail-coach; and the tip to the guard; and another to the coachman, of course; and then I had to hire a chaise-and-pair to bring me here from Gloucester; and as a matter of fact I shall have to ask you for an advance on next quarter’s allowance, unless you prefer to lend me some blunt. I daresay you think I ought to have travelled on the stage, but—”

“Have I said so?”

“No, but—”

“Then wait until I do! What have you come to say to me?”

“Cousin Rotherham!” began MrMonksleigh again.

“I’m not a public meeting!” said Rotherham irascibly. “Don’t say Cousin Rotherham! every time you open your mouth! Say what you have to say like a reasonable being! And sit down!

Mr Monksleigh flushed scarlet, and obeyed, biting his oversensitive lip. He stared resentfully at his guardian, lounging behind his desk, and watching him with faint scorn in his eyes. He had arrived at Claycross so burning with the sense of his wrongs that had Rotherham met him on the doorstep he felt sure that he could have discharged his errand with fluency, dignity, and forcefulness. But first he had been kept waiting for twenty minutes; next he had been obliged to suspend his oratory to admit that a monetary advance would be welcome—indeed, necessary, if the post-boys were to be paid; and now he had been sharply called to order as though he had been a schoolboy. All these things had a damping effect upon him, but, as he stared at Rotherham, every ill he had suffered at his hands, every malicious spoke that had been thrust into his ambitions, and every cruel set-down he had received, came into his mind, and a sense of injury gave him courage to speak. “It is of a piece with all the rest!” he said suddenly, kneading his hands together between his knees.

“What is?”

“You know very well! Perhaps you thought I shouldn’t dare speak to you! But—”

“If I thought that, I’ve learnt my mistake!” interpolated Rotherham. “What the devil are you accusing me of?” He perceived that his ward was labouring under strong emotion, and said, with a good deal of authority in his voice, but much less asperity: “Come, Gerard, don’t be a gudgeon! What am I supposed to have done?”