Chapter Eighteen.
Two Heads Better Than One.
“Fordham, old man, I’m in a devil of a mess,” announced Philip, dolefully, bursting into his friend’s room the following morning while the latter was shaving.
“I tell you what it is, Sir Philip Orlebar as is to be,” returned Fordham, who was in an abominably bad humour, pausing with his razor arrested. “You’ll be the death of me long before you arrive at that dignity unless you get out of a certain vile habit of crashing in upon a man during such critical moments as this. Do you think I’ve no nerves?”
“Well, I certainly did think so.”
“So it seems. But I have. So would you have if you had been expected to sleep beneath two parsons pounding about overhead in nailed boots half the night, and starting again at four o’clock this morning. The noisiest people in their rooms in these ramshackle hotels are invariably parsons and women; I imagine because the first are supposed to be professionally unselfish and the second traditionally so.”
“How do you know they were parsons?” said Philip. “Sent up the femme de chambre to ask them politely to take their boots off. She came back grinning, ‘Ce sont deux pasteurs anglais, M’sieu, qui viennent de passer le Trift-joch.’ Well, the avalanche that failed to engulph them was an avalanche in the wrong place, decidedly. I might just as well not have sent up; for though I’m not a sufficiently impartial witness to assert that they made more row thereafter, I’m fully prepared to swear that they didn’t make any less.”
“H’m! But I say, Fordham. I was saying, I’m in the very devil’s own mess.”
“That is not infrequently the case, the extent of my acquaintance with you warrants me in asserting. May I ask the nature of it this time?”
“I’ve had a devil of a row with old Glover.”
“The British merchant? Already? And the day so young! What, may I inquire, led to so decided a difference of opinion? Had you been discussing politics, or a rise in sugar?”
“Don’t chaff, Fordham. It’s no laughing matter to me. He says his daughter hasn’t had a wink of sleep all night.”
“No more has he, I should say, since he looses his combative instincts thus early. No more have I—thanks to the nailed boots of the gospel—grinders aforesaid. Well, the only thing I can suggest is that he should send down to Sierre and get her a sleeping draught.”
“He says she has lain awake all night, and is quite ill, and it’s entirely my doing.”
“Ah! I begin to see. Her room is underneath yours, I take it. Well, I always said you had rather a heavy hoof.”
“Fordham, do be serious. Don’t you see, man? You were there when they arrived yesterday—and er—er—he swears he’ll bring an action for breach of promise against me? Now do you see?”
“And he’s just the sort of animal who would do it too,” rejoined the other coolly, spreading a fresh lather upon his chin.
“Well, that’s not all—nor even the worst of it. I’m in a proper sort of hole, I can tell you,” said poor Phil, despairingly dropping into a chair and lighting up a Vevey cheroot.
“Wait a minute, Phil,” said Fordham, turning with his razor in mid-air. “There’s a time for all things and, it might be added, a place. Now I’ve a strong suspicion that the partition walls between these rooms are unconscionably thin, and that being so we had better postpone our council of war until we have got outside of our toast and coffee, and then adjourn with pipes to some sequestered spot where undisturbed we can concert plans for the discomfiture of the enemy. But, look here, you must pull yourself together. You are looking a cross between a scarecrow and a galvanised skull. Man alive, you’ll furnish sport to all the women in the house if they see you going about like this.”
“What a good chap you are, Fordham,” said poor Philip, gratefully. He was looking wretchedly pulled down and haggard, as the other had said, for he had had very little sleep. No one would have recognised the bright, handsome sunny face of yesterday. He looked a dozen years older. Even Alma, burning with outraged pride, must have pitied him.
But the Wyatts were not at table when the two came down, which was perhaps just as well. Old Glover was, but his daughter’s place was vacant. He frowned magnificently at Philip, and nodded in a stiff and patronising way to Fordham as they came in.
“Now Phil,” began Fordham, as having strolled up the meadow path behind the hotel, they sat down among a cluster of rocks and began to smoke, “Now Phil, we can talk to our heart’s content. What a chap you are. You were a semi-lunatic for the space of a week about one ‘skirt,’ and no sooner is that put right than another ‘skirt’ sails in unexpectedly and upsets the coach again.”
“Upsets it, indeed!” muttered poor Phil.
“As I understand the case,” went on Fordham, “and it’s far from an uncommon one, you neglected to throw away your dirty water before you got your clean. Consequently the former has overlapped the latter and damaged it effectually. Do you follow me?”
Philip nodded.
“Well now, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to advise me.”
“H’m! The case stands thus. The appearance upon the scene of Number 1 has sheered Number 2 off in a deadly huff, which, under the circumstances, it was bound to do. Secondly, the British merchant and his offspring threaten to make themselves particularly disagreeable. Those are the two points upon which we must go to work.”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Now to begin with the first point. Have you squarely explained the whole affair to Miss Wyatt?”
“Don’t I wish she’d give me the chance!” was the vehement reply.
“You must make the chance—by hook or by crook. That’s all I’ve got to say. It is a matter between her and you exclusively, and one in which you must fight entirely to your own hand. Now as to the other, the—er—Glover side of the difficulty. Quite sure you wouldn’t have the girl at any price?”
“Dead certain.”
“That’s so, eh?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, I think you’re right. I wouldn’t myself—if I were you, I mean. How did you manage to get in tow with her?”
“Oh, it was just after that last cruise of ours, about six months ago,” said Philip, in the disgusted tone of a man who realises that he has made a fool of himself and is called upon to face the consequences of his folly. “I ran down to old Glover’s place with some other fellows to a dance, and—well—Edith and I got rather thick. Drifted into it, I suppose?”
“Used to go up the river a good bit, eh? Picnic and spoon on the eyots—and all that sort of thing?”
“Yes.”
“That river’s the very devil for getting fellows into messes of this kind. The rushes and the whispering-trees and the soft murmur of the water, don’t you know—and the champagne in the hamper—all this I suppose combines to work it. Now, did you ever propose to her in definite terms?”
“N-no. Once it struck me she thought I had. It was one evening at a dance. We were sitting out in a corner of the lawn—and the river and the moonlight on the water—”
“And the champagne,” murmured Fordham. “No; it was sparkling Burgundy. But don’t chaff, old man. Well, I hadn’t really said anything definite. But, you know, a fellow is apt to make rather a fool of himself on such occasions, isn’t he?”
“Oh, very. Now how long was this—this evening when you hadn’t really said anything definite—before we came abroad together?”
“About a month or six weeks.”
“And of course you have corresponded ever since?”
“Up till the time I—er—you know—”
“Yes, yes, I quite understand. Well now, have you said—written, rather—anything definite in the course of that correspondence?”
“N-no. I don’t think I can have.”
“Would you mind allowing me to judge?”
“I didn’t keep copies of the letters—Oh, I see. Hers you mean! Hang it, old man, I—er—don’t think that would be quite fair to her.”
“Just as you please,” was the perfectly unruffled rejoinder. “By the way, you didn’t perform the pleasing ceremony commonly known as ‘speaking to papa,’ did you?”
“Not I,” said Philip, with alacrity.
“Yet he came here prepared to give you his blessing—and gave it, too, in the most all-embracing fashion?”
“That’s it! That’s just it!” cried Philip, savagely. “It’s a put-up job! Yet what on earth could they want to hook me for? The dear old governor has got years and years to go on yet; and even then he won’t cut up for much, for he’s as poor as Job. Still it looks like a clear case of ‘standing in.’”
“I think it does. As for the motive, the British merchant may have had a fancy to be able to talk about ‘My daughter, Lady Orlebar—ah!’ and added to that you’re a personable dog enough, Phil. He ought to be able to supply the funds to counterbalance the title.”
“There the motive breaks down,” quickly interrupted the other. “Although he cuts great splashes with his entertainments, and is rolling in money, he has the reputation of being the most close-fisted screw extant.”
“Is that so? Ah! now I begin to see a little light. You don’t think he’d come down with a fat settlement?”
“Not the ghost of a chance of it.”
“Good. I think we may defeat him on that count. But let us again be certain on this head. You are sure you wouldn’t take the girl at any price—not if he offers to settle fifty thousand?”
“Not if he offered to settle five hundred thousand. But don’t have any misgivings on that score. He won’t come down with five, you’ll see.”
“Good again,” said Fordham. “Now, are there any other daughters?”
“Three.”
“Sons?”
“Three.”
“Seven in the family. Right. Now, Phil, your line is this. You must put a prohibitive price upon yourself. Tell him straight that you are not going to wreck all your prospects in life for a girl you don’t really care two straws about, and never will, and bring yourself down to beggary into the bargain. You can defeat him on the question of settlements—if you are only firm enough.”
“But isn’t that rather a shady standpoint to take up—eh, Fordham?” said Phil, dubiously. “Not quite one’s form—eh?”
Fordham’s dark brows came nearer together, and there was a sneer in the black, piercing eyes which were fixed on the younger man’s face.
“My dear Phil,” he replied, “if there is a phase of humanity in this latter-day world which invariably lays itself out to be kicked, hustled, jumped upon, bested all round, it is represented by the man whose ‘form’ rises up to bar him fighting the devil with fire. ‘Poor Satan!’ say such fellows as yourself. ‘It really isn’t fair!’ So, by way of equalising the chances, you surrender at discretion, and the enemy of mankind dances upon you ad lib. Here you have got to fight the devil with fire, and you won’t do it, because, forsooth, it is ‘not quite one’s form.’ You are simply the victim of a ‘plant’—a not very cunningly baited trap—and yet you are going to let the devil—who for present purposes may be taken to mean the paternal Glover—bind you hand and foot for all time. Could ever lunacy be more complete—more hopeless?”
“Well, what shall I tell him?” said Philip, desperately.
“Tell him, in unequivocal terms, to go hang.”
For a few moments Philip said nothing. He sat watching the smoke wreaths from his pipe curling up in blue circles upon the clear mountain air, a puzzled and helpless expression clouding his features. Then at last:
“I say, Fordham.”
“Well?”
“I wish—er—I wish, old chap, you’d pull me through this affair. I mean—er—I wish you’d interview old Glover for me. You’re so cool-headed, and I—well, I get in a rage and lose my nut. Why, this morning the old sinner and I were as nearly as possible coming to fisticuffs. We shouted at and damned each other, but what we said I haven’t the faintest recollection.”
“I don’t care to undertake anything of the kind, Phil, and so I tell you candidly,” answered Fordham.
“Why not, old chap?” was the doleful rejoinder.
“Because it is dead in the teeth of every ruling principle of my life to poke my nose into what doesn’t concern me. You may say I have already done so in advising you at all. So I have, and to that extent I plead guilty to having been inconsistent. But two wrongs don’t make a right, which we may take to mean that I don’t see why I should violate my principles still further. Were I to undertake what you want me to, old Glover would begin by asking what the devil business it was of mine, anyhow. And the worst of it is, he would be right—quite right.”
“Not of necessity,” rejoined Philip, eagerly. “Surely you have a right to act for a friend; and for all he knows you may be my legal adviser. I believe you must have been a lawyer once, you’re so devilish coldblooded and logical. Now, say you’ll do it.”
Fordham’s dark brows met, and he smoked silently for a few minutes. “Coldblooded—logical,” had said this careless youngster, who was merely paltering with the very outskirts of the grim web of circumstances which go to make up the tragedies—and travesties—of the serious side of life. “Coldblooded” was he now pronounced; yet could he remember when his blood ran hot, surging and seething like the boiling and bubbling pitch. Now it lay still within his veins, cool and acrid as vinegar.
“And if I don’t bring it off all right, or as you think all right, you’ll turn round and abuse me,” he said at last.
“You needn’t be in the least afraid of that,” answered Phil. “I’ll give you a free hand to act as you think right.”
“You will?”
“Of course.”
“Now you’re talking, as they say in the States. Well, Phil, I’ll do what I can for you. But mind, you must leave everything in my hands unreservedly. None of your insane scruples about ‘form,’ or anything of that kind. Do you agree to this?”
“I do, unreservedly.”
“Well, it’s dead contrary to my principles, as I told you before; but for this once I’ll throw judgment overboard, especially as it is to turn the flank of an infernal scheming, crafty female creature,” added this misogynist, an acrid ring coming into his tone. “And now, Phil, you had better not go back to the hotel. Start off from here and walk somewhere till lunch-time—if you could make it till dinner-time, all the better. By then I shall have knocked what change I can out of the exasperated but knowing British parent.”