Chapter Eleven.
Concerning Two Claims.
“God bless my soul!” ejaculated the old Squire in a startled tone. Then relapsing into mirth: “Is it meant for a joke?”
“What?” asked Wagram, who was engaged in the same occupation—investigating letters which had just come by the afternoon post.
“This,” said the Squire, handing across the letter he had been reading. “Why, it’s too comical. I never heard of such preposterous impudence in my life.” And he began to pace up and down the hall.
Wagram took the letter, and the first glance down it was enough to make him thoroughly agree with his father, except that he felt moved to even greater anger. For the heading showed that it emanated from the office of Pownall and Skreet, Solicitors, Bassingham, and its burden was to claim the sum of one thousand pounds damages “on behalf of our client, Miss Delia Calmour, by reason of certain severe bodily injuries received by her from a certain ferocious and dangerous animal, your property, suffered to be at large at such and such a time and place, the latter a public highway.” And so on.
“Is it a joke, Wagram?” repeated the old Squire.
“If so, it’s an uncommonly bad one,” was the answer; “in fact, rotten. No, I wouldn’t have believed it of the girl—really, I wouldn’t.”
His father smiled slightly, but refrained from retorting: “What did I tell you?”
“And yet the other day,” he pursued, “she came in among us all, and we treated her as one of ourselves. Yet all the time she was scheming a plan of vulgar and most outrageous blackmail.”
“That’s the worst part of it,” said Wagram with some bitterness. “See what comes of thinking oneself too knowing. I could have sworn the girl was a good girl and honest; she had honest eyes.”
“Honest! You can’t mention the word in connection with that low-down, scheming, blackmailing brood.”
“Well, there you have me, father, I admit,” answered Wagram. “You advised me against them, and I took my own line. I sing small.”
“Oh, that’s no matter. The question is: What are we going to do? Take no notice?”
“I should send her the money.”
“What! Why, Wagram, it’s preposterous. Why, on your own showing the girl wasn’t hurt at all. A thousand pounds?”
“Still, I should send it. We shouldn’t feel it. I expect these people are in desperate straits, and I’ve known that enviable condition myself.”
“Send it? Great heavens, Wagram! A thousand pounds for that old sot to soak on?”
“No, no. Send it so that nobody has the handling of it but the girl herself. She behaved very pluckily, remember. I’m almost sure she saved my life.”
“Yes; but if you hadn’t come to her rescue it wouldn’t have been in danger, as I said before,” replied the Squire somewhat testily.
“Well, perhaps not; but the situation was inevitable. I couldn’t slink away and leave her to be hacked to death by the brute.”
“All right. I’ll leave it to you, Wagram. Do as you think fit.”
“Very well,” was the answer as he busied himself again with his letters. Then he repressed a quick whistle of astonishment.
“Pownall and Skreet again. Another thousand pounds!” he mentally ejaculated. And, in fact, it was just that; and this time the claim was made on himself on behalf of “our client, Mr Robert Calmour, by reason of injuries sustained in the unprovoked savage and brutal assault committed by you upon him, on the public highway,” at such and such a time and place.
“Pownall and Skreet are having a merry innings,” he thought to himself; and then he laughed, for a recollection of the said Mr Robert Calmour’s frantic rebound from the gate when that worthy first came in contact with the ground-ash rushed overwhelmingly upon him. But astonishment underlay. So that was the identity of the fellow he had thrashed! Could it be Delia’s brother? Why, it must be; and then he remembered the running epitome as to their family and its habits which Clytie had given him on the occasion of his call at Siege House. Well, the Calmours were on the war-path this time, and no mistake.
“What’s the joke, Wagram?” said the old Squire, who was looking out of the window and had his back turned.
“Something reminded me of the cad I whacked the other day, and it was funny.” He decided not to let his father into a knowledge of this other impudent demand. It he would know how to deal with himself. “Who are Pownall and Skreet?”
“Two rascally solicitors in Bassingham.”
“All right. You’ve left it to me now, father. Don’t you worry any more about the affair; it’s out of your hands.”
“Oh, I shan’t bother about it.”
Soon after Wagram took up the rabbit rifle and strolled forth to try a long-distance shot or two; but his mind was full of the demand they had just received—that on behalf of Delia: to Bob’s affair he did not give a further thought. He had felt interested in the girl; had thought to discern a great deal of good in her; had even been wondering what he could do to help her. He owned himself astonished—astonished and disgusted. Had it been the other the result would not have surprised him. Looking back, too, he thought to discern a potential slyness beneath Clytie’s open ingenuousness; but as to this one he was disappointed.
Then he remembered that he had, in a way, taken her up, and through him Haldane. She was no fit companion for Yvonne, and at this thought his disgust deepened. Well, it would be easy to let Haldane judge for himself, and at sight of the lawyer’s letter he knew what Haldane’s judgment would be. Then, too, he recalled her demeanour on the occasion of last week’s solemnity: how she had affected an interest in it, and so on. All acting, of course; possibly due to the acquiring of a cheap honour and glory among her own set as having been seen among the party at Hilversea Court. Innately very much of a misogynist, Wagram’s bitterness in a matter of this kind needed no spur, no stimulant. He felt very bitter towards this girl with the straightforward eyes and appealing ways who had so effectually bamboozled him. It was no question of the amount—that, as he had said, they would not feel—it was the way in which the thing had been done. And, having arrived at this conclusion, he looked up, and there, skimming towards him on her bicycle, was the object of his cogitations. The method of that brief interview we know.
Thereafter Wagram resumed his way. It was only natural, he argued, that she should affect ignorance, utter innocence, as to what had transpired. Another bit of acting. He hoped he had not been manifestly discourteous, but he could not have trusted himself to prolong the meeting. Now he would dismiss the matter from his mind. He had made a grievous error of judgment, and when the affair became known he would become something of a laughing-stock. For that, however, he cared nothing.
Delia, for her part, felt as if she had just received a blow on the head as she wheeled homeward in a semi-dazed condition. The sight of Bob in the doorway—Bob, perky, expansive, more raffish than usual—did not tend to soothe her either.
“Hullo! What’s the row?” he cried as she pushed past him. “You’re looking like a boiled owl. Too much of Haldane’s champagne, eh?” For he delighted to tease Delia, did this amiable youth; she was putting on too much side of late, and wanted taking down a peg, he declared. With Clytie he had to mind his P’s and Q’s, as we have seen. Now the latter appeared to the rescue.
“Clear out, Bob,” she said. “What a young cur you are! A jolly good licking would do you all the good in the world, and I wonder every day that someone or other doesn’t give you one; only I suppose you keep your currishness for us.”
“Oh, do you?” snarled Bob, in whom the words awoke a perfectly agonising recollection. “Who the deuce cares what you think or don’t think?” he added, the sting of the allusion rendering him oblivious of the five shillings he had been intending to “borrow” from the—for the present—earning one of the family. Besides, he would be flush enough directly, then he would be in a position to round upon Clytie for the domineering way in which she had been treating him of late. When he got his thousand pounds, or even half of it, he had a good mind to chuck his berth with Pownall and Skreet and clear off to South Africa, or somewhere, and make his fortune. When he got it!
Paying no further attention to him, both girls made straight for their room.
“I’ve got a ghastly headache,” said Delia, throwing herself upon the bed. “I believe I got a touch of the sun.”
“Yes; it’s been infernally hot—is still. Well, did you have a good time of it otherwise?”
“Perfect; yes, perfect,” she answered, with a bitterness begotten of a strong instinct that it was the last she would have of any good times of that sort. “Do you know, Clytie, the contrast is too awful. It’s brought home to one so, and it hurts. I think I shall try and get some work again that’ll take me away, and keep me at it from morning till night—that’ll be the only thing.”
Clytie knew better than to question her further at that time.
“You turn in and get to sleep,” she said, “and I’ll bring you something that’ll send you off like a humming-top. Don’t go down again; and if that rascal Bob does anything to disturb you I’ll—I’ll—well, he’d seriously better not.”
She had her good points, you see, this handsome, slang-affecting, cold-blooded schemer.
Throughout the whole of the next day Delia was very miserable and depressed; only now did she realise what an obsession this secret cultus had become. What had she done to offend its object? Had any of her belongings done so, her father, perhaps, or Bob? She questioned Clytie as to this, but on that head could get no satisfaction.
“Let me think it out,” said the latter. “I’ll keep my ears open too. It’s a thousand pities my scheme should fall through. But, Delia, you must buck up. It’s of no use going about looking, as Bob said, like a boiled owl. Buck up.”
While she was dressing the following morning there came a whole-hearted bang at Delia’s door, coupled with the somewhat raucous voice of Bob.
“Here, I say, Delia; here’s a registered letter for you. Oof, of course. Well, I claim my commission for bringing it.”
“‘Costs’ shouldn’t it be?” she answered. “Well, push it under the door.”
“There’s the receipt too. You must sign it, and shove it back again. Postman’s waiting.”
This was done, and Delia looked at the registered envelope, wondering. Nobody owed her money, nor was there anyone in the wide world who would be in the least likely to give her any. There was a certain amount of excitement about the conjecture—something like the solving of an interesting conundrum. Then she cut open the envelope.
It contained a letter written on stiff, blue-grey, lawyer-like paper. Over this was the turned down end of a cheque. She looked at the cheque before the letter, and then—Great heavens! what did it mean? For the characters on the oblong slip danced before her amazed eyes.
“Pay Miss Delia Calmour one thousand pounds.
“Grantley Wagram.”
One thousand pounds? Grantley Wagram? What did it mean? In Heaven’s name, what did it mean? With trembling hands she spread out the letter. But it was not to herself. It was, in fact, the letter of demand which we have already seen the old Squire receive.
What did it mean? Delia was simply dumfoundered. She had never instructed anybody to claim damages in her life, either from the Wagrams or anyone else. Pownall and Skreet! Ah-h! They were Bob’s employers. Now she saw light. Her father and Bob had put up this between them. She remembered her suspicions with regard to them, or at any rate her father, two mornings ago. All now stood explained.
With eager hands she looked once more into the envelope, but it contained no further communication, no line or word addressed to herself, no explanation. There was the letter of demand, and the tangible evidence of compliance therewith in full. The sender had clearly deemed further explanation unnecessary.
How she completed her dressing Delia hardly knew, so consumed was she with a burning longing to get at those who had placed her in this shameful position. No wonder Wagram’s demeanour had been what it had when the girl to whom he had shown kindness had revealed herself as a mere blackmailing adventuress—a gainer of money under false pretences. Heavens! it would not bear thinking upon. Well, first to give the schemers a piece of her mind, then to rectify in so far as it lay within her power the shameful wrong they had done her.