CHAPTER XVI
The man who, with his burly form filling up the window, stood looking in with grim amusement at Peckover's performance, was a great round-faced, bullet-headed fellow of six feet two, whose massive proportions, coupled with his juvenile countenance and somewhat vacuous expression, gave him the appearance of a fat schoolboy seen through a magnifying-glass. He was dressed in a Norfolk suit of leather, which by its amplitude of cut made the wearer look even a bigger man than Nature had intended him to be.
For some seconds the two stood staring at each other in a sort of stupefied silence. Then Peckover, somewhat nervously, remarked, "Hullo!"
"Keeping warm?" the substantial apparition enquired, drawing back the corners of his wide mouth in a sarcastic grin.
"Foot asleep," was the ready explanation, given with a certain apprehensive quaver.
"I see." The stranger accepted the statement for what it was worth. "This is Staplewick Towers?" The question was put in a tone of settled conviction that only an answer in the affirmative would be deemed worthy of credence.
"Yes. Front door round to the left," said Peckover perking up.
"Thanks," returned the intruder significantly. "I'll try that way when I leave." He took a step in to the room and stared round him curiously.
"Awkward member!" was Peckover's muttered comment, duly impressed by the other's size, which made the furniture look small. "You wish to see Colonel Hemyock?"
"Not particularly," returned the stranger gruffly, "I want Lord Quorn."
"Lord Quorn!" Peckover caught up his face in the act of falling. "Pressing business?" he inquired politely.
"Very."
"Any message?"
"No." The man's voice was unnecessarily, objectionably loud, Peckover thought. "You would not care to take what I've come all the way from Australia to give him," he added with unpleasant significance, as he twirled a thick crop, just missing a statuette by half an inch.
So the complication which Peckover had feared but of which his good fortune and the zest of his new life had made him forgetful, had arrived. In a moment the particularly awkward truth flashed upon him, that this was the dreaded bully from Australia, the brother of the would-be Lady Quorn.
The idea put his thoughts in such a whirl that he was not ready with any reply. His hesitation seemed to have the effect of exasperating the quick-tempered visitor.
"Where is this nobleman?" he roared, with sneering emphasis on the substantive.
Peckover, with the income of a Cabinet Minister at stake, was rapidly running over expedients for meeting the monstrous emergency. To put him off for the moment and send for the police seemed the most feasible way.
"Lord Quorn?" he replied. "Oh, he's about."
"He won't be about much after I have done with him," was the grim retort. Suddenly stooping forward and looking viciously round the room, the unpleasant visitor carelessly threw his crop away over his shoulder and caught up the poker. "Look here!" he bellowed. "His lordship's right leg." With the word he made a furious effort and snapped the poker in halves. "See?" he panted, throwing the pieces down so near Peckover's feet that the impressed observer sprang eighteen inches into the air. "How will his lordship like that?" he asked loudly.
It occurred to Peckover that, considering the poor fellow's situation, the tampering with his noble limbs would not be likely to affect him much, and he said so.
The strong man stared at him in incredulous exasperation that the performance had missed its intended effect. "What? He's not a big chap, is he?" he demanded.
"No," Peckover answered, "I—I mean he is so devoid of feeling."
The visitor caught up his crop and flourished it. "My poor sister is not, though," he roared, with a violence which even his possibly just resentment scarcely seemed to justify. "He promised to marry her, and then ran off. But we are on his track. Yes, I've got my broken-hearted sister waiting outside in the garden."
Peckover felt that he must have a few minutes' solitude in which to think out the solution of the awkward problem. "Hadn't you better go and fetch her in, while I tell Lord Quorn?" he suggested.
"I will," was the answer, given with a violent suddenness which made Peckover start. "And when I catch sight of his lordship," added the amiable zealot, "I'll astonish him. I'll—I'll make him jump."
"You'll astonish a good many people besides if you do," murmured Peckover dryly, as the bully flung off through the window. Here was a pretty situation. Was the good time he was enjoying and promising himself to turn into ash like a pipe of tobacco? Already the soi-disant Lord Quorn was complaining—and with some justice—that he was not having much fun for his money. Would he be likely to continue paying five thousand a year for the privilege of marrying an undesirable colonial maiden with the alternative of having his arms and legs snapped, possibly his nose slit and his eyes gouged out, if he refused? Not likely. Nor that he would care to wear the title when he found it carried so little fun and so many inconveniences with it. But what was he, Percy Peckover, to do? The situation baffled him. Temporize was all he could think of; temporize till he could hit on some expedient for ridding the position of this awkward element which threatened to spoil it. It was certainly exasperating just when he had settled down into a good thing to have to return to the hard world of work which he hated, poverty which he loathed, and his own identity of which he stood in terror. But this great noisy bully—ugh! how he would like to——
His bitter meditations were interrupted by footsteps on the path and next moment the bête noire reappeared, this time with the lady. The first anxious glance at her did nothing to dissipate Peckover's apprehensions. A fine woman she was certainly, according to the popular acceptation of the term—tall and massive, but coarse and off-hand almost to vulgarity. She had challenging black eyes, a nose which the most casual glance could never overlook, and a determined mouth and jaw. Her hair was cut short like a man's, and in her hand she swung a substantial ash stick which she seemed quite capable of using to enforce any argument which verbal persuasion had failed to drive home. As to her dress, it was of masculine cut, the skirt being deeply edged with leather. Altogether she was a formidable and workmanlike young woman.
Peckover had taken the precaution to latch the French window. Finding it did not yield to his heavy hand, the gentleman from Australia applied his boot to it and burst it open.
"This rotten window sticks," he remarked by way of apology. "Come in, Lalage. Mind the glass. This," he said aggressively to Peckover, "is my poor deceived sister, Miss Lalage Leo. My name is Carnaby Leo. Now, where's Lord Quorn?"
"In bed," answered Peckover manfully.
"What?" roared Mr. Leo.
"You need not shout," Peckover suggested, fearful that the noise might reach other ears and occasion complications. "We had an accident on the lake the other day, and he has been in bed ever since."
"We've heard of it," said Miss Leo, speaking for the first time. Her tone was as downright and masculine as her appearance. "And are you the rich young man who was rescued from drowning?"
"I am."
Brother and sister exchanged glances, and the glances, Peckover told himself, foretold a further complication.
"Lord Quorn is very seriously ill," he said impressively. "Took a bad chill, and is suffering from congestion and—and fever. It is quite impossible that you should see him for at least a fortnight, if he isn't dead by that date."
"I'll see him, dead or alive," shouted Mr. Leo, who was making a tour of inspection round the apartment.
"Be calm, Carnaby," said his sister casually.
"It would kill him," observed Peckover, with conviction.
"Killing's too good for him," returned Carnaby, loudly.
"Hush, Carnaby!" the lady commanded.
"He is delirious," said Peckover, warming to his work.
"I'll bring him to his senses," growled Leo.
"Better leave him to me for the present," suggested Miss Leo.
"He wouldn't recognize you, or you him," said Peckover, for once touching upon the truth.
"I'll soon let him know who we are," bellowed Mr. Leo, "and what we are—and what he is."
"Impossible, while he's in this state," Peckover maintained. "If you kill him——"
"Good job too!" Mr. Leo interpolated.
"He won't be much good for matrimonial purposes."
"True," Miss Leo admitted.
Peckover had noticed with some discomfort that of late her eyes had rested on him with increasing interest. He was always typically alive to the slightest sign of female attraction to himself, but this particular attention did not produce in him the usual sportive complacency. The situation was becoming tense. The very complexity of his position took from Peckover his usual volubility. Then he bethought himself of certain alcoholic sustenance which he and Gage kept in a closed cabinet in order to be able to indulge in it at uncanonical hours without the fuss of ringing and ordering drinks. Noblesse oblige, the new-fangled peer had observed in reference to his obligation to hide the evidence of irregular refreshment.
"Have a drink?" he suggested, as he whipped out a decanter of derelict sherry which a foraging tour of the cellars had discovered.
Mr. Carnaby Leo's interest in his surroundings seemed to deepen at the suggestion. "I will," he promptly responded, as he swooped down upon the wine. "Sherry!" He pronounced the word with a contortion of his fat face which might be construed into an indication of preference for some other beverage not immediately forthcoming; but he drank it, gulping down a glass at a swallow, nevertheless.
Suddenly Miss Leo turned to Peckover. "You are not married?" she demanded with startling significance.
"Not yet," he answered, blanching.
"Engaged?"
She stood over him breathing a fell design, her black eyes transfixing him, and seeming to wither his flippant courage to the very root. Still he made a feebly desperate effort to stave it off. "Not quite. Almost. Practically," he stammered.
"That's a trifle," the lady returned with masterful decisiveness. "Easily got over." Then to his relief she turned her blighting gaze from him and directed it meditatively to the expanse of park beyond the window. "I think," she said musingly, "that in any event I see my way out."
"Yes, that is the best way out," murmured Peckover as loudly as he dared, following her gaze.
But she ignored the rash speech, and for some moments the silence was broken only by the smacking of Mr. Leo's lips as he endeavoured to impart gusto into his occupation.
Peckover, dreading the next words, was about to call attention to the beauty of the landscape when Miss Leo suddenly turned upon him, and, as though struck by an exceptionally brilliant idea, said—"In the event of my not being Lady Quorn, why should I not marry you?"
"Oh, bother!" Peckover was startled into the expression of disagreement. "Why should you?" he objected manfully.
"If I set my mind upon it," she said, with a dangerous look in her eye.
"Please take it off," he protested. "Lord Quorn is my friend; he saved my life, I could not be so base as to rob him of you."
"No," the lady replied dryly, "you wouldn't if I wanted him. But I'm not so sure about it. Anyhow, in case the poor fellow doesn't get better, why, he couldn't complain."
"No, that would be my work," Peckover reflected anxiously.
"Weak stuff, this," exclaimed Mr. Leo. "Brandy neat is my sauce. Can't taste sherry."
"It's not for want of trying," Peckover thought, as he noticed the almost empty decanter, but he did not say so.
"Isn't he a fine fellow?" murmured Miss Leo, with an unwelcome approach to affectionate confidence. "Be nice to him and he'll soon take to you."
"He has soon taken to the sherry," was Peckover's mental commentary.
"Strong as a lion," said Lalage, waxing enthusiastic.
"And thirsty as a dozen," Peckover told himself.
"Carnaby, dear," his sister called sweetly, "I want you and Mr. Gage to be great friends. We are so already," she added caressingly to the unhappy Peckover; "more than friends, eh?"
"Don't seem to have lost much time," was her brother's not unnatural comment as he leered at their victim.
Peckover felt that if he did not take a firm stand at once he was lost. "I quite agree with you," he replied boldly, addressing himself to the still thirsty Mr. Leo and ignoring the lady's blandishments. "There is no need to be in such a deuce of a hurry. You see"—he took courage to face his would-be enslaver—"I never set eyes on you till ten minutes ago."
Miss Leo's face changed swiftly from affection to resentment. "Carnaby," she exclaimed, as an ill-boding light flashed from her eyes, "do you hear that?"
Carnaby, disturbed in his employment of draining the last drops out of the decanter, responded loudly, and, it seemed a trifle perfunctorily, "Never set eyes? All right. I'll take them out for you, and reset them directly."
"But I'm not the man you want," Peckover protested.
"Nobody," roared Leo, "will want you much after I've shaken hands with you."
"I want Lord Quorn," Miss Leo declared resolutely. "Failing Lord Quorn, I'll take you."
"Well, but——" Peckover began to expostulate, when Mr. Leo rolled up and stopped him.
"Now, look here, my pretty dickey-bird," he explained grimly, "I'm gentle up to a point, because my sweet sister doesn't like bloodshed. That poker," he pointed to the broken steel, "was his lordship's right arm; here is yours."
He caught up the shovel, and with a quick movement snapped it, throwing the pieces back into the fender with emphatic and dismaying clatter.
"Would you mind listening to me?" urged Peckover, regarding the object-lesson as unpleasantly superfluous.
But the man of strength disregarded his appeal. "I shan't hurt you yet," he declared with an under-lying threat, as he caught up the tongs and flourished them. He opened and closed them with a snap several times uncomfortably near Peckover's nose. "Both legs," he exclaimed, as, putting forth a mighty effort, he twisted and broke them, throwing them down with the same provoking clangour.
"I tell you," Peckover declared desperately, "this house is not mine. It is not even at this moment Lord Quorn's. It is let furnished. I wish you would not interfere with the fire-irons."
"I'm not particular," Leo returned. "Can't stop to go into the ownership of fire-irons. You've seen what I'm capable of; now send 'em up to his lordship with my compliments."
"Lord Quorn is not at home here at present," Peckover insisted.
"A lord," said Lalage, "is at home anywhere."
The thought of the real Lord Quorn crossed Peckover's mind.
"Fine thing to be a lord," he reflected bitterly. "That poor chap has missed this fun." Then seeing Carnaby evidently on the look-out for fresh worlds, or, rather, domestic implements, to conquer, he turned desperately to Lalage. "I say," he proposed seriously, "can't we compromise this?"
The words, or at least one of them caught the ear of her brother, on whom possibly the sherry was beginning to take effect. "Compromise, you wombat?" he bawled. "Compromise my beautiful sister?"
"No, no, Carnaby," protested the beautiful one in question, with a look at Peckover which gave unmistakable point to her words, "how absurd you are."
"Compromise my precious sister, you slink!"
"No, no," Peckover objected, getting quite reckless between the two fires; "not your precious sister. How absurd you are!"
Next instant the giant had sprung at him and had him in his grip. "Absurd? Am I? I'll wring your neck!"
"I mean settle," Peckover explained in a shriek.
"I'll settle you," was the retort, emphasized by a tightening grip.
"I mean settle with money," gasped the tortured one, hoping the magic word might have a relaxing effect upon the stricture.
But whatever might have been its effect upon his tormentor's mind when unclouded by alcohol, it had now the reverse of the desired result. "Money!" he cried in maudlin indignation as he threw him off, "what is money where the honour of my lovely Lalage is concerned?"
Peckover had come to the inevitable conclusion that it would be worth his while to make some pecuniary sacrifice in order to get out of the difficulty. He would do well to jettison part of the cargo of his ship which had seemed to be coming home so nicely.
"You see," he explained, "much as my friend Quorn may admire your sister, he will be bound to marry a rich girl to support his title."
"A peer wants a lot of keeping up, I suppose," growled Mr. Leo, taking out another bottle from the cabinet and shaking it viciously, demonstrating by his action that a bush-bully requires a certain amount of keeping-up as well.
"It stands to reason," Peckover replied. "Now," he added insinuatingly, "if a hundred pounds——"
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he was sorry he had uttered them. There was an explosion, a smash, and the little table with its contents was lying on the floor broken by a thump from the mighty fist.
"Hundred devils!" Mr. Leo roared.