So the Colonel proceeded to unfold his business. There were two young men, now knocking about town, of the names of Guy and Cyril Waring—the one a journalist, the other a painter—and they had rooms in Staple Inn, Holborn, which would doubtless form a sufficient clue by which to identify them. Colonel Kelmscott desired unobtrusively to know where these young men banked—if indeed they were in a position to keep an account; and when that was found out, he wished Messrs. Drummond, Coutts and Barclay, Limited, to place a sum of money at their bankers to their credit, without mentioning the name of the person so placing it, as well as to transmit to them a sealed envelope, containing instructions as to the use to be made of the money in question.
The manager nodded a cautious acquiescence. To place the money to the credit of the two young men, indeed, would be quite in their way. But to send the sealed envelope, without being aware of its contents, or the nature of the business on which it was despatched, would be much less regular. Perhaps the Colonel might find some other means of managing without their aid that portion of the business arrangement.
The Colonel, for his part, fell in readily enough with this modest point of view. It amply sufficed for him if the money were paid to the young men’s credit, and a receipt, forwarded to him in due course, under cover of a number, to the care of the bankers.
“Very well,” the manager answered, rubbing his hands contentedly. “Our confidential clerk will settle all that for you. A most sagacious person, our confidential clerk. No eyes, no ears, no tongue for anything but our clients’ interests.”
The Colonel smiled, and sat a little longer, giving further details as the precise amount he wished sent, and the particular way he wished to send it—the whole sum to be, in fact, twelve thousand pounds, amount of the purchase money of the Dowlands farms, whereof only six thousand had as yet been paid down; and that six thousand he wished to place forthwith to the credit of Cyril Waring, the painter. The remaining six thousand, to be settled, as agreed, in five weeks’ time, he would then make over under the self-same conditions to the other brother, Guy Waring, the journalist. It had gone a trifle too cheap, that land at Dowlands, the Colonel opined; but still, in days like these he was very glad, indeed, to find a purchaser for the place at anything like its value.
“I think a Miss Ewes was the fortunate bidder, wasn’t she?” the manager asked, just to make a certain decent show of interest in his client’s estate.
“Yes, Miss Elma Ewes of Kenilworth,” the Colonel answered, letting loose for a moment his tongue, that unruly member. “She’s the composer, you know—writes songs and dances; remotely connected with Reginald Clifford, the man who was Governor of some West Indian Dutch-oven—St. Kitts, I think, or Antigua—he lives down our way, and he’s a neighbour of mine at Tilgate. Or rather she’s connected with Mrs. Clifford, the Governor’s wife, who was one of the younger branch, a Miss Ewes of Worthing, daughter of the Ewes who was Dean of Dorchester. Elma’s been a family name for years with all the lot of Eweses, good, bad, or indifferent. Came down to them, don’t you know, from that Roumanian ancestress.”
“Indeed,” the manager answered, now beginning to be really interested—for the Cliffords were clients too, and it behoves a banker to know everything about everybody’s business. “So Mrs. Clifford had an ancestress who was a Roumanian, had she? Well, I’ve noticed at times her complexion looked very southern and gipsy-like—distinctly un-English.”
“Oh, they call it Roumanian,” Colonel Kelmscott went on in a confidential tone, roping his white moustache, and growing more and more conversational; “they call it Roumanian, because it sounds more respectable; but I believe, if you go right down to the very bottom of the thing, it was much more like some kind of Oriental gipsy. Sir Michael Ewes, the founder of the house, in George the Second’s time, was ambassador for awhile at Constantinople. He began life, indeed, I believe, as a Turkey merchant. Well, at Pera one day, so the story goes—you’ll find it all in Horace Walpole’s diary—he picked up with this dark-skinned gipsy-woman, who was a wonderful creature in her way, a sort of mesmeric sorceress, who belonged to some tribe of far eastern serpent charmers. It seems that women of this particular tribe were regularly trained by the men to be capering priestesses—or fortune-tellers, if you like—who performed some extraordinary sacred antics of a mystical kind, much after the fashion of the howling dervishes. However that may be, Sir Michael, at any rate, pacing the streets of Pera, saw the woman that she was passing fair, and fell in love with her outright at some dervish entertainment. But being a very well-behaved old man, combining a liking for Orientals with a British taste for the highest respectability, he had the girl baptized and made into a proper Christian first; and then he married her off-hand and brought her home with him as my Lady Ewes to England. She was presented at Court, to George the Second; and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu stood her sponsor on the occasion.”
“But how did it all turn out?” the manager asked, with an air of intelligent historical interest.