A Poached Peerage

by Sir William Magnay

CHAPTER XXIV

The real and resuscitated Lord Quorn had all this while been having a deplorable time of it. Driven from the Three Pigeons in consequence of that hostelry being the abode of the terrible Leos, denied access to his own home through the same fear, he had betaken himself to a neighbouring village, and there spent his days, only venturing towards Staplewick after nightfall, when he would prowl about the Towers like an uneasy, discontented ghost. But now the small sum he had been able to raise on the little jewellery he wore was all but spent, and he was becoming desperate. Every day he expected to find that his trackers from the Antipodes had departed in disgust; every night he was disappointed. Surely, thought he, with the false Lord Quorn to all intents established, what have these nuisances to wait for? Surely even the self-and-brother-reliant Lalage can scarcely be stupid enough to suppose that she had a chance of catching the substituted lord of Staplewick. If he has the cleverness and enterprise to fill that position backed by his friend's money he will hardly be such a rank idiot as to allow himself to be snapped up by those Australian sharks.

Meanwhile the position for the real owner was drawing to a point when something would have to be done. Necessary as it was for him to lie low, it was yet more necessary for him to live, and his resources were now about exhausted.

And the other Lord Quorn, he who had, so to speak, bought a title without a title, was, except so far as nourishment went, in an almost equally uncomfortable position. He had vowed that he would get up (his chill having left him) and he had done so, much to Peckover's annoyance and apprehension. That astute person, rendered yet more wily by the chance of losing a handsome income, and furthermore of being kicked out of the fairly safe asylum he had found in the Towers, had set himself, with all the desperate disingenuousness he could summon to his aid, to work upon the fears and personal considerations of the convalescent. The consequence was that Gage, obstinate as he was, so far succumbed to the lurid picture, drawn by his friend, of the certain consequences of showing himself, that he had to submit with a very ill grace to confining his perambulations to the more secluded parts of the house and garden.

He would not have minded this so much had his circumscribed existence been mitigated by the charm of constant—or even inconstant—female society. But the fact was that so long as the rich Mr. Gage, represented by the strategic Peckover, was more or less free, Lord Quorn, even with a fair income, the result of his performance in the lake, was, to these ladies at least, less to be desired than the man of wealth. The Misses Hemyock were too familiar with an aristocratic position for it to have any charms for them. They were also well versed in the tricks of keeping up appearances on limited means, which meant going in for the parade and going without the desirables of life; in consequence of which their discontented hearts were both rigidly set upon solid fortune rather than upon empty grandeur; money was what they hankered after; they were tired of mere social standing. So Mr. Gage's yearning was still ungratified, and so he told himself, and his friend, Peckover, in no measured terms as he rampaged about the more secluded quarters of the demesne.

Meanwhile the time for the Hemyocks to give up their tenancy of Staplewick had arrived, and that designing family had left the Towers. Not to go far, though. Lady Agatha with an eye to bringing the business in hand to a happy conclusion, had persuaded some acquaintances, two elderly sisters, to turn out of the Moat, a house within half a mile of the Towers, and seek the invigorating air of a seaside resort for a month or two. From this point of vantage she continued to keep an opportunist's eye on the eligible bachelors, whose position of comparative freedom was now from the lady's point of view that of a bird who is let out of its cage and allowed to hop and flutter to the extent permitted by the string attached to its legs. But the Moat and the Three Pigeons, where the enterprising Leos still lingered in an attitude of doubtfully restrained aggressiveness, were both marked with a red cross in the minds of Peckover and Gage, to be given a wide berth in their rambles.

Now a curious chance was to bring about a still more complicated state of affairs than already existed. Gage was out riding one afternoon, exploring the roads and bridle-paths of the neighbourhood alone, for, since his adventure with Harlequin, Peckover had decided that life on five thousand a year was too precious to risk on horseback. He was jogging along a woodland road, turning over in his mind plans for the extraction of more fun than he was just then getting out of his purchased dignity, when suddenly a turn in the way gave him a glimpse of the well-known figures of the ladies from the Moat who did not exactly fit in with the distractions he was seeking. Luckily their backs were towards him, while the grassy road deadened the sound of his horse's hoofs. Quickly he reined up and turned aside into the wood with the intention of striking a bridle-path, a few hundred yards ahead, which would bring him to the park and safety. As he gained the covert he heard or thought he heard, the would-be charmers giving tongue in pursuit. Accordingly he shook up his horse into a smart trot, hoping to get clear away without apparent rudeness.

Now it is manifestly difficult to ride fast and far through a pathless wood unscathed. In his anxiety to press forward Gage had one or two narrow escapes from being rubbed off by interposing trees. As he was being carried away at a smart pace he suddenly had occasion to duck over the saddle-bow to avoid a low branch. While in this attitude, leaning sideways, his horse tripped over an exposed root, plunged forward and recovered himself, but not before the impetus had shot his rider out of the saddle. In trying to save himself Gage somehow contrived to twist and wedge his foot in the stirrup as he fell. So he was dragged along, just able to keep his head from contact with the ground by the purchase he got from the bridle which he still clutched. He tried in vain to stop the horse, preferring naturally the society of the Misses Hemyock to the excitement of that bumping progress; but the animal was not amenable to snaffle or reason, and the severely inconvenient mode of getting over the ground continued.

Then suddenly, in his undignified, not to say dangerous, position, Gage heard a man's voice cry, "Whoa, boy!" the horse swerved inconveniently for his hanger-on, who became aware as the painful method of equitation came to a stop, that a man was at his head. Without unnecessary loss of time Gage allowed himself to be extricated from his unbecoming attitude and set on his feet.

"Awkward position to adopt," remarked his rescuer dryly. "Lucky thing I happened to be on hand."