CHAPTER XXIX

Gage, _soi-disant_ Quorn, was, to put it mildly, anything but pleased at Peckover's manoeuvre, Nevertheless he did not take the first opportunity of proposing to the fascinating Miss Buffkin. In point of fact he preferred the role of Philander to that of Bened.i.c.k. He was in no hurry to settle down, however strongly the superb Ulrica might tempt him to matrimony. He was more than rich enough to treat her wealth as a negligible quant.i.ty; added to which he desired to taste the sweets of life as dished up to a bachelor peer, and this was the first of them which had not turned sour in his mouth.

Naturally he was not going to allow any interference or compet.i.tion on the part of his paid confederate, Peckover. That gentleman, had, he considered, put off the trappings of n.o.bility for a handsome consideration, and was in honour bound not to start an opposition business on his own account, nor to obtain credit in the guise of a millionaire, within an equitable radius from Staplewick, or, indeed, from the person, wherever it might be, of the peer by purchase.

The first practice of the scheme not having produced the desired effect, namely a proposal, it was arranged to repeat it next day; but Gage was too resentfully wide-awake to be taken in again. He stuck to Peckover with all the persistency, and much more than the annoyance, of his shadow, and finally took care as the hour of their visitors'

arrival drew near to post himself at the point of interceptance; the wily Peckover remaining at the house in a state of tantalizing discomfiture.

But Lady Ormstork, who had not lived in vain in a world where even peeresses play "beat my neighbour," was equal to the occasion, and more than equal to the suddenly alert Mr. Gage. Perhaps she had antic.i.p.ated his move; anyhow, she was prepared with a prompt counter.

As Gage met the carriage by the lodge, the driver, being either new or instructed, did not pull up for a hundred yards or so. Then Lady Ormstork quickly alighted and the carriage bowled on at a good pace towards the Towers.

With a wealth of amiability the lady advanced towards Gage who was hurrying up with a lowering face.

"Where's Miss Buffkin?" he cried in a cold, exasperated voice.

Lady Ormstork held out both hands gushingly. "So delighted to come again. So sweet of you to have us!" she crowed. "Another quite heavenly day. And the dear old park looking more lovely than ever."

"But where's Miss Buffkin?" Gage demanded hoa.r.s.ely, clutching the old lady's double-dealing hands and thinking unutterable things.

"Oh, dear Ulrica is rather tired," was the plausibly artless reply.

"She went for a walk to the Scotton Woods this morning. So she has gone on in the carriage and will make herself at home till we come. I am sure that you, as the soul of hospitality will not mind that."

Mr. Gage looked as though he did mind it very much indeed. However, he shut his lips, perhaps to keep back the unspeakable, and began to move on towards the house.

"The park is truly delightful to-day," exclaimed his companion with studied rapture. "The air is simply life-giving. Do let us stroll up by the beech avenue, dear Lord Quorn. It is a sin to hurry indoors on an afternoon like this. Ulrica will not mind."

Gage's face suggested thoughts too poignant for words.

"Shall we stroll round by the rhododendron walk?" Lady Ormstork suggested with a fine air of ignorance of anything abnormal in the situation.

"Must go up to the house first," Gage insisted bluntly, his rage being almost too great for coherent speech. "Was on my way there when you drove in. Just remembered, forgot to give Bisgood an important order."

"Oh, then do let us go by all means," the lady a.s.sented graciously, her heartiness stimulated by a wave of satisfaction in thinking that the proposal could not be far off now. "If only you had told us, you might have got into the carriage and driven up with Ulrica. What a pity."

Considering the steps she had taken to obviate such a contingency this was a somewhat bold speech on Lady Ormstork's part. But the grand manner carries a certain, if not altogether convincing, plausibility with it, and disarms rude censoriousness.

So they walked towards the house together; the gracious dowager finding, as was natural, the slight incline up to the Towers rather against anything like pace.

"We have had rather a disagreeable surprise to-day," said Lady Ormstork, summoning back to her side the irritated Gage whose impatience kept him farther in front of her than politeness might have dictated.

"Oh?" he responded discouragingly, wishing she would keep her breath for the pedestrian effort and defer conversation till the Towers and the elusive Miss Buffkin were reached.

"Yes," she proceeded. "I think I told you--or was it Mr. Gage?--of a very persistent suitor of dear Ulrica's, the Duke of Salolja, a fiery Spaniard, who had been paying her great attention in town last season.

In fact it was mainly to escape his importunities that we came down here."

"Oh, then you didn't come to see Staplewick?" he observed, between chafing and chaffing.

"That was my object," the lady maintained with dignity. "And I brought dear Ulrica with me to Great Bunbury as to a sanctuary where we could be safe from the duke. Judge, then, of our embarra.s.sment when, driving up the High Street, we saw him coming from the station."

"Awkward, if you've been fed up on him in town and don't want any more," Gage commented.

"Very. He proposed five times at least to Ulrica, and would not take a refusal."

"It's a way they have in Spain, I believe," remarked Gage, wondering gloomily how this new development might interfere with his amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Still," continued Lady Ormstork, "as I think I told Mr. Gage, one cannot have the dear girl forced into a marriage, even with a Spanish duke, against her inclination. One cannot blame him, poor man; she is lovely, and altogether most adorable; but from our point of view why should she exile herself in Spain for the sake of a man she does not care for?"

"Why, indeed?" a.s.sented Gage, wondering what the odds were on the Spanish duke's being a creature of the old lady's imagination.

Meanwhile the fatigued Miss Buffkin had come as an agreeable surprise upon the baffled Peckover, and that alert opportunist had lost no time in making the most of his good fortune.

"Dear old Ormstork has hooked Quorn down by the lodge," she explained laughingly. "But I expect they'll be up here before long by the look on his face as she fastened on him and he saw me bowling on up here."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Peckover with a grin. "Well, if we've got to make him jealous, don't let's lose any time in preliminaries."

"Mr. Gage, you are too absurd," Ulrica remarked as she unwound her feather victorine.

"Don't see much absurdity in that suggestion, anyhow," he returned.

"What's the good of a chance if you don't take it?"

"We need not exactly act in earnest," she suggested.

"I've always thought that make-believe was poor sport," he rejoined engagingly. "We were getting on nicely yesterday; if only----"

"Ah, yes," she continued archly; "there's always an if only----"

"If only," he continued, "Quorn wasn't on our track, we need not be in such a hurry to say what's uppermost in our minds. As it is----"

His arm seemed, to her alert eyes, to have a caressing twitch about it.

"Shall we go out into the garden?" she proposed, by a plausible manoeuvre putting the table between them.

"Too many men about, setting the place straight," he objected knowingly. "Safer here, and snugger too, Ulrica!"

"Oh, Mr. Gage!" she expostulated, as by a swift dart he got round to her side of the table.

"Ulrica," he said seriously, for since yesterday a wild design and hope had taken possession of him, "Ulrica, need you marry Quorn? Tell me, like a dear girl. You don't love him as much as all that, do you?"

She laughed. "How do you know? I'm not going to tell you."

"It's only for the t.i.tle," he pleaded, feverishly anxious to arrive at an understanding while the chance lasted. "That's nothing. It can be bought, if you go the right way about it. Ulrica, I don't believe you like him as well as you like me. Tell me you don't. Tell me the truth, dearest."

He seized her hands insistently. There was no doubt about his earnestness and she could hardly laugh at him now.

"I like you well enough," she answered.

"Darling!" he cried with genuine rapture. "Then you'll marry me?