CHAPTER x.x.xII

"Tell you what it is, Percival, my boy," said Gage at breakfast next morning; "I've had about enough of n.o.bility. Grandeur and aristocracy have too many inconveniences to suit me. I've a mind to clear out, and hand you back this precious t.i.tle of yours."

Peckover laughed awkwardly. "Don't do that yet awhile, old man," he urged. "You haven't given it a fair trial."

"It has given me one," was the prompt and pointed retort. "And it strikes me if I don't look sharp and get out of the peac.o.c.k's feathers I shall soon be pecked to death. That Salolja chap last night was an eye-opener."

"Unpleasant customer," his friend agreed.

"Unpleasant? Noisy little devil!"

"Barking dogs don't bite," observed Peckover, but without conviction.

"I wouldn't trust him," returned Gage with the firmness the other's remark lacked. "These Spaniards are the very deuce when they're jealous. They get simply mad. And n.o.body on this earth is safe from a loose madman if he takes it into his head to go for you. Our friend, the duke, meant business."

"Only so long as you interfere between him and Miss Buffkin," Peckover agreed.

"How was I to know what I was being let in for?" Gage exclaimed in an aggrieved tone. "When the old lady mentioned a foreign chap who'd been dancing after Ulrica I naturally thought it was some monkeyish fellow who'd squirm if you shook hands too hard, and would cry if you spoke to him unkindly. She never gave us a hint she'd got a bald Beelzebub with a voice that sends you the jumps and a homicidal history that gives you the shivers--to say nothing of that sickening revolver. Ugh! I can see the gleam of it now, as I've seen it all night. I was on the point of trying to get in first shot with a champagne bottle."

"Yes," Peckover admitted; "I've spent a pleasanter five minutes than when he was playing with the highly polished popper."

"Well, much more of this and I go back to plain Mr. Gage," that gentleman declared in a disgusted tone. "They talk of the fierce light that beats on royalty, but I didn't know the n.o.bility lived in a set-piece of fire-works with occasional red-fire."

"They can't all of them do it," argued Peckover.

"They are all of 'em liable to it," Gage returned. "The squibs are there, only waiting for some little complication to come along and touch 'em off. It is getting on my nerves, and I'm wondering where the next little disturbance is coming from."

It seemed almost in answer to his thought that, just as he had voiced it, Bisgood announced that Lady Agatha Hemyock was in the drawing-room.

Theirs was a late breakfast; still the call was early.

"That's where it's coming from," Peckover observed with an uneasy grin.

Lady Agatha was sympathetically troubled as she shook hands with them.

Her preliminary business was to ask them down to the Moat to tea that afternoon; but as the men, exchanging significant glances, gladly accepted the invitation as affording an asylum from any immediate complications connected with the Duke of Salolja, they both felt that something more was coming, and of greater moment than a message which a note would have adequately conveyed. They were not long left in doubt.

"I had another object," said Lady Agatha, pursing her lips and looking unutterably important, "in paying you this unconventional visit. One has heard from various sources of the advent of Lady Ormstork to this neighbourhood. I have even been informed that the lady in question has gone so far as to call upon you, which is the reason why the Colonel thought it would be only neighbourly and friendly to give you a word of warning."

"Anything wrong," Peckover asked apprehensively. His nerves had not recovered from the previous night's disturbance.

Lady Agatha took a letter from her pocket with business-like deliberation. "Very wrong--or likely to be," she replied as she slowly unfolded it, "from what my friend, Lady Bosham tells me. I happened in writing to mention Lady Ormstork's name as having taken a furnished house near here, and my friend writes by return imploring me to have nothing to do with her. A most dangerous woman," she added, presumably quoting from the closely written letter.

Gage and Peckover caught each other's guilty and apprehensive eyes.

"She has," continued their visitor, confident in the effect she had produced, "I believe, a young person--a young lady nowadays she would be called--with her. A Miss Buffkin. A mysterious Miss Buffkin, given out as an heiress."

"Isn't she an heiress?" Peckover inquired rather foolishly.

Lady Agatha shrugged. "Possibly. That is a matter known only to Lady Ormstork and Miss Buffkin. But the more vital question is what are Lady Ormstork's character and intentions."

It was somewhat a relief to both men to find someone else's intentions called in question.

"Lady Bosham says," proceeded their visitor, "and indeed one has heard something of the kind vaguely oneself, that Lady Ormstork is notorious for getting hold of good-looking girls, often of very doubtful origin, and finding husbands for them--for a consideration."

Both men expressed a surprise which they could scarcely be said to feel.

"According to Lady Bosham, she is a determined and most unscrupulous woman," continued Lady Agatha, apparently quoting from the report.

"Once she gets people into her toils they find it no easy matter to extricate themselves."

It occurred to her hearers that there were other t.i.tled spreaders of nets besides the histrionic Lady Ormstork, but they did not say so.

"Of course," said Lady Agatha, with apologetic plausibility, "it is perhaps a great liberty which I take in venturing to warn you. But being such close neighbours and friends, and knowing you to be, comparatively speaking, strangers to this country and some of its less desirable features, we thought it only right to do so."

"Much obliged to you, I'm sure," responded Gage.

"Quite so," added Peckover.

"Of course," Lady Agatha pursued tentatively, "I am unaware how far this Lady Ormstork," she spoke the name with withering emphasis, "may have forced her intimacy upon you. Still, it is better to be forewarned, even if yours is as yet nothing beyond a formal acquaintance."

"Just so," Gage agreed with balking irresponsiveness.

"Lady Bosham is very strong on the undesirability of these people's acquaintance," said Lady Agatha rising. "She, that is, Lady Ormstork, is a terrible old woman when once she gets her tentacles fixed on the victim she has marked down. But there, I trust I have said enough to sensible men like yourselves to put you on your guard."

"Quite," replied Gage, wondering where, in it all, the Duke of Salolja came in.

Lady Agatha took her leave, having made them promise to come early to the Moat that afternoon.

The promise was faithfully kept, since it seemed expedient to both men to avoid their friends from The Cracknels, at any rate till they saw how their Castilian rival was going to be disposed of.

"They are bound to come up this afternoon as usual," Gage observed to his friend.

"With that Spanish terror after them, shouldn't wonder," said Peckover.

"We're best out of the way."

"Ethel and Dagmar will be poor fun after Ulrica," Gage remarked gloomily.

"Tell you what it is, my friend," said Peckover. "The sooner you bring yourself to consider Ulrica a thing of the past the better chance you'll have of making old bones. Ethel and Dagmar may not be all our fancy painted, but at least they haven't got a blood-thirsty Spanish n.o.b hanging about them with traditions and a nasty way of talking polite flummery with a revolver playfully pointed at the vital parts of your anatomy all the time. You won't have a ducal freak poking his long nose in there."

"Well, we had better go down, have a fling with the second quality beauties and then clear out of the place till things cool down," said Gage with the air of a man who has made up his mind.

Accordingly, after an early luncheon, they went down to the Moat, and flirted so recklessly with the not unduly obdurate young ladies, that Lady Agatha was induced to dismiss from her mind a grand plan she had been formulating for the recapture of John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook, and even went so far as to canva.s.s the respective claims of pink and apple-green in connexion with the general scheme of colour for a double bevy of bridesmaids.

It was late, as late for safety as they could make it, when Gage and Peckover returned home, discussing plans for a sudden flight next morning.

"Lady Ormstork called?" Gage asked Bisgood carelessly, as he turned into the smoking-room for a cigarette before going up to dress.

"Yes, my lord. And Miss Buffkin."

"You gave her ladyship my message?"