“Come in!” called George.
There entered a sturdy little man of middle age whom at first sight George could not place. And yet he had the impression that he had seen him before. Then he recognized him as the gardener to whom he had given the note for Maud that day at the castle. The alteration in the man’s costume was what had momentarily baffled George. When they had met in the rose-garden, the other had been arrayed in untidy gardening clothes. Now, presumably in his Sunday suit, it was amusing to observe how almost dapper he had become. Really, you might have passed him in the lane and taken him for some neighbouring squire.
George’s heart raced. Your lover is ever optimistic, and he could conceive of no errand that could have brought this man to his cottage unless he was charged with the delivery of a note from Maud. He spared a moment from his happiness to congratulate himself on having picked such an admirable go-between. Here evidently, was one of those trusty old retainers you read about, faithful, willing, discreet, ready to do anything for “the little missy” (bless her heart!). Probably he had danced Maud on his knee in her infancy, and with a dog-like affection had watched her at her childish sports. George beamed at the honest fellow, and felt in his pocket to make sure that a suitable tip lay safely therein.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” replied the man.
A purist might have said he spoke gruffly and without geniality. But that is the beauty of these old retainers. They make a point of deliberately trying to deceive strangers as to the goldenness of their hearts by adopting a forbidding manner. And “Good morning!” Not “Good morning, sir!” Sturdy independence, you observe, as befits a free man. George closed the door carefully. He glanced into the kitchen. Mrs. Platt was not there. All was well.
“You have brought a note from Lady Maud?”
The honest fellow’s rather dour expression seemed to grow a shade bleaker.
“If you are alluding to Lady Maud Marsh, my daughter,” he replied frostily, “I have not!”
For the past few days George had been no stranger to shocks, and had indeed come almost to regard them as part of the normal everyday life; but this latest one had a stumbling effect.
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“So you ought to,” replied the earl.
George swallowed once or twice to relieve a curious dryness of the mouth.
“Are you Lord Marshmoreton?”
“I am.”
“Good Lord!”
“You seem surprised.”
“It’s nothing!” muttered George. “At least, you—I mean to say … It’s only that there’s a curious resemblance between you and one of your gardeners at the castle. I—I daresay you have noticed it yourself.”
“My hobby is gardening.”
Light broke upon George. “Then was it really you—?”
“It was!”
George sat down. “This opens up a new line of thought!” he said.
Lord Marshmoreton remained standing. He shook his head sternly.
“It won’t do, Mr…. I have never heard your name.”
“Bevan,” replied George, rather relieved at being able to remember it in the midst of his mental turmoil.
“It won’t do, Mr. Bevan. It must stop. I allude to this absurd entanglement between yourself and my daughter. It must stop at once.”
It seemed to George that such an entanglement could hardly be said to have begun, but he did not say so.
Lord Marshmoreton resumed his remarks. Lady Caroline had sent him to the cottage to be stern, and his firm resolve to be stern lent his style of speech something of the measured solemnity and careful phrasing of his occasional orations in the House of Lords.
“I have no wish to be unduly hard upon the indiscretions of Youth. Youth is the period of Romance, when the heart rules the head. I myself was once a young man.”
“Well, you’re practically that now,” said George.
“Eh?” cried Lord Marshmoreton, forgetting the thread of his discourse in the shock of pleased surprise.
“You don’t look a day over forty.”
“Oh, come, come, my boy! … I mean, Mr. Bevan.”
“You don’t honestly.”
“I’m forty-eight.”
“The Prime of Life.”
“And you don’t think I look it?”
“You certainly don’t.”
“Well, well, well! By the way, have you tobacco, my boy. I came without my pouch.”
“Just at your elbow. Pretty good stuff. I bought it in the village.”
“The same I smoke myself.”
“Quite a coincidence.”
“Distinctly.”
“Match?”
“Thank you, I have one.”
George filled his own pipe. The thing was becoming a love-feast.
“What was I saying?” said Lord Marshmoreton, blowing a comfortable cloud. “Oh, yes.” He removed his pipe from his mouth with a touch of embarrassment. “Yes, yes, to be sure!”
There was an awkward silence.
“You must see for yourself,” said the earl, “how impossible it is.”
George shook his head.
“I may be slow at grasping a thing, but I’m bound to say I can’t see that.”
Lord Marshmoreton recalled some of the things his sister had told him to say. “For one thing, what do we know of you? You are a perfect stranger.”
“Well, we’re all getting acquainted pretty quick, don’t you think? I met your son in Piccadilly and had a long talk with him, and now you are paying me a neighbourly visit.”
“This was not intended to be a social call.”
“But it has become one.”
“And then, that is one point I wish to make, you know. Ours is an old family, I would like to remind you that there were Marshmoretons in Belpher before the War of the Roses.”
“There were Bevans in Brooklyn before the B.R.T.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was only pointing out that I can trace my ancestry a long way. You have to trace things a long way in Brooklyn, if you want to find them.”
“I have never heard of Brooklyn.”
“You’ve heard of New York?”
“Certainly.”
“New York’s one of the outlying suburbs.”
Lord Marshmoreton relit his pipe. He had a feeling that they were wandering from the point.
“It is quite impossible.”
“I can’t see it.”
“Maud is so young.”
“Your daughter could be nothing else.”
“Too young to know her own mind,” pursued Lord Marshmoreton, resolutely crushing down a flutter of pleasure. There was no doubt that this singularly agreeable man was making things very difficult for him. It was disarming to discover that he was really capital company—the best, indeed, that the earl could remember to have discovered in the more recent period of his rather lonely life. “At present, of course, she fancies that she is very much in love with you … It is absurd!”
“You needn’t tell me that,” said George. Really, it was only the fact that people seemed to go out of their way to call at his cottage and tell him that Maud loved him that kept him from feeling his cause perfectly hopeless. “It’s incredible. It’s a miracle.”
“You are a romantic young man, and you no doubt for the moment suppose that you are in love with her.”
“No!” George was not going to allow a remark like that to pass unchallenged. “You are wrong there. As far as I am concerned, there is no question of its being momentary or supposititious or anything of that kind. I am in love with your daughter. I was from the first moment I saw her. I always shall be. She is the only girl in the world!”
“Stuff and nonsense!”
“Not at all. Absolute, cold fact.”
“You have known her so little time.”
“Long enough.”
Lord Marshmoreton sighed. “You are upsetting things terribly.”
“Things are upsetting me terribly.”
“You are causing a great deal of trouble and annoyance.”
“So did Romeo.”
“Eh?”
“I said—So did Romeo.”
“I don’t know anything about Romeo.”
“As far as love is concerned, I begin where he left off.”
“I wish I could persuade you to be sensible.”