“Your Grace?” responded Liversedge, turning deferentially towards him.
“You will accompany me to Bath this evening. I will furnish you with the means to buy yourself a seat upon the mail-coach to London. When you reach London, go to Sale House, and give this note to Scriven, my agent, whom you will find there. He will comply exactly with its instructions. I have requested him to advance you the sum stated in whatever coinage may be most convenient to you. Don’t delay to quit this country! I assure you it might yet become unfriendly to you.”
“Sir,” said Mr. Liversedge, taking the letter from the Duke’s outstretched hand, “no poor words of mine could convey to your Grace the sense of the deep obligation I feel towards you! I venture to prophesy that you will live to become an Ornament to the Peerage, and if—with my hand on my heart I say it!—I should not again have the felicity of setting eyes upon your face, I shall cherish the memory of my all too brief association with you to the day of my demise! And now,” he continued, tucking the Duke’s letter into his pocket, “I will, with your Grace’s permission, repair to the kitchens, where I dare not hope that my surveillance is not long overdue.”
With these words, the magnificence of which apparently made Lord Lionel feel that any attempt at expostulation must come as an anticlimax, he bowed again, and left the room with an unhurried and a stately gait.
“I am far from approving of your conduct, Adolphus, but I will own that I should be sorry to see your enterprising acquaintance in Newgate,” said Gideon. “He comes off with the honours!”
His father rounded on him. “How many more times am I to tell you not to call him by that name?” he demanded, venting an irritation of spirit that had no relation at all to anything Gideon had said.
“I must leave that to yourself to decide, sir,” replied Gideon, willing to draw his parent’s fire.
But the Duke intervened. “Oh, no, sir, don’t forbid him to call me Adolphus! He is the only person who does so, and how much I should miss it if he ceased!”
He rose from the desk, and came to the fire. Lord Lionel said angrily: “How could you be such a fool as to reward that fellow? If you wished to let him to free—well, I have nothing to say to that! Certainly we can none of us desire this lamentable episode to be made public! An episode, I would remind you, that sprang solely from your own thoughtless and ill-judged behaviour! But to reward the villain, as though he had rendered you some signal service, makes me fear for your reason!”
“He has,” said the Duke, stirring the smouldering log in the hearth with one foot. He looked up with his mischievous smile. “No, do not ask me how, sir, for I could not explain it to you. Only do not be so vexed with me! I must sometimes be allowed to make my own decisions, you know.”
“No one has ever been more urgent with you to do so than myself!” replied his lordship, in perfect sincerity. “I have boon foolish enough to have indulged the hope that you had come to years of discretion! I don’t scruple to tell you that I find myself sadly mistaken! When this abominable affair came to my knowledge, I was in search of you, to demand from your own lips an explanation of the extraordinary intelligence conveyed to me not an hour since by Moffat!”
The Duke regarded his fingernails meditatively, “Ah, yes! The Five-acre field,” he said. “So Moffat has already told you, sir? Well, he would have done better to have left it to me, perhaps, but it makes little odds. I have the intention of bestowing it upon Jasper Mudgley, for a bride-gift—”
“You need not put yourself to the trouble of telling me that, Sale! I have had the whole story from Moffat. I wonder I should have found the patience to have heard him out! Understand me, boy! while I hold the reins you will not sell or give away one foot of your lands!”
The Duke raised his head, and met his uncle’s fierce look with one so icily aloof that Lord Lionel was startled. “I have borne enough!” he said, his voice still level, and low-pitched, yet with anger throbbing in it. “I will not endure any longer this ceaseless thwarting of my every wish! I am fully sensible, sir, of the great debt I owe you for your unremitting care of me, of my interests, but my gratitude would be increased tenfold if you would bring yourself to believe that I am neither a child nor a fool!” He paused, his chest rising and falling rather quickly, but Lord Lionel did not speak. He was still staring at his nephew, his expression hard to read. After a moment, the Duke continued: “You are aware of my reason for thus disposing of a part of my land. I would have explained this to you, had not Moffat forestalled me. I am persuaded that I have no need to remind you that this paltry patch of ground is not part of the Cheyney estate, and I trust that I have even less need to assure you that I have not the most distant intention of cutting up my inheritance. It is not I who stand in danger of forgetting that I am Ware of Sale! You have said that while you hold the reins—my reins!—I shall not give away one foot of my land. I shall not attempt to persuade you to alter that decision, sir: you will do as you please. But in a short space of time now I shall have reached my twenty-fifth birthday, and on that day, believe me (for I was never more in earnest!), Mudgley will receive from me the deed of gift that will put him in possession of the Five-acre field!” He stopped, and for a moment or two there was complete silence in the room. The Duke continued to meet his uncle’s stare, his eyes as stern as those older ones. Gideon, standing still by the fire, glanced from one to the other of the combatants with a wry twist to his mouth.
“By God!” Lord Lionel said at last, slowly, “I never saw you look so like your father before, boy! So you mean to unseat me? Well, well, you are an impudent dog, but I am glad to see you have so much spirit in you! If you are so set on this business, I suppose you must have your way, but don’t imagine that it has my approval, for it has not! Ware of Sale, indeed!” He laughed suddenly. “There, stop glaring at me, Gilly! I have a very good mind to box your ears!”
The rigid look vanished from the Duke’s face. He put out a hand that was not quite steady, and said quickly: “No, no, how could I say such things to you? Forgive me! You are the best, the kindest of uncles!”
Lord Lionel was amused. “Very pretty talking, upon my word! Don’t think to cajole me with your caressing ways, you young rascal, when I know well you are determined to have your own way in spite of me!”
The Duke gave a shaken laugh. “Yes. Yes, I am. But I need not have spoken to you so!”
“Oh, I never liked a man the less for being ready to sport his canvas!” Lord Lionel said coolly. “But this fellow Liversedge, Gilly! Do you expect me to submit to being waited on at table by a villain?”
The Duke smiled sweetly at him. “Well, he may as well make himself useful while he is still under my roof, sir. I am sure he will wait onus excellently. Besides, Harriet is here, and I really cannot have an indifferent dinner set before her!”
“Harriet here!” exclaimed his lordship. “Good God, Gilly, why could you not have told me that before? Here am I in all my dirt, for I had not meant to change my dress since we are alone, and one must keep that fellow Mamble in countenance! Where is Harriet?”
“I dare swear in Mrs. Kempsey’s room, sir. She will not regard your riding-dress, I assure you.”
“I would not be guilty of such discourtesy as to sit down to the table with her in it!” declared Lord Lionel, hurrying towards the door. “Really, you are a great deal too thoughtless! You will make my excuses to Harriet, and say that I shall be down directly!” He opened the door, but checked on the threshold, perceiving that Liversedge was in the act of opening the double entrance doors. “Now, who the devil can be visiting us at this hour?” he said testily. “I hope that fellow has the sense to deny us!”
Liversedge was given no opportunity of doing so. As soon as the doors were fairly open, Lord Gaywood thrust unceremoniously past him into the hall, saying through his teeth: “Inform the Duke that Lord Gaywood desires speech with him! And don’t tell me he is not at home, for I know very well he is!”