But before he could speak George had intervened, saying in a voice of grim warning: “Take care! If anyone has cause to be grateful to Waldo, you have, you distempered young Jack-at-warts!”
“Oh, George, don’t be a fool!” begged Sir Waldo.
His stolid senior paid no heed to this, but kept his stern gaze on Laurence. “Who paid your Oxford debts?” he demanded. “Who gets you out of sponging-houses? Who saved you from the devil’s own mess, not a month ago? I know to what tune you were hit at that hell in Pall Mall!—no, it wasn’t Waldo who told me, so you needn’t cast any of your black looks at him! The Sharps tried on the grand mace with you, didn’t they? Lord, it was all hollow for them! You were born a bleater!”
“That’s enough!” Waldo interrupted.
“It is! More than enough!” said George rebelliously.
“Tell me, Laurie,” said Waldo, ignoring this interpolation, “do you want a house in Yorkshire?”
“No, but—what do you want with it? Why should you have it? You’ve got Manifold—you’ve got a town house— you’ve got that place in Leicestershire—and—you ain’t even a Calver!”
“And what the devil has that to say to anything?” struck in George. “What have the Calvers to do with Manifold, pray? Or with the house in Charles Street? Or with—”
“George, if you don’t hold your tongue we shall be at outs, you and I!”
“Oh, very well!” growled George. “But when that ramshackle court-card starts talking as though he thought he ought to own Manifold, which has been in your family since the lord knows when—!”
“He doesn’t think anything of the sort. He thinks merely that he ought to own Broom Hall. But what would you do with it if you did own it, Laurie? I haven’t seen it, but I collect it’s a small estate, subsisting on the rents of various farms and holdings. Have you a fancy for setting up as an agriculturist?”
“No, I have not!” replied Laurence angrily. “If that sneaking screw had left it to me, I’d have sold it—which I don’t doubt you’ll do—as though you weren’t swimming in riches already!”
“Yes, you would have sold it, and wasted its price within six months. Well, I can put it to better use than that.” The smile crept back into his eyes; he said consolingly: “Does it comfort you to know that it won’t add to my riches? It won’t: quite the reverse, I daresay!”
Mr Wingham directed a sharply suspicious look at him, but it was Lady Lindeth who spoke, exclaiming incredulously: “What? Do you mean to tell me that that detestable old man wasn’t possessed of a handsome fortune after all?”
“Doing it rather too brown!” said Laurence, his not uncomely features marred by a sneer.
“I can’t tell you yet what he was possessed of, ma’am, but I’ve been given no reason to suppose that he’s made me heir to more than a competence—deriving, I collect, from the estate. And as you and George have both frequently described to me the deplorable state of decay into which the place has fallen I should imagine that the task of bringing it into order is likely to swallow the revenue, and a good deal more besides.”
“Is that what you mean to do?” asked Julian curiously. “Bring it into order?”
“Possibly: I can’t tell, until I’ve seen it.”
“No, of course—Waldo, you know I don’t want it, but what the dooce do you—Oh!” He broke off, laughing, and said mischievously: “I’ll swear I know, but I won’t tell George—word of a Lindeth!”
“Tell me?” said George, with a scornful snort. “Do you take me for a flat, young sauce-box? He wants it for another Orphan Asylum, of course!”
“An Orphan Asylum!” Laurence jerked himself to his feet, staring at Sir Waldo with narrowed, glittering eyes. “So that’s it, is it? What ought to be mine is to be squandered on the scaff and raff of the back-slums! You don’t want it yourself, but you’d rather by far benefit a set of dirty, worthless brats than your own kith and kin!”
“I don’t think you are concerned with any of my kith and kin other than yourself, Laurie,” replied Sir Waldo. “That being so—yes, I would.”
“You—you—By God, you make me sick!” Laurence said, trembling with fury.
“Well, take yourself off!” recommended Julian, as flushed as Laurence was pale. “You only came here to nose out what you might, and you’ve done that! And if you think you’re at liberty to insult Waldo under any roof of mine I’ll have you know you’re much mistaken!”
“Make yourself easy: I’m going, toad-eater!” Laurence flung at him. “And you need not put yourself to the trouble of escorting me downstairs! Ma’am, your very obedient servant!”
“Tragedy Jack!” remarked George, as the door slammed behind the outraged dandy. “Well-done, young ’un!” he added, with a grin that suddenly lightened his rather heavy countenance: “You and your roofs! Try telling me I came to nose out what I might—and see what I’ll do to you!”
Julian laughed, relaxing. “Well, you did, but that’s different! You don’t grudge Cousin Joseph’s property to Waldo any more than I do!”
“No, but that ain’t to say I don’t grudge it to those curst brats of his!” said George frankly. He was himself a man of substance, but he was also the father of a large and hopeful family, and although he would have repudiated with indignation any suggestion that he was not very well able to provide for his children, he had for years been unable to consider his unknown and remote cousin’s problematical fortune without thinking that it would furnish him with a useful addition to his own estate. He was neither an unkindly nor an ungenerous man; he subscribed what was proper to Charity; but he did feel that Waldo carried the thing to excess. That, of course, was largely the fault of his upbringing: his father, the late Sir Thurstan Hawkridge, had been a considerable philanthropist; but George could not remember that he had ever gone to such absurd lengths as to succour and educate the lord only knew how many of the nameless and gallows-born waifs with which every city was ridden.
He looked up, to find that Waldo was watching him, the faintest hint of a question in his eyes. He reddened, saying roughly: “No, I don’t want Broom Hall, and I hope I know better than to waste my time recommending you not to drop your blunt providing for a parcel of paupers who won’t thank you for it, and, you may depend upon it, won’t grow up to be the respectable citizens you think they will, either! But I must say I do wonder what made that old miser leave his money to you!”
Sir Waldo could have enlightened him, but thought it more tactful to refrain from divulging that he figured in his eccentric relative’s Will as “the only member of my family who has paid no more heed to me than I have to him.”
“Well, for my part I think it very unsatisfactory,” said Lady Lindeth. “And not at all what poor Cousin Joseph would have wished!”
“You do mean to do that, Waldo?” Julian asked.
“Yes, I think so, if I find the place at all suitable. It may not be—and in any event I don’t want it prattled about, so just you keep your tongue, young man!”
“Well, of all the abominable injustices—! I didn’t prattle about your horrid brats: it was George! Waldo, if you mean to go north, may I go with you?”
“Why, yes, if you wish, but you’ll find it a dead bore, you know. There will be a good deal of business to be settled with Cousin Joseph’s attorney, which will keep me busy in Leeds; and whatever I decide to do with Broom Hall I must look into things there, and set about putting them in order. Dull work! In the middle of the Season, too!”