“That’s very kind of you,” said Sir Waldo politely.
“Well, I—well—you know, I don’t like to be at outs with you! The last time I saw you—Well, I was in a damned bad skin, and I daresay I may have said things I don’t mean! shouldn’t wish you to think—”
“Oh, that’s enough, Laurie!” Sir Waldo interrupted, a swift smile banishing the slightly stern look on his face. “Looby! Did you suppose I had taken an affront into my head? What a gudgeon you must think me!”
“No, I don’t, but—Well, I thought I’d post over to see you—beg your pardon, you know!”
“I’m much obliged to you. Come into the book-room! Has Wedmore done the honours of the house—such as they are?”
“Oh, yes! Well, I haven’t been here much above half-an-hour, but he brought me some sherry, and took Blyth off to unpack my bags.” He shot a sidelong look at his cousin, and ventured on a small joke. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t throw me out of doors even if you had nabbed the rust!”
“Very unlikely,” agreed Sir Waldo, walking over to a side-table, and pouring himself out a glass of sherry. He drank a little, and stood thoughtfully regarding Laurence.
That exquisite, failing, not for the first time in a somewhat chequered career, to meet that steady, faintly amused gaze, cast himself into a chair, with an assumption of ease, and picked up his own glass from a table at his elbow, saying airily: “I hadn’t thought you meant to remain here above a sennight. Everyone is wondering what’s become of you! Is Lindeth still with you? Don’t he find it devilish slow?”
“Apparently not. Tell me! Who are these friends of yours who live in York?”
“Oh, no one you’re acquainted with!”
“I didn’t think I was.” He picked up the decanter, and walked across the room to refill Laurence’s glass. “What is it you want, Laurie?”
“I told you! We came to cuffs, and—”
“No, don’t sham it! You haven’t travelled all the way from London merely to beg my pardon!”
“I’ve come from York!” said Laurence, reddening. “If you don’t believe me you may enquire at the Black Horse, where I hired a chaise to bring me here!”
“I do believe you. I think you went to York on the Edinburgh mail. Or are you on the rocks again, and was it the stage? Stop trying to make a pigeon of me! You’ll only be gapped, you know! What’s the matter? Are you in the suds?”
“No, I am not!” replied Laurence angrily. “I may not be flush in the pocket, but I haven’t come to ask you to pay any gaming debts!”
“Don’t be so ready to sport your canvas! I didn’t suppose that was it. There might be other debts which you forgot to mention when you were last down the wind.”
“Well, there ain’t!” growled Laurence. “Nothing to signify, that is! And if there was, I shouldn’t ask you to dub up the possibles! Not after what you said a month ago! I daresay you think I’m a loose screw, but I don’t run thin!”
“I wish you will come down from these high ropes! I don’t think you a loose screw—though if I were to tell you what I do think you you’d be ready to eat me! If you don’t want me to dub up the possibles, what do you want me to do?”
“It may interest you to know, coz, that it’s been make and scrape with me ever since you left London!” said Laurence bitterly. “And when I think of the shifts I’ve been put to—Well, it’s the outside enough for you to be suspecting me of having come to see you only to get you to tip over the dibs! It isn’t that at all!” He paused. “At least,” he amended, “it ain’t debt! If you must know, I’ve hit upon a devilish good scheme—if I can but raise the recruits! Of course, if you don’t care to frank me—though it ain’t so much franking me, mind, as investing your blunt!—there’s no more to be said. But considering the times you’ve offered to buy me a pair of colours—”
“The offer still stands, Laurie.”
“Yes, but I don’t want it. It wouldn’t suit me at all. I haven’t any taste for the law, either. I didn’t think of it at the time, but if you had suggested the Church to me, when I was up at Oxford, there would have been some sense in it. I daresay I shouldn’t have liked it above half, but I wonder you shouldn’t have thought of it, if you’re so eager to thrust me into some profession or other. After all, I know you’ve several good livings in your gift! However, it’s too late now.”
“That’s just as well, for I can think of few men less suited to the Church.”
“No, very likely I should have found it a dead bore. Not but what a snug parsonage—But it’s of no consequence! I fancy I’ve hit on the very thing, Waldo! What’s more, if the thing comes off right there’s a fortune in it!”
Concealing his misgivings, Sir Waldo invited him to continue.
“Well, I hadn’t meant to broach it to you so soon,” said Laurence, rather naively. “But since you’ve asked me to—and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t care for the scheme: in fact, I’m persuaded you’ll think it’s the very thing—”
“You are filling me with foreboding, Laurie. Do put me out of suspense!”
“Of course, if you mean to set your face against it from the start I might as well keep my tongue!” said Laurence peevishly.
“We haven’t reached the start yet. Cut line!” commanded his cousin.
Laurence looked offended for a moment, but he managed to swallow his spleen. “Yes—Well—well, are you acquainted with Kearney, Waldo?”
“No.”
“Desmond Kearney!” Sir Waldo shook his head. “Oh! I daresay he may not have come in your way, though I should have thought you must have met him. He’s the devil of a man to hounds—a clipping rider! But you high sticklers are so top-lofty—” He broke off, and said hastily: “Not that it signifies! The thing is, Kearney is a friend of mine. Not a feather to fly with, but a first-rate man, and a capital judge of horseflesh! We mean to become partners.”
“Partners in what?” asked Sir Waldo blankly.
“Hunters! Selling ’em, I mean.”
“O my God!”
“I suppose I might have guessed you would—No, do but listen, Waldo!” begged Laurence, suddenly altering his tone. “Only think of the blunt some of the Melton men drop on their hunters! Well, you’re one yourself, so you should know! They say Lord Alvanley gave seven hundred guineas for one of the nags he bought last year, and I could name you a score of men who think nothing of shelling out five or six hundred for horses that were bought originally for no more than eighty or a hundred guineas! Why, if you was to put your own stud under the hammer—just your hunters and your hacks: not your driving-cattle, of course—they wouldn’t fetch a penny under five thousand! I daresay you’re thinking the scheme might not fadge, but—”
“Might not fadge!” interrupted Sir Waldo. “You’d find yourselves at point non-plus within a twelvemonth!”
“No, that we shouldn’t! We have it all planned, and I’d be willing to lay you any odds we shall make an excellent hit. Of course, at first we shall be obliged to spend a good deal of blunt—no need to tell you that!—but—”
“No need at all!”
“Well, there’s no doing anything unless one has some capital! The thing is—”
“Thank you, I know what the thing is!” said Sir Waldo acidly. “For God’s sake, will you stop trying to tip me a rise? I never in my life listened to such an addle-brained scheme! Do you think me such a flat that I would provide the capital for such a crazy venture? Go into partnership with a man who hasn’t a feather to fly with? Oh, no! Laurie! Coming it too strong!”
“If you would but listen—! Kearney ain’t any plumper in the pocket than I am, but he’s just come into some property! It was that circumstance which put the notion into his head! He’s inherited a place in Ireland, from his uncle—Galway, I think. Sounds to me much like this place: gone to rack, and the house pretty well tumbling down. Seemed to him more of a liability than a honey-fall, for there’s no getting rid of it as it stands.”