Ричард Марш
The Twickenham Peerage

CHAPTER XVI
MR. FITZHOWARD OPENS THE DOOR

They went; and my curse went with them. I would listen to nothing they had to say; neither he nor she. For while she tried to whisper soft words into my ears, and quiet me, and make me think the things she wished that I should think, I knew that, the whole time, at the bottom of her heart, she was all for him. I threw open the door, and I told him to go, if he did not wish me to shriek out 'Murder!' in the street. He did not need a second telling. He was glad, at any price, to take himself away. His face was like an old man's-his knees shook as he passed me. I had it in my mind to strike him as he slunk out into the street. My word for it he'd have shivered if I had! But I held my hand. Not in such fashion would I strike the man who'd killed my James. When I did strike it should be once for all. From nothing living should he ever feel another blow.

When he'd gone I packed her after him. She begged and prayed that I'd be calm; that I'd hear what she called reason; that I'd do this, that, and the other thing. But not I! not I! I'd see the back of her; and that was all I would see. And I saw it. She went out as white as he had been, with her heart as heavy. It was only her pride kept her from crying.

I didn't cry. I couldn't. When they had gone, and I was alone with the children, I felt as if I was going mad; but I couldn't cry. It was only when I began to understand that the children were afraid of me that I tried to keep a tight hold of the few senses I had left. I sat down at the table and tried to think. There were the children, as far off in the corner as they could get-holding each other by the hand. They wouldn't come near me-their mother, because they were frightened; too frightened even for tears.

What was I to do to calm their fear? I couldn't imagine. I wasn't the same woman I had been. I knew that I was altogether different; that I had changed in the twinkling of an eye. Still, I didn't want my children to be afraid of me; not Pollie and Jimmy. I tried to think of words with which to speak to them. But they wouldn't come. I sat there like a thing turned stupid, knowing that they were growing more and more afraid of me.

It was a strange thing which roused me at least a little; it was the smell of burning. I couldn't think what it was, or where it came from. Then I remembered. It was the rice which I had put into the oven to soak. The milk had caught; it wanted stirring. I got up, and I went to stir it. It was burnt badly; the rice was all stuck to the bottom; the pudding was spoilt. We should never be able to eat it for dinner.

The thought of dinner made me look at the clock. It was dinner time. No wonder the pudding was spoilt. It had been in the oven all that time without being once stirred. What was I to do? There was nothing cooked. The children must be hungry. Something made me look round. There they were, standing at the door. They were evidently still afraid, for they still were hand in hand, half in the room, half out. I found my voice and words. Yet, somehow, it didn't sound as if it was me who was speaking.

'If you children are hungry, you'll have to have a piece of bread and butter or jam. Dinner isn't ready; and the fire's gone down.'

They said nothing, but looked at each other, as if they wondered if it was I who spoke to them, and what it was I said. I had some difficulty in keeping myself from being cross. It seemed stupid of them to be standing there as if they couldn't make out who or what I was. It was only my thinking that it might make them more afraid that kept me from starting to scold. I went to the cupboard, and cut some bread and jam, and sat them down at the table, and set them to make their dinner off that. It was funny how they seemed to take it all as a matter of course, and ate their bread and jam as if that was the sort of dinner they were used to every day. They followed me with their eyes wherever I went, and never said a word.

It was funny, too, how calm I felt. All the rage had gone clean out of me. While they ate I made up the fire, and did odd jobs about the room. Doing something seemed to clear my head. As it got clearer, I grew quieter. That seemed funny too. Something in me seemed to be dead. I felt more like a machine than a human being, and moved about, feeling as if I had been wound up and had to go.

After a while there came a knock at the door. I had just got out a pile of mending, and was sitting down to do the children's socks. Jimmy and Pollie were quieter than I had ever known them. I was conscious of their quietude in a curious, uninterested sort of way. They were playing at some game in a corner, talking to each other in whispers. They'd neither of them spoken to me since I'd been left alone. When I went to see who was at the door, I found it was Mr. FitzHoward. I showed him into the sitting-room, and sat down to my mending again without a word. I dare say he thought my manner was strange, for he took up his favourite position in front of the fire, and, for a moment or two, was as silent as I was. At last he spoke.

'Well-and how are things?'

'James is dead.'

I had startled him back into silence. I don't know how long it was before he spoke again. It seemed to me an age.

'Mrs. Merrett! What do you mean?'

'James is dead.'

'Dead! How-how do you know?'

By degrees, in reply to the questions which he put, I told him all that there was to tell. He stood staring at me, biting his finger-nails, as if he found it difficult to turn it into sense.

'Then am I to understand that Montagu Babbacombe is-or was-the Marquis of Twickenham?'

'They say so.'

'But the Twickenham peerage is one of the richest in England?'

'Maybe.'

'Then if he was the Marquis, you, as his wife, are the Marchioness.'

'I dare say.'

'Dare say! But there's no dare say about it. It's a question of fact. And, by George, that Jimmy of yours, he's a Marquis too.'

'So Miss Desmond says.'

'She does, does she? And Pollie, she's the Lady Pollie. Why, you've got a room full of titles, and I'm the only common person in it. I'm not accustomed to having intimate relations with the upper circles, so you'll have to excuse me if my manners fall short of what they ought to be. Talk of the romance of the stage. Nothing I ever heard of in that line comes within shouting distance of this. To think of you having been a Marchioness all these years and never knowing it! And such a Marchioness too! None of your pauper peeresses who have to introduce American young women to the Queen in order to make two ends meet, but the real, gilt-edged, rolling-in-riches, house-in-Grosvenor Square kind. Why, I have heard that the income of the Marquis of Twickenham is over a hundred thousand pounds a year, all profit-besides plenty of perquisites. That's better than being a Star of the Halls.'

He was silent; I expect because he was turning things over in his mind.

'I remember now reading about the Marquis of Twickenham's being rather a funny lot, and I've a sort of notion that I did hear that no one knew where he was. So Babbacombe was he! Well, tastes do differ. And without wanting to know too much about what caused him to turn up, being a Marquis, I can only say that it would have wanted a lot to have made me take to the game of Wonderful Sleeping Man instead. Between a real live Marquis and even a Marvel of the Age there is a difference.'

Another pause. I seemed to hear him talking to me like a person in a dream.

'Well, Marchioness-I don't know if that's the proper way in which to address a lady in your position, but if it isn't you'll have to excuse me till I do know-you are now one of the greatest ladies in the land, and I shall have to behave to you as such. As for my lord the Marquis, I shall have to mind my p's and q's with a vengeance when I'm talking to him. I suppose he'll give up his taste for hardbake, and won't look at anything under chocolate creams. Which is a pity-because I happen to have some hardbake in my pocket at this very moment-My Lord Marquis!' Spoken to like that, Jimmy wouldn't go. 'Pardon me if I'm over familiar just this once, but-Jimmy!'

Jimmy went. Mr. FitzHoward was mistaken if he really did think hardbake wasn't good enough; because Pollie and the boy began to get rid of what he gave them in a style which I knew meant sticky fingers and dirty faces.

'There is only one remark, my dear Marchioness-if you'll allow me to make so bold as to call you so-which I wish to make, and that is that it's a pretty sure thing that you'll do honour to the high position to which you have so suddenly been called. You'll look the part just as well as you will act it, And if there's any woman who's more worthy of being the great lady than you are, I've yet to come across her. In a man who's had such a varied experience of the profession as I have had, that's saying something, as you know.'

'Mr. FitzHoward, you forget one thing.'

'What's that?'

'James is dead.'

'I don't forget it. I remember it all the time. But there are visitations of Providence, Marchioness, which we must all put up with; the lowly like me, as well as the great like you.'

'He was killed.'

'Killed! Mrs. Merrett! I mean, Marchioness!'

'Mr. Howarth killed him.'

'I say! My dear lady-if you'll pardon my dropping the title for just this once-don't you go taking foolish words of mine as if they'd been meant. As I explained to you yesterday, I've a professional way of talking and an unprofessional; and when I'm talking professionally, I'm not, between you and me, to be taken as meaning just exactly what I say. Now this is an unprofessional moment, in which we're dealing with the cold, dry truth; so let me take this opportunity to tell you that what I was saying about Mr. Howarth, in my professional manner, was just tommy rot, and nothing more. A man in Mr. Howarth's position is no more likely to kill your husband, or any one else, than he is to ride on a broomstick to the moon.'

'But he did kill him.'

'Now, my dear, my esteemed Marchioness, what grounds have you for saying that? What tittle of evidence-outside my balderdash, which, mind, was balderdash, and nothing else-have you which points that way?'

'I haven't told you how they say he died.'

'Well, let's hear.'

'They say he died of heart disease.'

'Of what?'

'Of heart disease-on the day after he left home.'

'That he certainly never did. There's some mistake there. His heart was sound as a bell. He had it examined by three doctors before the Aquarium people would let him start upon that sleep of his. They were unanimously of opinion that its condition was perfect. They gave their certificate to that effect-I have it at home now. And the night he woke he was overhauled by at least half-a-dozen. Every man Jack of them said that his heart and lungs were flawless, and that his general condition was altogether beyond their expectation.'

'Miss Desmond says he has suffered from a weak heart his whole life long.'

'A mistake altogether. The truth is, your husband was as hard as nails, and had a constitution like iron. I shouldn't have been mixed up with him in a game like that if I hadn't known that was the case. I remember his saying to the doctors that he'd never had a day's illness in his life, and their replying that they rather fancied it would be a good long time before he did have.'

'And yet his heart collapsed so that he was dead upon the Monday.'

'It does seem odd. I should like to have a look at that medical certificate. I suppose there was one.'

'I can't tell.'

'There must have been. Where's he buried?'

'I don't know.'

'Don't know where your own husband's buried?'

'I didn't ask. All I wanted to do was to get them out of the house, because I knew that his blood was on their hands.'

'Without going so far as that-and if I were you I shouldn't be quite so, what I may call, virulent-I do think that there are circumstances about the case which it would be as well to look into. The position, so far as I understand, is this. Your husband's been away from his family for-how long?'

'They said fifteen years.'

Fifteen years; we'll say, for reasons of his own. All that time he never went near them, though he must have known exactly where they were, and all about them; so that his reasons for keeping away must have been tolerably strong. Suddenly a friend-who seems to have taken an uncommon interest in him-sees him, we'll say, engaged in a remarkable line of business. He's so conscious that your husband, if he knows who he is, won't see him, that he bribes me to slip him in as plain John Smith. On the Sunday there's an interview between them, at which we don't know what took place; and on the Monday he returns to his family. By the way, did he return to his family.'

'I don't know.'

'If he did, it seems-queer; his arriving at such a sudden resolution after knowing for fifteen years just where they could be found. He must have had strong reasons; it's only right that Mr. Howarth should tell you clearly what those reasons were. On the day of his return, he dies; of a disease he never had. His health seems to have had a quick change for the worse directly he got back to the bosom of his family. However you look at it, it's a queer start all the way along. I should like to see that medical certificate. I've heard of some funny ones, but that must have been an oddity worth looking at. I should also like to have a peep at the man who gave it. Where did your husband die?'

'I never asked.'

'Then I'll tell you what we'll do. You and I will go together, and we'll pay another call on Mr. Howarth, and we'll put to him, or to some one else, one or two of those questions which you didn't ask. This time I rather fancy that the Marchioness of Twickenham won't be refused the information she requires. And if she is refused, her humble friend and servant-meaning me-will soon show her how to get it in one way if not in another. We're in a position to command; and if Howarth and Co. don't see it, it won't take us long to compel due and proper recognition. As we'll show them.'

I didn't altogether like the way he spoke. There was too much of the Marchioness and not enough of James. It was ridiculous to speak to me as if I was any one, or ever should be. But he meant well. And, after all, he was a man. And he had known James. And I felt that in the trouble which might be coming I should want to have a man upon my side-one, too, who'd stand by me through thick and thin. And that I believed Mr. FitzHoward would do. If he wouldn't, no one else would; because, besides my James, he was the only man in the world I knew. And in spite of the nonsensical way he had of talking he had got some sense in his head, besides knowing as much of the world and its ways in his little finger as I did in my whole body. I never knew how silly I really was till I wanted to be wise.

So I decided that I'd go with him to pay another call, as he put it, on Mr. Howarth; though I shrank, in a way I can't describe, from seeing that smooth-voiced, false-tongued man again. But just as I was going to send Mr. FitzHoward to ask Mrs. Ordish if she'd look after the children, a hansom cab came rattling along the street, and pulled up before the house.

'Hollo,' cried FitzHoward in that absurd way of his, 'here's another member of the Upper Ten. All the British aristocracy are paying calls in Little Olive Street to-day.'

There came a hammering at the knocker.

'You go and see who it is,' I said. 'And if it's Mr. Howarth-'

'I'll show him in; and, also, I'll show him up.'

But it wasn't Mr. Howarth. I could hear that the voice was different directly Mr. FitzHoward opened the door. What was taking place I didn't know. But it was quite two or three minutes before Mr. FitzHoward returned. Then he threw open the door with a flourish.

'This gentleman wishes to speak to you-though he has not done me the honour of mentioning his name.'

Some one came into the room.

'I'm the Marquis of Twickenham,' he said.

He was quite young, and not bad-looking, and carried himself as, to my mind, only a gentleman can. He was very polite, though in quite a different way to Mr. Howarth. What he said I felt he meant; and I never had that feeling about the other man. I liked him, in spite of all my trouble, directly I set eyes on him and heard him speak. Though the idea of my mixing as an equal with the likes of him did strike me, even then, as against nature. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear; and a sow's ear I am, so to speak, and shall be.

When he saw me he stared at me; not as if he wanted to, but as if he couldn't help it.

'I beg your pardon, but are you the lady Miss Desmond saw this morning?'

'This morning I did see Miss Desmond.'

'This,' said Mr. FitzHoward, stretching out his arm towards me as if he was a sign-post, 'is the Marchioness of Twickenham.'

I could have shaken him. The young gentleman looked him up and down, in that Who-on-earth-are-you kind-of-way which gentlemen do have; sometimes, I have heard say, without their knowing it.

'Indeed. – And may I ask, sir, who are you?'

'You may. I'm not ashamed of my name, and never shall be. I'm Augustus FitzHoward. For the last twenty years I have been connected with the profession, acting in a managerial capacity for some of the greatest stars who have ever illuminated the theatrical firmament. There, sir, is my card.'

The young gentleman held it between his finger and thumb as if he was afraid it would scorch him.

'Ah.' He turned to me. 'Is this gentleman a friend of yours?'

'He's a friend of my husband's.'

I said it pretty briskly-because I didn't mean to have Mr. FitzHoward sat upon, even though he would talk silly.

'May I speak in front of him?'

'Certainly. I have no secrets from Mr. FitzHoward.

The absurd man must put in his word. He pulled up his shirt collar and arranged his tie.

'Thank you, Marchioness, for this mark of your confidence; though, knowing you as I do, I have no hesitation in saying that it's no more than I expected. I may take this opportunity of informing the gentleman that I was on the most intimate terms with the late Marquis, both as regards business and friendship.'

'The late Marquis?'

'The late Marquis is what I said, and the late Marquis is what I meant. He was known to the public, with whom he had a world-wide reputation, as that Marvel of the Age-Montagu Babbacombe.'

CHAPTER XVII
THE MARCHIONESS IN SPITE OF HERSELF

I could see that the young gentleman didn't altogether know what to make of Mr. FitzHoward. I'm not sure myself that I wouldn't just as soon he'd left us alone together. Anyhow I did wish he wouldn't keep on everlastingly talking about theatres, just as though sensible people cared about such things.

The young gentleman said to me-

'Miss Desmond has been telling me such a very remarkable story, that, though I fear that my presence here at this moment may be the occasion to you of inconvenience, I felt myself compelled to endeavour to learn, from your own lips, with the least possible delay, exactly how the matter stands. Is it a fact that you are my brother's wife?'

'I know nothing about that, sir. My husband called himself James Merrett; and it was under that name I married him.'

'So I'm told. You have your husband's portrait, I hear. May I see it?' I gave him one. 'Is this the portrait of your husband?'

'It is.'

'Then, as it is certainly the portrait of my brother, it seems that you must be my sister-or sister-in-law, whichever you please. And you've a son.'

I showed him Jimmy. He stood him on the table in front of him. Jimmy did not seem a bit afraid.

'Young man, you settle it. You're my brother's son; a superior edition-for which you're indebted probably to your mother-but his son. Do you know that I'm your uncle, and that you're a Marquis? I thought I was, but it seems I'm not. I was a usurper in your place. You go up, I go down; it's the fortune of war.' He turned to me again. 'You understand that my presence here is quite informal. I'm simply here for my own peace of mind. If the lawyers knew, they'd probably object. So far as I'm concerned, if I'm personally satisfied that I'm holding what isn't mine, and occupying a position to which I have no right, that personal knowledge is sufficient. I shall need no legal forms to compel me to retire from a false situation. I suppose you have a copy of your marriage-certificate.'

'It's in my box upstairs.'

'And therefore can easily be verified. And I take it that your husband has left papers?'

'I don't know where they are. He never would keep letters. He tore them up as fast as he received them.'

'I can testify to that,' put in Mr. FitzHoward. 'And I remember what he said when I spoke to him about it. His answer struck me at the time as being a funny one, but now I think I can see what he was after. 'I never do keep papers,' he said, 'because you can't tell what tales some day they may tell of you.'

'Well, we won't go into that now. I think that, until the things are gone into, it would be better that you should come, with your children, to my house; or, rather, to what I expect will turn out to be your son's house.'

'Do you mean that you want me to-leave home?'

'On the contrary, I want you to come home; to your real home; to the home which I believe to be yours. It would be better, for your son's sake, as well as your own, that you should not stay here.'

'But-if James were to come-and find me gone!'

'James? You mean my brother? My dear lady, he is dead.'

'You talk about all sorts of things I don't understand, like those other two, but you say nothing about the only thing I care for. I can't believe that my James is dead-unless he was killed.'

'You would have no difficulty if you'd seen him as I saw him; and as for killing, that's absurd. I don't wish to say anything to pain you, but your words make it necessary that you should be told the truth. When I saw him he was nothing but skin and bone; the mere shadow of what he had been; weak and helpless as a new-born child. The doctors agreed that he must have been dying for weeks, if not months, and that the only marvel was how he had lived so long.'

'Then-then there was witchcraft.'

'Witchcraft? What do you mean?'

I couldn't tell him. I hardly knew myself. Only if what he said was true, and I felt sure that he believed it was, then somewhere there was a mystery which was beyond my understanding. I let Mr. FitzHoward talk to him instead of me.

'Excuse me, sir-or my lord, as it seems you are-but might I ask what the late Marquis is supposed to have died of?'

'Supposed? There is no supposition about it. He died of heart disease.'

'Then give me leave to tell you there's a good deal of supposition about it. Although I'm not a betting man, I'm ready to bet a thousand pounds to a brass button that he did nothing of the kind.'

'Do you add medical qualifications to those others you were speaking of.'

'I do not; but I do add common-sense. I suppose there was a medical certificate? Who signed it?'

'Sir Gregory Hancock, a physician of whom you may have heard, and Dr. White.'

'Then, between them, they made a jolly fine muddle. The day before he died he was in perfect health, and as fit as you and I-if not fitter!'

'It's incredible.'

'Is it? I'll produce half-a-dozen doctors, at least, who'll certify-I have some of their certificates at home in my desk at this minute-that his heart was sound as sound could be, and that his general health and condition were the best possible.'

'I say again it's incredible.'

'Do you? The night before he died he slept at the York Hotel. Before he left, on the morning of his death, he ate a good breakfast and had two or three goes of whisky. The landlord had a chat with him before he went, and he'll tell you, as he told me, that he never saw him in better health or spirits; and you can bet your life that that wasn't the first time he'd seen him.'

'If what you say is correct, then there's something which I fail to understand.'

'There's a good deal which I fail to understand. I believe there's only one person who does understand, and that's the Hon. Douglas Howarth.'

'Your tone seems to convey something injurious to Mr. Howarth.'

'I don't know about injurious, only I should just like to know how he managed it, that's all.'

'Managed what?'

'Well, doesn't it strike you there was management about it somewhere? It does me.'

'I have been intimately acquainted with Mr. Howarth my whole life long, and I know him to be incapable of doing anything in the least degree unworthy.'

'Well, I've known him to tell a lie or two-and red-hot ones at that.'

'How dare you say, sir, that Mr. Howarth told you a lie?'

'Look here, my lord, this isn't a question of words, but of fact. How did Mr. Howarth transform a man who, in the morning, was hale and hearty, by the afternoon, into the kind of creature you spoke about-so that, by the night, he was dead? If he's a friend of yours, you'll get him to explain how he did it before he's made to.'

'Mr. Howarth will give you any and every explanation you have a right to demand.'

'My lord, I'm a mouthpiece for this lady. It's her husband we're talking about. A wife has as much right as a brother, not to speak of a brother's friend.'

The young gentleman turned to me.

'Surely you cannot seriously suppose that your husband was-as this gentleman seems to suggest-the subject of foul play?'

'My James was well upon the Sunday; you say he died upon the Monday. I don't believe he did die; but if he did die, he was killed.'

'But this is monstrous. If what Mr. FitzHoward says about the condition of your husband's health when you last saw him is correct-'

'It is correct.'

'Then in that case there is something somewhere which I own that I don't understand; but to suggest that it is anything which will not bear the light of day, or which a few words will not make clear-that is absurd. But come with me, and you shall have all the explanation which you can possibly require, probably inside half-an-hour.'

'From Mr. Howarth?'

It was Mr. FitzHoward who asked.

'If Mr. Howarth has anything to explain, I am quite sure he will explain it-to the proper person.'

'With your permission, Marchioness'-the man would keep talking to me in that silly way; I wished he wouldn't! – 'we'll have this matter settled, once for all, in a proper business manner. His lordship keeps snubbing me, thinking, I suppose, that I'm the sort of person who oughtn't to have anything to do with his aristocratic family; but as I also happen to have had some interest in his brother, the nature of which I'll explain to him a little later on, he won't find that I'm easily snubbed. This is an affair which is not likely to be pleasant to any of us; therefore I say that the sooner we get at the bottom of it, so that we can be quit of it for good and all, the better. So as I say, Marchioness, with your permission I'll go and get those certificates of which I spoke, and I'll hunt up at least one of the gentlemen who signed them, and with him I'll follow you to Mr. Howarth's.'

'We're not going to Mr. Howarth's, but to my-or rather-well, to what is at present my house in St. James's Square.'

'Very good; I'll be there nearly as soon as you are. And if you'll allow me to suggest, my lord, you'll have one of the gentlemen who signed that certificate to meet my doctor when he comes.'

'It will be quite unnecessary.'

'You must excuse my remarking that I rather fancy you'll find you're wrong. I don't want to be accused of saying anything monstrous; but the more I think things over, the more I become convinced that there's something in this business which will-well, we'll say, create astonishment. Anyhow, this lady is entitled to be made acquainted with all the details of her husband's unexpected and mysterious death; and also to see, and talk to, the medical gentleman who attended him in his last hours.'

'If that is the way in which you put it, it will be easy to call at Sir Gregory Hancock's as we go, and to request him to favour us with his presence at Twickenham House. He will soon satisfy any doubts which this lady may entertain.'

In this way it was arranged, though not altogether to my liking. The children and I went with the young gentleman in a four wheeler, though it was with a heavy heart I shut the door of No. 32 behind me. He wouldn't let me take hardly any clothing, except a few things I put together in a bag. He wouldn't even let me put the children into their best things; I had to take them just as they were. He said we should get everything we wanted at Twickenham House. Just as though I wanted other people's things when I'd got everything as nice as possible of my own!

As we rattled through the streets-and the cab did rattle! – my head was all in a whirl. What I had gone through during the last few hours was almost more than I could bear. I had got used to watching and waiting, day after day and week after week, for what seemed as if it would never come, but this was beyond that altogether. It doesn't take much to muddle me, and amidst it all the only thing I could take right hold of was that they said that my James was dead. I sat with my heart as cold as ice, and my eyes burning, as if something had stung them. If I could have cried, it would have been something; but I couldn't. Whether I was doing a wise thing in leaving my own house, and coming to this strange place, I couldn't think.

We stopped at a house which I understood was Sir Gregory Somebody's, the great doctor. It seemed, from what passed, that he was to come on after us. It wasn't long before we stopped again; this time at a great house in a great square. The young gentleman got out, and he had hardly touched the bell before the door was open, and he was leading the children and me into the house. I never saw the likes of it. There were footmen in white stockings and powdered hair, and a hall which was bigger than any room I ever came across. It seemed against nature that I should go into such a place as if I owned it. No wonder that I pressed the children's hands, so that they clung tighter to me. I felt that the mites were trembling; I don't doubt I trembled too.