Lord Loveland Discovers America. Williamson Charles Norris
have to go as far afield as Oshkosh, wherever it may be," said Loveland, glancing at his double in the mirror – where was reflected also the worn furnishing of his mother's drawing-room. With a pang he saw the sorry background and forgot himself for a moment in thinking of Loveland Castle – a very noble, dull palace, all marble, gold plate, portraits and precedence when in its prime; echoing sadness now, until such time as the heir might redeem it with some fair lady's dollars. The murmur of those echoes depressed him, as did the white whirl of snow veiling the windows of the shooting lodge whither Lady Loveland had retired to live upon nothing, that he might have something.
But his mother was happy in prophetic thoughts of a future, when Val should have saved his own and the family's fortunes. "Of course you won't need to go to Oshkosh," she said. "Very likely they'd have small-pox or Red Indians there. I only meant that if there could be millions in a town with such a name, what must there be in others more important and easier to get at?"
"I'll stick to the important ones that are easy to get at."
"That means you are making up your mind to go?"
"It's practically made up – thanks to you, Mater. I believe in quick decisions."
"How like your father! After selling the house in Grosvenor Square, he made up his mind in ten minutes to go to Monte Carlo, and – "
"Don't compare that decision with this, for Heaven's sake. It wouldn't be lucky."
"No, dearest," said Lady Loveland meekly, her delicate nose reddening with reminiscences. "Well then, it's quite settled. I feel it's for the best. And I can trust you to bring me a daughter-in-law to be – well, not to be ashamed of."
"I'll promise you anyhow she shan't disgrace you by her manners, or me by her looks, after I've gone so far to get her."
"Why, you might find something that would do, on the ship, which would save so much time and trouble!" exclaimed Lady Loveland, brightening. "You could marry immediately on landing. And yet – perhaps it would be foolish to do anything irrevocable until you'd looked to see what there was in New York. You mustn't be reckless when so much depends upon prudence. Still it would be wise to sail on a good ship, where you might meet millionairesses. That would be only an ordinary precaution."
"It wouldn't be an ordinary price," said Loveland.
"We must manage it somehow – and a good cabin. You owe that to your position."
"I owe so much already, I may as well owe a little more."
"Val, dear, I asked you not to joke. It confuses me. And I need to concentrate all my ideas upon one point. Let me see. Yes! The pink pearls!"
"The pink what?" asked Loveland, startled.
"I still have them. The double rope, you know."
"I know. Another beastly heirloom."
"Still, one can pawn heirlooms. Your bride can redeem it – and the other things. I've always saved the pink pearls for a great emergency. This is a great emergency. Battenborough ought to give seven or eight hundred. And though seven or eight hundred, as you say, wouldn't go far among the debts, they might send you to America and back."
"I'll have to throw a few sops to Cerberus, if I want new clothes to impress the American girls," laughed Val. "That brute Deedes won't give me so much as a waistcoat unless he gets something on account."
"Pay him something," said Lady Loveland. "Pay what you must. Keep what you can – for yourself. As for me, I want nothing."
"Except a rich daughter-in-law," finished her son, his spirits rising though the snow still fell. After all, it was only October, and there was sunshine elsewhere. In America perhaps it was now shining on his bride to be! "I'll write to Betty about the letters," he said, "after you've given me some tea."
CHAPTER TWO
Between Betty and Jim
One of Loveland's most easily detected virtues was his careless habit of telling the truth. He had never lied, or even fibbed whitely, as a small boy, an idiosyncrasy which had often seriously inconvenienced his mother and other relations whose pet failings or economies he had ruthlessly exposed. But Lady Betty Bulkeley had always maintained that this bold truthfulness of her cousin's was the result of inconsiderateness rather than nobility of soul.
She said (and she ought to have known, as she had been acquainted with him since she was two, and he eight, years old) that he did not bother to think of polite fibs, simply because the feelings of others were not for him of enough importance to seem worth saving at the cost of mental effort. Besides, according to Betty, Val took an impish delight in shocking people. As for blurting out the truth about his own affairs, the habit sprang from that impishness, in idle moods, and a sublime indifference to public opinion in serious states of mind. Now, in his letter to Betty asking for introductions, he made no attempt to cover his real intentions with the roses of pretty fiction.
He let it appear plainly that he thought his cousin, having visited America and snatched a millionaire from the matrimonial grab-bag, ought gladly to help him succeed in the same game.
"The wretch!" said Betty, in the midst of reading Loveland's brutally frank letter to Jim, her American trophy, "I believe he has the impudence to think I married you for money! I'd like to shake him, and box his silly, conceited ears."
"They may be silly and conceited, but they're exactly the shape of yours, darling, so I couldn't find it in my heart to box them, no matter how much good it might do their owner," said Jim Harborough, who had been Betty's husband for nearly a year, and was joyously watching her triumphs as a young married woman.
Naturally Betty kissed him for this speech, as they were at breakfast alone together, the servants banished.
"Well, anyway, we won't give him the letters," she said when she had gone back to her own place – not far away.
"Won't we?" asked Jim, with a thoughtful air.
"No, certainly not," returned Betty. "I like your country-women, and I won't deliberately let Loveland loose to prey upon them."
"I 'guess' they can take care of themselves," said Jim, putting on his Yankiest accent.
"I don't know. Some of them might fall in love with him," suggested Betty doubtfully. "He's awfully good-looking, with a kind of winning, boyish way, and – a voice that's far too nice to express him, really. One often feels too lenient with Val, as if he were one of one's own pet weaknesses come alive and walking about."
"As for his looks, he's more like you than your own brother is," said Jim, "eyes, dimples, curly hair and all; so you wouldn't want me to hate him, would you? And as for his voice, it's occurred to me that maybe it expresses something in his real self – the hidden self that he and nobody else knows anything about – the self he's never had a chance to develop or find out, because his mother and other people have spoiled him from his babyhood."
"That's very subtle of you, Jim, as well as very kind – and like you," said Betty. "I wish I could think it's true, as he's my cousin. But thank goodness, I for one never spoiled him. I scratched his face once when I was a small girl, and I'm glad. I wish it had left a mark."
"It would have been even a more honourable scar than the one South Africa gave him. But I admit, he is rather an unlicked cub, – at present. I pity the girl who falls in love with him – as he now is."
"Always was and probably ever will be, Loveland without end," finished Betty, flippantly. "The cheek of him, expecting me to ask you for letters, so that he can go over to your country and do his best to make some nice American girl miserable for life – and spend all her money. I shall punish him – since I can't do anything worse – by telling him exactly what I think of him."
"There are other ways of punishing him – more fitting to the crime, perhaps," remarked Jim, thoughtfully.
"What ways?"
"Giving him the letters."
"Jim!"
"And then – and then – well, a lot depends upon whether he's a born egoist, or merely a made one. I haven't quite worked