Grey Timothy/Chapter 3

by Edgar Wallace

 

III.—MR PALLARD DOES NOT STAY

There was an awful silence.

The speechless Mr Callander stood shaking his nephew’s hand mechanically. Horace, struck dumb with amazement, could only stare, and Gladys looked from one to the other helplessly.

“I’m afraid,” began Mr Callander, summoning his reserve of dignity, “that this visit——”

“Quite so, quite so.” Brian patted him affectionately on the shoulder. “Very upsetting, very upsetting.”

“I wrote to you——” Mr Callander made another attempt.

“I know, I know,” soothed the youth kindly. “Let bygones be bygones; never,” he said, impressively raising his hand, “never let the incident be referred to again.”

Mr Callander was left with the sense that he was distinctly forgiven.

“And this is Horace?” smiled Brian, and took the limp hand of the other. “I have heard of you. I was reading something about you in one of the magazines—‘the man with the Rossetti touch’, wasn’t that it?”

Horace blushed and coughed. This dreadful man was not so bad.

“This is Mr Willock.” He introduced his friend awkwardly. “President of our Art Club, you know.”

“Charmed to meet you—the Gresham Art Club, of course,” said Brian Pallard. “Let me see, you became president last year, didn’t you, after Tyler?”

Mr Willock, who was not so fierce as he looked, was visibly gratified.

“A very interesting club,” said Brian admiringly; “one of the most progressive of the art clubs, if I may be allowed to say so”—Mr Willock bowed—“and one,” Brian went on enthusiastically, “that has rendered no small service to the country. Its work in connection with the purchase of the Morby Valasquez will, I think, be remembered for some time.”

“Really,” murmured Horace in his sister’s ear, “this chap is a great deal smarter than we gave him credit for. Really——”

She made no reply. Her cousin’s easy progress was fascinating. Nor was Horace the only one affected by this presentable young man. Mr Callander senior found his feelings undergoing revolution. From the chaos of mind induced by the sudden apparition of the Banned Relative there was emerging a certain irritable approval. For, villain as the man was (he told himself), he, at least, had a mind capable of appreciating Horace and his work. There was, perhaps, thought Mr Callander, something in him.

“H’m, Brian,” he said mildly, “we are, of course—er—glad to see you, though you will understand, of course, that—er, our ways are not exactly—in fact—nor your ways.”

“That I understand, Uncle Peter,” said Brian soberly; “and I will endeavour to remember it. If you detect even a suspicion of unconscious superiority in my tone, I beg that you will give me, so to speak, a moral kick under the table. I am conscious,” he added, “of my own weaknesses.”

“Very proper, very proper,” said Mr Callander in a haze; “but there is one subject—just a moment.”

He caught his nephew’s arm and led him out of earshot of the others.

“As men of the world,” he murmured, “we will agree to taboo—er—horses?”

“Horses?”

Brian raised his eyebrows.

“Racehorses,” urged Mr Callander; “we won’t talk of them, at dinner, you know.”

“Oh, I see,” Brian smiled. “You wish me not to say anything about my horses?”

“Exactly,” beamed Mr Callander.

“Why, of course, I shan’t,” declared the young man heartily. “I’m awfully particular about that sort of thing.”

“Quite right, quite right.”

“One gasses about a horse at a friend’s table,” the other went on virtuously, “and before you know where you are, he’s stepped into the ring and spoilt your market. No, sir, I shall not talk about horses.”

Again Mr Callander did not know whether to be annoyed or pleased. He was very thoughtful when they rejoined the party. He knew little about racing, but he knew enough to realize the significance of market spoliation. He took little part in the discussion that followed for many reasons, not the least being sheer inability to follow his smooth-tongued nephew in his appreciation of Watts, Rossetti, and other mysterious creatures.

“You will, of course, stay the night,” he ventured to interrupt.

“Oh, indeed, yes,” said the cheerful Brian. “I thought of staying a few days.”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr Callander weakly.

The party made a move inside to dress, and Gladys, who had been a silent listener to her eloquent cousin, found herself walking in the rear with him whilst he expatiated on the brilliancy of the pre-Raphaelite School.

“They give us form,” he was saying, with his curious intensity; “they give us thought—it isn’t only the colour. Excuse me.” He sneezed violently, and in grabbing a handkerchief from his pocket, he pulled out two little books.

Before he realized it she had stooped and picked them up. She glanced at the titles, and a smile struggled for expression at the corners of her mouth.

He took the books from her hand and hastily pocketed them.

“Then again,” he went on, “look at the spirituality of Watts——”

“Humbug!” she said in a low voice.

“Eh?”

“Blatant hypocrite and humbug,” she said.

He stopped. “May I ask why you thus upbraid me?” he demanded sternly.

“You come here talking like a Christy’s catalogue,” she said, “with a Directory of British Art Schools in one pocket and a little handbook on the pre-Raphaelite painters in the other.”

“Why not?” he asked, unashamed.

“Until this morning you never heard of the pre-Raphaelites, and were ignorant of the existence of the Gresham Art School. You swotted them up in the train.”

He met the accusation without flinching.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, “though you are wrong to say I know nothing of the pre-Raphaelites. I once had a horse called Dan Rossetti—he was by Raphaelite, from the dam of St. Artist, and she was by a son of Toxophilite out of Queen Nudge by Birdcatcher——”

“You came here deliberately intending to get into father’s good graces——”

“You are wrong,” he said quietly. “Whether I am in your father’s good books or not is a matter which does not concern me. After his rudeness to my Irish valet this morning—a man who has descended from the kings of Ireland—I nearly let your father slide.”

“Then why did you come?” she challenged.

“It is a case of self-discipline,” he replied. “I was determined that I should like your father. I did not care whether I was in his good books; I was determined that he should be in mine.”

“I think you are very horrid,” she flamed.

“Moreover,” he continued, “I am a rich man. I must have an heir. My solicitor chap told me the other day that I ought to make a will. Now, I am very keen on making a will; it is one of the joys of life that has never been mine. But how can I make a will until I see who is worthy of inheriting my fortune?”

She made no answer. They were in the big hall by now, alone, for the rest of the party had gone to their several rooms.

“And I have decided,” he said.

She pushed a bell by the side of the big open fireplace.

“I am glad to hear it,” she said.

“I shall leave everything to you,” he said deliberately.

“Don’t you dare!” she said with some violence.

“When the mourners have returned,” he went on sadly, “and they are sitting round the darkened room drinking my port and eating my biscuits, the lawyer will read the one simple, but touching clause: ‘To my beloved cousin, Gladys Mary——’”

“My name isn’t Mary.”

She could have bitten her tongue at her folly.

“I don’t know your second name,” he said calmly, “but I will find out—‘To my beloved and ever gentle cousin, Gladys Blank Callander, I bequeath the residue of my estate as a slight recompense——’”

A servant made his appearance.

“Show Mr Pallard to his room,” said Gladys. He followed the man upstairs and, reaching the first landing, he leant over and fired his parting shot. “You must hear the last paragraph,” he said, “after dinner. It is an injunction begging you to avoid gambling and——”

She beat a hurried retreat.

She was prepared to be very frigid and distant to him at dinner—so she told herself as she dressed. The man was already on the border-line of insolence. His conceit was abnormal … Was it conceit? Or was he laughing at himself all the while?

For there was, when he spoke, a dancing merriment in his Irish eyes, and through his mock, solemn speeches she detected the ripple of a little stream of laughter. Still he was distinctly the type of man to be suppressed.

She smiled at her image in the glass as she recalled his glib art passages. He had discovered that Horace was interested in art, the magazine article had put him on the track, and with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause, he had read up the subject. A directory had told him all that he wanted to know about the Gresham School. “You succeeded Tyler,” the humbug had said, and poor Mr Willock had imagined that his Presidency was world-famous!

She came down to the drawing-room three minutes before dinner and found a new-comer. She remembered with annoyance that this was the night that her father had invited Lord Pinlow to dinner.

He was standing with his back to the fire as she came in.

“How do, Miss Callander; hope I’m not keepin’ the fire from you; these June nights can be jolly chilly.”

His lordship was a big young man, broad-shouldered and stout, and from the crown of his well-brushed head to the tip of his patent-leather shoes he was a picture of a perfectly dressed man-about-town. Lord Pinlow’s career had been a varied one. Starting life with an estate mortgaged to its utmost capacity, he had, by sheer perseverance and a magnetic personality, more than doubled its indebtedness. His imperial ‘I O U’s’ were held in every city of the Empire; his all-red route from London to Hong Kong, from Brisbane to Victoria, B. C., was studded with promises to pay which had never been fulfilled.

But he had avoided bankruptcy, and he knew people. Moreover, he had a house in the neighbourhood and was useful to Mr Callander, for even a discredited peer has more influence than the bourgeoisie of unimpeachable integrity.

Gladys gave him a little nod and looked round. Mr Callander was turning over the leaves of a book which had arrived that day, and Horace was looking over his father’s shoulder. There was nothing to do but to entertain the guest. Knowing his limitations, she kept to the well-beaten path of cub-hunting, retriever-training, and the puppies of the Vale Hunt.

Her father looked at his watch and clicked his lips impatiently.

“Your cousin is late,” he said severely. Gladys felt that the responsibility, not only for his tardiness but for his very relationship, was being thrust upon her, and resented it.

“You probably know father’s nephew,” she said with malice. “You were in Australia, weren’t you?”

“Twice, my dear lady, twice,” admitted the pleasant baron lazily. “But I met so many people.”

“Brian Pallard?” she suggested.

Lord Pinlow frowned a little.

“Oh, that fellow!” he said contemptuously.

The girl flushed red at his rudeness.

“He is my cousin,” she said icily.

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry,” apologized his lordship, without in any way appearing to be deeply affected; “rather a weird bird, isn’t he?”

She made no answer. She was boiling with wrath, wrath at the man’s boorishness, wrath with Brian Pallard, firstly for coming, and secondly with being late. Five minutes passed, then Mr Callander rang the bell.

“Go to Mr Pallard’s room and ask him— Oh, here you are!”

For at that moment Brian came in.

“I’m sorry to keep you,” he said graciously; “but a little oversight detained me.”

He looked particularly handsome in his evening clothes.

The tanned, clear-cut face was browner against the snowy expanse of shirt, the figure more graceful in the close-fitting coat.

“Let us go in,” grumbled Mr Callander, and led the way to the dining-room.

Gladys took one end of the table. On her left she placed Brian; on her right the untidy Mr Willock. Horace sat on his father’s left and Lord Pinlow on his right. This brought Pinlow next to Brian.

“I had forgotten,” said the girl as she seated herself; “you don’t know Lord Pinlow.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” responded Brian cheerfully; “we’re old acquaintances, aren’t we, Pinlow?”

She noticed that he did not offer his hand to his fellow-guest.

“We’ve met, I think,” growled the other, without turning his head.

“I think we have,” said Brian carefully.

“I’ve a private word for you,” he said, turning to the girl and lowering his voice.

“I’d rather you hadn’t, Mr Pallard,” she said severely; “and I think that I ought to tell you that father was very annoyed with you. He is a stickler for punctuality——”

“Quite right, so am I,” agreed the young man, “though punctuality is the thief of time. Think of the time one wastes turning up to meet a chap whose watch is ten minutes slow. But I couldn’t help being late for dinner.”

Gladys stirred her soup, taking no advantage of the unspoken invitation to question him further.

“I had a job of work to do,” he tempted her, and she fell.

“Pre-Raphaelite study?”

He shook his head.

“‘You wrong me, Brutus, in every way you wrong me’,” he quoted, and leaning over he whispered, “Clothes!”

She looked at him wonderingly.

“Clothes,” he repeated. “Trousers, vest, coat, shirt, collar, tie, and magnificent pearl stud.”

“What on earth do you mean?” she demanded.

She looked for the ‘magnificent pearl stud’, womanlike, and observed its presence.

He was laughing with his eyes at her bewilderment.

“Fair lady,” he said; “railway station—‘send a man to bring your bag’—oh, cousin!”

“And I didn’t send the man!” she said penitently. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

He waved her sorrow out of existence.

“Don’t mention it,” he said magnanimously. “I enjoyed the walk across the fields. The wicket was closed, but I climbed the wall. Let us talk about art.”

He raised his voice at the last sentence and beamed on Mr Willock.