The Four Philanthropists/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
MORE PROPOSALS
I ought to have looked back on my having refused Chelubai's request merely with a sense of pleasure at having done a disagreeable thing neatly and without quarrelling with him. But my feelings about it puzzled me; I found myself full of a smouldering resentment against him for being in love with Angel; I felt it almost outrageous and certainly absurd, since she was only a child. I was still in my bewilderment when Bottiger must needs be outrageous and absurd too. One day he inveigled me into lunching alone with him on the pretext that he wished to consult me on a matter of business. I went expecting, like the innocent I am, that it was some matter of money; I wondered at the care and thought he must have expended on the lunch, and I wondered to find him plainly uncomfortable, for no reason that I could see, during the earlier part of it. When we had finished, and settled pleasantly down to our cigars and liqueurs, he said in a shamefaced way, "It's about your sister I want to talk to you."
"About Angel?" I said sharply, shaken out of the amiability induced in me by the lunch, for I guessed what was coming.
"Yes—the fact is—I mean you must have noticed—I'm sure I've made no attempt to hide it, have I?" he said incoherently, and looked at me with an absolute frankness.
"I'm sure I can't say till you tell me what it is you haven't hidden," I said with a repellent air which should have warned him to change the subject.
"Why, that I admire her," he blundered on.
"Everyone with eyes in his head does that, everyone of taste—at least I should hope so," I said suavely.
"Yes, yes; of course. But I don't mean like that. I mean seriously."
"Well, I suppose everyone admires her seriously. Admiration isn't a joke of any kind as far as I know," I said coldly, resolved to give him no help at all.
"Oh, how dense you are!" he said irritably, wriggling in his chair. "I mean I want to marry her."
"Well?"
"Well, I thought you might give me a helping hand— you might give her a hint of how I feel about her. I shouldn't like to take her by surprise."
It seemed to me best to nip this business in the bud, and I said severely, "The whole thing is out of the question."
"Out of the question? Why?" he cried.
"She's a child. She's only just done her hair up."
"She's nearly seventeen; and both my grandmother and great-grandmother were married before they were seventeen."
"Really, you can't expect an advanced socialist like myself to go to the extreme of countenancing the gross malpractices of our grandmothers. It was very wrong of them."
"It is old-fashioned, I know, but I don't see any harm in it, and if you like, I'll wait."
"I don't like," I said harshly. "I don't think you're at all the kind of man for Angel to marry."
"Why not?" he said flushing angrily.
"In the first place your profession of practical philanthropist is not the profession one approves of in the husband of one's sister."
"It's the same as yours!"
"Mine has nothing to do with the matter. I'm not the man who wants to marry. If I did, I should retire from philanthropy and run no risk of leaving my wife a disgraced widow."
"Well, I'll retire," he growled.
"Just so. But you have put your hand to the plough and I could not dream of being responsible for your letting go of it. Besides, there is another even more serious objection to my encouraging your suit"
"What's that?" he said sharply.
"Your habit of always doubling spades at Bridge."
"What on earth has that got to do with my marrying?" he cried.
"It is a damning proof of am ill-balanced, reckless nature. When I ask myself am I justified in entrusting my sister's future to a man who always doubles spades at Bridge, my conscience assures me that it is out of the question."
"I'm sure I should always do my best to give her a good time and make her happy—and—and that sort of thing," said Bottiger.
"No man who always doubles spades"
"Damn spades!" said Bottiger savagely.
"By all means," I said suavely. "But that brings me to the question of your temper. When you fly out like this at a man who is trying to save you from ruin by eradicating an evil habit"
Bottiger slammed down his fist on the table and cried: "I didn't ask you for your consent, and I don't care a hang for it! I asked you for your help, and I call it deucedly unfriendly to refuse it! The fact is you're just a dog in the manger; you can't marry your sister yourself, and you won't let anyone else!"
"If I can help it, she shall never many a man who always doubles spades"
"One of these days you won't have a say in the matter! She'll be of age, and able to marry anyone she likes!" said Bottiger thickly.
"That's quite another matter," I said calmly. "Then I shall be quit of all responsibility. But I think, I honestly think, that she is growing a sound enough player to have learned by that time the folly of marrying a man who always doubles spades at Bridge."
Bottiger's next words, and they were not a few, were a handsome tribute to my powers of shelving an unwelcome subject. They dealt entirely with my own character, and we parted in some coldness at the restaurant door. But I observed that the next time we played Bridge, he did not always double spades.
Neither his coldness, nor that of Chelubai, lasted long. For one thing they knew me too well to be surprised at my uncompromising attitude to their design; for another, if they were on bad terms with me, they could not enjoy the society of Angel. For my part, though I resented their hopes, I bore them no malice for my refusal, and we were soon on our old terms.
I was for some time in two minds about telling Angel of their proposals; then one day, after trying to banish one of her fits of gloom by every other device, I thought I might divert her mind from its brooding by the tale.
"By the way," I said carelessly, "I've been thinking that I ought to tell you that lately both Chelubai and Bottiger have approached me in my capacity of your brother with proposals for your hand in marriage."
I had judged rightly: it did stir her from her gloom. She started, flushed, and cried in utter amazement, "Marriage! Me! Me marry!"
"Even so; it's the way of all, or at any rate most, flesh."
"But-b-but I never thought of such a thing," she stammered, and the flush deepened.
"You didn't? And I've been considering you somewhat precocious. I suppose it comes from your living in such freedom from the contaminating influence of women. Well, Chelubai and Bottiger thought of it. And if you will do your hair up, these things will happen."
"But I—I never saw—I never thought that they were in—were like that."
"They are though. And what else could you expect?"
"I didn't expect anything!" she said quickly. "What— what did you say to them?"
"I rejected both of them—Chelubai on the ground that he was a professional philanthropist; Bottiger on the ground that he was of a reckless and unbalanced nature, as shown by his always doubling spades at Bridge."
"I can hear your doing it," she said with a faint laugh. "Those are just the reasons you would find. What did they say?"
"They refused to be rejected; and both of them informed me, after my five years at the bar, too, that as soon as you were of age, you could marry whom you liked. I must say that either of them seemed fairly satisfied with his chance; but there must be too much hope somewhere, for you can't marry both of them."
"I'm not going to marry either of them!" she cried hotly. "And—and I think it's awful cheek!"
"Well, I think that is a wise decision, for if you have the chance, as you will have if we can scoop up the Quorley Granite Company, and set it going again, you ought to marry well, a well-to-do peer, or even a millionaire, if you can find one honest enough. But as for cheek, I don't see it. If you do up your hair, acquire a marriageable air, and take the hearts of men with beauty, what can you expect?"
She frowned, and said reproachfully, "I wish you wouldn't say things like that."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"You know you don't mean them."
"Oh, don't I though?" I said stubbornly; for it seemed to me a nice, more than brotherly thing to say.
The frown cleared slowly from her brow and I heard a faint sigh. She fell to her brooding again; but I could see that it was by no means the cheerless brooding out of which I had stirred her, and I was content. In truth, I was more than content, I was glad that I had told her, for I had ascertained that her precocity was purely a precocity of the intelligence and not sentimental; she was at any rate fancy free. Moreover I had lost all resentment against Chelubai and Bottiger.
Things went quietly for a while. Outwardly there seemed to be no change in our relations; but I was dimly aware that a faint constraint was more and more changing the old brotherly and sisterly relations between me and Angel; and now and again I observed signs of a growing hostility between Chelubai and Bottiger. I thought myself bound to keep on friendly terms with Dolly Delamere, and twice or thrice I took her out to dinner and the theatre, but I began to long for the inevitable day when she would fall in love with one of her own kind and consign me to neglect and oblivion.
Then of a sudden we were wrenched from our quiet habit of life and stirred to a new, bustling activity by another philanthropic enterprise. One morning Chelubai received a letter from Honest John Driver inviting him to lunch with him at the Savoy. We made no doubt that the King of Finance wished to make a business proposal, for if it were merely a social matter he would have invited Bottiger. Chelubai went to lunch with high hopes, and about the time he should have finished we gathered together in my rooms to hear his news.
All through lunch Honest John Driver talked, indifferently enough, of all that goes to the making of a sad dog, a part which, like most financiers, he seemed to affect out of business hours. But after lunch he came to the point, and said, "I needn't beat about the bush with you, Mr. Kearsage, I have a business proposal to make to you. I want my partner got out of the way for a few days."
"I'm afraid it can't be done," said Chelubai thoughtfully. "We have had dealings with Pudleigh once, and it is against our principles to remove the same man twice."
"Oh, Pudleigh! He's no partner of mine any longer. He pretended that I had robbed him over that Amalgamated Fertilizer business; and we parted," said Honest John Driver with contemptuous bitterness. "I allow no man to—to impugn my honesty. No: my present partner is Gutermann, Herbert Gutermann, a very gentlemanly young fellow, and a great friend of mine."
"I see," said Chelubai.
"That's why I don't want any violence. I don't want any knocking on the head or burning with kerosene. I merely want him kept away from the office and not allowed to write or wire between March the 1st and March the 10th."
"Um," said Chelnbai gloomily. "That will be more expensive. It's so much easier and so much less dangerous to remove a man outright than to kidnap him. We could do that for £3,000."
Honest John Driver's face fell. "Is it really more dangerous?" he said in a vexed tone. "I should have thought it would have been safer."
"Oh, no, it isn't. We lay ourselves open to an action for false imprisonment or something of the kind."
Honest John Driver sighed heavily, and said, "Well, how much can you do it for?"
Chelubai seemed to consider; then he said, "Four thousand."
"Four thousand! And it's only three thousand to have him removed outright! A difference of a thousand pounds! Well"—he sighed heavily again—"I will go further than most men in the way of friendship; but business is business, and a thousand pound is a thousand pound. After all what is friendship but a name?"
"That's so," said Chelubai.
"No one could expect me to throw away money like that—just for a fancy—could they?"
Chelubai shook his head.
"Yet I should have liked to have gone on working with Gutermann. It's a strong combination, an Englishman and a Jew, a very strong combination. He's very resourceful, very, is Gutermann; and I stiffen his backbone."
"Then it's worth your while to pay another thousand to keep him," said Chelubai.
Honest John Driver's face suddenly lighted up, and he said: "I'll make it an extra three hundred, just out of friendship for him. I can't bear to think of his being removed outright, poor Gutermann."
They wrangled and haggled for twenty minutes, and at last Chelubai beat him up to £3,500. At that price they clinched the bargain, but Chelubai made a proviso that if it proved impossible to kidnap Gutermann, and we had to remove him outright, we should receive £3,000.
Then Chelubai said, "You've given us very little time, only a fortnight. What kind of a man is Gutermann?"
"He's a very gentlemanly young fellow and an ardent patriot. I know no man who thinks more highly of the British Empire."
"That's good," said Chelubai. "Does he drink or gamble?"
"Mr. Kearsage!" said Honest John Driver stiffly, and he drew his great flabby bulk upright in his chair. "You forget yourself. I shouldn't dream of having a partner who is either a drunkard or a gambler!"
"Of course not! Of course not! I was forgetting," said Chelubai peaceably. "Is he susceptible?"
"If you mean to the charms of the fair sex, he is," said Honest John Driver, still wearing an offended air.
"That will do even better," said Chelubai. "You had better give a dinner here to-morrow night. I will bring Mr. Armitage and his sister, and you can bring Gutermann."
"And you'll bring Sir Ralph Bottiger?" said Driver eagerly. "It will—impress Gutermann."
"Yes."
We had been keeping under the eagerness with which we had been awaiting the coming of Chelubai by three rubbers of dummy Bridge. When he came we left our cards and listened to his tale. We were overjoyed to hear his news, for all of us were eager to be at work again. Even Angel was unfeignedly delighted, and I fancied that it was a relief to her to learn that it was merely a matter of kidnapping.
When the loud expressions of our joy had eased our hearts, we set our brains to work upon the business, and we set them to work hard, for a fortnight is a very short time to plan, arrange and carry out such a delicate operation as the kidnapping of a wealthy and gentlemanly young fellow, well known in the city of London, even had we been careless of the consequences. And we were very far from being careless of the consequences, for Gutermann's race has the reputation of being litigious, and we had no mind that the Children's Hospital should lose in an action for damages the hard-earned gold of the reluctant Driver.
The Hertfordshire cottage seemed at once and to all of us the proper place in which to gaol Gutermann; but we cudgelled our brains in vain to find a pretext for gaoling him which would leave him without cause of complaint against us, or at any rate disable him from parading that complaint before the world. It seemed impossible to find, and after an hour's argument and discussion we got to Bridge to soothe our racked minds.
"Why! Oh, why didn't I insist on outright removal?" Chelubai almost wailed.
"I'm very glad you didn't!" said Angel sharply, "You'd no right to do anything of the kind till you knew for certain that this Gutermann is a wicked and objectionable person who deserves to be removed."
Chelubai bowed his head meekly to the reproof.
"Patience—patience," said I. "The resources of the intellect of the modern world are not yet so exhausted that it will not find a way. We have not even seen our man yet; that dinner to-morrow night may give us the idea."
It gave us no idea; but we took the first steps to put ourselves into a position to give effect to the idea when it should come. We were kind to Gutermann, we encouraged the sallies of his harmless wit, and we listened to his wisdom with deference. It was not difficult to do, for he was quite a gentle, unassuming fellow, a happy contrast to the honest but blatant John Driver, who was in high feather and veritably teeming with the jokes of the school-boy. I was somewhat disappointed with Angel, for though it soon grew plain that her beauty had inspired a somewhat dazed admiration into Gutermann, she gave him only the barest civility, not one look or glance of encouragement. I wondered if this, too, were due to her change in the fashion of doing her hair. The dinner was a success; we learned the useful fact that Gutermann was very fond of Bridge, and we had made ourselves so nice to him that he accepted with effusion my invitation to come and play that game in my rooms on the following afternoon.
When we came back to the Temple, Angel threw off her cloak with a quick impatience, and sat down in her easy chair frowning and plainly in some disquiet. I lighted my pipe and waited for her to speak. Presently she said, "I don't like this business at all. Mr. Gutermann seems to me quite harmless, not at all like the—the other subjects."
"No. I'm not nearly so keen on it as I was on the Blackthwaite and Jubb removals," said I, humoring her.
"Those were quite right; we couldn't do anything else. And after all we didn't really remove them," she said with some content.
"Well, not in the strict sense of the word; and we're not going to remove the gentle Gutermann either in that fashion."
"Still I don't see why we're helping Mr. Driver rob him. He's not objectionable," she said frowning.
"That isn't quite what we're doing. We're only preventing him from taking part in some ingenious scheme for plundering the British Public devised by his partner. In fact we're doing him a moral service," I said.
"I wish we could get out of it," she said.
"We must think of the Children's Hospital," I said firmly. "Every time a financier is balked Humanity is benefitted."
"But won't Mr. Driver plunder the British Public just as much?"
"Not just as much. Two thieves are thicker than one—they steal more. But of course the British Public will be plundered, and we can't help it. It seems to think that that's what it's there for."
Angel sighed; then she said, "I wish it were Mr. Driver we were removing."
"So do I," I said heartily.