The Specification

by Owen Oliver

THE SPECIFICATION

By OWEN OLIVER

LORD ANTHONY RUTTON had lived hard, and he died hard. When the physician gave him three hours, he replied that he should take a dozen.

"I always take a bit more than is offered me," he said grimly. "That's how I made my money. Well, the money's mine to leave, if the title isn't. You can telegraph for the fool who succeeds me. I'm going to drive my last bargain with him."

Nature was a bit harder than Sir Anthony. He had his twelve hours, but he died an hour before his second cousin arrived from Scotland. In the meantime he had called in a solicitor in a small way, who lived near, and made his will.

"I can't cheat death," he remarked, when he signed the instrument, "but death shan't cheat me."

The lawyer waited at the house to receive the new Lord Rutton. He was a very pleasant little gentleman, and more capable than his small practice suggested. There had been two serious obstacles to his professional success—the lack of influential connections and the possession of an over-scrupulous conscience. It seemed to him that his chance in life had come now. If he could become Lord Rutton's solicitor, his fortune would be made, and that of his family. He thought more of their gain than of his own.

"But I won't build too great hopes upon it," he warned himself. "If the new lord is like the old, it won't be easy to gain or retain his confidence."

He found the new lord a very different person—a tall, rather shy man of about five-and-thirty, who had devoted himself to chemical research, and had lived the life of a hermit, except for occasional golf and pretty regular chess. He had not noticed the falling out of those who stood between him and the title, and had no thought of it coming to himself till he received the telegram.

"I don't know what use a title will be to me, Mr. Adams," he told the solicitor. "I am an unambitious man, and a poor one."

"His lordship," the lawyer stated, "has left you all his property—it appears to be well over a million pounds—on conditions."

Lord Rutton gasped, and then laughed faintly.

"I don't know what I'll do with that, either," he confessed, "but I expect I'll find uses for it." He smiled a smile that made him look quite boyish. In many ways he was young for his age—a nice young fellow, the lawyer had decided. "But you said that there are conditions?"

"Somewhat unusual conditions." Mr. Adams coughed. "His lordship was very anxious that the family should continue—naturally, of course. He understood that you were a bachelor, and so—the condition is that you shall marry within a year from his death."

Lord Rutton pulled at his moustache and frowned.

"I suppose," he observed doubtfully, "a wife would be less annoyance than the loss of a million pounds."

The lawyer chuckled softly.

"If you choose the lady judiciously," he said, "there is no reason why she should be an annoyance at all."

"I think," Lord Rutton answered, "that the sort of lady who marries a man for his money is bound to be. But I suppose you could make arrangements with someone to take a certain sum and leave me alone?"

The lawyer looked at him for some time, moving his mouth curiously.

"My lord," he confessed, "your business is important to me. I want to retain your favour, but I must retain it honestly. I don't consider that I should be acting fairly to my late client in countenancing an arrangement of that kind. Indeed, it is expressly precluded by the will. Moreover, I do not regard the selection of a wife as a matter which one man can undertake for another. An ill-assorted marriage is the cause of much unhappiness, and the chief condition of a happy marriage is mutual regard between the parties."

"I don't know a single woman whom I have the slightest desire to marry," his lordship stated, "and, as a matter of fact, I don't want to know one. It will have to be a business arrangement. I agree that I ought to make it myself, not put it on you. I suppose you won't object to introducing me to someone whom you think might do?"

"If you went into society——" the lawyer began.

"No, no!" his lordship interrupted. "I'd rather marry a washerwoman than a society lady! It must either be a business arrangement pure and simple, or some decent lady of the class in which I've been brought up—a lady who will look after my house and leave me to my work—somebody not too young, quiet and staid and good-tempered, interested in housekeeping and all that sort of thing; not a flighty young person who'll want to make me gad about. Do you know anyone like that?"

"Well," the lawyer said, "we have a pretty large circle of acquaintances; but I can't select a particular lady. My wife will be pleased for you to make use of our house and to meet our friends; but I strongly recommend a marriage in your own sphere."

"I mean to marry in my own sphere," his lordship insisted; "the sphere I've been brought up in … Look here, Mr. Adams. I can't let this money go, and a year isn't long. Help me, like a good fellow. I'm quite clear that you are. I'll choose the lady myself; but you'll assist me with your advice, won't you? You see, you'll know more about the ladies than I shall, in particular and in general."

"In particular, yes," the lawyer agreed. "I should make careful inquiries, of course. In general, I may perhaps have a little more experience of womenkind than you. It is rash to assume that one ever fathoms a woman, however. Yes, yes, I will see what can be done to introduce you to some ladies. Would you care to stay with us while you are in town? We could give you more facilities then."

"Yes," his lordship agreed. "Thank you. You must charge it up to the estate, you know. Business is business. Outside business you and I are going to be friends, I think."

"Yes, my lord, I think so."

They shook hands heartily.

"The best way," the lawyer pronounced, "will be to make up your mind first what you want—to draw up what I may call a specification of the lady. Of course, women aren't set patterns. The sex is variable, astonishingly variable. Still, the specification will give me a general idea of the ladies to ask to meet you—to ask my wife to ask."

"Capital," his lordship agreed, "capital!"

"We will not tell Mrs. Adams the object. She would co-operate readily enough—women are all matchmakers—but she would go by her own specification, not ours. In fact, she wouldn't have any specification, except 'excellent young woman who ought to be settled in life'; and, if she had, she wouldn't stick to it. Women never do. Now, we will have a detailed specification, and adhere to it in all essentials. Come round to my club, and well draw it up now."

They spent two hours over the specification, and finally produced the following, good character and conduct being taken as a matter of course—

1. Age.—Not under thirty.
2. Disposition.—Placid and unemotional.
3. Pursuits.—Domestic.
4. Recreations.—Embroidery, etc. (Social dissipations barred.)
5. Education.—Not advanced.
6. Accomplishments.—Not desired.
7. Appearance.—Neat and staid.
8. Looks.—Passable, Blonde preferred. (Positive good looks considered to incline to frivolity, but a degree of comeliness an advantage.)
9. Condition.—Preferably widow. (As inured to domesticity.)
10. Connections.—Middle-class; not to be related to Adams family. (Mr. Adams desired the last condition to secure himself from aspersions.)
11. Mental gifts.—Stupidity, except in household matters. (His lordship disliked clever women.)
12. General.—Unobtrusiveness and absence of loquacity.

Armed with the specification, they proceeded to the Adams household, which had already been warned by telephone. They were received by Mrs. Adams—a large, sensible, bonny lady, with a pleasant manner which put Lord Rutton at home—and a daughter of nineteen, a pretty, dark, daring girl, whom his lordship decided at once to be outrageously spoilt. She was the only child, and her parents evidently idolised her. She had a pouting look—due to features rather than to character, for she was good-humoured enough—an active mind and body, a remarkably active tongue, and a way of shrugging herself. She shrugged herself at his lordship.

"I've never talked to a lord before," she informed him, "so I'm rather frightened of you."

"I've only been a lord a few hours," he retorted. "Let's forget all about it, and behave just as we usually do."

"That may be all right for you," she told him, "but my ordinary behaviour is shocking!"

"It comes of naming her Angela," her mother apologised. "She's always been a living protest against her name."

The girl twined her arm through her mother's.

"Except, mummie?" she coaxed.

"Well"—her mother stroked her hair—"she remains an angel, of course, to her mother and father. See if you can behave angelically enough to justify us to Lord Rutton."

Angela laughed.

"Do you like angels?" she inquired saucily.

"This is my first experience," he replied. "So far—yes! Do you like lords?"

"This is my first experience," she retorted demurely. "So far—— It wouldn't be nice behaviour to say 'No'!"

"I was to have your usual behaviour, I thought," he remarked.

"Then, so far"—she paused mischievously—"yes!" she decided at length.

"That's jolly!" said his lordship boyishly, and sat down beside her.

"Daddy has funny ideas of people," Angela confided to her mother, just before dinner. "Fancy his saying that the great lord was 'rather shy and reserved'! Why, he talks to me like anything! I rather like him. He doesn't 'side' a bit, does he?"

"Oh, Angela, your slang!"

"I've been badly brought up, darling—— There's the gong. We won't keep the shy and reserved lord waiting for his dinner. 'Shy and reserved'! I believe he's a regular Don Juan!"

His lordship, however, showed very little of the Don Juan during dinner or afterwards, until the two ladies who had been invited—at Mr. Adams's suggestion—had left. He had a few passages of raillery with the mischievous Angela, but he scarcely got beyond "Yes" and "No" with the others.

"Well?" the lawyer asked, when they were having a quiet smoke later. "They both meet the specification fairly well, I think."

"Yes," his lordship agreed, "but I don't know if we thought of everything in the specification. I'm afraid they—they'd manage me. I don't want a wife to do that. I'm rather—rather afraid of them, especially the schoolmistress one. She'd always be putting me through my tables, so to speak."

"Ah!" said the lawyer. "Umph, yes! Somebody more docile, eh?"

"Yes," his lordship assented, "that's it."

There were a number of ladies at afternoon tea the next day. The number seemed to confuse Lord Rutton. He dropped several things and nearly knocked over the cake-stand. Angela gave him a little table to put his. cup on, and whispered in his ear. He looked up at her and laughed—his only laugh while the guests were present.

"I'm not used to the society of ladies," he remarked to Mrs. Adams, when the last visitor had left, "and I've no small-talk for them. My mind is full of chemical experiments."

"What a horrid mind!" Angela observed, tilting wildly in the rocking-chair.

"Well," he said, "er—yes. You have to thank Angela that I didn't do more harm by my clumsiness, Mrs. Adams."

"I saw her whisper to you," Mrs. Adam said. "It seemed to amuse you."

He laughed, seized the side of the rocking-chair suddenly, and made Angela scream.

"She told me that bulls who got in china-shops should sit still!" he said.

"Angela!" her mother cried.

Angela was too busy resisting his lordship's attempts to disturb the balance of her chair to answer. Finally she escaped to the other side of the room, and gave a lively representation of Lord Rutton discussing the responsibilities of the peerage with Mrs. Cox, a plaintive little widow lady. She was Mrs. Cox. A sofa cushion on a chair was his lordship. It wasn't a talking part, she explained, and she could kick the chair and make it tremble when the noble peer got nervous. "Arthur, my boy, bevare of vidders!" she admonished him. "They might make you speak!"

His lordship, who had lost his embarrassment, retorted with a representation of a conversation between himself and Angela. He was Angela, he said, and there was no need to represent himself. He never had a chance to get a word in.

"What is the subject of the conversation to be?" Mr. Adams asked.

"My dear sir," his lordship protested, "Angela never has a subject. She just twitters!" He proceeded to twitter from subject to subject à la Angela, till that young lady threatened to stifle him with the sofa cushion.

"If you say another word," she stated, "we'll be bad friends. You said you liked music. I'm going to play; come and turn over. Don't do it like a bull in a—a music-shop!"

"It's very curious," Mr. Adams whispered to his wife. "He is afraid of the quietest, staidest women, and yet he isn't a bit afraid of our rackety, mischievous little angel! But, of course, she's only a child!"

"Yes," Mrs. Adams agreed—"yes. They seem to get on very well."

They continued to get on very well, and his lordship seemed in no hurry to leave the house, though he made little progress in the object of his visit. One lady after another was dismissed, as "not in accordance with specification," or on the more general ground that his lordship did not consider her "the sort he wanted."

"Perhaps," Mr. Adams suggested, "our set is too much of a pattern. You might get Angela to take you to the tennis club. You'd meet a varied assortment there."

"Oh," his lordship said, "she often takes me! They don't satisfy the specification at all."

"Well," the lawyer said, "something must be done; you can't lose all that money. Do you know the Meadows? They've a houseboat up the river, and there are always crowds of people there. Angela goes sometimes, and——"

"Oh, yes, she took me last week! I didn't care much for them, and we generally hire a skiff and go on our own now."

"Then," the lawyer said, "I really don't know what more I can do." He spoke a trifle testily. If his client dallied about, and failed to get married within the year, and lost the estates, there would be no estates for his solicitor to manage; and, apart from the legal profits, Mr. Adams's fingers itched to handle the business. He loved his work. "Perhaps," he suggested, "it would be better if I took my wife into our confidence, after all. She is discreet—for a woman—and she might think of someone whom I have overlooked, or find ways of introducing you to fresh candidates, if I may so describe them. You see, the process of—er—courting takes some time; a nice lady would probably wish for an engagement of a few months. It would look better. Would you mind if I consulted Mrs. Adams?"

His lordship did not mind. He had grown very cheerful lately, and did not seem to mind anything.

"You might tell her this afternoon," he suggested. "I'll keep Angela out of the way. She always likes to go up the river."

"Yes," the lawyer said—"yes. It is kind of you to take the child out so much."

His lordship and Angela departed immediately after luncheon. She was ready first for once, and her bright young voice was audible in the dining-room, where her parents sat, when she called upstairs—

"Hurry up, Arthur! Oh, you snail!"

Then they heard his voice, and that also was very cheerful.

"I like that!" he cried, evidently running down the stairs. "It's the only time you've been ready first—out of fifty! You little black angel!"

Then the front door slammed.

"Fifty!" Mr. Adams remarked. "I am afraid that Angela is making him neglect his business."

"His business?" Mrs. Adams inquired. "I didn't know he had any."

Mr. Adams rose and stood in front of the fire-screen, with his hands under his coat-tails.

"He has a very important business on hand, my dear," he said. "Indirectly, it is of importance to me—to us. He inherits hid cousin's fortune only on the condition that he marries within a year from his cousin's death. What do you think of that?"

Mrs. Adams laid down the newspaper which she had been reading, and stared at the wall.

"A year," she said, "is rather soon." She sighed.

"And he has wasted two and a half weeks of it," her husband said sadly. "You see, he didn't know anybody suitable; and he wouldn't listen to my advice, and go into society, and find someone in his own sphere. He preferred a quiet, domesticated woman in the class that he had been brought up in, and I thought——"

Mrs. Adams laughed suddenly.

"And that's why you've made me have all those women here?"

"Well, yes, my dear."

"I wondered why you suggested so many frumps!" she said scornfully. "Oh, you men!" She laughed heartily.

"They were in accordance with his own specification," her husband said. "A man has a right to choose the sort of wife he wants; and I drew it up under his precise instructions."

"Drew up what?" Mrs. Adams inquired.

"The specification, my dear. The—er—the particulars of the lady—the—er—the sort of lady he wanted."

"Oh-h-h!" Mrs. Adams seemed to gasp. "You mean to say—— Why, you silly man, how was he to know the sort of woman he wanted till he met her? Did you?"

"I knew the moment I did meet her, Jennie. If you remember——"

"Yes, yes, I know, Jack. Perhaps he did—would, I mean."

"Exactly." The lawyer rubbed his hands. "The point is, to give him the opportunity of meeting this recognisably right lady. Perhaps, if I showed you the specification, you could find her."

"I think it highly probable," Mrs. Adams said gravely. But when her husband had gone to fetch the particulars, she laughed till she had to wipe her eyes.

"Specification!" she cried. "Oh, those men!"

Mr. Adams returned, took up his position by the mantelshelf, and read out the list from the first item to the last. Then he looked at his wife anxiously.

"Do you know any ladies, who answer to the specification?" he ask.

"I know one," she said promptly, "and one only."

"Who is that?" he demanded eagerly.

"Why, of course," Mrs. Adams said, "Angela!"

Mr. Adams seemed to shoot up into the air, he started so visibly.

"Angela!" he ejaculated. "Our Angela! My dear Jennie, the child is scarcely out of the nursery!"

"She's nineteen and a half."

"Ye-es, but she is the exact opposite of every item in the specification!"

"The specification had better be amended, then. I rather fancy that he will propose to her this afternoon."

"But she is such a child. She—you don't think she'll accept him?"

"I'm quite sure she will. Oh, Jack, you dear blind old bat, can't you see that they haven't eyes for anybody but each other?"

"I can see it now," he said, four hours later, when he saw them coming in the front gate. Angela was holding his lordship's arm, and smiling up at him. "I can see it now," he repeated. "Well, well, he's a good chap. Heaven bless them! We'll have to amend the specification."

But Angela did that for him in the course of the evening, after her engagement had been sanction. Her lover had told her of the specification, and she demanded it for inspection. She disdained to enter into particulars. It was too much like a confession book, she said, and she was more than twelve items. "About half a million," she thought, "and most of them outrageous!"

"You've got to take the lot, Arthur," she observed, "all—what's that you say in those printed things, daddy? I know—all faults and misdescriptions accepted. Where's a thick pen? Now the red ink, old man!"

She dipped the pen in the ink and wrote one word across the particulars in her dashing hand—a whirligig hand, her father called it. The word was "Angela."

"That," she pronounced, "is the specification!"