This House to Let

“In what way?”

She smiled. “Oh, in half a hundred ways. Captain Murchison is as true as steel, but also as hard as steel. You, now, are not in the least hard. You are very kind and compassionate, you think the best of everybody.”

“Don’t flatter me too much, please,” interjected the bashful Pomfret.

“Oh, pardon me, I know just the kind of man you are.” The sweet face was very close to his own, the beautiful, rather sad eyes were looking steadily into his. “You are a rich man, or you would not be in this expensive regiment. But, if you were a poor man, and you had only ten pounds in your pocket, you would lend an impecunious friend five of them, and not trouble whether he repaid you or not.”

“I think you have fitted me, Miss Burton. My dear old chum Hugh is never tired of telling me I am an awful ass.”

“You are both right, really,” answered Miss Burton.

“You see, we look at life from two different standpoints.”

“I fancy you come from two different classes?” queried the charming young woman.

Pomfret felt a little embarrassed. He did not want to give away his particular chum. But there were no doubt certain inherited commercial instincts in Hugh that sometimes offended the descendant of a more careless and aristocratic family.

“You see, Hugh has come from the trading class, originally. His ancestors, no doubt, were close-fisted people. Hugh is not close-fisted himself: he is, in a certain way, the soul of generosity, but sometimes the old Adam peeps out in little things.”

He had a swift pang of remorse when he had said this. For he suddenly remembered Hugh’s generous offer of the two hundred which Pomfret, by a very diplomatic letter, was going to cajole out of the octogenarian great-aunt.

“Believe me,” added he fervently, “Hugh is one of the best. He is a little peculiar sometimes in small things. I ought not to have spoken as I have done. I am more than sorry if I have conveyed a wrong impression of him.”

“But you have not,” cried Norah Burton swiftly. “He would be hard in some things: I am sure – for instance – he would never forgive a really dishonourable action, even in the case of his best friend.”

“No, I am sure he would not,” assented Pomfret. “But I don’t fancy he has been much tried that way. We don’t get many ‘rotters’ amongst our lot.”

“Noblesse oblige,” quoted Miss Burton, lightly. Then she added more seriously: “And I am sure he is very kind-hearted and thoughtful. I was impressed with his reluctance to smoke because of the curtains. Of course, he did not remember that it did not matter in the least, as we never have callers.”

She was getting on the theme of their social isolation, but Pomfret was sure that, unlike her brother, strangely subdued to-night from his usual boisterousness, she would handle the subject with her customary tact and good taste.

“Ah, of course, all that is very regrettable. It is not so much your loss, as the loss of Blankfield. I suppose you won’t stay very long here.”

For a moment there came a blazing light in the soft, beautiful eyes. “A few days ago, I advised my brother to pack up and clear out. The snobbish plutocracy of Blankfield had beaten us, made up of retired shopkeepers and merchants. To-night, with you and Captain Murchison as our guests, I think we have beaten Blankfield with its fat mothers and plain daughters.”

She looked superb, as she drew her slender form up to its full height, the glow of indignant triumph blazing on her cheek. At the moment she was extremely beautiful. If Pomfret had been attracted before, he was infatuated now.

“I will help you to beat the Blankfield people, for whom I don’t care a row of pins. I will come, whenever you want me.”

“And your friend Captain Murchison, will he come, too?”

Pomfret smiled whimsically. “Oh yes, he will come, if I make a point of it. Old Hugh thinks he leads me, but I really lead him.” She leaned forward eagerly. “Can you bring some of your brother officers, Mr Pomfret? Please don’t think I am bold and forward and presumptuous. But I do long to be even with these Blankfield people. I would love to make a little sort of salon of my own. I know it is useless to expect the women at present, but they might come in time. Mind you, I don’t want them.”

“I will try,” said Pomfret slowly. “I think I may say that Hugh and I are the two most popular men in the regiment; I say it without vanity. And I don’t suppose we care a snap of the fingers about the Blankfield people. Still, I don’t want to raise hopes that may never be fulfilled. I can only say, I will try.” There was a pause. Then she spoke, and there was a far-away look in her eyes. “You hesitate, I see. Oh, I quite believe you when you say you will try. But there is some stumbling-block in the way, isn’t there?” Pomfret had perforce to dissemble. “There is no stumbling-block that I know of, except running the risk of offending Blankfield. That is not a great one, as we shall be out of here in about two months.”

She leaned closer to him, and her voice sank to a whisper. “There is a stumbling-block, I know. You are too kind and generous to state what it is, you could not, as to-night he is your host. It is my brother.”

And then poor, infatuated Pomfret sought no further refuge in subterfuge. He blurted out the truth. “Some of our chaps wouldn’t stand him, you know,” he said simply.

There was a little convulsive movement of the delicate hands. “And he is such a dear good fellow at heart, wanting I know in the little delicacies that mark a real gentleman. You see a great difference between us, don’t you?”

“A very distinct difference,” assented Pomfret.

“I will explain it to you in a few words. My father was a harum-scarum sort of person, as I told you last time you were here, hard-riding and hard-drinking. When he was a boy of twenty-five he married a woman out of his own class, a shopgirl or a barmaid, I am not quite sure which. George is many years older than myself, as I told you he is really my half-brother. The first wife died, my father married again, this time a lady. I am the daughter of the second marriage. Now, I think you understand.”

Pomfret was delighted at this avowal, it proved his own prescience.

“I am so glad you told me, but as it happens, it was just what I guessed.”

Miss Burton looked at him with admiring eyes. “You are really very clever, you know. Well, I will not exactly say this is a secret, but you will whisper it about discreetly. You need not be quite so frank as I have been about details, but you can hint at a mésalliance. I hate to have to tell you so much, for my brother has been so good to me.”

“Ah!” Mr Pomfret’s air plainly showed that he was eager for further information.

And Miss Burton was quite willing to gratify him. The young man was a pleasant, comfortable sort of person to talk to. He was an admirable listener, and never broke in with unnecessary, or irritating interruptions.

“When my father died he left little behind him but debts; my mother had preceded him some ten years. Poor George had gone into a stockbroker’s office, through the good offices of a distant connection. His salary was very small, but he made a home for me. He would not hear of my earning my own living.”

“That could not have been very long ago,” remarked Pomfret, “because you are not very old now.”

“No, it was not long,” answered the girl, not committing herself to any definite dates. “Well, we had a very hard time, as you can imagine. Then suddenly our luck changed. An uncle of George’s on his mother’s side had gone out to Australia as a boy, and amassed, we won’t say a fortune from your point of view, but what we should look upon as wealth. He had never married, and when he died, a will was found in which he left all he was possessed of to his sister’s children. George was the only child, so he took it all.”

“So he threw up business and went in for a country life.”

“Well, he has thrown it up for a time. I am not quite certain he will not get tired of inactivity, and go back to it. Now that he has capital, it would be easy for him to embark in something that would keep him occupied, and pay him well.”

“Not a sportsman, I suppose, he doesn’t care for hunting or shooting? The country is slow for a man if he doesn’t do something in that line.”

The pretty girl smiled; there was a faint touch of humour in the smile. “Oh, he’s not rich enough to indulge in luxuries of that sort. Besides,” she added hastily, “he has such wretched sight, he would be no good at sport.” Pomfret thought it had been a very pleasant, enlightening conversation. Norah seemed to have been perfectly frank about their past and their present position. She did not pretend to be anything but what she was, the daughter of a spendthrift father, living on what was practically the charity of a good-hearted brother. And that brother was indebted for his good fortune to a relative who must have been a man of the people.

While the two young people were having this confidential chat, Mr Burton was making himself agreeable to the other guest, in his doubtless well-meant, but somewhat undiplomatic, fashion.

“I do envy you young fellows when I see you walking about as if the world belonged to you.”

Hugh drew himself up stiffly. “I was not in the least aware that any one of us conveyed that impression.”

“No offence meant, I assure you.” Hugh’s tone showed him that he had been guilty of bad taste: a blessing Norah had not heard – she would have given him a bad quarter of an hour later on. “But all army men, I think, get a certain kind of swagger. Oh, nothing overbearing or unpleasant about it, of course. They are made so much of that there is no wonder if they do fancy themselves a bit. I’m sure I should if I were one of them.” Murchison made no comment on this frank statement, and the other man rambled on in desultory fashion.

“It’s the life I wanted. As a boy I longed to grow up quickly and go into the army. There was a fair chance of it then, when the old man had still got a bit of money left. But by the time I was old enough the idea had to be knocked on the head. I had to go into a dingy stockbroking office instead.”

Hugh pricked up his ears at the announcement. He had not suspected that the man would be so communicative about his past. Of course he had gone as a clerk. If his father was not well-off enough to put him in the army neither could he have afforded to buy him a share in a business.

“Yes,” pursued Mr Burton, “it was an awful come down after the dreams I had indulged in.”

“It must have been a very bitter disappointment,” assented Hugh politely, in spite of his firm conviction that the army was the very last profession in the world suited to a man of his host’s obvious peculiarities.

“I should have been awfully keen on soldiering,” pursued Mr Burton, under the impression that he had discovered a sympathetic listener. “Don’t you consider it a splendid life?”

“There are many things in its favour, certainly,” was the rather frigid reply.

“But, after all, I don’t think I should have cared to be in the line; there’s not the same glamour about it, is there? You fellows in the cavalry, in a crack regiment like yours, must see the rosy side of life.” He heaved a sigh. “And, of course, you’ve all got pots of money to grease the wheels.”

Hugh fidgeted perceptibly. How very vulgar the man was, with an innate vulgarity that nothing would ever eradicate. But his host, absorbed in his own reflections, did not observe the movement.

“Of course, we know all about you, about the great house of Murchison, you are tiled-in all right.” He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper: “What about that young chap yonder? I suppose he’s rolling in money, too?”

It was growing insufferable. For two pins Hugh would have got up and bidden him good night then and there, but he shrank from making a scene. What a fool he had been to come here, to allow his kindly feeling for that susceptible young donkey of a Pomfret to expose him to such an ordeal as this.

“Really, Mr Burton,” he said in a cutting voice, “I do not discuss the private affairs of my friends on such a brief acquaintance. If you are really anxious to know, I believe Mr Pomfret has considerable expectations from an old aunt who is fairly wealthy. Those expectations depend, I understand, upon his conforming generally to her wishes in all respects.”

“Ah, I understand,” said the unabashed Burton. “Sorry if my question gave you offence. What really put it in my head was the difference between his position and mine when I was his age.”

There was silence for some little time, while the two men applied themselves steadily to their cigars. Then Burton jumped up suddenly.

“This must be a bit slow for you and your friend, and the night is young. What do you say to a game at bridge?”

Yes, Captain Murchison would welcome a game of bridge, anything as a relief to this vulgarian’s conversation.

They played for over two hours, Murchison keenly alert from certain suspicions that had been forming in his mind. At present there was no foundation for these vague suspicions. They played for small stakes, but the visitors rose up the winners, not by a great amount, but still winners.

It was a fine night, the two men walked back to their quarters.

“How did you get on with the charmer? I saw you seemed very confidential together,” asked the older man.

“Splendidly, old chap. She told me a lot about her history.” Pomfret related all he had been told in full. “And how did you get on with the brother?”

“Don’t ask me,” replied Hugh with a groan. “He’s the most insufferable creature I ever came across. I don’t really think I can go there again. At the beginning of the evening he started fairly well, but later he reverted to type.”

“Well, I may as well tell you straight, I shall. The next time we go I’ll take a share of the brother.”

When Pomfret spoke in that tone he meant what he said, and Hugh knew he would have his own wilful way.

There was one piece of information which the young subaltern had not imparted to his friend.

It was this – that after much pressing, and more than one refusal, Miss Burton had agreed to meet him to-morrow afternoon at a very sequestered spot about a mile and a half from Blankfield, with the view of pursuing their acquaintance.

Chapter Five

From the night of that dinner-party Murchison noted a subtle difference in his young friend’s demeanour. Pomfret had always been a harum-scarum sort of young fellow, accustomed to follow erratic and injudicious impulses, not absolutely devoid of brains of a certain order, but of imperfect and ill-balanced mentality.

But in his wildest escapades he had always been frank and above-board. And he was ever the first, when he had overstepped the border-line, to admit that he was in the wrong. And on such occasions, far from justifying his exploits, he had been ready to deplore them.

But his frankness seemed to have departed from that night. He seemed rather to avoid than seek the society of his old friend and mentor. When Hugh brought up the subject of the Burtons, Pomfret seemed anxious to avoid it, to say as little as possible. He seemed to shut himself up within his own soul.

Hugh, of course, was profoundly uneasy. Such a transparent creature as Pomfret would not be likely to retire within his own shell unless there were cogent reasons for the withdrawal. And the reasons were inspired by the attractive personality of the fascinating siren at Rosemount, the charming young woman who explained the presence of an undesirable brother by the narrative of her father’s first unfortunate marriage.

Pomfret had invited the brother and sister to a dinner at the principal hotel in the place, and Hugh had been his friend’s guest. Ladies, of course, could not be asked to the Mess. It had been a happy solution of a somewhat awkward position. Mr Burton no doubt understood, but he accepted the situation with alacrity.

From the dinner they had adjourned to Rosemount. Here they had played cards as before, but they left off fairly even. Hugh’s suspicions about card-sharping were dissipated as before. At the same time, he was still resolved to keep a watchful eye upon the pair. It was firmly engrained upon his mind, and only, of course, from the purest instinct, that he did not trust either of them.

Much to his surprise, they left without having been asked to a return dinner. It was the turn of the Burtons. And judging from the haste with which Burton had jumped at them on the first visit, the omission was a little noticeable. It could not be that these new isolated dwellers in Blankfield wanted to shelve an acquaintance which must have brightened their dull and unvisited existence.

Another fact presented itself to Murchison’s rather acute intelligence. There seemed already established between Pomfret and the attractive Norah a certain kind of freemasonry, a certain sort of easy relations. And once in the course of the evening he was sure that he heard the young man, in the course of a whispered conversation, address her by her Christian name. They had been sitting together on the Chesterfield, and their remarks to each other had been addressed in a very low tone. But Hugh’s hearing was wonderfully acute, and he had surprised a sudden expression of rebuke in Miss Burton’s eyes when Pomfret made the slip.

And here, for a moment, this story must leave Hugh Murchison with his honest doubts and suspicions, while it follows the fortunes of his young friend and the attractive Norah Burton.

For, truth to tell, at this particular juncture, young Pomfret, for all his apparent guilelessness, was pursuing a double game. Madly, overwhelmingly, in love with Norah, he was meeting her clandestinely, sometimes at her own house, sometimes in sequestered spots in the surrounding neighbourhood. And of these visits and meetings Hugh knew nothing.

Pomfret was not free from a few pangs of self-reproach, from the fact that he was not running quite straight with good old Hugh, to whom he had always, hitherto, confessed all his difficulties and troubles.

But then Hugh, although one of the best, was such a practical old stick. And if he told him the whole truth, there was no knowing what course Hugh might not think it was his duty to take. He might write to his family and bring them down in an avalanche on him, or even to the octogenarian aunt.

Love taught him deep cunning, and what he lacked in this subtle quality was ably supplemented by Miss Burton, this young girl with the rather sad expression, and the candid eyes that always met your gaze unfalteringly.

From the first clandestine meeting, arranged in whispers on the night of the dinner at Rosemount, Pomfret had made the running very fast. He had given Norah to understand that he thought her the most desirable girl he had ever met, that no other woman had appealed, would or could appeal, to him as she did. There was a good drop of Irish blood in his own veins, and he certainly made a most fervent lover.

Norah listened with a modest bashfulness that enchanted him. He was sure from her demeanour that she had never been made love to before. She seemed so overwhelmed that she could hardly say a word. If one were not so much in love, one might almost have thought she was stupid.

She was not so stupid, however, as not to preserve her wits sufficiently to make another appointment, this time at Rosemount. Pomfret consented gladly, but he made a certain stipulation, which his companion was more than pleased to agree to.

“We mustn’t let old Hugh know about this, though, or he’ll think he’s left out in the cold. You see, it was really through him I knew you. You must tell your brother not to let it out.”

Miss Burton promised that, so far as she and her brother were concerned, Captain Murchison would be none the wiser. It only remained for Mr Pomfret – although entreated to do so, she could not at this early stage address him as “Jack” – to surround his movements with a proper degree of mystery.

When the two parted, and the meeting had been rather a brief one, for it was always a little dangerous lingering long about the environs of Blankfield, in case of unexpected intruders, Miss Burton made a significant remark.

“I am quite sure your friend Captain Murchison does not like me. In fact, I think his real feeling is one of dislike.”

Mr Pomfret was young enough to blush; he did so upon this occasion. He guessed the real truth, that Murchison did not dislike her at all, on the contrary, he rather admired her – but he had a certain distrust of her.

“Fancy on your part, fancy, I’m quite sure,” he answered glibly. “I expect he is a little bit sore, you know, about the whole thing, thinks I have cut him out with you.”

“Perhaps,” assented Norah, easily. But in her own heart she knew it was nothing of the kind. She recognised at once the difference between the two men. Murchison was a thorough gentleman, kind and chivalrous, but he was a man of the world, with a certain hard strain in him, a man who would submit everything to the test of cold, practical reasoning, not to be hoodwinked or led astray.

This poor babbling boy, with his unrestrained impulses, that Celtic leaven in his blood, would fall an easy prey to any woman who was clever enough to cast her spells over him. He would never reason, he would only feel.

After that first meeting, the precursor of many others, the affair progressed briskly. Pomfret made love with great ardour, Norah received his advances with a shy sort of acquiescence that inflamed him the more. He was sure, oh very sure, he was the first who had touched that innocent heart.

From these delightful confidences Murchison was shut out. It would not be wise to ignore him altogether, for such a course of action would have intensified his suspicions. But the invitations to Rosemount from either host or hostess were few and far between.

He was not, however, so easily gulled as the three conspirators thought. Pomfret’s preoccupied mood, the air of a man who had much on his mind, his frequent and unexplained absences, gave to his friend much food for thought. He felt certain that the easy-going, irresponsible young man was entangling himself. But in such a state of affairs he felt powerless. Short of invoking the influence of the Colonel, or writing to the elderly aunt, he could do nothing.

It cannot be said that the course of true love was running very smoothly, even from the point of view of the ardent and enamoured suitor himself. In spite of his impulsive temperament, his disinclination to look hard facts squarely in the face, there was in him a slight leaven of common-sense.

Save for the bounty and goodwill of this generous, if somewhat narrow-minded, aunt he was an absolute pauper. There was no hope of marrying without her consent. And he was quite sure that in a case like this her consent would never be given. A fiancée, to be received by her with approval, must present some sort of credentials.

And there was the difficulty. Poor Jack had exhausted all his simple cunning to extract from them some convincing details of their antecedents. But even he, infatuated as he was, had to admit that they had parried inquiries with great adroitness. They maintained a persistent reticence as to names and places. Even he was forced to conclude that, for some reason or another, they did not choose to be frank about their past.

These obvious facts, however, did not lessen his infatuation. To marry her was the one dominating object of his life, in spite of all that his few remaining remnants of common-sense could urge against such a step.

More than once the rash idea occurred to him that he would marry her in secret, and when the marriage was an accomplished fact, throw himself upon his aunt’s forgiveness.

He mooted the idea to Norah, to whom, of course, he had already made a frank statement of his position, as befitted the honourable gentleman he was. But she did not receive the suggestion with enthusiasm, although she professed to fully reciprocate his ardent affection.

“If I were a selfish girl, and only thought of my immediate happiness, I should say ‘Yes,’” she said with a little tremulous smile, that made her look more desirable than ever in her lover’s eyes. “But I could not allow you to run such a terrible risk. Old people are very strange and very touchy when they think they have been slighted. Suppose she cast you off.”