Moreover, the car was among those luxuries for which he had not yet paid, and it seemed to him safer to leave it in the garage in town. At London Bridge he looked out nervously for Eustace, though in all probability he would motor down; there was no sign of him in the train or on the platform, and he had to school himself to such patience as he could command until they reached King’s Poplars. Shortly before the train drew up at the station he spoke again, with chill abruptness.
“My father tells me he has had a very disquieting letter from Brand,” he observed. “Asking for money, as usual.”
Laura lifted her charming brows: “We seem singularly united for once.”
Richard was very angry. It was abominable. This odious comparison of himself with a shabby clerk, tied to a woman with an atrocious history, living in some degraded quarter of London, dabbling with a paint-box in his spare time—that was the kind of thing one’s footman might do. He’d make a fine relative for the future Lord X——.
Arrived at last, he was informed that no conveyance was immediately available; he displayed his annoyance in a manner that seemed to Laura contemptible. His undignified rage with the station-master made her feel a little sick, and, standing in the background, she thought, “Why on earth did I do it? What did I think he would become? No one put any pressure on me. I had money and independence and a family whom I loved. What did I see in him? And which of us has changed so completely?”
The station-master thought Lady Gray was a credit to them; such a lady she always looked, quiet and proud, with that lovely sort of red hair she’d never cut, just showing under her fashionable hat. A taxi was presently secured, and they drove up to the Manor in feverish unrest on Richard’s part and a bored disgust on hers. The first person they encountered was Eustace himself, prowling round the gardens, looking cold and glum.
Richard asked politely, “Have you seen my father?” and Eustace said that he had, and that he didn’t think the old man looked any too well. He talked of a dicky heart; did Richard know if there was anything in it? Richard said firmly that he didn’t, and disregarding obvious hints from both Eustace and Amy, whom he scarcely paused to greet, broke into the library and poured out a history of his position.
Adrian was less than sympathetic. He said fiercely, “You can take your title to the devil. I’m ruined, Eustace tells me. Ruined. It’s all that fellow’s fault—a crooked, slimy sort of chap, not even a gentleman. What in God’s name Olivia saw in him beats me. She’s a fine figure of a woman to let a little rat like that go messing her about.”
Richard, making the best of a deplorable business, responded promptly, “I’ve never considered Eustace a safe man. He’d play ducks and drakes with anyone’s money.”
Gray turned on him in a fine rage. “If you were so sure as that, why did you never warn me? You knew I had the greater part of my capital in his concerns.”
Richard resembled a man struggling desperately to hold in a panic-stricken horse. He was white with rage, and the effort to control it; his voice was high and strained. He replied, speaking very fast, as though he could not swiftly enough pour forth his rage and disappointment, “You were impossible to warn. You would listen to no one. You were convinced you were a financier, with more courage than any of the rest of us. You filled us up with tales of large dividends and bold investments. At least it might have occurred to you that, with all safe companies paying something under five per cent, you must be running some risk or perpetrating some dishonesty in order to get a regular fourteen per cent. We did remonstrate with you, Miles as well as myself. And how much did you listen? Not a word. I was a beggarly politician out for grab, Miles a lawyer hoping to make something out of both sides.”
“Miles—” began Gray uncertainly, but his son would not allow him to proceed.
“Miles is a lawyer, just as Eustace is a financier, and neither of them will lift a finger until he’s paid for it. Why should he? An enquiry or two would have told you what you needed to know; ask anyone in the City what Eustace’s reputation is. You’ll get the answer in one word. You knew he always had money in his pocket; he hasn’t got a job like the rest of us. Did you ever stop to wonder how it got there? It came out of other people’s pockets, and they were no more willing to lose it than you’d be. Now I suppose he wants more…”
“He won’t get it, not a penny. I haven’t got it. And I haven’t got anything for you either. You’re not buying a peerage to please me. It’s an expensive luxury, especially as you haven’t a son to take it up.”
Richard said thickly, “Not yet.”
“Not yet?” His father stared. “You mean that Laura, after all these years…?” In the face of his son’s possible humiliation he was instantly urbane. “My dear boy, don’t you feel a little suspicious?”
“I don’t mean anything of the kind,” cried Richard in a rage. “Laura will never have children, any more than she’ll ever be unfaithful. A woman like that may not be an ideal mate for a normal man, but she realises her obligations, and one of them is not to make a cuckold of me.” His anger made him coarse and bitter.
“Then what did you mean? Laura’s perfectly healthy, isn’t she?”
“Perfectly, I believe, apart from her regrettable inability to bear me children.”
“You’re taking a very long chance when you anticipate
