So he welcomed the imploring glances and the eventual Oriental gratitude of that little man in his unhappy tent. For, naturally, by communicating in his weighty manner with the United States Headquarters when he happened to find himself in its vicinity, he secured the release of the little fellow, who was by now safely back somewhere in the interior of the North American Continent.
But before that happened he had exchanged a certain amount of correspondence with Sir John, and had discovered from him and from one or two chance members of the American Expeditionary Force that the little man was quite a good old-furniture dealer. Sir John had by that time gone out of business and his letters were not particularly cordial to Tietjens—which was only what was to be expected if Sylvia had been shedding her charms over him. But it had appeared that Mr. Schatzweiler had had a great deal of business with Sir John, who had indeed supplied him with a great part of his material, and so, if Sir John had gone out of business, Mr. Schatzweiler would need to find in England someone to take Sir John’s place. And that was not going to be extraordinarily easy, for what with the amount of his money that the Germans had mopped up—they had sold him immense quantities of old furniture and got paid for it, and had then enlisted him in the ranks of their Brandenburgers, where naturally he could do nothing with carved oak chests that had elaborate steel hinges and locks. … What then with that, and his prolonged absence from the neighbourhood of Detroit, where he had mostly found his buyers, Mr. Schatzweiler found himself extremely hampered in his activities. It therefore fell to Christopher, if he was to go into partnership with the now sanguine and charming Oriental, to supply an immediate sum of money. That had not been easy, but by means of mortgaging his pay and his blood-money, and selling the books that Sylvia had left him, he had been able to provide Mr. Schatzweiler with enough to make at least a start somewhere across the water. … And Mr. Schatzweiler and Christopher had between them evolved an ingenious scheme along lines that the American had long contemplated, taking into account the tastes of his countrymen and the nature of the times.
Mark had listened to his brother during all this with indulgence and even with pleasure. If a Tietjens contemplated going into trade he might at least contemplate an amusing trade carried on in a spirited manner. And what Christopher humorously projected was at least more dignified than stock-broking or bill-discounting. Moreover, he was pretty well convinced by this time that his brother was completely reconciled to him and to Groby.
It was about then and when he had again begun to introduce the topic of Groby that Christopher got up from the chair at the bedside that he had been occupying and, having taken his brother’s wrist in his cool fingers, remarked:
“Your temperature’s pretty well down. Don’t you think it is about time that you set about marrying Charlotte? I suppose you mean to marry her before this bout is finished; you might have a relapse.”
Mark remembered that speech perfectly well, with the addition that if he, Christopher, hurried about it they might get the job done that night. It must therefore then have been about one o’clock of an afternoon about three weeks before the 11th November, 1918.
Mark had replied that he would be much obliged to Christopher, and Christopher, having roused Marie Léonie and told her that he would be back in time to let her have a good night’s rest, disappeared, saying that he was going straight to Lambeth. In those days, supposing you could command thirty pounds or so, there was no difficulty in getting married at the shortest possible notice, and Christopher had promoted too many last-minute marriages amongst his men not to know the ropes.
Mark viewed the transaction with a good deal of satisfaction. It had needed no arguing; if the proceeding had the approval of the heir-presumptive to Groby there was nothing more to be said against it. And Mark took the view that if he agreed to a proceeding that Christopher could only have counselled as heir-presumptive, that was an additional reason for Mark’s expecting that Christopher would eventually consent to administer Groby himself.
VI
That would have been three weeks before the eleventh of November. His mind boggled a little at computing what the actual date in October must have been. With his then pneumonia his mind had not much registered the dates of that period; days had gone by in fever and boredom. Still, a man ought to remember the date of his wedding. Say it had been the twentieth of October, 1918. The twentieth of October had been his father’s birthday. When he came to think of it he could remember remembering hazily that it was queer that he should be going out of life on the date his father had entered it. It made a sort of full stop. And it made a full stop that, practically on that day, Papists entered into their own in Groby. He had, that is to say, made up his mind to the fact that Christopher’s son would have Groby as a home even if Christopher didn’t. And the boy was by now a full-fledged Papist, pickled and oiled and wafered and all.
