As Ellie had prophesied, there was far more fuss on her side. We'd stirred up a regular hornet's nest of trouble. We were beset by reporters who wanted news of our romantic marriage, there were articles in the papers about the Guteman heiress and her romantic elopement, there were letters from bankers and lawyers. And finally official meetings were arranged. We met Santonix on the site of Gipsy's Acre and we looked at the plans there and discussed things, and then having seen things under way we came to London, took a suite at Claridge's and prepared as they say in old world books, to receive cavalry.
The first to arrive was Mr. Andrew P. Lippincott. He was an elderly man, dry and precise in appearance. He was long and lean with suave and courteous manners. He was a Bostonian and from his voice I wouldn't have known he was an American. By arrangement through the telephone he called upon us in our suite at 2 o'clock. Ellie was nervous, I could tell, although she concealed it very well.
Mr. Lippincott kissed Ellie and extended a hand and a pleasant smile to me.
'Well, Ellie my dear, you are looking very well. Blooming, I might say.'
'How are you, Uncle Andrew? How did you come. Did you fly?'
'No, I had a very pleasant trip across on the Queen Mary. And this is your husband?'
'This is Mike, yes.'
I played up, or thought I did.
'How are you, sir?' I said.
Then I asked him if he'd have a drink, which he refused pleasantly. He sat down in an upright chair with gilt arms to it and looked, still smiling, from Ellie to me.
'Well,' he said, 'you young people have been giving us shocks. All very romantic, eh?'
'I'm sorry,' said Ellie, 'I really am sorry.'
'Are you?' said Mr. Lippincott, rather dryly.
'I thought it was the best way,' said Ellie.
'I am not altogether of your opinion there, my dear.'
'Uncle Andrew,' Ellie said, 'you know perfectly well that if I'd done it any other way there would have been the most frightful fuss.'
'Why should there have been such a frightful fuss?'
'You know what they'd have been like,' said Ellie.
'You too,' she added accusingly. She added 'I've had two letters from Cora. One yesterday and one this morning.'
'You must discount a certain amount of agitation, my dear. It's only natural under the circumstances, don't you think?'
'It's my business who I get married to and how and where.'
'You may think so, but you will find that the women of any family would rarely agree as to that.'
'Really, I've saved everyone a lot of trouble.'
'You may put it that way.'
'But it's true, isn't it?'
'But you practised, did you not, a good deal of deception, helped by someone who should have known better than to do what she did.'
Ellie flushed.
'You mean Greta? She only did what I asked her to. Are they all very upset with her?'
'Naturally. Neither she nor you could expect anything else, could you? She was, remember, in a position of trust.'
'I'm of age. I can do what I like.'
'I am speaking of the period of time before you were of age. The deceptions began then, did they not?'
'You mustn't blame Ellie, sir,' I said. 'To begin with I didn't know what was going on and since all her relations are in another country it wasn't easy for me to get in touch with them.'
'I quite realise,' said Mr. Lippincott, 'that Greta posted certain letters and gave certain information to Mrs. van Stuyvesant and to myself as she was requested to do by Ellie here, and made, if I may say so, a very competent job of it. You have met Greta Andersen, Michael? I may call you Michael, since you are Ellie's husband.'
'Of course,' I said, 'call me Mike. No, I haven't met Miss Andersen.'
'Indeed? That seems to me surprising.' He looked at me with a long thoughtful gaze. 'I should have thought that she would have been present at your marriage.'
'No, Greta wasn't there,' said Ellie. She threw me a look of reproach and I shifted uncomfortably.
Mr. Lippincott's eyes were still resting on me thoughtfully. He made me uncomfortable. He seemed about to say something more then changed his mind.
'I'm afraid,' he said after a moment or two, 'that you two, Michael and Ellie, will have to put up with a certain amount of reproaches and criticism from Ellie's family.'
'I suppose they are going to descend on me in a bunch,' said Ellie.
'Very probably,' said Mr. Lippincott. 'I've tried to pave the way,' he added.
'You're on our side, Uncle Andrew?' said Ellie, smiling at him.
'You must hardly ask a prudent lawyer to go as far as that. I have learnt that in life it is wise to accept what is a fait accompli. You two have fallen in love with each other and have got married and have, I understood you to say, Ellie, bought a piece of property in the South of England and have already started building a house on it. You propose, therefore, to live in this country?'
'We want to make our home here, yes. Do you object to our doing that?' I said with a touch of anger in my voice. 'Ellie's married to me and she's a British subject now. So why shouldn't she live in England?'
'No reason at all. In fact, there is no reason why Fenella should not live in any country she chooses, or indeed have property in more than one country. The house in Nassau belongs to you, remember, Ellie.'
'I always thought it was Cora's. She always has behaved as though it was.'
'But the actual property rights are vested in you. You also have the house in Long Island whenever you care to visit it. You are the owner of a great deal of oil bearing property in the West.' His voice was amiable, pleasant but I had the feeling that the words were directed at me in some curious way. Was it his idea of trying to insinuate a wedge between me and Ellie? I was not sure. It didn't seem very sensible, rubbing it in to a man that his wife owned property all over the world and was fabulously rich. If anything I should have thought that he would have played down Ellie's property rights and her money and all the rest of it. If I was a fortune hunter as he obviously thought, that would be all the more grist to my mill. But I did realise that Mr. Lippincott was a subtle man. It would be hard at any time to know what he was driving at; what he had in his mind behind his even and pleasant manner. Was he trying in a way of his own to make me feel uncomfortable, to make me feel that I was going to be branded almost publicly as a fortune hunter. He said to Ellie:
'I've brought over a certain amount of legal stuff which you'll have to go through with me, Ellie. I shall want your signature to many of these things.'
'Yes, of course, Uncle Andrew. Any time.'
'As you say, any time. There's no hurry. I have other business in London and I shall be over here for about ten days.'
Ten days, I thought. That's a long time. I rather wished that Mr. Lippincott wasn't going to be here for ten days. He appeared friendly enough towards me, though, as you might say, indicating that he still reserved his judgment on certain points, but I wondered at that moment whether he was really my enemy. If he was, he would not be the kind of man to show his hand.
'Well,' he went on, 'now that we've all met and come to terms, as you might say, for the future, I would like to have a short, interview with this husband of yours.'
Ellie said, 'You can talk to us both.' She was up in arms. I put a hand on her arm.
'Now don't flare up, ducks, you're not a mother hen protecting a chicken.' I propelled her gently to the door in the wall that led into the bedroom.
'Uncle Andrew wants to size me up,' I said. 'He's well within his rights.'
I pushed her gently through the double doors. I shut them both and came back into the room. It was a large handsome sitting-room. I came back and took a chair and faced Mr. Lippincott.
'All right,' I said. 'Shoot.'
