Meet The Baron (2 page)

Marie Overndon stood beneath the spreading branches of the oaks that bordered the lake in the Manor grounds and stared across the moonlit stretch of water. The moon shone on her, giving her a cold beauty that Mannering saw as if he were looking at something a long way off. She was very slim and straight, and she was motionless. Once Mannering moved, cracking a twig beneath his shoe. A light wind played with the leaves and the grass and the water, disturbing even Marie’s golden hair. But her lips, set tightly and more thinly than Mannering had ever seen them, did not move; nor did her eyes. The frigidity of her beauty, after its warmth of that afternoon, after those half-promises by look and gesture, spread to the man. The smile that had curved his lips, the gleam in his eyes, was gone. Understanding filled him.

“Well,” he said, after a silence that had seemed eternal, “you know everything, Marie. One thousand a year, one sizeable bungalow, all the love I can give you. Marie - ”

He stepped forward, but the look in her eyes stopped him. He stood dead still, a yard from her.

“Why didn’t you tell me this a month ago?”

“I hardly knew you. I didn’t dream that I’d fall in love with you. It’s not” - his lips curved, and the gleam in his hazel eyes brightened his face for a moment, but was soon gone - “it’s not a habit, Marie. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever proposed.”

“Is it?” She turned away from the lake, and away from Mannering, neither seeing nor caring for the look in his eyes. “I hope it won’t be the last, John. Now let’s forget it. I’m chilly, and we’d better get back”

She had walked fifty yards before Mannering started to follow her. For a moment misery had lurked in his eyes, and he had stared after her, watching her disappear into the gloom of the September evening, fighting against himself, against the impulse to plead with her, to beg of her. And then the coldness of her beauty chilled him, even in retrospect, and he remembered the way in which her expression had altered as he had told her the story that earlier in the day he had told her mother. The thought fought with his memory of the past month, the nearness of her, the promise. He could remember with startling clarity the ripple of her laughter, the curving of her red lips, the fire in her grey eyes. God, what a fool he was! Not for a moment had he doubted her. When Lady Mary had said, that morning, “Try, John - you’ve my blessing,” he had told himself the battle was won. It hadn’t occurred to him that Marie would say no.

The muscles of his face moved, and his hands clenched at his sides. And then he swung round, with a bitter humour in his eyes, but a humour for all that.

“If I’d nine thousand a year more,” he mused, “I might have married her. Wild oats have their uses. Oi, Marie! he called out, hearing her walking through the woods bordering the lake, but unable to see her.

“Yes?” Her voice was cold and clear, and she stopped moving.

“Better wait for me,” he said, making for a glimpse of white through the darkness, “or they’ll call this a lovers’ quarrel.”

He chuckled to himself as she moved again abruptly, and chuckled more when he realised she was hurrying back to the Manor. He followed, more leisurely, until he reached the lawn. Then the ghost of her laughter that afternoon mocked at him. He swung away, savagely, bitterly, blindly.

On the following morning the Colonel arrived late at the breakfast table, to find Marie alone and on the point of finishing her meal. There was no sign of Mannering, and Marie did not mention his name. He waited impatiently until Lady Mary arrived and Marie had gone - where, no one knew. But even then the Colonel did not get his question out, for Lady Mary saw it in his eyes.

“He caught the morning train to town,” she said quietly. “I knew it, George. Marie’s money-mad. She always has been. And she’s selfish . . . Don’t stand gaping there, man! Sit down and light your pipe, and try to think of a millionaire whose waist-measurement isn’t more than forty-six and who - ”

“Steady, m’dear, steady!” warned the Colonel.

“If I can’t let off steam with my prospective husband,” snapped Lady Mary, “what am I marrying him for? Give me a cigarette, or fetch me a drink, or slap my face . . . Oh, George, you are a fool! Or am I? I don’t know. But she broke something in Mannering - I know, I saw it this morning: in his eyes, on his lips. Oh, he took it all right - on top, but only on top.”

The Colonel grew suddenly wise. He slipped his arm round his lady’s shoulders and let her cry.

All this,” grumbled Jimmy Randall - sometimes known as the Hon. James Randall, of Mortimer Hall, Yampton, Somerset, and 18 Dowden Square, London, W.I, “dates from the time you were with the Overndons, and two and two make four. No woman’s worth it.”

“Ah!” said John Mannering, smiling.

“Ah, yourself!” snapped Randall. “You’ve run through fifteen thousand pounds in the past twelve months - ”

“Where did you get that information from?” demanded Mannering quickly.

Randall laughed, and left his chair in front of the log-fire. The two men had been talking for half an hour on the subject of Mannering’s activities during the past year. Randall had been pleading, angry and disgusted in turn, but until that moment Mannering had displayed a faint amusement, punctured with a cynicism or an occasional “Ah!” The mention of the money quickened his interest. Randall decided that achievement alone merited a drink, and he was smiling as he poured it.

Mannering sniffed the brandy, gazing thoughtfully at his friend as he cupped the glass.

“Good stuff,” he admitted. “But who told you of the fifteen thousand, Jimmy?”

Randall sipped and inhaled the brandy, and then scowled at Mannering’s question - but he discussed the brandy first.

“Not so good as the Denie Mourice ‘75, and I’ve bought two cases, drat it. Toby Plender told me.”

“Hm,” murmured Mannering, holding his glass away from him and flicking it with his forefinger. “So you held a post mortem before reading the Riot Act, did you?”

“Stop using that glass like a tuning-fork,” said Randall irritably. “Yes, we held a post mortem, if you want it like that. You’re like a kid acting the goat - ”

“Well said!” Mannering laughed. “You’ll go a long way before you crack a better one than that.”

Randall didn’t smile.

“That’s right, be bright. I’m telling you - ”

“For the sixth time!”

“That you’re making a fool of yourself, and that all of Somerset and half of London is sharing the joke. Damn it, John - even the Continental’s taking you up. I was there last night - ”

“Low music-hall” said Mannering sadly, “reflecting low taste. How did they work me in?”

“Mimi Rayford came on,” said Randall, with a sudden grin, “and the dummy in the stalls bellowed, ‘Mannering’s latest.’ I - ”

Mannering laughed, until the brandy spilt over the edge of his glass. Randall’s grin widened reluctantly.

“It was good,” he admitted.

“It was wrong,” said Mannering, recovering himself “Mimi and I quarrelled two nights ago, and she had a smack at me. Never expect a fair dividend from a woman, Jimmy, however much you invest in her.”

Randall’s scowl came back.

“I haven’t seen the papers to-day,” he said, “but the gossip columns will have it all right.” He looked hard at his friend, at those hazel eyes which could be humorous, lazy, quizzical, and mischievous in turn, but were now sardonic. “Why not drop it, John? You had a bad break, I know, but not bad enough to - to squander every darned penny you’ve got on a crowd of gold-diggers.”

“That phrase went out with the flood,” said Mannering. “So because I told you and Toby Plender I was worth twenty thousand some time ago you both think I’m approaching my limit, and you exhume me and read the Riot Act.”

“It is a thing that worries us both a darned sight more than you seem to understand,” said Randall, with real seriousness. “Damn it, neither Toby nor I want to see you go under.”

Mannering’s eyes twinkled, and he nodded.

“I know,” he said; “but what can you do with a man who’s tried the cure and found it doesn’t take? You’ll only worry yourselves grey - ”

“About you?” asked Randall coldly.

“Oh, no. About the failure of your efforts to put me on the right path. And that reminds me, Jimmy, you’ve forgotten the racing and the boxing”

“Forgotten nothing,” snapped Randall. ‘The only thing you haven’t sunk your money on during this last year is beer - ”

“Make it alcohol in general,” murmured Mannering.

“And when you’re down to your last pound or so,” said Randall, “you’ll start that. For the last time - will you drop it?”

There was silence for a moment. Mannering’s eyes held his friend’s. He had known Randall for twenty years, through the hot enthusiasm of school-days, the blasé years of Cambridge, the recklessness that had followed, and the calmer days of the past five years. He understood Randall; he understood the other member of the trio of friends, Toby Plender, who was also in London; but he did not understand himself, as he answered slowly: “No, Jimmy. Sorry. I’ve set my course, and I’11 stick to it. If I’m blown off it” - he shrugged his shoulders and grinned, that old, cheerful grin - “I’11 find another.”

“You’re a fool,” said Randall.

“We’ll celebrate a mutual understanding in a spot more brandy,” said Mannering.

Although he left Randall on that inconsequential note, Mannering was by no means pleased to learn that his friends were taking so close an interest in him. He felt that he wanted to do exactly as he liked, and the thought of interference annoyed him. On the other hand, he had the good sense to realise that neither Randall nor Plender would act - or talk - without the best of motives, and he did not propose to allow the affair to affect a friendship that had weathered many storms.

If his feeling of irritation left him as he walked towards the City - and Plender’s office - he did not intend to let Plender get away with the thing without some protest. True, it could hardly be called a breach of confidence that the solicitor had told Randall how low Mannering’s finances were, for the three of them had known for a long time most that there was to know about one another, while Plender could say to Randall things that he could say to no other man on earth.

He reached the solicitor’s office, and was taken to the junior partner’s room immediately. As the door closed, and before he sat down, he smiled sardonically at his friend.

“I’d like to know,” he said, with a show of annoyance not altogether discounted by the smile in his eyes, whether you call yourself a solicitor or a talking parrot? I suppose you didn’t tell Mimi Rayford that I was down to my last five thousand, did you?”

“Never heard of Mimi Rayford,” said Toby Plender equably.

“Nor Jimmy Randall?”

“That,” said Toby, pressing the tips of his fingers together, “was between friends.” He grinned, and pushed a box of cigarettes across the desk. “Well, what’s your trouble?”

“I’m going to change my solicitor,” said Mannering, putting his hat and stick on the desk and clearing a corner for his feet. “Mind if I sit down?”

Plender surveyed the size-ten shoes resting on his desk, shifted his gaze to Mannering’s quizzing eyes, and grinned.

“So you’re rattled enough to think of changing your solicitor?”

“Rattled, no. Careful, yes,” said Mannering. `’And when I say change I mean cancel out entirely. Solicitors seem to me too solicitous.”

“H’m,” said Plender, “H’m. So you’re taking the last five thousand, are you?”

“Yes, and putting it in a bank. It’s nice to feel you have my welfare at heart, Toby, but it’s a strain being the victim of good intentions.”

“I thought it would do it,” said Plender, half to himself. He was a small man, faultlessly dressed, with a hooked nose, a Punch of a chin, and a pair of disconcertingly direct grey eyes. At thirty-five Toby Plender had a reputation for being the smartest criminal lawyer in London, and he coupled this with the fact that he was nearly bald. His humour was dry when it was not caustic, and he shared with Jimmy Randall a regard for John Mannering and a growing concern for their friend’s recent activities.

“You thought it would do what?” asked Mannering.

“Make you think,” said Plender. “It’s time you did, John; time you thought hard, and stopped chucking away your cash.”

“D’you know,” said Mannering, “you and Jimmy should sing duets together - you both harp so on ancient ditties. Toby - ”

Plender’s eyes were hard; he was taking this thing seriously, and Mannering’s flippancy annoyed him.

“Well?”

“Don’t try to reform me. I’ve had the itch for gambling since I was so high, and it’s been part of my make-up all the time, even though I kept it down for a while. So - ”

“Supposing she’d married you?” asked Plender.

“Supposing the dead could speak? They can’t. She didn’t. Have I made myself clear?”

Toby Plender nodded, and slid his hands into his pockets.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re a fool - and you deserve all you get.”

“Without trimmings,” said Mannering. “That’s what Jimmy said. To make a start, I’ll have one of your cigarettes.”

He smiled, and Plender followed suit, a little reluctantly. He realised that Mannering had set his course and was not prepared to alter it.

“Any time I can keep you out of the divorce courts,” said the solicitor, watching the other take his feet from the desk, “let me know. You stopped just in time with Mimi.”

“And you said you’d never heard of her,” said Mannering sorrowfully. “Shall I tell you something, Toby?”

“Providing you remember my fee for an opinion is six-and-eight pence.”

“Too heavy by far,” riposted Mannering. “Well - Mimi’s husband hadn’t got a case. Nor have any of them. I thought I’d tell you, to ease your mind. Pass it on to Jimmy, will you?”

Mannering told himself as he walked back to the Elan - even now he walked whenever possible, for he was essentially athletic, and fitness was almost an obsession with him - that he had cleared the air a great deal, and that on the whole Toby had taken it well. One thing was certain: no one in the world would know the state of his bank balance, and it would be easy enough, if he so chose, to create the impression that he was making money. There were many ways of making it, although, in his experience, most of those methods were more likely to have the opposite effect.