‘Yes; and what are you going to do with it?’ said the other.
‘Let things alone; they’ll right themselves. I’m sick of all this depressing twaddle. A shilling off the Income Tax, and you’ll see.’
‘How are you going to deal with the Land?’
‘Oh! damn the Land! Leave it to itself, that’s all the farmers really want. The more you touch it, the worse it gets.’
‘Let the grass grow under your feet?’
The neighbour laughed. ‘That’s about it. Well, what else can you do – the Country won’t have it. Good night!’
Sounds of a door, of footsteps. A car drove by; a moth flew in Michael’s face. ‘The Country won’t have it!’ Policies! What but mental yawns, long shrugs of the shoulders, trusting to Luck! What else could they be? The Country wouldn’t have it! And Big Ben struck twelve.
Chapter Thirteen
INCEPTION OF THE CASE
THERE are people in every human hive born to focus talk; perhaps their magnetism draws the human tongue, or their lives are lived at an acute angle. Of such was Marjorie Ferrar – one of the most talked-of young women in London. Whatever happened to her was rumoured at once in that collection of the busy and the idle called Society. That she had been ejected from a drawing-room was swiftly known. Fleur’s letters about her became current gossip. The reasons for ejectment varied from truth to a legend that she had lifted Michael from the arms of his wife.
The origins of lawsuits are seldom simple. And when Soames called it all ‘a storm in a tea-cup’, he might have been right if Lord Charles Ferrar had not been so heavily in debt that he had withdrawn his daughter’s allowance; if, too, a Member for a Scottish borough, Sir Alexander MacGown, had not for some time past been pursuing her with the idea of marriage. Wealth made out of jute, a rising Parliamentary repute, powerful physique, and a determined character, had not advanced Sir Alexander’s claims in twelve months so much as the withdrawal of her allowance advanced them in a single night Marjorie Ferrar was, indeed, of those who can always get money at a pinch, but even to such come moments when they have seriously to consider what kind of pinch. In proportion to her age and sex, she was ‘dipped’ as badly as her father, and the withdrawal of her allowance was in the nature of a last straw. In a moment of discouragement she consented to an engagement, not yet to be made public. When the incident at Fleur’s came to Sir Alexander’s ears, he went to his betrothed flaming. What could he do?
‘Nothing, of course; don’t be silly, Alec! Who cares?’
‘The thing’s monstrous. Let me go and exact an apology from this old blackguard.’
‘Father’s been, and he wouldn’t give it. He’s got a chin you could hang a kettle on.’
‘Now, look here, Marjorie, you’ve got to make our engagement public, and let me get to work on him. I won’t have this story going about.’
Marjorie Ferrar shook her head.
‘Oh! no, my dear. You’re still on probation. I don’t care a tuppeny ice about the story.’
‘Well, I do, and I’m going to that fellow to-morrow.’
Marjorie Ferrar studied his face – its brown, burning eyes, its black, stiff hair, its jaw – shivered slightly, and had a brainwave.
‘You will do nothing of the kind, Alec, or you’ll spill your ink. My father wants me to bring an action. He says I shall get swinging damages.’
The Scotsman in MacGown applauded, the lover quailed.
‘That may be very unpleasant for you,’ he muttered, ‘unless the brute settles out of Court.’
‘Of course he’ll settle. I’ve got all his evidence in my vanity-bag.’
MacGown gripped her by the shoulders and gave her a fierce kiss.
‘If he doesn’t, I’ll break every bone in his body.’
‘My dear! He’s nearly seventy, I should think.’
‘H’m! Isn’t there a young man in the same boat with him?’
‘Michael? Oh! Michael’s a dear. I couldn’t have his bones broken.’
‘Indeed!’ said MacGown. ‘Wait till he launches this precious Foggartism they talk of – dreary rot! I’ll eat him!’
‘Poor little Michael!’
‘I heard something about an American boy, too.’
‘Oh!’ said Marjorie Ferrar, releasing herself from his grip. ‘A bird of passage – don’t bother about him.’
‘Have you got a lawyer?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll send you mine. He’ll make them sit up!’
She remained pensive after he had left her, distrusting her own brain-wave. If only she weren’t so hard up! She had learned during this month of secret engagement that ‘Nothing for nothing and only fair value for sixpence’ ruled North of the Tweed as well as South. He had taken a good many kisses and given her one trinket which she dared not take to ‘her Uncle’s’. It began to look as if she would have to marry him. The prospect was in some ways not repulsive – he was emphatically a man; her father would take care that she only married him on terms as liberal as his politics; and perhaps her motto ‘Live dangerously’ could be even better carried out with him than without. Resting inert in a long chair, she thought of Francis Wilmot. Hopeless as husband, he might be charming as lover, naïve, fresh, unknown in London, absurdly devoted, oddly attractive, with his lithe form, dark eyes, engaging smile. Too old-fashioned for words, he had made it clear already that he wanted to’marry her. He was a baby. But until she was beyond his reach, she had begun to feel that he was beyond hers. After? Well, who knew? She lived in advance, dangerously, with Francis Wilmot. In the meantime this action for slander was a bore I and shaking the idea out of her head, she ordered her horse, changed her clothes, and repaired to the Row. After that she again changed her clothes, went to the Cosmopolis Hotel, and danced with her mask-faced partner and Francis Wilmot. After that she changed her clothes once more, went to a first night, partook of supper afterwards with the principal actor and his party, and was in bed by two o’clock.