Chapter V

John sat in his room, absorbed in contemplation of a tiny lace-edged pocket-handkerchief. He spread it out upon his knee, and laughed. He crumpled it up in his palm, and pressed it to his face, and drank deep of its faint perfume,--faint, but powerfully provocative of visions and emotions. He had found it during the night on the floor of the sick-room, and had captured and borne it away like a treasure. He spread it out on his knee again, and was again about to laugh at its small size and gauzy texture, when his eye was caught by something in its corner. He held it nearer to the window. The thing that had caught his eye was a cypher surmounted by a crown, embroidered so minutely as almost to call for a magnifying glass. But without a glass he could see that the cypher was composed of the initials M and D, and that the crown was not a coronet, but a closed crown, of the pattern worn by mediatised princes.

"What on earth can be the meaning of this?" he wondered, frowning, and breathing quick.

But he was stopped from further speculation for the moment by a knock at the door. The postman entered with two letters, for one of which, as it was registered, John had to sign. When he had tipped the postman and was alone again, he put his registered letter on the dressing-table (with a view to disciplining curiosity and exercising patience, possibly) and turned his attention to the other. In a handsome, high old hand, that somehow reminded him of the writer's voice, it ran as follows:--

"DEAR JOHN,

"I was heart-broken not to see you when I drove over to say
good-bye this afternoon, but chance favoured me at least to the
extent of letting me see your miller's daughter, and you may
believe that I was glad of an opportunity to inspect her at close
quarters. My dear boy, she is no more a miller's daughter than you
are. Her beauty--there's _race_ in it. Her manner and carriage,
her voice, accent, her way of dressing, (I'd give a sovereign for
the name of her dressmaker), the fineness of her skin, her hair,
everything--there's race in 'em all, race and consciousness of
race, pride, dignity, distinction. These things don't come to pass
in a generation. I'm surprised at your lack of perspicacity. And
those blue eyes of yours look so sharp, too. But perhaps your wish
was father to your thought. You felt (well, and so to some extent
did I) that it would be more _romantic_. She's probably a very
great swell indeed, and I expect the Frau What's-her-name she's
staying with will turn out to be her old governess or nurse or
something. When those Austrians _can_ show quarterings, (of course
you must bar recent creations--they're generally named Cohen), they
can show them to some effect. They think nothing of thirty-two. All
of which, _au fond_, rather rejoices me, for if she really had been
a miller's daughter, it would have seemed a good deal like throwing
yourself away, and who knows what your rusty, crusty old uncle B.
might have said? I've long had a rod in pickle for _him_, and
t'other day I applied it. _Attendez_.

"Don't forget the pig you purchased--so gallantly and confidingly.
I would not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments--your
pig will gobble 'em up. You should by this have received a
communication from my solicitors. Remember, you have pledged your
sacred promise. There must be no question of trying to shirk or
burke it. Remember that I am quite outrageously rich. I have no
children of my own, and no very near relatives, (and my distant
ones are intensely disagreeable), and I can't help looking upon the
heir of the Blanchemains as a kind of spiritual son. In your
position there's no such thing as having too much money. Take all
that comes, and never mind the quarter whence. They're Plymouth
Brethren, and send me tracts.

"Good-bye now till August, if not before. For of course in August
you must come to me at Fring. Will you bring your bride? When and
where the wedding? I suppose they'll want it in Austria. Beware of
long engagements--or of too short ones. The autumn's the time,--the
only pretty ring-time. You see, you'll need some months for the
preparation of your trousseau. I love a man to be smart. Well,
good-bye. I was so sorry about that child's illness, but thankful
to hear she was mending.

"Yours affectionately,

"LINDA BLANCHEMAIN."

And his registered letter, when at last he opened it, ran thus:--

"DEAR SIR:--Pursuant to instructions received from our client Lady
Blanchemain, we beg to hand you herewith our cheque for Seven
hundred and fifty pounds (£750 stg.), and to request the favour of
your receipt for the same, together with the address of your
bankers, that we may pay in quarterly a like sum to your account,
it being her ladyship's intention, immediately upon her return to
England, to effect a settlement upon yourself and heirs of £100,000
funded in Bk. of Eng. stock.

"We are further to have the pleasure to inform you that by the
terms of a will just prepared by us, and to be executed by Lady
Blanchemain at the earliest possible date, you are constituted her
residuary legatee.

"With compliments and respectful congratulations,

"We have the honour, dear Sir, to be,

"Your obedient servants,

"FARROW, BERNSCOT, AND TISDALE."

And then there came another tap at the door, and it was the postman who had returned, with a third letter which, like the true Italian postman that he was, he had forgotten,--and I fancy, if it hadn't been for that tip still warm in his pocket, the easy-going fellow would have allowed it to stand over till to-morrow. He made, at any rate, a great virtue of having discovered it and of having retraced his steps.

The letter was written in black, angular, uncompromising characters, that looked rather like sabre-thrusts and bayonets. It read:--

"DEAR JACK:--I have received the enclosure from Linda Lady
Blanchemain. She is an exceedingly impertinent and meddlesome old
woman. But she is right about the allowance. I don't know why I
never thought of it myself. I don't know why you never suggested
it. I extremely regret it. As next in succession, you are
certainly entitled to an annuity from the estate. I have to-day
remitted £500 to your bankers, and am instructing my agents to pay
in a like amount quarterly.

"I hope I shall soon be seeing you at Ventmere. We are having a
grand lambing season, but there's a nasty spread of swine-fever,
and the whole country's papered with handbills. I got a goodish bit
of hunting down at Wilsborough during the winter. Now there's
nothing to do but play golf. I never could find any fun in shooting
rooks.

"Your affectionate uncle,

"B of V."

And the enclosure:--

"Linda Lady Blanchemain presents her compliments to Lord
Blanchemain of Ventmere, and begs to apprise him that she has
lately had the pleasure of meeting his lordship's nephew John, and
has discovered to her amazement that his lordship makes him no
allowance. This situation, for the heir to the barony of
Blanchemain, is of course absurd, and must, Lady Blanchemain is
sure, be due entirely to an oversight on his lordship's part. She
ventures, therefore, with all respect, to bring it to his notice."

So! Here sat a young man with plenty to think about; a young man, whose income, yesterday a bare six hundred, had sprung up over night to something near six thousand. Six thousand a year isn't opulence, if you like, but a young man possessing it can hardly look upon himself as quite empty-handed, either. This young man, however, had other things as well to think of. What of that embroidered handkerchief? What of those shrewd suspicions of Lady Blanchemain's? What of his miller's daughter?

And there was another thing still. What of his proud old honest Spartan of an unimaginative uncle? He thought of him, and "Oh, the poor old boy," he cried. "Not for ten times the money would I have had the dear old woman write to him like that. How hard it must have hit him!"

"M, D, and a princely crown," he reflected. "I wish I had an Almanach de Gotha."