Chapter V: Kindred and Affinity

Possession of money has an invigorating effect upon the majority of people, and Melville, who like most gamblers lived only in the present, awoke in the morning feeling a new man because of the open cheque for £100 which he had secured the night before. No qualms of conscience disturbed his equanimity because of the device he had adopted to obtain it. As soon as his toilette and breakfast were completed he could get the money from the bank, and the future, with its difficulties and complications, might be left to take care of itself. The solid satisfaction derived from the possession of money was enough for the moment.

Moreover, to-day contained an element of surprise in the shape of his pending visit to his unknown relative, and next to money there is probably nothing that has so much charm for the average gambler as the element of surprise, had any kindred spirit been with him at the time Melville would have made wagers upon the age and appearance of this Lady Holt, of whose existence he had never heard before. She was old, of course, and most likely intensely disagreeable; incompatibility of temper was doubtless the reason of her separation from Sir Geoffrey, and desire to avoid scandal the explanation of her complete seclusion from the world. The phrasing of her letter showed that she was precise, and upon that fragmentary piece of evidence Melville erected in imagination a complete living personality, in much the same way as scientists "restore" an entire prehistoric mammoth from a single tooth.

He dressed with particular care, and after an early breakfast went cheerfully downstairs and drove to his uncle's bank. Then, with eighteen five-pound notes in his pocket book and ten pounds in cash in his waistcoat, he was in a position to spend in a sufficiently agreeable manner the hours that intervened before he was due at South Kensington.

A refresher, in the shape of a sherry and bitters at the club, was followed by a delicate but entirely adequate luncheon at the Dieu-donnée, and Melville's enjoyment of it was not diminished by the fact that, happening to meet a casual acquaintance there, he lunched at the same table, and suggested that they should toss to decide which of the twain should pay the joint account, with the result that the casual acquaintance lost. Evidently the fickle jade was smiling on Melville; a couple of games of billiards followed the luncheon, and another refresher the billiards, and in high good humour Melville sauntered down the Ladies' Mile, preparatory to driving from Albert Gate to The Vale.

Opposite the French Embassy he parted from his friend.

"Sorry I can't ask you to come with me, old man," he said genially, "but I'm obliged to pay a duty visit to an aged aunt."

The friend expressed his sincere commiseration, but Melville only laughed.

"It's a very little flaw in an otherwise perfect day. You must lunch with me next time, and I will give you your revenge at billiards," and carefully choosing a well-appointed hansom he drove away.

The Vale, South Kensington, is a little-known _cul-de-sac_ lying just off the Fulham Road. It contains but half-a-dozen houses, with trim lawns in front and quite large gardens in the rear; great elms shade the houses, and the remoteness from the main road makes them very quiet; in all of them are French windows and small verandahs, and there is an air of quietude and refinement about the place that makes it very attractive.

"The old lady does herself pretty well," thought Melville to himself as he walked up the gravelled path and noticed the close-cropped lawn and the blaze of geraniums and petunias. "I wonder what she knows about me, and what line I'd better take! The interesting musician might be diplomatic perhaps."

He thought that the maid who opened the door looked curiously at him as he enquired whether Lady Holt was at home, but, after all, that was a trifling matter, capable of bearing many interpretations. His interest was, however, more fully aroused by the drawing-room into which he was shown to await his aunt's coming, for it was not at all the sort of environment in which he had imagined he would find Sir Geoffrey's wife. It was essentially the drawing-room of a worldly woman of the world, furnished with taste, but evidently at great cost; photographs and silver boxes, enamels and ivories were scattered in profusion over the many tables, water colours by rising artists covered the walls, cushions and flowers were everywhere.

"I shall have to readjust my preconceived notions of my elderly relative," he said to himself as he took a rapid survey of the pretty room; "this is a veritable canary's cage."

Then the door opened, and at the rustle of silk petticoats he turned to make a formal bow to his aunt. But as he turned, an exclamation of surprise escaped his lips and his single eye-glass dropped upon the floor, for the woman who entered was no precise and ringletted old lady, but the one who had asked him for his card at Monte Carlo, and who had expressed such sympathy with him when he was reduced to the necessity of applying for the _viaticum_. It was indeed no other than the charming Mrs. Sinclair.

She came forward with perfect self-possession, but a gleam of amusement lurked in her eyes.

"This is really a most astonishing experience," Melville said, as he bowed over her hand. "You are quite the last person I expected to see."

"Not the last you wanted to see, I hope," she replied, "but I confess delight is not the predominant expression upon your face at the moment. Won't you sit down?"

Melville picked up his monocle and polished it carefully before readjusting it in his eye.

"But tell me," he persisted, "what are you doing here?"

"Living here," Mrs. Sinclair answered. "What else do you suppose?"

"I can't quite sort things," Melville said apologetically. "To begin with, you see, I had never heard until last night that there was a Lady Holt, and when I got her note asking me to call here to-day I tried to picture what she would be like."

"What was the result of your efforts?" Mrs. Sinclair enquired.

Melville laughed slightly.

"Well, I'm bound to admit that I imagined my uncle's choice in women would be early Victorian, so to speak, and I don't think it's anything but a compliment to say that the early Victorian brand isn't very likely to agree with you. If you like Lady Holt, there is hope for me."

"I like her very much," Mrs. Sinclair said. "Mr. Melville, it isn't quite fair, perhaps, to lay snares for young men, and you evidently don't grasp the situation. You remember your last night at Monte Carlo?"

"It was not the sort of night to forget readily," Melville replied grimly. "I never had such monstrous bad luck at the tables before."

"You gave me one of your cards and I promised to write to you."

"You did," said Melville.

"I have kept my promise," said Mrs. Sinclair. "I wrote to you yesterday and asked you to come to see me. I am Lady Holt."

The astonishment depicted on Melville's face was ludicrous, and Mrs. Sinclair rippled over with mirth.

"I never thought to see you so taken aback," she said. "What I like so much about English gentlemen is that they are so imperturbable, and now you are gazing at me as if I were a freak."

"Really, I beg your pardon," Melville said. "but to think how grossly I have misjudged Sir Geoffrey!"

"Come, that's much better," Mrs. Sinclair replied. "Yes, Mr. Ashley, the confession has to be made; I am your aunt."

"I'm uncommonly delighted to hear it," Melville said heartily, "and I've only one regret in learning the fact."

"And that is----?" his new-found relative enquired.

"That I did not know it long ago," Melville replied. His wonted composure returned, and with it his wonted desire to stand well in the opinion of those in whose company he happened to be--a desire, it may be said, characteristic of many men who drift into bad lives from weakness rather than from natural vice. "Tell me, have you refrained from claiming relationship with me all this time because you heard I was a bad lot?"

"I perceive you are not expert in drawing inferences," Mrs. Sinclair said; "one does not associate the particularly goody-goody type of young man with Monte Carlo, and that is where I saw you first."

"That is true," Melville admitted. "I must plead guilty to not being goody-goody. By the way, am I to call you 'aunt'?"

Mrs. Sinclair shuddered.

"Certainly not," she said emphatically; "there is no necessity to draw public attention to the question of my age."

"What am I to call you?" he persisted.

"Call me Mrs. Sinclair," she said. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-five," Melville answered. "Why?"

"Then you are old enough to call me Lavender when we are alone," she said. "Out of doors it had better be Mrs. Sinclair, I suppose. It is a censorious world."

She leaned back in her chair and surveyed her nephew critically; the scrutiny was satisfactory, and she was glad of the impulse that had prompted her to disclose her identity to him. Yet, shrewd and clever woman as she was, she had taken a step which, while it could never be retraced, was the first towards the undoing of them both. There were other things in her life which in her hours of reflection she regretted, not least among them being her separation from a husband whose good qualities she fully recognised, but nothing in the past had been so fraught with peril to herself as this alliance with her husband's nephew, which she owed to a single moment of caprice.

"Confess now," she said presently, "you are burning with curiosity to know all about everything?"

"That is a comprehensive way of putting it," he laughed, "but it is true. Tell me everything that is necessary, and as much more as you think fit."

"The only thing that is necessary," Mrs. Sinclair replied, "is that I actually am Sir Geoffrey Holt's wife. I married him years ago, when I was too young to realise all that marriage means, especially marriage to a man many years older than oneself. And--it didn't answer. That is really all." She had no intention of telling Melville very much about herself, and, of course, he could not cross-examine her. "He had not come into the title then," she went on, "and indeed there was no reason for supposing he ever would, for his brother was quite young enough to have married and had sons. Perhaps----" She paused, and Melville took advantage of the pause to give expression to the thought that was uppermost in his mind.

"I wonder that his marriage has been so completely forgotten. I never heard of it, and I'm quite sure my brother never has, yet he has been like a son to Sir Geoffrey, and knows a lot about his affairs."

Mrs. Sinclair flushed a little.

"Sir Geoffrey is a very proud man. He always was; indeed, that had a great deal to do with our mutual incompatibility, and proud men are apt to hold their tongues about their failures. Oh, yes!" she said, laughing, though there was no mirth in her laughter, "it was a dismal failure, and so we agreed to separate and never trouble each other again."

"And you never have?" said Melville.

"We never have."

"Sir Geoffrey is a very rich man," Melville remarked, following the line of his own thoughts.

"I believe he is," said Mrs. Sinclair indifferently. "All the money in the world doesn't make some things worth while."

"But I suppose he is very generous to you?"

"I wouldn't touch a penny of his money," said Mrs. Sinclair vehemently.

Melville, of course, dropped the subject, but noted her reply for future use. What he wanted to ascertain most at the moment was Lady Holt's feeling for her husband, but she gave him no opportunity.

"What's your brother like?" she enquired. "Anything like you?"

"Nothing," said Melville shortly. "Ralph is a paragon of all the virtues and I'm--not."

"And he's like a son to Sir Geoffrey?" said Mrs. Sinclair. "Is he to be his heir?"

"I don't know," Melville answered moodily. "I suppose so; but, as a matter of fact, Sir Geoffrey hasn't made his will, so I don't know what he will do with his money."

Mrs. Sinclair yawned. The conversation really did not interest her much, and she had her own reasons for not wishing to let it get too intimate. She had taken a fancy to Melville when she first saw him in the Riviera; he belonged to the type of man in whose company she was most at home, and she foresaw a certain amount of pleasurable excitement in which she could participate with him without being worried by demonstrations of a more affectionate interest, which men not related to her were apt to make. A nephew is safer than a cousin.

"You must ask me to dine with you," she said, "and we will develop our acquaintance gradually. I hate finding out all about people at once and having nothing left to learn."

"Dine with me to-night," said Melville promptly. The hundred pounds were burning a hole in his pocket, and he felt convinced that more would be forthcoming now from the same source. "Where shall it be?"

"Wherever you like," Mrs. Sinclair replied. "I'm always interested in people's varying ideas of hospitality. Come here for me at half-past seven and take me to the appointed place. Only don't tell me now where it is to be."

"All right," said Melville with alacrity. He liked her point of view and felt amazingly sympathetic already. Moreover, he recognised as clearly as she did the value of their relationship as a preventative of mutual misunderstandings. "I will go and fix it up. 'Pon my honour, I'm awfully delighted about this."

"Respect my confidence," she said gravely. "I may rely on that?"

"Absolutely," he answered. "I never interfere with other people's private business. It's not my form; and, besides, I'm so grateful to you for recognising me that I'm not going to forfeit a good thing."

Mrs. Sinclair was satisfied. She rang the bell for the maid to open the door, and smiled graciously upon her nephew.

"I hope you're going to be a great success," she said, as he rose to go. "There is an element of romance in the way fate has brought us together that is fascinating, and really you are a very creditable nephew."

Melville smiled sardonically. His aunt's husband held such a different opinion!

"I am a particularly fortunate one, I think," was all he said, and as he went out into the Fulham Road he thought the sun had never shone so brightly. Fortune had turned her wheel again, and his gambler's soul exulted.