Chapter VIII: Rivals

Ralph was disconcerted and not a little puzzled, but neither Melville nor Sir Geoffrey vouchsafed any explanation, and there was a traditional discipline maintained by the uncle over his nephews that precluded Ralph from asking any questions. So Melville made himself entirely at home, and no reference was made to the hundred pounds, for procuring which he had been within an ace of being prosecuted. Moreover, the one night's stay at the Manor House was extended into a week, and when at length he took his departure to London it was of his own free motion and not at the instigation of any of his relatives.

During the week he had several private interviews with Sir Geoffrey, but what passed between them was known only to themselves. On one occasion Mr. Tracy came down and was closeted for some time with Sir Geoffrey, but Melville, who was summoned to the library, emerged ultimately with a cheerful demeanour that effectually disposed of any suggestion that the advent of the solicitor was connected with his recent fraudulent transaction. He was, indeed, remarkably well pleased with the results of that particular debate, and subsequently jingled the money in his pockets with a light-heartedness most unseemly in a culprit.

Finally he bade a friendly farewell to his brother, a deferential one to his uncle, and a regretful one to Gwendolen Austen, and with the utmost self-satisfaction journeyed back to his chambers in Jermyn Street to enjoy the remainder of the season on an unruffled conscience and a well-filled purse.

His first visit was to his starving aunt, who gave him an excellent luncheon, accompanied by claret of undeniable quality; the impression left upon his mind at their first interview, that he had found an extremely pleasant acquaintance, was confirmed. Mrs. Sinclair was a "good comrade," and Melville became one of her most frequent visitors and her usual squire to the theatre and other places where the world amuses itself. He liked her unaffectedly, and she liked him, and the little house in The Vale would have had unalloyed charm for Melville but for the constant presence there of two other people.

The first of these was Mrs. Sinclair's maid, Lucille, who had admitted him on the occasion of his first visit. Entirely devoted to her mistress, with whom she had lived for many years, she had done her utmost to dissuade Lavender from writing to Melville and thus introducing an element of difficulty into a career now undisturbed, and likely to end in a marriage so desirable as that with the wealthy Scotch baronet, Sir Ross Buchanan.

The other was Sir Ross Buchanan himself, who was with Mrs. Sinclair in the Casino at Monte Carlo on the night when Melville became the recipient of the _viaticum_. Subject to the limitations suggested by his native Scotch caution, he intended to bestow his large fortune and his small person upon Mrs. Sinclair, and, knowing nothing of Melville's relationship by marriage to the object of his passion, he regarded him with dislike and jealous mistrust. He took no pains to conceal his dislike of Melville, and told Mrs. Sinclair in so many words that he disapproved of his visits.

"Have you any more grown-up relations to spring upon me?" he asked sarcastically.

"Now you're being stupid," she replied. "He is related to me and I like him, and now that I've opened my doors to him, I'm not going to close them again to gratify your caprice."

Sir Ross frowned.

"I hate the brute," he said viciously, "and I object to his visiting you."

"Then I had better arrange that you should not meet him," Mrs. Sinclair answered; "there will be no difficulty about that."

"I object to his visiting you at all," Sir Ross repeated. "You are too fond of him as it is; your attentions are quite marked. If you are so much attached to him now, there is no reason why you should not insist upon receiving him after we are married, and that I have no intention of permitting."

Mrs. Sinclair was not the woman to brook dictation.

"You might conceivably have some ground for objecting to Mr. Ashley visiting me if he were not related to me," she said coldly, "though even then I should think you unreasonable. But he is related to me, so your objection is merely absurd. Whatever you may do after we are married, you cannot revise my visiting list now."

"How is he related to you?" Sir Ross asked angrily, but that was a question which Mrs. Sinclair did not choose to answer. Sir Ross knew all about Mr. Sinclair, with whom Lavender really believed her marriage to have been perfectly legal, but he did not know anything about Sir Geoffrey Holt, and Lavender was particularly anxious that he should not. The only command she had laid upon Melville was that he should not talk about his uncle, and he had faithfully obeyed her. As potential husbands are not in the habit of discussing their predecessors in that office, she knew that Sir Ross would not talk about Mr. Sinclair, so that there had been no difficulty on that score either. Thus Melville was in ignorance of the fact that there ever had been any Mr. Sinclair, and Sir Ross was in ignorance, if not of Sir Geoffrey Holt's existence, at any rate of the part he had played in Lavender Sinclair's life. But for the impulse which had prompted her to claim Melville as her nephew, all the facts might have remained in the oblivion into which they had sunk.

"Very well," said Sir Ross, as Lavender remained silent, "if I cannot yet revise your visiting list, I can put you to your election between this person and myself. I have the honour to be your accepted suitor, and I object to this gentleman's attentions. You will be so good as to choose between him and me. If in defiance of my wishes you continue to receive him I shall absent myself from your house and consider our engagement at an end. If you are unwilling that that should occur you will dismiss Mr. Ashley as summarily as you took him up. I require you to choose between him and me, and I will come to-morrow for your answer. Good afternoon!" and unceremoniously hurrying into the hall he crammed his hat upon his head and marched away in high dudgeon.

But fortune still favoured Melville, or else it was Destiny leading him by easy gradations down to his destruction. For when the morrow came, bright and sunny, he found that he had no engagements until the evening, and determined to while away part of the time by chatting with his aunt. He therefore sauntered leisurely towards South Kensington, pausing in Piccadilly to buy some hothouse flowers for her. When he reached The Vale, Mrs. Sinclair was engaged with a dressmaker, and Melville, leaving the flowers in the hall, was shown into the drawing-room to wait her pleasure. Lucille brought the message asking him to wait, and was on the point of returning upstairs when the bell rang again. She opened the door and saw Sir Ross Buchanan, to whose cause with her mistress she was a staunch adherent. Instead of going upstairs to enquire whether Mrs. Sinclair was at home to him, Lucille took it upon herself to ask him, too, to wait, and ushered him into the drawing-room where Melville already was.

"There isn't any love lost between those two gentlemen," she thought as she opened the drawing-room door and noticed the change in Sir Ross's expression when his eye fell upon Melville, "and I'll give them the opportunity of having a few words. If Sir Ross is the man I take him for, he'll make it clear to Mr. Ashley that his room is preferred to his company."

Melville greeted Sir Ross cheerfully, ignoring the scowl upon the little baronet's face.

"Nice and cool in here," he remarked. "Mrs. Sinclair is engaged--frocks and frills, I understand, and all that sort of thing."

"I didn't have the impertinence to ask particulars," snapped Sir Ross, "and I don't take any interest in the details of ladies' toilettes."

"No?" said Melville. "That's a mistake; you should always be interested in what interests women, and nothing interests them so much as frocks--except frills."

"I don't require any lessons in how to deal with women, thanks," said Sir Ross.

Melville was amused. A little conversational fencing was always to his taste, and when one's opponent is angry to begin with, the odds are on oneself.

"Shouldn't presume to offer any to a man of the world, such as you are," he said, but if it was his intention to mollify Sir Ross, he was disappointed.

"I have an appointment with Mrs. Sinclair to-day," the baronet said, "on a matter of some importance. Perhaps you could make it convenient not to wait to see her this afternoon?"

"Mrs. Sinclair asked me to wait," Melville replied; "so I will, thanks." That Buchanan wanted him to go was enough to induce him to remain, but it was the only reason. Sir Ross, however, could not be expected to know that.

"To be precise, I have come to see her about you," he said.

"Oh! believe me, I am of no importance," Melville answered, smiling, "no importance whatever."

Sir Ross fumed and considered. Since Melville was obviously determined not to budge, perhaps the best thing to do was to explain the terms on which he stood with Mrs. Sinclair, and tell him quite frankly that he did not mean to put up with any tame cats. Incidentally, too, he might find out what the alleged relationship between Mrs. Sinclair and Melville amounted to.

"Perhaps you are not aware of the footing on which I stand with regard to Mrs. Sinclair?" he said, in a somewhat challenging tone.

"That of a valued friend, I am sure," Melville replied, a grin belying the politeness of his words.

"I am her affianced husband," Sir Ross announced pompously.

"The deuce you are!" said Melville. "I beg your pardon, I'm sure," he added hastily, "but you rather took me by surprise. Pray accept my warm congratulations."

"The fact that I am engaged to be married to her," Sir Ross went on, taking no notice of the congratulations, "will perhaps serve as an excuse for what I am going to say. You come here too much, Mr. Ashley, and I don't like it--I don't like it. Your constant attendance excites remark, and may compromise Mrs. Sinclair. That, in the circumstances, is a thing which I cannot permit."

He drew himself up and endeavoured to assume an air of commanding dignity. Melville, on the track of a mystery, never made a mistake. How Mrs. Sinclair contemplated marrying Sir Ross Buchanan, or anybody else, until Sir Geoffrey Holt shuffled off this mortal coil he could not conceive, but Sir Ross was evidently quite in earnest, and by fooling him to the top of his bent he might induce him to impart knowledge, which Melville had ever found a most valuable asset.

"I quite understand, Sir Ross," he murmured. "It is a most natural and proper feeling. But believe me, if I have been indiscreet I have erred through ignorance."

"You have been indiscreet," Sir Ross retorted, "and I am resolved that the indiscretion shall be terminated. I discussed the matter with Mrs. Sinclair yesterday, and, in point of fact, my appointment with her to-day was made that I might receive her answer."

"Forgive me if I'm dense," Melville said, "but even now I don't quite understand. That you might receive her answer to what?"

"You compel me to be candid," Sir Ross said, getting very red; "in plain English, I told Mrs. Sinclair that one of us--either you or I--must discontinue calling at her house, and I've come to know which it is to be."

Melville hugged himself.

"My dear Sir Ross," he protested, "you do me too much honour. I could never aspire to be your rival in any case. In this case the honour of your jealousy is so unnecessary. My relationship to Mrs. Sinclair puts any idea of a more intimate tie out of the question."

"What is your relationship to her?" Sir Ross asked bluntly.

Melville was on his guard at once. Acquiring information was one thing, imparting it another. If Sir Ross did not know, Mrs. Sinclair must have had her reasons for not telling him, and Melville was no marplot; he preferred to stand in.

"I am related to her by marriage," he answered vaguely.

"I knew the late Mr. Sinclair intimately," Sir Ross replied, "and I never heard of any relations of his named Ashley. However, it doesn't affect my point."

"I've a shocking memory for dates," Melville said. "How long is it actually since Mr. Sinclair died?"

"He died on Jubilee Day," Sir Ross answered shortly. "Mr. Ashley, I've been quite frank with you, and you will oblige me by giving me a specific answer to my question. Do you, now you know the facts, intend to observe my request that you will discontinue your very marked attentions to the lady who has done me the honour to accept my hand?"

"I think I must ask you to await Mrs. Sinclair's answer, for which you have called by appointment," Melville answered suavely. "You see, Sir Ross, this is her house, and I can only accept dismissal from it at the desire of its owner, who invited me to it. There is another point, too; my relationship to Mrs. Sinclair renders your apprehensions unnecessary, and I think it would be presumption on my part to do anything to suggest they were well founded."

"In short, you won't go?" Sir Ross asked, with suppressed fury.

"Thank you, no," Melville replied.

"Then I will," said Sir Ross, and rising abruptly he bounced out of the door, leaving Melville in possession of the field.

Lavender Sinclair, coming downstairs at that moment, met him in the hall.

"You're not going, are you?" she enquired. "I am sorry I've been so long."

"I was going," he answered, "but perhaps it may not be necessary. I've come for your answer, Lavender. Which is it to be?"

"Come into the dining-room," she said, "and have a cigarette. What do you mean?"

"Which is it to be?" he repeated. "I put you to your choice yesterday. Do you choose to dismiss Mr. Ashley or me?"

"How silly you are!" she said good-humouredly. "Fancy your still harping on that string! You needn't meet Mr. Ashley, need you?"

"I can't help it," Sir Ross retorted; "the brute's always here. I've been shut up with him now for the last half-hour."

Mrs. Sinclair laughed, though in reality she was a little annoyed.

"How foolish of Lucille to put you into the same room! But it shall not occur again. It was the merest accident."

"I don't know about an accident," Sir Ross growled; "it was a misfortune. Lavender, I meant what I said yesterday; you must choose between this man and me. Are you going to send him about his business?"

"No," said Mrs. Sinclair obstinately; "I am not. What is it you object to in him?"

"I object to everything," Sir Ross answered. "I don't like you having any man hanging about you so much, and I bar this particular one. That ought to be enough."

"I believe you're jealous," Mrs. Sinclair said.

"It don't matter what I am," Sir Ross said angrily, "if you're not going to take any notice of my wishes. Jealous or not, I'm in earnest. Which is it to be?"

"I can't affront people in this way," she replied. "What reason am I to give him?"

"I've done that for you," Sir Ross remarked. "I told him you were going to marry me, and that I wouldn't have him compromising you."

Mrs. Sinclair was irritated.

"You had no right to do anything of the kind," she said warmly. "What did he say?"

"He said he would go if, and when, you told him," Sir Ross answered. "Will you tell him now?"

"No," said Mrs. Sinclair; "certainly not."

"Then I will wish you a very good-day," he answered frigidly. "Pray do not trouble to come into the hall. You are keeping Mr. Ashley waiting."

"Good-bye," she replied with unconcern. "Come back when you're in a better temper. Won't you take your flowers?"

She held out Melville's offering, and it proved the last straw. Sir Ross controlled himself by a heroic effort, but vouchsafed no answer to this feminine last word. He departed in a frame of mind that was positively dangerous.

"He'll come back," Mrs. Sinclair said cheerfully to Lucille, who had been a witness of the baronet's exit, but the maid shook her head.

"I don't fancy he will," she said. She was sorry, for Sir Ross's title appealed to her imagination, and she had anticipated with satisfaction her mistress's promotion in the social scale. "I've never seen Sir Ross so put out before, and I don't fancy he will come back."

"Then he can stay away," Mrs. Sinclair replied; "but it's as well to begin as you mean to go on, and if he is so eccentric before marriage I don't suppose he'd be any better afterwards. Fancy his objecting to Mr. Ashley coming here!"

"I shouldn't think much of him if he didn't object," Lucille answered primly. "Any man who is a man dislikes another man paying attention to his young lady. Mr. Ashley brought those flowers, ma'am."

Mrs. Sinclair laughed; the philosophy of the remark amused her, and her mistake about the bouquet struck her as really funny. She looked at herself in the mirror, and put back a curl of hair that had strayed out of place. Then she picked up the flowers.

"How sweet of Mr. Ashley to think of them," she said. "I must go and thank him at once," and, still bubbling over with amusement, she went into the drawing-room. But, outside, Lucille still shook her head.

"It's a mistake," she said to herself, "and she'll live to regret it, I'm sure."