Lord Loveland Discovers America

Val was not inclined to try any more hotels. He felt very young in his loneliness and humiliation, and his heart yearned wistfully for the shabby Scotch shooting-box where his mother lived and thought long thoughts of her. The snow that had fallen so coldly outside her windows seemed warmer than these stars that with their sparkling embroidery canopied a strange land; and the sparsely furnished rooms of the lodge were more beautiful in his remembrance than the gorgeous suite at the Waldorf-Astoria.

His mother grudged herself comforts for his sake, yet she had a fire. Val generally pictured her in autumn and winter, bending towards the glow of the rosy flames, holding out her beautifully shaped hands to their kisses. He would be thankful to share the warmth of that fire now; and the faint scent of burning peat – cheapest fuel! – as it stole fragrantly into his memory, gave him a horrid twinge of homesickness such as he had never felt, even in South Africa; for he had had friends around him in the war days.

When he had been in Scotland last – on that flying visit which began with good advice and ended with pink pearls – he had complained of the cooking.

He thought of that, too, at this moment, and laughed a little to himself. He would have been very glad of a chance to taste some of that Scotch broth which he had discarded because it was too thick and too salt. He was sharply hungry; and this hunger gnawed with a wicked persistence it had lacked in South Africa, because in those stirring times it had been shared by all alike, merrily, with jokes.

Yes, he was hungry, sickeningly hungry; and he did not see any prospect of satisfying his appetite that night, unless he should tear the gold sleeve-links out of his shirtcuffs to offer humbly in some cheap restaurant in exchange for a meal. They were not worth much intrinsically; but the thought of the cuffs denuded, ignominious, and the picture of himself – metaphorically – swallowing the buttons like a conjurer, so revolted his fastidious imagination, that he snatched at an alternative, almost any alternative. So it was that, when something which his mother would have called an inspiration floated nebulously through his head, Loveland welcomed it as an astronomer welcomes a new star.

He remembered hearing Betty or Jim Harborough say that in American towns a man might call upon a family he knew well, up to the hour of ten in the evening. It was not nearly ten yet, and though there was no family in New York whom Val knew well, it was a case of any port in a storm.

The Coolidges were now out of the running, and the Miltons; but a Mr. and Mrs. Beverly, with a daughter, had (half apologetically) invited him to visit at their house in Park Avenue. They were rich or richish, though with a trail of trade behind them, and the girl was pretty or prettyish. She seemed positively beautiful to the hungry and homeless Loveland, as the vision of her face lightened the cloud of his misery, and he would have been almost ready to pledge his future to Miss Beverly for a mess of pottage in the way of a kindly welcome, a dinner, a bed, and money in hand for the letter of credit.

He had cannily refused the invitation, pleading many engagements difficult to keep if visiting (the same formula had answered several hospitable offers), but he could easily explain the late call, by lightly recounting the story of his misfortune, making a jest of it, and throwing himself on the family's mercy. He hoped and believed that they would insist upon his staying all night in their house, also that a loan sufficient to pay his hotel bill and redeem his luggage might be suggested.

The prospect of release from all his woes was so soothing, and apparently so easy to compass, that the mere thought was a warming cordial. Val walked briskly back into Fifth Avenue, and asked the way of the first man he met.

The man was amiable, and Loveland felt an impulse of gratitude towards him for lucid and fluent explanations. After all, some of these Americans had very agreeable manners!

Val found Park Avenue a dignified street, and with the pleasantest anticipations ran up the steps of the Beverlys' house, the number of which had fortunately stuck in his memory. There were lights in all the windows of the two lower floors, and as he pressed the electric bell, he saw a shadow flit across the half transparent silk curtains – a shadow which was like a faint silhouette of plump little Madge Beverly.

"It's all right – they're at home, thank goodness!" he said to himself, as he waited for the door to open; and a sense of calm well-being fell upon him, with the assurance that his troubles were over at last. It was like the joy of a bad sailor when the bell of the Channel boat clangs at Calais after a hideous welter of seas in crossing.

A neat servant was soon framed against a yellow background of cheerful light; and at some distance, screened in shadow, the man who had followed Loveland waited once more with a certain anxiety in his eyes.

Val enquired for Mr. and Mrs. Beverly. They were at home, said the servant, in the "living room," with a party of relations who had come to welcome them back after their visit to Europe. If the gentleman would step into the reception room and send up his card, Mr. and Mrs. Beverly would no doubt be down in a minute.

"But when people are at home one doesn't send in one's card," said Loveland, arguing according to English ways.

The servant, trained to American fashions and knowing no others, looked surprised at this statement. He thought the tall gentleman without an overcoat must be a peculiar person, and he had been taught to distrust peculiar persons.

"Tell your master and mistress that Lord Loveland has called, but will not keep them long from their friends," said Val, growing impatient under the man's narrow look.

The servant resented the suggestion that, as a free man, in a free country, he could have a master and mistress. And a Lord Anybody sounded like a practical joke to him; for though he had begun by being a Swede, he had been an American since he was short-coated. However, he was well trained, according to his lights and the family traditions of the Beverlys. He ushered the Practical Joker into a handsome drawing-room, and vanished upstairs to explain the odd young gentleman who never announced himself with cards.

The parlour was a very nice parlour, tastefully furnished. There were portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Beverly, facing each other upon the walls; and the lady's picture, evidently painted many years ago, so poignantly suggested what Madge would be at her age, that Loveland was alarmed.

"I'll do anything else to show my gratitude except marry the daughter," he was making up his mind in advance, when the servant returned, with a grave face. Indeed, it could not have been more solemn if he had come to break the news that all Lord Loveland's surviving relatives had perished together in a holocaust.

"Mr. and Mrs. Beverly are very sorry, sir," said the man, "but they are too much engaged to see anybody tonight."

Val rose, haughtily. His pride and his hopes had both received another severe rap, all the sharper because unexpected, but his face did not show his mortification.

"I'll trouble you to open the door," he said, as the servant stood petrified. And so once more Lord Loveland was thrown upon the hospitality of the streets. The flitting shadows were gone from the windows, which still gleamed cheerily; but they were dark to the outcast's heart.

"I needn't have bothered about how to show my gratitude," he reminded himself. "I don't think they're exactly going to make a point of my marrying their girl, after all."

He was able to smile at this thought, but it was a very faint, chill smile. And his amazement at the treatment he was receiving everywhere, in place of the flattering attention he had been led to expect, was blank and blind as a high stone wall without doors or windows.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A Proposition

Naturally it occurred to Val that the trail of Cadwallader Hunter must have reached as far as the Beverly household; and almost he found it in his heart to respect a man with executive ability to accomplish so swift, so sweeping, so secret a revenge.

"The old fellow must have had a busy day," Loveland thought, half amused on top of hunger and discouragement. He pictured the Major running lithely about since the snub at lunchtime, up to the last moment before dressing for dinner, prejudicing all the friends made on board the Mauretania against the Englishman to whom he had proudly introduced them.

And besides, one must grant a certain cleverness to a brain able to weave grounds of prejudice against a person – nay, a personage – important and unimpeachable, as Loveland considered himself to be. How Cadwallader Hunter had done it, Val could not imagine; but that the mysterious thing which had been done was the Major's work, he did not doubt. As for the bother with the bank, of course that was another matter, a coincidence unconnected with the annoyances which had followed, for Cadwallader Hunter could not have known anything about the letter of credit, or where it was to be presented. And though the spiteful old thing was apparently acquainted with Mr. van Cotter, who had been one of the Coolidge party, he could scarcely have read clairvoyantly all the names on the letters of introduction, even if he knew the people.

As Val asked himself forlornly what was left for him to do next, this last argument brought consolation, and a welcome new idea at the same time. As the Major had "got hold of" the Coolidges, the Miltons and Beverlys, why not go and throw himself on the mercy of some of Jim Harborough's friends?

Loveland had conscientiously distributed all the letters in the afternoon, and had put the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel as a New York address on his visiting cards. Now, owing to unforeseen circumstances (another name for the Major's vindictiveness) that address was his no longer. When people called, as no doubt they would do tomorrow, they were likely to find that he had vanished into space. Yes, without doubt the best thing he could do was to call tonight at one of the houses where he had alighted in the afternoon. He would walk to the nearest one; but – now he came to think of it, which was the nearest, and of which was he certain that he could remember the street and number?

Val had not charged his mind with the addresses on the letters, so sure had he been that the recipients would lose no time in calling. Now, he went over the eight or nine names in his head, and thought that he had kept them all straight; but to save his life he could not say which number, which street, appertained to which person.

This was a dilemma, almost a calamity. But one address seemed to stand out before his eyes – a number in Fifth Avenue; and he thought it was a Mrs. Anson who lived there. The house was a handsome one, at a corner. He had admired it; and as it was not far uptown he would not have more than a mile to travel. He could still make his visit, and tell his pitiful tale, before ten o'clock.

He walked fast, and it was by an effort that the man of the shadows kept him in sight; for Val's legs were long, and his were not. But he did contrive to cling close enough to see a tall figure slowly descend a flight of stone steps climbed with alert hopefulness a few moments earlier.

This time there was a discouraged droop of the head and shoulders and a dragging hesitation in the gait which seemed to show that the wanderer did not know what his next move ought to be.

At last the watcher decided that he had waited long enough. The Englishman had come to the end of his tether. He was tired out and sick at heart; in fact, precisely in the mood which the other had been patiently expecting.

Loveland walked away from the house where Mrs. Anson was "giving a dinner party and regretted that she was unable to receive visitors." Jim Harborough's friend! Could it be that Cadwallader Hunter's tentacles had wormed themselves round this lady's sympathies also, or was the dismissal another coincidence, like that of the bank? Loveland did not know, but he did know that the sole possessions left him were a great hunger which he might not satisfy, and a great longing to have somewhere to lay his head.

"Good evening," said the man who had caught up with him, speaking somewhat breathlessly, but in a friendly voice.

Loveland turned with a slight start, and looked at the other's face, which at that moment could be plainly seen by the light of a street lamp.

There was a vague familiarity in the stranger's appearance, but Val had come into contact with so many new people lately, that he could attach no label to these features.

"I was dining near you at the Waldorf-Astoria," explained the unknown.

"Oh!" exclaimed Loveland, instantly adjusting the label. "You were with the Coolidges, I remember." The tips of his ears began to tingle. This fellow must have seen him walk out of the restaurant where he'd been denied his dinner – probably knew that he had been practically turned away from the hotel, because he hadn't the money to pay his bill.

"My name's Milton," the short, dark man introduced himself. "I've been trying to catch you up for some time."

"Why?" abruptly asked Loveland, suspicious of everybody and everything now.

"Why? Oh, well, I wanted the pleasure of a conversation with you."

"You know who I am?" Loveland enquired.

"Yes, I know who you are." Mr. Milton emphasised each word separately, as if with a tap of a miniature hammer. There was an intentional significance in his way of speaking, but the meaning was obscure to Loveland.

Val could not guess what the other's object was in following him, and in his smarting sensitiveness was on guard against some new indignity.

"I met Mrs. Milton and – your daughter, on the Mauretania," he ventured, by way of keeping on neutral ground until he should learn where to take his stand. And truth to tell, he had been so miserable in his homesickness, his sense of desertion and humiliation, that any friendly-seeming companionship was pitifully welcome. A few hours ago he would have quickly decided that he did not like the man's face or manner, and would have made no bones about snubbing him; but there was a high barrier between "then" and "now," and Lord Loveland almost clung to Mr. Milton.