“I suppose I can bring an action—”
“What about?” interposed Clinton. “I suppose in theory you could apply for an injunction to prevent this fellow putting forward his claims or your great-uncle from acknowledging them. But I certainly never heard of such an action, and I don’t know quite whether it would stand. You see, the point is this. Courts of Equity will redress any wrong. That’s what they’re for. If you have suffered any wrong, the courts are open to you and it’s for them to find a remedy. But at present you’ve suffered none.”
“What—” Ralph was beginning in something like a roar but Clinton stopped him with a lifted hand.
“In the eyes of the law,” he said quietly, “your position is exactly what it was. That is, you had no rights before and therefore they have not been affected. While the holder of the Wych title and estates is alive, the heir has no rights whatever—except that under the entail he could stop any sale of land or other goods covered by the entail. But no such sale is contemplated. On the death of the holder naturally any claimant can petition for his rights to be acknowledged. But at present you are, so to say, an uninterested party. In theory, Countess Wych might die, Earl Wych might marry again and might have a son. Then both you and this impostor fellow would be out of it. I believe it’s not a physical impossibility for a man of that age to have a son. Of course, it won’t happen, but the courts can’t act on the ‘it won’t happen’ idea.”
“Do you mean there’s nothing I can do about it?” demanded Ralph, looking very much as if he very firmly intended to do a good deal about it.
“I’ve been giving you my opinion,” Clinton answered, “my un-considered opinion though. I mean, it’s a new point. I can’t remember anything of the sort before. I didn’t bother to look it up, because, when I brought the fellow here, I fully expected your uncle to ask a few questions and then clear him out for the obvious fraud he seemed to me—he still seems to me. But it didn’t turn out like that. The fellow rolled out his yarn and your uncle took it all in. You must see that makes his position immensely strong.”
“I’ll go and ask uncle—” Ralph began and was about to move towards the house, but Clinton stopped him.
“No,” he said firmly. “You’re in no state to do that. It would be dangerous. Dangerous for him, dangerous for you, too. Remember, he’s an old man. If you take my advice—” He paused abruptly, so abruptly indeed that Ralph looked at him in some surprise. Clinton moved away a step or two and then came back. He had the air of a man who had suddenly seen a new and startling aspect of the problem before them and was a good deal shaken. He seemed to make up his mind with a gesture of striking one hand into the other. “All right, all right,” he said aloud, and then he looked directly at Ralph. “I take it you intend to fight for your rights?” he asked.
“I do that,” Ralph answered. “Not only for my rights but because I don’t mean to let a filthy fraud like that fellow get away with it. I’ve got some family feeling left. If a real heir turned up, all right, I’d get out and I shouldn’t grumble either. But I don’t mean to let a stranger boss it here.” He turned as he spoke and looked out again over that wide expanse of fair countryside where he knew and loved almost every tree and bush and field, every stream and woodland path. “No,” he said again. “Or there,” he added, nodding towards the ancient pile in whose shadow they stood. “Oh, I’ll fight all right,” he said. “Only why has my uncle done this thing?”
“If you fight,” Clinton went on slowly, “you’ll want legal advice. I want you to understand my position. We —the firm, I mean—we act for the Wych estate. That’s been so for a good many years. The Wych estate—I won’t say it’s the bulk of our practice, but it is the most important part. Your uncle has a perfect right to change his lawyers at any moment. He will certainly do it if he finds we are acting for you in an attempt to prove a common swindler the man he has publicly accepted as his grandson.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed Ralph. “You know, I’m sorry. This thing has come so suddenly, I hardly know where I am. I quite see what you mean. That’s quite all right. Very natural. I must try to get someone.”
“What I’m thinking,” Clinton Wells went on, “is there’s no one could help you the way we could. I know that sounds a bit conceited but I think it’s true. We have, so to say, the atmosphere of it all, in a way that’s just not possible for any one coming in fresh. What I’m going to suggest is this. I’ll dissolve partnership. I daren’t, I don’t think it would be right, ask the other two to run such a risk. They’re married, got responsibilities. Besides, I don’t know what view they’ll take. I can’t suggest dragging them into it. But if I resign from the firm, I can act for you freely. There’ll be no reason for Earl Wych to take his business away, once I’ve taken myself away. And I think I can say without too much egotism that I can be ten times more useful to you than any one could be only brought in now.”
“Look here,” said Ralph, a good deal moved. “I mean to say—well, it’s awfully good of you. Only—well, it’s a big risk.”
Clinton nodded.
“Very big,” he agreed. “It’ll be for big stakes—all in. If we lose, we shall both be done for. But I don’t think we shall. I’m utterly convinced we can prove this fellow is a fraud. And I feel I can do it. Mind you,” he added, with a little nervous laugh, “I know I’ve a lot to gain as well as lose. If we bring it off, my name will be made. Clinton Wells, the fellow who pulled through the big succession case. That’s what people will say. I shall be a made man.”
“You’re taking a big risk all the same,” Ralph repeated. “I shan’t forget. No reason why you shouldn’t have stood out. I—I—” he stammered a little, something like a lump in his throat. “I’m grateful,” he said and impulsively he held out his hand.
Clinton Wells took it. For a moment they stood so, their hands firmly clasped. Clinton Wells said:—
“Do nothing at present. We must lay our plans. I must be free first. You understand until I am free from my present obligations to your uncle and my partners, I can’t take any steps whatever. That’s no harm. Just as well to wait for their next move. The first thing to do will be to dig up who this fellow really is. For the moment, we must just wait and see. You understand?”
Ralph nodded silently. It was action he wanted, but he realized the force of the other’s arguments.
CHAPTER III
SOME DOUBTS
Although Bertram had been drinking tea and eating cakes and sandwiches with, as Mr. Winston Churchill might have said, a ‘certain relish’, none the less all this time he had also been watching closely Ralph and Clinton Wells as they talked together at the end of the terrace. Obviously he was uneasy at their prolonged conversation, and would have very much liked to know what they were saying.
At the tea table itself few remarks were made. Arthur was still plunged deep in puzzled thought, and every now and then would stare hard at Bertram and then abruptly look away again. Sophy thought to herself: ‘Mr. Arthur doesn’t believe in him, but he is wondering how he can turn it to his own profit,’ and quite suddenly she realized she had always known that Mr. Arthur Hoyle, as a good business man, always thought first of how to turn any unexpected situation to his own profit.
Anne only spoke to make occasional and conventional observations, such as ‘Do you take sugar?’ and so on, but in her case Sophy was sure she was perplexed and doubtful, bewildered by her grandfather’s announcement, unable fully to accept it and yet also unable to understand why the old man should say such a thing unless it were true. Sophy thought, too, that Anne was looking at Bertram with a good deal of personal interest. He was certainly good looking for those who liked that style, and he had a kind of appealing, friendly way with him, a little like that of a well-trained dog. Sophy felt it was a manner likely to appeal to Anne, who always wished to feel herself dominating others. It was one of the reasons why she herself always got on so well with Anne, because, of course, it was natural for an insignifican
t little thing like herself to accept the domination of such a brilliant, forceful personality as Anne. Then Sophy thought:— “No, he isn’t a bit like a well-trained dog, more like a cat that can purr, and scratch, too, if you don’t mind.” Aloud she said, very much surprised:—
“Oh, Mr. Ralph’s going.”
Ralph, in fact, had descended the terrace steps and was striding away across the lawn. It might have been a flight. It had not that air. More like a march to the attack, Sophy thought. The tall, upright figure, the head held high, the whole impression of strong intention and resolve his bearing gave, denied any notion of retreat. They all watched him and they all alike understood that from him energetic action in defence of the position he had held as heir, was to be expected. Bertram said uncomfortably:—
“Got it in for me all right, so he has. Gee, I’m keeping out of his way dark nights.”
To Sophy the surprising thing was that in Bertram’s voice as he said this there was evident fear—plain, sheer physical fear, as if he expected Ralph would soon be back, armed with some lethal weapon.
“Well, you can’t wonder, can you?” Arthur said.
“Glad this isn’t God’s own country across the herring pond,” Bertram remarked with an uneasy laugh. “You don’t go in for gun play over here, do you?’’
“It all depends,” Arthur answered, with such evident malice that Sophy was convinced he, too, had noticed the fear in Bertram’s uncertain tones.
“He must be a real coward,” Sophy told herself, for the first time recognizing the fact that even a man might prefer running to fighting; and that, if cows seldom scared the masculine race, yet members of it might be all the more afraid of other dangers and perils.
One good thing about that thought was that Anne, who was certainly no coward, who cared nothing at all for cows and who really seemed to like holding a car at sixty or seventy miles an hour on the open road, would have no further sympathy with the intruder. To Sophy’s further astonishment, however, Anne was watching Bertram with a small, amused smile that was not at all unfriendly, or even contemptuous, that was, in fact, almost pleased. Sophy’s glance turned towards the departing Ralph. He was just vanishing behind some ornamental bushes. Odd that that disappearing back, as it might be in retreat, gave so strong an impression of determination and resolve. As odd indeed as that Bertram, sitting there in apparently full possession of the field, gave an equally strong impression of nervousness and alarm. Then Sophy had a fresh shock. Anne had watched Ralph vanish from sight, and her eyes were hard and questioning. She looked back at Bertram, and they took on a much softer and yet strangely calculating expression. Sophy found herself thinking:—
“She is telling herself she could never boss Ralph but she could Bertram, and she does always want to boss every one.”
But this thought seemed to her so treacherous and unfair that hurriedly she put it out of her mind.
Clinton Wells came back to the tea table. He did not sit down. He said:—
“I think perhaps I ought to tell you that Ralph does not intend to accept this new situation, and that I have promised to act for him.”
“You?” almost shouted Bertram. “Why, you can’t, you—” He stopped abruptly as Clinton gave him an angry and authoritative look. “Oh, well, I suppose you know what you are doing,” he mumbled.
“I am well aware,” Clinton said coldly, “that I am a partner in a firm charged with the interests of the Earl Wych, who has accepted you, sir, as his grandson and heir. My firm is in no way implicated in my action. I shall naturally sever my connection with it. Impossible to act for two persons whose interests appear to be opposed, one of whom indeed is contemplating taking proceedings against the other.”
“Well, what can Ralph do?” Arthur asked. “If grandpa says, here’s my grandson, what can any one else do? Cousin Bertram was just thanking his stars we don’t go in for gun play over here and don’t carry six-shooters around in our pockets.”
“In point of fact,” observed Clinton Wells grimly, “Ralph has a pistol—an automatic, I believe. Keeps it in the safe in the office. The old land agent got a licence for it years ago, when a bank was raided outside Midwych. There were often big sums in the office when the rents were paid—in cash, too. Some of the smaller tenants still pay in cash. But he won’t use it in this connection. The gentleman introduced to us as Mr. Bertram Hoyle need not be afraid of that.”
“Of course not,” agreed Anne, “the idea’s nonsense.”
“Nonsense,” confirmed Arthur. “Ralph will take care the case is proved all the way home and back again, but that’s all.”
But Bertram did not look too convinced.
“I’ve seen a fellow look the way he did,” he said, “and mighty soon the fellow he looked at was dead, pumped full of lead.”
“Oh!” Sophy gasped, so loudly that they all looked at her.
Anne laughed abruptly.
“Our Joan of Arc again,” she said teasingly. “Sophy could do it herself, I believe.”
“Oh!” gasped Sophy again, quite overwhelmed, even more horrified by a sudden conviction that Anne had had a glimpse in her of depths she herself had never dreamed existed.
Was it possible, she wondered, that others knew more of you than you ever knew of yourself? Was it possible Anne was right about her, and that if she were put to it she would be capable of things she had never dreamed of? Or was it possible she was right about Anne, and that for power, the power to dominate and rule, Anne would go to any lengths? Disturbing thoughts, and thoughts that once again Sophy put resolutely from her.
The others had not been paying much attention. Arthur was saying again to Bertram:—
“My dear fellow, this is England, not Chicago.”
“Got no killers in England?” Bertram asked, and that was a question no one answered.
“If Ralph shot you, he would be hanged, you know,” observed Anne dispassionately.
“Well, that’s a thing to say,” complained Bertram. “What good would hanging him do me?”
Again a question no one attempted to answer. Bertram took out his handkerchief, not a very clean handkerchief, and wiped his forehead. Perhaps it was the hot tea he had been drinking that had caused those drops of perspiration he was wiping away, but Sophy did not think so. What she did think was that Anne had made her remark for the sole purpose of once more testing Bertram’s nerves, and that his response had pleased her, or why had she once again that look of secret satisfaction?
Sophy thought regretfully of a recent day when they had all been having tea, all except Bertram, of course, on the terrace, just like to-day. Only then everything had been simple and straightforward, normal as tea itself in the open air on a fine day. Now she had a feeling of being out of her depth, of being surrounded by much that was beyond her comprehension. Why had old Earl Wych introduced to them as his grandson and heir this young man whom Sophy, in her own mind, firmly believed to be an impostor? Why had Anne become strange and remote, as if all at once she had seen opportunity hitherto denied her? What opportunity could there be for her in the appearance of this stranger claiming to dispossess the man she was engaged to? Why was Clinton Wells, who had never struck Sophy as a knight errant, so ready to throw up position and prospects to fight so forlorn a battle against such odds? Why was even Mr. Arthur so silent and brooding as if he, too, all at once had become aware of hidden implications that both alarmed and attracted him, horrified him and fascinated him, but that at present he did not fully understand? Above all, why did they talk in that horrible way about pistols and shooting? Uncomfortably Sophy realized she could very well think of Ralph as facing danger with a weapon in his hand.
The departure of Ralph had certainly in no way relieved the situation. The reverse indeed. Even the claimant seemed to have lost his appetite for cakes. He was looking moodily in the direction in which Ralph had disappeared. It was almost as if he thought Ralph might be lurking there, ready unexpectedly to spring out again. In fact, he was rapid
ly taking on again that air he had had before of being likely to turn and run if somebody suddenly said ‘Boo’ to him. From the house, Martin, the butler, was approaching, picking his way carefully, now and again pausing and then coming slowly on again. The impression he gave was that of a hovering vulture, waiting its opportunity. None of the others seemed to notice his approach. He said softly in Sophy’s ear:—
“His lordship’s compliments and her ladyship would he glad of your presence, when convenient.”
“I’ll come at once,” Sophy said, not sorry for a summons that removed her from an atmosphere that seemed to her so full of hidden thoughts and currents, of the significance of which she had no idea. It was like, she thought, sitting still in an arena full of flying bullets and poisoned arrows, discharged by hidden adversaries at enemies of whose purpose and whose presence she had no knowledge.
She got up and hurried towards the castle and when she was quite near it, there came to her the thought that this was the tremendous prize for which combat had now been joined—this ancient and historic building, the broad lands that went with it, the peerage that gave so privileged a place in the old habit and establishment of British life. All this and more she realized now stood at stake, and for such a stake the game might well be played with desperation. Partly from a sheer instinctive modesty that made her a trifle shy of using the great reception rooms more than was necessary, partly because on the whole it was as short a way as any, Sophy did not enter by the great open French windows of the first drawing-room through which old Earl Wych had issued with claimant and lawyer in attendance, but by a smaller side door into a dark and narrow passage that led on to the inner hall and the central stairway. By contrast with the warmth and sunshine of the summer day without, this passage was so chill and gloomy that Sophy stood still and found herself shivering, with that odd sensation which in olden times was supposed to be caused by someone walking over your grave. She glanced back over her shoulder, afraid, though she knew not why, and then saw again the tea table on the terrace and the tiny group round it, the whole scene looking so peaceful, so ordinary, so normal, she told herself she must be getting quite hysterical.
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