Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

'Why, yes - yes, indeed,' said Blake hastily. 'That was what I understood. However - ' his eyes strayed quickly towards Lacy and back again ' - however, I have no doubt that the offer which I made then ... ah, still stands.' He smiled in his turn. 'We are not ... ah, horse-traders either, Mr Franklin. Do I take it, then, that Mrs Reeve has changed her mind, and is willing to move elsewhere?'

  'I haven't spoken to Mrs Reeve,' said Mr Franklin. 'No, my decision has been reached independently.'

  This was sufficient to bewilder the major, he observed. With Lacy it was difficult to tell, since his face was not best designed to act as a sensitive mirror of the soul.

  'Ah,' said the major, uncertainly. 'I see. Well - the decision is the important thing, after all, however you may have reached it. I'm sure you have excellent reasons. And I'm sure we can settle matters satisfactorily between us.'

  'That's what I'm here for,' said Mr Franklin. 'And Mr Cross, of course. The fact is, I've decided that Mrs Reeve's wishes needn't enter into it. That is the point on which I've changed my mind. I told you at our last meeting that if she was willing to go, I'd sell; I am now telling you that whether she is willing to go or not, whether she dies tomorrow or lives to be a hundred and thirty-five - which I sincerely hope she does - I now have no intention of selling. That, as I say, is how I've changed my mind, and since it represents an important alteration in what I told you at our last meeting, I wanted Lord Lacy to hear it, too, so that there should be no misunderstanding.' He paused. 'I have discovered another, and important, use for the land after Mrs Reeve is finished with it.'

  Like all bombshells, it produced a mixed reaction. Major Blake, with his quicker intelligence, may have been half-prepared for something like it; he had been cautious of Mr Franklin's apparent readiness to co-operate. Even so, he was momentarily taken aback; he realised that Mr Franklin had been amusing himself in his quiet way, and his lips hardened into a tight line. Lacy, slower on the uptake, scowled in angry bewilderment.

  'You mean you won't sell?' They were the first words he had spoken. 'Even if the old woman wants to go? Why not?'

  'As I was saying,' continued Mr Franklin, 'I have another use for the land, eventually. When I was a young man, in the United States, my father and I were entertained, on one occasion, at a village of Arapaho Indians. You may not have heard of them; they're a prairie tribe, and extremely hospitable. I've always remembered their kindness, and wished I could return it. It occurred to me the other day that when, in the fullness of time, Mrs Reeve has gone, and Lye Cottage is untenanted, it would make an ideal hostel for any transient Arapaho Indians who happen to be travelling through this part of Norfolk. So that's what I intend to do with it. Mr Cross here has drawn up a deed of trust, whereby Lye Cottage is secured, in perpetuity, for the use and enjoyment of Arapaho Indians, and no other -'

  'What the hell are you talking about?' roared Lacy, his face purple. 'Is this your idea of a joke?'

  'Certainly not,' said Mr Franklin. 'Mr Cross has the deed already drawn, and will read it to you - '

  'That won't be necessary,' snapped Major Blake. 'I cannot congratulate you on your sense of humour, sir - '

  'There's nothing funny about it,' said Mr Franklin seriously. 'It's a perfectly genuine document, and to prove my good faith as far as Gower Estate is concerned, Mr Cross has inserted a special clause providing that if, at any time, Gower Estate wishes to purchase the property, it may do so, at current valuation, provided that it obtains the consent of the Arapaho tribe. You'll furnish these gentlemen with a copy of the deed, Mr Cross? And one for the newspapers?'

  'Certainly,' said Mr Cross, and ducked his head. Mr Franklin rose. 'Thank you for your time, major, your lordship. I just wanted you to know exactly where you stood.'

  Major Blake had risen also, grimly silent; he at least was not prepared to give Mr Franklin the satisfaction of a protest. But Lord Lacy was made of more choleric stuff; it had dawned on him that this Yankee upstart, who had thwarted him painfully, and assaulted him more painfully still, was now trying to make a fool of him, and liable to succeed. He glared from Blake to Mr Franklin, his fists clenched.

  'What the hell d'you mean, the newspapers?'

  'I'm sure they'll be interested,' said Mr Franklin. 'I don't imagine they get many stories about Arapaho Indian hostelries in Norfolk.' 'Is this what you've been sitting in that bloody tea-shop for three days to tell me?' roared his lordship.

  'It's not a bad tea-shop,' said Mr Franklin, pulling on his gloves. 'I thought the papers might be interested in something else about Lye Cottage, and that is that attempts have been made - I can't imagine who by - to force Mrs Reeve to leave it. Strange visitors trying to threaten and coerce her - '

  'What are you insinuating?' demanded the major. 'I should advise you to be extremely careful what - '

  'I'm being careful,' said Mr Franklin. 'That's why I've got my legal adviser with me. Of course I know that Gower Estate would have nothing to do with that kind of scandalous action. That goes without saying. But someone's doing it, and if they do it again, I'm not going to waste time proceeding against the hired hands. I'm going to seek out the person unknown who's behind it, and I'm going to see that he ends up in hospital, a very sick man indeed. In fact, he may never ride to hounds again.' And he turned his cold eyes on Lord Lacy and very carefully looked him up and down.

  It was, as Mr Franklin had calculated, more than his lordship could bear. Lacy gave a snarl of fury and started forward, Major Blake reached out a restraining hand, but it was flung off. Possibly because he had painful recollections, however, his lordship advanced only a couple of steps, and stood glaring at Mr Franklin.

  'You impertinent bastard!' he snarled, and Mr Franklin turned an inquiring eye on Mr Cross.

  'Is that actionable?'

  Mr Cross shook his head reluctantly. 'Common abuse.'

  'You - you bloody Yankee crawler!' Lacy's temper, which he had never troubled to school, suddenly gave way - but not to the point of physical assault. 'Don't bloody well think you're going to get away with this - with anything! Because you're not! I know all about you, and how you go worming about at Oxton! You filthy - !' And he added a word which brought a slight flush to Mr Franklin's cheek. He wondered for an instant if Lacy was so lost to shame that he might parade his jealousy by dragging Peggy's name into his tirade, but the furious peer stopped just short of it. 'I know what your bloody game is, you lousy tell-tale rat! Well, see how far it gets you! Because I'll take care of you, all right! I'll make you sorry you ever stuck your dirty nose in here! You'll see! Now, get out! Get out of my bloody office!'

  Mr Franklin was moved to contempt. To hear a grown man raving like a hysterical schoolboy was bad enough, but the poverty of his lordship's vocabulary made it even worse. But he was dispassionately interested to discover just how intensely Lacy hated him.

  'Good day, major,' he said to Blake. 'Don't trouble to see us out.'

  'And don't bloody well come back!' shouted Lacy, as they went downstairs. `You sod!'

  'Now that might be actionable,' said Mr Cross, but Mr Franklin shook his head. 'Even if it was, Mr Cross, who wants to take candy from foul-mouthed children?'

  He went home to Castle Lancing that afternoon satisfied with his three days' work. He had ensured that Bessie Reeve would be let alone; he had punished, by ridicule to Lacy's face, the mean attempt to drive her from her cottage, and he had discovered how to cause alarm in the enemy camp whenever need arose - all he had to do was go and sit in the tea-shop across the road. That would certainly send Major Blake to the telephone, and Lacy into apoplexy, with any luck.

  And that, he decided, was sufficient; his threat to release details of the trust deed to the press had been half in earnest, but on reflection he would keep it to himself. He had given Lacy enough crow to eat for the present; any more would be vindictive. He even refrained from mentioning what had passed in Thetford, when he drove over to Oxton Hall later in the day; when Peggy wanted to know where he had been since his return f
rom Sandringham he simply said that he had had business to attend to, and parried her curiosity by guiding the talk deftly on to the royal weekend party, and what a crashing bore it had been.

  'I'll bet it wasn't. You enjoyed every minute of it,' she said. 'Just watch you trot away if Kingie invites you again.'

  'Somehow I don't think Kingie will. I was a novelty once, as you kindly remarked, but they've played with me now, and I can be chucked to the back of the cupboard. I didn't win any amazing hands at bridge, and I shot pheasants a great deal too well. And I'm not cut out for the company of the great, I discover; they talk too much about being great, and that makes me feel small.'

  Of course she wanted to know who had been there, and when he began to tell her about Fisher and Churchill she interrupted impatiently.

  'Not them, silly! Who were the ladies? How many fascinating widows did you make love to, and were there any youngest daughters of dukes looking for an American fortune? Did you languish at Mrs Keppel's feet, and - '

  'No, she languished at mine, and the King caught us and challenged me to a duel, but I told him he was too old. That's really why I won't be invited back. No, there weren't any fascinating widows, or duke's daughters - there was a suffragette, whose great-uncle got drunk and chased one of the tweenies, and fell downstairs - '

  'Oh, shut up!'

  'Listen, that is strictly true! Cross my heart,' but he could not convince her, and they went in to tea with Sir Charles, making fun of each other while he watched them, smiling over his cup. It was pleasant, and cosy, and as he sat with them round the fire Mr Franklin was conscious of a great ease and content; he felt at home, and as he glanced across at Peggy laughing as she poured the tea, and considered the angel face with its halo of auburn hair, and the supple lines of her figure in the blue velvet afternoon dress, he felt a great hunger for her, and wished that Sir Charles had taken his tea elsewhere.

  His reticence in the matter of his interview with Lacy was wasted after all, as he might have known it would be in a rural community one of whose principal industries was the discovery of other people's business. No doubt Major Blake's clerk had had his ear to the keyhole; possibly Major Blake himself was indiscreet; it may even have been that someone in the office of Smith, Cross, Newbold and Wise, aware of the eccentric trust deed whereby Mr Franklin had secured Lye Cottage to the future use and enjoyment of transient aborigines, their heirs and successors forever, breached professional etiquette by gossiping in a Thetford pub - whatever the source, a Norwich newspaper soon heard of it, and a humorous article (and there never were in the history of journalism humorous articles so arch and droll as those of the Edwardian era) appeared under the heading 'Redskins at Castle Lancing?'

  Of course, all Thetford and district knew what lay behind it; Thetford and district, in fact, fell about laughing. Lord Lacy's car was regularly followed by rude lads on bicycles ululating the most realistic war-whoops, and it was agreed that the Yankee was a very shrewd bird with a wry sense of humour, and him such a quiet and courteous gentleman, too. All of which Mr Franklin was human enough to find mildly gratifying; his one slight regret was that Lacy was now bound to assume that he had carried out his threat and divulged the story out of pure malice.

  'He'll never forgive you for this, Mark,' said Sir Charles Clayton. 'Heaven knows he wasn't much liked before, but this makes him a positive laughing-stock. Arapaho Indians!' His lips twitched with amusement as he laid the paper aside. 'Are there such people?'

  'Certainly there are; they were a powerful tribe once, very war-like, in spite of their name, which means "trader". But they were friendly enough to Dad and me; they looked after us very well.'

  Sir Charles shook his head, smiling. 'You've led an extraordinary life, haven't you? Cowboys, miners, Redskins ... doesn't Norfolk seem awfully sleepy and prosaic after that?'

  'It suits me. I'm beginning to feel at home, I guess; it's been three months now, you know.'

  'As short a time as that? I must be getting old - I'd have sworn it was longer. You seem to have been one of the family for . . .' Sir Charles broke off, staring into the fire; they were alone in the late afternoon in the big drawing-room at Oxton, waiting for Peggy and Arthur, home from Sandhurst, who had gone into Thetford. It was snowing heavily, but the curtains were still drawn back, and the firelight was flickering in reflection against the panes. Sir Charles went on: 'You've become quite a local character, too - with all this Lye Cottage business. That kind of thing can win a lot of good will ... people like it when a newcomer takes their part. And you're more of a new-come-backer, really.' Sir Charles smiled. 'I'm only sorry there's been this new unpleasantness with Lacy.'

  'It doesn't add much to the total score,' said Mr Franklin. 'I just seem to have an unfortunate knack of getting in his way. If it isn't cottages, it's foxes and . . . night encounters.'

  'Yes.' Sir Charles paused, for quite a long moment, and then said, without inflection. 'And then of course there is Peggy. You've rather cut him out there.'

  It occurred to Mr Franklin that Sir Charles himself had done some of the cutting, but he replied evenly: 'I guess he thinks so.'

  Sir Charles sat for another silent moment and then said: 'I imagine everyone thinks so. Certainly I can claim to know Peggy as well as anyone does - and I don't merely think it, I know it.' He smiled candidly at Mr Franklin. 'It's been rather amusing, in a way. Peggy has never been what one would term a wall-flower, and her attitude to young men has hitherto been ... nonchalant? At least, I've noticed in her a tendency which one often sees in the beautiful, to take admirers - including Lacy - very coolly for granted. But of late I seem to have heard a good deal of "Mark says" and "Mark thinks". I must say,' added Sir Charles, with a wry twist to his smile, 'that it's rather refreshing to find her paying the slightest attention to anyone else's words or thoughts. She never has to mine, so far as I can remember .. ah, I think I hear the wanderers returning. Heavens, is it that time already?'

  The door opened and Peggy, glowing and bright-eyed from the cold, swept in with Arthur in her wake.

  'Are you two sitting in the dark? Men! Never think to close the curtains, do you?' She snapped on the lights, gave Mr Franklin a flashing smile, and began to pull the curtains together. 'Gosh, I'm starved! Haven't they brought tea yet? Arthur, give them a shout, will you, the idle things.' She slipped down on to her knees by the hearth and spread her hands to the fire. 'It's a perfect blizzard out there - I thought we'd stick in a snowdrift. And what have you two been chattering about?'

  'You, you'll be gratified to hear,' said Sir Charles.

  'An improving subject. What did you decide?'

  'That you're a pain in the neck,' said Arthur, collapsing on to the sofa. 'Not a bad-looking pain, but a rotten driver. She insisted on taking the wheel all the way home, and how the poor old buggy survived is a mystery. You must have had a boring conversation.'

  'Quite the contrary, in fact,' said Sir Charles. 'You'll be interested to know that the Arapaho Indians - '

  'Don't talk about Arapaho Indians!' exclaimed Peggy. 'Ever since that article appeared I've been dreading meeting Frank Lacy, in case I burst out laughing!'

  'Serve the brute right,' said Arthur. 'Anyone who sicks on thugs to scare old women deserves all he gets.'

  'That's something I still find hard to believe,' said Sir Charles, frowning. 'That Bob Lacy's boy would stoop to such a - '

  'Oh, Frank's game for anything,' said Arthur. 'Remember how he used to blackmail us, Peg, when we were kids? Nothing crude, mind you, but when I broke the dining-room window, Frank managed to hint, ever so delicately, that unless I parted with my new cricket bat, the information might leak out, somehow.'

  'Frank gets what he wants,' said Peggy thoughtfully, staring into the fire. She looked at Mr Franklin. 'You're sure he was responsible, Mark?'

  'I don't know anyone else who was interested in getting Bessie out of Lye Cottage.'

  'I suppose not,' said Peggy. 'Unless Blake did it, without Frank's knowled
ge.'

  'Blake's a tick, all right,' said Arthur, 'but Frank's an even bigger tick. Anyway, Blake wouldn't dare, not on his own responsibility. No, it's just the sort of rotten stunt that Frank would try to pull. You ought to know that, Peg. Why make excuses for him?'

  'I'm not making excuses for him. But it's pretty ruthless and cold-blooded, even for him. I mean, I agree he's a bit of a tick, but I don't like to think he's as big a tick as all that.'

  'The old fire still smoulders,' said Arthur solemnly, winking at Mr Franklin. 'Although Sir Jasper de Vere, her childhood sweetheart, had proved unworthy of her regard, a lingering fondness pervaded the maiden's - 'He rolled over on the couch as his sister began to belabour him with a cushion. He emerged, dishevelled. 'She couldn't resist Frank's brutal charm, even when he was in frocks. I could, though. I pasted the little skunk whenever I got the chance - '

  'It's a pity someone doesn't paste you,' said Peggy, warmly. 'You talk too much. Anyway, Frank blacked your eye more than once, and didn't you roar, just? Little blubberer!'

  'That's when he was still bigger than I was,' protested Arthur, but at that moment the arrival of a maid with tea put a stop to his childhood recollections.