The Town Traveller Part 23

"But won't you think yourself too good for me? Remember, you've got a lord for your uncle."

It returned upon both with the freshness of surprise; even Polly had quite lost sight of the startling fact during the last few minutes.

They looked at the unaddressed letter; they gazed into each other's faces.

"You haven't gone and made a mistake?" asked Polly in an awed undertone.

"There now! You didn't think; you're beginning to be sorry."

"No, I'm not."

"You are; I can see it."

"Oh, all right; have it your own way! I thought you wouldn't be so sweet-tempered very long. You're all alike, you men."

"Why, it's you that can't keep your temper!" shouted Gammon. "I only wanted to hear you say it wouldn't make any difference, happen what might."

"And didn't I say it wouldn't?" shrilled Polly. "What more can I say?"

Strangely enough a real tear had started in her eye. Gammon saw it and was at once remorseful. He humbled himself before her; he declared himself a beast and a brute. Polly was a darling: far too good for him, too sweet and gentle and lovely. He ought to think himself the happiest man living, by jorrocks if he oughtn't! Just one more! Why, he liked a girl to have spirit! He wouldn't give tuppence farthing for fifty girls that couldn't speak up for themselves. And if she was the niece of a lord, why, she deserved it and a good deal more. She ought to be Lady Polly straight away; and hanged if he wouldn't call her so.

"Hadn't we better get this letter addressed?" Polly asked, very amiable again.

"Yes; it's getting late, I'm afraid."

Polly drew up to the table, but her hand was so unsteady that it cost her much trouble to manage the pen.

"I've wrote it awful bad. Does it matter?"

"Bad? Why it's beautifully written, Polly--Lady Polly, I mean. I've got a stamp."

She stuck it on to the envelope with an angle upwards; and Gammon declared that it was beautifully done; he never knew anyone stamp a letter so nicely. As she gazed at the completed missive Polly had a sudden thought which made a change in her countenance. She looked round.

"What is it?"

"He hasn't got another wife, has he?"

"Not likely," answered Gammon. "If so he's committed bigamy, and so much the worse for him. Your aunt must have been his first--it was so long ago."

"Couldn't you find out? Isn't there a book as gives all about lords and their families? I've heard so."

"I believe there is," replied the other thoughtfully. "I'll get a look at it somewhere. He's scamp enough for anything, I've no doubt. He comes of a bad lot, Polly. There's all sorts of queer stories about his father--at least, I suppose it was his father."

"Tell me some," said Polly with eagerness.

"Oh, I will some day. But now I come to think of it, I don't know when he became Lord Polperro. He couldn't, of course, till the death of his father. Most likely the old man was alive when he married your aunt.

It's easy to understand now why he's led such a queer life, isn't it? I shouldn't a bit wonder if he went away the second time because his father had died. I'll find out about it. Would you believe, when I met him in the street and spoke to him, he pretended he'd never heard such a name as Clover!"

"You met him, did you? When?"

"Oh--I'll tell you all about that afterwards. It's getting late. We shall have lots of talk. You'll let me take you home? We'll have a cab, shall we? Lady Pollys don't walk about the streets on a wet night."

She stood in thought.

"I want you to do something for me."

"Right you are! Tell me and I'll do it like a shot, see if I don't."

His arm again encircled her, and this time Polly did not talk of her 'at or her 'air. Indeed, she bent her head, half hiding her face against him.

"You know that letter I sent you?"

"What's in it? Something nicey-picey?"

"I want you to let me go to the 'ouse with you--just to the door--and I want you to give me that letter back--just as it is--without opening it. You will, won't you, deary?"

"Of course I will, if you really mean it."

"I do, it was a _narsty_ letter. I couldn't bear to have you read it now."

Gammon had no difficulty in imagining the kind of epistle which Polly would desire suppressed; yet, for some obscure reason, he would rather have read it. But his promise was given. Polly, in turn, promised to write another letter for him as soon as possible.

So they drove in a hansom, through a night which washed the fog away, to Kennington Road, and whilst Polly kept her place in the vehicle Gammon ran upstairs. There lay the letter on his dressing-table. He hastened down with it, and before handing it to its writer kissed the envelope.

"Go along!" exclaimed Polly, in high good humour, as she reached out with eager fingers.

Late as it was he accompanied her to Shaftesbury Avenue, and they parted tenderly after having come to an agreement about the next evening.

CHAPTER XVIII

LORD POLPERRO'S REPRESENTATIVE

By discreet inquiry Mr. Gammon procured an introduction to "Debrett,"

who supplied him with a great deal of information. In the first place he learned that the present Lord Polperro, fourth of that t.i.tle, was not the son, but the brother of the Lord Polperro preceding him, both being offspring, it was plain, of the peer whose will occasioned a lawsuit some forty years ago. Granted the truth of scandalous rumour, which had such remarkable supports in facial characteristics, the present bearer of the t.i.tle would be, in fact, half-brother to Francis Quodling. Again, it was discoverable that the Lord Polperro of to-day succeeded to the barony in the very year of Mrs. Clover's husband's second disappearance.

"Just what I said," was Gammon's mental comment as he thumped the aristocratic pages.

Now for the women. To begin with, Lord Polperro was set down a bachelor--ha! ha! Then he had one sister, Miss Adela Trefoyle, older than himself, and that might very well be the lady who was seen beside him at the theatre. Then again, though his elder brother's male children had died, there was living a daughter, by name Adeline, recently wedded to--by jorrocks!--Lucian Gildersleeve, Esquire. Why, here was "the whole boiling of 'em!"

Mr. Gammon eagerly jotted down the particulars in his notebook, and swallowed the whisky at his side with gusto. Not once, however, had he asked himself why this man of guiles and freaks chose to mask under the name of Clover, an omission to be accounted for not by any lack of wit, but by mere educational defect. He could not have been further from suspecting that his utterance of the name Clover had given his genealogical friend a most important clue, and a long start in the search for the missing man.

Impatiently he awaited the early nightfall of the morrow. Business had to be attended to as usual; but he went about with a bearing of extraordinary animation, now laughing to himself, now snapping his fingers, now (when he chanced to be out of people's sight) twirling round on one leg. Either of yesterday's events would have sufficed to exhilarate him; together they whipped his blood and frothed his fancy.

He had found Clover, who was a lord! He had won the love of Polly Sparkes, who was the finest girl living! Did ever the bagman of an oil and colour firm speed about his duties with such springs of excitement bubbling within him?

And Mrs. Clover? Ought she not to be told at once? Had he any right to keep to himself such a discovery as this? He knew, by police court precedent, that a false name in marriage did not invalidate the contract. Beyond shadow of doubt Mrs. Clover was Lady Polperro. And Minnie--why, suppose Minnie had favoured his suit, he would have been son-in-law of a peer! As it was, whom might not the girl marry! She would pa.s.s from the neighbourhood of Battersea Park Road to a house in Mayfair or Belgravia; from Doulton's and the china shop to unimaginable heights of social dignity. And who more fit for the new sphere? Mr.

Gammon sighed, but in a moment remembered Polly and snapped his fingers.