The House of the Lost court

XXXIV. The Decision

. 344

VI

A MISSING ADVERTISEMENT

F rances ELIOT and Dolores, her daughter, came back to Claridge’s Hotel at five o’clock very tired, very hot, a little hungry, and a good deal discouraged. It was their third day of country house hunting.

With country houses, dozens of country houses, whirling through their brains, they sat down in a corner of the big hall, which was peacefully quiet in its August dullness, and Frances ordered tea.

‘‘ I’m getting so downhearted about it all, I could cry,” said she, leaning back limply as she pulled off her gloves and folded them with mechanical neatness. No matter how tired she was, Frances Eliot was always methodical, always daintily neat. She would somehow have contrived not to look untidy in a high wind, if she had forgotten her veil. To-day she had been ‘‘ on the go ” (as she would have said) since half past eight, had changed trains five times, had examined four large houses from attic to cellar, had walked over acres of lawn and garden, had driven in open carriages along dusty roads under a blazing sun ; yet her small-featured, ivory-pale face, her brown satin hair, and the brown hat and dress which matched it were as fresh, as spotless, as when she started out in the morning.

It was not so with Dolores, though Frances was forty and Dolores nineteen.

Dolores, named after a fair woman of Spain, where her English father had been born and spent his boyhood, was emotional, though shy of showing her emotions — half afraid, of them, indeed. These old EngHsh houses which she had visited meant for her the poetry and historical romance of a great past. She was poignantly sorry for the people who were forced to let or sell their beautiful homes to strangers, for it did not occur to her that any of them could possibly part with such places of their own free will. She reconstructed their stories, and to her young mind all verged upon the tragic. Silently she suffered in the intensity of her sympathy. Each place she saw in turn she would have liked to take without parley, not always because she wished to live there, but because she could not endure the thought of disappointing the owners who had been so kind about showing their property, so wistfully anxious to dispose of it. She wanted them to have the money, which she felt they must be needing terribly.

This day had been harder than either of the other two, and Dolores was keyed to a highly nervous state, though she did not know that she was tired, and would have rushed off to look at another house if necessary. Usually she had a bright rose color, which came and went with her thoughts, as if somebody had been whispering compliments which no one else could hear, and her great brown eyes had the look of one who finds each moment of life an enchanting surprise. But now she was pale, and her white lids seemed weighted down by the long black lashes.

I’m not a bit discouraged,” she said. “ I’m too excited. But I feel wicked to have disappointed those people. They did so want us to have their houses. If I were a queen I would have taken them all, or else sent anonymous presents of thousands of pounds to keep the estates up.”

As this was an entirely unpractical suggestion, Frances was not interested. When Dolores’s imagination soared to impossible heights, Frances attributed it to the fact that the girl’s grandmother on the father’s side had been Spanish. The dear little woman from a Western State of America (whose husband had married her because she was dovelike, and bullied her because she continued to be dovelike) smiled indulgently now at her daughter, and wished that tea would come. Waiting for it, she glanced round the hall, her eyes wandering until they focused with interest on a group in a far corner.

The party consisted of a man and two women, and Frances, though she was new to England and its ways except through tales told by her husband, felt instinctively that these three were different from other out-of-season visitors at the hotel. They were “ grand people,” she said to herself simply, not of the sort who usually came to town in August. The two ladies were quietly dressed, and with a certain native shrewdness Frances Eliot decided that they were even above the ‘‘ smart ” and frivolous set of whose doings she often read in novels with shocked interest.

“ Do you see those people over there having tea, Lolita.'^ ” she murmured to her daughter. “ Now, they’re the kind of English people I want to get in with when we find our place in the country — the real kind, the best there is, like your father used to talk of when he told me about England.”

Dolores naturally glanced first at the man. He was dark and handsome, with a fine and haughty profile, hair silvering at the temples, a black mustache, and a calm air of taking it for granted that nobody in the world could be superior to himself in position. The girl thought him quite old — forty, at least — but she admired his clear outlines, his leanness and brownness, and his look of breeding ; also being the romantic and imaginative young creature she was, the melancholy cast of his face, which probably meant no. more than boredom, interested her at once.

“ I wonder if he’s married to one of those ladies ” she asked herself, “ and if he is, to which.? ”

But, on a second glance at the woman, there could be no doubt that, if one were the wife of the “ interesting man,” as Dolores immediately named him, it must be the younger of the two, for the elder was assuredly his sister.

She, too, was “ quite old ” in the eyes of nineteen — thirty-five, perhaps ; nevertheless, she was beautiful in a way which fascinated the girl, though it repelled rather than attracted her. The man’s face and the woman’s were cut on the same lines, and they had the same somber eyes where passion would be more at home than laughter, but Dolores liked the man better than the woman. “ She looks wicked,” the girl thought, half ashamed of the uncharitable comment, for she could not be happy in thinking evil of anyone, even a stranger. “ I’ve seen pictures of Cleopatra with an expression like that.”

But it was difficult to fancy Cleopatra in a pale gray voile dress of the latest fashion, and a toque of silver tulle.

As for the other woman, who could not be more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, she was not as striking or as handsome as the brother and sister, but she was equally distinguished in the same subtle way which the girl was too young and inexperienced to define ; and already Dolores was able to judge that the blandness and the air of aloofness from an insignificant world were both of an unmistakably English type.

‘‘You see what I mean about them, don’t you? ” asked Frances, when her daughter did not answer.

“ Yes, I see what you mean,” echoed Dolores.

“ Can’t you imagine our knowing people like that when we’ve got settled in some beautiful old house, just as good as any they could possibly have themselves? ” Frances went on. “ They’d come to call on us, and we’d return the call. Then they’d ask us to dinner to meet all the neighboring lords.”

“ Suppose there weren’t any ? ” the girl asked absentmindedly.

“ There would be. There always are in every county. Your father said so. The county people, you know. They call on newcomers, if they take a big house, and show that they’re of importance. None of the houses we’ve seen so far seem important enough to me, or old enough.”

“ I think I should care a lot more about the house itself than about the neighbors,” said Dolores.

“ Why, yes, so would I, in a way,” agreed her mother. “ But your father came of a good old family, you know, and he’d want us to get in with the right sort of people. It’s always been my dream to live in such a house and such a neighborhood as those he used to describe. I often said it was a pity he never thought he had time to come over himself.”

“ He was busy making money for us, dear,” Dolores reminded her.

“ Yes, but he’d made enough long ago, long before he died. I guess it was partly because his own branch of the family had been estranged from the rich and grand branch, and he was too proud to introduce himself to relatives who’d thought themselves above his parents. I feel just that way, too. If I should ever meet any of the right Eliots I don’t believe I’d say one word about being related to them by marriage. But for your father’s sake, I wouldn’t mind their finding out that we were rich and living in one of the nicest places in England. It would be a kind of satisfaction. But thank goodness, here comes tea.”

It was good tea, and Frances admired the gold spoons in the delicate saucers and the gold fork with which she was supposed to eat inviting-looking cakes. Also, she admired the gorgeous footman who brought the tray, and wondered if it would be considered appropriate in a country house to have powdered servants like that.

For some years her husband, Richard Eliot, had been rich, with money made by hard work in America, where he had arrived from England a poor young man with only enough dollars to allow of his landing on a foreign shore. But they had continued to live on a ranch in Colorado almost as simply as if they had been no better off than at the time of the rather imprudent marriage. An accomplished governess for Dolores had been one of the few luxuries which Richard Eliot had thought worth having. But Frances had wider ideas for the future. She had always wanted to travel, and especially to see England, where she felt, with a sense of mild importance, that her husband’s ancestors had helped to make history. Richard had been dead for nearly two years now. Since then she and Dolores had seen Chicago and New York, and Frances had learned how to spend money.

It was pleasant to sit and sip their tea after the fatigue of the day, even though the day had been disappointing. They did not talk much for, though neither said as much to the other, the mother and daughter had become for the moment more interested in the people across the hall than they were in themselves. They did not stare, but they contrived to see all that the man and his two companions did.

The party had finished their tea, and were looking at some illustrated papers. Suddenly the man, who had appeared to be rather bored, waked to lively interest in something he was reading. He held the paper closer to his eyes, studying one of the pages, then let it fall on his knees, and sat still, staring in front of him, so absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not answer when his handsome sister questioned him. Again she spoke, and he seemed to come to himself with a slight start, as if he had fallen into a dream, and not a pleasant one. The younger of the two women addressed him. He answered with an air of impatience and got up, throwing the paper down on the sofa where he had been sitting. Promptly it slid off and fell on the floor, no one appearing to notice. The three talked together for a moment, and then the blonde young woman rose also, the elder remaining seated and shaking her head when her companion made some suggestion.

“ I believe those two are married,” thought Dolores as the pair walked away together. “ They have the air of it — and of being a little bored with one another.”

The remaining member of the party leaned back in her chair and turned over the leaves of a magazine until the others were out of sight. Then she instantly laid down the magazine and picked up the illustrated paper which her brother had (either by accident or design) let fall under the sofa.

The paragraph or picture which had interested him was on one of the first pages. Dolores and her mother had both noticed that, and now they could not help seeing that the beautiful woman was searching for something. They did not say anything to each other, or even lift a significant eyebrow with a meeting glance, but neither had any doubt what that “ something ” was. She wanted to know what her brother had found which had surprised and displeased him so much that his mood had completely changed.

Presently she came upon the thing — it was easy for the Ehots to see that. She, too, gave a little start, or rather stiffened herself as if to bear a shock, bent closely over the paper, and gazed at it for a long time without moving or turning a page. At last she opened a little bag of gray suede and produced a pair of tiny gold-handled scissors. Then she cut a square bit from the paper, and having placed the slip and the scissors in the bag, she rose and went away.

“ That was like a scene in a play without words,” said Dolores.

“ Yes. And I’m dying to know what it was in that paper they were so excited about,” answered Frances. “ What’s more, I’ve just got to know. Do go over there, like a dear child, and get the paper.”

Dolores hesitated. “ It — seems so curious ; so — almost mean — behind their backs,” she said.

“ Pooh ! ” retorted Frances. “ They wouldn’t care. We’re of no more importance to them than the chairs we sit on. They looked over here, not at, but right through us several times. Besides, I am curious. If you won’t get the paper. I’ll go myself.”

That settled it. Dolores sprang up and dutifully, though shamefacedly, walked across the hall and back with the illustrated paper in question.

It was a copy of Country Life, and as Frances Eliot opened it at the first page she exclaimed eagerly : “ Oh, why did nobody tell us about this before? It’s full of the most fascinating advertisements of country houses for sale and to let. And — ^why, it seems to be only one of the advertisements which the lady has cut out! Nothing exciting after all. I suppose, like us, they’re wanting a house, and they thought this might suit them.”

Dolores looked over her mother’s shoulder at the square hole in the page of attractive advertisements which illustrated and set forth the charms of various mansions, ancient and modem. “ They didn’t act as if they’d found something they wanted, but something they didnH want,” said she.

“ That’s so,” agreed Frances. “ They did both behave in a mysterious sort of way. And it couldn’t have been their own advertisement, or else they wouldn’t have seemed surprised to see it. Only a house! It must have been that, because it’s right in the midst of a page with nothing but houses on it. I wonder if there was anything very interesting in the advertisement. This paper is dated a week ago. I’ve half a mind to send out and try to buy a duplicate, and see once and for all what those people were so upset about. Yes, I will. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t.” And before Dolores could object, even if she had been inclined to make objection, Mrs. Eliot beckoned one of the gorgeous servants of the hotel. She paid for the tea and cakes, and asked the man to send out at once for a copy of last week’s Country Life,

Meanwhile she and Dolores put their heads together over the mutilated paper, keenly Interested in the long list of places for sale or to let. There were many beautiful ones, but nothing whose description drew them irresistibly, and they had finished their search before the whole copy which Frances had ordered was brought to them magnificently on a large silver tray.

Mother and daughter had begun to realize how tired they were, and how nice a cool bath would be, but the moment they saw the missing advertisement they shed their fatigue as they had shed their dust cloaks.

“What a heavenly place!” exclaimed Frances, gazing at the photograph of a wonderful old Tudor house, its walls checkered in black oak and white plaster, with trefoils, quatrefoils, and chevrons diapered in picturesque ornamentation over all. The upper stories, rich in strange oak carving, and with exquisite diamond-paned windows, projected quaintly; the gabled roofs and elaborate chimneys were festooned with ivy, and the rambling irregular building, as seen in the picture, had a moat in the foreground with a curious drawbridge.

“ O mother I ” Dolores almost gasped. “ It looks too good to be true ! It must be a dream. And how I should love to be in the dream, wouldn’t you ? ”

We will be in it — the house, I mean, not the dream,” answered Frances, firmly and practically ; “ that is, if somebody else hasn’t got it before us. It looks just what we want. Why, it’s so beautiful it’s like some great, big, splendid toy ! And just listen to this.”

She began to read aloud the paragraph underneath the picture which described the house and estate in glowing colors.

“ Queen’s Quadrangles ” was the name of the place, which consisted of a thousand acres of gardens, meadows, and parkland, with two farms. “ Of unique historic interest,” according to the advertisement. Queen’s Quadrangles had been built by a grandee of Spain, a follower in the train of Philip

II, who had married a rich Englishwoman, a protegee of Mary Tudor. Mary had helped to plan the place, according to the story, and Queen’s Quadrangles it had been named in her honor and because of its Cypress Court and Fountain Court. There was a grand hall, stone paved and paneled in oak, with a remarkably beautiful staircase ; a dining hall, also paneled, with a minstrel’s gallery; a magnificent ballroom, a private chapel, and, as the description put it, “ many other extraordinarily interesting features which combined to make Queen’s Quadrangles one of the finest old houses in England.” There were terraces and a large lake, Italian and Dutch gardens, and a water garden arranged in Moorish fashion to imitate the general life at Granada. There were trees planted by Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria, and so many other inducements to tempt readers of the paper into wishing to possess the place that the paragraph describing them attained to quite an abnormal length. But the place was not advertised for sale. It was only “ to be let, furnished, for a short, or preferably a long, term.”

No price was named, but, having fallen hopelessly in love with the photograph, Frances Eliot felt that she would stop at nothing within reeison. She had wanted to buy a house, if she could find the right one, and make it her home — Dolores’s home after her. Now she was sure that she had found the right place, and since she could not own it, the next best thing would be to secure it for as long a time as possible.

Her worst fear was that, as the paper with the advertisement was but one day less than a week old, the place might already have been snapped up by somebody else, and although Dolores persisted in her opinion that the “ interesting people ” neither owned nor wished to own it, Frances suspected some mysterious intention on their part which augured ill for her hopes.

By this time it was nearly six o’clock, but consulting together she and Dolores agreed that the offices of the advertising agent might still be open. Tired as they were, there was no question in their minds as to what they must do. They would order a cab — a motor cab, if possible, so as to get there quickly — and drive at once to Wilcox & May’s.

“ What if we find those people there before us ? ” eisked Frances, a few minutes later, as they were spinning toward Pall Mall.

“ We won’t find them,” said Dolores confidently.

“ Then why did they take such an interest in that paragraph.'* ” persisted her mother.

“ Whatever their reason was,” Dolores answered, speaking more to herself than to Frances, “ it was deeper down and — and stranger than anything we’ve thought of.”

“ You’re so romantic ! ” exclaimed Frances.

Dolores did not attempt to defend herself.

Chapter Two The One Condition

M essrs. WILCOX & may, the London estate agents who make a specialty of letting and selling old houses of historic interest, were on the point of closing their office for the night when the motor cab stopped before the door. Frances Eliot and Dolores almost ran in, their hearts beating with dread lest they might be doomed to sixteen long hours of suspense.

A youth reassured them with the news that Mr. May was still in his office and willing to be interviewed. A moment more and they were ushered into the presence of this responsible gentleman, who looked almost worthy to have the disposal of Queen’s Quadrangles.

Frances at once produced the paper, which she had brought with her, and pointed to the important paragraph. “ Is that place still to be had ? ” she asked, trying warily not to seem too eager.

“ Yes,” replied Mr. May, ‘‘ fortunately, as we are the sole agents, I am able to assure you that it is still unlet. You see, it has only been advertised for a week or two, and as the house is one of the most beautiful and interesting to be found in England, the rent asked is not — precisely — cheap.”

As he spoke his experienced eye noted the fact that his client was an American of the better class, rich no doubt, and probably willing to spend money.

“ What is the rent? ” inquired Frances, a little anxious, but feeling more and more that she could not live without Queen’s Quadrangles.

“ Fifty guineas a week if let for a short period, or two thousand guineas a year if taken by the year. But that includes the wages of two gardeners and several other servants who — er — go with the place.”

As he added this last bit of information, it appeared that Mr. May was slightly embarrassed, and Frances was quick to notice the change in his manner from rather pompous assurance to something almost apologetic. Had it not been for this just perceptible hesitation of his, she would have supposed it quite the usual thing in England for a number of servants to “ go with ” a place when it was let, but as it was she caught the agent up promptly. She wanted to live at Queen’s Quadrangles more than she could ever remember wanting anything in her life — except that Dolores should grow up to be a pretty girl — but she did not mean to be led blindfold into saddling herself with a place which, after all, was not what it advertised itself to be.

“ Oh, there are servants who go with the place? ” she said cautiously.

“ Yes. An additional advantage,” the agent assured her. “ The indoor servants who must be kept on by a new tenant are a very competent butler and an accomplished cook who have been in the service of the owner for so many years that she makes it a condition of letting that they must not be discharged. But plenty of extra servants can, of course, be engaged.”

Mrs. Eliot’s Oh ! ” expressed relief. “ I should have no objection to keeping the old servants, as they are competent.”

Chapter Two

(“ Even if incompetent,” she added mentally, for by this time she felt that she must have the place. ) Two thousand guineas a year was equal to about ten thousand dollars, she hurriedly calculated. She could easily afford to pay that. She had even expected the price to be higher, for she knew what one would pay at Newport for a furnished “ cottage ” taken for the season. It did not, therefore, occur to her to haggle, and the agent, who had been prepared to come down step by step, was inwardly delighted. But he knew that all danger w^as not yet over. There were one or two details to be gone into which might prove stumbling blocks, as they had more than once already, in this business of letting the fine old place known as Queen’s Quadrangles. He would therefore enumerate all attractive features before hinting at others perhaps not wholly attractive.

From a drawer he took out several sheets of typewritten paper and a bundle of photograplis. “ Perhaps you would like to glance over these,” he said, “ though, no doubt, you will wish to visit the place and decide as soon as possible, for, I must mention, we are having constant applications since we began to advertise.”

Frances and Dolores looked at the photographs together. They were views of several magnificent rooms, furnished sparsely but beautifully in antique fashion ; of a large court with a marble fountain in the center, and another containing four tall Italian cypresses. This latter, Mr. May explained, was a copy, on\^ grander scale, of something in the palace of the Alhambra aVGranada. Also there were photographs of terraces and gardens, and one showing a lake which reflected clearly the black and white pattern on one wall of the distant house. The typewritten pages contained descriptions for which space could not be given in the advertisement, and when they had gone through all Mr. May was pleased, though not surprised, to see that the eyes of both his clients were sparkling with excited admiration.

“ I suppose,” he said cautiously, “ that it’s not possible you would care to make up your mind, madam, on the strength of what you have seen and what I have told you? Of course, I don’t urge this, and only suggest it, as we have personally inspected Queen’s Quadrangles and can assure you the place is all it’s represented to be, and more. We have had people in making inquiries every day, and could have let over and over again during the last week, if in some cases the rent liad not been an objection, and in others those offering to be tenants had not been themselves objectionable. But I think I understand that the price would not be too much for a lady in your position, madam? ” (tone and emphasis hinted a compliment) ; “ and you might be annoyed if some one else came in first thing to-morrow morning and told us they would take Queen’s Quadrangles for certain, before you had had time to communicate with us after waiting to inspect.”

Frances was tempted, for the idea that the house of her desire should be snatched away was intolerable. But her husband had made his fortune by obstinately developing all that was practical in his nature, and she often vaunted herself to Dolores as an eminently sensible woman. It would not do, whatever happened, to lose this advantage with the girl who lived her life as if it were a charming dream.

“ The — the drainage is good? ” she demanded.

“ Guaranteed to be excellent. The only modern thing in this wonderful old house.”

“ And — and the place hasn’t fallen out of repair? ”

Chapter Two

The agent fingered the photographs and counted them over. “ Oh,” he said lightly, ‘‘ if it were in too perfect a state of repair it would lose much of its picturesqueness. But there is nothing in the least ruinous, I assure you. Taking it altogether, there isn’t such a desirable estate in the market, nor is there likely to be again. Think, too, of the advantages in being so near London. In the county of Surrey, the house to be reached in less than two hours.”

“ O mother, do say you’ll take it,” half whispered Dolores.

But Frances wavered, fighting her own inclinations.

“ I don’t remember if I mentioned that the social advantages of the neighborhood are very great, as well as the beauties of the surrounding country,” remarked Mr. May, as if carelessly and on a second thought. “ The Duke of Bridgewater’s seat practically adjoins the estate. I believe him to be a very courteous gentleman, quite a well-known author, too, with one young unmarried son, the Marquis of Tillingbourne, who is in the army. Then there is Lord Chilford — the Earl of Chilford, you know — within easy driving distance, and a number of other titled persons who own fine places near by. Also, there is an important garrison town not too far away, if you care for military shows and society, madam.”

“ It all sounds very delightful,” said Frances, in whose ears the names of the English nobility sounded not unmusically. “ But couldn’t you give me the refusal of the place until after I’ve run out to see it and got back to London ? ”