Chapter Twenty Five
Billy Grenfell is Philosophic
“Then we must break up the home, I suppose?”
“I suppose so, Billy, much as I regret it. But a fellow has to take advantage of the main chance in his life, you know, and this is mine?” declared George Macbean, leaning back in his padded chair at the breakfast-table in their high-up old room in Fig Tree Court, Temple.
“I should think so! An appointment in the Italian Ministry of War at such a salary isn’t an offer that comes to every man, and you’d be a fool if you didn’t accept it. You must have some high official friend whom you’ve never told me about – eh?” And William Grenfell, barrister-at-law, known as “Billy” to his intimates, with whom Macbean shared chambers, took up his friend’s letter and re-read it, asking, “What’s the signature? These foreigners sign their names in such an abominable manner that nobody can ever read them.”
“Angelo Borselli, the Under-Secretary. I met him in the summer, while I was staying with my uncle near Rugby.”
“And he offers you a billet like this? By Jove, you’re lucky!” And the big, burly, clean-shaven fellow of about thirty-five, one of the ever-increasing briefless brigade, rose and looked out across the quiet courtyard. “You’ll throw over that pompous ass Morgan-Mason, won’t you? I wonder how you stood the cad so long.”
“Necessity, my dear fellow. It has been writing letters for Morgan-Mason or starve – I preferred the former,” remarked Macbean, with a smile.
The old panelled sitting-room, with its well-filled bookcase, its pipe-rack, its threadbare carpet, and its greasy, leather-covered chairs, worn but comfortable, differed but little from any other chambers in that old-world colony of bachelors. Macbean and Grenfell had had diggings together and employed the same laundress for the past three years, the former spruce and smart, mixing with the West End world in which his employer moved, while the latter was a thorough-going Bohemian, eccentric in many ways, unsuccessful, yet nevertheless a man brimming over with cleverness. They had been fast friends ten years before, and when opportunity had offered to share chambers they had eagerly embraced it.
Billy never had a brief. He idled in the Courts with a dummy brief before him in order to impress the public, but his slender income was mostly derived from contributions to certain critical reviews, who took his “stuff” and paid him badly for it.
George Macbean, though he could so ill afford it, bore the major portion of the expenses of their small household, for he knew well the little reverses of fortune that had been Billy’s, and what a good, generous fellow he really was at heart.
Through those three years they had lived together no wry word had ever arisen between them, but this letter which Macbean had received caused them both to ponder.
Grenfell was a man of even temper and full of good-humour. He bubbled over with high spirits, even in the face of actual adversity, while over at the Courts he was recognised as a wit of no mean order. But thought of the breaking up of their little home and their separation filled him with deepest regret.
Macbean realised all that his friend felt, and said simply —
“I’m very sorry to go, Billy. You know that. But what can I do? I must escape my present soul-killing drudgery. You don’t know of half the insults I’ve had to swallow from Morgan-Mason because I happen to be the son of a gentleman.”
“I know, old chap; I know well. Of course you must accept this appointment,” said the other in a tone of quiet sadness. “I can shift for myself – or at least I hope so.”
“To leave you is the only regret I have in leaving England, Billy,” declared Macbean, taking his friend’s hand and grasping it firmly.
But the big fellow, with his eyes fixed before him across the square, remained sad and silent.
The letter had come to George as a complete surprise, reviving within his mind pleasant memories of Orton, of the Minister Morini who had lived incognito, of Borselli, and of Mary most of all. He would, if he accepted, meet them again, and become on friendly terms with the most powerful men in Italy. The offer seemed almost too good to be real. Had it been the first of April he would have suspected fooling. But he read the big official letter headed “Under-Secretary for War – Rome” offering him the appointment, and saw that no fraud had been attempted.
Both men filled their pipes mechanically, lit them from the same match, as was their habit, and smoked in silence. Both were too full of regret for mere words. They understood each other, and neither was surprised at the other’s heavy thought. Their friendship had been a very close and pleasant one, but in future their lives lay apart. Grenfell regarded it philosophically with a little smile, as was his wont whenever things went wrong with him, while Macbean pondered deeply as to what the future had in store for him.
Before his eyes rose a vision of a lithe and dainty figure in a white dress on the tennis-lawn at Orton, that woman who was so delightfully cosmopolitan, with the slight roll of the r’s when she spoke that betrayed her foreign birth – the woman whom rumour had engaged to the young French count upon whom the honest village folk looked with considerable suspicion.
“You’ll be glad to leave the service of that hog-merchant,” Billy remarked at last, for want of something better to say, “and I congratulate you upon your escape from him. What you’ve told me in the past is sufficient to show that he only regards you as a kind of superior valet. Had I been you I should have kicked the fellow long ago.”
“The pauper may not kick the millionaire, my dear old chap,” said Macbean, smiling, – “or at least, if he does he kicks against the pricks.”
“I can’t make out how some men get on,” remarked Grenfell between the whiffs of his huge pipe. “Why, it seems only the other day that Morgan-Mason had a shop in the Brompton Road, and used to make big splashes with advertisements in the cheap papers. I remember my people used to buy their butter there. An editor I know used to laugh over the puff paragraphs he sent out about himself. He’s made his money and become a great man all in ten years or so.”
“My dear Billy, money makes money,” remarked his friend, with a dry laugh. “Society worships wealth nowadays. Such men as Morgan-Mason have coarsened and cheapened the very entourage of Court and State. Let the moneyed creature be ever so vulgar, so illiterate, so vicious, it matters naught. Money-bags are the sole credentials necessary to gain admission to the most exclusive of houses, the House, even to Buckingham Palace itself. Men like Morgan-Mason smile at the poverty of the peerage, and with their wealth buy up heritage, title, and acceptance. The borrower is always servant to the lender, and hence our friend has many obsequious servants in what people call smart society.”
“And more’s the pity! Society must be rotten!” declared Billy emphatically. “I don’t know what we’re coming to nowadays. I should think that the post of secretary to such an arrant cad must be about the worst office a gentleman can hold. I’d rather earn half-crowns writing paragraphs for the evening papers myself.”
“Yes,” Macbean admitted, with a sigh, “I shall be very glad to leave his service. I only regret on your account.”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m a failure, dear boy, like lots of others!” Grenfell declared. “There are dozens in the Temple like myself, chronically hard up and without prospect of success. I congratulate you with all my heart upon your stroke of good fortune. You’ve waited long enough for your chance, and it has now come to you just when you least expected it. Death and fortune always come unexpectedly: to all of us the former, and to a few of us the latter. But,” he added, “this Italian politician – Bore-something – must have taken a violent fancy to you.”
“On the contrary, I only met him once or twice,” responded Macbean. “That’s what puzzles me. I don’t see what object he has in offering me the appointment.”
“I do. They want an English secretary who knows Italian well. You’ll just fill the post. Foreign Governments make no mistakes in the men they choose, depend upon it. They don’t put Jacks-in-office like we do. Didn’t you tell me once that you met the Italian Minister of War? Perhaps he had a hand in your appointment.”
“Possibly so,” Macbean admitted, recollecting that well-remembered day when he had greeted His Excellency on the lawn at Orton and the statesman had at once recognised him.
“Well, however it has been arranged, it is a jolly good lift for you, old man,” declared Billy, smoking vigorously. “You should take a leaf out of Morgan-Mason’s book, and use everyone, even the most vulgar of moneyed plutocrats and the most hide-bound of bureaucrats, for your own advantage. If you do, you’ll get on in the world. It’s the only way nowadays, depend upon it. New men, new methods. All the old traditions of life, all the dignity and delicacy and pride of birth, have gone by the board in these days of brainy smartness and pushful go. Life’s book to-day, old fellow, is full of disgraced and blotted leaves.”
George sighed. He was used to Billy’s plainly expressed philosophy. His criticisms were always full of a grim humour, and he was never tired of denouncing the degenerates of the present in comparison with bygone days. He was a Bohemian, and prided himself on that fact. He entertained a most supreme and withering contempt for modern place-hunters and for the many wind-bags in his own profession who got on because of their family influence or by the fortunate circumstance of being in a celebrated case. He declared always that no man at the bar came forward by sheer merit nowadays, and that all depended upon either luck or influence. Not, however, that he ever begrudged a man his success. On the contrary, he liked to see the advancement of his friends, and even though downhearted and filled with poignant regret at being compelled to part with George Macbean, yet he honestly wished him all the good fortune a true friend could wish.
Mrs Bridges, the shuffling old laundress, whose chief weakness was “a drop o’ something,” who constantly spoke of her “poor husband,” and whose tears were ever flowing, cleared away the remains of their breakfast, and the two men spent the whole morning together smoking and contemplating the future.
“I suppose they’ll put you into a gorgeous uniform and a sword when you get to Rome,” laughed Grenfell presently. “You’ll send me a photo, won’t you?” And his big face beamed with good-humour.
“Secretaries don’t wear uniforms,” was the other’s response.
“No, but you’ll soon rise to be something else,” the barrister assured him. “A fellow isn’t singled out by a foreign Government like you are unless he gets something worth having in a year or two! They’ll appreciate you more than our friend the provision-dealer has done. I shan’t forget the way the fellow spoke to me when I called upon you that morning. He couldn’t have treated a footman worse than you and me. I felt like addressing the Court for the defence.”
“Well, it’s all over now,” laughed his friend. “This evening I shall give him notice to leave his service, and I admit frankly that I shall do so with the greatest pleasure.”
“I should think so, indeed,” Billy remarked. “And don’t forget to tell him our private opinion of such persons as himself. He may be interested to know what a mere man-in-the-street thinks of a moneyed dealer in butter and bacon. By Jove! if I only had the chance I should make a few critical remarks that he would not easily forget.”
“I quite believe it!” exclaimed George merrily. “But now I’m leaving him we can afford to let bygones be bygones. I only pity the poor devil who becomes my successor.”
And both men again lapsed into a thoughtful silence, George’s mind being filled with recollections of those warm summer days of tea-drinking and tennis when he was guest of his uncle, the Reverend Basil Sinclair, at Thornby.
What, he wondered, could have induced that tall, sallow-faced foreigner, the Italian Under-Secretary for War, to offer him such a lucrative appointment? He had only met him once, for a few moments, when the Minister’s wife had introduced them in an interval of tennis on the lawn at Orton.
There was a motive in it. But what it was he could not discern.
Chapter Twenty Six
A Millionaire’s Tactics
Mr Morgan-Mason, the Member for South-West Norfolk, sat alone in his gorgeous gilt and white dining-room with the remains of dessert spread before him. A coarse-faced, elderly man with grey side-whiskers, a wide expanse of glossy shirt-front, and a well-cut dinner coat, he was twisting his wineglass between his fingers while a smile played about his lips. His obese figure, with shoulders slightly rounded, a bull neck, and gross, flabby features, gave one the impression that he lived for himself alone, that his life was a selfish, idle one.
His house in town and his place in the country were the typical abodes of a nouveau riche. His motors, his yacht, and his racehorses were the very best that money could command, and yet with all his display of wealth he still carried the tenets of the counting-house into his private life. He gave “fifty-guinea-a-head” dinners at the Carlton, it was true, but his entertainments were not on a large scale. He lent the aristocracy money, and allowed them to entertain him in return. He considered it an honour to be made use of by the hard-up earl or by the peeress whose debts at bridge were beyond her means. A knighthood had been offered him, but he had politely declined, letting it be distinctly known to the Prime Minister that nothing less than a peerage would be acceptable; and this had actually been half promised! He was the equal, nay, the superior, of those holders of once-exclusive titles who left their cards upon him and who shot his grouse; for, as a recent writer has declared, the god Mammon is to-day gradually drawing into its foetid embrace all the rank and beauty and nobility that once made England the glorious land she is.
He had taken a telegram from his pocket, and re-read it – a message from a woman bearing one of the noblest titles in the English peerage, asking audaciously for a loan, and inviting him up to her country-house in Durham, where an exclusive party was being entertained. He smiled with gratification, for the sovereign was among her ladyship’s guests.
He touched the bell, and in answer the butler entered. “Tell Macbean to come here,” he ordered, without looking up. “And give me a liqueur. I don’t want coffee to-night.”
The elderly, grave-faced servant served his master obsequiously, and noiselessly disappeared.
A few minutes later there came a light rap at the door and George Macbean entered.
“Just reply to this wire,” the millionaire said, handing it to his secretary. “Tell her ladyship that I’ll leave King’s Cross at eleven to-morrow, and that what she mentions will be all right. You need not mention the word loan; she’ll understand. I can’t dictate to-night, as I’m going to the club. Be here at seven in the morning, and I’ll reply to letters while I’m dressing.”
Macbean took the telegram and hesitated.
“Well? What are you waiting there for? Haven’t you had your dinner – eh?”
“Yes, I have had my dinner, Mr Morgan-Mason,” was the young man’s quick reply, his anger rising. “I wish to speak a word to you.”
“Well, what’s the matter? Work too hard? If so, you can take a month’s notice and go. Lots more like you to be got,” added the man with the fat, flabby face.
“The work is not too hard,” was Macbean’s response, speaking quite calmly. “I only wish to say that I intend leaving you, having accepted a Government appointment.”
“A Government appointment?” echoed the millionaire. “Has Balfour given you a seat in the Cabinet, or are you going to be a doorkeeper or something of that sort down at the House?”
“Neither. My future is my own affair.”
“Well, I wish you good luck in it,” sneered his employer. “I’ll see that the next secretary I get isn’t a gentleman. Airs and graces don’t suit me, my boy. I see too much of ’em in Mayfair. I prefer the people of the Mile End Road myself. I was born there, you know, and I’m proud of it.”
“Shall I send the telegram from the Strand office?” asked Macbean, disregarding the vulgarian’s remarks. “It is Sunday night, remember.”
“Send it from where you like,” was the man’s reply. And then, as the secretary turned to leave, he called him back, saying in a rather more conciliatory tone —
“You haven’t told me what kind of appointment you’ve accepted. Whatever it is, you can thank my influence for it. They know that I wouldn’t employ a man who isn’t up to the mark.”
“I thank you for your appreciation,” Macbean said, for it was the first kindly word that he had ever received from the millionaire during all the time he had been in his service.
“Oh, I don’t mean that you are any better than five hundred others in my employ,” the other returned. “I’ve got a hundred shop-managers who would serve me equally well at half the wages I pay you. I’ve all along considered that you don’t earn what you get.”
“In that case, then, I am very pleased to be able to relieve you of my services, and to take them where they will be at last appreciated.”
“Do you mean to be insolent?”
“I have no such intention,” replied Macbean, still quite cool, although his hands were trembling with suppressed anger. “The Italian Government will pay me well for my work, and will not hurl insults at me on every possible occasion and before every visitor. I have been your servant, Mr Morgan-Mason, your very humble servant, but after despatching this telegram I shall, I am glad to inform you, no longer be yours to command.”
“The Italian Government!” exclaimed the millionaire, utterly surprised. “In what department are you to be employed?”
“In the Ministry of War.”
“What! – in the office of that man we saw regarding the Abyssinian contracts? – Morini his name was, wasn’t it?”
“No. In the office of the Under-Secretary, Borselli.”
“I suppose you made it right with them when I took you with me to Rome – made good use of your ability to speak the lingo – eh?”
“I had then no intention of entering the Italian service,” was his reply. “The offer has come to me quite spontaneously.”
Morgan-Mason was silent, twisting his glass before him and thinking deeply. The name Borselli recalled something – an ugly affair that he would have fain forgotten.
“I thought you had secured an appointment in one of the English Government offices,” he said at last, with a sudden change of tactics. “Why go abroad? Why not remain with me? I’ll give you an increase of fifty pounds a year. You know my ways, and I hate strangers about me.”
“I much regret that I cannot accept your offer,” replied George. “I have already accepted the appointment, which is at a salary very considerably in advance of that you have been paying me.”
“But I’ll pay you the same as they offer. You are better off in England. How much do they intend to give you?”
“I am too fond of Italy to refuse a chance of going out there,” Macbean replied. “I spent some years in Pisa in my youth, and have always longed to return and live in the warmth and sunshine.”
A brief silence fell.
Presently, after reflection, the Member of Parliament exclaimed, in a tone more pleasant than he had ever used before —
“Let me speak candidly, Macbean. I would first ask you to forget the words I uttered a few moments ago. I am full of business, you know, and am often out of temper with everything. I was out of temper just now. Well, you want to leave me and go to Italy, while I desire you to remain. Tell me plainly what salary you will accept and continue in my service.”
“I am as perfectly frank as you are,” George replied. “No inducement you could offer would keep me in England.”
Mr Morgan-Mason bit his lip. He never expected this refusal from the clever man whom he had treated as an underling. It was his habit to purchase any service with his money, and this rebuff on the part of a mere servant filled him with chagrin – he who so easily bought the smiles of a duchess or the introduction of a marquis into the royal circle itself.
He did not intend that Macbean should enter the service of Angelo Borselli. He had suspicion – a strong suspicion – and for that reason desired to keep the pair apart. His mind was instantly active in an attempt to devise some scheme by which his own ends could be attained. But if his secretary flatly refused to remain?
“I think you are a consummate fool to your own interests,” remarked his employer. “Foreign Governments when they employ an Englishman only work him for their own ends, and throw him aside like a sucked orange.”
“English employers often do the same,” answered Macbean meaningly.
The millionaire was full of grave reflections, and in order to obtain time to form some plan, he ordered Macbean to despatch the telegram and return.
An hour later, when George entered the splendidly appointed study wherein his employer was lounging, the latter rose, lit a cigar, and turning to him in the dim light – for they were standing beyond the zone of the green-shaded writing-lamp upon the table – said —
“I wish very much, Macbean, that you would listen to reason, and refuse the appointment these Italians offer you. You know as well as I do the insecurity of Governments in Italy; how the man in power to-day may be disgraced to-morrow, and how every few years a clean sweep is made of all officials in the ministries. You have told me that yourself. Recollect the eye-opener into Italian methods we had when we saw the Minister of War regarding the contracts for Abyssinia. I wonder that you, honest man as you are, actually contemplate associating yourself with such a corrupt officialdom.” The arrogant moneyed man was clever enough to appeal to Macbean’s honour, knowing well that his words must cause him to reflect.
“I shall only be an obscure secretary – an employee. Such men have no opportunity of accepting bribes or of pilfering. Theft is only a virtue in the higher grade.”
“Well, since you’ve been out I’ve very carefully considered the whole matter. I should be extremely sorry to lose you. You have served me well, although I have shown no appreciation – I never do. When a man does his best, I am silent. But I am prepared to behave handsomely if you will remain. Your salary shall be raised to five hundred a year. That’s handsome enough for you, isn’t it?”
Macbean slowly shook his head, and declared that no monetary inducement would be availing. He intended to go to Italy at all hazards.
The millionaire stroked his whiskers, for he was nonplussed. Yet he was shrewd, and gifted with a wonderful foresight. If Macbean really intended to go to Rome, then some other means must be found by which to ingratiate himself with the man he had so long ill-treated and despised. There might come a day when Macbean would arise against him, and for that day he must certainly be prepared.
He flung himself into his big morocco arm-chair and motioned George to the seat at the writing-table, having first ascertained that the door was closed. Then, with a few preliminary words of regret that the young man preferred service abroad, he said in a low, earnest voice – confidential for the first time in his life —
“If you go to Rome it is for the purpose of improving your position – of making money. Now, I am desirous of obtaining certain information, for which I am prepared to pay very handsomely, and at the Ministry of War you can, if you go cautiously to work, obtain it.”
“You mean some military secret?” remarked Macbean, looking quickly at his master. “I certainly shall never betray my employers.”
“No, no, not at all,” protested the arrogant man before him, with a dry laugh. “It is a secret which I desire to learn – one for which I will willingly pay you ten thousand pounds in cash, if you can give me proof of the truth – but it is not a military one. You need have no fear that I am asking you to act the traitor to your employers.” The two men regarded each other fixedly. Each was suspicious of double-dealing. The millionaire was searching to discover whether the sum named was sufficiently tempting to induce his secretary to act as his spy, while the latter, scanning the large eyes of the other, endeavoured to read the motive of the mysterious offer.
“You can earn ten thousand pounds easily if you are only wary and act with careful discretion,” went on the millionaire, seeing that Macbean had become interested. “It only requires a little tact, a few judicious inquiries, and the examination of a few official documents. To the latter you will no doubt have access, and if so it will be easy enough.”
“And what is it?” asked George Macbean after a brief pause, shifting in his chair as he spoke. “What is it you desire to know?”
“The truth regarding the exact circumstances of the death of poor Sazarac.”
The other held his breath.
“I desire to avenge his death,” went on the millionaire quietly, looking straight into the face of the astonished man, “and I intend to do so. He was my friend, you know. Discover the truth, and I will willingly pay you the sum I have named – ten thousand pounds.” George Macbean sat before his employer utterly bewildered, stupefied.