The Admirable Tinker (Illustrated)

"It is," said Lord Crosland, "deucedly odd."

"What?" said Sir Tancred Beauleigh.

"That after seeing nothing of one another for nearly three years, we should arrive at this caravanserai from different stations at the same time, to find that our letters engaging this set of rooms came by the same post."

"It comes of having been born on the same day," said Sir Tancred. "Besides, I always told you that the only possible place to live in in town was the top left-hand corner of the Hotel Cecil, with this view up the river, and a nice open breezy space in front of you."

Lord Crosland, who was walking up and down the room as he talked, stopped to gaze out of the window at Westminster, and Sir Tancred lighted another cigarette.

"What I like about it is, it's retired—out of the world," said Lord Crosland.

"It was just that recommended it to me."

A waiter came in, and cleared away the breakfast. Lord Crosland admired the view; Sir Tancred lay back in his easy chair, gazing with vacant, sombre eyes into the clear blue vault of the summer sky.

"I can't see why we shouldn't share these rooms for the season," said Lord Crosland, when the waiter had gone with his tray. "We shall get on all right; we always did at Vane's."

"Well," said Sir Tancred slowly, "I have a child, a boy, somewhere—I don't know where. I've got to find him. I'm going to find him before I do anything else."

"The deuce you have! Well, I'll be shot! To think that you're married!"

"I was married when I said good-bye to you nearly three years ago," said Sir Tancred. "I was married to Pamela Vane."

"You were married to Miss Vane!" cried Lord Crosland. "But how—how on earth did you manage it? It was impossible!"

"I committed that legal misdemeanour known as false entry," said Sir Tancred coolly. "I added the necessary years to our ages."

"Oh, yes, that, of course," said Lord Crosland. "You wouldn't let an informality of that kind stand in your way. But Miss Vane? How did you persuade her? I should have thought it impossible—absolutely impossible."

"It ran as near impossibility as anything I can think of," said Sir Tancred slowly and half dreamily. "But when you are in love with one another, impossibilities fade—and I was masterful."

"You were that," said Lord Crosland with conviction.

"Poor Pamela! She was wretched at having to keep it from her father; and I was sorry enough. But it had to be done; when you are eighteen, and in love with one another, twenty-one seems ages away, don't you know?"

"Of course."

"And once done, I don't believe—honestly, I don't believe that she regretted it," said Sir Tancred; and his sombre eyes were shining. "Heavens, how happy we were!—for four months. But as you'll learn, if ever you have it, happiness is a deucedly expensive thing. I paid a price for it—I did pay a price." And he shivered. "At the end of four months it came out, and it was all up."

"Then that was why Vane gave up coaching, sold Stanley House, and went abroad," said Lord Crosland quickly. "We could none of us make it out."

"That was why. When it came out, my stepmother came on the scene. She's about as remarkable a creature as you'll chance on between now and the blue moon. She has one idea in her head, the glory of the Beauleighs. I believe she's as mad as a hatter about it. She was one of the Stryke & Wigrams, the bankers, a Miss Wigram; and I think, don't you know, that rising out of that wealthy and respectable firm, she felt bound to be the bluest-blooded possible. That's what I fancy. At any rate she's more of a Beauleigh than any Beauleigh since the flood."

"I know," said Lord Crosland, and he nodded gravely with the immeasurable sapience of a boy of twenty-one.

"I must say, too," Sir Tancred went on thoughtfully, "that she's been the most important Beauleigh for generations. She brought thirty thousand a year to the restoration of our dilapidated fortunes; and she did restore them. You know what a County is: well, little by little she got a grip on the County, and now she just runs it. I tell you, the County has taken to spending every bit of the year it can in town or abroad; when it gets within thirty miles of her, it daren't call its life its own."

"By Jove!" said Lord Crosland earnestly. "She must be a holy terror."

"They call it force of character when she's within thirty miles of them," said Sir Tancred drily; and then he went on with more emphasis: "But the banker streak comes out in her; she thinks too much of money. She doesn't understand that money's a thing you spend on things that amuse you; she's always making shows with it—dull shows. So it was part of her scheme for the glory of Beauleigh, that if billions couldn't be got, I was to marry millions.