The Admirable Tinker | Page 2

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. You can imagine her fury when she learned that
I was married to Pamela."
"I can that," said Lord Crosland.
"She got me back to Beauleigh, on some rotten pretence of legal
business about mortgages; and made a descent on Mr. Vane. You know
that he was as decent a soul as ever lived, and as sensitive. I'm afraid
that there was a lot of Stryke & Wigram in that interview--you know,
talk about having entrapped me into marriage with his daughter--the
last man in the world to dream of it. Fortunately, as I gathered from her
talk later, she made him angry enough to turn her out of the house
without seeing Pamela. She had to content herself with writing to
her--it must have been a letter."
"Why on earth didn't you interfere? I wouldn't have stood it!" said Lord
Crosland.
"I was at Beauleigh. I was pretty soon suspicious that our secret had
been discovered. When three days passed without my getting a letter
from Pamela, I was sure of it. And then Fortune played into my
stepmother's hands: I had a bad fall with a young horse, and injured my
spine. For two months it was touch and go whether I was a cripple for
life; and I was another four months on my back."
"By Jove!" said Lord Crosland with profound sympathy.
"Ah, but it was when I began to mend that my troubles began. There
were no letters for me--not a letter. Just think of it! I knew that Pamela
must be wanting me; and there I lay a helpless log. I was sure that she
had written; and, knowing my stepmother, I was sure that I should
never see the letters. I sent for her, and asked for them. She coolly told
me that she and her brother, my other guardian, Sir Everard Wigram,
Bumpkin Wigram he's generally called, had decided that I was to be
saved, if possible, from the results of my folly at any cost. They would
have taken steps to have the marriage nullified, if it hadn't been for the
risk of my being prosecuted for false entry. Then she talked of my

ingratitude after all her efforts to raise the Beauleighs to their former
glory. I couldn't stand