The Price of Things | Page 5

I come
from the generation before."
Denzil helped himself to a Russian salad, and went on leisurely. "He
fortunately married Lady Mary de la Paule--who was a saint, and so
John seems to have righted, and takes after her. She died quite early,
she had had enough of Sir James, I expect, he had gambled away
everything he could lay hands upon. Poor John was brought up with a
tutor at home, for some reason--hard luck on a man. He was only about
thirteen when she died and at seventeen went straight into the city. He
was determined to make a fortune, it has always been said, and redeem
the mortgages on Ardayre--very splendid of him, wasn't it?"
"Yes--well all this is not out of the ordinary line--what comes next?"
Denzil laughed--he was not a good raconteur.
"The poor lady was no sooner dead than the old boy married a
Bulgarian snake charmer, whom he had picked up in Constantinople!
You may well smile"--for Verisschenzko had raised his eyebrows in a
whimsical way--this did sound such a highly coloured incident!
"It was an unusual sort of thing to do, I admit, but the tale grows more
lurid still, when I tell you that five months after the wedding she
produced a son by the Lord knows who, one of her own tribe probably,
and old Sir James was so infatuated with her that he never protested,
and presently when he and John quarrelled like hell he pretended the

little brute was his own child--just to spite John."
Verisschenzko's Calmuck eyes narrowed.
"And does this result of the fusion of snake charmers figure in the
family history? I believe I have met him--his name is Ferdinand, is it
not, and he is, or was, in some business in Constantinople?"
"That is the creature--he was brought up at Ardayre as though he were
the heir, and poor John turned out of things. He came to Eton three
years before I left, but even there they could not turn him into the
outside semblance of a gentleman. I loathed the little toad, and he
loathed me--and the sickening part of the thing is that if John does not
have a son, by the English law of entail Ferdinand comes into Ardayre,
and will be the head of the family. Old Sir James died about five years
ago, always protesting this bastard was his own child, though every one
knew it was a lie. However, by that time John had made enough in the
city to redeem Ardayre twice over. He had tremendous luck after the
South African War, so he came into possession and lives there now in
great state--I do really hope that he will have a son."
"You, too, have the instinct of the family, then--this pride in it--since it
cannot benefit you either way."
"I believe it is born in us, and though I have never seen Ardayre, I
should hate this mongrel to have it. I was brought up with a tremendous
reverence for it, even as a second cousin."
"Well, the new Lady Ardayre looks young enough and of a health to
have ten sons!"
"Y-es," Denzil acquiesced in a tentative tone.
"Not so?" Verisschenzko glanced up surprised, and then gave his
attention to the waiter who had brought some Burgundy and was
pouring it out into his glass.
"Not so you would say?"

"I don't know, I have never seen her--but in the family it is whispered
that John--poor devil--he had an accident hunting two or three years
ago. However, it may not any of it be true--here, let us drink to the
Ardayre son!"
"To the Ardayre son!" and Verisschenzko filled his friend's glass with
the decanted wine and they both drank together.
"Your cousin is like you," he said presently. "A fatiguing likeness, but
the same height and make--and voice--strange things these family
reproductions of an exact type. I have no family, as you know--we are
of the people, arisen by trade to riches. Could I go beyond my
immediate parents, could I know cousins and uncles and brothers,
should I find this same peculiar stamp of family among us all? Who
knows? I think not."
"I suppose there is something in it. My father has told me that in the
picture gallery at Ardayre they are as like as two pins the whole way
down."
"The concentration upon the idea causes it. In people risen like my
father and myself, we only resemble a group--a nation; if I have
children they will resemble me. It is strength in the beginning when an
individual rises beyond the group, which produces a type. One says
'English' to look at you, and then, if one knows, one says 'Ardayre' at
once; one gets as far as 'Calmuck' with me,