The Blotting Book (2 page)

Coffee was brought in at this moment, carried, not by one of the discreet
parlour-maids, but by a young man-servant. Mr. Taynton, with the port
still by him, refused it, but looked rather curiously at the servant.
Morris however mixed himself a cup in which cream, sugar, and coffee were
about equally mingled.

"A new servant of your mother's?" he asked, when the man had left the
room.

"Oh no. It's my man, Martin. Awfully handy chap. Cleans silver, boots and
the motor. Drives it, too, when I'll let him, which isn't very often.
Chauffeurs are such rotters, aren't they? Regular chauffeurs I mean. They
always make out that something is wrong with the car, just as dentists
always find some hole in your teeth, if you go to them."

Mr. Taynton did not reply to these critical generalities but went back
to what he had been saying when the entry of coffee interrupted him.

"As your mother said," he remarked, "I wanted to have a few words with
you. You are twenty-two, are you not, to-day? Well, when I was young we
considered anyone of twenty-two a boy still, but now I think young
fellows grow up more quickly, and at twenty-two, you are a man nowadays,
and I think it is time for you, since my trusteeship for you may end any
day now, to take a rather more active interest in the state of your
finances than you have hitherto done. I want you in fact, my dear fellow,
to listen to me for five minutes while I state your position to you."

Morris indicated the port again, and Mr. Taynton refilled his glass.

"I have had twenty years of stewardship for you," he went on, "and
before my stewardship comes to an end, which it will do anyhow in three
years from now, and may come to an end any day—"

"Why, how is that?" asked Morris.

"If you marry, my dear boy. By the terms of your father's will, your
marriage, provided it takes place with your mother's consent, and after
your twenty-second birthday, puts you in complete control and possession
of your fortune. Otherwise, as of course you know, you come of age,
legally speaking, on your twenty-fifth birthday."

Morris lit another cigarette rather impatiently.

"Yes, I knew I was a minor till I was twenty-five," he said, "and I
suppose I have known that if I married after the age of twenty-two, I
became a major, or whatever you call it. But what then? Do let us go and
play billiards, I'll give you twenty-five in a hundred, because I've
been playing a lot lately, and I'll bet half a crown."

Mr. Taynton's fist gently tapped the table.

"Done," he said, "and we will play in five minutes. But I have something
to say to you first. Your mother, as you know, enjoys the income of the
bulk of your father's property for her lifetime. Outside that, he left
this much smaller capital of which, as also of her money, my partner and
I are trustees. The sum he left you was thirty thousand pounds. It is now
rather over forty thousand pounds, since we have changed the investments
from time to time, and always, I am glad to say, with satisfactory
results. The value of her property has gone up also in a corresponding
degree. That, however, does not concern you. But since you are now
twenty-two, and your marriage would put the whole of this smaller sum
into your hands, would it not be well for you to look through our books,
to see for yourself the account we render of our stewardship?"

Morris laughed.

"But for what reason?" he asked. "You tell me that my portion has
increased in value by ten thousand pounds. I am delighted to hear it. And
I thank you very much. And as for—"

He broke off short, and Mr. Taynton let a perceptible pause follow before
he interrupted.

"As for the possibility of your marrying?" he suggested.

Morris gave him a quick, eager, glance.

"Yes, I think there is that possibility," he said. "I hope—I hope it is
not far distant."

"My dear boy—" said the lawyer.

"Ah, not a word. I don't know—"

Morris pushed his chair back quickly, and stood up—his tall slim figure
outlined against the sober red of the dining-room wall. A plume of black
hair had escaped from his well-brushed head and hung over his forehead,
and his sun-tanned vivid face looked extraordinarily handsome. His
mother's clear-cut energetic features were there, with the glow and
buoyancy of youth kindling them. Violent vitality was his also; his was
the hot blood that could do any deed when the life-instinct commanded it.
He looked like one of those who could give their body to be burned in the
pursuit of an idea, or could as easily steal, or kill, provided only the
deed was vitally done in the heat of his blood. Violence was clearly his
mode of life: the motor had to go sixty miles an hour; he might be one of
those who bathed in the Serpentine in mid-winter; he would clearly dance
all night, and ride all day, and go on till he dropped in the pursuit of
what he cared for. Mr. Taynton, looking at him as he stood smiling there,
in his splendid health and vigour felt all this. He felt, too, that if
Morris intended to be married to-morrow morning, matrimony would probably
take place.

But Morris's pause, after he pushed his chair back and stood up, was only
momentary.

"Good God, yes; I'm in love," he said. "And she probably thinks me a
stupid barbarian, who likes only to drive golfballs and motorcars.
She—oh, it's hopeless. She would have let me come over to see them
to-morrow otherwise."

He paused again.

"And now I've given the whole show away," he said.

Mr. Taynton made a comfortable sort of noise. It was compounded of
laughter, sympathy, and comprehension.

"You gave it away long ago, my dear Morris," he said.

"You had guessed?" asked Morris, sitting down again with the same
quickness and violence of movement, and putting both his elbows on
the table.

"No, my dear boy, you had told me, as you have told everybody, without
mentioning it. And I most heartily congratulate you. I never saw a more
delightful girl. Professionally also, I feel bound to add that it seems
to me a most proper alliance—heirs should always marry heiresses.
It"—Mr. Taynton drank off the rest of his port—"it keeps properties
together."

Hot blood again dictated to Morris: it seemed dreadful to him that any
thought of money or of property could be mentioned in the same breath as
that which he longed for. He rose again as abruptly and violently as he
had sat down.

"Well, let's play billiards," he said. "I—I don't think you understand a
bit. You can't, in fact."

Mr. Taynton stroked the tablecloth for a moment with a plump white
forefinger.

"Crabbed age and youth," he remarked. "But crabbed age makes an appeal to
youth, if youth will kindly call to mind what crabbed age referred to
some five minutes ago. In other words, will you, or will you not, Morris,
spend a very dry three hours at my office, looking into the account of my
stewardship? There was thirty thousand pounds, and there now is—or
should we say 'are'—forty. It will take you not less than two hours, and
not more than three. But since my stewardship may come to an end, as I
said, any day, I should, not for my own sake, but for yours, wish you to
see what we have done for you, and—I own this would be a certain private
gratification to me—to learn that you thought that the trust your dear
father reposed in us was not misplaced."

There was something about these simple words which touched Morris. For
the moment he became almost businesslike. Mr. Taynton had been, as he
knew, a friend of his father's, and, as he had said, he had been steward
of his own affairs for twenty years. But that reflection banished the
businesslike view.

"Oh, but two hours is a fearful time," he said. "You have told me the
facts, and they entirely satisfy me. And I want to be out all day
to-morrow, as I am only here till the day after. But I shall be down
again next week. Let us go into it all then. Not that there is the
slightest use in going into anything. And when, Mr. Taynton, I become
steward of my own affairs, you may be quite certain that I shall beg you
to continue looking after them. Why you gained me ten thousand pounds in
these twenty years—I wonder what there would have been to my credit now
if I had looked after things myself. But since we are on the subject I
should like just this once to assure you of my great gratitude to you,
for all you have done. And I ask you, if you will, to look after my
affairs in the future with the same completeness as you have always done.
My father's will does not prevent that, does it?"

Mr. Taynton looked at the young fellow with affection.

"Dear Morris," he said gaily, "we lawyers and solicitors are always
supposed to be sharks, but personally I am not such a shark as that. Are
you aware that I am paid £200 a year for my stewardship, which you are
entitled to assume for yourself on your marriage, though of course its
continuance in my hands is not forbidden in your father's will? You are
quite competent to look after your affairs yourself; it is ridiculous for
you to continue to pay me this sum. But I thank you from the bottom of my
heart for your confidence in me."

A very close observer might have seen that behind Mr. Taynton's kind gay
eyes there was sitting a personality, so to speak, that, as his mouth
framed these words, was watching Morris rather narrowly and anxiously.
But the moment Morris spoke this silent secret watcher popped back again
out of sight.

"Well then I ask you as a personal favour," said he, "to continue being
my steward. Why, it's good business for me, isn't it? In twenty years you
make me ten thousand pounds, and I only pay you £200 a year for it.
Please be kind, Mr. Taynton, and continue making me rich. Oh, I'm a jolly
hard-headed chap really; I know that it is to my advantage."

Mr. Taynton considered this a moment, playing with his wine glass. Then
he looked up quickly.

"Yes, Morris, I will with pleasure do as you ask me," he said.

"Right oh. Thanks awfully. Do come and play billiards."

Morris was in amazing luck that night, and if, as he said, he had been
playing a lot lately, the advantage of his practice was seen chiefly in
the hideous certainty of his flukes, and the game (though he received
twenty-five) left Mr. Taynton half a crown the poorer. Then the winner
whirled his guest upstairs again to talk to his mother while he himself
went round to the stables to assure himself of the well-being of the
beloved motor. Martin had already valeted it, after its run, and was just
locking up when Morris arrived.

Morris gave his orders for next day after a quite unnecessary examination
into the internal economy of the beloved, and was just going back to the
house, when he paused, remembering something.

"Oh Martin," he said, "while I am here, I want you to help in the house,
you know at dinner and so on, just as you did to-night. And when there
are guests of mine here I want you to look after them. For instance, when
Mr. Taynton goes tonight you will be there to give him his hat and coat.
You'll have rather a lot to do, I'm afraid."

Morris finished his cigarette and went back to the drawing-room where Mr.
Taynton was already engaged in the staid excitements of backgammon with
his mother. That game over, Morris took his place, and before long the
lawyer rose to go.

"Now I absolutely refuse to let you interrupt your game," he said. "I
have found my way out of this house often enough, I should think. Good
night, Mrs. Assheton. Good night Morris; don't break your neck my dear
boy, in trying to break records."

Morris hardly attended to this, for the game was critical. He just rang
the bell, said good night, and had thrown again before the door had
closed behind Mr. Taynton. Below, in answer to the bell, was standing
his servant.

Mr. Taynton looked at him again with some attention, and then glanced
round to see if the discreet parlour-maids were about.

"So you are called Martin now," he observed gently.

"Yes, sir."

"I recognised you at once."

There was a short pause.

"Are you going to tell Mr. Morris, sir?" he asked.

"That I had to dismiss you two years ago for theft?" said Mr. Taynton
quietly. "No, not if you behave yourself."

Mr. Taynton looked at him again kindly and sighed.

"No, let bygones be bygones," he said. "You will find your secret is safe
enough. And, Martin, I hope you have really turned over a new leaf, and
are living honestly now. That is so, my lad? Thank God; thank God. My
umbrella? Thanks. Good night. No cab: I will walk."

Mr. Taynton lived in a square, comfortable house in Montpellier Road, and
thus, when he left Mrs. Assheton's there was some two miles of pavement
and sea front between him and home. But the night was of wonderful
beauty, a night of mid June, warm enough to make the most cautious secure
of chill, and at the same time just made crisp with a little breeze that
blew or rather whispered landward from over the full-tide of the sleeping
sea. High up in the heavens swung a glorious moon, which cast its path of
white enchanted light over the ripples, and seemed to draw the heart even
as it drew the eyes heavenward. Mr. Taynton certainly, as he stepped out
beneath the stars, with the sea lying below him, felt, in his delicate
and sensitive nature, the charm of the hour, and being a good if not a
brisk walker, he determined to go home on foot. And he stepped westward
very contentedly.

The evening, it would appear, had much pleased him—for it was long
before his smile of retrospective pleasure faded from his pleasant mobile
face. Morris's trust and confidence in him had been extraordinarily
pleasant to him: and modest and unassuming as he was, he could not help a
secret gratification at the thought. What a handsome fellow Morris was
too, how gay, how attractive! He had his father's dark colouring, and
tall figure, but much of his mother's grace and charm had gone to the
modelling of that thin sensitive mouth and the long oval of his face. Yet
there was more of the father there, the father's intense, almost
violent, vitality was somehow more characteristic of the essential Morris
than face or feature.