Part 33 (2/2)
”But there will be a lot of legal business, won't there?”
”Certainly. But it can all be put through in time. And directly it was known that you would sell, the whole situation would be changed.”
”We might save something out of the wreck?” said Falloden, looking up.
The lawyer nodded gravely.
”Something--certainly.”
”What are they worth?” said Falloden, taking a note-book from his pocket, and looking at a list scribbled on its first page.
Mr. Gregory laughed.
”There is no market in the ordinary sense for such pictures as yours.
There are only half a dozen millionaires in the world who could buy them--and one or two museums.” He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at the young man before him. ”There happens, however,”--he spoke slowly--”to be a buyer at this moment in London, whom it would be difficult to beat--in the matter of millions.”
He mentioned the name.
”Not an American? Well, send him along.” Falloden raised his eyebrows.
”If my father doesn't feel able to see him, I can tackle him. He can choose his own day and hour. All our best pictures are at Flood.”
”And they include--”
”Four Rembrandts,” said Falloden, looking at his list, ”two t.i.tians, two Terburgs, a Vermeer of Delft, heaps of other Dutchmen--four full-length Gainsboroughs, and three half-lengths--two full-length Reynoldses, three smaller--three Lawrences, a splendid Romney, three Hoppners, two Constables, etc. The foreign pictures were bought by my grandfather from one of the Orleans collections about 1830. The English pictures--the portraits--have all been at Flood since they were painted, and very few of them have ever been exhibited. I scribbled these few facts down before I left home. There is, of course, an elaborate catalogue.”
For the first time the lawyer's countenance as he listened showed a flash of active sympathy. He was himself a modest collector, and his house at Richmond contained a number of pretty things.
”Sir Arthur will mind parting with them very much, I fear,” he said with real concern. ”I wish with all my heart it had been possible to find some other way out. But we have really done our best.”
Falloden nodded. He sat looking straight before him, one hand drumming on the table. The whole att.i.tude was haughtily irresponsive. The slight note of compa.s.sion in Mr. Gregory's tone was almost intolerable to him, and the lawyer guessed it.
”Insolent cub!” he thought to himself; and thenceforward allowed himself no departure from a purely business tone. It was settled that the buyer--with legal caution, Mr. Gregory for the moment threw no further light upon him--was, if possible, to be got hold of at once, and an appointment was to be made for Flood Castle, where Falloden, or his father, would receive him.
Then the solicitor departed, and Falloden was left to pace up and down the dismal room, his hands in his pockets--deep in thought.
He looked back upon a fortnight of unbroken worry and distress. The news with which his father had received him on his return from Oxford had seemed to him at first incredible. But the facts on which it was based were only too substantial, and his father, broken in health and nerve, now that silence was once thrown aside, poured out upon his son a flood of revelation and confession that soon made what had happened tragically clear. It was the familiar story of wealth grasping at yet more wealth, of the man whose judgment and common sense begin to play him false, when once the intoxication of money has gone beyond a certain point. Dazzled by some first speculative successes, Sir Arthur had become before long a gambler over half the world, in Canada, the States, Egypt, Argentina.
One doubtful venture supported another, and the City, no less than the gambler himself, was for a time taken in. But the downfall of a great Egyptian company, which was to have extracted untold wealth from a strip of Libyan desert, had gradually but surely brought down everything else in its train. Blow after blow fell, sometimes rapidly, sometimes tardily. Sir Arthur tried every expedient known to the financier _in extremis_, descending ever lower in the scale of credit and reputation; and in vain. One tragic day in June, after a long morning with the Gregory partners, Sir Arthur came home to the splendid house in Yorks.h.i.+re, knowing that nothing now remained but to sell the estates, and tell Douglas that his father had ruined him. Lady Laura's settlement was safe; and on that they must live.
The days of slow realisation, after Douglas's return, had tried both father and son severely. Sir Arthur was worn out and demoralised by long months of colossal but useless effort to retrieve what he had done.
Falloden, with his own remorse, and his own catastrophe to think over, was called on to put it aside, to think for and help his father. He had no moral equipment--no trained character--equal to the task. But mercifully for them both, his pride came into play; his shrewd intelligence also, and his affection for his father--the most penetrable spot so far in his hard and splendid youth. He had done his best--a haughty, ungracious best--but still he had done it, and in the course of a few days, now that the tension of concealment was over, Sir Arthur had become almost childishly dependent upon him.
A church clock struck somewhere in the distance. Falloden looked at his watch. Time to go to some restaurant and dine. With Gregory's figures running in his head, he shrank from his Club where he would be sure to meet a host of Harrow and Oxford acquaintance, up for the Varsity match, and the latter end of the season. After dinner he would look into a music-hall, and about eleven make his way to the Tamworth House ball.
He must come back, however, to Portman Square sometime to dress. Lady Tamworth had let it be known privately that the Prince and Princess were coming to her ball, and that the men were expected to appear in knee-breeches and silk stockings. He had told his valet at Flood to pack them; and he supposed that fool of a housemaid would be equal to unpacking for him, and putting out his things.
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