The Masqueraders

Chapter 11
My Lord Barham in Arlington Street

When the black page announced my Lord Barham next morning both Mr and Miss Merriot were with my lady in the morning-room. My lord was ushered in, very point-de-vice, with laced gloves, and a muff of miniver, and a long beribboned cane. The muff and the cane were given into the page’s charge; the door closed behind this diminutive person, and my lord spread wide his arms. “My children!” he exclaimed. “Behold me returned to you!”

His children maintained an admirable composure. “Like Jonah cast up out of the whale’s belly,” said Robin.

My lord was not in the least put out of countenance by this coolness. “My son!” He swooped upon Robin. “Perfect! To the last detail! My Prudence!”

Prudence submitted to a fervent embrace. “Well, sir, how do you do?” she said, smiling. “We perceive you are returned to us, but we don’t understand the manner of it.”

He struck an attitude. “But do you not know? I am Tremaine. Tremaine of Barham!”

“Lud!” said Robin. “You don’t say so, sir!”

He was hurt. “Ah, you do not believe in me! You doubt me, in effect!”

“Well, sir” — Prudence sat on the arm of Robin’s chair, and gently swung one booted leg to and fro — “We’ve seen you as Mr Colney; we’ve seen you as Mr Daughtry; we’ve even seen you as the Prince Vanilov. You cannot altogether blame us.”

My lord abandoned his attitude, and took snuff. “I shall show you,” he promised. “Do not doubt that this time I surpass myself.”

“We don’t doubt that, sir.”

My lady said on a gurgling laugh: “But what will you be at, mon cher? What madness?”

“I am Tremaine of Barham,” reiterated his lordship, with dignity. “Almost I had forgot it, but I come now into my own. You must have known” — he addressed the room at large — “you who have watched me, that there was more to me than a mere wandering gamester!”

“Faith, we thought it just devilry, sir,” Prudence chuckled.

“You do not appreciate me,” said my lord sadly, and sat him down by the table. “You lack soul, my children. Yes, you lack soul.”

“I concede you all my admiration, sir,” said Prudence.

“You shall concede me more still. You shall recognise a master mind in me, my Prudence. We come to the end of our travels.”

“Tyburn way,” said Robin, and laughed. “Egad, sir, you’ve a maggot in your head to venture on such a piece of folly!”

The old gentleman’s eyes glinted. “Do my schemes go awry, then? Do I fail in what I undertake to do, Robin my son?”

“You don’t, sir, I’m willing to admit, but you break fresh ground now, and I believe you don’t know the obstacles. This is England.”

“Robin acquires geography!” My lord smiled gently. “It is the land of my birth. I am come home, enfin. I am Tremaine of Barham.”

“And pray what are we, sir?” inquired Robin, with interest.

“At present, mes enfants, you are Mr and Miss Merriot. I compliment you. It is admirable. I see that you inherit a part of my genius.” He kissed his finger-tips to them. “When I have made all secure you are the Honourable Robin, and the Honourable Prudence Tremaine.”

“Of Barham,” interpolated Prudence.

He looked at her affectionately. “For you, my beautiful Prue, I plan a great marriage,” he informed her magnificently.

“A Royal Prince, belike?” said Prudence, unimpressed.

“I will choose from an older house than this of Hanover,” my lord said grandly. “Have no fear.”

Robin looked at his sister. “My dear, what to do?” he said helplessly.

“Leave all to me!” commanded my lord. “I do not make mistakes.”

“Except in the matter of Royal Princes,” said Robin, with meaning.

“Bah! I forget all that!” The past was consigned to perdition with a snap of thin fingers. “It might have chanced otherwise. I seized opportunity, as ever. Do you blame me for the Rebellion’s failure?”

Prudence shook her head. “Ah, sir, you should have been put at the head of it,” she mourned. “The Prince would be at St James’s today then.”

My Lord was forcibly struck by this view of the case. “My child, you have intuition,” he said seriously. “You are right. Yes, beyond all doubt you are right.” He sat lost in meditation, planning, they knew, great deeds that might have been.

They exchanged glances. My lady sat by the window, chin in hand, raptly gazing upon the old gentleman out of her narrow eyes. There was nothing to do but to wait for him to come out of his trance. Robin sat back in his chair with a shrug of fatalism; his sister continued to sling one booted leg.

My lord looked up. “Dreams!” he waved them aside. “Dreams! I am a great man,” he said simply.

“You are, sir,” agreed Prudence. “But we should like to know what you plan now.”

“I have done with plans and plots,” he told her. “I am Tremaine of Barham.”

There seemed to be no hope of getting anything more out of him. But Prudence persevered. “So you have told us, sir. But can you prove it to the satisfaction of Mr Rensley?”

“If Rensley becomes a nuisance, Rensley must go,” my lord declared, with resolution.

“Murder, sir?”

“He will disappear. I shall see to it. It need not worry you. I arrange all for the best.”

“I wonder whether Mr Rensley will see it in that light?” said Prudence. “Does he acknowledge you, sir?”

“No,” admitted his lordship. “But he fears me. Believe it, he fears me!”

Robin had been sitting with closed eyes, but he opened them now. “I grant you this much, sir: you are to be feared.”

“My Robin!” My lord flung out a hand to him. “You begin to know me then!”

“I’ve a very lively fear of you myself,” said Robin frankly. “Give me audience a moment!”

“Speak, my son. I listen. I am all attention.”

Robin looked at his finger-tips. “Well, sir, the matter stands thus: we’ve a mind to turn respectable, Prue and I.” He raised his eyes. His father’s expression was one of courteous interest. “I admit we don’t see our way clear. We wait on you. To be candid, sir, you pushed us into the late Rebellion, and it is for you to extricate us now. I’ve no desire to adorn Tyburn Tree. We came to London under your direction; we stayed for you here, according to the plan. True, you have come as you promised you would, but in a guise that bids fair to compromise us more deeply still. We don’t desert you: faith, we can’t, unless we choose to go abroad again. But we’ve an ambition to settle in England. We look to you.”

The old gentleman heard him out in smiling silence. At the end he arose. “And not in vain, my children. I live but to settle you in the world. And the time has come! Listen to me! I answer every point. For the Rebellion, it is simplicity itself. You cease to exist. You vanish. In a word, you are no more. Robin Lacey — it was Lacey? — dies. Remains my son — Tremaine of Barham! I swept you into the Rebellion it’s true. In a little while I have but to stretch out a hand, and you are whisked from all danger. Have patience till I make all secure! Already I announce to the world the existence of a son, and of an exquisite daughter.” He paused. Applause — it was clearly expected — came from my lady, who clapped delighted hands. His eyes dwelt upon her fondly. “Ah, Thérèse, you believe in me. You have reason. Not twice in five hundred years is my like seen.”

“The world has still something to be thankful for,” sighed Robin. “It’s all very fine, sir, and I had as lief be Tremaine of Barham as Robin Lacey; but how do you purpose to arrive at this promised security?”

“That I do not as yet know,” said his lordship. “I make no plans until I see what I have to combat.”

“You realise there’s like to be a fight, sir?”

“Most fully. There are maybe some few will know me from foreign days. Those I do not fear. They are less than nothing.”

“And,” interrupted his son, “there may be also some few will know you from Scottish days. What of them?”

“They too are less than nothing,” said my lord. “Who would dare to seek to expose me?” He laid stress on the last word; it seemed fitting. “What man knows me among the Jacobites whom I do not know? Not one! I have some papers in my possession make me dangerous beyond the power of imagination.”

“Jacobite papers?” said Robin sharply. “Then burn them, sir! You are not, after all, Mr Murray of Broughton.”

My lord drew himself up. “You suspect me of infamy? You think that Tremaine of Barham turns informer? You insult me! You, my son!”

“Egad, sir, let us have done with heroics. I’m to suppose you keep your papers for some purpose.”

“You may consider them as a Sword of Damocles in case of necessity,” said my lord. “There is only one thing that I fear. One little, significant scrap of paper. I shall overcome the obstacle.”

“Paper? You’ve set your name to something? Where is it?” demanded Robin.

“If I knew, should I fear it?” my lord pointed out.

“It seems to me, sir,” said Prudence slowly, “that there is a Sword of Damocles poised above your head as well.”

“There is, my child. You perceive that I conceal nothing. But it is my fate to be victorious. I shall contrive.”

The grey eyes widened. “I contrive,” said Prudence softly. “Do you know, sir, you puzzle me.”

“It has ever been my motto,” the old gentleman pointed out triumphantly. “It is the word of the Tremaines. Consider it, my daughter! Consider it well! I take my leave of you now. You will find me in lodgings at Half Moon Street — close by my loved ones. I have come, and your anxieties are at an end.”

“It is in my mind that they are only just beginning,” said Prudence ruefully.

My lady got up to lay a hand on his lordship’s sleeve. “You do not take possession of your fine town house yet, no?” she inquired.

“In time, Thérèse, in good time. There are legal formalities. I do not trouble myself with lawyers!” This was once more in the grand manner. My lord beamed upon his children. “Farewell, mes enfants! We meet again later.” He kissed my lady’s hand, and was gone with a click of red heels on the wood floor, and the wave of a scented handkerchief.