The Secret of the Silver Car by Wyndham Martyn (best classic romance novels txt) 📕

Rudolph Castoon looked at him sourly.

“Well?” he snapped.

Anthony Trent looked at him and knew instantly that he would always share the hate he saw in the capitalist’s face. For a moment he was at a loss to understand the reason. Then he saw that it was jealousy, furious, dynamic jealousy. Lady Daphne had come to see Mrs. Bassett. Instead Castoon found she had come to see a younger an’d better looking man. Trent did not fall into the error of underrating Castoon. In the event of a contest of any kind between them he would walk warily. But he never expected to see the man again and his peremptory way of speaking angered him.

“Well?” Castoon demanded again.

“Thank you,” said Trent urbanely, “I find the air of these moorlands of great benefit to me. Formerly I slept poorly but now I sleep as soon as my head touches the pillow. And my appetite is better. I eat three eggs for breakfast every morning. Do you sleep well?”

“I did not come here to sleep,” Castoon frowned.

“But if you are here for long you must,” Trent said pleasantly.

“I am not in the least interested in your health or how many eggs you can eat for breakfast.” Castoon’s manner was frankly rude, “I want to know where Lady Daphne Grenvil is.”

“She said she had forgotten you,” Trent answered, “she also said you would probably be furious at being kept waiting.”

“I am,” Castoon asserted. “Would it be too much to ask the reason?”

“I expected you to,” Trent said affably. The time he took to select a cigarette from his case and the meticulous manner in which he lighted it added to the other man’s ill temper just as Anthony Trent intended it should.

“If you are quite finished, sir,” Castoon cried, “I should be glad to hear.”

“As an American,” Trent began airily, “I like the old family servant tradition. Lady Daphne is talking over her childhood days with Mrs. Bassett. My mother was from the Southern states and I suppose I inherit a liking for that sort of thing.”

“Will you come to the point, sir?” Castoon exclaimed.

“I thought I told you that Lady Daphne was talking over nursery reminisences with an old servant.”

“She may be doing that now, but what was she doing before? I’ll tell you; she was talking to you. Do you deny it?”

“My dear man,” Trent cried in apparent surprise, “Deny it? I boast about it! It is the only thing I hope will be printed in my obituary notices.”

“I’m not sure I should be desolated at reading your obituary notices,” Castoon said keeping his temper back. He could say no more for Lady Daphne came hurrying along the hydrangea-bordered path to the gate.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, Mr. Castoon,” she cried.

“I can forget everything now that you are here,” he returned gallantly, “even the humour of this young man whose name I don’t know.”

“Mr. Anthony Trent of New York,” she told him. “You’ll meet him at luncheon tomorrow.”

“That will make it a very pleasant function,” the financier said grimly. He could say no more because the horses reared impatiently and for a moment there was danger.

“That off horse nearly came over backward,” Castoon said when the team had settled down a little and the farm was a half mile behind.

“But it didn’t,” Lady Daphne said calmly, “so why worry?”

“It would have been his fault,” Castoon said venomously.

“You don’t seem to like him,” she said smiling.

“I hate any man who looks at you as he does.”

“How does he look?” she asked with an air of innocence.

“He looks at you as if he was in love with you, and I hate any man to do that.”

“You have no right to resent it Mr. Castoon,” she said coldly. “I have told you a hundred times that you concern yourself far too much with my affairs.”

“I’m going to marry you,” he said doggedly. “I never fail. Look at my life history and see where I have been beaten. I know you don’t care for me yet. You’ll have to later.”

“My father doesn’t care for you either.”

Rudolph Castoon sniffed impatiently.

“His type is dying out. He still remains ignorant that money has displaced birth.”

“It’s the one thing money won’t buy, though,” she reminded him.

“Birth can’t buy power,” the financier said quickly, “and money means power. Your father has had both. It would have been easier for me to marry Daphne, daughter of the Earl of Rosecarrel, Viscount St. Just, Baron Wadebridge, Knight of the Garter, and Ambassador to Turkey, and all the rest of it, than it will be to marry you now your father has abandoned his career.”

“That sounds merely silly to me,” she exclaimed.

“Someday I will explain to you how very sensible it is. You will understand exactly.”

“Do you mean you are so inordinately vain you would rather marry an ambassador’s daughter than the daughter of a man who isn’t a power politically anymore?”

“At least I can say I don’t mean that. I am vain,that’s true, but I wish you were one of the daughters of a tenant farmer on these purple moors instead of being an earl’s daughter.” He sighed a little. Then the recollection of Anthony Trent came back. “Who is this man Trent?” he demanded.

“A delightful man,” she said, “an American who knows how to behave. I met him at a houseparty somewhere or other. He used to know Arthur.”

Castoon could not keep back a sneer.

“That vouches for him of course.”

“At least he wouldn’t say anything as underbred as that,” she cried angrily, and touched one of her high-mettled chestnuts with a lash. Castoon hung on to the seat as the pair tried to get away.

“You’ll kill yourself some day driving such horses as these,” he said later. He was not a coward; but unnecessary risk always seemed a childish thing to create and he believed himself heir to a great destiny.

If Anthony Trent thought he was to be the guest at a small luncheon party where he could meet Arthur under friendlier circumstances and talk to Daphne intimately, he was mistaken.

Castoon was staying at the castle and a number of people motored over from Falmouth as well as the owner of a big yacht lying for the time in the Fowey river.

Lord Rosecarrel was very amiable. He seemed intensely grateful that Trent gave up a morning’s shooting to attend a luncheon. There was no trace of suspicion about him. He had been told that Mr. Trent, an American of means, had been a guest at Dereham Old Hall. His daughter had not informed him of Alicia Langley’s letter.

But he was most interested to know that his son’ had saved the visitor’s life. It was the one good act in the black years which had given him so much sorrow.

Also Daphne had told him that Arthur liked Trent and would be a good companion. The physicians who were watching Arthur’s case recommended that he should be kept interested. They desired that the apathy which threatened to take hold on him should be banished. The Earl was growing more and more to leave things to the girl. The death of his two sons had been a terrible blow and he was beginning to find in solitary yachting and fishing trips a certain refreshing solace.

From the deference that most of the people paid to Rudolph Castoon it was evident that he was a man of great influence and promise.

Trent sat next to a rather pretty dark girl, a Miss Barbara, who had come over from her father’s yacht.

“Everybody seems to hang on his words,” he said. “Why?”

“He’s phenomenally rich,” she answered, “and he has a career. He’ll probably be Chancellor of the Exchequer in the next cabinet. Finance is bred in the bone of his sort. Hasn’t he a brother in your country?”

“A great power in Wall Street,” Trent told her, “but we suspect a capitalist; and while Rudolph may get a title and much honor, Alfred in America couldn’t get a job as dog catcher.”

“Of course you’ve seen he’s simply mad about Daphne?” Miss Barham said later.

“I’ve seen his side of it,” Trent said frowning a little, “but what about Lady Daphne?”

“Power is always attractive,” Miss Barham said wisely, “and we English women love politics. One can never tell. I think the earl would be furious but Daphne always gets her way and after all Mr. Castoon is a great catch whichever way you look at it. There’s nothing financially shady about him and if Daphne should ever get bitten with the idea of making a salon, he’s the man to marry.”

“What a brutal way to look at it,” he said gloomily.

“Are you young enough to believe in those delightful love matches, Mr. Trent?” the girl asked. “I did till I was almost fifteen.”

Anthony Trent should have been amused to find himself on the side of the angels. As a rule life had provoked cynicism in him and here he was fighting for ideals.

“I talked like that until I was fifteen,” he smiled, “and I meant it.”

Ada Barham turned her dark brilliant eyes on him. She rather envied the girl who had captured him. She felt it was a lover talking.

“Of course you are in love,” she retorted. “I always meet the really nice men too late. Dare you confess it?”

“I admit it,” he said a little confused.

“American girls are very charming,” Miss Barham declared. “I stayed at Newport a month last year. Of course you know Newport?”

“Fairly well,” he admitted.

Oddly enough the recollection of his Newport triumphs was not as pleasing as usual. He had made some of his richest hauls in the Rhode Island city.

What an amazing thing, he reflected, that he was here as a guest among people on whom, as a class, he had looked as his lawful prey. Castoon with his millions was the sort of man he would like to measure his wit against. When Castoon looked across the table at him with a kind of innocent stare he decided that it would be a delightful duel.

He knew English women wore little jewelry during the day so he could not estimate the value of what they owned at a luncheon, but he was certain Miss Barham’s mother, who was addressed as Lady Harriet, had family jewels worth the risk of seeking to get. A woman whose husband owned a two hundred feet steam yacht was distinctly among those whom in former days he had been professionally eager to meet.

Before the luncheon Lady Daphne had explained that her brother would not be at the table. The family was anxious that he should not be subjected to the confusion of professing ignorance of some man or event which he ought to know. By degrees he was getting his bearings and reading through files of old newspapers the main events of the years that had been wiped from his mind.

Anthony Trent was taken to the big room lay a footman, the same room he had entered unannounced.

“You must have thought me awfully rude,” Arthur Grenvil said cordially, “but my sister had told you the reason. She says I used to know you.” Grenvil looked at him wistfully, “I think she said I had saved your life.”

“You did,” Trent answered promptly. And then, because he was sorry for the ex-“Tommy” but more because he loved the other’s sister, he plunged into a stirring