The Red Rat's Daughter, Guy Boothby [most read book in the world TXT] 📗

CHAPTER I


If John Grantham Browne had a fault--which, mind you, I am not prepared to admit--it lay in the fact that he was the possessor of a cynical wit which he was apt at times to use upon his friends with somewhat peculiar effect. Circumstances alter cases, and many people would have argued that he was perfectly entitled to say what he pleased. When a man is worth a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year--which, worked out, means ten thousand pounds a month, three hundred and twenty-eight pounds, fifteen shillings and fourpence a day, and four-and-sixpence three-farthings, and a fraction over, per minute--he may surely be excused if he becomes a little sceptical as to other people's motives, and is apt to be distrustful of the world in general. Old Brown, his father, without the "e," as you have doubtless observed, started life as a bare-legged street arab in one of the big manufacturing centres--Manchester or Birmingham, I am not quite certain which. His head, however, must have been screwed on the right way, for he made few mistakes, and everything he touched turned to gold. At thirty his bank balance stood at fifteen thousand pounds; at forty it had turned the corner of a hundred thousand; and when he departed this transitory life, a young man in everything but years, he left his widow, young John's mother--his second wife, I may remark in passing, and the third daughter of the late Lord Rushbrooke--upwards of three and a half million pounds sterling in trust for the boy.

As somebody wittily remarked at the time, young John, at his father's death and during his minority, was a monetary Mohammed--he hovered between two worlds: the Rushbrookes, on one side, who had not two sixpences to rub against each other, and the Brownes, on the other, who reckoned their wealth in millions and talked of thousands as we humbler mortals do of half-crowns. Taken altogether, however, old Brown was not a bad sort of fellow. Unlike so many parvenus, he had the good sense, the "e" always excepted, not to set himself up to be what he certainly was not. He was a working-man, he would tell you with a twinkle in his eye, and he had made his own way in the world. He had never in his life owed a halfpenny, nor, to the best of his knowledge, had he ever defrauded anybody; and, if he _had_ made his fortune out of soap, well--and here his eyes would glisten--soap was at least a useful article, and would wash his millions cleaner than a good many other commodities he might mention. In his tastes and habits he was simplicity itself. Indeed, it was no unusual sight to see the old fellow, preparatory to setting off for the City, coming down the steps of his magnificent town house, dressed in a suit of rough tweed, with the famous bird's-eye neck-cloth loosely twisted round his throat, and the soft felt hat upon his head--two articles of attire which no remonstrance on the part of his wife and no amount of ridicule from the comic journals could ever induce him to discard. His stables were full of carriages, and there was a cab-rank within a hundred yards of his front door, yet no one had ever seen him set foot in either. The soles of his boots were thick, and he had been accustomed to walk all his life, he would say, and he had no intention of being carried till he was past caring what became of him. With regard to his son, the apple of his eye, and the pride of his old age, his views were entirely different. Nothing was good enough for the boy. From the moment he opened his eyes upon the light, all the luxuries and advantages wealth could give were showered upon him. Before he was short-coated, upwards of a million had been placed to his credit at the bank, not to be touched until he came of age. After he had passed from a dame's school to Eton, he returned after every holiday with sufficient money loose in his pocket to have treated the whole school. When, in the proper order of things, he went on to Christ Church, his rooms were the envy and the admiration of the university. As a matter of fact, he never knew what it was to have to deny himself anything; and it says something for the lad's nature, and the father's too, I think, that he should have come out of it the honest, simple Englishman he was. Then old John died; his wife followed suit six months later; and on his twenty-fifth birthday the young man found himself standing alone in the world with his millions ready to his hand either to make or mar him. Little though he thought it at the time, there was a sufficiency of trouble in store for him.

He had town houses, country seats, moors and salmon-fishings, yachts (steam and sailing), racehorses, hunters, coach-horses, polo-ponies, and an army of servants that a man might very well shudder even to think of. But he lacked one thing; he had no wife. Society, however, was prepared to remedy this defect. Indeed, it soon showed that it was abnormally anxious to do so. Before he was twenty-two it had been rumoured that he had become engaged to something like a score of girls, each one lovelier, sweeter, and boasting blood that was bluer than the last. A wiser and an older head might well have been forgiven had it succumbed to the attacks made upon it; but in his veins, mingled with the aristocratic Rushbrooke blood, young John had an equal portion of that of the old soap-boiler; and where the one led him to accept invitations to country houses at Christmas, or to be persuaded into driving his fair friends, by moonlight, to supper at the Star and Garter, the other enabled him to take very good care of himself while he ran such dangerous risks. In consequence he had attained the advanced age of twenty-eight when this story opens, a bachelor, and with every prospect of remaining so. But the Blind Bow-Boy, as every one is aware, discharges his bolts from the most unexpected quarters; and for this reason you are apt to find yourself mortally wounded in the very place, of all others, where you have hitherto deemed yourself most invulnerable.

It was the end of the second week in August; Parliament was up; and Browne's steam-yacht, the _Lotus Blossom_, twelve hundred tons, lay in the harbour of Merok, on the Gieranger Fjord, perhaps the most beautiful on the Norwegian coast. The guests on board had been admirably chosen, an art which in most instances is not cultivated as carefully as it might be. An ill-assorted house party is bad enough; to bring the wrong men together on the moors is sufficient to spoil an otherwise enjoyable holiday; but to ask Jones (who doesn't smoke, who is wrapped up in politics, reads his leader in the _Standard_ every morning, and who has played whist every afternoon with the same men at his club for the last ten years) and De Vere Robinson (who never reads anything save the _Referee_ and the _Sportsman_, who detests whist, and who smokes the strongest Trichinopolis day and night) to spend three weeks cooped up on a yacht would be like putting a kitten and a cat-killing fox-terrier into a corn-bin and expecting them to have a happy time together. Browne, however, knew his business, and his party, in this particular instance, consisted of the Duchess of Matlock, wife of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and her two pretty daughters, the Ladies Iseult and Imogen; Miss Verney, the beauty of the season; the Honourable Silas Dobson, the American Ambassador; his wife and daughter; George Barrington-Marsh, of the 1st Life; and little Jimmy Foote, a man of no permanent address, but of more than usual shrewdness, who managed to make a good income out of his friends by the exercise of that peculiar talent for pleasing which rendered him indispensable whenever and wherever his fellow-creatures were gathered together. In addition to those I have mentioned there was a man whose interest in this story is so great that it is necessary he should be described at somewhat greater length.

Should you deem it worth your while to make inquiries at any of the Chancelleries in order to ascertain whether they happen to be acquainted with a certain Monsieur Felix Maas, you would probably be surprised to learn that he is as well known to them as--well--shall we say the Sultan of Turkey himself? though it would be difficult to mention in exactly what capacity. One thing is quite certain; it would be no easy task to find a man possessed of such peculiar characteristics as this retiring individual. At first glance his name would appear to settle his nationality once and for all. He would tell you, however, that he has no right to be considered a Dutchman. At the same time he would probably omit to tell you to which kingdom or empire he ascribes the honour of his birth. If you travelled with him you would discover that he speaks the language of every country west of the Ural Mountains with equal fluency; and though he would appear to be the possessor of considerable wealth, he never makes the least parade of it. In fact, his one and only idea in life would seem to be always irreproachably dressed and groomed, never to speak unless spoken to, and at all times to act as if he took no sort of interest whatever in any person or thing save that upon which he happened to be engaged at the moment. When necessity demands it he can be exceedingly amusing; he never allows himself to be seen with a man or woman who would be likely to cause him the least loss of prestige; he gives charming little dinners _a la fourchette_ at his rooms in town twice or thrice during the season, and is rumoured to be the author, under a _nom de plume_, of one of the best works on Continental politics that has seen the light since Talleyrand's day. So much for Felix Maas.

At one time or another there have been a number of exquisite yachts built to satisfy the extravagances of millionaires, but never one so perfect in every detail, and so replete with every luxury, as Browne's _Lotus Blossom_. The state-rooms were large and airy; beds occupied the places of the usual uncomfortable bunks; the dining-saloon was situated amidships, where the vibration of the screw was least felt; the drawing-room was arranged aft; and a dainty boudoir for the ladies extended across the whole width of the counter. The smoking-room was in a convenient position under the bridge, and the bathrooms, four in number, were luxury and completeness itself. Add to the other advantages the presence of Felicien, that prince of _chefs_, and little Georges, once so intimately connected with the English Embassy in Paris, and it is unnecessary to say more.

Browne himself was an excellent host; and by the time the Norwegian coast had been sighted the party had settled down comfortably on board. They visited Christiania, the Bukn, Hardanger, and Sogne, and eventually found themselves at anchor in the harbour of Merok,