A Millionaire of Yesterday

  CHAPTER VIII

  Trent, on leaving the hotel, turned for almost the first time in hislife westwards. For years the narrow alleys, the thronged streets, thegreat buildings of the City had known him day by day, almost hour byhour. Its roar and clamour, the strife of tongues and keen measuringof wits had been the salt of his life. Steadily, sturdily, almostinsolently, he had thrust his way through to the front ranks. In manyrespects those were singular and unusual elements which had gone tothe making of his success. His had not been the victory of honiedfalsehoods, of suave deceit, of gentle but legalised robbery. He hadbeen a hard worker, a daring speculator with nerves of iron, and couragewhich would have glorified a nobler cause. Nor had his been the methodsof good fellowship, the sharing of "good turns," the camaraderie offinance. The men with whom he had had large dealings he had treated asenemies rather than friends, ever watching them covertly with close butunslackening vigilance. And now, for the present at any rate it was allover. There had come a pause in his life. His back was to the City andhis face was set towards an unknown world. Half unconsciously he hadundertaken a little voyage of exploration.

  From the Strand he crossed Trafalgar Square into Pall Mall, and up theHaymarket into Piccadilly. He was very soon aware that he had wanderedinto a world whose ways were not his ways and with whom he had nokinship. Yet he set himself sedulously to observe them, conscious thatwhat he saw represented a very large side of life. From the first hewas aware of a certain difference in himself and his ways. The carelessglance of a lounger on the pavement of Pall Mall filled him with asudden anger. The man was wearing gloves, an article of dress whichTrent ignored, and smoking a cigarette, which he loathed. Trent wascarelessly dressed in a tweed suit and red tie, his critic wore a silkhat and frock coat, patent-leather boots, and a dark tie of invisiblepattern. Yet Trent knew that he was a type of that class which wouldlook upon him as an outsider, and a black sheep, until he had bought hisstanding. They would expect him to conform to their type, to learn tospeak their jargon, to think with their puny brains and to see withtheir short-sighted eyes. At the "Criterion" he turned in and had adrink, and, bolder for the wine which he had swallowed at a gulp, hetold himself that he would do nothing of the sort. He would not altera jot. They must take him as he was, or leave him. He suffered histhoughts to dwell for a moment upon his wealth, on the years which hadgone to the winning of it, on a certain nameless day, the memory ofwhich even now sent sometimes the blood running colder through hisveins, on the weaker men who had gone under that he might prosper. Nowthat it was his, he wanted the best possible value for it; it was thenatural desire of the man to be uppermost in the bargain. The delightsof the world behind, it seemed to him that he had already drained. Thecrushing of his rivals, the homage of his less successful competitors,the grosser pleasures of wine, the music-halls, and the unlimitedspending of money amongst people whom he despised had long since palledupon him. He had a keen, strong desire to escape once and for ever fromhis surroundings. He lounged along, smoking a large cigar, keen-eyed andobservant, laying up for himself a store of impressions, unconsciouslyirritated at every step by a sense of ostracism, of being in someindefinable manner without kinship and wholly apart from this world, inwhich it seemed natural now that he should find some place. He gazedat the great houses without respect or envy, at the men with a fiercecontempt, at the women with a sore feeling that if by chance he shouldbe brought into contact with any of them they would regard him as asort of wild animal, to be humoured or avoided purely as a matter ofself-interest. The very brightness and brilliancy of their toilettes,the rustling of their dresses, the trim elegance and daintiness which hewas able to appreciate without being able to understand, only servedto deepen his consciousness of the gulf which lay between him and them.They were of a world to which, even if he were permitted to enter it,he could not possibly belong. He returned such glances as fell upon himwith fierce insolence; he was indeed somewhat of a strange figure inhis ill-fitting and inappropriate clothes amongst a gathering of smartpeople. A lady looking at him through raised lorgnettes turned andwhispered something with a smile to her companion--once before he hadheard an audible titter from a little group of loiterers. He returnedthe glance with a lightning-like look of diabolical fierceness, and,turning round, stood upon the curbstone and called a hansom.

  A sense of depression swept over him as he was driven through thecrowded streets towards Waterloo. The half-scornful, half-earnestprophecy, to which he had listened years ago in a squalid Africanhut, flashed into his mind. For the first time he began to have dimapprehensions as to his future. All his life he had been a toiler, andjoy had been with him in the fierce combat which he had waged day byday. He had fought his battle and he had won--where were the fruitsof his victory? A puny, miserable little creature like Dickenson couldprate of happiness and turn a shining face to the future--Dickenson wholived upon a pittance, who depended upon the whim of his employer, andwho confessed to ambitions which were surely pitiable. Trent lit a freshcigar and smiled; things would surely come right with him--they must.What Dickenson could gain was surely his by right a thousand times over.

  He took the train for Walton, travelling first class, and treated withmuch deference by the officials on the line. As he alighted and passedthrough the booking-hall into the station-yard a voice hailed him. Helooked up sharply. A carriage and pair of horses was waiting, and insidea young woman with a very smart hat and a profusion of yellow hair.

  "Come on, General," she cried. "I've done a skip and driven down to meetyou. Such jokes when they miss me. The old lady will be as sick as theymake 'em. Can't we have a drive round for an hour, eh?"

  Her voice was high-pitched and penetrating. Listening to it Trentunconsciously compared it with the voices of the women of that otherworld into which he had wandered earlier in the afternoon. He turned afrowning face towards her.

  "You might have spared yourself the trouble," he said shortly. "I didn'torder a carriage to meet me and I don't want one. I am going to walkhome."

  She tossed her head.

  "What a beastly temper you're in!" she remarked. "I'm not particularabout driving. Do you want to walk alone?"

  "Exactly!" he answered. "I do!"

  She leaned back in the carriage with heightened colour.

  "Well, there's one thing about me," she said acidly. "I never go where Iain't wanted."

  Trent shrugged his shoulders and turned to the coachman.

  "Drive home, Gregg," he said. "I'm walking."

  The man touched his hat, the carriage drove off, and Trent, with a grimsmile upon his lips, walked along the dusty road. Soon he paused beforea little white gate marked private, and, unlocking it with a key whichhe took from his pocket, passed through a little plantation into a largepark-like field. He took off his hat and fanned himself thoughtfully ashe walked. The one taste which his long and absorbing struggle with thegiants of Capel Court had never weakened was his love for the country.He lifted his head to taste the breeze which came sweeping across fromthe Surrey Downs, keenly relishing the fragrance of the new-mown hay andthe faint odour of pines from the distant dark-crested hill. As he cameup the field towards the house he looked with pleasure upon the greatbed of gorgeous-coloured rhododendrons which bordered his lawn, the darkcedars which drooped over the smooth shaven grass, and the faint flushof colour from the rose-gardens beyond. The house itself was small, butpicturesque. It was a grey stone building of two stories only, and fromwhere he was seemed completely embowered in flowers and creepers. In away, he thought, he would be sorry to leave it. It had been a pleasantsummer-house for him, although of course it was no fit dwelling-housefor a millionaire. He must look out for something at once now--a countryhouse and estate. All these things would come as a matter of course.

  He opened another gate and passed into an inner plantation of pines andshrubs which bordered the grounds. A winding path led through it, and,coming round a bend, he stopped short with a little exclamation. A girlwas standing with her back to him
rapidly sketching upon a little blockwhich she had in her left hand.

  "Hullo!" he remarked, "another guest! and who brought you down, younglady, eh?"

  She turned slowly round and looked at him in cold surprise. Trent knewat once that he had made a mistake. She was plainly dressed in whitelinen and a cool muslin blouse, but there was something about her,unmistakable even to Trent, which placed her very far apart indeed fromany woman likely to have become his unbidden guest. He knew at once thatshe was one of that class with whom he had never had any association.She was the first lady whom he had ever addressed, and he could havebitten out his tongues when he remembered the form of his doing so.

  "I beg your pardon, miss," he said confusedly, "my mistake! You see,your back was turned to me."

  She nodded and smiled graciously.

  "If you are Mr. Scarlett Trent," she said, "it is I who shouldapologise, for I am a flagrant trespasser. You must let me explain."