Lucinda

If Arsenio’s words set me thus smiling – even if half in melancholy over a vanished image that rose again from the past, and flitted transiently across a stage that she had once filled – smiling at the memory of how old – how “finished” for affairs of the heart – I had once seemed to myself, there was a danger that they might make me forget how old I was, in sad fact, at the present moment.

Towards this mistake another thing contributed. Combativeness is usually a characteristic of youth; Godfrey Frost had stirred it up in me. In spite of the plea of “family history” which he had put forward (with a distinct flavor of irony in his tone), my feelings acknowledged no warrant for his claim to a just curiosity and interest about Lucinda, and resented the intimation, conveyed by that firm and resolute Frost smile, that he intended to take a hand in her affairs, on the pretext of studying a roulette system under her husband’s tuition. Such an attitude, such an intention, seemed somehow insulting to her; if the Rillingtons had a right to treat her with less respect than that which is due to any lady – even if Nina based a right to do so on what had happened in the past – Godfrey had none. If she chose to remain hidden, what business was it of his to drag her into the light? There seemed something at least ungallant, unchivalrous in it. I ought to have remembered that he had only the general principles of chivalry to guide him, whereas I had the knowledge of what Lucinda was, of her reserve and delicate aloofness. In the end his curiosity might find itself abashed, rebuked, transformed. I did not think of that, and for the time anger clouded my liking for him.

Coincidently there came over me a weariness, an impatience, of Villa San Carlo. It was partly that Lady Dundrannan created – quite unintentionally, of course – the atmosphere of a Court about her; there was always the question of what would please Her Majesty! This was amusing at first, but ended by growing tedious. But, deeper than this, there was the old conflict, the old competition. Some unknown and dingy lodging, somewhere on the Riviera coast, was matching its lure against all the attractions of magnificent Villa San Carlo. That was the end of it with me – and with Godfrey Frost!

I sought out Nina before lunch in her boudoir, a charming little room opening on the garden, with Louis Quinze furniture on the floor and old French Masters on the walls; really extremely elegant.

Her ladyship sat at her writing table (a “museum piece,” no doubt), sorting her letters. She was not looking her most amiable, I regretted to observe, but, as soon as I came in, she spoke to me.

“Isn’t this too bad? Godfrey’s had to go over to the works. Some trouble’s arisen; he doesn’t even tell me what! He went off at ten o’clock, before I was downstairs, merely leaving a note to say he’d gone, and might not be back for two or three days. He took his man and a portmanteau with him in the car, Emile tells me. And to-morrow is Eunice’s birthday, and he’d delighted the child by promising to take us for a long drive and give us lunch somewhere. It’s so seldom that he puts himself out to give her pleasure, that I was – that it seems a shame.”

“A disappointment, certainly, Nina.”

“It knocks the whole thing on the head. The day would be too long for Waldo, and what would she care about going with you and me? Oh, I beg your pardon, but – ”

“Of course! Two’s company; four can move in companies; but three’s hopeless!”

“I’m really vexed.” She looked it. “I wonder if he’s really gone on business!”

“You could telephone the works and find out if he’s there,” I suggested rather maliciously. To tell the truth, I did not think that he would be – not much there, at all events.

“My dear Julius, I’m not quite an idiot in dealing with young men whom I want to – whose friendship I like and value. Do you suppose he’d like me telephoning after him as if I was his anxious mother?”

A wise woman! But just at the moment she was irritated, so that she had nearly put the relations which she wished to maintain between herself and Godfrey too bluntly. However, her amendment was excellent.

“Well, there it is! I must explain it to poor Eunice as well as I can. After all, you might take her to Monte and let her have a little gamble. I’ll give her a present. That’ll be better than nothing.”

“Thank you, Nina! But – well, the fact is – ”

“Oh, do you want to go off on your own, too?” she asked rather sharply. “Well, I suppose it is dull here. Waldo and I are too conjugal, and Eunice – well, she’s a dear, but – ”

“It’s not a bit dull here. It never could be where you are” (I meant that), “and anyhow old Waldo would be enough for me. And I’m not out for sprees, if that’s what you mean. But – may I smoke?”

“Of course! Don’t be silly!”

I began to smoke. She rose and came to the fireplace, where she stood with her arm resting on the mantelpiece, looking down at me, for I had sat down on one of her priceless chairs; it seemed rather a liberty, but I did it – a liberty with the chair, I mean, not with its owner.

She was looking very vexed; she hated her schemes to go awry. She had been kind to me; I liked her; and she was one of us now – the wife of a Rillington, though she bore another name. More than ever it seemed that I ought to play fair with her – for those reasons; also because it appeared likely that she was not meeting with fair play elsewhere – at all events, not with open dealing.

“I’m your guest,” I began, with some difficulty, “and your – well, and all the rest of it. And I want – ”

“To do something that you think I mightn’t like a guest and friend of mine to do?”

“That’s it.” I gratefully accepted her quick assistance. It was quick indeed, for the next instant she added: “That means that you want to go and see Lucinda Valdez? It’s the only thing you can mean. What else is there which you could think would matter to me?”

“Yes, I do. I want to find out where she is, what she’s doing, and whether she’s in distress. I hope you won’t think that wrong, or unnatural, or – or disloyal to Waldo or to you?”

I looked up at her as I spoke. To my surprise her air of vexation, her thwarted air, gave place to that sly, subtle look of triumph which I had marked on her face before. She seemed to consider for a moment before she answered me.

“Go, of course, if you like. I have no possible claim to control your actions. I shan’t consider that you’re doing anything unfriendly to Waldo, much less to me – though I do think it would be better not to mention it to Waldo. But if all you want is to know where Lucinda is, and whether she’s in distress, I’m in a position to save you trouble by informing you on both those points.”

“The deuce you are!” I exclaimed. She had really surprised me this time. She saw it; her lips curved in a smile of satisfaction.

“She’s living with her husband at Nice, and, whatever may have been the case before, she isn’t at present in distress, because for the last two months or so – since soon after we came out – I have had the privilege of supplying her wants.”

I nearly fell out of the priceless chair. I did stare at her in sheer astonishment. Then the memory flashed into my mind – Arsenio’s remittance, his dinner at the Café de Paris, his remark that I might just as well dine with him as with Lady Dundrannan. It did come to much the same thing, apparently!

“I did it for Auld Lang Syne,” said Nina gently, softly. Oh, so triumphantly!

Now I understood her sly, exultant glances at me in the preceding days. She had always suspected me of being on the enemy’s side, one of Lucinda’s faction (it was small enough). What would I have to think of Lucinda now? Nina had been conceiving of herself as the generous benefactress of a helpless and distressed Lucinda. A grateful Lucinda, eating from her hand all but literally! That was her revenge on the girl who had cut her out with Waldo, on the girl who had seen her sobbing on the cliff. It was not a bad one.

“One would not like to think of her being in want, and so exposed to temptation,” Nina remarked reflectively. “Because, of course, she is pretty; she was, anyhow.”

I smiled at that – though I fancy that she meant to make me angry.

“You must excuse me, Nina, but I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, all right!” She walked across to her desk, unlocked a drawer, took out a letter, and brought it back with her. She gave it to me. “Read that, then, Julius.”

It was from Arsenio. I read it hastily, for it disgusted me. It sent to Madame la Baronne (he wrote in French) the grateful thanks of his wife and himself for her most generous kindness, once again renewed. In a short time he hoped to be independent; might he for one week more trespass on her munificence? It was not for himself; it was simply to enable his wife to make a decent appearance, until an improvement in her health, now, alas, very indifferent, made it possible for her to seek some suitable employment – So far I read, and handed the letter back to Nina; she would not take it.

“Keep it,” she said. “I’ve several more; he says the same thing every week – oh, that about the ‘decent appearance’ is new; it’s been rent and food before. Otherwise it’s the same as usual.”

I looked at the date of the letter; it had been written three days before.

“When did you last send him money?”

“The day before yesterday, if you want to know.”

Yes, I had dined on it. And Arsenio had sent half of it to Lucinda; so he had told me, at least. And the rest he was keeping, in order to show Godfrey Frost the working of his system.

“I was with him when he got it.”

“You were with him? When? Where?” she asked quickly.

I told of my afternoon with Monkey Valdez; surely he had now doubly, trebly earned the name! She listened with every sign of satisfaction and amusement.

“You didn’t see his wife? She was out at her work, I suppose?”

“He’s living in a single room. There was no sign of her, and the – er – furniture did not suggest – ”

“Really, Julius, I’m not interested in their domestic arrangements,” said Lady Dundrannan. “And you left him at Monte Carlo?”

I assented; but I kept Godfrey’s secret. It was not my affair to meddle in that; the more so inasmuch as his meeting with Arsenio had not been his fault at all, but my own. To give him away would be unpardonable in me. Nor did I tell her that Arsenio had at least professed to send half the money to Lucinda; I was not convinced that he had really done it; and – well, I thought that she was triumphant enough already.

I folded Arsenio’s letter and put it in my pocket, with no clear idea of what I meant to do with it, but with just a feeling that it might give me a useful hold on a slippery customer. Then I looked up at Nina again; she had the gift of repose, of standing or sitting still, without fidgets. She stood quite still now; but her exultant smile had vanished; her face was troubled and fretful again.

“Of course I’ve told you this in confidence,” she said, without looking at me. “I’ve not bothered Waldo with it, and I shan’t until he’s stronger, at all events.”

“I quite understand. But I’m not in the least convinced.”

Then she turned quickly towards me. “The letter speaks for itself – or do you think I’ve forged it?”

“The letter speaks for itself, and it convicts Arsenio Valdez. But there’s nothing to show that Lucinda knows where the money comes from. He probably tells her that he earns it, or wins it, and then lies to you about it.”

“Why should he lie to me about it?”

“He thinks that you’d be more likely to send it for her than for him, I suppose. At any rate, I’m convinced that she would rather starve than knowingly take money from you.”

“Why?”

I retorted her own phrase on her. “Because of Auld Lang Syne, Nina.”

“You don’t know much about that,” she remarked sharply.

“Yes, a good deal. Some you’ve told me yourself. Some Lucinda has told me. I met her down here – not at Mentone, but on the Riviera, – about three years ago.”

“What was she doing then?”

“I can tell you nothing of that. She did not wish you or the people at Cragsfoot to know.”

“I daresay not!” Then she went on, quietly but with a cold and scornful impatience. “What do all you men find in the woman? You, Julius, won’t believe the plainest evidence where she’s concerned. Waldo won’t hear her name mentioned; he does recognize the truth about her by now, of course – what she really was – but still he looks as if I were desecrating a grave if I make the most distant reference to the time when he was engaged to her – and really one can’t help occasionally referring to old days! And now even Godfrey seems eaten up with curiosity about her; he’s been trying to pump me about her. I suppose he thinks I don’t see through him, but I do, of course.”

“She’s an interesting woman, Nina. Don’t you think so yourself?”

“How can she be interesting to Godfrey, anyhow? He’s never seen her. Yet I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if at this moment he’s hunting the Riviera for her!”

How sharp she was, how sharp her resentful jealousy made her!

“It’s as if you were all in a conspiracy to prevent me from getting that woman out of my head! Well – you don’t make any answer!”

“About what?”

“About what Godfrey’s doing.”

“I know nothing about what he’s doing. There’s what he said in the note he left for you.”

She gave an impatient shrug. “Oh, the note he left for me! Why didn’t he tell me face to face? I suppose he could have waited half an hour!”

It was plain that Godfrey’s departure – sudden and certainly unceremonious compared with the deference which he had been (indeed, which all of our party were) in the habit of showing towards her – had upset her seriously. She showed me more of her inner mind, of a secret uneasiness which possessed her. It had been lulled to rest by that picture of a helpless and grateful Lucinda; I had shaken her faith in that, or at least my obstinate skepticism had made her faith angry rather than serene, eager to convince the skeptic and thereby to confirm itself anew.

After a long pause she spoke again in a much more composed fashion, and even smiling.

“Well, Julius, go and see; go and find her, and find out the truth about it. That’ll be the best thing. And you can come back and tell me. In view of Arsenio Valdez’s letter I’m entitled to know their real circumstances, anyhow. Into her secrets I don’t want to pry, but I’ve sent them money on the strength of his letters.”

“What I expect is to be able to tell you not to send any more.”

“Yes, I know you expect that. But you’ll find yourself wrong about it.”

“That’s the ‘issue to be tried,’” I said with a laugh, as I rose from my chair. I was glad to be able to obey the impulse within me without quarreling with Nina. I hoped to be able to carry the whole thing through – wherever it might lead – without that.

“You’re off directly?” she asked.

“Oh, not this minute. After lunch will be time enough, I think.”

“It wasn’t time enough for Godfrey,” she reminded me quickly. But the next moment she flushed a little, as though ashamed. “Oh, never mind that! Let’s stick to business. What you’re going to find out for me is whether Arsenio Valdez – yes, Arsenio – is a proper object for charitable assistance, whether he makes a proper use of what I send him, and whether I ought to send more.”

“That, so far as you’re concerned, is it precisely.”

On which polite basis of transparent humbug Nina and I parted for the moment. We were to meet again at lunch. But Waldo would be there; so no more of our forbidden subject.

Alas! here was to be the end of the subject altogether for some little while. At lunch a very crestfallen man, though he tried to wear an unconcerned air, informed Lady Dundrannan that Sir Ezekiel Coldston had wired him a peremptory summons to attend an important business conference in Paris; so there was an end of the Riviera too for the time being. The order must be obeyed at once. Waldo came into the room just as I achieved this explanation; somehow it sounded like a confession of defeat.

“Oh, well, the Riviera will wait till you come back,” said Her Ladyship, with an unmistakable gleam of satisfaction in her eye.

She had tactfully agreed to the search for Lucinda, but she had not liked it. It was at any rate postponed now.

CHAPTER XV

THE SYSTEM WORKS

I WAS in Paris for full four weeks, representing Sir Ezekiel (who was laid up with asthma) on the International Commercial Conference on the Regulation and Augmentation of the World’s Tonnage, a matter in which our company was, of course, deeply interested. It was the best chance I had yet secured of distinguishing myself in the business world. The work, besides being important and heavy, was also interesting. The waking intervals between our sessions and conferences were occupied by luncheons, banquets, and conversaziones; if we dealt faithfully with one another at the business meetings, we professed unlimited confidence in one another on the social occasions. In fact, if we had really believed all we said of one another after lunch or after dinner, each of us would have implored his neighbor to take all the goods, or tonnage, or money that he possessed and dispose of it as his unrivaled wisdom and unparalleled generosity might dictate. We did not, however, make any such suggestions in business hours; the fact that we did quite the opposite prolonged the negotiations.

All of which brings me to the ungallant confession that the two ladies, who had occupied so much of an idle man’s thoughts at Mentone, occupied considerably less of a busy man’s at Paris. They were not forgotten, but they receded into the background of my thoughts, emerging to the forefront only in rare moments of leisure; even then my mental attitude was one of greater detachment. I had a cold fit about the situation, and some ungracious reflections for both of them. Absence and preoccupation blunted my imagination, even when they did not entirely divert my thoughts. My mind was localized; it did not travel far or for long outside my daily business.

It was when our deliberations had almost reached a conclusion, as the official report put it – when our agreement had gone to the secretaries to be drafted in proper form – that I got a telegram from Godfrey Frost, telling me that he would be in Paris the next day and asking me to dine with him. Putting off some minor engagement which I had, I accepted his invitation.

It was not till after dinner, when we were alone in his sitting room at the hotel, that he opened to me what he had to say. He did it in a methodical, deliberate way. “I’ve something to say to you. Sit down there, and light a cigar, Julius.”

I obeyed him. Evidently I was in for a story – of what sort I did not know. But his mouth wore its resolute look, not the smile with which he had chaffed me after our meeting with Arsenio Valdez at Monte Carlo.

“The system worked,” he began abruptly.

“You won?” I asked, astonished.

“I don’t want you to interrupt for a little while, if you don’t mind. Of course, I didn’t win; I never supposed I should. But the system worked. I found Madame Valdez. Be quiet! After two nights of the system, I politely – more or less politely – intimated that I was sick of it; also that I didn’t see my way to finance any further the peculiarly idiotic game which he played on his own account, in the intervals of superintending the system. The man’s mad to think that he’s got a dog’s chance, playing like that! He’d stayed with me in Monte those two days. I said that I was afraid his wife would never forgive me if I kept him from her any longer. He said that, having for the moment lost la veine, he was not in a position to return my hospitality; otherwise he and his wife would have been delighted to see me at Nice. Well, with the usual polite circumlocutions, he conveyed to me that there was a pleasant, quiet little hotel in Nice where he generally stayed – when he was in funds, he meant, I suppose – and that, although Madame Valdez was not staying there at present, she might be prevailed upon to join him there, and certainly we should make a pleasant party. ‘I am le bienvenu at a very cozy little place in Nice, if we want an hour’s distraction in the evening. My wife goes to bed early. She’s a woman with her own profession, and it takes her out early in the morning.’ So that seemed all right, only – you can guess! I smoothed over the difficulty. At that little hotel, at dinner on the next Sunday, I, Valdez’s welcome guest, had the privilege of being presented to Madame Valdez – or, as he called her, Donna Lucinda.”

“Yes, the system worked, Godfrey,” I observed.

He did not rebuke my interruption, but he took no heed of it. His own story held him in its grip, whatever effect it might be having on his auditor.

“She came just as if she were an invited guest, and rather a shy one at that; a timid handshake for Valdez, a distant, shy bow for me. He greeted her as he might have a girl he was courting, but who would generally have nothing to do with him – who had condescended just this once, you know. Only she said to him – rather bashfully – ‘Do you like the frock I bought, Arsenio?’ It was a pretty little frock – a brightish blue. Quite inexpensive material, I should say, but very nicely put together; and it suited her eyes and hair. What eyes and hair she has, by Jove, Julius!”

He had told me not to interrupt; I didn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me what she was like?” he asked suddenly and rather fiercely.

“It was what you told me you meant to find out for yourself, Godfrey.”

“Well, we sat there and had dinner. She seemed to enjoy herself very much; made a good dinner, you know, and seemed to accept his compliments – Valdez’s, I mean – with a good deal of pleasure; he was flowery. I didn’t say much. I was damned dull, in fact. But she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye now and then. Look here, Julius, I’m an ass at telling about things!”

“I’ve known better raconteurs; but get on with it, if you want to.”

“Want to? I must. As a matter of fact, I’ve come to Paris just to tell you about it. And now I can’t.”

“She isn’t exactly easy to describe, to – to give the impression of. But remember – I know her.”

He had been walking up and down; he jerked himself into a chair, and relit his cigar – it had gone out. “I don’t much remember what we talked about at first – oh, except that she said, ‘I don’t like your gambling, and I should hate to be dependent on your winnings, Arsenio.’ – My God, his winnings! He leant across the table towards her – he seemed to forget me altogether for the minute – and said, ‘I never make you even a present out of them except when I back Number 21.’ She blushed at that, like a girl just out of the schoolroom. Rather funny! Some secret between them, I suppose. The beggar was always backing twenty-one; though he very seldom brings it off. What’s his superstition? Did he meet her when she was twenty-one, or marry her when she was, or was it the date when they got married, or what?”

“It’s the date – the day of the month – when she and Waldo didn’t get married,” I explained.

“By Jove! Then they’re – they’re lovers still!” The inference which Godfrey thus drew seemed to affect him considerably. He sat silent for a minute or two, apparently reflecting on it and frowning sullenly. Then he went on. “Then Valdez said, with one of his grins, ‘Mr. Frost can give you news of some old friends, Lucinda.’ She wasn’t a bit embarrassed at that, but she didn’t seem interested either. She was just decently polite about it – hoped they were all well, was sorry to hear of Waldo’s wound, wished she had happened to meet you and asked if you were coming back – I’d mentioned that you’d gone to Paris on this job of yours. In fact, she didn’t shirk the subject of the family, but she treated it as something that didn’t matter to her; she looked as if she was thinking of something else all the time. She often gives you that kind of impression. Valdez had never referred again to her joining us at the hotel – staying there with us, I mean; and he said nothing about it at this meeting. I could only suppose that she had refused. And now, when she got up to go, he didn’t propose that we, or even he himself, should escort her. I made some suggestion of the kind, but she just said, ‘Oh, no, thank you, I’d rather go by myself.’ And off she went – about half-past nine. We finished the evening playing baccarat – at least I did – at the little hell to which he had already taken me. He seemed very much at home there; all the people of the place knew him, laughed and joked with him; but he didn’t often play there; he doesn’t much care about baccarat. He used to sit talking with the proprietor, a fat old Jew, in the corner, or chatting with the fellow who changed your money for you, with whom he seemed on particularly friendly terms. All that part of it was a bore, but she always went away early, and one had to finish the evenings somewhere.”