Lucinda

Quite so. It was what might have been expected. And Sir Paget’s assessment of his daughter-in-law was precisely in accord with all that he had had the opportunity of observing in that young woman. That she could burst into tears, could have something very like hysterics, could behave in a way that might be termed weak and silly, was a piece of knowledge confined, as I believed, to three persons besides herself. She thought it was confined to two. She had married one of them; did he think of it, did he remember? As for the other – it has been seen how she felt about the other. I was glad that she did not know about the third; if I could help it, she never should. I did not believe that she would forgive my knowledge any more than she forgave Lucinda’s. I don’t blame her; such knowledge about oneself is not easy to pardon.

There was a postscript to Sir Paget’s letter. “By the way, Mrs. Knyvett is dead – a month ago, at Torquay. Aunt Bertha saw it in the Times. An insignificant woman; but by virtue of the late Knyvett, or by some freak of nature, she endowed the world with a beautiful creature. Hallo, high treason, Julius! But somehow I think that you won’t hang me for it. I hope that poor child is not paying too dearly for her folly.”

I remember that, when I had read the postscript, I exclaimed, “Thank God!” Not of course, because Mrs. Knyvett had died a month before at Torquay; the event was not such as to wring exclamations from one. It was the last few words that evoked mine. Lucinda had a friend more in the world than she knew. If I ever met her again, I would tell her. She had loved Sir Paget. If his heart still yearned ever so little after her, if her face ever came before his eyes, it would, I thought, be something to her. The words brought her face back before my eyes, whence time and preoccupation had banished it. Did the face ever – at rare moments – appear to Waldo? Probably not. He would be too much Dundrannanized!

The process for which Sir Paget’s reluctant amusement found a nickname was a natural one in the circumstances of the case. If the Dundrannan personality was potent, so was the Dundrannan property. Cragsfoot was a small affair compared even to Briarmount alone; Waldo was not yet master even of Cragsfoot, for Sir Paget was not the man to take off his clothes before bedtime. Besides Briarmount, there was Dundrannan Castle, with its deer and its fishing; there was the Villa San Carlo at Mentone; never mind what else there was, even after “public objects” and Captain Frost had, between them, shorn off so large a part of the Frost concerns and millions. Moreover, another process set in, and was highly developed by the time I returned to England in the autumn of 1918, when my last foreign excursion on Government service ended. Family solidarity, and an identity of business interests in many matters, brought Nina, and, by consequence, Waldo, into close and ever closer association with Godfrey Frost. The young man was not swallowed; he had too strong a brain and will of his own for that; but he was attached. The three of them came to form a triumvirate for dealing with the Frost concerns, settling the policy of the Frost family, defining the Frost attitude towards the world outside. And everybody else was outside of that inner circle, even though we of Cragsfoot might be only just outside. So as Waldo, on his marriage, had shifted his bodily presence from Cragsfoot to Briarmount, his mind and his predominant interests also centered there; and presently to his were added, in great measure, Godfrey Frost’s. Nina presided over this union of hearts and forces with a sure tact; she did not seek to play the despot, but she was the bond and the inspiration.

Naturally, then, if the three saw eye to eye in all these great matters, they also saw eye to eye, and felt heart to heart, on such a merely sentimental subject as the view to take of Lucinda – of whom, of course, Godfrey derived any idea that he had mainly from Nina. Probably the idea thus derived was that she was emphatically a person of whom the less said the better! Only – the curious fact crops up again – she was not one of whom Nina was capable of saying absolutely nothing, of giving no hints. Her husband excepted, anybody really near to her was sure to hear something of Lucinda. Besides, there was the information, sketchy indeed, but significant, which he had received from Aunt Bertha, and perhaps that had made him question his cousin; then either her answers or even her reluctance to answer would have been enlightening to a man of his intelligence.

He got home some time in October, and at his request I went to see him in London, while he was convalescent from that malaria which so seriously impeded Reconstruction. From him I heard the family plans. They were all three going shortly to Nina’s villa at Mentone for the winter. For the really rich it seemed that “the difficulties of the times” presented no difficulty at all; a big motor car was to take the party across France to their destination.

“You see, we’re largely interested in works near Marseilles, and I’m going out to have a look at them; Waldo’s got doctor’s orders, Nina goes to nurse him – and the kid can’t be left, of course. All quite simple. Why don’t you come too?”

“Perhaps I will – if I’m asked and can get a holiday. It sounds rather jolly.”

“Top-hole! Besides, the war’s going to end. Nina’ll ask you all right; and, as for a holiday, you can’t do much at your game till the tonnage is released, can you?”

He seemed about right there; on such questions he had a habit of being right. At the back of my mind, however, I was just faintly reluctant about embracing the project, a little afraid of too thick a Dundrannan atmosphere.

“Well, I must go to Cragsfoot first. After that perhaps – if I am invited.”

“Jolly old place, Cragsfoot!” he observed. “I don’t wonder you like to go there – even apart from your people. It’s unlucky that Nina’s taken against it, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t know she had.”

“Oh, yes. You’ll see that – when the time comes – I hope it’s a long way off, of course – she won’t live there.”

“Waldo’ll want to live there, I think.”

“No, he won’t. He’d want to now, if it fell in. But by the time it does, he’ll have had his mind altered.” He laughed good-humoredly.

I rather resented that, having a sentimental feeling for Cragsfoot. But it would probably turn out true, if Nina devoted her energies to bringing it about.

“Regular old ‘country gentleman’ style of place – which Briarmount isn’t. Sort of place I should like myself. I suppose you’d take it on, if Waldo didn’t mean to live there?”

“You look so far ahead,” I protested. “The idea’s quite new, I haven’t considered it. I’ve always regarded it as a matter of course that Waldo would succeed his father there – as the Rillingtons have succeeded, son to father, for a good many years.”

“Yes, I know, and I appreciate that feeling. Don’t think I don’t. Still that sort of thing can’t last forever, can it? Something breaks the line at last.”

“I suppose so,” I admitted, rather sulkily. If Waldo did not live at Cragsfoot, if I did not “take it on,” I could not help perceiving that Godfrey had fixed his eye – that far-seeing Frost eye – on our ancestral residence. This was a further development of the Dundrannan alliance, and not one to my taste. Instinctively I stiffened against it. I felt angry with Waldo, and irritated with Godfrey Frost – and with Nina too. True, the idea of Cragsfoot’s falling to me – without any harm having come to Waldo – was not unpleasant. But everything was in Waldo’s power, subject to Sir Paget’s life interest; I remembered Sir Paget’s telling me that there had been no resettlement of the property on Waldo’s marriage. Could Waldo be trusted not to see with the Frost eye and not to further the Frost ambitions?

“It seems queer,” Godfrey went on, smiling still as he lit his cigarette, “but I believe that Nina’s dislike of the place has something to do with that other girl – Waldo’s old flame, you know. She once said something about painful associations – of course, Waldo wasn’t in the room – and I don’t see what else she could refer to, do you? She’s a bit sensitive about that old affair, isn’t she? Funny thing – nothing’s too big for a really clever woman, but, by Jove, nothing’s too small either!”

“Like our old friend the elephant and the pin that we were told about in childhood?”

“Exactly. Nina will hatch a big plan one minute, and the next she’ll be measuring the length of the feather on the scullery-maid’s hat.”

“Well, but – I mean – love affairs aren’t always small things, are they?”

“N – no, perhaps not. But when it’s all over like that!”

“Yes, it is rather funny,” I thought it best to admit.

Certainly it would be funny – a queer turn of events – if things worked out as I suspected my young friend Godfrey of planning; if Nina persuaded Waldo that he did not want to live at Cragsfoot, and Waldo transferred his old home to his new cousin. And if Nina’s reason were that Cragsfoot had “painful associations” for her! Because then, ultimately, if one went right back to the beginning, it would be not Nina, but that other girl, Waldo’s old flame, who would eject the Rillington family from its ancestral estate! It was impossible not to stand somewhat aghast (big words about that girl again!) at such a trick of fate.

“The fact is, I suppose,” he went on, “that she’s been fond of Waldo longer than she can afford to admit. Then the memory might rankle! And Nina’s not over-fond of opposition at any time. I’ve found that out. Oh, we’re the greatest pals, as you know, but there’s no disguising that!” He laughed indulgently. “Yes, that’s Nina. I often think that I must choose a wife with a meek and quiet spirit, Julius.”

“The Apostle says that it is woman’s ornament.”

“Nina certainly thinks that it’s other women’s. Oh, must you go? Awfully kind of you to have come. And, I say, think about Villa San Carlo! I believe it’s a jolly place, and Nina’s having it fitted up something gorgeous, she tells me.”

“Isn’t it rather difficult to get the work done just now?” I asked.

“Oh, no, not particularly. You see, we’ve an interest in – ”

“Damn it all!” I cried, “have you Frosts interests in everything?”

Godfrey’s good humor was imperturbable. He nodded at me, smiling. “I suppose it must strike people like that sometimes. We do bob up rather, don’t we? Sorry I mentioned it, old fellow. Only you see – it does account for Nina’s being able to get the furniture for Villa San Carlo, and consequently for her being in a position to entertain you and me there in the way to which we are accustomed – in my case, recently!”

“Your apology is accepted, Godfrey – if I go there! And I don’t seriously object to you Frosts straddling the earth if you want to. Only I think you might leave us Cragsfoot.”

“I wouldn’t get in your way for a minute, my dear chap – really I wouldn’t. We might live there together, perhaps. That’s an idea!” he laughed.

“With the wife of a meek and quiet spirit to look after us!”

“Yes. But I’ve got to find her first.”

“Sir Paget is very well, thank you. There’s no hurry.”

“But there’s never any harm in looking about.”

He came with me to the door, and bade me a merry farewell. “You’ll get your invitation in a few days. Mind you come. Perhaps we’ll find her on the Riviera! It’s full of ladies of all sorts of spirits, isn’t it? Mind you come, Julius.”

My little fit of irritation over what he represented was not proof against his own cordiality and good temper. I parted from him in a very friendly mood. And, sure enough, in a few days I did get my invitation to the Villa San Carlo at Mentone.

“If you’ve any difficulty about the journey,” wrote Nina, “let us know, because we can pull a wire or two, I expect.”

“Pull a wire or two!” I believe they control the cords that hold the firmament of heaven in its place above the earth!

Besides – so another current of my thoughts ran – if wires had to be pulled, could not Ezekiel Coldston & Co., Ltd., pull them for themselves? Did the Frosts engross the earth? I had no intention of letting Nina Dundrannan graciously provide me with “facilities”; that is the term which we used to employ in H. M.’s Government service.

CHAPTER XII

A SECRET VISIT

I STAYED longer at Cragsfoot than I had intended. The old folk there seemed rather lonely and moody; and, if the truth must be told, not quite so fully in harmony with one another as of yore. Aunt Bertha was ailing, showing at last signs of age and feebleness; Sir Paget was suffering from a reaction after his war-time anxieties and activities. A latent opposition of feeling between them occasionally cropped out on the surface. In Sir Paget it showed itself in humorously expressed fears that I too – “the only one of my family left” – should be “swallowed” if I went to Mentone; but Aunt Bertha met the humor peevishly: “What nonsense you talk, Paget!” or “Really, one would think that you regret Waldo’s marriage! At all events, things might have been worse.” Words like these last skirted forbidden places, and we steered the conversation away. But the opposition was real; when they were alone together, it was probably more open, and therefore worse. I lingered on, with the idea that my presence in the house softened and eased it.

Moreover, I must own to a feeling in myself which seemed ridiculous and yet was obstinate – a reluctance to go to Villa San Carlo. What was the meaning, or the sense, of that? Was I afraid of being “swallowed” there, of being drawn into the Dundrannan orbit and thereafter circling helplessly round the Dundrannan sun? No, it was not quite that. I took leave to trust to an individuality, an independence, in myself, though apparently Sir Paget had his doubts about it. It was rather that going to the Villa seemed a definite and open ranging of myself on Nina’s side. But on her side in what, my reason asked. There was no conflict; it was all over; the battle had been fought and won – if indeed there could be said to have been any battle at all, where one side had declined victory and left the prize at the mercy of the other. But here again, however irrationally, the feeling persisted, and, when challenged to show its justification, called to witness the two combatants themselves. In the end it was their words, their tones, hints of some vague foreboding in themselves, which had infected my mind.

What in the end overcame my reluctance and took me to Mentone? Not the attraction of the Villa, nor the lure of a holiday and sunshine. It was, unexpectedly and paradoxically – a letter from Arsenio Valdez! Addressed to my club, it was forwarded to me at Cragsfoot. After a silence of more than four years, he resumed his acquaintance with me in this missive; resumed it without the least embarrassment and with a claim to the cherished privilege of old friendship, – that of borrowing money, of course.

He had, it appeared, joined the Italian Army rather late in the day. Whether he took the step of his free will – having solved his difficulties as to the proper side to champion in the war – or on compulsion, he did not say, and I have never discovered; I was ignorant of Italian legislation, and even of his legal nationality. Perhaps he made no great figure as a soldier, brave as Lucinda had declared him to be; at any rate, before very long he was put on transport work connected with the Italian troops serving on the Western front, with his quarters at Genoa. Even from this form of military service the Armistice appeared now to have freed him. He was for the present “out of a job,” he said, and he gave me an address in Nice, to which I was to reply, enclosing the fifty pounds with which he suggested that I should accommodate him. “Number 21 hasn’t been quite so good a friend to me lately; hence temporary straits,” he wrote. I could imagine the monkeyish look on his face. And that reference to “Number 21” was as near as he approached to any mention of his wife.

I arranged for him to get the money through my bank, and wrote to him saying that possibly I should be in the South of France shortly and that, if so, I would look him up. More precise details of my plans I did not give; it was no business of his with whom I proposed to stay. A week later I set out for Mentone – with, I suppose, treason in my heart; for, during my sojourn at Villa San Carlo, I meant to enter into communication with the enemy, if I could; and I did not intend to ask Lady Dundrannan’s permission.

It was just before Christmas that I reached Mentone – without Frost facilities – and joined the Big Three; that nickname developed a little later (and was accepted by her ladyship with complaisant smiles); I use it now for convenience. They were established, of course, in the height of luxury; there seemed no difficulty about getting anything; the furniture had all come; they had two cars – one to enable Godfrey to visit those works near Marseilles, another to promote the convalescence of Waldo. I gathered that another could be procured for me, if I liked – on what particular false pretense I did not inquire. I said that, what with trams, trains, and legs, I could manage my own private excursions; it was only when I accompanied them that dignity was essential. Nina never objected to sly digs at her grandeur; they were homage, though indirect.

Besides Godfrey and myself, the only guest in the house was Lady Eunice Unthank, a small, fair girl of about nineteen or twenty, younger sister of a friend whom Nina had made at her “finishing” school in Paris, and who had subsequently made what is called a brilliant marriage, so brilliant that it reflected added luster on Lady Eunice’s own aristocracy. The latter was a pleasant, simple, unassuming little person, very fond of the baby (as babies go, it was quite a nice one), obedient and adoring to Nina, frankly delighted with the luxury in which she found herself. I understood that her own family was large and not rich. However, Godfrey was rich enough for two. Yes, that was the idea which at once suggested itself. Mr. Godfrey (he had dropped his “Captain” by now) and Lady Eunice Frost! The one thing Godfrey needed. And a gentle, amenable Lady Eunice too, quite satisfying the Apostle! That perhaps was what Lady Dundrannan also desired, that her rule might not be undermined; the far-seeing eye embraced the future. Anybody vulgar enough might have said that Lady Eunice was at Villa San Carlo “on appro.” What Lady Dundrannan said was that it was a charity to give the child a good time; she did not get much fun at home. But I think that it was organized charity – on business principles.

What the sultan who had the handkerchief to throw thought about this possible recipient of it, it was too soon to say. He was attentive and friendly, but as yet showed no signs of sentiment, and made no efforts after solitude à deux. We were all very jolly together, and enjoyed ourselves famously; for the first ten days or so I quite forgot that Arsenio’s letter had had anything to do with bringing me to Mentone! In fact, I had never before encountered Nina in such an entirely benign and gracious mood; her happiness in her husband and baby seemed to spread its rays over all of us. In such a temper she was very attractive; but it also signified that she was well content. In fact, there was, just now, an air of triumph about her good humor and her benevolence; it seemed especially pronounced in some smiles which she gave me as it were, aside, all to myself. What was there about me to excite her triumph? It could hardly be because I came to stay with her; were we not now cousins, and privileged – or doomed – to one another’s society all our lives?

“Well, this is a fine time, after all our labors,” I said to Waldo one morning as we smoked our pipes after early breakfast. “You look tons better already!”

He smoked on for a moment before he spoke. “I’m a very happy man now,” he said, and smiled at me. “I know you laugh a bit, old chap, at the way Nina runs us all. I don’t mind that. By Jove, look how well she does it! She’s a wonderful girl!”

“She is,” I agreed.

“After all, unless a man takes the position that all men are cleverer than any woman – ”

“Which is absurd! Yes, Waldo?”

“He may admit that a particular woman is cleverer than himself.”

“That seems logical.”

“Of course, it’s not only her cleverness. I’m much fonder of her than I used to – than I was even when I married her. Anything that there was – well, the least bit too decisive about her – has worn off. She’s mellowed.”

“So have you,” I told him with a laugh.

“My real life seems now to begin with my marriage,” he said soberly. It could scarcely be doubted that he meant to convey to me that a certain episode in the past had lost all its importance for him. Was that the explanation of his wife’s air of triumph? No doubt a sufficient one in itself, and perhaps enough to account for her liking to share her triumph with me. I had, after all, known her in days when she was not triumphant. However that might be, Waldo’s statement took my mind back to things that had happened before his “real life” began – and incidentally to Arsenio Valdez. I decided to bring off my secret expedition, and on the next day – there being nothing in particular on foot at the Villa – I slipped away directly after déjeuner, and caught a train to Nice.

It traveled slowly, but it got me there by two o’clock, and I made my way towards the address which Arsenio had given me. I need hardly add that this was a furtive and secret proceeding on my part. I relied on not being questioned about him, just as I had relied – and successfully – on not being questioned about Lucinda at Cragsfoot.

I had a little difficulty in finding my way. The house was in a back street, reached by several turns, and not everybody I asked knew where it was. But I found it; it was a pâtisserie of a humble order. Apparently the shop entrance was the only one, so I went in by that, and asked if Monsieur Valdez lodged there. A pleasant, voluble woman was serving at the counter, and she told me that such was the case. Monsieur Valdez had a room on the second floor and was at home. He had not been out that day; he had not been out for déjeuner yet, late as it was. But there, Monsieur had employment which kept him up at nights; he often slept far into the day; it was indeed highly possible that I might find him still in bed.

Was it? And she had spoken of “a room.” I thought it judicious to obtain one more bit of information before I mounted to the room on the second floor.

“And – er – he’s sure to be alone, is he?”

She shook her head at me, her bright black eyes twinkling in an affectation of rebuke.

“Monsieur need not disturb himself. Monsieur Valdez is not married, and for the rest – in my house! Mais non, Monsieur!”

“A thousand pardons, Madame,” said I, as I prepared to mount the stairs, which rose from the back of the shop.

“My husband is most scrupulous about my dignity,” she cried to me in a tone of great pride, as I ascended the first steps.

So that explained that; and I went upstairs.

There were only two rooms on the second floor – one to the front, the other to the back of the house. The door of the former was open; it was a bedroom with an obviously “double” appearance. I turned to the latter and tried the door. It opened. I walked in and closed the door softly behind me.

It was a small room, plainly but tidily furnished, and well lighted by a big window above the bed in which Arsenio lay. He was sleeping quietly. I stood by the door, watching him, for quite a long while. He was not greatly changed by the years and whatever experiences he had passed through; his face was hardened rather than coarsened, its lines not obliterated by any grossness of the flesh, but more sharply chiseled. A fallen spirit perhaps, but with the spiritual in him still. His devilry, his malice, would still have the redeeming savor of perception and humor; he might yet be responsive to a picturesque appeal, capable of a beau geste, even perhaps, on occasion, of a true vision of himself; but still also undoubtedly prone to those tricks which had earned for him in days of old his nickname of Monkey Valdez.

It was time to rouse him. I advanced towards the bed, took hold of a chair that stood by it, sat down, and forced a cough. He awoke directly, saw me, apparently without surprise, and sat up in bed.