Lucinda

I crossed the road quickly, and he kept pace with me. My intention was to join Sir Paget, but that beadle intercepted us.

“Wedding’s unavoidably postponed, gentlemen,” he said. “Sudden indisposition of the bride.”

There it was! I turned to Valdez in dismay – with a sudden, almost comical, sense of being let down, choused, made a fool of. “Well, twenty-one’s not been a lucky number for poor Lucinda, at all events!” I said – rather pointlessly; but his story had been running in my head.

He made no direct reply; a little shrug seemed at once to accuse and to accept destiny. “Sir Paget’s beckoning to you,” he said. “Do you think I might come too?”

“Why, of course, my dear fellow. We both want to know what’s wrong, don’t we?”

CHAPTER II

THE SIGNAL

BY now it was past the half-hour; the arrivals dwindled to a few late stragglers, who were promptly turned away by the beadle; the crowd of onlookers dispersed with smiles, shrugs, and a whistle or two: only a group of reporters stood on the lowest step, talking to one another and glancing at Sir Paget, as though they would like to tackle him but were doubtful of their reception. One did quietly detach himself from the group and walked up to where my uncle stood on the top step. I saw Sir Paget raise his hat, bow slightly, and speak one sentence. The man bowed in return, and rejoined his fellows with a rueful smile; then all of them made off together down the street.

My uncle was a little below middle height, but very upright and spare, so that he looked taller than he was. He had large features – a big, high-peaked nose, wide, thin-lipped mouth, bushy eyebrows, and very keen blue eyes. He bore himself with marked dignity – even with some stiffness towards the world at large, although among intimates he was the most urbane and accessible of men. His long experience in affairs had given him imperturbable composure; even at this moment he did not look the least put out. His manner and speech were modeled on the old school of public men – formal and elaborate when the occasion demanded, but easy, offhand, and familiar in private: to hear him was sometimes like listening to behind-the-scenes utterances of, say, Lord Melbourne or the great Duke which have come down to us in memoirs of their period.

When we went up to him, he nodded to me and gave his hand to Valdez. He had not seen him for two years, but he only said, “Ah, you here, Arsenio?” and went on, “Well, boys, here’s a damned kettle of fish! The girl’s cut and run, by Gad, she has!”

Valdez muttered “Good Lord!” or “Good Heavens!” or something of that kind. I found nothing to say, but the face I had seen at the taxi window flashed before my eyes again.

“Went out at ten this morning – for a walk, she said, before dressing. And she never came back. Half an hour ago a boy-messenger left a note for her mother. ‘I can’t do it, Mother. So I’ve gone.’ – That was all. Aunt Bertha had been called in to assist at the dressing-up, and she sent word to me. Mrs. Knyvett collapsed, of course.”

“And – and Waldo? Is he here?” asked Valdez. “I’d like to see him and – and say what I could.”

“I got him away by the back door – to avoid those press fellows: he consented to go back to the hotel and wait for me there.”

“It’s a most extraordinary thing,” said Valdez, who wore an air of embarrassment quite natural under the circumstances. He was – or had been – an intimate of the family; but this was an extremely intimate family affair. “I called in Mount Street three days ago,” he went on, “and she seemed quite – well, normal, you know; very bright and happy, and all that.”

Sir Paget did not speak. Valdez looked at his watch. “Well, you’ll want to be by yourselves, and I’ve got an appointment.”

“Good-by, my boy. You must come and see us presently. You’re looking very well, Arsenio. Good-by. Don’t you go, Julius, I want you.”

Arsenio walked down the steps very quickly – indeed, he nearly ran – and got into a taxi which was standing by the curb. He turned and waved his hand towards us as he got in. My uncle was frowning and pursing up his thin, supple lips. He took my arm and we came down the steps together.

“There’s the devil to pay with Waldo,” he said, pressing his hand on my sleeve. “It was all I could do to make him promise to wait till we’d talked it over.”

“What does he want to do?”

“He’s got one of his rages. You know ‘em? They don’t come often, but when they do – well, it’s damned squally weather! And he looks on her as as good as his wife, you see.” He glanced up at me – I am a good deal the taller – with a very unwonted look of distress and apprehension. “He’s not master of himself. It would never do for him to go after them in the state he’s in now.”

“After —them?”

“That’s his view; I incline to it myself, too.”

“She was alone in the taxi.” I blurted it out, more to myself than to him, and quite without thinking.

I told him of my encounter; it had seemed a delusion, but need not seem so now.

“Driving past Marlborough House into the Mall? Looks like Victoria, doesn’t it? Any luggage on the cab?”

“I didn’t notice, sir.”

“Then you’re an infernal fool, Julius,” said Sir Paget peevishly.

I was not annoyed, though I felt sure that my uncle himself would have thought no more about luggage than I had, if he had seen the face as I had seen it. But I felt shy about describing the flush on a girl’s face and the sparkle in her eyes; that was more Valdez’s line of country than mine. So I said nothing, and we fell into a dreary silence which lasted till we got to the hotel.

I went upstairs behind Sir Paget in some trepidation. I had, for years back, heard of Waldo’s “white rages”; I had seen only one, and I had not liked it. Waldo was not, to my thinking, a Rillington: we are a dark, spare race. He was a Fleming – stoutly built, florid and rather ruddy in the face. But the passion seemed to suck up his blood; it turned him white. It was rather curious and uncanny, while it lasted. The poor fellow used to be very much ashamed of himself when it was over; but while it was on – well, he did not seem to be ashamed of anything he did or said. He was dangerous – to himself and others. Really, that night at Cragsfoot, I had thought that he was going to knock Valdez’s head off, though the ostensible cause of quarrel was nothing more serious – or perhaps I should say nothing less abstract – than the Legitimist principle, of which Valdez, true to his paternal tradition, elected to pose as the champion and brought on himself a bitter personal attack, in which such words as hypocrites, parasites, flunkeys, toadeaters, etc., etc., figured vividly. And all this before the ladies, and in the presence of his father, whose absolute authority over him he was at all normal moments eager to acknowledge.

“I’m going to tell him that you think you saw her this morning,” said Sir Paget, pausing outside the door of the room. “He has a right to know; and it’s not enough really to give him any clew that might be – well, too easy!” My uncle gave me a very wry smile as he spoke.

Waldo was older now; perhaps he had greater self-control, perhaps the magnitude of his disaster forbade any fretful exhibition of fury. It was a white rage – indeed, he was pale as a ghost – but he was quiet; the lightning struck inwards. He received his father’s assurance that everything had been managed as smoothly as possible – with the minimum of publicity – without any show of interest; he was beyond caring about publicity or ridicule, I think. On the other hand, it may be that these things held too high a place in Sir Paget’s mind; he almost suggested that, if the thing could be successfully hushed up, it would be much the same as if it had never happened: perhaps the diplomatic instinct sets that way. Waldo’s concern stood rooted in the thing itself. This is not to say that his pride was not hit, as well as his love; but it was the blow that hurt him, not the noise that the blow might make.

Probably Sir Paget saw this for himself before many minutes had passed; for he turned to me, saying, “You’d better tell him your story, for what it’s worth, Julius.”

Waldo listened to me with a new look of alertness, but the story seemed to come to less than he had expected. His interest flickered out again, and he listened with an impatient frown to Sir Paget’s conjectures as to the fugitive’s destination. But he put two or three questions to me.

“Did she recognize you? See you, I mean – bow, or nod, or anything?”

“Nothing at all; I don’t think she saw me. She passed me in a second, of course.”

“It must have been Lucinda, of course. You couldn’t have been mistaken?”

“I thought I was at the time, because it seemed impossible. Of course, now – as things stand – there’s no reason why it shouldn’t have been Lucinda, and no doubt it was.”

“How was she looking?”

I had to attempt that description, after all! “Very animated; very – well, eager, you know. She was flushed; she looked – well, excited.”

“You’re dead sure that she was alone?”

“Oh, yes, I’m positive as to that.”

“Well, it doesn’t help us much,” observed Sir Paget. “Even if anything could help us! For the present I think I shouldn’t mention it to any one else – except, of course, Mrs. Knyvett and Aunt Bertha. No more talk of any kind than we can help!”

“Besides you two, I’ve only mentioned it to Valdez; and, when I did that, I didn’t believe that the girl was Lucinda.”

“Monkey Valdez! Did he come to the – to the church?” Waldo asked quickly. “I didn’t know he was in London, or even in England.”

“He’s been in town about a fortnight, I gathered. He’d seen the Knyvetts, he said, and I suppose they asked him to the wedding.”

“You met him there – and told him about this – this seeing Lucinda?”

“I didn’t meet him at the church. He lunched with me before and we walked there together.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, only some half-joking remark that you couldn’t take any other girl for Lucinda. He didn’t seem to attach any importance to it.”