Lucinda. Anthony HopeЧитать онлайн книгу.
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.”
Waldo’s eyes were now set steadily on my face. “Did you tell him at lunch, or as you walked to the church, or at the church?”
“As a matter of fact, before lunch. I mentioned the matter—that was half in joke too—as soon as I met him in the street.”
Sir Paget was about to speak, but Waldo silenced him imperiously. “Half a minute, Father. I want to know about this. Where did you meet—and when?”
“As soon as the taxi—the one with the girl in it—had gone by. I had to wait for it to go by. I crossed over to St. James’s Street and stopped to light a cigarette. Just as I was getting out a match, he spoke to me.”
“Where did he come from?”
“I don’t know; I didn’t see him till he spoke to me.”
“He might have been standing at the corner there—or near it?”
“Yes, for all I know—or just have reached there, or just crossed from the other corner of St. James’s Street. I really don’t know. Why does it matter, Waldo?”
“You’re dense, man, you’re dense!”
“Gently, Waldo, old boy!” Sir Paget interposed softly. He was standing with his back to the fireplace, smoking cigarette after cigarette, but quite quietly, not in a fluster. It was plain that he had begun to follow the scent which Waldo was pursuing so keenly.
“I beg your pardon, Julius. But look here. If he was at either corner of the street, or on the refuge in the middle—there is one, I think—he may well have been there a moment before—standing there, waiting perhaps. The taxi that passed you would have passed him. He would have seen the girl just as you saw her.”
“By Jove, that’s true! But he’d have told me if he had.”
“He didn’t say he hadn’t?”
I searched my memory. “No, he didn’t say that. But if—well, if, as you seem to suggest, he was there in order to see her, and did see her——”
“It was funny enough your happening to see her. It would be a lot funnier coincidence if he just happened to be there, and just happened to see her too! And just as funny if he was there and didn’t see her, eh?”
“But how could he carry it off as he did?”
“My dear chap, the Monkey would carry off a load of bricks that hit him on the head! There’s nothing in that.”
“What’s your theory, Waldo?” Sir Paget asked quietly.
Waldo sat silent for a full minute. He seemed by now to be over the first fit of his rage; there was color in his cheeks again. But his eyes were bright, intent, and hard. He seemed to be piecing together the theory for which his father asked him—piecing it together so as to give it to us in a complete form. Waldo was not quick-witted, but he had a good brain. If he got hold of a problem, he would worry it to a solution.
“I’ve written to her every day,” he began slowly. “And she’s answered, quite affectionately—she’s never offensive; she’s given me no hint that she meant to go back on me like this. The day before yesterday I wired to her to know if I might come up; she wired: ‘For pity’s sake don’t. I am too busy. Wait till the day.’”
“Nothing