Lady Connie Part 37

What indeed had anybody but himself to do with his own malignant and murderous impulse towards Radowitz? It had had no casual connection whatever with the accident itself. And who but he--and Constance Bledlow--was ent.i.tled to know that, while the others were actuated by nothing but the usual motives of a college rag, quickened by too much supping, he himself had been impelled by a mad jealousy of Radowitz, and a longing to humiliate one who had humiliated him? All the same he hated himself now for what he had said to Constance on their last walk. It had been a mean and monstrous attempt to shift the blame from his own shoulders to hers; and his sense of honour turned from the recollection of it in disgust.

How pale she had looked, beside that gate, in the evening light--how heavy-eyed! No doubt she was seeing Radowitz constantly, and grieving over him; blaming herself, indeed, as he, Falloden, had actually invited her to do. With fresh poignancy, he felt himself an outcast from her company. No doubt they sometimes talked of him--his bitter pride guessed how!--she, and Sorell, and Radowitz together. Was Sorell winning her? He had every chance. Falloden, in his sober senses, knew perfectly well that she was not in love with Radowitz; though no one could say what pity might do with a girl so sensitive and sympathetic.

Well, it was all over!--no good thinking about it. He confessed to himself that his whole relation to Constance Bledlow had been one blunder from beginning to end. His own arrogance and self-confidence with regard to her, appeared to him, as he looked back upon them, not so much a fault as an absurdity. In all his dealings with her he had been a conceited fool, and he had lost her. "But I had to be ruined to find it out!" he thought, capable at last of some ironic reflection on himself.

He set his horse to a gallop along the moorland turf. Let him get home, and do his dreary tasks in that great house which was already becoming strange to him; which, in a sense, he was now eager to see the last of.

On the morrow, the possible buyer of the pictures--who, by the way, was not an American at all, but a German shipping millionaire from Bremen--was coming down, with an "expert." Hang the expert! Falloden, who was to deal with the business, promised himself not to be intimidated by him, or his like; and amid his general distress and depression, his natural pugnacity took pleasure in the thought of wrestling with the pair.

When he rode up to the Flood gateway everything appeared as usual. The great lawns in front of the house were as immaculately kept as ever, and along the shrubberies which bordered the park there were gardeners still at work pegging down a broad edge of crimson rambler roses, which seemed to hold the sunset. Falloden observed them. "Who's paying for them?" he thought. At the front door two footmen received him; the stately head butler stood with a detached air in the background.

"Sir Arthur's put off dinner half an hour, sir. He's in the library."

Douglas went in search of his father. He found him smoking and reading a novel, apparently half asleep.

"You're very late, Duggy. Never mind. We've put off dinner."

"I found Sprague had a great deal to say."

Sprague was the subagent living on the further edge of the estate.

Douglas had spent the day with him, going into the recent valuation of an important group of farms.

"I dare say," said Sir Arthur, lying back in his armchair. "I'm afraid I don't want to hear it."

Douglas sat down opposite his father. He was dusty and tired, and there were deep pits tinder his eyes.

"It will make a difference of a good many thousands to us, father, if that valuation is correct," he said shortly.

"Will it? I can't help it. I can't go into it. I can't keep the facts and figures in my head, Duggy. I've done too much of them this last ten years. My brain gives up. But you've got a splendid head, Duggy--wonderful for your age. I leave it to you, my son. Do the best you can."

Douglas looked at his father a moment in silence. Sir Arthur was sitting near the window, and had just turned on an electric light beside him.

Douglas was struck by something strange in his father's att.i.tude and look--a curious irresponsibility and remoteness. The deep depression of their earlier weeks together had apparently disappeared. This mood of easy acquiescence--almost levity--was becoming permanent. Yet Douglas could not help noticing afresh the physical change in a once splendid man--how shrunken his father was, and how grey. And he was only fifty-two. But the pace at which he had lived for years, first in the attempt to double his already great wealth by adventures all over the world, and latterly in his frantic efforts to escape the consequences of these adventures, had rapidly made an old man of him. The waste and pity--and at the same time the irreparableness of it all--sent a shock, intolerably chill and dreary, through the son's consciousness. He was too young to bear it patiently. He hastily shook it off.

"Those picture chaps are coming to-morrow," he said, as he got up, meaning to go and dress.

Sir Arthur put his hands behind his head, and didn't reply immediately.

He was looking at a picture on the panelled wall opposite, on which the lingering western glow still shone through the mullioned window on his right. It was an enchanting Romney--a young woman in a black dress holding a spaniel in her arms. The picture breathed a distinction, a dignity beyond the reach of Romney's ordinary mood. It represented Sir Arthur's great-grandmother, on his father's side, a famous Irish beauty of the day.

"Wonder what they'll give me for that," he Said quietly, pointing to it.

"My father always said it was the pick. You remember the story that she--my great-grandmother--once came across Lady Hamilton in Romney's studio, and Emma Hamilton told Romney afterwards that at last he'd found a sitter handsomer than herself. It's a winner. You inherit her eyes, Douglas, and her colour. What's it worth?"

"Twenty thousand perhaps." Douglas's voice had the c.o.c.k-sureness that goes with new knowledge. "I've been looking into some of the recent prices."

"Twenty thousand!" said Sir Arthur, musing. "And Romney got seventy-five for it, I believe--I have the receipt somewhere. I shall miss that picture. What shall I get for it? A few shabby receipts--for nothing. My creditors will get something out of her--mercifully. But as for me--I might as well have cut her into strips. She looks annoyed--as though she knew I'd thrown her away. I believe she was a vixen."

"I must go and change, father," said Douglas.

"Yes, yes, dear boy, go and change. Douglas, you think there'll be a few thousands over, don't you, besides your mother's settlement, when it's all done?"

"Precious few," said Douglas, pausing on his way to the door. "Don't count upon anything, father. If we do well to-morrow, there may be something."

"Four or five thousand?--ten, even? You know, Duggy, many men have built up fortunes again on no more. A few weeks ago I had all sorts of ideas."

"That's no good," said Douglas, with emphasis. "For G.o.d's sake, father, don't begin again."

Sir Arthur nodded silently, and Douglas left the room.

His father remained sitting where his son had left him, his fingers drumming absently on the arms of his chair, his half-shut eyes wandering over the splendid garden outside, with its statues and fountains, and its ma.s.ses of roses, all fused in the late evening glow.

The door opened softly. His wife came in.

Lady Laura had lost her old careless good humour. Her fair complexion had changed for the worse; there were lines in her white forehead, and all her movements had grown nervous and irritable. But her expression as she stood by her husband was one of anxious though rather childish affection.

"How are you, Arthur? Did you get a nap?"

"A beauty!" said her husband, smiling at her, and taking her hand. "I dreamt about Raby, and the first time I saw you there in the old Duke's day. What a pretty thing you were, Laura!--like a monthly rose, all pink."

He patted her hand; Lady Laura shrugged her shoulders rather pettishly.

"It's no good thinking about that now.... You're not really going to have a shooting-party, Arthur? I do wish you wouldn't!"

"But of course I am!" said her husband, raising himself with alacrity.

"The grouse must be shot, and the estate is not sold yet! I've asked young Meyrick, and Lord Charles, and Robert Vere. You can ask the Charlevilles, dear, and if my lady doesn't come I shan't break my heart.

Then there are five or six of the neighbours of course. And no whining and whimpering! The last shoot at Flood shall be a good one! The keeper tells me the birds are splendid!"

Lady Laura's lips trembled.

"You forget what Duggy and I shall be feeling all the time, Arthur. It's very hard on us."

"No--nonsense!" The voice was good-humouredly impatient. "Take it calmly, dear. What do places matter? Come to the Andes with me. Duggy must work for his fellowship; Nelly can stay with some of our relations; and we can send the children to school. Or what do you say to a winter in California? Let's have a second honeymoon--see something of the world before we die. This English country gentleman business ties one terribly. Life in one's own house is so jolly one doesn't want anything else. But now, if we're going to be uprooted, let's enjoy it!"

"Enjoy it!" repeated his wife bitterly. "How can you say such things, Arthur?"

She walked to the window, and stood looking out at the garden with its grandiose backing of hill and climbing wood, and the strong broken ma.s.ses of the cedar trees--the oldest it was said in England--which flanked it on either side. Lady Laura was, in truth, only just beginning to realise their misfortunes. It had seemed to her impossible that such wealth as theirs should positively give out; that there should be nothing left but her miserable two thousand a year; that something should not turn up to save them from this preposterous necessity of leaving Flood. When Douglas came home, she had thrown herself on her clever son, confident that he would find a way out, and his sombre verdict on the hopelessness of the situation had filled her with terror.

How could they live with nothing but the London house to call their own?

How could they? Why couldn't they sell off the land, and keep the house and the park? Then they would still be the Fallodens of Flood. It was stupid--simply stupid--to be giving up everything like this.

So day by day she wearied her husband and son by her lamentations, which were like those of some petted animal in distress. And every now and then she had moments of shrinking terror--of foreboding--fearing she knew not what. Her husband seemed to her changed. Why wouldn't he take her advice? Why wouldn't Douglas listen to her? If only her father had been alive, or her only brother, they could have helped her. But she had n.o.body--n.o.body--and Arthur and Douglas would do this horrible thing.

Her husband watched her, half smiling--his shrunken face flushed, his eyes full of a curious excitement. She had grown stout in the last five years, poor Laura!--she had lost her youth before the crash came. But she was still very pleasant to look upon, with her plentiful fair hair, and her pretty mouth--her instinct for beautiful dress--and her soft appealing manner. He suddenly envisaged her in black--with a plain white collar and cuffs, and something white on her hair. Then vehemently shaking off his thought he rose and went to her.

"Dear--didn't Duggy want you to ask somebody for the shoot? I thought I heard him mention somebody?'

"That was ages ago. He doesn't want anybody asked now," said Lady Laura resentfully. "He can't understand why you want a party."

"I thought he said something about Lady Constance Bledlow?"

"That was in June!" cried Lady Laura. "He certainly wouldn't let me ask her, as things are."

"Have you any idea whether he may have wanted to marry her?"