The Heart of a Woman Part 6

The luncheons at Grosvenor Square were always rather dull and formal, but Louisa did not mind that very much. She was used to dull and formal affairs: they were part and parcel of her daily life. London society is full of it. The dull and formal dominate; the others--vulgar if more lively--were not worth cultivating.

Then, she almost liked Lord Radclyffe, because he was so fond of Luke.

And even then "almost" was a big word. No one--except Luke--could really like the old man. He was very bad tempered, very dictatorial, a perfect tyrant in his own household. His opinions no one dared contradict, no one cared to argue with him, and his advanced Tory views were so rabid that he almost made perverts from the cause, of all those whom he desired to convince.

And even these were few, for Lord Radclyffe had no friends and very few acquaintances. He had a strange and absolute dislike for his fellow men. He did not like seeing people, he hated to exchange greetings, to talk or to mingle with any crowd that was purely on pleasure bent. He went up to the House and made speeches--political, philanthropic, economic speeches--which Luke prepared for him, and which he spoke without enthusiasm or any desire to please. This he did, not because he liked it or took any interest in things political, philanthropic or economic, but only because he considered that a man in his position owed certain duties to the State--duties which it would be cowardly to shirk.

But he really cared nothing for the thoughts of others, for their opinions, their joys, or their sorrows. He had schooled himself not to care, to call philanthropy empty sentiment, politics senseless ambition, economics grasping avarice.

His was a life entirely wrapped up in itself. In youth he had been very shy: a shyness caused at first by a serious defect of speech which, though cured in later years, always left an unconquerable diffidence, an almost morbid fear of ridicule in its train.

Because of this, I think, he had never been a sportsman--or, rather, had never been an athlete, for he was splendid with a gun and the finest revolver shot in England, so I've been told, and an acknowledged master of fence, but with bat, ball, or racquet he was invariably clumsy.

He had always hated to be laughed at, and therefore had never gone through the rough mill of a tyro in athletics or in games. Arthur, one of his brothers, had been a blue at Oxford; the other one, James--you remember James de Mountford? was the celebrated cricketer; but he, the eldest, always seemed to remain outside that magic circle of sport, the great ring of many links which unites Englishmen one to another in a way that no other conformity of tastes, of breeding, or of religion can ever do.

Because of this diffidence too, no doubt, he had never married. I was told once by an intimate friend of his, that old Rad--as he was universally called--had never mustered up sufficient courage to propose to any woman. And as he saw one by one the coveted matrimonial prizes--the pretty girls whom at different times he had admired sufficiently to desire for wife--snapped up by more enterprising wooers, his dour moroseness grew into positive chronic ill-humour.

He liked no one and no one liked him: and during sixty years of life he had succeeded in eliminating from his entire being every feeling of sentiment save one. He had to all appearances an absolutely callous heart: he cared neither for dog nor horse--he ordered a splendid mare to be shot without the slightest compunction after she had carried him in the hunting field and in the park faithfully and beautifully for over eight years, just because she had shied at a motor-car and nearly thrown him. He was not cruel, you know, just callous in all respects save one: void of all sentiment--he called it sentimentality--save in his affection for Luke.

Luke had been--ever since he was a growing lad--the buffer in the establishment between the irascible master and the many subordinates.

From Mr. Warren--the highly paid and greatly snubbed secretary--down to the maids below stairs, one and all brought troubles, complaints, worries to Mr. Luke. No one dared approach his lordship. A word out of season brought instant dismissal, and no one thought of leaving a place where, besides excellent wages, there was the pleasure of waiting on Mr. Luke. Never Mr. de Mountford, you notice, always Mr.

Luke. He had grown up amongst the household; Winston, the old coachman, had taught him to ride; Mary, now housekeeper, then a nurse, had bathed him in a wash-hand basin when he was less than eighteen inches long.

Therefore the atmosphere of the gloomy old house pleased Louisa Harris. With the perfect and unconscious selfishness of a woman in love, she gauged everything in life just as it affected Luke. She even contrived to like Lord Radclyffe. He trod on every one of her moral and spiritual corns, it is true; he had that lofty contempt for the entire feminine s.e.x which pertains to the Oriental, more than to the more civilized Western races; he combated her opinions, both religious and political, without any pretence at deference; he smoked very strong cigars in every room in the house, without the slightest regard for the feelings of his lady visitors; he did or left undone a great many other things which would tend to irritate and even to offend a woman accustomed to the conventional courtesies of daily social life; but when Luke entered a room, where, but a moment ago, Lord Radclyffe had been venting his chronic ill-humour on an offending or innocent subordinate, the old man's dour face would become transfigured, irradiated with a look of pride and of joy at sight of the man on whom he had lavished all the affection of which his strong nature was capable.

Luke could do no wrong. Luke was always right. He could argue with his lordship, contradict him, obtain anything he liked from him. Eternal contradictions of human nature: the childless man in perfect adoration before a brother's son; the callous, hard-hearted misanthrope soft as wax in the hands of one man.

CHAPTER VII

THE PART PLAYED BY A FIVE-POUND NOTE

And it was into this atmosphere of gloom and of purposeless misanthropy that Louisa Harris brought this morning the cheering sunshine of her own indomitable optimism.

She knew of course from the first that the subject which interested every one in the house more than any other subject could ever do was not to be mentioned in Lord Radclyffe's presence. But she was quite shrewd enough to see that dear old Luke--unsophisticated and none too acute an observer--had overestimated his uncle's indifference to the all-absorbing matter.

The old man's face--usually a mirror of contemptuous cynicism--looked, to the woman's keener insight, distinctly troubled, and his surly silence was even more profound than hitherto.

He hardly did more than bid Louisa a curt, "How de do?" when she entered, and then relapsed into moroseness wholly unbroken before luncheon was announced.

Jim--"in the Blues"--was there when she arrived, and Edie came in a few moments later, breathless and with hat awry and tawny hair flying in all directions, straight from a tussle with the dogs and the sharp wind in the park.

Evidently no secret had been made before these two of the strange events which had culminated this very morning in their brother's avowal to Louisa, and the postponement _sine die_ of the wedding. But equally evidently these young creatures absorbed in their own life, their own pursuits and amus.e.m.e.nts, were not inclined to look on the matter seriously.

Their sky had been so absolutely cloudless throughout their lives that it was impossible for them at the moment to realize that the dark shadow on the distant horizon might possibly conceal thunder in its filmy bosom.

Edie--just over twenty years of age and already satiated with the excitement of three London seasons, her mind saturated with novel reading and on the lookout for some new sensations--was inclined to look on the affair as an exhilarating interlude between the Shrove Tuesday dance at Wess.e.x House and the first Drawing-Room in May.

Jim--"in the Blues"--very eligible as a possible husband for the daughters of ambitious mammas, a trifle spoiled, a little slow of wit, and not a little self-satisfied--dismissed the whole incident as "tommy-rot."

When Louisa first greeted them, Edie had whispered excitedly:

"Has he told you?"

And without waiting for a direct reply had continued, with unabated eagerness:

"Awful exciting, don't you think?"

But Jim with the elegant drawl peculiar to his kind had suppressed further confidences by an authoritative:

"Awful rot I call it, don't you? Luke is soft to worry about it."

Strangely enough, at luncheon it was Lord Radclyffe who brought up the subject matter. Edie with the tactlessness of youth had asked a point-blank question:

"Well," she said, "when is that wedding to be? and what are we bridesmaids going to wear? I warn you I won't have white--I hate a white wedding."

Then as no answer came she said impatiently:

"I wish you'd name the day, you two stupids. Awfully soft I call it hanging about like this."

Luke would have said something then, but Louisa interposed.

"It is all my fault, Edie," she said. "You know I want to take the twins out myself this season. I must give them a real good time before I marry."

"Bosh!" remarked Edith unceremoniously. "Mabel and Chris will have a far better time when you are married and can present them yourself.

Tell them from me that its no fun being 'out' and the longer they put it off the better they'll enjoy themselves later on. Besides, Colonel Harris will take them about."

"Father hates sitting up late--" hazarded Louisa, somewhat lamely.

"The truth of the matter is," here broke in Lord Radclyffe dryly, "that Luke had persuaded you to put off the wedding because of this d----d impostor who seems to have set you all off by the ears."

Edie laughed and said, "Bosh!" Jim growled and murmured, "Rot!"

Luke and Louisa were silent, the while Lord Radclyffe's closely-set, dark, piercing eyes, wandered from one young face to the other.

Louisa, feeling uncomfortable beneath that none too amiable scrutiny, did not know what to say, but Luke quietly remarked after awhile:

"You're right, uncle. It is my doing, but Lou agrees with me, and we are going to wait until this cloud is properly cleared up."

If any one else had spoken so clearly and decisively in direct contradiction to the old man's obvious wishes in the matter, the result would have been an outburst of ill-humour and probably a volley of invectives, not unmixed with more forcible language. But since it was Luke who had spoken--and Luke could do no wrong--Lord Radclyffe responded quite gently:

"My dear boy," he said, and it was really touching to hear the hard voice soften and linger on the endearing words, "I have told you once and for all that the story of this so-called Philip de Mountford is a fabrication from beginning to end. There is absolutely no reason for you to fret one single instant because of the lies a blackmailer chooses to trump up. As for your putting off your wedding one single hour because of this folly, why, it is positive nonsense. I should have thought you had more common-sense--and Miss Harris, too, for a matter of that."

Luke was silent for a moment or two while Edie tossed her irresponsible young head with the gesture of an absolute "I told you so." Jim muttered something behind his heavy cavalry moustache.

Louisa, with head bent and fingers somewhat restless and fidgety, waited to hear what Luke would say.

"If only," he said, "you would consent, Uncle Rad to let Mr. Dobson go through this man's papers."