SELF-DEFENSE

LUCINDA told me nothing about how “the end of Venice” struck or affected Mrs. Knyvett. Some bewilderment of that good lady may be conjectured; whether she wisely asked no questions or, asking them, received the sort of replies which the proverb indicates as the fate of questioners, I did not know. Nor, indeed, did I care—any more than I cared what had become of Mrs. Knyvett at that moment. (In fact, as I learned afterwards, she had quartered herself—it was her one talent!—on an old and wealthy spinster, and was living with her at Torquay.) My interest was where Lucinda’s was—centered in Lucinda herself.

Her narrative jumped straight from Venice to Cragsfoot. She did not say anything of her feelings in the interval; she went on to what “puzzled” her—to the relations that came about between her and Waldo Rillington. To those, from the beginning and all through, Valdez and what he had been to her formed a background, and more than that, they were a factor and a contributory, just as Nina Frost was. But it was in that way she treated them. Waldo was now the leading figure; round him centered the main theme, the thing to be explained.

“We arrived in the afternoon before tea. Only Aunt Bertha (I noticed that she still used the name which she had learnt to use during her engagement to Waldo) was in; Sir Paget was in town, Waldo was out riding. She was wonderfully nice to me. ‘My dear, you’re in great looks!’ she said. I like those rather old-fashioned phrases of hers. ‘You were a very pretty girl last summer, now you’re a beautiful young woman. And you’re so grown up. Let’s see—you’re only two years older than Nina Frost. But she’s a school-girl—quite raw—compared to you. She said this as if she were pleased. I didn’t understand then why she should be, but I came to, later. You see, Aunt Bertha never liked Nina, and positively hated Briarmount and all its works. We might be shabby, but to her we were gentle folks—and the Briarmount people weren’t; and she thought Nina bold and inclined to be impudent—in which she was right. Don’t laugh, Julius; if you differ, you can state your views afterwards; you mustn’t interrupt.

“Mother was purring over all this—rather taking credit for it, you know, and I was feeling, as you may suppose, rather guilty—a feeling of false pretenses!—and we had settled down to tea, when I heard laughing and talking in the hall. The door opened, and Nina appeared, ushered in by Waldo. They had been riding; she had a good color and was looking prettier, I thought, but her figure was still lumpy and rather awkward. She hesitated by the door for just a moment, giving me a surprised look. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Knyvett and Lucinda were due to-day,’ said Waldo with a laugh. ‘I only knew it myself yesterday morning.’

“‘I ran no risk of disappointing him,’ Aunt Bertha explained. ‘I didn’t tell him when you were coming till I was quite sure of the date.’

“I thought Waldo gave her a rather amused glance as he passed her, greeted Mother, and then came to me. He sat down by me, after we had shaken hands. Nina took her tea off to the sofa; he didn’t seem to treat her with much ceremony—perhaps to him too she was still a school-girl; I was grown up—and, of course, a new arrival. We got talking and, as far as I’m concerned, I forgot her, till I heard her saying, ‘I must go home. You’ll ride with me, won’t you, Waldo?’ For just a moment he didn’t answer or turn away from me. ‘You said you would, when you persuaded me to come in to tea,’ she added.

“‘Perhaps he’s tired. We’ll send a groom with you,’ said Aunt Bertha.

“‘Oh, no, I’ll come, Nina. I said I would.’ He was quite good-natured about it, but I must admit that his voice sounded a little reluctant. He got up and stretched himself lazily. ‘All right, I’m coming, Nina.’ She turned on her heel and marched out, not waiting for him to open the door. He followed, with a little shrug. When they were gone I saw Aunt Bertha smiling to herself.

“I’ve told you that in detail because it—what shall I say?—sets the scene. I can only tell you generally how things developed. At first I was very happy, and so, I suppose, very gay and cheerful. I seemed, in the end, to have had a great escape and to have got into a safe harbor. My feeling of guiltiness wore off under their kindness. I could see that Waldo liked and admired me—and I’ve never been indifferent to admiration or unaffected by it. Aunt Bertha petted me, and Sir Paget made much of me too, when he came back. Mother, of course, was all smiles—and enthusiastic about the food! Then, after two or three days, Waldo told me that he had an appointment to ride with Nina, and asked me to come too. I laughed and said I wouldn’t spoil their tÊte-À-tÊte. He looked put out, but didn’t press me. The same thing happened again, and he insisted on my coming; otherwise he wouldn’t go himself. So we three began to ride, or to walk, together. And Nina Frost began to fight me!

“She had every right and every excuse. That girl, even then, young as she was, had not only made a hero of Waldo—that would have been a thing that one often sees—but she adored him in a jealous, fierce way that I—well, it’s not mine; I hardly understand it. But I could see it in her; she seemed to take little pains to hide it from me, though she did try to hide it from Aunt Bertha. And Waldo—I don’t know to this day how much reason he had given her for hoping, but it was evident that they had seen a great deal of one another since my first visit, and that her homage wasn’t disagreeable to him. You must remember that I probably don’t do justice to her attractions! Well, she made me angry. She assumed from the first that I meant to catch Waldo; I was a female fortune-hunter! She rubbed in our poverty in her old way. And she threw out hints about Arsenio—quite at random, but I’m not sure I always managed to look unembarrassed. Waldo would frown at her then, and try to shut her up; but I caught him looking oddly at me once or twice. I had my secret to keep; I took the obvious way of doing it; I began to flirt with Waldo myself. That was my line of defense, Julius. I’ve not spared my morals in what I’ve told you, and I’m not pretending to you that I behaved particularly nicely at Cragsfoot. I had no business to flirt with Waldo, you’ll say, not even in self-defense? So be it. But since I make these concessions—en revanche I won’t spare my modesty either; I had more success than I desired, or at all events deserved. Waldo took fire!”

She had distinctly recollected me for a moment; she had pronounced my name! Now she gave me one of her smiles—never too numerous. “I don’t know how much you trust me, Julius, but I really am trying to tell the truth.”

“A difficult and thankless task, Lucinda?”

“Not thankless—somehow—to you.” She gave me, this time, a friendly little nod, and went back to her story. We had dined together on this evening; I smoked my cigar and listened; everybody else had finished, and departed; properly speaking, the salle-À-manger was shut. I had tipped the waiter to leave us one light. It shone behind her face, throwing it into relief; the rest of the room was in dimness. I had no difficulty at all in understanding that her “line of defense” had proved successful—only too sure and only too successful.

“When I said just now that I didn’t desire success—at any rate beyond what was necessary to my self-defense—I spoke too broadly. I feared too much success; if Waldo came to love me, to ask me to marry him, I should have to deal with a situation the thought of which frightened me. But what a lot of things there were to make me desire that success! Some obvious and, if you like, vulgar—the name, the money, the comfort, the end of cadging and scamping. A little higher comes the appeal that dear old Cragsfoot made to me—I should love to live at Cragsfoot. Then I was very fond of all you Rillingtons; it would be in its way wonderful to belong to the family, to be one of you. And Sir Paget and Aunt Bertha wanted me—by this time I was quite sure of that. Especially Aunt Bertha—though at first, perhaps, mainly because I wasn’t Nina Frost! Indeed, I came to believe that my being at Cragsfoot at all just then was a plot of Aunt Bertha’s; she had scented the Nina danger and looked round for a weapon against it! All those things influenced me—I suppose, too, poor Mother’s obvious delight at the idea. But the chief things I’ve left to the last. One I can tell you quite simply—Nina Frost! Is that vulgar too? I daresay, but I think it’s human. She had declared herself my enemy. Who likes to see his enemy triumph? And she would think that I was beaten on my merits! If Waldo asked me, and I refused him, could I tell her that? Would she believe me if I did? Besides, my real triumph would be in taking and keeping, not in refusing. If I refused, she would step in—or so I thought. The other thing—the last thing—was, of course, what I felt about Waldo himself, and the way in which I should stand towards him. It was funny. I had had no sense of taking a chance at Venice—though I did take a chance—gambled and, as it had turned out, lost heavily; but there was nothing but just plain being in love in the case at Venice. Don’t smile—love of that kind is really very simple. But with Waldo—and in the circumstances—matters were very different. I liked him very much; he was such a change from Arsenio, about whom I was still, of course, very sore—sore, not angry. He was very jolly at that time; if he’d behaved rather badly to Nina, it troubled him, I think, almost as little as it troubled me—which was not at all! But, first and foremost, Waldo was an adventure. Great as my charms were—we’ve agreed about that, haven’t we, Julius?—I knew that they would avail me nothing if Waldo knew the truth. Because I had—gone wrong! That would have been a shock; it would have meant a storm. But—well, who knows? Perhaps——! But Arsenio! With Arsenio! They had been great friends, those two; but in the end—deep down, there was antagonism, aversion. The one despised, the other felt himself despised. Oh, but I know—look what I’ve been to them both! And now they were rivals! Through me! All through Venice Arsenio had never forgotten Waldo—nor what Waldo called him, as I’ve told you. All through Cragsfoot Waldo never forgot Arsenio. It was not only Nina who dragged Arsenio in—though she did. Waldo used to bring in his name—and watch me. He said to me once, in a light way, ‘I suppose you and our friend Monkey had a picturesque flirtation at Venice—gondolas and concerts on the Grand Canal, and all the rest of it?’ I laughed and said, ‘Of course we had! But I don’t think I found Venice any more intoxicating than—well, than Cragsfoot, Waldo.’ That lifted the cloud from his face. He took it to himself—as I meant him to; a bit of self-defensive tactics! That was by no means the only time that he tried to draw me about Arsenio. But he never put a single question—not one—to Mother. That was against his code, you know.

“There it all was: the charm of Cragsfoot, the desire to please, comfort, soreness with Arsenio, anger at Nina, liking for Waldo—and the adventure! I seemed, in the end, to act on an impulse; I suppose that it was really the outcome of all these things. But it seemed impulse, and Nina was the direct—I mean, the immediate—cause of it. How I remember that day!

“She came to lunch at Cragsfoot, and was fairly agreeable—for her. After lunch we three were alone in the smoking room, and she proposed that Waldo should walk back to Briarmount with her and play billiards. It was inclining to rain, not attractive for a long walk. Waldo asked me to come too. The weather didn’t tempt me; I said no. By now I was not, of course, in the least afraid of leaving him alone with Nina. However, he went on pressing me, and at last I consented. She kept quiet during the pressing, but I saw the hard look in her eyes that always meant temper. We started off, all in our mackintoshes, for the rain was coming down smartly now. Silence for the first half mile or so; Nina’s nose was in the air, Waldo was sullen; I was amused; but I wasn’t going to make talk for them if they chose to be sulky. Suddenly she began on Arsenio again. She wished Don Arsenio was here! What jolly times we had when Don Arsenio was here! And so on. Neither of us said anything. Then she said directly to me, across Waldo, who was walking between us, ‘Don’t you know where he is? Don’t you ever hear from him? He was a great admirer of yours.’ I answered carelessly that I hadn’t heard since he left Venice; but I felt my color rising. Waldo listened silently, but I felt him getting annoyed—I always could. And I was getting afraid. If we’d been alone, I could easily have got away from the topic and smoothed him down. But she was there. ‘Don’t you miss him too, Waldo? You and he and Lucinda used to have such fun together!’ I could see that Waldo was just holding himself in. ‘The Monkey’s all right,’ he said, ‘but I can live without him, you know. And I imagine you can too, Lucinda?’ There was a look on his face that I didn’t like. I saw that, Nina or no Nina, I must do something. ‘Perfectly!’ I said with a laugh. I put my arm through his and gave him a little squeeze on his wrist. I think we’re quite all right as we are, Waldo!’

“We were just at the top of the hill—where you turn along the cliff towards Briarmount. Waldo pressed my arm between his arm and his side, so that I couldn’t draw it away. He stopped, and stood facing Nina like that, making me face her too, with my arm in his like that. ‘Now you understand our views, and you can drop the subject,’ he said in a low voice; it trembled a little. I felt very excited; I didn’t know how she would take it, what she would say; his voice was brusque, angry, contemptuous. But I wasn’t the least prepared for what did happen. She stood opposite to us for a minute, smiling sarcastically, or trying to smile; then her mouth began to work, and her lips turned down, and—she began to cry! Quite loudly—like a passionate child. What I’d been through is supposed to be the greatest humiliation a woman can go through—being taken and left. But this that she was going through seemed to me infinitely worse. I whispered, ‘Nina!’ and tried to draw my arm away from Waldo; I felt that I must go to her. He wouldn’t let me; he held my arm in a vise, and himself just stood looking at her, pale as pale, absolutely quiet! She tried to speak, but couldn’t get any words out, because of her sobbing. She gave it up, and began to undo her mackintosh, to get her handkerchief. She found it, and wiped her eyes; but she was sobbing still. I clung to Waldo now, for support; my legs were shaking under me; I didn’t sob, but I felt tears on my cheeks. At last she threw out her arm towards us, in a threatening sort of gesture, sobbed out, ‘You’ll be sorry for this!’ turned away, and hurried off along the cliff towards Briarmount. Her figure swayed as she walked. It was very pitiful.

“But Waldo watched her without any sign of pity—watched her till she was quite a long way off. Then he turned to me, put his hands under my arms and drew me close to him; he covered my face with kisses—my face wet with both rain and tears. ‘You love me, you love me, Lucinda?’ he whispered. I didn’t speak; I let him kiss me. I think I did love him; at any rate, I was completely overmastered. Now I began to sob myself, just repeating ‘Waldo! Waldo!’ through my sobs—nothing else—and clinging to him.”

Lucinda came to a stop and then turned her eyes to mine—they had been looking into the dimness of the salle-À-manger—“So—it happened,” she said.

She had brought her scene before my eyes vividly enough—the three wet, drab, mackintoshed figures there on the cliff in the rain; the sudden explosion of misery, spite, and love; the fight between the two girls; the disaster to one, to the other a victory that had brought no abiding peace. Yet, as she talked, there had been also in my mind’s eye another, a competing, picture. At the same spot—quite accidentally the same, or did she haunt it?—a tall, stately young woman—her figure quite ‘finished’ now, no longer lumpy—a young woman composed, ironical, verging indeed on the impudent—yet just vulnerable, prone to flush, tempted to fib, when the wedding of Waldo and Lucinda was the topic. I saw now why she had not been invited to that ceremony. Her presence would have been awkward for all parties. The skeleton at the feast indeed—if the feast had ever happened! But set against her, the sobbing girl, with her pitiful passion, her melodramatic “You’ll be sorry for this”—thrown out in the random of fury and spite, but perhaps not without some subtle instinct, some feminine intuition of the truth.

“I saw Nina Frost once when I was last in England,” I said after a long pause. “If you ever meet her again, you’ll find her a good deal changed. She’s quite a woman of the world now.”

“She’s the last person in the whole world that I wish to meet!”

“I understand that. It couldn’t be pleasant for either of you. Well, probably you never will.”

“Yes, we shall. It isn’t all finished between me and Nina yet. I had my victory; I threw it away. I saw her in her awful humiliation; how will she see me next, I wonder!”

“Isn’t that sort of idea very—well, fanciful, Lucinda?”

She made no reply; the veil had fallen over her eyes; she gave a little shiver.

“It’s cold here,” I said. “Let’s go where it’s warm and light—to the restaurant—and finish the evening.” I smiled as I added, “And the story too, please.”

“I can bring it right up to date. I had a letter from Arsenio to-day.”

I was conscious of a slight shock of surprise. I had been thinking of Arsenio as a historical figure—an episode in her past. He was, however, also an existing fact; but what sort of a fact? About that I was still ignorant.