FOR AULD LANG SYNE

I AWOKE the next morning with my head full of Lucinda; the thought of her haunted me. My desire to see her, to know how she fared, had been constant since I came to Mentone; it had really prompted my visit to Arsenio Valdez; it had made me restless under the gilded hospitality of Villa San Carlo—a contrast was always thrusting itself under my eyes. But it was brought to a sharper point by the events of the day before, by the mode of living in which I had found Valdez, by his concealment of her and reticence about her. I felt now simply unable to go on faring sumptuously at Villa San Carlo every day, while she was in all likelihood suffering hardship or even want.

There was another strain of feeling, which developed now, or came to the surface. As I drank my morning coffee and smoked a cigar, my memory traveled back through my acquaintance with her—back through my intercourse with her at Ste. Maxime, with all its revelation of her doings, feelings, and personality; back through all that to the first days at Cragsfoot which seemed now so long ago, on the other side of the barrier which her flight had raised and the war had made complete. It was Arsenio who had set me on the line of thought. I recalled my mood in those days, the state of mind in which I had been, and saw how justly his quick wits had then divined it and had yesterday described it. I had chosen to play the fogy, to consider myself out of the running. It was quite true. He had paid me the compliment of saying that he did not know why I should have done this. He did not know. I do not think that I knew myself at the time. We see our feelings most clearly when they possess us no longer. The woman who had been more than any one else in the world to me was still alive in my heart in those days, and still mistress of my thoughts, though she walked the earth no longer and her voice was forever silent. It was still seeming to me, as it does to a man in such a case, that my story was told and finished, that I was done. Beside the fresh young folk at Cragsfoot, I might well feel myself a fogy. What could Lucinda seem to me then but a charming child playing with her fellows?

If Arsenio’s words set me thus smiling—even if half in melancholy over a vanished image that rose again from the past, and flitted transiently across a stage that she had once filled—smiling at the memory of how old—how “finished” for affairs of the heart—I had once seemed to myself, there was a danger that they might make me forget how old I was, in sad fact, at the present moment.

Towards this mistake another thing contributed. Combativeness is usually a characteristic of youth; Godfrey Frost had stirred it up in me. In spite of the plea of “family history” which he had put forward (with a distinct flavor of irony in his tone), my feelings acknowledged no warrant for his claim to a just curiosity and interest about Lucinda, and resented the intimation, conveyed by that firm and resolute Frost smile, that he intended to take a hand in her affairs, on the pretext of studying a roulette system under her husband’s tuition. Such an attitude, such an intention, seemed somehow insulting to her; if the Rillingtons had a right to treat her with less respect than that which is due to any lady—even if Nina based a right to do so on what had happened in the past—Godfrey had none. If she chose to remain hidden, what business was it of his to drag her into the light? There seemed something at least ungallant, unchivalrous in it. I ought to have remembered that he had only the general principles of chivalry to guide him, whereas I had the knowledge of what Lucinda was, of her reserve and delicate aloofness. In the end his curiosity might find itself abashed, rebuked, transformed. I did not think of that, and for the time anger clouded my liking for him.

Coincidently there came over me a weariness, an impatience, of Villa San Carlo. It was partly that Lady Dundrannan created—quite unintentionally, of course—the atmosphere of a Court about her; there was always the question of what would please Her Majesty! This was amusing at first, but ended by growing tedious. But, deeper than this, there was the old conflict, the old competition. Some unknown and dingy lodging, somewhere on the Riviera coast, was matching its lure against all the attractions of magnificent Villa San Carlo. That was the end of it with me—and with Godfrey Frost!

I sought out Nina before lunch in her boudoir, a charming little room opening on the garden, with Louis Quinze furniture on the floor and old French Masters on the walls; really extremely elegant.

Her ladyship sat at her writing table (a “museum piece,” no doubt), sorting her letters. She was not looking her most amiable, I regretted to observe, but, as soon as I came in, she spoke to me.

“Isn’t this too bad? Godfrey’s had to go over to the works. Some trouble’s arisen; he doesn’t even tell me what! He went off at ten o’clock, before I was downstairs, merely leaving a note to say he’d gone, and might not be back for two or three days. He took his man and a portmanteau with him in the car, Emile tells me. And to-morrow is Eunice’s birthday, and he’d delighted the child by promising to take us for a long drive and give us lunch somewhere. It’s so seldom that he puts himself out to give her pleasure, that I was—that it seems a shame.”

“A disappointment, certainly, Nina.”

“It knocks the whole thing on the head. The day would be too long for Waldo, and what would she care about going with you and me? Oh, I beg your pardon, but——”

“Of course! Two’s company; four can move in companies; but three’s hopeless!”

“I’m really vexed.” She looked it. “I wonder if he’s really gone on business!”

“You could telephone the works and find out if he’s there,” I suggested rather maliciously. To tell the truth, I did not think that he would be—not much there, at all events.

“My dear Julius, I’m not quite an idiot in dealing with young men whom I want to—whose friendship I like and value. Do you suppose he’d like me telephoning after him as if I was his anxious mother?”

A wise woman! But just at the moment she was irritated, so that she had nearly put the relations which she wished to maintain between herself and Godfrey too bluntly. However, her amendment was excellent.

“Well, there it is! I must explain it to poor Eunice as well as I can. After all, you might take her to Monte and let her have a little gamble. I’ll give her a present. That’ll be better than nothing.”

“Thank you, Nina! But—well, the fact is——”

“Oh, do you want to go off on your own, too?” she asked rather sharply. “Well, I suppose it is dull here. Waldo and I are too conjugal, and Eunice—well, she’s a dear, but——”

“It’s not a bit dull here. It never could be where you are” (I meant that), “and anyhow old Waldo would be enough for me. And I’m not out for sprees, if that’s what you mean. But—may I smoke?”

“Of course! Don’t be silly!”

I began to smoke. She rose and came to the fireplace, where she stood with her arm resting on the mantelpiece, looking down at me, for I had sat down on one of her priceless chairs; it seemed rather a liberty, but I did it—a liberty with the chair, I mean, not with its owner.

She was looking very vexed; she hated her schemes to go awry. She had been kind to me; I liked her; and she was one of us now—the wife of a Rillington, though she bore another name. More than ever it seemed that I ought to play fair with her—for those reasons; also because it appeared likely that she was not meeting with fair play elsewhere—at all events, not with open dealing.

“I’m your guest,” I began, with some difficulty, “and your—well, and all the rest of it. And I want——”

“To do something that you think I mightn’t like a guest and friend of mine to do?”

“That’s it.” I gratefully accepted her quick assistance. It was quick indeed, for the next instant she added: “That means that you want to go and see Lucinda Valdez? It’s the only thing you can mean. What else is there which you could think would matter to me?”

“Yes, I do. I want to find out where she is, what she’s doing, and whether she’s in distress. I hope you won’t think that wrong, or unnatural, or—or disloyal to Waldo or to you?”

I looked up at her as I spoke. To my surprise her air of vexation, her thwarted air, gave place to that sly, subtle look of triumph which I had marked on her face before. She seemed to consider for a moment before she answered me.

“Go, of course, if you like. I have no possible claim to control your actions. I shan’t consider that you’re doing anything unfriendly to Waldo, much less to me—though I do think it would be better not to mention it to Waldo. But if all you want is to know where Lucinda is, and whether she’s in distress, I’m in a position to save you trouble by informing you on both those points.”

“The deuce you are!” I exclaimed. She had really surprised me this time. She saw it; her lips curved in a smile of satisfaction.

“She’s living with her husband at Nice, and, whatever may have been the case before, she isn’t at present in distress, because for the last two months or so—since soon after we came out—I have had the privilege of supplying her wants.”

I nearly fell out of the priceless chair. I did stare at her in sheer astonishment. Then the memory flashed into my mind—Arsenio’s remittance, his dinner at the CafÉ de Paris, his remark that I might just as well dine with him as with Lady Dundrannan. It did come to much the same thing, apparently!

“I did it for Auld Lang Syne,” said Nina gently, softly. Oh, so triumphantly!

Now I understood her sly, exultant glances at me in the preceding days. She had always suspected me of being on the enemy’s side, one of Lucinda’s faction (it was small enough). What would I have to think of Lucinda now? Nina had been conceiving of herself as the generous benefactress of a helpless and distressed Lucinda. A grateful Lucinda, eating from her hand all but literally! That was her revenge on the girl who had cut her out with Waldo, on the girl who had seen her sobbing on the cliff. It was not a bad one.

“One would not like to think of her being in want, and so exposed to temptation,” Nina remarked reflectively. “Because, of course, she is pretty; she was, anyhow.”

I smiled at that—though I fancy that she meant to make me angry.

“You must excuse me, Nina, but I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, all right!” She walked across to her desk, unlocked a drawer, took out a letter, and brought it back with her. She gave it to me. “Read that, then, Julius.”

It was from Arsenio. I read it hastily, for it disgusted me. It sent to Madame la Baronne (he wrote in French) the grateful thanks of his wife and himself for her most generous kindness, once again renewed. In a short time he hoped to be independent; might he for one week more trespass on her munificence? It was not for himself; it was simply to enable his wife to make a decent appearance, until an improvement in her health, now, alas, very indifferent, made it possible for her to seek some suitable employment——So far I read, and handed the letter back to Nina; she would not take it.

“Keep it,” she said. “I’ve several more; he says the same thing every week—oh, that about the ‘decent appearance’ is new; it’s been rent and food before. Otherwise it’s the same as usual.”

I looked at the date of the letter; it had been written three days before.

“When did you last send him money?”

“The day before yesterday, if you want to know.”

Yes, I had dined on it. And Arsenio had sent half of it to Lucinda; so he had told me, at least. And the rest he was keeping, in order to show Godfrey Frost the working of his system.

“I was with him when he got it.”

“You were with him? When? Where?” she asked quickly.

I told of my afternoon with Monkey Valdez; surely he had now doubly, trebly earned the name! She listened with every sign of satisfaction and amusement.

“You didn’t see his wife? She was out at her work, I suppose?”

“He’s living in a single room. There was no sign of her, and the—er—furniture did not suggest——”

“Really, Julius, I’m not interested in their domestic arrangements,” said Lady Dundrannan. “And you left him at Monte Carlo?”

I assented; but I kept Godfrey’s secret. It was not my affair to meddle in that; the more so inasmuch as his meeting with Arsenio had not been his fault at all, but my own. To give him away would be unpardonable in me. Nor did I tell her that Arsenio had at least professed to send half the money to Lucinda; I was not convinced that he had really done it; and—well, I thought that she was triumphant enough already.

I folded Arsenio’s letter and put it in my pocket, with no clear idea of what I meant to do with it, but with just a feeling that it might give me a useful hold on a slippery customer. Then I looked up at Nina again; she had the gift of repose, of standing or sitting still, without fidgets. She stood quite still now; but her exultant smile had vanished; her face was troubled and fretful again.

“Of course I’ve told you this in confidence,” she said, without looking at me. “I’ve not bothered Waldo with it, and I shan’t until he’s stronger, at all events.”

“I quite understand. But I’m not in the least convinced.”

Then she turned quickly towards me. “The letter speaks for itself—or do you think I’ve forged it?”

“The letter speaks for itself, and it convicts Arsenio Valdez. But there’s nothing to show that Lucinda knows where the money comes from. He probably tells her that he earns it, or wins it, and then lies to you about it.”

“Why should he lie to me about it?”

“He thinks that you’d be more likely to send it for her than for him, I suppose. At any rate, I’m convinced that she would rather starve than knowingly take money from you.”

“Why?”

I retorted her own phrase on her. “Because of Auld Lang Syne, Nina.”

“You don’t know much about that,” she remarked sharply.

“Yes, a good deal. Some you’ve told me yourself. Some Lucinda has told me. I met her down here—not at Mentone, but on the Riviera,—about three years ago.”

“What was she doing then?”

“I can tell you nothing of that. She did not wish you or the people at Cragsfoot to know.”

“I daresay not!” Then she went on, quietly but with a cold and scornful impatience. “What do all you men find in the woman? You, Julius, won’t believe the plainest evidence where she’s concerned. Waldo won’t hear her name mentioned; he does recognize the truth about her by now, of course—what she really was—but still he looks as if I were desecrating a grave if I make the most distant reference to the time when he was engaged to her—and really one can’t help occasionally referring to old days! And now even Godfrey seems eaten up with curiosity about her; he’s been trying to pump me about her. I suppose he thinks I don’t see through him, but I do, of course.”

“She’s an interesting woman, Nina. Don’t you think so yourself?”

“How can she be interesting to Godfrey, anyhow? He’s never seen her. Yet I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if at this moment he’s hunting the Riviera for her!”

How sharp she was, how sharp her resentful jealousy made her!

“It’s as if you were all in a conspiracy to prevent me from getting that woman out of my head! Well—you don’t make any answer!”

“About what?”

“About what Godfrey’s doing.”

“I know nothing about what he’s doing. There’s what he said in the note he left for you.”

She gave an impatient shrug. “Oh, the note he left for me! Why didn’t he tell me face to face? I suppose he could have waited half an hour!”

It was plain that Godfrey’s departure—sudden and certainly unceremonious compared with the deference which he had been (indeed, which all of our party were) in the habit of showing towards her—had upset her seriously. She showed me more of her inner mind, of a secret uneasiness which possessed her. It had been lulled to rest by that picture of a helpless and grateful Lucinda; I had shaken her faith in that, or at least my obstinate skepticism had made her faith angry rather than serene, eager to convince the skeptic and thereby to confirm itself anew.

After a long pause she spoke again in a much more composed fashion, and even smiling.

“Well, Julius, go and see; go and find her, and find out the truth about it. That’ll be the best thing. And you can come back and tell me. In view of Arsenio Valdez’s letter I’m entitled to know their real circumstances, anyhow. Into her secrets I don’t want to pry, but I’ve sent them money on the strength of his letters.”

“What I expect is to be able to tell you not to send any more.”

“Yes, I know you expect that. But you’ll find yourself wrong about it.”

“That’s the ‘issue to be tried,’” I said with a laugh, as I rose from my chair. I was glad to be able to obey the impulse within me without quarreling with Nina. I hoped to be able to carry the whole thing through—wherever it might lead—without that.

“You’re off directly?” she asked.

“Oh, not this minute. After lunch will be time enough, I think.”

“It wasn’t time enough for Godfrey,” she reminded me quickly. But the next moment she flushed a little, as though ashamed. “Oh, never mind that! Let’s stick to business. What you’re going to find out for me is whether Arsenio Valdez—yes, Arsenio—is a proper object for charitable assistance, whether he makes a proper use of what I send him, and whether I ought to send more.”

“That, so far as you’re concerned, is it precisely.”

On which polite basis of transparent humbug Nina and I parted for the moment. We were to meet again at lunch. But Waldo would be there; so no more of our forbidden subject.

Alas! here was to be the end of the subject altogether for some little while. At lunch a very crestfallen man, though he tried to wear an unconcerned air, informed Lady Dundrannan that Sir Ezekiel Coldston had wired him a peremptory summons to attend an important business conference in Paris; so there was an end of the Riviera too for the time being. The order must be obeyed at once. Waldo came into the room just as I achieved this explanation; somehow it sounded like a confession of defeat.

“Oh, well, the Riviera will wait till you come back,” said Her Ladyship, with an unmistakable gleam of satisfaction in her eye.

She had tactfully agreed to the search for Lucinda, but she had not liked it. It was at any rate postponed now.