The Heart of a Woman Part 9

"Let me get you a cab."

He was English, you see, and could not manage to say anything just then. The floodgates of sentiment might burst asunder now with the slightest word uttered that was not strictly commonplace. Louisa understood, else she had not loved him as she did. It never occurred to her to think that he was indifferent. Nay more! his sudden transition from sentiment to the calling of a cab--from sentiment to the trivialities of life pleased her in its very essence of incongruity.

"I said I would walk," she reminded him, smiling.

Then she gave him her hand. It was still gloveless and he took it in his, turning the palm upward so that he might bury his lips in its delicately perfumed depths. His kiss almost scalded her flesh, his lips were burning hot. Pa.s.sion held in check will consume with inward fire, whilst its expression often cools like the Nereid's embrace.

He went to the door with her and watched her slender, trim figure walking rapidly away until it disappeared round the corner of the Square.

When he turned back into the hall, he found himself face to face with Lord Radclyffe. Not Uncle Rad--but an altogether different man, an old man now with the cynical lines round the mouth accentuated and deepened into furrows, the eyes hollow and colourless, the shoulders bent as if under an unbearable load.

"Uncle Rad," said Luke speaking very gently, forcing his voice to betray nothing of anxiety or surprise, "can I do anything for you?"

But even at sight of his nephew, of the man who had hitherto always succeeded in dissipating by his very presence every cloud on the misanthrope's brow, even at sight of him Lord Radclyffe seemed to shrink within himself, his face became almost ashen in its pallor, and lines of cruel hardness quite disfigured his mouth.

"I want to be alone to-day," he said dryly. "Tell them to send me up some tea in the afternoon. I'll go to my room now--I shan't want any dinner."

"But, sir, won't you----?"

"I want to be alone to-day," the old man reiterated tonelessly, "and to be left alone."

"Very well, sir."

Lord Radclyffe walked slowly toward the staircase. Luke--his heart torn with anxiety and sorrow--saw how heavy was the old man's step, how listless his movements. The younger man's instinct drew him instantly to the side of the elder. He placed an affectionate hand on his uncle's shoulder.

"Uncle Rad," he said appealingly, "can't I do anything for you?"

Lord Radclyffe turned and for a moment his eyes softened as they rested on the face he loved so well. His wrinkled hand sought the firm, young one which lingered on his shoulder. But he did not take it, only put it gently aside, then said quietly:

"No, my boy, there's nothing you can do, except to leave me alone."

Then he went up stairs and shut himself up in his own room, and Luke saw him no more that day.

CHAPTER IX

WHICH TELLS OF THE INEVITABLE RESULT

And now a month and more had gone by, and the whole aspect of the world and of life was changed for Luke. Not for Louisa, because she, woman-like, had her life in love and love alone. Love was unchanged, or if changed at all it was enn.o.bled, revivified, purified by the halo of sorrow and of abnegation which glorified it with its radiance.

For Luke the world had indeed changed. With the advent of Philip de Mountford that spring afternoon into the old house in Grosvenor Square, life for the other nephew--for Luke, once the dearly loved--became altogether different.

That one moment of softness, when Lord Radclyffe--a bent and broken old man--went from the library up the stairs to his own room, determined to be alone, and gently removed Luke's affectionate hand from his own bowed shoulders, that one moment of softness was the last that pa.s.sed between uncle--almost father--and nephew. After that, coldness and cynicism; the same as the old man had meted out to every one around him--save Luke--for years past. Now there was no exception.

Coldness and cynicism to all; and to the intruder, the new comer, to Philip de Mountford, an unvarying courtesy and constant deference that at times verged on impa.s.sive submission.

And the change, I must own, did not come gradually. Have I not said that only a month had gone by, and Arthur's son, from the land of volcanoes and earthquakes, had already conquered all that he had come to seek? He who had been labelled an impostor and a blackmailer took--after that one interview--his place in the old man's mind, if not in his heart. Heaven only knows--for no one else was present at that first interview--what arguments he held, what appeals he made. He came like a thief, bribing his way into his uncle's presence, and stayed like a dearly loved son, a master in the house.

And Luke was shut out once and for all from Lord Radclyffe's mind and heart. Can you conceive that such selfless affection as the older man bore to the younger can live for a quarter of a century and die in one hour? Yet so it seemed. Luke was shut out from that innermost recess in Uncle Rad's heart which he had occupied, undisputed, from childhood upward. Now he only took his place amongst the others; with Jim and Edie and Frank, children of the younger brother, of no consequence in the house of the reigning peer.

Luke with characteristic pride--characteristic indolence, mayhap, where his own interests were at stake--would not fight for his rightful position--his by right of ages, twenty years of affection, of fidelity, and comrades.h.i.+p.

The day following the first momentous interview, Lord Radclyffe spent in lawyers' company--Mr. Davies in Finsbury Court, then Mr. Dobson in Bedford Row. The latter argued and counselled. Though papers might be to all appearances correct and quite in order, there was no hurry to come to a decision. But Lord Radclyffe--with that same dictatorial obstinacy with which he had originally branded the claimant as an impostor and a blackmailer--now clung to his reversed opinion.

Convinced--beyond doubt, apparently--that Philip de Mountford was his brother Arthur's son, he insisted on acknowledging him openly as his heir, and on showering on him all those luxuries and privileges which Luke had enjoyed for so many years.

Indignant and mentally sore, Jim and Edie protested with all the violence of youth, violence which proved as useless as it was ill-considered. Luke said nothing, for he foresaw that the end was inevitable. He set about making a home for his younger brothers and sister to be ready for them as soon as the cataclysm came, when Philip de Mountford, usurping every right, would turn his cousins out of the old home.

Frank, absent at Santiago--a young attache out at his first post--had been told very little as yet. Luke had tried to break the news to him in a guarded letter, which received but the following brief and optimistic answer:

"Why, old man! what's the matter with you? worrying over such rubbish?

Take my advice and go to Carlsbad. Your liver must be out of order."

But the catastrophe came, nevertheless; sooner even than was expected.

Edie's language grew very unguarded in Philip's presence, and Jim--"in the Blues"--did not watch over his own manners when the new cousin was in the house.

One evening when Luke was absent--as was very often the case now--and the family gathering consisted of Lord Radclyffe--sullen and morose; Philip, pleasantly condescending; and Jim and Edie, snubbed and wrathful, a difference in political opinion between the young people set a spark to the smouldering ashes.

Philip--still pleasantly condescending--did not say much that evening, though he had been called a cad and an upstart, and told to go back to his n.i.g.g.e.r relations; but the next morning Jim and Edie received a curt admonition from Lord Radclyffe, during which they were told that if such a disgraceful exhibition of impertinence occurred again, they would have to go and pitch their tent elsewhere.

They brought their grievance to Luke; told him all that they had treasured up in their rebellious young hearts against the usurper, and much that they had hitherto kept from the elder brother, who already, G.o.d knows! had a sufficient load of disappointment to bear.

What could Luke do but promise that Jim and Edie should in future have a house of their own, wherein neither usurper nor upstarts would have access, and where they could nurse their wrath in peace and unsnubbed.

For the first time since many, many days Luke was alone with his uncle in the library. Philip was out, and Lord Radclyffe was taken unawares.

What Luke would never have dreamed of doing for himself he did for his brothers and sister; he made appeal to his uncle's sense of right, of justice, and of mercy.

"Uncle Rad," he said, "you have told us all so often that this should be a home for us all. It doesn't matter about me, but the others--Jim and Edie--they haven't offended you, have they?"

Lord Radclyffe was fretful and irritable. When Luke first came in, it had almost seemed as if he would order him to go. Such an old man he looked--sour and morose--his clothes hung more loosely than before on an obviously attenuated frame. He seemed careworn and worried, and Luke's heart, which could not tear itself away from the memories of past kindness, ached to see the change.

"Would you," he asked insistently, "would you rather we went away, Uncle Rad?"

The old man s.h.i.+fted about uneasily in his chair. He would not meet Luke's eyes any more than he would take his hand just now.

"Jim and Edie," he said curtly, "are very ill-mannered, and Philip feels----"

He pa.s.sed his tongue over his lips which were parched and dry. A look--it was a mere flash--almost of appeal pa.s.sed from his eyes to Luke.

"Then," said Luke simply, "it is this--this Philip whom Jim and Edie have offended? Not you, Uncle Rad?"

"Philip is your uncle Arthur's son," rejoined Lord Radclyffe, speaking like a fretful child in a thin voice that cracked now and again. "He will be the head of the family presently----"

"Not," interposed Luke earnestly, "before many years are past, I trust and pray for all our sakes, Uncle Rad----"

"The sooner," continued the old man, not heeding the interruption, "those young jackanapes learn to respect him, the better it will be for them."