CHAPTER IV
NOTHING REALLY TANGIBLE
They walked up the gravelled walk under the chestnut trees, whereonthe leaf buds, luscious looking, with their young green surfacedelicately tinged with pink, looked over ready to burst intofan-shaped fulness of glory. The well-kept paths, the orderly flowerbeds, and smoothly trimmed lawns looked all so simple, so obviousbeside the strange problem which fate had propounded to these twoyoung people walking up and down side by side--and with just a certaindistance between them as if that problem was keeping them apart.
And that intangible reality stood between them, causing in Luke avague sense of shamefacedness, as if he were guilty toward Louisa, andin her a feeling of irritation against the whole world around her, forhaving allowed this monstrous thing to happen--this vague shadow onlife's pathway, on the life of the only man who mattered.
People passed them as they walked: the curious, the indifferent: menwith bowler hats pulled over frowning brows, boys with caps carelesslythrust at the back of their heads, girls with numbed fingers thrust inworn gloves, tip-tilted noses blue with cold, thin, ill-fittingclothes scarce shielding attenuated shoulders against the keen springblast.
Just the humdrum, every-day crowd of London: the fighters, theworkers, toiling against heavy odds of feeble health, insufficientfood, scanty clothing, the poor that no one bothers about, lessinteresting than the unemployed labourer, less picturesque, lessnoisy, they passed and had no time to heed the elegantly clad figurewrapped in costly furs, or the young man in perfectly tailored coat,who was even now preparing himself for a fight with destiny, besidewhich the daily struggle for halfpence would be but a mere skirmish.
Instinctively they knew--these two--the society girl and theeasy-going wealthy man--that it was reality with which they would haveto deal. That instinct comes with the breath of fate: a warning thather decrees are serious, not to be lightly set aside, but ponderedover; that her materialized breath would not be a phantom or a thingto be derided.
Truth or imposture? Which?
Neither the man nor the girl knew as yet, but reality--whatever elseit was.
They walked on for awhile in silence. Another instinct--theconventional one--had warned them that their stay in the park had beenunduly prolonged: there were social duties to attend to, calls tomake, luncheon with Lord Radclyffe at Grosvenor Square.
So they both by tacit consent turned their steps back toward the town.
A man passed them from behind, walking quicker than they did. As hepassed, he looked at them both intently, as if desirous of arrestingtheir attention. Of course he succeeded, for his look was almostcompelling. Louisa was the first to turn toward him, then Luke didlikewise: and the passer-by raised his hat respectfully with a slightinclination of head and shoulders that suggested foreign upbringing.
Once more convention stepped in and Luke mechanically returned thesalute.
"Who was that?" asked Louisa, when the passer-by was out of ear shot.
"I don't know," replied Luke. "I thought it was some one you knew. Hebowed to you."
"No," she said, "to you, I think. Funny you should not know him."
But silence once broken, constraint fled with it. She drew nearer toLuke and once more her hand sought his coat sleeve, with a lightpressure quickly withdrawn.
"Now, Luke," she said, abruptly reverting to the subject, "how do youstand in all this?"
"I?"
"Yes. What does Lord Radclyffe say?"
"He laughs the whole thing to scorn, and declares that the man is animpudent liar."
"He saw," she asked, "the first letter? The one that came from St.Vincent?"
"Yes. Mr. Warren and I did not think we ought to keep it from him."
"Of course not," she assented. "Then he said that the letter was atissue of lies?"
"From beginning to end."
"He refused," she insisted, "to believe in the marriage of your uncleArthur out there in Martinique?"
"He didn't go into details. He just said that the whole letter was animpudent attempt at blackmail."
"And since then?"
"He has never spoken about it."
"Until to-day?" she asked.
"He hasn't spoken," he replied, insisting on the word, "even to-day.Two or three times I think letters came for him in the samehandwriting. Mr. Warren did not open them, of course, and took themstraight to Uncle Rad. They always bore foreign postmarks, some fromone place, some from another; but Uncle Rad never referred to themafter he had read them, nor did he instruct Mr. Warren to reply. Thenthe letters ceased, and I began to forget the whole business. I didn'ttell you, because Uncle Rad told me not to talk about the whole thing.It was beneath contempt, he said, and he didn't want the tittle-tattleto get about."
"Then," she asked, "what happened?"
"A week ago a letter came with a London postmark on it. The addressand letter were both type-written, and the latter covered four sheetsof paper, and was signed Philip de Mountford. Bar the actual story ofthe marriage and all that, the letter was almost identical to thefirst one which came from St. Vincent. Mr. Warren had opened it, forit looked like a business one, and he waited for me in his office toask my opinion about it. Of course we had to give it to Uncle Rad. Ithad all the old phrases in it about blood being thicker than water,and about longing for friendship and companionship, and all that.There was no hint of threats or demand for money or anything likethat."
"Of course not," she said. "Whilst Lord Radclyffe is alive, the youngman has no claim."
"Only," he rejoined, "that of kinship."
"Lord Radclyffe need not do anything for him."
Already there was a note of hostility in Louisa's even voice. Thecommonplace woman was donning armour against the man who talked ofusurping the loved one's privileges.
"I wish," he insisted, "that I could have got the letter from UncleRad to show you. It was so simple and so sensible. All he asks is justto see Uncle Rad personally, to feel that he has kindred in the world.He knows, he says, that, beyond good-will, he has no claim now. As amatter of fact, he has something more substantial than that, for UncleArthur had a little personal property, about fifteen thousand pounds,which he left to us four children--Jim and Frank and Edie and me, andwhich I for one wouldn't touch if I knew for certain that this Philipwas his son."
"But," she argued, "you say that the man does not speak of money."
She hated the talk about money: for she had all that contempt for itwhich women have who have never felt the want of it. It would havebeen so simple if the intruder had only wanted money. She would nothave cared a little bit if Luke had none, or was not going to haveany. It was his right which she would not hear of being questioned;his right in Lord Radclyffe's affections, in his household, and alsohis rights in the future when Lord Radclyffe would be gone.
"You are sure," she insisted, "that he does not want money?"
"I don't think," he replied, "that he does, just now. He seems to havea little; he must have had a little, since he came over from St.Vincent and is staying at a moderately good hotel in London. No. Hewants to see Uncle Rad, because he thinks that, if Uncle Rad saw him,blood would cry out in response. It appears that now he has lodged allhis papers of identification with a London lawyer--a very good firm,mind you--and he wants Uncle Rad's solicitor to see all the papers andto examine them. That seems fair to me, doesn't it to you?"
"Very fair indeed," she mused.
"What I mean," he added with great conviction, "is that if thosepapers weren't all right, he wouldn't be so anxious for Uncle Rad'ssolicitors to have a look at them, would he?"
"No."
And after awhile she reiterated more emphatically.
"Certainly not."
"I must say," he concluded, "that the whole thing simply beats me."
"But what does Lord Radclyffe say now?"
"Nothing."
"How do you mean nothing?"
"Just what I say. He won't talk about the thing. He won't discuss it.He
won't answer any question which I put to him. 'My dear boy, the manis a palpable, impudent impostor, a blackmailer' and that's all I canget out of him."
"He won't see the man?"
"Won't hear of it."
"And won't he let his solicitor--Mr. Dobson, isn't it?--meet the otherlawyer?"
"He says he wouldn't dream of wasting old Dobson's time."
"Then what's going to happen?"
"I don't see," he said, "what is going to happen."
"Won't you have a talk about it all with Mr. Dobson, and see what hesays?"
"I can't very well do that. Strictly speaking it's none of mybusiness--as yet. I couldn't consult Uncle Rad's lawyers, withoutUncle Rad's consent."
"Another one then."
He shrugged his shoulders, obviously undecided what to do. He hadthought very little about himself or his future in all this: histhoughts had dwelt mostly on Lord Radclyffe--father, mother, brother,sister to them all. Bless him! And then he had thought of her. Helooked round him with eyes that scarcely saw, for they really wereturned inward to his own simple soul, and to his loving heart. Rightup against that very simplicity of soul, a duty stood clear anduncompromising. A duty yet to be performed, the real aim and end ofall that he had said so far. But he did not know how best to performsuch a duty.
Simple souls--unlike the complex psychological phenomena of moderntimes--are apt to be selfless, to think more of the feelings ofothers, than of analyzing their own various sensations; and Luke knewthat what he considered his duty would not be quite so obvious toLouisa, and that by fulfilling it he would give her pain.