Lucinda. Anthony Hope

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СКАЧАТЬ rose from the table rather abruptly; indeed, with an air of something like impatience or irritation.

      “Hang it! you might be going to be married yourself, you’re in such a hurry,” I said, as I finished my glass of brandy.

      As we walked, Valdez was silent. I looked at his profile; the delicate fine lines were of a poet’s, or what a poet’s should be to our fancy. Not so much as a touch of the monkey! That touch, indeed, when it did come, came on the lips; and it came seldom. It was the devastating acumen and the ruthless cruelty of boyhood that had winged the shaft of his school nickname. Yet it had followed him to the varsity; it followed him now; I myself often called him by it. “Monkey Valdez”! Not pretty, you know. It did not annoy him in the least. He thought it just insular; possibly that is all it was. But such persistence is some evidence of a truthfulness in it.

      “Have you been trying a fall with Dame Fortune lately?” I asked.

      He turned his face to me, smiling. “I’m a reformed character. At least, I was till a fortnight ago. I hadn’t touched a card or seen a table for above a year. Seemed not to want to! A great change, eh? But I didn’t miss it. Then when—when I decided to come over here, I thought I would go round by the Riviera, and just get out at Monte Carlo, and have a shot—between trains, you know. I wanted to see if my luck was in. So I got off, had lunch, and walked into the rooms. I backed my number everyway I could—en plein, impair, all the rest. I stood to win about two hundred louis.”

      “Lost, of course?”

      “Not a bit of it. I won.”

      “And then lost?”

      “No. I pouched the lot and caught my train. I wasn’t going to spoil the omen.” He was smiling now—very contentedly.

      “What was the number?”

      “Twenty-one.”

      “This is the twenty-first of July,” I observed.

      “Gamblers must be guided by something, some fancy, some omen,” he said. “I had just heard that Waldo and Lucinda were to be married on the twenty-first.”

      The monkey did peep out for a moment then; but we were already in George Street; the church was in sight, and my attention was diverted. “Better for you if you’d lost,” I murmured carelessly.

      “Aye, aye, dull prudence!” he said mockingly. “But—the sensation! I can feel it now!”

      We were on the other side of the road from the church, but almost opposite to it, as he spoke, and it was only then that I noticed anything peculiar. The first thing which I marked was an unusual animation in the usual small crowd of the “general public” clustered on either side of the steps: they were talking a lot to one another. Still more peculiar was the fact that all the people in carriages and cars seemed to have made a mistake; they drew up for a moment before the entrance; a beadle, or some official of that semi-ecclesiastical order, said something to them, and they moved on again—nobody got out! To crown it, a royal brougham drove up—every Londoner can tell one yards away, if it were only by the horses—and stopped. My uncle, Sir Paget himself, came down the steps, took off his tall hat, and put his head in at the carriage window for a moment; then he signed, and no doubt spoke, to the footman, who had not even jumped down from the box or taken off his hat. And the royal brougham drove on.

      “Well, I’m damned!” said I.

      Valdez jerked his head in a quick sideways nod. “Something wrong? Looks like it!”

      I crossed the road quickly, and he kept pace with me. My intention was to join Sir Paget, but that beadle intercepted us.

      “Wedding’s unavoidably postponed, gentlemen,” he said. “Sudden indisposition of the bride.”

      There it was! I turned to Valdez in dismay—with a sudden, almost comical, sense of being let down, choused, made a fool of. “Well, twenty-one’s not been a lucky number for poor Lucinda, at all events!” I said—rather pointlessly; but his story had been running in my head.

      He made no direct reply; a little shrug seemed at once to accuse and to accept destiny. “Sir Paget’s beckoning to you,” he said. “Do you think I might come too?”

      “Why, of course, my dear fellow. We both want to know what’s wrong, don’t we?”

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      THE SIGNAL

      BY now it was past the half-hour; the arrivals dwindled to a few late stragglers, who were promptly turned away by the beadle; the crowd of onlookers dispersed with smiles, shrugs, and a whistle or two: only a group of reporters stood on the lowest step, talking to one another and glancing at Sir Paget, as though they would like to tackle him but were doubtful of their reception. One did quietly detach himself from the group and walked up to where my uncle stood on the top step. I saw Sir Paget raise his hat, bow slightly, and speak one sentence. The man bowed in return, and rejoined his fellows with a rueful smile; then all of them made off together down the street.

      My uncle was a little below middle height, but very upright and spare, so that he looked taller than he was. He had large features—a big, high-peaked nose, wide, thin-lipped mouth, bushy eyebrows, and very keen blue eyes. He bore himself with marked dignity—even with some stiffness towards the world at large, although among intimates he was the most urbane and accessible of men. His long experience in affairs had given him imperturbable composure; even at this moment he did not look the least put out. His manner and speech were modeled on the old school of public men—formal and elaborate when the occasion demanded, but easy, offhand, and familiar in private: to hear him was sometimes like listening to behind-the-scenes utterances of, say, Lord Melbourne or the great Duke which have come down to us in memoirs of their period.

      When we went up to him, he nodded to me and gave his hand to Valdez. He had not seen him for two years, but he only said, “Ah, you here, Arsenio?” and went on, “Well, boys, here’s a damned kettle of fish! The girl’s cut and run, by Gad, she has!”

      Valdez muttered “Good Lord!” or “Good Heavens!” or something of that kind. I found nothing to say, but the face I had seen at the taxi window flashed before my eyes again.

      “Went out at ten this morning—for a walk, she said, before dressing. And she never came back. Half an hour ago a boy-messenger left a note for her mother. ‘I can’t do it, Mother. So I’ve gone.’—That was all. Aunt Bertha had been called in to assist at the dressing-up, and she sent word to me. Mrs. Knyvett collapsed, of course.”

      “And—and Waldo? Is he here?” asked Valdez. “I’d like to see him and—and say what I could.”

      “I got him away by the back door—to avoid those press fellows: he consented to go back to the hotel and wait for me there.”

      “It’s a most extraordinary thing,” said Valdez, who wore an air of embarrassment quite natural under the circumstances. He was—or had been—an intimate of the family; but this was an extremely intimate family affair. “I called in Mount Street three days ago,” he went on, “and she seemed quite—well, normal, you know; very bright and happy, and all that.”

      Sir СКАЧАТЬ