Sir Paget had spoken in his most authoritative tone; he had not proffered advice; he issued an order. I had never known Waldo to refuse, in the end, to obey an order from his father. Would he obey this one? It did not look probable. His retort was hot.
“I at least must judge this matter for myself.”
“So you shall then, when you’ve heard my reasons. Sit down, Waldo.”
“I can listen to you very well as I am, thank you.” “As he was” meant standing in the middle of the room, glowering at Sir Paget, who was still smoking in front of the fireplace. I was halfway between them, facing the door of the room. “And I can’t see what reasons there can be that I haven’t already considered.”
“There can be, though,” Sir Paget retorted calmly. “And when I tell you that I have to break my word in giving them to you, I’m sure that you won’t treat them lightly.”
Frowning formidably, Waldo gave an impatient and scornful toss of his head. He was very hostile, most unamenable to reason – or reasons.
At this moment in walked Miss Fleming – Aunt Bertha as we all called her, though I at least had no right to do so. She was actually aunt to Waldo’s mother, the girl much younger than himself whom Sir Paget had married in his fortieth year, and who had lived for only ten years after her marriage. When she fell sick, Aunt Bertha had come to Cragsfoot to nurse her; she had been there ever since, mistress of Sir Paget’s house, his locum tenens while he was serving abroad, guide of Waldo’s youth, now the closest friend in the world to father and son alike – and, looking back, I am not sure that there was then any one nearer to me either. I delighted in Aunt Bertha.
She was looking – as indeed she always did to me – like a preternaturally aged and wise sparrow, with her tiny figure, her short yet aquiline nose, her eyes sparkling and keen under the preposterous light-brown “front” which she had the audacity to wear. I hastened to wheel a chair forward for her, and she sank into it (it was an immense “saddlebag” affair and nearly swallowed her) with a sigh of weariness.
“How I hate big hotels, and lifts, and modern sumptuousness in general,” she observed.
None of us made any comment or reply. Her eyes twinkled quickly over the group we made, resting longest on Waldo’s stubborn face. But she spoke to me. “Put me up to date, Julius.”
That meant a long story. Well, perhaps it gave Waldo time to cool off a little; halfway through he even sat down, though with an angry flop.
“Yes,” said Aunt Bertha at the end. “And you may all imagine the morning I had! I got to Mount Street at half-past eleven. Lucinda still out for a walk – still! At twelve, no Lucinda! At half-past, anxiety – at one, consternation – and for Mrs. Knyvett, sherry and biscuits. At about a quarter to two, despair. And then – the note! I never went through such a morning! However, she’s in bed now – with a hot-water bottle. Oh, I don’t blame her! Paget, you’re smoking too many cigarettes!”
“Not, I think, for the occasion,” he replied suavely. “Was Mrs. Knyvett – she was upset, of course – but was she utterly surprised?”
“What makes you ask that, Paget?”
“Well, people generally show some signs of what they’re going to do. One may miss the signs at the time, but it’s usually possible to see them in retrospect, to interpret them after the event.”
“You mean that you can, or I can, or the Knyvett woman can?” Aunt Bertha asked rather sharply.
“Never mind me for the minute. Did it affect her – this occurrence – just as you might expect?”
“Why, yes, I should say so, Paget. The poor soul was completely knocked over, flabbergasted, shocked out of her senses. But – well now, upon my word, Paget! She did put one thing rather queerly.”
“Ah!” said Sir Paget. Waldo looked up with an awakened, though still sullen, animation. I was listening with a lively interest; somehow I felt sure that these two wise children of the world – what things must they not have seen between them? – would get at something.
“When her note came – that note, you know – what would you have said in her place? No, I don’t mean that. You’d have said: ‘Well, I’m damned!’ But what would you have expected her to say?”
“‘Great God!’ or perhaps ‘Good gracious!’” Sir Paget suggested doubtfully.
“She’s gone – gone!” I ventured to submit.
“Just so – just what I should have said,” Aunt Bertha agreed. “Something like that. What our friend Mrs. Knyvett did say to me was, ‘Miss Fleming, she’s done it!’”
“What did you say?” Sir Paget as nearly snapped this out as a man of his urbanity could snap.
“I don’t think I said anything. There seemed nothing to – ”
“Then you knew what she meant?”
Aunt Bertha pouted her lips and looked, as it might be, apprehensively, at Sir Paget.
“Yes, I suppose I must have,” she concluded – with an obvious air of genuine surprise.
“We sometimes find that we have known – in a way – things that we never realized that we knew,” said Sir Paget – “much what I said before. But – well, you and Mrs. Knyvett both seem to have had somewhere in your minds the idea – the speculation – that Lucinda might possibly do what she has done. Can you tell us at all why? Because that sort of thing doesn’t generally happen.”
“By God, no!” Waldo grunted out. “And I don’t see much good in all this jaw about it.”
A slight, still pretty, flush showed itself on Aunt Bertha’s wrinkled cheeks – hers seemed happy wrinkles, folds that smiles had turned, not furrows plowed by sorrow – “I’ve never been married,” she said, “and I was only once in love. He was killed in the Zulu war – when you were no more than a boy, Paget. So perhaps I’m no judge. But – darling Waldo, can you forgive me? She’s never of late looked like – like a girl waiting for her lover. That’s all I’ve got to go upon, Paget, absolutely all.”
I saw Waldo’s hands clench; he sat where he was, but seemed to do it with an effort.
“And Mrs. Knyvett?”
“Nothing to be got out of her just now. But, of course, if she really had the idea, it must have been because of Arsenio Valdez!”
The name seemed a spur-prick to Waldo; he almost jumped to his feet. “Oh, we sit here talking while – !” he mumbled. Then he raised his voice, giving his words a clearer, a more decisive articulation. “I’ve told you what I’m going to do. Julius can come with me or not, as he likes.”
“No, Waldo, you’re not going to do it. I love – I have loved – Lucinda. I held my arms open to her. I thought I was to have what I have never had, what I have envied many men for having – a daughter. Well, now – ” his