Part 37 (1/2)

What indeed had anybody but himself to do with his own malignant and murderous impulse towards Radowitz? It had had no casual connection whatever with the accident itself. And who but he--and Constance Bledlow--was ent.i.tled to know that, while the others were actuated by nothing but the usual motives of a college rag, quickened by too much supping, he himself had been impelled by a mad jealousy of Radowitz, and a longing to humiliate one who had humiliated him? All the same he hated himself now for what he had said to Constance on their last walk. It had been a mean and monstrous attempt to s.h.i.+ft the blame from his own shoulders to hers; and his sense of honour turned from the recollection of it in disgust.

How pale she had looked, beside that gate, in the evening light--how heavy-eyed! No doubt she was seeing Radowitz constantly, and grieving over him; blaming herself, indeed, as he, Falloden, had actually invited her to do. With fresh poignancy, he felt himself an outcast from her company. No doubt they sometimes talked of him--his bitter pride guessed how!--she, and Sorell, and Radowitz together. Was Sorell winning her? He had every chance. Falloden, in his sober senses, knew perfectly well that she was not in love with Radowitz; though no one could say what pity might do with a girl so sensitive and sympathetic.

Well, it was all over!--no good thinking about it. He confessed to himself that his whole relation to Constance Bledlow had been one blunder from beginning to end. His own arrogance and self-confidence with regard to her, appeared to him, as he looked back upon them, not so much a fault as an absurdity. In all his dealings with her he had been a conceited fool, and he had lost her. ”But I had to be ruined to find it out!” he thought, capable at last of some ironic reflection on himself.

He set his horse to a gallop along the moorland turf. Let him get home, and do his dreary tasks in that great house which was already becoming strange to him; which, in a sense, he was now eager to see the last of.

On the morrow, the possible buyer of the pictures--who, by the way, was not an American at all, but a German s.h.i.+pping millionaire from Bremen--was coming down, with an ”expert.” Hang the expert! Falloden, who was to deal with the business, promised himself not to be intimidated by him, or his like; and amid his general distress and depression, his natural pugnacity took pleasure in the thought of wrestling with the pair.

When he rode up to the Flood gateway everything appeared as usual. The great lawns in front of the house were as immaculately kept as ever, and along the shrubberies which bordered the park there were gardeners still at work pegging down a broad edge of crimson rambler roses, which seemed to hold the sunset. Falloden observed them. ”Who's paying for them?” he thought. At the front door two footmen received him; the stately head butler stood with a detached air in the background.

”Sir Arthur's put off dinner half an hour, sir. He's in the library.”

Douglas went in search of his father. He found him smoking and reading a novel, apparently half asleep.

”You're very late, Duggy. Never mind. We've put off dinner.”

”I found Sprague had a great deal to say.”

Sprague was the subagent living on the further edge of the estate.

Douglas had spent the day with him, going into the recent valuation of an important group of farms.

”I dare say,” said Sir Arthur, lying back in his armchair. ”I'm afraid I don't want to hear it.”

Douglas sat down opposite his father. He was dusty and tired, and there were deep pits tinder his eyes.

”It will make a difference of a good many thousands to us, father, if that valuation is correct,” he said shortly.

”Will it? I can't help it. I can't go into it. I can't keep the facts and figures in my head, Duggy. I've done too much of them this last ten years. My brain gives up. But you've got a splendid head, Duggy--wonderful for your age. I leave it to you, my son. Do the best you can.”

Douglas looked at his father a moment in silence. Sir Arthur was sitting near the window, and had just turned on an electric light beside him.

Douglas was struck by something strange in his father's att.i.tude and look--a curious irresponsibility and remoteness. The deep depression of their earlier weeks together had apparently disappeared. This mood of easy acquiescence--almost levity--was becoming permanent. Yet Douglas could not help noticing afresh the physical change in a once splendid man--how shrunken his father was, and how grey. And he was only fifty-two. But the pace at which he had lived for years, first in the attempt to double his already great wealth by adventures all over the world, and latterly in his frantic efforts to escape the consequences of these adventures, had rapidly made an old man of him. The waste and pity--and at the same time the irreparableness of it all--sent a shock, intolerably chill and dreary, through the son's consciousness. He was too young to bear it patiently. He hastily shook it off.

”Those picture chaps are coming to-morrow,” he said, as he got up, meaning to go and dress.

Sir Arthur put his hands behind his head, and didn't reply immediately.

He was looking at a picture on the panelled wall opposite, on which the lingering western glow still shone through the mullioned window on his right. It was an enchanting Romney--a young woman in a black dress holding a spaniel in her arms. The picture breathed a distinction, a dignity beyond the reach of Romney's ordinary mood. It represented Sir Arthur's great-grandmother, on his father's side, a famous Irish beauty of the day.

”Wonder what they'll give me for that,” he Said quietly, pointing to it.

”My father always said it was the pick. You remember the story that she--my great-grandmother--once came across Lady Hamilton in Romney's studio, and Emma Hamilton told Romney afterwards that at last he'd found a sitter handsomer than herself. It's a winner. You inherit her eyes, Douglas, and her colour. What's it worth?”

”Twenty thousand perhaps.” Douglas's voice had the c.o.c.k-sureness that goes with new knowledge. ”I've been looking into some of the recent prices.”

”Twenty thousand!” said Sir Arthur, musing. ”And Romney got seventy-five for it, I believe--I have the receipt somewhere. I shall miss that picture. What shall I get for it? A few shabby receipts--for nothing. My creditors will get something out of her--mercifully. But as for me--I might as well have cut her into strips. She looks annoyed--as though she knew I'd thrown her away. I believe she was a vixen.”

”I must go and change, father,” said Douglas.

”Yes, yes, dear boy, go and change. Douglas, you think there'll be a few thousands over, don't you, besides your mother's settlement, when it's all done?”

”Precious few,” said Douglas, pausing on his way to the door. ”Don't count upon anything, father. If we do well to-morrow, there may be something.”