The Knave of Diamonds, Ethel May Dell [fun books to read for adults txt] 📗

been--but to give him his due, Nap never tried to trap inexperience. He's got some morals, knave as he is. Say, Anne dear, you know he is no son of mine?"
"Yes," whispered Anne, gently drawing her friend's hand round her neck.
"And I sometimes wonder," Mrs. Errol went on, in her deep sing-song voice that yet somehow held a note of pathos, "if I did wrong to take him as I did. He was the quaintest baby, Anne--the cutest morsel you ever saw. His dying mother brought him to me. She was only a girl herself--a broken-hearted girl, dying before her time. I couldn't refuse. I felt he had a sort of claim upon us. Maybe I was wrong. My husband didn't view it that way, but at that time I hadn't much faith in his judgment. So I took the boy--his boy--and he was brought up as one of my own. But he was always unaccountable. He had queer lapses. I tried to be kind to him. I guess I always was kind. But I surmise that he always suspected me of resenting his existence. Lucas was the only one who ever had any influence over him. Latterly I've thought you had some too, but I guess that was where I went wrong. He and Bertie never got on. P'r'aps it was my fault. P'r'aps he inherited some of my antagonism. The Lord knows I tried to suppress it, but somehow it was always there."
"Dear Mrs. Errol!" Anne murmured softly. "Not one woman in a thousand would have done as much."
"Oh, you mustn't say that, dearie. I'm a very poor specimen. I gave him what advantages I could, but I never loved him. P'r'aps if I had, he'd have been a better boy. It's only love that counts for anything in God's sight, and I never gave him any. Lucas did. That's how it is he knows how to manage him. It isn't personal magnetism or anything of that sort. It's just love. He can't help answering to that, because it's Divine."
"Ah!" breathed Anne. "You think him capable of love then?"
"I guess so, dear. He's raw and undeveloped, but like the rest of creation he has his possibilities. You've seen him in his better moods yourself. I always thought he kept his best side for you."
"I know," Anne said. She leaned slowly back, looking up into the kindly eyes above her. "But it was only a mask. I see it now. I think there are many men like that, perhaps all are to a certain extent. They are only themselves to one another. No woman would ever love a man if she saw him as he is."
"My dear! My dear!" Mrs. Errol said. "That's a bitter thing to say. And it isn't true either. You'll see better by-and-by. Men are contemptible, I own--the very best of them; but they've all got possibilities, and it's just our part to draw them out. It's the divine foolishness of women's love that serves their need, that makes them feel after better things. No woman ever won a man by despising him. He may be inferior--he is--but he wants real love to bolster him up. I guess the dear Lord thought of that when He fashioned women."
But Anne only smiled, very sadly, and shook her head. It might be true, but she was in no state to judge. She was blinded by present pain. She felt she had given her love to the wrong man, and though it had flourished like a tropical flower in the fiery atmosphere of his passion, it had been burnt away at last by the very sun that had called it into being. And she would love in that way no more for ever. There was only duty left down all the long grey vista of her life.


PART III


CHAPTER I
THE POWER DIVINE

"Well, if this isn't a pleasure!"
Thus Lucas Errol, sitting on the terrace on a certain hot afternoon early in August, greeted Dot, whose multifarious duties did not permit her to be a very frequent visitor. He smiled at her with that cordiality which even on his worst days was never absent, but she thought him looking very ill.
"Are you sure I shan't tire you too much?" she asked him, as he invited her to sit down.
"Quite sure, my dear Dot!" he answered. "It does me good to see people. Lady Carfax is coming presently. The mother has gone to fetch her. It will be her last appearance, I am afraid, for the present. She is expecting her husband home to-morrow. But I'm glad you are here first. I was just wishing I could see you."
"Were you really?" said Dot.
"Yes, really. No, you needn't look at me like that. I'm telling the truth. I always do, to the best of my ability. Is that chair quite comfortable? Do you mind if I smoke?"
"I don't mind anything," Dot said. "And I'm so comfortable that I want to take off my hat and go to sleep."
"You may do the first," said Lucas. "But not the second, because I want to talk, and it's sort of uninteresting not to have an audience, especially when there is something important to be said."
"Something important!" echoed Dot. "I hope it's something nice."
"Oh, quite nice," he assured her. "It's to do with Bertie." He was smiling in his own peculiarly kindly fashion. "By the way, he's stewing indoors, studying for that exam, which he isn't going to pass."
"Not going to pass?" Dot looked up in swift anxiety. "Oh, don't you think he will?"
Lucas shook his head. "What's success anyway? I guess the Creator finds the failures just as useful to Him in the long run."
"But I don't want him to fail!" she protested.
"In my opinion," Lucas said slowly, "it doesn't matter a single red cent, so long as a man does his best. Believe me, it isn't success that counts. We're apt to think it's everything when we're young. I did myself once--before I began to realise that I hadn't come to stay." The shrewd blue eyes smiled at her under their heavy lids. "Now I don't want to distress you any," he said, "but I'm going to say something that p'r'aps you'll take to heart though you mustn't let it grieve you. Capper is coming here next month to perform an operation on me. It may be successful, and on the other hand--it may not. The uncertainty worries me some. I'm trying to leave my affairs in good order, but--there are some things beyond my scope that I'd like unspeakably to see settled before I take my chances. You can understand that?"
Dot's hand, warm, throbbing with life, slipped impulsively into his. "Dear Lucas, of course--of course I understand."
"Thanks! That's real nice of you. I always knew you were a woman of sense. I wonder if you can guess what it is I've set my heart on, eh, Dot?"
"Tell me," murmured Dot.
His eyes still rested upon her, but they seemed to be looking at something beyond. "P'r'aps I'm over fond of regulating other folks' affairs," he said. "It's a habit that easily grows on the head of a family. But I've a sort of fancy for seeing you and Bertie married before I go out. If you tell me it's quite impossible I won't say any more. But if you could see your way to it--well, it would be a real kindness, and I needn't say any more than that."
The weary, rather droning voice ceased to speak. The eyelids drooped more heavily. It seemed to Dot that a grey shadow lay upon the worn face. He looked so unutterably tired, so ready for the long, long sleep.
She sat quite still beside him, turning the matter in her mind.
After a little he went on speaking, with eyes half-closed. "It would hit him hard if I went under, but he wouldn't feel so badly if you were there. The mother too--she wants someone to lean on. There's Lady Carfax, but she has her own burden. And there'd be a lot for Bertie to see to, Nap being away. Besides--"
"Oh, Luke," Dot broke in, her eyes full of tears, "I--I can't imagine this place without you."
"No? Well, you mustn't let it distress you any. We've all got to go, sooner or later. There isn't anything in that. The main thing is to get it over, when it comes, with as little fuss as possible. Life isn't long enough for grieving. It's just a mortal waste of time. And what is Death anyway?" He raised his eyes with what seemed an effort. "You won't blame me," he said, "for wanting to close up the ranks a bit before I go. Of course I may live as long as any of you. God knows I shall do my best. I want to pull through--for several reasons. But if I've got to go, I'd like to feel I've left things as ship-shape as possible. Bertie will tell you what provision I desire to make for you. P'r'aps you and he will talk it over, and if you're willing I'll see the padre about it. But I kind of felt the first word ought to be with you. Bertie didn't like to speak because he'd promised to wait. You'll find he's a man of his word. That's why I've butted in. Say, child, I didn't mean to make you cry. That was clumsy of me."
He patted her hand gently, while Dot blinked away her tears.
"Don't let us talk about it any more now," she besought him. "Oh, Lucas--I do want you to live, more--more than anything."
"That's real kind of you," he said. "I'll do my best, you may be sure. I can hear Lady Carfax talking in the drawing-room. Won't you go and bring her out?"
He made no effort to rise when Anne came on to the terrace, but he gave her so vivid a smile of welcome that she scarcely noted the omission. It was their first meeting since Nap's departure, for Lucas had been confined to his bed for days. But that smile of his banished any sense of embarrassment from her mind. He was so candidly, so unaffectedly, pleased to see her.
She sat down in the riotous sunshine and gave herself up unreservedly to the pleasure of being with her friends. They were all congenial to her. Mrs. Errol, Dot, Lucas, but most especially Lucas, who occupied a unique position in her heart and in her thoughts. He had always been so perfectly her friend in need.
As the long, sunny afternoon wore away, she found herself watching him and in silence marvelling. How was it that this man in his utter, piteous weakness accomplished so much, ruled thus supreme? Wherein lay that potent charm of his which neither devil nor brute could effectively resist? Whence came it, this power of the soul, this deliberate and conscious mastery?
She watched Bertie waiting on him, hovering about him, ready to spring up at his lightest word to execute his scarcely-uttered wish. Other men--even great men--did not command this personal homage, this complete, incessant devotion. Undoubtedly there was something kingly about him; but wherein did it lie? Not in the impotent, unwieldy figure, not in the pleasant, emotionless drawl, not even in the friendly quiet of his eyes, the kindly sympathy of his smile. In none of these lay his power, and yet in all of them it was in some fashion apparent. No great force of personality characterised him, and yet his monarchy was absolute. No splendour of intellect, no keenness of wit, no smartness of repartee were his. Only a shrewdness of understanding that was never cruel, a humour that had no edge.
And presently