CHAPTER XXXII
A MAN MUST ACT AS HE THINKS BEST
Louisa knew the flat in Exhibition Road very well. She had helped Edieto furnish it, and to make it pretty and cosey, for Edie's passion wasfor dogs and for golf; drawing-room chairs and saucepans were not muchin her line. So Louisa had chosen practically everything--the piano,as well as the coal-scuttles, and every stick of furniture in Luke'sroom.
To-night she went up the well-known stairs very slowly: she ached soin every limb that she could scarcely walk. She seemed to have agedtwenty years in two days.
Edie was sitting alone in the pretty drawing room buried in acapacious arm-chair, her hands folded before her. The room was indarkness save for the glow of the firelight. She jumped up whenColonel Harris and Louisa were announced and the neat servant in blackdress and smart cap and apron switched on the electric light.
"Oh," said poor little Edie impetuously, "I am so thankful you'vecome!"
She ran up to Louisa and put her arms round her, kissing her.
"Do come and sit with me," she continued, loath to relinquish ColonelHarris's hand after she had shaken it, "I feel that in this solitude Ishall go dotty."
Whilst she spoke, she detached with nervous, febrile movementsLouisa's fur from round her neck, and dragged the older woman nearerto herself and to the fire. Then she threw herself down on the hearthrug, squatting there in front of the fire, with nervy fingers pickingat the fringe of the rug. Her cheeks were red and blotchy with tracesof recent tears, her hair, towzled and damp, clung to her moisttemples. Suddenly she burst into a torrent of weeping.
"Oh, Lou! what does it all mean?" she exclaimed between heavy sobs."What does it all mean? They say Luke has murdered that odious Philip!and I have been cooped up here for two days now, not daring to go out!ashamed to face any one! and Luke--Luke--oh!"
The outburst was almost hysterical. The young girl was obviouslyfearfully overwrought, and had endured a severe nerve-strain by nothaving the means of giving vent to her feelings. Colonel Harris, withall an Englishman's horror of feminine scenes, was clearing histhroat, looking supremely uncomfortable all the time.
"Sh!--sh!" admonished Louisa impatiently, "be quiet, Edie, you mustn'tgo on like that! Be quiet now!" she added more severely seeing thatthe girl made no effort to control herself. "What will your servantsthink?"
"Do you suppose," retorted Edie, "that I care what they think? Theycan't think more, can they? when they all talk of Luke as if he were amurderer."
"Do for God's sake be silent, Edie. This is too awful."
And Louisa, almost roughly, dragged herself away from the girl'shysterical embrace. She had tried so hard for two days and two nightsto keep herself together, and her nerves in check. All day to-day hadbeen one long continuous battle against the danger of "breakingdown," that bugbear of the conventional woman of the world.
Now this danger, backed up by this poor child's grief, loomed greaterthan ever, now--now--that "breaking down" would become a positive sin,the most abject form of cowardice. But Edie's bewilderment, herloneliness, were intensely pathetic. Louisa had tried to be severe,and insisted on checking the access of hysteria, but her heart wentout to the child, and to her puzzlement in face of this awful,un-understandable riddle.
"Look here, Edie," she said gently, putting her own kind arms roundthe quaking shoulders of the younger girl, "you are just going to showfather and me how brave you can be. You are Luke's nearest and dearestone on earth; you must not add to his troubles by this exaggeratedshow of grief. We'll all have to be brave--all of us--but Luke willhave to be the bravest of us all, and so we must all do our best tokeep up our courage, and help his own."
She was not accustomed to making such long speeches, nor yet to preachand to admonish. Life, before now, had never placed her in thenecessity of admonishing others: everybody round her--the people withwhom she came in contact always behaved very much as they should--inthe proper conventional worldly manner. People she had hitherto to dowith, did not give way to hysterical tears, nor had they occasion todisplay fortitude in the face of an overwhelming moral shock.
Therefore Louisa was not sure if her words would carry weight, or ifthey would produce the effect she desired. She gazed anxiously at Ediewhilst she spoke, looking with hopeful yet fearful eyes in the poorgirl's face, wondering if she had succeeded in calming the hystericaloutburst.
Edie hung her head, wilfully veiling her eyes beneath the droopinglids. She twirled her gossamer handkerchief into a tight wet ball andtoyed with it nervously.
"It's not much good," she said at last, in very low tones so thatLouisa had some difficulty in hearing what she said, "my trying to bebrave--when Luke is such a coward!"
"Be quiet, Edie," retorted Louisa, all her kindness and sympathy gone,and pushing the girl roughly away from her. "You have no right to talklike that."
"Well, Colonel Harris," rejoined Edie, turning to the man in herdistress, "I ask you, if it isn't just cowardice to run away now, andleave me and Jim to face the whole thing alone?"
"To run away? What do you mean?" demanded Louisa, placing her hand onthe girl's shoulder, forcing her to turn round and to face her.
"Who's running away?" queried Colonel Harris with a frown.
"Luke," said Edie hotly, "is running away. He came home just now, andcalmly told me that he was going off abroad to-night, and since thenhe has been shut up in his room, packing his things. I have been allalone here all day. Jim won't be home till late to-night. Poor oldJim! what a fearful home-coming it will be for him."
But to this renewal of Edie's lamentations, Louisa had not listened,only to the words: "Luke said that he was going abroad to-night!"
Luke--fugitive from justice! The monstrous, unbelievable picturewhich she had tried to visualize just now had become a mirrorreflecting awful, hideous reality.
"Where's Luke?" asked the colonel. "I'd better see him."
"No, father," interposed Louisa quickly. "I'd sooner speak to Luke.Can I go to him, Edie?"
"Yes, I think so," replied the other. "I don't suppose that he haslocked his door."
"Louisa," said her father gently, "I don't think you'll be doing anygood, dear. A man must act as he thinks best."
"I'm not," she replied, "going to interfere with Luke's plans. I onlywant to speak to him. Don't bother, Edie. I know my way."