CHAPTER XVII
A long week went by, and still no news, no explanation of her abruptdeparture from Lacville, was received from Anna Wolsky; and the ownersof the Pension Malfait were still waiting for instructions as to whatwas to be done with Madame Wolsky's luggage, and with the various littlepersonal possessions she had left scattered about her room.
As for Sylvia, it sometimes seemed to her as if her Polish friend hadbeen obliterated, suddenly blotted out of existence.
But as time went on she felt more and more pained and discomfited byAnna's strange and heartless behaviour to herself. Whatever the reasonfor Madame Wolsky's abrupt departure, it would not have taken her amoment to have sent Sylvia Bailey a line--if only to say that she couldgive no explanation of her extraordinary conduct.
Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia's thoughts fromAnna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours' ride with Paulde Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only alittle practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her intoa really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.
Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make theirway into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, whichis so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.
The Duchesse d'Eglemont had sent her maid to Lacville with the ridinghabit she was lending Sylvia, and by a word M. Polperro let fall, theEnglishwoman realised, with mingled confusion and amusement, that thehotel-keeper supposed her to be an old and intimate friend of CountPaul's sister.
The other people in the hotel began to treat her with marked cordiality.
And so it came to pass that outwardly the Polish lady's disappearancecame to be regarded even by Sylvia as having only been a ripple on thepleasant, lazy, agreeable life she, Count Paul, and last, not least, theWachners, were all leading at Lacville.
In fact, as the days went on, only Mrs. Bailey herself and that kindlycouple, Madame Wachner and her silent husband, seemed to remember thatAnna had ever been there. During the first days, when Sylvia had beenreally very anxious and troubled, she had had cause to be grateful tothe Wachners for their sympathy; for whereas Paul de Virieu seemed onlyinterested in Anna Wolsky because she, Sylvia, herself was interested,both Madame Wachner and her morose, silent husband showed real concernand distress at the mysterious lack of news.
Whenever Sylvia saw them, and she saw them daily at the Casino, eitherMadame Wachner or L'Ami Fritz would ask her in an eager, sympatheticvoice, "Have you had news of Madame Wolsky?"
And then, when she shook her head sadly, they would express--andespecially Madame Wachner would express--increasing concern and surpriseat Anna's extraordinary silence.
"If only she had come to us as she arranged to do!" the older womanexclaimed more than once in a regretful tone. "Then, at any rate, weshould know something; she would not have concealed her plans from usentirely; we were, if new friends, yet on such kind, intimate terms withthe dear soul!"
And now, as had been the case exactly a week ago, Sylvia was resting inher room. She was sitting just as she had then sat, in a chair drawn upclose to the window. There had been no ride that morning, for Paul deVirieu had been obliged to go into Paris for the day.
Sylvia felt dull and listless. She had never before experienced thataching longing for the presence of another human being which in ourcivilised life is disguised under many names, but which in this case,Sylvia herself called by that of "friendship."
Moreover, she had received that morning a letter which had greatlydisturbed her. It now lay open on her lap, for she had just read itthrough again. This letter was quite short, and simply contained the newsthat Bill Chester, her good friend, sometime lover, and trustee, wasgoing to Switzerland after all, and that he would stop a couple of daysin Paris in order to see her.
It was really very nice of Bill to do this, and a month ago Sylvia wouldhave looked forward to seeing him. But now everything was changed, andSylvia could well have dispensed with Bill Chester's presence.
The thought of Chester at Lacville filled her with unease. When she hadleft her English home two months ago--it seemed more like two years thantwo months--she had felt well disposed to the young lawyer, and deep inher inmost heart she had almost brought herself to acknowledge that shemight very probably in time become his wife.
She suspected that Chester had been fond of her when she was a girl, ata time when his means would not have justified him in proposing to her,for he was one of those unusual men who think it dishonourable to askgirls to marry them unless they are in a position to keep a wife. Sheremembered how he had looked--how set and stern his face had become whensomeone had suddenly told him in her presence of her engagement to GeorgeBailey, the middle-aged man who had been so kind to her, and yet who hadcounted for so little in her life, though she had given him all she couldof love and duty.
Since her widowhood, so she now reminded herself remorsefully, Chesterhad been extraordinarily good to her, and his devotion had touched herbecause it was expressed in actions rather than in words, for he was alsothe unusual type of man, seldom a romantic type, who scorns, however muchin love, to take advantage of a fiduciary position to strengthen his own.
The fact that he was her trustee brought them into frequent conflict. Toooften Bill was the candid friend instead of the devoted lover. Their onlyreal quarrel--if quarrel it could be called--had been, as we know, overthe purchase of her string of pearls. But time, or so Sylvia confidentlybelieved, had proved her to have been right, for her "investment," as shealways called it to Bill Chester, had improved in value.
But though she had been right in that comparatively trifling matter, sheknew that Chester would certainly disapprove of the kind of life--theidle, purposeless, frivolous life--she was now leading.
Looking out over the lake, which, as it was an exceedingly hot, fine day,was already crowded with boats, Sylvia almost made up her mind to go backinto Paris for two or three days.
Bill would think it a very strange thing that she was staying here inLacville all by herself. But the thought of leaving Lacville just nowwas very disagreeable to Sylvia.... She wondered uncomfortably what hertrustee would think of her friendship with Count Paul de Virieu--withthis Frenchman who, when he was not gambling at the Casino, spent everymoment of his time with her.
But deep in her heart Sylvia knew well that when Bill Chester was therePaul de Virieu would draw back; only when they were really alone togetherdid he talk eagerly, naturally.
In the dining-room of the Villa he hardly ever spoke to her, and whenthey were both in the Baccarat-room of the Club he seldom came and stoodby her side, though when she looked up she often found his eyes fixed onher with that ardent, absorbed gaze which made her heart beat, and hercheeks flush with mingled joy and pain.
Suddenly, as if her thoughts had brought him there, she saw Count Paul'sstraight, slim figure turn in from the road through the gates of theVilla.
He glanced up at her window and took off his hat. He looked cool,unruffled, and self-possessed, but her eager eyes saw a change in hisface. He looked very grave, and yet oddly happy. Was it possible that hehad news at last of Anna Wolsky?
He mounted the stone-steps and disappeared into the house; and Sylvia,getting up, began moving restlessly about her room. She longed to godownstairs, and yet a feminine feeling of delicacy restrained her fromdoing so.
A great stillness brooded over everything. The heat had sent everyoneindoors. M. Polperro, perhaps because of his Southern up-bringing, alwaystook an early afternoon siesta. It looked as if his servants followed hisexample. The Villa du Lac seemed asleep.
Sylvia went across to the other window, the window overlooking the large,shady garden, and there, glancing down, she saw Count Paul.
"Come into the garden--," he said softly in English; and Sylvia, leaningover the bar of her window, thought he added the word "Maud"--but ofcourse that could not have been so, for her name, as the C
ount knew well,was Sylvia! And equally of course he always addressed her as "Madame."
"It's so nice and cool up here," she whispered back. "I don't believe itis half so cool in the garden!"
She gazed down into his upturned face with innocent coquetry,pretending--only pretending--to hesitate as to what she would do inanswer to his invitation.
But Sylvia Bailey was but an amateur at the Great Game, the game at whichonly two--only a man and a woman--can play, and yet which is capable ofsuch infinite, such bewilderingly protean variations. So her next move,one which Paul de Virieu, smiling behind his moustache, foresaw--was toturn away from the window.
She ran down the broad shallow staircase very quickly, for it hadoccurred to her that the Count, taking her at her word, might leave thegarden, and, sauntering off to the Casino, lose his money--for whateverhe might be in love, Count Paul was exceedingly unlucky at cards! Andlately she had begun to think that she was gradually weaning her friendfrom what she knew to be in his case, whatever it was in hers, and inthat of many of the people about them, the terrible vice of gambling.
When, a little breathless, she joined him in the garden, she found thathe had already taken two rocking-chairs into a shady corner which was outof sight of the white villa and of its inquisitive windows.
"Something very serious has happened," said Count Paul slowly.
He took both her hands in his and looked down into her face. Withsurprise and concern she saw that his eyelids were red. Was it possiblethat Count Paul had been crying? He almost looked as if he had.
The idea of a grown-up man allowing himself to give way to emotion ofthat sort would have seemed absurd to Sylvia a short time ago, butsomehow the thought that Paul de Virieu had shed tears made her feelextraordinarily moved.
"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything happened to yoursister?"
"Thank God--no!" he answered hastily. "But something else, somethingwhich was to be expected, but which I did not expect, has happened--"
And then, very gravely, and at last releasing her hands, he added, "Mykind godmother, the little Marquise you met last week, died last night."
Sylvia felt the sudden sense of surprise, almost of discomfiture, theyoung always feel in the neighbourhood of death.
"How dreadful! She seemed quite well when we saw her that day--"
She could still hear echoing in her ears the old lady's half-mocking butkindly compliments.
"Ah! but she was very, very old--over ninety! Why, she was supposed tobe aged when she became my godmother thirty odd years ago!"
He waited a moment, and then added, quietly, "She has left me in her willtwo hundred thousand francs."
"Oh, I _am_ glad!"
Sylvia stretched out both hands impulsively, and the Comte de Virieu tookfirst one and then the other and raised them to his lips.
"Eight thousand pounds? Does it seem a fortune to you, Madame?"
"Of course it does!" exclaimed Sylvia.
"It frees me from the necessity of being a pensioner on mybrother-in-law," he said slowly, and Sylvia felt a little chillof disappointment. Was that his only pleasure in his legacy?
"You will not play with _this_ money?" she said, in a low voice.
"It is no use my making a promise, especially to you, that I might not beable to keep--"
He got up, and stood looking down at her.
"But I promise that I will not waste or risk this money if I can resistthe temptation to do so."
Sylvia smiled, though she felt more inclined to cry.
He seemed stung by her look.
"Do you wish me to give you my word of honour that I will not risk any ofthis money at the tables?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
Sylvia's heart began to beat. Count Paul had become very pale. There wasa curious expression on his face--an expression of revolt, almost ofanger.
"Do you exact it?" he repeated, almost violently.
And Sylvia faltered out, "Could you keep your word if I did exact it?"
"Ah, you have learnt to know me too well!"
He walked away, leaving her full of perplexity and pain.
A few moments passed. They seemed very long moments to Sylvia Bailey.Then Count Paul turned and came back.
He sat down, and made a great effort to behave as if nothing unusual ormemorable had passed between them.
"And has anything happened here?" he asked. "Is there any news of yourvanished friend?"
Sylvia shook her head gravely. The Polish woman's odd, and, to her,inexplicable, conduct still hurt her almost as much as it had done atfirst.
The Count leant forward, and speaking this time very seriously indeed, hesaid, in a low voice:--
"I wish to say something to you, and I am now going to speak as franklyas if you were--my sister. You are wrong to waste a moment of your timein regretting Madame Wolsky. She is an unhappy woman, held tightly in thepaws of the tiger--Play. That is the truth, my friend! It is a pity youever met her, and I am glad she went away without doing you any furthermischief. It was bad enough of her to have brought you to Lacville, andtaught you to gamble. Had she stayed on, she would have tried in time tomake you go on with her to Monte Carlo."
He shook his head expressively
Sylvia looked at him with surprise. He had never spoken to her of Anna inthis way before. She hesitated, then said a little nervously,
"Tell me, did you ask Madame Wolsky to go away? Please don't mind myasking you this?"
"_I_ ask Madame Wolsky to go away?" he repeated, genuinely surprised."Such a thought never even crossed my mind. It would have been veryimpertinent--what English people would call 'cheeky'--of me to do sucha thing! You must indeed think me a hypocrite! Have I not shared yoursurprise and concern at her extraordinary disappearance? And her luggage?If I had wished her to go away, I should not have encouraged her to leaveall her luggage behind her!" he spoke with the sarcastic emphasis ofwhich the French are masters.
Sylvia grew very red.
As a matter of fact, it had been Madame Wachner who had suggested thatidea to her. Only the day before, when Sylvia had been wondering forthe thousandth time where Anna could be, the older woman had exclaimedmeaningly, "I should not be surprised if that Count de Virieu persuadedyour friend to go away. He wants the field clear for himself."
And then she had seemed to regret her imprudent words, and she had beggedSylvia not to give the Count any hint of her suspicion. Even now Sylviadid not mention Madame Wachner.
"Of course, I don't think you a hypocrite," she said awkwardly, "but younever did like poor Anna, and you were always telling me that Lacvilleisn't a place where a nice woman ought to stay long. I thought you mighthave said something of the same kind to Madame Wolsky."
"And do you really suppose," Count Paul spoke with a touch of sharp ironyin his voice, "that your friend would have taken my advice? Do you thinkthat Madame Wolsky would look either to the right or the left when theGoddess of Chance beckoned?"--and he waved his hand in the directionwhere the white Casino lay.
"But the Goddess of Chance did not beckon to her to leave Lacville!"Sylvia exclaimed. "Why, she meant to stay on here till the middle ofSeptember--"
"You asked me a very indiscreet question just now"--the Count leantforward, and looked straight into Mrs. Bailey's eyes.
His manner had again altered. He spoke far more authoritatively thanhe had ever spoken before, and Sylvia, far from resenting this new,possessive attitude, felt thrilled and glad. When Bill Chester spoke asif he had authority over her, it always made her indignant, even angry.
"Did I?" she said nervously.
"Yes! You asked me if I had persuaded Madame Wolsky to leave Lacville.Well, now I ask you, in my turn, whether it has ever occurred to you thatthe Wachners know more of your Polish friend's departure than they admit?I gathered that impression the only time I talked to your Madame Wachnerabout the matter. I felt sure she knew more than she would say! Ofcourse, it was only an impression."
Sylvia hesitated.
"At first Madame Wachner seemed annoyed that I made a fuss about it," shesaid thoughtfully. "But later she seemed as surprised and sorry as I ammyself. Oh, no, Count, I am sure you are wrong--why you forget thatMadame Wachner walked up to the Pension Malfait that same evening--I meanthe evening of the day Anna left Lacville. In fact, it was Madame Wachnerwho first found out that Anna had not come home. She went up to herbed-room to look for her."
"Then it was Madame Wachner who found the letter?" observed the Countinterrogatively.
"Oh, no, it was not Madame Wachner who found it. Anna's letter wasdiscovered the next morning by the chambermaid in a blotting-book on thewriting table. No one had thought of looking there. You see they were allexpecting her back that night. Madame Malfait still thinks that poor Annawent to the Casino in the afternoon, and after having lost her money cameback to the pension, wrote the letter, and then went out and left forParis without saying anything about it to anyone!"
"I suppose something of that sort did happen," observed the Comte deVirieu thoughtfully.
"And now," he said, getting up from his chair, "I think I will take aturn at the Casino after all!"
Sylvia's lip quivered, but she was too proud to appeal to him to stay.Still, she felt horribly hurt.
"You see what I am like," he said, in a low, shamed voice. "I wish youhad made me give you my word of honour."
She got up. It was cruel, very cruel, of him to say that to her. Howamazingly their relation to one another had altered in the lasthalf-hour!
For the moment they were enemies, and it was the enemy in Sylvia thatnext spoke. "I think I shall go and have tea with the Wachners. Theynever go to the Casino on Saturday afternoons."
A heavy cloud came over Count Paul's face.
"I can't think what you see to like in that vulgar old couple," heexclaimed irritably. "To me there is something"--he hesitated, seekingfor an English word which should exactly express the French word"_louche_"--"sinister--that is the word I am looking for--there isto me something sinister about the Wachners."
"Sinister?" echoed Sylvia, really surprised. "Why, they seem to me to bethe most good-natured, commonplace people in the world, and then they'reso fond of one another!"
"I grant you that," he said. "I quite agree that that ugly old woman isvery fond of her 'Ami Fritz'--but I do not know if he returns thecompliment!"
Sylvia looked pained, nay more, shocked.
"I suppose French husbands only like their wives when they are young andpretty," she said slowly.
"Another of the many injustices you are always heaping on my poorcountry," the Count protested lightly. "But I confess I deserved it thistime! Joking apart, I think 'L'Ami Fritz' is very fond of his"--hehesitated, then ended his sentence with "Old Dutch!"
Sylvia could not help smiling.
"It is too bad of you," she exclaimed, "to talk like that! The Wachnersare very nice people, and I won't allow you to say anything againstthem!"
Somehow they were friends again. His next words proved it.
"I will not say anything against the Wachners this afternoon. In fact,if you will allow me to do so, I will escort you part of the way."
And he was even better than his word, for he went on with Sylvia tillthey were actually within sight of the little, isolated villa where theWachners lived.
There, woman-like, she made an effort to persuade him to go in with her.
"Do come," she said urgently. "Madame Wachner would be so pleased! Shewas saying the other day that you had never been to their house."
But Count Paul smilingly shook his head.
"I have no intention of ever going there," he said deliberately. "You seeI do not like them! I suppose--I hope"--he looked again straight intoSylvia Bailey's ingenuous blue eyes--"that the Wachners have never triedto borrow money of you?"
"Never!" she cried, blushing violently. "Never, Count Paul! Your dislikeof my poor friends makes you unjust--it really does."
"It does! It does! I beg their pardon and yours. I was foolish, nay, farworse, indiscreet, to ask you this question. I regret I did so. Accept myapology."
She looked at him to see if he was sincere. His face was very grave; andshe looked at him with perplexed, unhappy eyes.
"Oh, don't say that!" she said. "Why should you mind saying anything tome?"
But the Comte de Virieu was both vexed and angry with himself.
"It is always folly to interfere in anyone else's affairs," he muttered."But I have this excuse--I happen to know that last week, or rather tendays ago, the Wachners were in considerable difficulty about money. Thensuddenly they seemed to have found plenty, in fact, to be as we say here,'_a flot_'; I confess that I foolishly imagined, nay, I almost hoped,that they owed this temporary prosperity to you! But of course I had nobusiness to think about it at all--still less any business to speak toyou about the matter. Forgive me, I will not so err again."
And then, with one of his sudden, stiff bows, the Comte de Virieu turnedon his heel, leaving Sylvia to make her way alone to the little woodengate on which were painted the words "Chalet des Muguets."
The Chink in the Armour Page 17