He stepped back into the room just as the door opened and an elderly man entered, and to Lugard the man’s face was as singular as the situation. He saw a fine white head, two very dark eyes, a humorous yet firm mouth. To Lugard it was the face of a man who had had authority in the world of affairs and of men. It smiled, yet there was something behind the smile.
The man held out his hand.
“So your car broke down. Do not trouble. I will send out my chauffeur.”
Again Lugard had a strange sense of the expected. He started to explain.
“I have come from Paris. My name is Lugard. English, yes. I was on my way to St. Jean to play golf.”
The shrewd, understanding eyes confronted him.
“Exactly. You are very welcome.”
“If you will allow me to use your telephone.”
“There is no need. We shall be very glad to put you up for the night. My chauffeur will examine your car. If necessary we can telephone to St. Jean. I assure you that you are very welcome.”
Lugard stared at him.
“You are very good, sir, but really——”
“We will make you as comfortable as possible.”
Again Lugard got the impression that his sudden appearance here in this unknown house was less unexpected than it seemed. But if someone was expected, how was it that his host had accepted his name? It was rather extraordinary. Meanwhile the other man was smiling at him as though he, too, had discovered something unusual in the situation. There was a smile behind his smile.
“We dine, Monsieur Lugard, at eight. My wife, Madame Xavier, will be very glad to welcome you.”
“You are very charming.”
That smile, and those shrewd kind eyes puzzled Lugard. It was as though the other man was suggesting to him that he understood some particular concealment, and that explanations were unnecessary. And Lugard felt challenged. Well, if he had landed himself in some mystery, it could not be very serious. Besides, the situation was rather interesting, and acting upon impulse, he decided to carry the thing through. When the dénouement arrived he could laugh and apologize.
He said:
“Well, I can only thank you, sir. My luggage is in the car.”
“It shall be brought in.”
He bowed.
“So much trouble——”
“Not at all. And now, I dare say you have driven far. My man shall show you upstairs.”
Ten minutes later Lugard found himself in a charming little suite, bedroom, dressing-room and bathroom. There was a sound of running water; the servant was filling the bath. And Lugard, feeling dusty and a little tired, reflected:
“Well, this is a rum business, but a man couldn’t be more comfortable. Let us play the comedy through. If these good people ever come to Paris, I will see that they get roses for roses.”
He undressed. He found a white bath-wrap spread on a chair, and as he stepped down into the blue and white tiled bath he heard his luggage being carried in. Even his golf clubs had been recovered from the car. He heard the clink of metal against metal.
The voice of the valet addressed him:
“Dr. Xavier’s chauffeur has examined your car, monsieur. It is the magneto. They will tow the car in.”
Lugard, splashing luxuriously, made some conventional reply.
So his host was a doctor. But a doctor of what? Of Law, or Medicine, or Letters? But did it matter? This was as good, or better, than the Golf Hotel at St. Jean.
He found his evening clothes laid out; he dressed, and went downstairs. His host was waiting for him in the hall.
“This way, Monsieur Lugard. You must meet my wife and daughter.”
In the salon Lugard was provided with additional surprises. Two very charming women rose to meet him. Madame Xavier was a little lady, with a high colour and bright eyes, plump yet still very graceful. She smiled at Lugard with an air of motherliness.
“You must be very tired, monsieur. This is Pauline.”
Lugard found himself bowing to the daughter. She was tall and dark, with a perfect white skin, and quite undecorated. She had an air of mischievous insouciance, and the frank, free glance of the modern.
She shook hands with him.
“Bad luck about your car.”
“Perhaps!” said Lugard, and smiled; “perhaps!”
They went in to dinner. The room was in the Louis Quinze style, though the garishness of that period had been softened. The dinner was excellent. Never had Lugard sat down with three more charming people. Almost he began to feel that he had known them for years.
On the other hand Pauline was a delightfully novel experience. He began to wonder whether she played golf. The Xavier villa could not be more than twenty kilometres from St. Jean.
The evening seemed to pass very quickly, for at ten Madame Xavier and her daughter went off to bed.
“In the country we go to bed early. I garden, monsieur; and Pauline bathes and plays golf.”
Lugard and Dr. Xavier were left alone together, and Dr. Xavier began to talk of Paris, and city life and the strain of modern conditions, and Lugard got the impression that his host was not only a very wise and sympathetic person, but that he had reasons of his own for leading the conversation in that direction. The doctor’s eyes seemed to observe him. And he would remain silent for some seconds as though he expected Lugard to begin some personal confession. Once or twice he asked a leading question, but so quietly that it failed to appear aggressive or curious.
“So you are in business.”
Yes; Lugard was in business, big business. He was rather sick of it, and he said so.
“I often wonder, doctor, whether the thing is worth while. It enslaves you; it sucks you dry. I’m rather thinking of throwing in my hand. After all, what is life?”
The doctor observed him.
“You have been overworking.”
“Yes; but I’m finished.”
“You think so. I—too—had a period in my life when I was working too hard. So you feel that you want to go to sleep?”
“Yes; that’s just the expression. To sleep and forget.”
The manservant came carrying a tray with decanters, glasses, and a syphon, and obeying a sign from the doctor placed the tray on a table and retired. Dr. Xavier rose. He smiled at Lugard, and his smile had a meaning.
“Let me mix you my particular draught.”
“I leave it to you, doctor.”
His host filled a wine-glass, and Lugard noticed that he handled two or three of the decanters on the tray.
“You really wish to go to sleep, Monsieur Lugard?”
“For choice, yes.”
“We will call this a night-cap.”
* * *
Lugard never remembered going to bed.
He woke in darkness, and the very darkness was strange. He was lying upon a substance that was both hard and soft; his hands touched the smooth dry surface, and he realized that he was lying upon sand. The air was chilly, and out of the darkness came strange reverberations, a coming and going as of waves rolling in and rolling out. He sat up. He was still wearing the evening clothes of the night before.
What the devil?
Yes, he was awake—very much awake. Something very extraordinary had happened. He remembered everything to a point—a glass, an amber-coloured liquid in it, the watchful, smiling face of his host. But what did it mean? Where was he? What sort of trick had these people played upon him? And why?
He stood up, and suddenly fear possessed him—a strange, nameless fear. He shivered. Almost he had the feeling that he was dead and buried, and yet alive in some dark place underground. He had a moment of panic. He passed a hand over his face; he touched himself; he felt for the heart-beat at his wrist; he listened.
Where was he? The darkness seemed opaque, and then he realized that this blackness was changing. Far away a faint crevice seemed to let in dim and diffused light. He was in a cave, and that rolling, thunderous sound was the sea breaking in the mouth of
it.
He groped for the wall of the cave. He found it, and with his hands he began to follow the rocky face. It went on and on; it seemed interminable, and then he grasped the fact that he was going round in a circle. That part of the cave in which he was had the shape of a pit.
His panic mood returned. He sat down on the sand; he made a great effort to control himself and to think. What did it mean? What could it mean? He had been drugged and carried down here, and left. But what was the motive? His wallet was still in his pocket. Besides, the idea of robbery was ridiculous.
Again he traced out the walls of the cave, with his arms at full stretch. He touched nothing but rock; it went up out of his reach.
And then the grotesque thought came to him that he was dead, or supposed to be dead. He had disappeared. He was shut away deep down in this blackness, and there was no sound save the sound of the distant sea. The thing was absurd, but it was reality. He remembered Dr. Xavier’s queer smile, and his air of meaning something that he—Lugard—had not grasped.
He sat on the sand; he listened; he fixed his eyes on that faint and distant blur of light. The silence seemed all the more final because of the moaning of the sea. It seemed to him that hours passed. The very darkness was like a slipping away of time. He felt that he had been in this place for days and days.
The sun! Would he ever see the sun again? But what an abominable, mad phantasy was this! That smiling, white-haired man, and his wife, and Pauline! It was melodrama. He sat with his head in his hands.
Suddenly he heard a voice. It made a hollow sound in that dark place. It seemed to come from every side of the cave.
“Is the soul of man there?”
Lugard got to his feet. He was trembling.
“Who’s that?”
The voice came again.
“Is the soul of man satisfied with death? For death may be like this cave—not sleep and a forgetting.”
And Lugard raged.
“Hell! What’s the game. Let me out of this. Who is it that’s speaking? If this is a joke, it’s the damnedest silly joke.”
Light came. It poured in through an opening in the rocky wall, and Lugard saw a flight of steps and Dr. Xavier standing there, incredibly real and modern in plus fours.
“I hope you haven’t had too restless a night, Lugard. So you want to see the sun again, to live, to play golf?”
Lugard stared at him. His chin quivered.
“What the devil does all this mean?”
“My dear fellow, you are a patient of my friend’s, Dr. Z. Is not that so?”
“Dr. Z? I have never met a Dr. Z.”
“But your name’s Lugard. He sent you here. You had—if I may put it frankly, suicidal inclinations.”
“I? Good Lord, no!”
“But, my dear fellow, a Lugard was coming from Paris in a car, ostensibly to play golf at St. Jean. But he was coming to me under the impression——”
And suddenly Lugard laughed.
“Heavens, what a mix up! I have a cousin in Paris. I haven’t seen him for months, rather a melancholy devil. Yes; he plays golf, and damned bad golf. But, doctor, why didn’t you——?”
They went up together into the sunlight, and Lugard saw the sun, and a clump of fir trees and the blue of the sea. He stood there listening to the doctor’s explanations but he was thinking chiefly how good life was. And he was hungry.
Then both of them laughed.
“But what an idea, doctor, to cure a potential suicide by letting him wake up down there! And Jimmy Lugard, my melancholy cousin, has yet to arrive.”
“That’s so.”
“And you’ll put him down there?”
“Perhaps.”
“By Jove! I’d like to watch the experiment. Also, I’d like——”
“A bath and some breakfast?”
“Yes; but a round of golf with your daughter.”
Dr. Xavier took Lugard by the arm.
“Well, possibly that can be arranged.”
Lugard had his bath and his breakfast; and also his game of golf with Pauline. The doctor’s car drove them over to St. Jean, and brought them back again to the villa among the pines, for the magneto of Lugard’s car had to be left at a garage for repairs. Moreover, the doctor had said to him:
“I owe you a real bed, my dear fellow, after that night in our wizard’s cave. And any day this cousin of yours may arrive.”
Lugard smiled at the doctor.
“You may want me out of the way. And yet I should like to see my melancholy cousin’s face when he emerges.”
“It might add naturalness to the scene.”
“But, I say, doctor, isn’t it possible that that sort of experience might drive a man off his head? I felt rather——”
“A man who wants to commit suicide is insane. One has to restore the urge to live. I take that risk.”
So Lugard stayed on at the villa for another day, and on the evening of the second day the other Lugard arrived. Harry and Pauline had been down to bathe, and at the edge of the pinewoods the doctor met them.
“Your alter ego has arrived. Come in and help to entertain him.”
They found James Lugard sitting in the drawing-room and staring at the sea. He had a crumpled look, a pasty face and listless eyes, and a fatal air of self-pity.
His cousin hailed him.
“Fancy you turning up here, Jim.”
The other Lugard held out a thin hand.
“My dear fellow, you startled me. Your voice—is so powerful.”
“Bosh! Brought your clubs with you?”
“I can’t play golf these days.”
“Wait and see.”
But nothing appeared capable of arousing this other Lugard from his dead-eyed apathy. He could look at Pauline as though he feared the compelling youth of her. He dined on nothing, picking at his food, like a sick bird. His cousin’s presence annoyed him; he could not explain it. He sat and listened to Pauline’s singing as though he was so absorbed in the painful process of digestion that beauty of sound or colour could not concern him.
Later, the doctor made a sign to Harry, and Harry Lugard understood. He got up, politely suppressing a yawn.
“If you don’t mind, doctor, I’ll turn in. This sea air——”
He left his cousin and old Xavier alone together, and stood at his bedroom window and looked at the stones and wondered. Yes; life was good. And the face and the voice and the youth of Pauline were exquisite. And was Xavier going to shut up that melancholy cousin of his in the cave, and if so what would be the effect of so fantastic an experience? The fellow might come out raving.
Lugard went to bed, but he wanted to wake early, and the urge was so strong in him that he woke just as the dawn was breaking. He got up and dressed, and went down into the garden, and walked up and down in front of the house. It was a most perfect dawn, still and stealthy, and in the silence of it old Xavier joined him.
They looked at each other, and Lugard knew that his cousin was in the cave.
“May I come?”
“No; it would not be fair. It would destroy that feeling of confidence that must exist, and the secrecy.”
“I understand. I shall know nothing.”
The doctor nodded.
Lugard returned to his bedroom and sat at the open window. He waited; he waited a long time, and then he saw two figures coming up through the garden. One of the figures paused on a piece of grass; it stood erect; it stretched out its hands to the sun.
Almost, Lugard held his breath. He saw his cousin go to a bed of roses, and bend down, and press his face against the flame of the red flowers. He seemed to inhale the perfume.
Lugard drew back. He had a feeling that he had seen a man in the act of rediscovering the wonder of life and the splendour of living. He smiled.
“It has worked. Poor devil!”
He was conscious of strange gladness. It was as though, on this most beautiful morning, he could share the reawakening of this other soul—thi
s refilling of the cup of life. He seemed to hear Pauline singing one of Schubert’s songs.
He lit a cigarette.
“We’ll play golf to-day, a foursome perhaps? I’ll let poor old James be Pauline’s partner. But only for to-day.”
And golf it was, the strangest and most mystical game that Lugard had ever played.
PRECIOUS STONES
Anything Russian is considered to be either romantic or fetid, though to the well-washed world of to-day the Muscovite suggests a hairiness, and the oil of a Semitic culture.
Rostov was neither romantic nor hairy. He was a tall, dark, slightly-built young man, with a narrow face, an interesting pallor, and enigmatic eyes. Kind old ladies—and impressionable young ones—liked to think that he had suffered indescribable horrors and privations. As a matter of fact he had suffered them, but he did not talk about his experiences.
He was shaving himself at the fourth floor window of one of those flat, white Mediterranean houses. He used an old-fashioned razor. He held the tip of his nose between the first finger and thumb of his left hand. And below him Cap d’Or arrayed itself in white splendour upon its headland and along the blue rim of the Anse des Fleurs. Flags floated, the tricolor, the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack. The three white cupolas of the Hôtel Cosmopolis each carried a flag.
Michael Rostov was employed at the Cosmopolis.
A pair of trousers hung over the back of a chair. Rostov possessed two pairs of morning trousers and a morning coat. He had to be very careful with his trousers; he kept them creased under the mattress. The Cosmopolis expected a well-creased leg.
Rostov’s wife had just come into the room and had taken off her hat. She was a little out of breath after climbing four flights of stairs; she looked dark and delicate, for she never had quite enough to eat, and she spent some eight hours each day serving in a lace and fancy shop in the Rue du Gare. It was a tiresome shop: the proprietress was greedy, and you had to be so persuasive trying to make idle people buy perfectly unnecessary articles—applice coats, vivid jumpers, little luxuries in lace, handbags, leather work. Vera Rostov ended most days with shadows under her eyes.
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 72