“For a month, which is almost ended,” she replied. “I am leaving here tomorrow for Cherbourg.”
“If we let you go,” said de Mirandol gallantly; a phrase which Mr. Ricardo was to remember.
Mr. Ricardo was introduced to two young ladies from the neighbourhood and two young men from Bordeaux, none of whose names were sufficiently pronounced for him to distinguish them. But they were merely guests of the evening, and Mr. Ricardo was not concerned with them.
“For whom do we wait now, Diana?” Mrs. Tasborough’s voice broke in rather pettishly.
“Monsieur l’Abbe, aunt,” Diana answered.
“You should persuade your friends to be punctual,” said the aunt, and there was no gentleness in that rebuke. Mr. Ricardo had been startled and shocked. Here was a third riddle to surprise him. He remembered Mrs. Tasborough as the most submissive of pensioned relations, a chaperon who knew that her duties did not include interference, a silent symbol of respectability. Yet here she was interfering and talking with all the authority in the world. No less surprising was Diana’s meekness in reply.
“I am very sorry, aunt. The Abbe is so seldom late for his dinner that I am afraid that he has met with an accident. I certainly sent the car for him in good time.”
Mrs. Tasborough shrugged her shoulders, and was not appeased. Mr. Ricardo looked from one to the other. The old lady in her dowdy, old-fashioned dress sitting throned in a great chair, the pretty niece in her modern fineries humble as a village maid. There was a reversal of positions here which thoroughly intrigued Mr. Ricardo. He glanced towards Joyce Whipple, but the door was opening, and Jules Amadee announced:
“Monsieur l’Abbe Fauriel.”
A little round man in a cassock, with a ruddy face, thick features and a small pair of shrewd twinkling grey eyes, bustled into the room in a condition of heat and perturbation. “I am late, madame. I express my apologies upon my knees,” he protested, raising Mrs. Tasborough’s hand to his lips. It was noticeable perhaps that he looked to her as his hostess. “But when you hear of my calamity you will forgive me. My church has been robbed.”
“Robbed!” Joyce Whipple cried in a most curious voice. There was dismay in it, but not surprise. The robbery was unexpected, and yet, now that it had happened, not unlikely.
“Yes, mademoiselle. A sacrilege!” and the little man threw up his hands.
“You shall tell us about it at the dinner-table,” said Mrs. Tasborough, cutting him short. Mrs. Tasborough was a Protestant. At home she sat under a man who preached in a Geneva gown. The robbery of a Roman Catholic church was to her a very minor offence, and dinner should not be delayed by it.
“It is true, madame; I forget my manners,” said the Abbe Fauriel, and, indeed, he had barely time to greet the rest of the party before dinner was announced.
The rest of that evening passed apparently as uneventfully as most evenings pass in country houses. But Mr. Ricardo, whose faculty of observation was keyed up to a sharper pitch than usual, did notice during the course of it some things which were odd. The Abb Fauriel’s complaint, for instance. No money had been stolen, nor any sacred vessel from his church, but a vestment of fine linen, the alb, which he wore when he celebrated Mass, and a little scarlet cassock and white surplice used by the young acolyte who swung the censer.
“It is unbelievable!” the old man cried. “They were of value, to be sure. My dear Madame de Fontanges, now dead, presented them to the church. But they must be cut up at once and then their value is gone. Who would commit a sacrilege for so small a gain?”
“You have, of course, informed the police,” said the Vicomte de Mirandol.
“But understand, Monsieur Le Vicomte, that it is only within the hour that I discovered my loss. You would all realize” — and a twinkle of humour lit up his face— “if you were not all heathens, as you are, that tomorrow is the feast of Saint Matthew, a most sacred day in the Calendar of the Church. I went to the sacristy to assure myself that those garments of high respect were in order, and they are gone. However, Madame Tasborough, I must not spoil your evening with too much of my misfortune,” and he swerved off into an amusing dissection of the foibles of his parishioners.
A small interruption brought him in a moment or two to so abrupt a stop that all eyes were turned on the interrupters. Mrs. Devenish was the cause of the interruption. She had been taking no part in any of the conversation, beyond answering at random when she was addressed, and sat occupied by some secret thought of her own. But once she shivered, and so violently that the little bubbling cry which people will utter involuntarily when they are freezing, broke from her lips. The sound recalled her to her environment, and she glanced guiltily across the table. Her eyes encountered Joyce Whipple’s, and Joyce suddenly exclaimed in a queer, sharp, high-pitched voice:
“It’s no use blaming me, Evelyn. It’s not I who dispense the cold,” and then she caught herself up too late, her face flushed scarlet, and in her turn she looked quickly from neighbour to neighbour. This was the first sign which Mr. Ricardo got, that under the smooth flow of talk nerves were strained to the loss of self-control by secret preoccupations. The Abbe Fauriel was even quicker than Mr. Ricardo to notice it. His eyes darted swiftly to Evelyn Devenish, and from her to Joyce Whipple. His face, in spite of the long, drooping nose and the thick jaw, became alert and birdlike.
“So, mademoiselle,” he said slowly to Joyce, “it is not you who dispense the cold. Who, then?”
He did not insist upon an answer, but a moment or two later, when, as if to cover Joyce Whipple’s confusion, the chatter in her neighbourhood broke out afresh, Mr. Ricardo noticed that almost imperceptibly he made the sign of the Cross upon his breast.
So far Mr. Ricardo was little more than curious and excited. But a quarter of an hour afterwards he caught a momentary glimpse of passion which shook him from its sheer ferocity. The men had retired from the dinner-table with the ladies, in the French fashion, and had split up into little groups. Joyce Whipple was sitting in a low chair at the side of the hearth, her knees crossed and one slender foot in its silver slipper swinging restlessly, whilst on a couch at her elbow Robin Webster was talking to her in a low voice and with an attention so complete as to make it clear that there was no one else in the room for him at that moment. The Vicomte de Mirandol was chatting with Mrs. Tasborough and the Abbe. Evelyn Devenish stood near the window in a group with Diana and the two young Frenchmen. Suddenly from that group sprang a phrase which was heard all over the room.
“The Cave of the Mummies.”
It was one of the Frenchmen who uttered it, but Evelyn Devenish took it up. The Cave of the Mummies is a famous show-place of Bordeaux. Under the soaring tower of St. Michel in the open square in front of the church there is an underground cavern where bodies, mummified by some rare quality of the earth in which they were originally buried, stand mounted in a row upon iron rests for all the world to see at a price of a few pence.
“It is a scandal,” cried the Abbe. “Those poor people should be put decently away. It is a nightmare, that cavern, with that old woman showing off the points of her exhibits by the light of a candle!” He shrugged his shoulders with disgust and looked at Joyce Whipple. “Now I, too, mademoiselle — yes, now I, too, feel the cold.”
Evelyn Devenish laughed. “Yet we all go to that spectacle, Monsieur l’Abbe. I plead guilty. I was there eight or nine days ago. It was there, too, I think, that Mr. Ricardo saw me.”
She challenged that unhappy gentleman, with a smile of amusement, to deny the charge. But, alas, he could not. A taste for the bizarre was always at odds with his respectability.
“It is true,” he said lamely, shifting his weight from one foot on to the other. “I had heard so much of it — I had so often passed through Bordeaux without seeing it. But now that I have seen it, I take my stand with Monsieur l’Abbe.” He recovered his assurance and felt as virtuous as he now looked. “Yes, a dreadful exhibition; it should be closed.”
Evelyn Devenish laughed again, quizzing him. “A most unpleasant young woman,” said Mr. Ricardo to himself, “bold and without respect.” He was relieved when she averted her eyes from him. But he observed that they travelled slowly round until they reached Joyce Whipple, and there for a moment they stayed, half hidden by the eyelids; but not hidden enough to conceal the hatred which grew slowly from a spark in the depths to a blaze of devouring fire. Mr. Ricardo had never seen in his life the evidence of a passion so raw. It was covetous to punish and hurt. The dark eyes could not leave, it seemed, the girl radiant in her silvery frock. They rested with a dreadful smile upon the foot swinging in its gleaming slipper and ran up the slim leg in its silken sheath to the bent knee. Mr. Ricardo understood by a flash of insight the cruel thought behind the eyes and the smile. “Oh, certainly, it would have to be to tea and not to supper,” he said to himself, almost in an agony as he thought of that imaginary meal alone with Evelyn Devenish which his fears had conjured up.
Diana Tasborough crossed the room to him. “You will play whist, with my aunt and the Abbe and de Mirandol, won’t you?” she pleaded. “It must be whist, for the Abbe has never played bridge”; and plaguing his brains to recollect how the game of whist was played, he was led to the card-table.
So far, then, Mr. Ricardo had undoubtedly earned some good marks, not so much for putting two and two together as for discerning that there might be two and two which would possibly want putting together afterwards. But at this hour, half-past nine by the clock, he ceased to be meritorious, and the most important circumstance of the whole evening completely escaped his observation. He was really too much occupied in the effort to revive his recollections of whist; which was made even more difficult by the action of the younger members of the party.
The dining-room, drawing-room and library of the Chateau Suvlac were arranged in a suite, the drawing-room being in the middle; and all of these rooms had windows to the ground opening upon the broad terrace. Diana, as soon as the elders were seated at the card — table, went into the library and set a gramophone playing. Within the minute all the young people were dancing upon the terrace. The connecting door between the salon and the library was shut, it is true, but the night was warm and all the windows stood open. So the music with its pleasant lilt floated in to the card players, and joined with the rhythmical scuffle of the dancing shoes upon the flags to distract Mr. Ricardo from his game. It was the time of moonlight, but the moon was obscured by a thin fleece of white clouds so that a pale silvery and rather unearthly light made the garden and the wide river beyond a fairyland of magic. On the far shore a light twinkled here and there through a mist, and close at hand, the long avenue of trees, now black as yews and motionless as metal, protected the terrace as though it was some secret and ancient place of sacrifice. But instead of sacrifices, Mr. Ricardo saw the flash of white shoulders, the sparkling embroideries upon the light frocks of the girls, the dancers appearing, disappearing, gliding, revolving, and altogether he made so many mistakes that his fellow players were delighted when the rubber came to an end. Robin Webster came in from the terrace. “You will excuse me, Mrs. Tasborough. The morning begins for me at daybreak, and I have still a few preparations to make before I can go to bed.”
“I too,” said the Vicomte de Mirandol, rising from his chair, a trifle abruptly perhaps. “The Mirandol wine will not compare with the Chateau Suvlac, alas! Yet I must take just as much care of it.” He looked out of the window rather anxiously. “A good shower or two, not too violent, just for a couple of hours during the night — that would help us, Monsieur Webster. Yes, two hours of gentle rain — I beg you to pray for them, Monsieur l’Abbe.”
Mr. Robin Webster shook hands with Mr. Ricardo. “You said that you would like to come round with me tomorrow,” he said. “I live in the chalet beyond the avenue. It is my office too. You will find me there or about the chais.”
He went out through the window, Monsieur de Mirandol through the door to the front of the house, where his car waited for him. Jules Amadee brought in a tray of refreshments, and Mrs. Tasborough lifted her voice petulantly.
“Diana! Diana!” she cried. “Will you please come in at once and prepare his nightcap for Monsieur l’Abbe!”
The Abbe, however, would by no means break in upon the girl’s enjoyments. “I can mix my grog very well for myself, madame. Let mademoiselle dance, and so I can put a little more of your excellent whisky into my glass than it would be seemly for me to allow mademoiselle to do.”
As he moved towards the table Joyce Whipple stood in his way. “And I,” she said, laughing, “since I know nothing of the proper proportions, will in my ignorance put more whisky into your glass than you would.”
Joyce Whipple, in a word, took possession of the buffet. It was in a corner of the room and she stood with her back to the company. A lemonade for Mrs. Tasborough, a whisky and soda for Mr. Ricardo, a hot grog for Monsieur l’Abbe. The young people drifted back into the room. Joyce Whipple served them all in their turn with beer and sirops and spirits, laughing gaily all the while, and proclaiming that she had a future as a barmaid. Diana came from the library and was the last to join the group.
“I shall have a brandy-and-soda with a lot of ice,” she said, and again Mr. Ricardo was conscious of an unsteady note in her voice, and a laugh which threatened to rise out of gaiety into hysteria.
Joyce threw a quick glance backwards over her shoulder.
“So, after all, I do dispense the cold,” she cried, and in her case, too, the words and the laughter on which they were launched were edged with excitement, and undoubtedly the glass which she held clattered against the siphon when she filled it, as though her hands trembled.
The party, however, was already breaking up and within a very few minutes the Chateau Suvlac was silent and Mr. Ricardo back in his own room. He opened both of the windows. When engaged upon the side-window, he saw that a light was still burning in a room upon the ground floor of the chalet. Mr. Robin Webster was still then at work in his office. Looking out from the front window his gaze wandered over the peaceful stretch of empty country. The white house upon the hill might have been black for all that he could make of it. Not a window glimmered anywhere. Mr. Ricardo wound up his watch and went to bed. It was then ten minutes to eleven.
CHAPTER 5
HANAUD REAPPEARS
MR. RICARDO WAS not the man to sleep comfortably in a strange bed, and though he did fall asleep quickly, he awaked whilst it was still dark; and with a vague uneasiness. He reached up for the light-switch, which in his house in Grosvenor Square was set into the wall above his head, and was disconcerted not to find it there. Gradually, however, he remembered. He was not at home. He was at the Chateau Suvlac, and discovering the cause of his uneasiness in the unfamiliar environment, his uneasiness itself departed. But he was now thoroughly awake.
He had his own remedies for this mischance. Sheep were of no use to him. He had counted most of the sheep upon the South Downs upon an unhappy night, but having missed one he had been forced to go back and count them all over again; and his annoyance at his carelessness had kept him awake till morning. His better plan was to throw open his curtains and raise his blinds, and the inrush of fresh air through the open windows as a rule quickly sent him off. He tried this cure now.
First of all he turned on his bedside lamp and looked at his watch. It was a few minutes before two o’clock in the morning. Then he rose from his bed and freed the side-window from all its coverings. He noticed that a light was still burning even at that late hour in the chalet beyond the avenue, but it was now upon the first floor and not in the office.
“Mr. Webster has finished his work and is now going to bed,” he reflected with a warm approval of the young man’s industry.
The next moment assured him that his judgment was correct. For whilst he looked, the light flickered and went out. Mr. Ricardo wished the manager a deeper repose than he was enjoying himself, and passed on to his front window.
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br /> He threw the curtains wide open with a rattle of rings, and wound the blind up with its roller. The country was spread wide in front of him upon this side, and the air fresher. The moon had set, leaving the night dark and clear and the sky gemmed with stars. But it was not the coolness of the air nor the blaze above his head which kept Mr. Ricardo standing in so fixed an attitude. When he had taken his last look from this window before getting into bed more than three hours ago, not one light had been burning in the white house upon the hill. Now the long range of windows was ablaze from end to end, shining clear in little oblongs of light where the front of the house was in full view, and throwing the trees into relief at the two ends. The building was illuminated like a palace.
“Now, what is the meaning of that?” Mr. Ricardo was asking himself. “Who in a country district would start the evening at so late an hour? It is very, very odd.”
No answer being forthcoming, and his feet growing cold upon the polished boards of the floor, he retired to his bed and turned out his lamp. But his curiosity was thoroughly roused. From his position upon his pillows, he could see that golden blur upon the darkness. He could not but see it, he could not but think of it.
“This will never do,” he said to himself. “I must try recipe number two.”
Recipe number two was a book. But it must be read for itself, not as the gateway of dreams. If you put the thought of sleep altogether out of your mind and settled down to your volume, presto! the trick was done. You are aware suddenly of broad daylight, a cup of tea by your bedside and a lamp extravagantly burning. Mr. Ricardo’s trouble was that he hadn’t a book in his room. Very well then, he must go to the library and take one. So on went his light again. He got out of bed and into his pumps, draped his form in a Japanese dressing-gown of flowered silk, and with a box of matches in his hand stole oft along the corridors. He knew their geography by now, and one match took him to the dining-room door. The French windows of the three rooms en suite were undraped. He passed therefore through that room and the salon and into the library without having to strike a second match. He remembered that there was a light-switch in the library, close to the long window and just within the door. He was feeling for it when something dark on the terrace outside flicked past the panes and vanished. Mr. Ricardo was so startled that he dropped his box of matches on the floor. He stood in the dark, with his heart pounding noisily in his breast, not daring to move. And in the silence, even above the clamour of his heart, he heard a key grate in the lock.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 90