“Harvey Carruthers will be there,” said Lucrece, when at last Guy Stallard was satisfied.
“Yes, I’ve no doubt of that,” Stallard replied. “But remember, Lucrece, it’s up to you. As soon as the rocket goes up, you upset the bottle of champagne.”
“You can trust me,” said Lucrece slowly.
“You have Harvey’s letter to you. The one you received this morning?”
“I tore it into the smallest pieces and dropped them a few at a time into the river.”
“Good.”
Guy Stallard had tied his launch to the side of the house-boat. He stepped into it and cast off.
“Until to-night,” he said, and the launch gathered way and set the Marie-Popette rocking.
CHAPTER IX
IN THE ROSE GARDEN
SO LYDIA FLIGHT and Oliver Ransom had their one day. A sky of a pale clear and pearly blue made their canopy. The high forests of the Lower Seine, St. Arnould, Le Trait, Jumieges and Brotonne, welcomed them into their warm and tender gloom. The sunlight splintered by the branches made a crazy pattern on the turf; and when they tired of this one, the yellow car carried them a mile along a golden road, and here was another. There was a spot where a rough side road turned up into the trees and stopped. Oliver drove his car to the end of it, and they got out. It was very still. They seemed to be walking in a green cathedral, and the moss was deep beneath their feet. They sat down side by side and rested their shoulders against a bank, hardly talking. The place was a place for dreams. A whisper, perhaps:
“Oliver!”
And another.
“Lydia!”
There seemed very little more in this world which was worth saying on that July morning. At their feet a broad band of gold ran across the moss, and changed as they watched it. It broadened until it looked like the doorway to a lighted room, of which the door was standing ajar. A few minutes, and the door stood wide open, and a great oblong panel of sunlight lay like an invitation. To escape through it and not come back! To leave the Marie-Popette and the House of the Pebble on this side of the doorway, and to run swiftly and silently down the golden corridor. Both of them played with the fancy.
“We should be very careful not to meet any of them again,” said Oliver.
Lydia shook her head and smiled.
“I make an exception in favour of Mr. Ricardo,” she said with a little bubble of laughter. “I should like to come upon him suddenly when he’s showing off a little amongst delightful surroundings, and hear him say ‘Really! Really!’ and titter a little, and see him blush with pleasure.”
She suddenly became practical. That image of an open doorway put another thought into her head.
“Oliver! What if we did bolt for it now?”
“Where to?”
“Havre!”
Oliver Ransom sat up with a jerk.
“We could cross by the night steamer. We could get rid of the pearls to-morrow. The rope’s ready to be given back. We could take it ourselves to Nahendra Nao!”
The proposal was tempting, to Oliver as to her.
“But we don’t know where he is,” he said slowly.
“Oh, Goodwood.”
“We can’t hand it to him at the races. If we knew where he was staying...In that case we might perhaps...But even then...Don’t you see, we might be thieves? If we don’t appear at the Château du Caillou — we’d have the police after us. We shouldn’t get away from Havre.”
Disappointment showed in Lydia’s face.
“I hadn’t thought of that. No, I see. It wouldn’t do.” She pointed, with a whimsical flourish, to the golden door upon the turf. “I thought if we could only slip through”; and then she clasped her hands together in the urgency of her desire.
“A day and then a day,” she cried.
They got into the car again.
They picked up her package at the station, lunched at the famous restaurant of the town, and dawdled on through the afternoon along the road to Caen, and turned northwards to the forest of Brotonne. They reached the park wall of the Château du Caillou by the river road about five in the evening. A narrow track ran up the slope by the side of it to a courtyard, on the front side. Here a pair of great iron gates gave entrance on the eastern side. The house, a manor house rather than a mansion, was a long building of red brick and white stone, and built in two storeys. A shrubbery with a winding path through it divided it from the park wall, outside of which the two lovers had come; and its large front door and a smaller service door beyond both opened upon the court. Opposite to them some tool houses and sheds were built against the wall. A small postern door of wood towards the end of the wall upon their left hand gave admittance to the forest; and between this postern door and the iron gates stretched a garage with living rooms above it. A large car stood within the garage and a smaller purple one outside of it. One little man, who had the air of an ostler turned mechanic in his old age, was washing down the sides with a hose; and he was the only man visible. Over the domain hung that Sabbath peace which seemed the speciality of the district.
“For a house that’s giving a ball to-night, it looks like good staff-work, what?” said Oliver to his companion; and the little man straightened his back and looked at them.
“You can find room for me?” asked Oliver Ransom in English.
“Mr. Ransom?”
“Yes.”
“If you’ll back her in, sir.”
“Right!”
Oliver backed the car in and got out with Lydia.
“We have some luggage here.”
“That’ll be all right, sir,” said the little man.
He watched Ransom come out of the garage, and said jocosely:
“Not much to spare, sir, between the top of your head and the garidge roof.”
Oliver turned and looked back.
“Well, I suppose there isn’t,” he answered.
“Frenchies don’t run to what you may call statcher,” said the little man ingratiatingly, “though I’m told that’s changed since the war. Near upon six feet, you are, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“To be exact, five feet eleven and a quarter,” said Oliver Ransom with a laugh; and he crossed the courtyard to the big central door of the house. A French manservant received them into a small square stone-flagged hall.
“Monsieur Stallard’s other guests,” he said, “are having tea upon the garden terrace. Would you like to join them? Or would you prefer first of all to see your rooms?”
“I think,” said Lydia, “that first of all we should see our rooms.”
Behind the outer hall a wide lounge with tall windows opening on to a stone terrace occupied the body of the house. Beyond the terrace, a small rose garden spread its colours and its perfumes in the air, and then the grass dropped in a series of terraces to the park wall and the river beyond. On one of these terraces, Oliver Ransom observed, a strong mast was planted and stayed, and from the top of it a cable stretched to the first floor of the house.
“There is to be an entertainment after supper tonight,” the butler explained.
“A tight-rope walker?”
“From the circus at Rouen. He calls himself Prince Ali Ibrahim, I understand, sir, but I think he comes from Nancy.”
The butler led Oliver and Lydia Flight across the lounge to a broad stone staircase which, turning back upon itself half-way up, brought them out on to a wide corridor on the forest side of the house, with a row of windows overlooking the courtyard. A suite of rooms upon their right was occupied by Mr. Stallard, and beyond, a large gallery stretched above the lounge. The butler threw open the door and showed them the room waxed and polished for the dance, with a long balcony reaching out over the terrace below. Oliver was taking a note in his mind of as many details as he could. Both he and Lydia were uneasy, more indeed because their charge was almost fulfilled but not quite, than for any substantial reason; and he was as curious of the arrangements for the dance as if he was looking for a way of escape from an ene
my’s camp.
At the opposite end of the corridor a smaller staircase ascended and descended in a spiral by the outer wall, and a door faced them. It stood open.
“We are making a ladies’ cloakroom here on the right,” the butler explained. “There are one or two bedrooms and the passage leads on to the servants’ quarters. We go up by this staircase to the next floor.”
“I see,” said Oliver, and as he took a step up he looked down. “This doesn’t lead into the lounge, does it? I didn’t notice it.”
“No, sir. It leads down to the service door beyond the stone hall. I think I hear your luggage being brought up it now.”
They mounted to the next floor, which was arranged upon the same plan; with the exception that in place of the long gallery below stretched a row of five bedrooms with a bathroom between each two; and at the end there was a suite corresponding with the chambres de maître on the first floor. All these rooms looked out over the river, and their doors opened out on to the corridor with its windows upon the forest of Brotonne. They were well above the courtyard now. On the left the round smooth brown rock which gave its title to the house, rose like the rock of Sigiri above the Jungle of Ceylon. Just opposite to them stood an open square of turf on the slope of the hill. But for the rest, as far as the eye could reach, everywhere else the forest stretched upwards unbroken like an enormous canopy of green velvet. Here and there where a clump of trees grew on a mound, there was a boss, as though here a pillar supported the canopy; here and there was a dent, a hollow, as though here the canopy sagged through the weight of its fabric.
The butler went forward to the last door facing the corridor, and opened it.
“This Madame Bouchette assigned to you, monsieur. And the little suite here to mademoiselle.”
The suite stretched across the end of the corridor, and its door faced the mouth of the staircase up which they had come. Ransom followed Lydia into a passage. Opposite to them as they stood in the passage with the bedroom door upon the left, were first a bathroom, and next to that a dressing-room. The windows of those three rooms looked up the river to the east, and were above the shrubbery between the house and the park wall. A door from the dressing-room led into the bedroom, as did the door from the passage. The bedroom itself was a large room with two windows overlooking the terraces and the Seine, and a low bed of satinwood was ranged between them.
The luggage was brought in as they stood there.
“Mademoiselle and monsieur are content?” the butler asked. “I was to make sure that they were satisfied.”
“Quite, thank you,” said Lydia.
“Then I leave you. As you will understand, there is much to do.”
“Of course,” said Oliver.
As he went away, Lydia said, looking around the room:
“Bachelors are the people to run houses! Look! Amber toilet water on the dressing-table. Balkan cigarettes by the bed. And did you notice? — a great bowl of powder in the dressing-room.”
“Oh?”
Ransom opened the door of the dressing-room. There was a table beside the door on the left, and near to the window. Above the table hung a mirror, and on the table stood a big bowl of cut glass with a lid. Ransom took off the lid. There was a big puff, quite new, and under it a pinkish powder filled the bowl. He returned into the bedroom, to find Lydia bending over her big package from the Rouen railway station.
“You’re it, you know, in this house, Lydia.”
“I seem to be popular.”
“Shall I help you with the cord?” — and he took out his knife.
“No,” said Lydia with a smile. “I’m going to be it to-night, but not before. You can go out and wait for me in the corridor. I just want to see that the whole dress is here.”
“All right!”
Oliver Ransom left her to her work. Lydia was quick. She put out the dress she was to wear, the stockings and the shoes and the gloves. She took perhaps fifteen minutes; then she came out into the corridor. Oliver was standing in one of the embrasures of the windows with his back towards her.
“Oliver,” she said, “I am ready.”
And he did not so much as turn his head.
“Oliver!”
Again he did not answer. She moved into the embrasure and stood behind his shoulders. The window was open; he was looking directly across the courtyard and over the enclosing wall to the small square space of turf on the slope of the forest. Above it was the dark green sea of leaves and branches, below it the spread of the tree-tops. This clear space had been empty when last they had looked at it. It was occupied now. Guy Stallard in a suit of grey flannel, which set off the beauty of his lithe figure, stood out against the slope. For a moment it seemed to her that he was practising a series of graceful movements, with outstretched arms and beckoning hands. Then she realised that all about him were birds. They were perched upon his shoulders. They swooped down at the beckoning of his hands, settled upon his wrists, and swirled in circles about his bare head. Lydia had never seen a sight like it in her life. She had been uneasy about Guy Stallard, she had shrunk from his advances, she had been afraid. She lost all her fears in a moment.
“Oliver!” she said, her eyes shining, her lips smiling. What fools they both had been. “Oliver!”
And Oliver turned to her. His face was white, and in his eyes there shone some secret knowledge which made him a mask of terror.
“Stand back, Lydia! Quick!”
And he himself stepped back from the embrasure. Had her cry of pleasure carried on the still air across to that open square of the forest of Brotonne? Or had their quick movement caught the eye of the man who was standing there? Neither of them could guess, but in a second he was gone.
“We must change our plans,” said Oliver, looking about that wide corridor with restless eyes and speaking in a whisper. “We must get away from here — as soon as we can — without being seen — yes, without being seen.”
“Oliver?”
Lydia’s voice had sunk to a whisper which matched his. Oliver Ransom drew her by the arm to a spot where the strip of wall between the windows hid them from the forest.
“It may be all right,” he said. “Very likely he didn’t see us...and very likely I’m wrong...even if he did. Anyway — you were standing at the back — behind me. I don’t think he could have seen you.”
Oliver drew some consolation from that thought. But there was little evidence to support it. The panelling of the corridor and the doors of the rooms were of dark wood, and Lydia was dressed in white. She must have gleamed against that dark background like snow in a crevice of rock.
“I was looking over your shoulder. I think, too, that I was at your elbow afterwards, wasn’t I?” she asked.
Her voice shook, though she tried hard to keep it steady. All the vague fears which had been darkening about her during these last days had been fused suddenly into one, a definite one, carrying an immediate threat.
“What did you see, Oliver?” — and she shook him.
Some dreadful revelation had been made to him. He had the look of a man searching for an outlet where no outlet was. Something he understood now which had been a secret, and he was not sure that he was not too late.
“What did you see, Oliver?” she repeated, and the question quickened him to action.
“We’ll go down,” he said, and he hurried Lydia to the staircase. They ran down to the first floor, and crossed the wide passage to the big staircase. Oliver Ransom looked out of the window. The doors of the garage were closed, and so were the heavy gates of the courtyard.
“We must take it easily now,” he said. “We saw nothing out of the window, unless we are asked.”
“But if we are asked?...”
“Then we say what we saw. We are thrilled by it. We are full of admiration. It was wonderful.”
“Very well.” And Lydia laid a hand upon his arm. And to her he applied the words which he had just spoken. He was thrilled by the feel of her hand; he was full
of admiration; he thought her wonderful. For the hand was as steady and cool as if nothing had disturbed her. The fear was smoothed out of her face. Even her colour had returned to her cheeks.
There was no longer any clatter of voices from the terrace. It was extraordinarily silent in the lounge. The buzzing of a fly against a window-pane was a sound which was startling. They went out on to the terrace. Lucrece Bouchette sat there alone with a cigarette between her lips. She smiled at them lazily.
“You found your dress waiting for you?” she asked of Lydia.
“Yes.”
“It is still a mystery?”
“Until to-night.”
Lydia Flight was not planning a surprise to achieve a success for herself, though she knew very well that with her slim figure and her long and shapely limbs she could carry off her dress in this gathering as well as she had ever done it on the stage. The reason she had chosen it was that it would conceal the rope of pearls she must still wear, this chain as she had begun to think of it, more completely and effectually than any other costume. It was no longer possible to picture that the pearls were mere beads from the Arcades. They had got to be hidden. She had selected a dress which would hide them, and which at the same time might naturally be worn by her.
Lucrece Bouchette did not press her enquiries. She laughed with an amusement which Lydia did not understand.
“Well, you had your day in the woods, you two, at all events” — and out on to the terrace from the lounge walked Guy Stallard.
“Ah, you have come!” he cried, and he bowed low over Lydia’s hand. “I should have been at my gates to welcome you. We shall dine early, and, I expect, rather haphazardly. The hotel at Rouen is providing the supper and the service, and so far as I can make out my own small staff is in hysterics already.”
He laughed gaily and continued:
“We shall dine at seven, just as we are, and we shall have time then to dress comfortably afterwards.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 126