The Chink in the Armour/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
A long week went by, and still no news, no explanation of her abrupt departure from Lacville, was received from Anna Wolsky; and the owners of the Pension Malfait were still waiting for instructions as to what was to be done with Madame Wolsky's luggage, and with the various little personal possessions she had left scattered about her room.
As for Sylvia, it sometimes seemed to her as if her Polish friend had been obliterated, suddenly blotted out of existence.
But as time went on she felt more and more pained and discomfited by Anna's strange and heartless behaviour to herself. Whatever the reason for Madame Wolsky's abrupt departure, it would not have taken her a moment to have sent Sylvia Bailey a line—if only to say that she could give no explanation of her extraordinary conduct.
Fortunately there were many things to distract Sylvia's thoughts from Anna Wolsky. She now began each morning with a two hours' ride with Paul de Virieu. She had a graceful seat, and had been well taught; only a little practice, so the Count assured her, was needed to make her into a really good horsewoman, the more so that she was very fearless.
Leaving the flat plain of Lacville far behind them, they would make their way into the Forest of Montmorency, and through to the wide valley, which is so beautiful and so little known to most foreign visitors to Paris.
The Duchesse d'Eglemont had sent her maid to Lacville with the riding habit she was lending Sylvia, and by a word M. Polperro let fall, the Englishwoman realised, with mingled confusion and amusement, that the hotel-keeper supposed her to be an old and intimate friend of Count Paul'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 disappearance came to be regarded even by Sylvia as having only been a ripple on the pleasant, lazy, agreeable life she, Count Paul, and last, not least, the Wachners, were all leading at Lacville.
In fact, as the days went on, only Mrs. Bailey herself and that kindly couple, Madame Wachner and her silent husband, seemed to remember that Anna had ever been there. During the first days, when Sylvia had been really very anxious and troubled, she had had cause to be grateful to the Wachners for their sympathy; for whereas Paul de Virieu seemed only interested in Anna Wolsky because she, Sylvia, herself was interested, both Madame Wachner and her morose, silent husband showed real concern and distress at the mysterious lack of news.
Whenever Sylvia saw them, and she saw them daily at the Casino, either Madame Wachner or L'Ami Fritz would ask her in an eager, sympathetic voice, "Have you had news of Madame Wolsky?"
And then, when she shook her head sadly, they would express—and especially Madame Wachner would express—increasing concern and surprise at Anna's extraordinary silence.
"If only she had come to us as she arranged to do!" the older woman exclaimed more than once in a regretful tone. "Then, at any rate, we should know something; she would not have concealed her plans from us entirely; we were, if new friends, yet on such kind, intimate terms with the dear soul!"
And now, as had been the case exactly a week ago, Sylvia was resting in her room. She was sitting just as she had then sat, in a chair drawn up close to the window. There had been no ride that morning, for Paul de Virieu had been obliged to go into Paris for the day.
Sylvia felt dull and listless. She had never before experienced that aching longing for the presence of another human being which in our civilised 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 greatly disturbed her. It now lay open on her lap, for she had just read it through again. This letter was quite short, and simply contained the news that Bill Chester, her good friend, sometime lover, and trustee, was going to Switzerland after all, and that he would stop a couple of days in Paris in order to see her.
It was really very nice of Bill to do this, and a month ago Sylvia would have looked forward to seeing him. But now everything was changed, and Sylvia could well have dispensed with Bill Chester's presence.
The thought of Chester at Lacville filled her with unease. When she had left her English home two months ago—it seemed more like two years than two months—she had felt well disposed to the young lawyer, and deep in her inmost heart she had almost brought herself to acknowledge that she might very probably in time become his wife.
She suspected that Chester had been fond of her when she was a girl, at a 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 ask girls to marry them unless they are in a position to keep a wife. She remembered how he had looked—how set and stern his face had become when someone had suddenly told him in her presence of her engagement to George Bailey, the middle-aged man who had been so kind to her, and yet who had counted for so little in her life, though she had given him all she could of love and duty.
Since her widowhood, so she now reminded herself remorsefully, Chester had been extraordinarily good to her, and his devotion had touched her because it was expressed in actions rather than in words, for he was also the unusual type of man, seldom a romantic type, who scorns, however much in love, to take advantage of a fiduciary position to strengthen his own.
The fact that he was her trustee brought them into frequent conflict. Too often Bill was the candid friend instead of the devoted lover. Their only real quarrel—if quarrel it could be called—had been, as we know, over the purchase of her string of pearls. But time, or so Sylvia confidently believed, had proved her to have been right, for her "investment," as she always called it to Bill Chester, had improved in value.
But though she had been right in that comparatively trifling matter, she knew that Chester would certainly disapprove of the kind of life—the idle, 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 back into Paris for two or three days.
Bill would think it a very strange thing that she was staying here in Lacville all by herself. But the thought of leaving Lacville just now was very disagreeable to Sylvia. … She wondered uncomfortably what her trustee would think of her friendship with Count Paul de Virieu—with this Frenchman who, when he was not gambling at the Casino, spent every moment of his time with her.
But deep in her heart Sylvia knew well that when Bill Chester was there Paul de Virieu would draw back; only when they were really alone together did he talk eagerly, naturally.
In the dining-room of the Villa he hardly ever spoke to her, and when they were both in the Baccarat-room of the Club he seldom came and stood by her side, though when she looked up she often found his eyes fixed on her with that ardent, absorbed gaze which made her heart beat, and her cheeks flush with mingled joy and pain.
Suddenly, as if her thoughts had brought him there, she saw Count Paul's straight, slim figure turn in from the road through the gates of the Villa.
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 his face. He looked very grave, and yet oddly happy. Was it possible that he had 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 go downstairs, and yet a feminine feeling of delicacy restrained her from doing so.
A great stillness brooded over everything. The heat had sent everyone indoors. M. Polperro, perhaps because of his Southern up-bringing, always took an early afternoon siesta. It looked as if his servants followed his example. 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, leaning over the bar of her window, thought he added the word "Maud"—but of course that could not have been so, for her name, as the Count 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 it is 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 in answer to his invitation.
But Sylvia Bailey was but an amateur at the Great Game, the game at which only two—only a man and a woman—can play, and yet which is capable of such infinite, such bewilderingly protean variations. So her next move, one which Paul de Virieu, smiling behind his moustache, foresaw—was to turn away from the window.
She ran down the broad shallow staircase very quickly, for it had occurred to her that the Count, taking her at her word, might leave the garden, and, sauntering off to the Casino, lose his money—for whatever he might be in love, Count Paul was exceedingly unlucky at cards! And lately she had begun to think that she was gradually weaning her friend from what she knew to be in his case, whatever it was in hers, and in that of many of the people about them, the terrible vice of gambling.
When, a little breathless, she joined him in the garden, she found that he had already taken two rocking-chairs into a shady corner which was out of 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. With surprise and concern she saw that his eyelids were red. Was it possible that 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 of that sort would have seemed absurd to Sylvia a short time ago, but somehow the thought that Paul de Virieu had shed tears made her feel extraordinarily moved.
"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Has anything happened to your sister?"
"Thank God—no!" he answered hastily. "But something else, something which was to be expected, but which I did not expect, has happened"
And then, very gravely, and at last releasing her hands, he added, "My kind godmother, the little Marquise you met last week, died last night."
Sylvia felt the sudden sense of surprise, almost of discomfiture, the young 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 but kindly compliments.
"Ah! but she was very, very old—over ninety! Why, she was supposed to be aged when she became my godmother thirty odd years ago!"
He waited a moment, and then added, quietly, "She has left me in her will two hundred thousand francs."
"Oh, I am glad!"
Sylvia stretched out both hands impulsively, and the Comte de Virieu took first 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 my brother-in-law," he said slowly, and Sylvia felt a little chill of 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 be able 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 resist the 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 of this money at the tables?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
Sylvia's heart began to beat. Count Paul had become very pale. There was a curious expression on his face—an expression of revolt, almost of anger.
"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 or memorable had passed between them.
"And has anything happened here?" he asked. "Is there any news of your vanished 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 at first.
The Count leant forward, and speaking this time very seriously indeed, he said, in a low voice:—
"I wish to say something to you, and I am now going to speak as frankly as if you were—my sister. You are wrong to waste a moment of your time in regretting Madame Wolsky. She is an unhappy woman, held tightly in the paws of the tiger—Play. That is the truth, my friend! It is a pity you ever met her, and I am glad she went away without doing you any further mischief. It was bad enough of her to have brought you to Lacville, and taught you to gamble. Had she stayed on, she would have tried in time to make 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 in this way before. She hesitated, then said a little nervously,
"Tell me, did you ask Madame Wolsky to go away? Please don't mind my asking 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 very impertinent—what English people would call 'cheeky'—of me to do such a thing! You must indeed think me a hypocrite! Have I not shared your surprise and concern at her extraordinary disappearance? And her luggage? If I had wished her to go away, I should not have encouraged her to leave all her luggage behind her!" he spoke with the sarcastic emphasis of which the French are masters.
Sylvia grew very red.
As a matter of fact, it had been Madame Wachner who had suggested that idea to her. Only the day before, when Sylvia had been wondering for the thousandth time where Anna could be, the older woman had exclaimed meaningly, "I should not be surprised if that Count de Virieu persuaded your friend to go away. He wants the field clear for himself."
And then she had seemed to regret her imprudent words, and she had begged Sylvia not to give the Count any hint of her suspicion. Even now Sylvia did not mention Madame Wachner.
"Of course, I don't think you a hypocrite," she said awkwardly, "but you never did like poor Anna, and you were always telling me that Lacville isn't a place where a nice woman ought to stay long. I thought you might have said something of the same kind to Madame Wolsky."
"And do you really suppose," Count Paul spoke with a touch of sharp irony in his voice, "that your friend would have taken my advice? Do you think that Madame Wolsky would look either to the right or the left when the Goddess of Chance beckoned?"—and he waved his hand in the direction where 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 of September"
"You asked me a very indiscreet question just now"—the Count leant forward, and looked straight into Mrs. Bailey's eyes.
His manner had again altered. He spoke far more authoritatively than he had ever spoken before, and Sylvia, far from resenting this new, possessive attitude, felt thrilled and glad. When Bill Chester spoke as if 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 that the Wachners know more of your Polish friend's departure than they admit? I gathered that impression the only time I talked to your Madame Wachner about the matter. I felt sure she knew more than she would say! Of course, it was only an impression."
Sylvia hesitated.
"At first Madame Wachner seemed annoyed that I made a fuss about it," she said thoughtfully. "But later she seemed as surprised and sorry as I am myself. Oh, no, Count, I am sure you are wrong—why you forget that Madame Wachner walked up to the Pension Malfait that same evening—I mean the evening of the day Anna left Lacville. In fact, it was Madame Wachner who first found out that Anna had not come home. She went up to her bed-room to look for her."
"Then it was Madame Wachner who found the letter?" observed the Count interrogatively.
"Oh, no, it was not Madame Wachner who found it. Anna's letter was discovered the next morning by the chambermaid in a blotting-book on the writing table. No one had thought of looking there. You see they were all expecting her back that night. Madame Malfait still thinks that poor Anna went to the Casino in the afternoon, and after having lost her money came back to the pension, wrote the letter, and then went out and left for Paris without saying anything about it to anyone!"
"I suppose something of that sort did happen," observed the Comte de Virieu thoughtfully.
"And now," he said, getting up from his chair, "I think I will take a turn 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 you had made me give you my word of honour."
She got up. It was cruel, very cruel, of him to say that to her. How amazingly their relation to one another had altered in the last half-hour!
For the moment they were enemies, and it was the enemy in Sylvia that next spoke. "I think I shall go and have tea with the Wachners. They never 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," he exclaimed irritably. "To me there is something"—he hesitated, seeking for an English word which should exactly express the French word "louche"—"sinister—that is the word I am looking for—there is to me something sinister about the Wachners."
"Sinister?" echoed Sylvia, really surprised. "Why, they seem to me to be the most good-natured, commonplace people in the world, and then they're so fond of one another!"
"I grant you that," he said. "I quite agree that that ugly old woman is very fond of her 'Ami Fritz'—but I do not know if he returns the compliment!"
Sylvia looked pained, nay more, shocked.
"I suppose French husbands only like their wives when they are young and pretty," she said slowly.
"Another of the many injustices you are always heaping on my poor country," the Count protested lightly. "But I confess I deserved it this time! Joking apart, I think 'L'Ami Fritz' is very fond of his"—he hesitated, 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 Wachners are very nice people, and I won't allow you to say anything against them!"
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 till they were actually within sight of the little, isolated villa where the Wachners 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! She was 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 see I do not like them! I suppose—I hope"—he looked again straight into Sylvia Bailey's ingenuous blue eyes—"that the Wachners have never tried to borrow money of you?"
"Never!" she cried, blushing violently. "Never, Count Paul! Your dislike of my poor friends makes you unjust—it really does."
"It does! It does! I beg their pardon and yours. I was foolish, nay, far worse, indiscreet, to ask you this question. I regret I did so. Accept my apology."
She looked at him to see if he was sincere. His face was very grave; and she looked at him with perplexed, unhappy eyes.
"Oh, don't say that!" she said. "Why should you mind saying anything to me?"
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 ten days ago, the Wachners were in considerable difficulty about money. Then suddenly they seemed to have found plenty, in fact, to be as we say here, 'à flot'; I confess that I foolishly imagined, nay, I almost hoped, that they owed this temporary prosperity to you! But of course I had no business to think about it at all—still less any business to speak to you about the matter. Forgive me, I will not so err again."
And then, with one of his sudden, stiff bows, the Comte de Virieu turned on his heel, leaving Sylvia to make her way alone to the little wooden gate on which were painted the words "Châlet des Muguets."