Mr. Satterthwaite had come to Corsica because of the Duchess. It was
out of his beat. On the Riviera he was sure of his comforts, and to be
comfortable meant a lot to Mr. Satterthwaite. But though he liked his
comfort, he also liked a Duchess. In his way, a harmless, gentlemanly,
old-fashioned way, Mr. Satterthwaite was a snob. He liked the best
people. And the Duchess of Leith was a very authentic Duchess. She was
the daughter of a duke as well as the wife of one.
For the rest, she was rather a shabby-looking old lady, a good deal
given to black bead trimmings on her clothes. She had quantities of
diamonds in old-fashioned settings, and she wore them as her mother
before her had worn them: pinned all over her indiscriminately.
Someone had suggested once that the Duchess stood in the middle of the
room while her maid flung brooches at her haphazard. She subscribed
generously to charities, and looked well after her tenants and
dependents, but was extremely mean over small sums. She cadged lifts
from her friends, and did her shopping in bargain basements.
The Duchess was seized with a whim for Corsica. Cannes bored her, and
she had had a bitter argument with the hotel proprietor over the price
of her rooms.
"And you shall go with me, Satterthwaite," she said firmly. "We needn't
be afraid of scandal at our time of life."
Mr. Satterthwaite was delicately flattered. No one had ever mentioned
scandal in connection with him before. He was far too insignificant.
Scandal--and a Duchess--delicious.
"Picturesque, you know," said the Duchess. "Brigands--all that sort
of thing. And extremely cheap, so I've heard. Manuelli was positively
impudent this morning. These hotel proprietors need putting in their
place. They can't expect to get the best people if they go on like
this. I told him so plainly."
"I believe," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "that one can fly over quite
comfortably. From Antibes."
"They probably charge you a pretty penny for it," said the Duchess
sharply. "Find out, will you?"
"Certainly, Duchess."
Mr. Satterthwaite was still in a flutter of gratification, despite the
fact that his role was clearly to be that of a glorified courier.
When she learned the price of a passage by _avion_, the Duchess turned
it down promptly. "They needn't think I'm going to pay a ridiculous sum
like that to go in one of their nasty dangerous things."
So they went by boat, and Mr. Satterthwaite endured ten hours of acute
discomfort. To begin with, as the boat sailed at seven, he took it
for granted that there would be dinner on board. But there was no
dinner. The boat was small and the sea was rough. Mr. Satterthwaite was
decanted at Ajaccio in the early hours of the morning more dead than
alive.
The Duchess, on the contrary, was perfectly fresh. She never minded
discomfort, if she could feel she was saving money. She waxed
enthusiastic over the scene on the quay, with the palm trees and the
rising sun. The whole population seemed to have turned out to watch the
arrival of the boat, and the launching of the gangway was attended with
excited cries and directions.
"That maid of mine has been sick all night," said the Duchess. "The
girl's a perfect fool."
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled in a pallid fashion.
"A waste of good food, I call it," continued the Duchess robustly.
"Did she get any food?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite enviously.
"I happened to bring some biscuits and a stick of chocolate on board
with me," said the Duchess. "When I found there was no dinner to be
got, I gave the lot to her. The lower classes always make such a fuss
about going without their meals."
With a cry of triumph the launching of the gangway was accomplished.
A musical comedy chorus of brigands rushed aboard and wrested hand
luggage from the passengers by main force.
"Come on, Satterthwaite," said the Duchess. "I want a hot bath and some
coffee."
So did Mr. Satterthwaite. He was not wholly successful, however. They
were received at the hotel by a bowing manager and were shown to their
rooms. The Duchess's had a bathroom attached. Mr. Satterthwaite,
however, was directed to a bath that appeared to be situated in
somebody else's bedroom. To expect the water to be hot at that hour in
the morning was, perhaps, unreasonable. Later he drank intensely black
coffee, served in a pot without a lid. The shutters and the window
of his room had been flung open, and the crisp morning air came in
fragrantly. A day of dazzling blue and green.
The waiter waved his hand with a flourish to call attention to the
view. "_Ajaccio_," he said solemnly. "_Le plus beau port du monde!_"
And he departed abruptly.
Looking out over the deep blue of the bay, with the snow mountains
beyond, Mr. Satterthwaite was almost inclined to agree with him. He
finished his coffee, and lying down on the bed, fell fast asleep.
At _déjeuner_ the Duchess was in great spirits.
"This is just what will be good for you, Satterthwaite," she said.
"Get you out of all those fussy little old-maidish ways of yours."
She swept a lorgnette around the room. "Upon my word, there's Naomi
Carlton-Smith."
She indicated a girl sitting by herself at a table in the window, a
round-shouldered girl who slouched as she sat. Her dress appeared to be
made of some kind of brown sacking. She had black hair, untidily bobbed.
"An artist?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
He was always good at placing people.
"Quite right," said the Duchess. "Calls herself one, anyway. I knew
she was mooching around in some queer quarter of the globe. Poor as a
church mouse, proud as Lucifer, and a bee in her bonnet like all the
Carlton-Smiths. Her mother was my first cousin."
"She's one of the Knowlton lot then?"
The Duchess nodded.
"Been her own worst enemy," she volunteered. "Clever girl too. Mixed
herself up with a most undesirable young man. One of that Chelsea
crowd. Wrote plays or poems or something unhealthy. Nobody took 'em, of
course. Then he stole somebody's jewels and got caught out. I forget
what they gave him. Five years, I think. But you must remember? It was
last winter."
"Last winter I was in Egypt," explained Mr. Satterthwaite. "I had
flu very badly the end of January, and the doctors insisted on Egypt
afterward. I missed a lot."
His voice rang with a note of real regret.
"That girl seems to me to be moping," said the Duchess, raising her
lorgnette once more. "I can't allow that."
On her way out, she stopped by Miss Carlton-Smith's table and tapped
the girl on the shoulder. "Well, Naomi, you don't seem to remember me?"
Naomi rose rather unwillingly to her feet. "Yes, I do, Duchess. I saw
you come in. I thought it quite likely you mightn't recognize me."
She drawled the words lazily, with a complete indifference of manner.
"When you've finished your lunch, come and talk to me on the terrace,"
ordered the Duchess.
"Very well."
Naomi yawned.
"Shocking manners," said the Duchess to Mr. Satterthwaite, as she
resumed her progress. "All the Carlton-Smiths have."
They had their coffee outside in the sunshine. They had been there
about six minutes when Naomi Carlton-Smith lounged out from the hotel
and joined them. She let herself fall slackly onto a chair with her
legs stretched out ungracefully in front of her.
An odd face, with its jutting chin and deep-set gray eyes. A clever,
unhappy face--a face that only just missed being beautiful.
"Well, Naomi," said the Duchess briskly. "And what are you doing with
yourself?"
"Oh! I dunno. Just marking time."
"Been painting?"
"A bit."
"Show me your things."
Naomi grinned. She was not cowed by the autocrat. She was amused. She
went into the hotel and came out again with a portfolio.
"You won't like 'em, Duchess," she said warningly. "Say what you like.
You won't hurt my feelings."
Mr. Satterthwaite moved his chair a little nearer. He was interested.
In another minute he was more interested still. The Duchess was frankly
unsympathetic.
"I can't even see which way up the things ought to be," she complained.
"Good gracious, child, there was never a sky that color--or a sea
either."
"That's the way I see 'em," said Naomi placidly.
"Ugh!" said the Duchess, inspecting another. "This gives me the creeps."
"It's meant to," said Naomi. "You're paying me a compliment without
knowing it."
It was a queer vorticist study of prickly pear--just recognizable
as such. Gray-green with splodges of violent color where the fruit
glittered like jewels. A swirling mass of evil, fleshy--festering. Mr.
Satterthwaite shuddered and turned his head aside.
He found Naomi looking at him and nodding her head in comprehension.
"I know," she said. "But it _is_ beastly."
The Duchess cleared her throat. "It seems quite easy to be an artist
nowadays," she observed witheringly. "There's no attempt to copy
things. You just shovel on some paint--I don't know what with, not a
brush, I'm sure--"
"Palette knife," interposed Naomi, smiling broadly once more.
"A good deal at a time," continued the Duchess. "In lumps. And there
you are! Everyone says, 'How clever.' Well, I've no patience with that
sort of thing. Give me--"
"A nice picture of a dog and a horse, by Edward Landseer."
"And why not?" demanded the Duchess. "What's wrong with Landseer?"
"Nothing," said Naomi. "He's all right. And you're all right. The tops
of things are always nice and shiny and smooth. I respect you, Duchess;
you've got force; you've met life fair and square and you've come out
on top. But the people who are underneath see the under side of things.
And that's interesting in a way."
The Duchess stared at her. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're
talking about," she declared.
Mr. Satterthwaite was still examining the sketches. He realized, as
the Duchess could not, the perfection of technique behind them. He was
startled and delighted. He looked up at the girl.
"Will you sell me one of these, Miss Carlton-Smith?" he asked.
"You can have any one you like for five guineas," said the girl
indifferently.
Mr. Satterthwaite hesitated a minute or two and then he selected a
study of prickly pear and aloe. In the foreground was a vivid blur of
yellow mimosa; the scarlet of the aloe flower danced in and out of the
picture, and inexorable, mathematically underlying the whole, was the
oblong pattern of the prickly pear and the sword motif of the aloe.
He made a little bow to the girl.
"I am very happy to have secured this, and I think I have made a
bargain. Some day, Miss Carlton-Smith, I shall be able to sell this
sketch at a very good profit--if I want to!"
The girl leaned forward to see which one he had taken. He saw a new
look come into her eyes. For the first time she was really aware of his
existence, and there was respect in the quick glance she gave him.
"You have chosen the best," she said. "I--I am glad."
"Well, I suppose you know what you're doing," said the Duchess. "And I
daresay you're right. I've heard that you're quite a connoisseur. But
you can't tell me that all this new stuff is art, because it isn't.
Still, we needn't go into that. Now I'm only going to be here a few
days and I want to see something of the island. You've got a car, I
suppose, Naomi?"
The girl nodded.
"Excellent," said the Duchess. "We'll make a trip somewhere tomorrow."
"It's only a two-seater."
"Nonsense, there's a dickey, I suppose, that will do for Mr.
Satterthwaite?"
A shuddering sigh went through Mr. Satterthwaite. He had observed the
Corsican roads that morning. Naomi was regarding him thoughtfully.
"I'm afraid my car will be no good to you," she said. "It's a terribly
battered old bus. I bought it second-hand for a mere song. It will just
get me up the hills--with coaxing. But I can't take passengers. There's
quite a good garage, though, in the town. You can hire a car there."
"Hire a car," said the Duchess, scandalized. "What an idea. Who's that
nice-looking man, rather yellow, who drove up in a four-seater just
before lunch?"
"I expect you mean Mr. Tomlinson. He's a retired Indian judge."
"That accounts for the yellowness," said the Duchess. "I was afraid it
might be jaundice. He seems quite a decent sort of man. I shall talk to
him."
That evening, on coming down to dinner, Mr. Satterthwaite found the
Duchess, resplendent in black beads and diamonds, talking earnestly to
the owner of the four-seater car. She beckoned authoritatively.
"Come here, Mr. Satterthwaite. Mr. Tomlinson is telling me the most
interesting things, and what do you think? He is actually going to take
us on an expedition tomorrow in his car."
Mr. Satterthwaite regarded her with admiration.
"We must go in to dinner," said the Duchess. "Do come and sit at our
table, Mr. Tomlinson, and then you can go on with what you were telling
me."
"Quite a decent sort of man," the Duchess pronounced later.
"With quite a decent sort of car," retorted Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Naughty," said the Duchess, and gave him a resounding blow on the
knuckles with the dingy black fan she always carried. Mr. Satterthwaite
winced with pain.
"Naomi is coming too," said the Duchess. "In her car. That girl wants
taking out of herself. She's very selfish. Not exactly self-centered,
but totally indifferent to everyone and everything. Don't you agree?"
"I don't think that's possible," said Mr. Satterthwaite slowly. "I
mean, everyone's interest must go _somewhere_. There are, of course,
the people who revolve round themselves--but I agree with you, she's
not one of that kind. She's totally uninterested in herself. And yet
she's got a strong character--there must be _something_. I thought at
first it was her art--but it isn't. I've never met anyone so detached
from life. That's--dangerous."
"Dangerous? What do you mean?"
"Well, you see--it must be an obsession of some kind, and obsessions
are always dangerous."
"Satterthwaite," said the Duchess, "don't be a fool. And listen to me.
About tomorrow--"
Mr. Satterthwaite listened. It was very much his role in life.
They started early the following morning, taking their lunch with them.
Naomi, who had been six months in the island, was to be the pioneer.
Mr. Satterthwaite went over to her as she sat waiting to start.
"You are sure that--I can't come with you," he said wistfully.
She shook her head. "You'll be much more comfortable in the back of
the other car. Nicely padded seats and all that. This is a regular old
rattletrap. You'd leap in the air going over the bumps."
"And then of course the hills."
Naomi laughed. "Oh! I only said that to rescue you from the dickey.
The Duchess could perfectly well afford to have hired a car. She's
the meanest woman in England. All the same, the old thing is rather a
sport, and I can't help liking her."
"Then I could come with you after all," said Mr. Satterthwaite,
eagerly.