Produced by Al Haines
Captain Dieppe
By
Anthony Hope
Author of "The Prisoner of Zenda," "Rupert of Hentzau," etc., etc.
Doubleday, Page & Co.
New York
1906
Copyright, 1899, by ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.
Copyright, 1899, by CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright, 1900, by ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE HOUSE ON THE BLUFF
II. THE MAN BY THE STREAM
III. THE LADY IN THE GARDEN
IV. THE INN IN THE VILLAGE
V. THE RENDEZVOUS BY THE CROSS
VI. THE HUT IN THE HOLLOW
VII. THE FLOOD ON THE RIVER
VIII. THE CARRIAGE AT THE FORD
IX. THE STRAW IN THE CORNER
X. THE JOURNEY TO ROME
XI. THE LUCK OF THE CAPTAIN
Captain Dieppe
CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE ON THE BLUFF
To the eye of an onlooker Captain Dieppe's circumstances afforded high
spirits no opportunity, and made ordinary cheerfulness a virtue which a
stoic would not have disdained to own. Fresh from the failure of
important plans; if not exactly a fugitive, still a man to whom
recognition would be inconvenient and perhaps dangerous; with fifty
francs in his pocket, and his spare wardrobe in a knapsack on his back;
without immediate prospect of future employment or a replenishment of
his purse; yet by no means in his first youth or of an age when men
love to begin the world utterly afresh; in few words, with none of
those inner comforts of the mind which make external hardships no more
than a pleasurable contrast, he marched up a long steep hill in the
growing dusk of a stormy evening, his best hope to find, before he was
soaked to the skin, some poor inn or poorer cottage where he might get
food and beg shelter from the severity of the wind and rain that swept
across the high ground and swooped down on the deep valleys, seeming to
assail with a peculiar, conscious malice the human figure which faced
them with unflinching front and the buoyant step of strength and
confidence.
But the Captain was an alchemist, and the dross of outer events turned
to gold in the marvellous crucible of his mind. Fortune should have
known this and abandoned the vain attempt to torment him. He had
failed, but no other man could have come so near success. He was
alone, therefore free: poor, therefore independent; desirous of hiding,
therefore of importance: in a foreign land, therefore well placed for
novel and pleasing accidents. The rain was a drop and the wind a puff:
if he were wet, it would be delightful to get dry; since he was hungry,
no inn could be too humble and no fare too rough. Fortune should
indeed have set him on high, and turned her wasted malice on folk more
penetrable by its stings.
The Captain whistled and sang. What a fright he had given the
Ministers, how nearly he had brought back the Prince, what an uncommon
and intimate satisfaction of soul came from carrying, under his wet
coat, lists of names, letters, and what not--all capable of causing
tremors in high quarters, and of revealing in spheres of activity
hitherto unsuspected gentlemen--aye, and ladies--of the loftiest
position; all of whom (the Captain was piling up his causes of
self-congratulation) owed their present safety, and directed their
present anxieties, to him, Jean Dieppe, and to nobody else in the
world. He broke off his whistling to observe aloud:
"Mark this, it is to very few that there comes a life so interesting as
mine"; and his tune began again with an almost rollicking vigour.
What he said was perhaps true enough, if interest consists (as many
hold) in uncertainty; in his case uncertainty both of life and of all
that life gives, except that one best thing which he had
pursued--activity. Of fame he had gained little, peace he had never
tasted; of wealth he had never thought, of love--ah, of love now? His
smile and the roguish shake of his head and pull at his long black
moustache betrayed no dissatisfaction on that score. And as a fact (a
thing which must at the very beginning be distinguished from an
impression of the Captain's), people were in the habit of loving him:
he never expected exactly this, although he had much self-confidence.
Admiration was what he readily enough conceived himself to inspire;
love was a greater thing. On the whole, a fine life--why, yes, a very
fine life indeed; and plenty of it left, for he was but thirty-nine.
"It really rains," he remarked at last, with an air of amiable
surprise. "I am actually getting wet. I should be pleased to come to
a village."
Fortune may be imagined as petulantly flinging this trifling favour at
his head, in the hope, maybe, of making him realise the general
undesirability of his lot. At any rate, on rounding the next corner of
the ascending road, he saw a small village lying beneath him in the
valley. Immediately below him, at the foot of what was almost a
precipice, approached only by a rough zigzag path, lay a little river;
the village was directly opposite across the stream, but the road,
despairing of such a dip, swerved sharp off to his left, and,
descending gradually, circled one end of the valley till it came to a
bridge and thence made its way round to the cluster of houses. There
were no more than a dozen cottages, a tiny church, and an
inn--certainly an inn, thought Dieppe, as he prepared to follow the
road and pictured his supper already on the fire. But before he set
out, he turned to his right; and there he stood looking at a scene of
some beauty and of undeniable interest. A moment later he began to
walk slowly up-hill in the opposite direction to that which the road
pursued; he was minded to see a little more of the big house perched so
boldly on that bluff above the stream, looking down so scornfully at
the humble village on the other bank.
But habitations are made for men, and to Captain Dieppe beauties of
position or architecture were subordinate to any indications he might
discover or imagine of the characters of the folk who dwelt in a house
and of their manner of living. Thus, not so much the position of the
Castle (it could and did claim that title), or its handsome front, or
the high wall that enclosed it and its demesne on every side save where
it faced the river, caught his attention as the apparently trifling
fact that, whereas one half of the facade was brilliant with lights in
every window, the other half was entirely dark and, to all seeming,
uninhabited. "They are poor, they live in half the rooms only," he
said to himself. But somehow this explanation sounded inadequate. He
drew nearer, till he was close under the wall of the gardens. Then he
noticed a small gate in the wall, sheltered by a little projecting
porch. The Captain edged under the porch, took out a cigar, contrived
to light it, and stood there puffing pensively. He was protected from
the rain, which now fell very heavily, and he was asking himself again
why only half the house was lighted up. This was the kind of trivial,
yet whimsical, puzzle on which he enjoyed trying his wits.
He had stood where he was for a few minutes when he heard steps on the
other side of the wall; a moment later a key turned in the lock and the
gate opened. Dieppe turned to find himself confronted by a young man
of tall stature; the dim light showed only the vague outline of a
rather long and melancholy, but certainly handsome, face; the
stranger's air was eminently distinguished. Dieppe raised his hat and
bowed.
"You 'll excuse the liberty," he said, smiling. "I 'm on my way to the
village yonder to find quarters for the night. Your porch offered me a
short rest and shelter from the rain while I smoked a cigar. I presume
that I have the honour of addressing the owner of this fine house?"
"You 're right, sir. I am the Count of Fieramondi," said the young
man, "and this is my house. Do me the favour to enter it and refresh
yourself."
"Oh, but you entertain company, and look at me!" With a smile Dieppe
indicated his humble and travel-worn appearance.
"Company? None, I assure you."
"But the lights?" suggested the Captain, with a wave of his hand.
"You will find me quite alone," the Count assured him, as he turned
into the garden and motioned his guest to follow.
Crossing a path and a stretch of grass, they entered a room opening
immediately on the garden; it was large and high.
Situated at the corner of the house, it had two windows facing on the
garden and two towards the river. It was richly and soberly furnished,
and hung with family portraits. A blazing fire revealed these features
to Dieppe, and at the same time imparted a welcome glow to his body.
The next minute a man-servant entered with a pair of candlesticks,
which he set on the table.
"I am about to dine," said the Count. "Will you honour me with your
company?"
"Your kindness to a complete stranger--" Dieppe began.
"The kindness will be yours. Company is a favour to one who lives
alone."
And the Count proceeded to give the necessary orders to his servant.
Then, turning again to Dieppe, he said, "In return, pray let me know
the name of the gentleman who honours my house."
"I can refuse nothing to my host--to anybody else my name is the only
thing I should refuse. I am called Captain Dieppe."
"Of the French service? Though you speak Italian excellently."
"Ah, that accent of mine! No, not of the French service--in fact, not
of any service. I have been in many services, but I can show you no
commission as captain."
For the first time the Count smiled.
"It is, perhaps, a sobriquet?" he asked, but with no offensive air or
insinuation.
"The spontaneous tribute of my comrades all over the world," answered
Dieppe, proudly--"is it for me to refuse it?"
"By no means," agreed his host, smiling still; "I don't doubt that you
have amply earned it."
Dieppe's bow confirmed the supposition while it acknowledged the
compliment.
Civilities such as these, when aided by dinner and a few glasses of red
wine, soon passed into confidences--on the Captain's side at least.
Accustomed to keep other people's secrets, he burdened himself with few
of his own.
"I have always had something of a passion for politics," he confessed,
after giving his host an account of some stirring events in South
America in which he had borne a part.
"You surprise me," was the Count's comment.
"Perhaps I should say," Dieppe explained, "for handling those forces
which lie behind politics. That has been my profession." The Count
looked up.
"Oh, I 'm no sentimentalist," Dieppe went on. "I ask for my pay--I
receive it--and sometimes I contrive to keep it."
"You interest me," said his host, in whose manner Dieppe recognised an
attractive simplicity.
"But in my last enterprise--well, there are accidents in every trade."
His shrug was very good-natured.
"The enterprise failed?" asked the Count, sympathetically.
"Certainly, or I should not be enjoying your hospitality. Moreover I
failed too, for I had to skip out of the country in such haste that I
left behind me fifty thousand francs, and the police have laid hands on
it. It was my--what shall I call it? My little _pourboire_." He
sighed lightly, and then smiled again. "So I am a homeless wanderer,
content if I can escape the traps of police agents."
"You anticipate being annoyed in that way?"
"They are on my track, depend upon it." He touched the outside of his
breast pocket. "I carry--but no matter. The pursuit only adds a spice
to my walks, and so long as I don't need to sell my revolver for
bread--." He checked himself abruptly, a frown of shame or vexation on
his face. "I beg your pardon," he went on, "I beg your pardon. But
you won't take me for a beggar?"
"I regret what you have said only because you said it before I had
begged a favour of you--a favour I had resolved to venture on asking.
But come, though I don't think you a beggar, you shall be sure that I
am one." He rose and laid his hand on Dieppe's shoulder. "Stay with
me for to-night at least--and for as much longer as you will. Nobody
will trouble you. I live in solitude, and your society will lighten
it. Let me ring and give orders for your entertainment?"
Dieppe looked up at him; the next moment he caught his hand, crying,
"With all my heart, dear host! Your only difficulty shall be to get
rid of me."
The Count rang, and directed his servant to prepare the Cardinal's
Room. Dieppe noticed that the order was received with a glance of
surprise, but the master of the house repeated it, and, as the servant
withdrew, added, "It is called after an old member of our family, but I
can answer for its comfort myself, for I have occupied it until--"
"I 'm turning you out?" exclaimed Dieppe.
"I left it yesterday." The Count frowned as he sipped his wine. "I
left it owing to--er--circumstances," he murmured, with some appearance
of embarrassment in his manner.
"His Eminence is restless?" asked the Captain, laughing.
"I beg pardon?"
"I mean--a ghost?"
"No, a cat," was the Count's quiet but somewhat surprising answer.
"I don't mind cats, I am very fond of them," Dieppe declared with the
readiness of good breeding, but he glanced at his host with a curiosity
that would not be stifled. The Count lived in solitude. Half his
house--and that the other half--was brilliantly lighted, and he left
his bedroom because of a cat. Here were circumstances that might set
the least inquisitive of men thinking. It crossed Dieppe's mind that
his host was (he used a mild word) eccentric, but the Count's manner
gave little warrant for the supposition; and Dieppe could not believe
that so courteous a gentleman would amuse himself by making fun of a
guest. He listened eagerly when the Count, after a long silence, went
on to say:
"The reason I put forward must, no doubt, sound ludicrous, but the fact
is that the animal, in itself a harmless beast, became the occasion, or
was made the means, of forcing on me encounters with a person whom I
particularly wish to avoid. You, however, will not be annoyed in that
way."
There he stopped, and turned the conversation to general topics. Never
had Dieppe's politeness been subjected to such a strain.
No relief was granted to him. The Count talked freely and well on a
variety of questions till eleven o'clock, and then proposed to show his
guest to his bedroom. Dieppe accepted the offer in despair, but he
would have sat up all night had there seemed any chance of the Count's
becoming more explicit.
The Cardinal's Room was a large apartment situated on the upper floor
(there were but two), about the middle of the house; its windows looked
across the river, which rippled pleasantly in the quiet of the night
when Dieppe flung up the sash and put his head out. He turned first to
the left. Save his own room, all was dark: the Count, no doubt, slept
at the back. Then, craning his neck, he tried to survey the right
wing. The illumination was quenched; light showed in one window only,
a window on the same level with his and distant from it perhaps forty
feet. With a deep sigh the Captain drew his head back and shut out the
chilly air.
Ah, there was an inner door on the right hand side of the room; that
the Captain had not noticed before. Walking up to it, he perceived
that it was bolted at top and bottom; but the key was in the lock. He
stood and looked at this door; it seemed that it must lead, either
directly or by way of another apartment between, to the room whose
lights he had just seen. He pulled his moustache thoughtfully; and he
remembered that there was a person whom the Count particularly wished
to avoid and, owing (in some way) to a cat, could not rely on being
able to avoid if he slept in the Cardinal's Room.
"Well, then--" began Dieppe with a thoughtful frown. "Oh, I can't
stand it much longer!" he ended, with a smile and a shrug.
And then there came--the Captain was really not surprised, he had been
almost expecting it--a mew, a peevish, plaintive mew. "I won't open
that door," said the Captain. The complaint was repeated. "Poor
beast!" murmured the Captain. "Shut up in that--in that--deuce take
it, in that what?" His hand shot up to the top bolt and pressed it
softly back. "No, no," said he. Another mew defeated his struggling
conscience. Pushing back the lower bolt in its turn, he softly
unlocked the door and opened it cautiously. There in the passage--for
a narrow passage some twelve or fifteen feet long was revealed--near
his door, visible in the light from his room, was a large, sleek,
yellow cat from whose mouth was proceeding energetic lamentation. But
on sight of Dieppe the creature ceased its cries, and in apparent alarm
ran half-way along the passage and sat down beside a small hole in the
wall. From this position it regarded the intruder with solemn,
apprehensive eyes. Dieppe, holding his door wide open, returned the
animal's stare. This must be the cat which had ejected the Count. But
why--?
In a moment the half-formed question found its answer, though the
answer seemed rather to ask a new riddle than to answer the old one. A
door at the other end of the passage opened a little way, and a
melodious voice called softly, "Papa, papa!" The cat ran towards the
speaker, the door was opened wide, and for an instant Dieppe had the
vision of a beautiful young woman, clad in a white dressing-gown and
with hair about her shoulders. As he saw her she saw him, and gave a
startled shriek. The cat, apparently bewildered, raced back to the
aperture in the wall and disappeared with an agitated whisk of its
tail. The lady's door and the Captain's closed with a double
simultaneous reverberating bang, and the Captain drove his bolts home
with guilty haste.
His first act was to smoke a cigarette. That done, he began to undress
slowly and almost unconsciously. During the process he repeated to
himself more than once the Count's measured but emphatic words: "A
person whom I particularly wish to avoid." The words died away as
Dieppe climbed into the big four-poster with a wrinkle of annoyance on
his brow.
For the lady at the other end of the passage did not, to the Captain's
mind, look the sort of person whom a handsome and lonely young man
would particularly wish to avoid. In spite of the shortness of his
vision, in spite of her obvious alarm and confusion, she had, in fact,
seemed, to him very much indeed the opposite.