BOOKS
The London express rolled with stately deliberation into Brayport
station. Mr. Bodery folded up his newspapers, reached down his bag from
the netting, and prepared to alight. The editor of the _Beacon_ had
enjoyed a very pleasant journey, despite broiling sun and searching
dust. He knew the possibilities of a first-class smoking-carriage--how
to regulate the leeward window and chock off the other with a wooden
match borrowed from the guard.
He stepped from the carriage with the laboured sprightliness of a man
past the forties, and a moment later Sidney Carew was at his side.
“Mr. Bodery?”
“The same. You are no doubt Mr. Carew?”
“Yes. Thanks for coming. Hope it didn't inconvenience you?”
“Not at all,” replied the editor, breaking his return ticket.
“D----n!” said Sidney suddenly.
He was beginning to rise to the occasion. He was one of those men who
are usually too slack to burthen their souls with a refreshing
expletive.
“What is the matter?” inquired Mr. Bodery gravely.
“There is a man,” explained Sidney hurriedly, “getting out of the train
who is coming to stay with us. I had forgotten his existence. _Don't_
look round!”
Mr. Bodery was a Londoner. He did not look round. Nine out of ten
country-bred people would have indulged in a stare.
“Is this all your luggage?” continued Sidney abruptly. He certainly was
rising.
“Yes.”
“Then come along. We'll bolt for it. He'll have to get a fly, and that
means ten minutes' start if the porter is not officious and mulls
things.”
They hurried out of the station and clambered into the dog-cart. Sidney
gathered up the reins.
“Hang it,” he exclaimed. “What bad luck! There is a fly waiting. It is
never there when you want it.”
Mr. Bodery looked between the shafts.
“You need not be afraid of that fly,” he said.
“No--come up, you brute!”
Mr. Bodery turned carelessly to put his bag in the back of the cart.
“Let him have it,” he exclaimed in a low voice. “Your friend sees you,
but he does not know that you have seen him. He is pointing you out to
the station-master.”
As he spoke the cart swung round the gate-post of the station yard,
nearly throwing him out, and Sidney's right hand felt for the
whip-socket.
“There,” he said, “we are safe. I think I can manage that fly.”
Mr. Bodery settled himself and drew the dust-cloth over his chubby
knees.
“Now,” he said, “tell me all about Vellacott.”
Sidney did so.
He gave a full and minute description of events previous to Christian
Vellacott's disappearance, omitting nothing. The relation was somewhat
disjointed, somewhat vague in parts, and occasionally incoherent. The
narrator repeated himself--hesitated--blurted out some totally
irrelevant fact, and finished up with a vague supposition (possessing a
solid basis of truth) expressed in doubtful English. It suited Mr.
Bodery admirably. In telling all about Vellacott, Sidney unconsciously
told all about Mrs. Carew, Molly, Hilda, and himself. When he reached
the point in his narration telling how Vellacott had been attracted into
the garden, he became extremely vague and his style notably colloquial.
Tell the story how he would, he felt that he could not prevent Mr.
Bodery from drawing his own inferences. Young ladies are not in the
habit of whistling for youthful members of the opposite sex. Few of them
master the labial art, which perhaps accounts for much. Sidney Carew was
conscious that his style lacked grace and finish.
Mr. Bodery did draw his own inferences, but the countenance into which
Sidney glanced at intervals was one of intense stolidity.
“Well, I confess I cannot make it out--at present,” he said; “Vellacott
has written to us only on business matters. We publish to-morrow a very
good article of his purporting to be the dream of an overworked
_attaché_. It is very cutting and very incriminating. The Government
cannot well avoid taking some notice of it. My only hope is that he is
in Paris. There is something brewing over there. Our Paris agent wired
for Vellacott this morning. By the way, Mr. Carew, is there a monastery
somewhere in this part of the country?”
“Down that valley,” replied Sidney, pointing with his whip.
“In Vellacott's article there is mention of a monastery--not too
minutely described, however. There are also some remarkable suppositions
respecting an old foreigner living in seclusion. Could that be the man
you mentioned just now--Signor Bruno?”
“Hardly. Bruno is a harmless old soul,” replied Sidney, pulling up to
turn into the narrow gateway.
There was no time to make further inquiries.
Sidney led the way into the drawing-room. The ladies were there.
“My mother, Mr. Bodery--my sister; my sister Hilda,” he blurted out
awkwardly.
Mrs. Carew shook hands, and the two young ladies bowed. They were all
disappointed in Mr. Bodery. He was too calm and comfortable--also there
was a suggestion of cigar smoke in his presence, which jarred.
“I am sorry,” said the Londoner, with genial self-possession, “to owe
the pleasure of this visit to such an unfortunate incident.”
Molly felt that she hated him.
“Then you have heard nothing of Christian?” said Mrs. Carew.
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Bodery, removing his tight gloves. “But it is too
soon to think of getting anxious yet. Vellacott is eminently capable of
taking care of himself--he is, above all things, a journalist. Things
are disturbed in Paris, and it is possible that he has run across
there.”
Mrs. Carew smiled somewhat incredulously.
“It was a singular time to start,” observed Hilda quietly.
Mr. Bodery turned and looked at her.
“Master mind in _this_ house,” he reflected.
“Yes,” he admitted aloud.
He folded his gloves and placed them in the pocket of his coat. The
others watched him in silence.
“Do you take sugar and cream?” inquired Hilda sweetly, speaking for the
second time.
“Please--both. In moderation.”
“I say,” interrupted Sidney at this moment, “the Vicomte d'Audierne is
following us in a fly. He will be here in five minutes.”
Mrs. Carew nodded. She had not forgotten this guest.
“The Vicomte d'Audierne,” said Mr. Bodery, with considerable interest,
turning away from the tea-table, cup in hand. “Is that the man who got
out of my train?”
“Yes,” replied Sidney; “do you know him?”
“I have heard of him.” Mr. Bodery turned and took a slice of bread and
butter from a plate which Hilda held.
At this moment there was a rumble of carriage wheels.
“By the way,” said the editor of the _Beacon_, raising his voice so as
to command universal attention, “do not tell the Vicomte d'Audierne
about Vellacott. Do not let him know that Vellacott has been here. Do
not tell him of my connection with the _Beacon_.”
The ladies barely had time to reconsider their first impression of Mr.
Bodery when the door was thrown open, and a servant announced M.
d'Audierne.
He who entered immediately afterwards--with an almost indecent
haste--was of middle height, with a certain intrepid carriage of the
head which appeals to such as take pleasure in the strength and
endurance of men. His face, which was clean shaven, was the face of a
hawk, with the contracted myope vision characteristic of that bird. It
is probable that from the threshold he took in every occupant of the
room.
“Mrs. Carew,” he said in a pleasant voice, speaking almost faultless
English, “after all these years. What a pleasure!”
He shook hands, turning at the same time to the others.
“And Sid,” he said, “and Molly--wicked little Molly. Never mind--your
antecedents are safe. I am silent as the grave.”
This was not strictly true. He was as deep, and deeper than the
resting-place mentioned, but his method was superior to silence.
“And Hilda,” he continued, “thoughtful little Hilda, who was always too
busy to be naughty. Not like Molly, eh?”
“Heavens! How old it makes one feel!” he exclaimed, turning to Mrs.
Carew.
The lady laughed.
“You are not changed, at all events,” she said. “Allow me to introduce
Mr. Bodery--the Vicomte d'Audierne.”
The two men bowed.
“Much pleasure,” said the Frenchman.
Mr. Bodery bowed again in an insular manner, which just escaped
awkwardness, and said nothing.
Then Molly offered the new-comer some tea, and the party broke up into
groups. But the Vicomte's personality in some subtle manner pervaded the
room. Mr. Bodery lapsed into monosyllables and felt ponderous. Monsieur
d'Audierne had it in his power to make most men feel ponderous when the
spirit moved him in that direction.
As soon as tea was finally disposed of Mrs. Carew proposed an
adjournment to the garden. She was desirous of getting Mr. Bodery to
herself.
It fell to Hilda's lot to undertake the Frenchman. They had been great
friends once, and she was quite ready to renew the pleasant
relationship. She led her guest to the prettiest part of the garden--the
old overgrown footpath around the moat.
As soon as they had passed under the nut-trees into the open space at
the edge of the water, the Vicomte d'Audierne stopped short and looked
round him curiously. At the same time he gave a strange little laugh.
“_Hein--hein--c'est drôle_,” he muttered, and the girl remembered that
in the old friendship between the brilliant, middle-aged diplomatist and
the little child they had always spoken French. She liked to hear him
speak his own language, for in his lips it received full justice: it was
the finest tongue spoken on this earth. But she did not feel disposed
just then to humour him. She looked at him wonderingly as his deep eyes
wandered over the scene.
While they stood there, something--probably a kestrel--disturbed the
rooks dwelling in the summits of the still elms across the moat, and
they rose simultaneously in the air with long-drawn cries.
“Ah! Ah--h!” said the Vicomte, with a singular smile.
And then Hilda forgot her shyness.
“What is it?” she inquired in the language she had always spoken to this
man.
He turned and walked beside her, suiting his steps to hers, for some
moments before replying.
“I was not here at all,” he said at length, apologetically; “I was far
away from you. It was impolite. I am sorry.”
He intended that she should laugh, and she did so softly. “Where were
you?” she inquired, glancing at him beneath her golden lashes.
Again he paused.
“There is,” he said at length, “an old _château_ in Morbihan--many
miles from a railway--in the heart of a peaceful country. It has a moat
like this--there are elms--there are rooks that swing up into the air
like that and call--and one does not know why they do it, and what they
are calling. Listen, little girl--they are calling something. What is
it? I think I was _there_. It was impolite--I am sorry, Miss Carew.”
She laughed again sympathetically and without mirth; for she was meant
to laugh.
He looked back over his shoulder at times as if the calling of the rooks
jarred upon his nerves.
“I do not think I like them--” he said, “now.”
He was not apparently disposed to be loquacious as he had been at first.
Possibly the rooks had brought about this change. Hilda also had her
thoughts. At times she glanced at the water with a certain shrinking in
her heart. She had not yet forgotten the moments she had passed at the
edge of the moat the night before. They walked right round the moat and
down a little pathway through the elm wood without speaking. The rooks
had returned to their nests and only called to each other querulously at
intervals.
“Has it ever occurred to you, little girl,” said the Vicomte d'Audierne
suddenly, “to doubt the wisdom of the Creator's arrangements for our
comfort, or otherwise, here below?”
“I suppose not,” he went on, without waiting for an answer, which she
remembered as an old trick of his. “You are a woman--it is different for
you.”
The girl said nothing. She may have thought differently; one cannot
always read a maiden's thoughts.
They walked on together. Suddenly the Vicomte d'Audierne spoke.
“Who is this?” he said.
Hilda followed the direction of his eyes.
“That,” she answered, “is Signor Bruno. An old Italian exile. A friend
of ours.”
Bruno came forward, hat in hand, bowing and smiling in his charming way.
Hilda introduced the two men, speaking in French.
“I did not know,” said Signor Bruno, with outspread hands, “that you
spoke French like a Frenchwoman.”
Hilda laughed.
“Had it,” she said, with a sudden inspiration, “been Italian, I should
have told you.”
There was a singular smile visible, for a moment only, in the eyes of
the Vicomte d'Audierne, and then he spoke.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “learnt most of it from me. We are old
friends.”
Signor Bruno bowed. He did not look too well pleased.
“Ah--but is that so?” he murmured conversationally.
“Yes; I hope she learnt nothing else from me,” replied the Vicomte
carelessly.
Hilda turned upon him with a questioning smile.
“Why?”
“I do not imagine, little girl,” replied d'Audierne, “that you could
learn very much that is good from me.”
Hilda gave a non-committing little laugh, and led the way through the
nut-trees towards the house. The Vicomte d'Audierne followed, and Signor
Bruno came last. When they emerged upon the lawn in view of Mrs. Carew
and Mr. Bodery, who were walking together, the Vicomte dropped his
handkerchief. Signor Bruno attempted to pick it up, and there was a
slight delay caused by the interchange of some Gallic politeness.
Before the two foreigners came up with Hilda, who had walked on, Signor
Bruno found time to say:
“I must see you to-night, without fail; I am in a very difficult
position. I have had to resort to strong measures.”
“Where?” inquired the Vicomte d'Audierne, with that pleasant nonchalance
which is so aggravating to the People.
“In the village, any time after nine; a yellow cottage near the well.”
“Good!”
And they joined Hilda Carew.