THE COMING OF THE CHAROLAIS
Sonia went back to her table, and once more began putting wedding-cards
in their envelopes and addressing them. Germaine moved restlessly about
the room, fidgeting with the bric-a-brac on the cabinets, shifting the
pieces about, interrupting Sonia to ask whether she preferred this
arrangement or that, throwing herself into a chair to read a magazine,
getting up in a couple of minutes to straighten a picture on the wall,
throwing out all the while idle questions not worth answering.
Ninety-nine human beings would have been irritated to exasperation by
her fidgeting; Sonia endured it with a perfect patience. Five times
Germaine asked her whether she should wear her heliotrope or her pink
gown at a forthcoming dinner at Madame de Relzières’. Five times Sonia
said, without the slightest variation in her tone, “I think you look
better in the pink.” And all the while the pile of addressed envelopes
rose steadily.
Presently the door opened, and Alfred stood on the threshold.
“Two gentlemen have called to see you, miss,” he said.
“Ah, the two Du Buits,” cried Germaine.
“They didn’t give their names, miss.”
“A gentleman in the prime of life and a younger one?” said Germaine.
“Yes, miss.”
“I thought so. Show them in.”
“Yes, miss. And have you any orders for me to give Victoire when we get
to Paris?” said Alfred.
“No. Are you starting soon?”
“Yes, miss. We’re all going by the seven o’clock train. It’s a long way
from here to Paris; we shall only reach it at nine in the morning. That
will give us just time to get the house ready for you by the time you
get there to-morrow evening,” said Alfred.
“Is everything packed?”
“Yes, miss—everything. The cart has already taken the heavy luggage to
the station. All you’ll have to do is to see after your bags.”
“That’s all right. Show M. du Buit and his brother in,” said Germaine.
She moved to a chair near the window, and disposed herself in an
attitude of studied, and obviously studied, grace.
As she leant her head at a charming angle back against the tall back of
the chair, her eyes fell on the window, and they opened wide.
“Why, whatever’s this?” she cried, pointing to it.
“Whatever’s what?” said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the
envelope she was addressing.
“Why, the window. Look! one of the panes has been taken out. It looks
as if it had been cut.”
“So it has—just at the level of the fastening,” said Sonia. And the two
girls stared at the gap.
“Haven’t you noticed it before?” said Germaine.
“No; the broken glass must have fallen outside,” said Sonia.
The noise of the opening of the door drew their attention from the
window. Two figures were advancing towards them—a short, round, tubby
man of fifty-five, red-faced, bald, with bright grey eyes, which seemed
to be continually dancing away from meeting the eyes of any other human
being. Behind him came a slim young man, dark and grave. For all the
difference in their colouring, it was clear that they were father and
son: their eyes were set so close together. The son seemed to have
inherited, along with her black eyes, his mother’s nose, thin and
aquiline; the nose of the father started thin from the brow, but ended
in a scarlet bulb eloquent of an exhaustive acquaintance with the
vintages of the world.
Germaine rose, looking at them with an air of some surprise and
uncertainty: these were not her friends, the Du Buits.
The elder man, advancing with a smiling bonhomie, bowed, and said in an
adenoid voice, ingratiating of tone: “I’m M. Charolais, young ladies—M.
Charolais—retired brewer—chevalier of the Legion of Honour—landowner at
Rennes. Let me introduce my son.” The young man bowed awkwardly. “We
came from Rennes this morning, and we lunched at Kerlor’s farm.”
“Shall I order tea for them?” whispered Sonia.
“Gracious, no!” said Germaine sharply under her breath; then, louder,
she said to M. Charolais, “And what is your object in calling?”
“We asked to see your father,” said M. Charolais, smiling with broad
amiability, while his eyes danced across her face, avoiding any meeting
with hers. “The footman told us that M. Gournay-Martin was out, but
that his daughter was at home. And we were unable, quite unable, to
deny ourselves the pleasure of meeting you.” With that he sat down; and
his son followed his example.
Sonia and Germaine, taken aback, looked at one another in some
perplexity.
“What a fine château, papa!” said the young man.
“Yes, my boy; it’s a very fine château,” said M. Charolais, looking
round the hall with appreciative but greedy eyes.
There was a pause.
“It’s a very fine château, young ladies,” said M. Charolais.
“Yes; but excuse me, what is it you have called about?” said Germaine.
M. Charolais crossed his legs, leant back in his chair, thrust his
thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and said: “Well, we’ve come
about the advertisement we saw in the RENNES ADVERTISER, that M.
Gournay-Martin wanted to get rid of a motor-car; and my son is always
saying to me, ‘I should like a motor-car which rushes the hills, papa.’
He means a sixty horse-power.”
“We’ve got a sixty horse-power; but it’s not for sale. My father is
even using it himself to-day,” said Germaine.
“Perhaps it’s the car we saw in the stable-yard,” said M. Charolais.
“No; that’s a thirty to forty horse-power. It belongs to me. But if
your son really loves rushing hills, as you say, we have a hundred
horse-power car which my father wants to get rid of. Wait; where’s the
photograph of it, Sonia? It ought to be here somewhere.”
The two girls rose, went to a table set against the wall beyond the
window, and began turning over the papers with which it was loaded in
the search for the photograph. They had barely turned their backs, when
the hand of young Charolais shot out as swiftly as the tongue of a
lizard catching a fly, closed round the silver statuette on the top of
the cabinet beside him, and flashed it into his jacket pocket.
Charolais was watching the two girls; one would have said that he had
eyes for nothing else, yet, without moving a muscle of his face, set in
its perpetual beaming smile, he hissed in an angry whisper, “Drop it,
you idiot! Put it back!”
The young man scowled askance at him.
“Curse you! Put it back!” hissed Charolais.
The young man’s arm shot out with the same quickness, and the statuette
stood in its place.
There was just the faintest sigh of relief from Charolais, as Germaine
turned and came to him with the photograph in her hand. She gave it to
him.
“Ah, here we are,” he said, putting on a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.
“A hundred horse-power car. Well, well, this is something to talk over.
What’s the least you’ll take for it?”
“_I_ have nothing to do with this kind of thing,” cried Germaine. “You
must see my father. He will be back from Rennes soon. Then you can
settle the matter with him.”
M. Charolais rose, and said: “Very good. We will go now, and come back
presently. I’m sorry to have intruded on you, young ladies—taking up
your time like this—”
“Not at all—not at all,” murmured Germaine politely.
“Good-bye—good-bye,” said M. Charolais; and he and his son went to the
door, and bowed themselves out.
“What creatures!” said Germaine, going to the window, as the door
closed behind the two visitors. “All the same, if they do buy the
hundred horse-power, papa will be awfully pleased. It is odd about that
pane. I wonder how it happened. It’s odd too that Jacques hasn’t come
back yet. He told me that he would be here between half-past four and
five.”
“And the Du Buits have not come either,” said Sonia. “But it’s hardly
five yet.”
“Yes; that’s so. The Du Buits have not come either. What on earth are
you wasting your time for?” she added sharply, raising her voice. “Just
finish addressing those letters while you’re waiting.”
“They’re nearly finished,” said Sonia.
“Nearly isn’t quite. Get on with them, can’t you!” snapped Germaine.
Sonia went back to the writing-table; just the slightest deepening of
the faint pink roses in her cheeks marked her sense of Germaine’s
rudeness. After three years as companion to Germaine Gournay-Martin,
she was well inured to millionaire manners; they had almost lost the
power to move her.
Germaine dropped into a chair for twenty seconds; then flung out of it.
“Ten minutes to five!” she cried. “Jacques is late. It’s the first time
I’ve ever known him late.”
She went to the window, and looked across the wide stretch of
meadow-land and woodland on which the château, set on the very crown of
the ridge, looked down. The road, running with the irritating
straightness of so many of the roads of France, was visible for a full
three miles. It was empty.
“Perhaps the Duke went to the château de Relzières to see his
cousin—though I fancy that at bottom the Duke does not care very much
for the Baron de Relzières. They always look as though they detested
one another,” said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the letter she
was addressing.
“You’ve noticed that, have you?” said Germaine. “Now, as far as Jacques
is concerned—he’s—he’s so indifferent. None the less, when we were at
the Relzières on Thursday, I caught him quarrelling with Paul de
Relzières.”
“Quarrelling?” said Sonia sharply, with a sudden uneasiness in air and
eyes and voice.
“Yes; quarrelling. And they said good-bye to one another in the oddest
way.”
“But surely they shook hands?” said Sonia.
“Not a bit of it. They bowed as if each of them had swallowed a poker.”
“Why—then—then—” said Sonia, starting up with a frightened air; and her
voice stuck in her throat.
“Then what?” said Germaine, a little startled by her panic-stricken
face.
“The duel! Monsieur de Relzières’ duel!” cried Sonia.
“What? You don’t think it was with Jacques?”
“I don’t know—but this quarrel—the Duke’s manner this morning—the Du
Buits’ drive—” said Sonia.
“Of course—of course! It’s quite possible—in fact it’s certain!” cried
Germaine.
“It’s horrible!” gasped Sonia. “Consider—just consider! Suppose
something happened to him. Suppose the Duke—”
“It’s me the Duke’s fighting about!” cried Germaine proudly, with a
little skipping jump of triumphant joy.
Sonia stared through her without seeing her. Her face was a dead
white—fear had chilled the lustre from her skin; her breath panted
through her parted lips; and her dilated eyes seemed to look on some
dreadful picture.
Germaine pirouetted about the hall at the very height of triumph. To
have a Duke fighting a duel about her was far beyond the wildest dreams
of snobbishness. She chuckled again and again, and once she clapped her
hands and laughed aloud.
“He’s fighting a swordsman of the first class—an invincible
swordsman—you said so yourself,” Sonia muttered in a tone of anguish.
“And there’s nothing to be done—nothing.”
She pressed her hands to her eyes as if to shut out a hideous vision.
Germaine did not hear her; she was staring at herself in a mirror, and
bridling to her own image.
Sonia tottered to the window and stared down at the road along which
must come the tidings of weal or irremediable woe. She kept passing her
hand over her eyes as if to clear their vision.
Suddenly she started, and bent forward, rigid, all her being
concentrated in the effort to see.
Then she cried: “Mademoiselle Germaine! Look! Look!”
“What is it?” said Germaine, coming to her side.
“A horseman! Look! There!” said Sonia, waving a hand towards the road.
“Yes; and isn’t he galloping!” said Germaine.
“It’s he! It’s the Duke!” cried Sonia.
“Do you think so?” said Germaine doubtfully.
“I’m sure of it—sure!”
“Well, he gets here just in time for tea,” said Germaine in a tone of
extreme satisfaction. “He knows that I hate to be kept waiting. He said
to me, ‘I shall be back by five at the latest.’ And here he is.”
“It’s impossible,” said Sonia. “He has to go all the way round the
park. There’s no direct road; the brook is between us.”
“All the same, he’s coming in a straight line,” said Germaine.
It was true. The horseman had left the road and was galloping across
the meadows straight for the brook. In twenty seconds he reached its
treacherous bank, and as he set his horse at it, Sonia covered her
eyes.
“He’s over!” said Germaine. “My father gave three hundred guineas for
that horse.”