ROQUEBRUNE REVISITED
There, accordingly, they met on the following afternoon. Pamela rode
across the level country between the Croft Hill which overhung her
house, and the village. In front of her the three poplars pointed
skywards from the ridge. She was anxious and troubled. It seemed to
her that Millie Stretton was slipping beyond her reach; but the sight
of those trees lightened her of some portion of her distress. She was
turning more and more in her thoughts towards Warrisden whenever
trouble knocked upon her door. In the moment of greatest perplexity
his companionship, or even the thought of it, rested her like sleep.
As she came round the bend of the road at the foot of the hill, she
saw him coming down the slope towards her. She quickened her horse,
and trotted up to him.
"You are here already?" she said. "I am very glad. I was not sure that
I had allowed you time enough."
"Oh yes," said Warrisden. "I came at once. I guessed why you wanted me
from the choice of our meeting-place. We meet at Quetta, on the same
business which brought us together at Quetta before. Is not that so?"
"Yes," said Pamela.
They walked to the door of the inn at the top of the hill. An ostler
took charge of Pamela's horse, and they went within to the parlour.
"You want me to find Stretton again?" said Warrisden.
Pamela looked at him remorsefully.
"Well, I do," she answered; and there was compunction in the tone of
her voice. "I would not ask you unless the matter was very urgent. I
have used you for my needs, I know, with too little consideration for
you, and you very generously and willingly have allowed me to use you.
So I am a little ashamed to come to you again."
Here were strange words from Pamela. They were spoken with hesitation,
too, and the colour burned in her cheeks. Warrisden was surprised to
hear them. He laid his hand upon her arm and gave it a little
affectionate shake.
"My dear, I am serving myself," he said, "just as much as I am serving
you. Don't you understand that? Have you forgotten our walk under the
elms in Lady Millingham's garden? If Tony returned, and returned in
time, why, then you might lay your finger on the turnpike gate and let
it swing open of its own accord. I remember what you said. Tony's
return helps me, so I help myself in securing his return."
Pamela's face softened into a smile.
"Then you really do not mind going?" she went on. "I am remorseful, in
a way, because I asked you to go once before in this very room, and
nothing came of all your trouble. I want you to believe now that I
could not ask you again to undergo the same trouble, or even more, as
it may prove, were not the need ever so much more urgent than it was
then."
"I am sorry to hear that the need is more urgent," Warrisden replied;
"but, on the other hand, the trouble I shall have to bear is much
less, for I know where Stretton is."
Pamela felt that half of the load of anxiety was taken from her
shoulders.
"You do?" she exclaimed.
Warrisden nodded.
"And what he is doing. He is serving with the Foreign Legion in
Algeria. I thought you might want to lay your hands on him again, and
I wished to be ready. Chance gave me a clue--an envelope with a
postmark. I followed up the clue by securing an example of Stretton's
handwriting. It was the same handwriting as that which directed the
envelope, so I was sure."
"Thank you," said Pamela. "Indeed, you do not fail me;" and her voice
was musical with gratitude.
"He was at Ain-Sefra, a little town on the frontier of Algeria,"
Warrisden resumed. And Pamela interrupted him--
"Then I need not make so heavy a demand upon you after all," she said.
"It was only a letter which I was going to ask you to carry to Tony.
Now there is no necessity that yon should go at all, for I can post
it."
She produced the letter from a pocket of her coat as she spoke.
"Ah, but will it reach Stretton if you do?" said Warrisden.
Pamela had already seated herself at the table, and was drawing the
inkstand towards her. She paused at Warrisden's question, and looked
up.
"Surely Ain-Sefra, Algeria, will find him?"
"Will it?" Warrisden repeated. He sat down at the table opposite to
her. "Even if it does, will it reach him in time? You say the need is
urgent. Well, it was last summer when I saw the postmark on the
envelope, two days after we talked together in Lady Millingham's
garden. I had business in London."
"I remember," said Pamela.
"My business was just to find out where Stretton was hiding himself.
He was at Ain-Sefra then; he may be at Ain-Sefra now. But it is a
small post, and he may not. The headquarters of the Legion are at Sidi
Bel-Abbes, in the north. He may be there, or he may be altogether out
of reach on some Saharan expedition."
There was yet another possibility which occurred to both their minds
at this moment. It was possible that no letter would ever reach
Stretton again; that Warrisden, searched he never so thoroughly, would
not be able to find the man he searched for. There are so many graves
in the Sahara. But neither of them spoke of this possibility, though a
quick look they interchanged revealed to each its presence in the
other's thoughts.
"Besides, he wanted to lie hidden. So much I know, who know nothing of
his story. Would he have enlisted under his own name, do you think?
Or even under his own nationality? It is not the common practice in
the Foreign Legion. And that's not all. Even were he soldiering openly
under his own name, how will you address your letter with any
likelihood that it will reach him? Just 'La Legion Etrangere'? We want
to know to what section of la Legion Etrangere he belongs. Is he
chasseur, artilleryman, sapper? Perhaps he serves in the cavalry. Then
which is his squadron? Is he a plain foot soldier? Then in what
battalion, and what rank does he occupy? We cannot answer any of these
questions, and, unanswered, they certainly delay your letter; they may
prevent it ever reaching him at all."
Pamela laid down her pen and stared blankly at "Warrisden. He piled up
the objections one by one in front of her until it seemed she would
lose Tony once more from her sight after she had got him for a moment
within her vision.
"So you had better entrust your letter to me," he concluded. "Address
it to Stretton under his own name. I will find him, if he is to be
found, never fear. I will find him very quickly."
Pamela addressed the letter. Yet she held it for a little time in her
hand after it was addressed. All the while Warrisden had been speaking
she had felt an impulse strong within her to keep him back; and it was
because of that impulse, rather than with any thought of Millie
Stretton and the danger in which she stood, that Pamela asked
doubtfully--
"How long will you be?"
"I should find him within ten days."
Pamela smiled suddenly.
"It is not so very long," said she; and she handed the letter across
to Warrisden. "Well, go!" she cried, with a certain effort. "Telegraph
to me when you have found Tony. Bring him back, and come back
yourself." She added, in a voice which was very low and wistful,
"Please come back soon!" Then she rose from the table, and Warrisden
put the letter in his pocket and rose too.
"You will be at home, I suppose, in ten days?" he said. And Pamela
said quickly, as though some new idea had just been suggested to her
mind--
"Oh, wait a moment!"
She stood quite still and thoughtful. There was a certain test by
which she had meant to find the soundings of heart. Here was a good
opportunity to apply the test. Warrisden would be away upon his
journey; she could not help Millie Stretton now by remaining in
England. She determined to apply the test.
"No," she said slowly. "Telegraph to me at the Villa Pontignard,
Roquebrune, Alpes Maritimes, France. I shall be travelling thither
immediately."
Her decision was taken upon an instant. It was the logical outcome of
her thoughts and of Warrisden's departure; and since Warrisden went
because of Millie Stretton, Pamela's journey to the South of France
was due, in a measure, to that lady, too. Yet no one would have been
more astonished than Millie Stretton had she learned of Pamela's visit
at this time. She would have been quick to change her own plans; but
she had no knowledge of whither Pamela's thoughts were leading her.
When Callon in the hansom cab had said to her, "Come South," her first
swift reflection had been, "Pamela will be safe in England." She
herself had refused to go south with Pamela. Pamela's desire to go was
to her mind a mere false pretext to get her away from her one friend.
If she did not go south, she was very sure that Pamela would not.
There had seemed to her no safer place than the Riviera. But she was
wrong. Here, in the village of the Three Poplars, Pamela had made her
decision.
"I shall go to Roquebrune as soon as I can make arrangements for a
servant or two," she said.
"Roquebrune," said Warrisden, as he wrote down the address. "I once
walked up a long flight of steps to that village many years ago.
Perhaps you were at the villa then. I wonder. You must have been a
little girl. It was one February. I came over from Monte Carlo, and we
walked up from the station. We met the schoolmaster."
"M. Giraud!" exclaimed Pamela.
"Was that his name? He had written a little history of the village and
the Corniche road. He took me under his wing. We went into a wine shop
on the first floor of a house in the middle of the village, and we sat
there quite a long time. He asked us about Paris and London with an
eagerness which was quite pathetic. He came down with us to the
station, and his questions never ceased. I suppose he was lonely
there."
Pamela nodded her head.
"Very. He did not sleep all night for thinking of what you had told
him."
"You were there, then?" cried Warrisden.
"Yes; M. Giraud used to read French with me. He came to me one
afternoon quite feverish. Two Englishmen had come up to Roquebrune,
and had talked to him about the great towns and the lighted streets.
He was always dreaming of them. Poor man, he is at Roquebrune still,
no doubt."
She spoke with a great tenderness and pity, looking out of the window,
and for the moment altogether lost to her surroundings. Warrisden
roused her from her reverie.
"I must be going away."
Pamela's horse was brought to the door, and she mounted.
"Walk down the hill beside my horse," she said; "just as you did
on that other day, when the hill was slippery, your hand upon his
neck--so."
Very slowly they walked down the hill. There were no driving mists
to-day, the evening was coming with a great peace, the fields and
woods lay spread beneath them toned to a tranquil grey. The white road
glimmered. At the bottom of the hill Pamela stopped.
"Good-bye," she said; and there was more tenderness in her voice and
in her face than he had ever known. She laid her hand upon his arm and
bent down to him.
"Come back to me," she said wistfully. "I do not like letting you go;
and yet I am rather proud to know that you are doing something for me
which I could not do for myself, and that you do it so very
willingly."
She did not wait to hear any answer, but took her hand from his arm
and rode quickly away. That turnpike gate of friendship had already
swung open of its own accord. As she rode from Quetta that evening,
she passed beyond it, and went gratefully and hopefully, with the
other men and women, down the appointed road.
She knew it while she was riding homewards to the Croft Hill. She knew
it, and was very glad. She rode home very slowly through the tranquil
evening, and gave herself up to joy. It was warm, and there was a
freshness in the air as though the world renewed itself. Darkness
came; only the road glimmered ahead of her--the new road, which was
the old road. Even that glimmer of white had almost vanished when at
last she saw the lighted windows of her father's house. The footman
told her that dinner was already served, but she ran past him very
quickly up the stairs, and coming to her own room, locked the door and
sat for a long while in the darkness, her blood throbbing in her
veins, her whole heart uplifted, not thinking at all, but just living,
and living most joyfully. She sat so still that she might have been in
a swoon; but it was the stillness of perfect happiness. She knew the
truth that night.
But, none the less, she travelled south towards the end of the week,
since there a telegram would come to her. She persuaded a convenient
aunt to keep her company, who has nothing whatever to do with this
story; and reaching Villa Pontignard one afternoon, walked through the
familiar rooms which she had so dreaded ever to revisit. She went out
to the narrow point of the garden where so often she had dreamed with
M. Giraud of the outside world, its roaring cities and its jostle of
people. She sat down upon the parapet. Below her the cliff fell sheer,
and far below, in the darkness at the bottom of the gorge, the water
tumbled in foam with a distant hum. On the opposite hill the cypresses
stood out black from the brown and green. Here she had suffered
greatly, but the wounds were healed. These dreaded places had no
longer power to hurt. She knew that very surely. She was emancipated
from sorrow, and as she sat there in the still, golden afternoon, the
sense of freedom ran riot in her blood. She looked back over the years
to the dragging days of misery, the sleepless nights. She felt a pity
for the young girl who had then looked down from this parapet and
prayed for death; who had counted the many years of life in front of
her; who had bewailed her very strength and health. But ever her eyes
turned towards the Mediterranean and searched the horizon. For beyond
that blue, calm sea stretched the coasts of Algeria.
There was but one cloud to darken Pamela's happiness during these days
while she waited for Warrisden's telegram. On the morning after she
had arrived, the old cure climbed from the village to visit her.
Almost Pamela's first question was of M. Giraud.
"He is still here?"
"Yes, he is still here," replied the cure; but he pursed up his lips
and shook his head.
"I must send for him," said Pamela.
The cure said nothing. He was standing by the window, and almost
imperceptibly he shrugged his shoulders as though he doubted her
wisdom. In a moment Pamela was at his side.
"What is it?" she asked gently. "Tell me."
"Oh, mademoiselle, there is little to tell! He is not the schoolmaster
you once knew. That is all. The wine shop has made the difference--the
wine shop and discontent. He was always dissatisfied, you know. It is
a pity."
"I am so sorry," said Pamela, gravely, "so very sorry."
She was silent for a while, and greatly troubled by the cure's news.
"Has he married?" she asked.
"No."
"It would have been better if he had."
"No doubt, mademoiselle," said the cure, "but he has not, and I think
it is now too late."
Pamela did not send for M. Giraud. It seemed to her that she could do
no good even if at her request he came to her. She would be going away
in a few days. She would only hurt him and put him to shame before
her. She took no step towards a renewal of their friendship, and
though she did not avoid him, she never came across him in her walks.
For ten days she walked the old hill paths, and dreams came to her
with the sunlight. They gave her company in the evenings, too, when
she looked from her garden upon the quiet sea and saw, away upon the
right, the lights, like great jewels, burning on the terrace of Monte
Carlo. She went down one morning on to that terrace, and, while seated
upon a bench, suddenly saw, at a little distance, the back of a man
which was familiar to her.
She was not sure, but she was chilled with apprehension. She watched
from behind her newspaper, and in a little while she was sure, for the
man turned and showed his face. It was Lionel Callon. What was he
doing here, she asked herself? And another question trod fast upon the
heels of the first. "Was he alone?"
Callon was alone on this morning, at all events. Pamela saw him speak
to one or two people, and then mount the terrace steps towards the
town. She gave him a little time, and then, walking through the
gardens, bought a visitors' list at the kiosk in front of the Rooms.
She found Callon's name. He was the only visitor at a Reserve, on the
Corniche road, which was rather a restaurant than a hotel. She
searched through the list, fearing to find the name of Millie Stretton
under the heading of some other hotel. To her relief it was not there.
It was possible, of course, that Callon was merely taking a holiday by
himself. She wished to believe that, and yet there was a fear speaking
loudly at her heart. "Suppose that Tony should return too late just by
a few days!" She was still holding the paper in her hands when she
heard her name called, and, turning about, saw some friends. She
lunched with them at Ciro's, and asked carelessly during luncheon--
"You have not seen Millie Stretton, I suppose?"
"No," they all replied. And one asked, "Is she expected?"
"I don't know whether she will come or not," Pamela replied. "I asked
her to come with me, but she could not do that, and she was not sure
that she would come at all."
This she said, thinking that if Millie did arrive it might seem that
she came because Pamela herself was there. Pamela went back to
Roquebrune that afternoon, and after she had walked through the
village and had come out on the slope of hill above, she met the
postman coming down from the Villa Pontignard.
"You have a telegram for me?" she said anxiously.
"Mademoiselle," he replied, "I have just left it at the house."
Pamela hurried on, and found the telegram in the _salon_. She tore it
open. It was from Warrisden. It told her that Tony Stretton was found,
and would return. It gave the news in vague and guarded language,
mentioning no names. But Pamela understood the message. Tony Stretton
was actually coming back. "Would he come too late?" she asked, gazing
out in fear across the sea. Of any trouble, out there in Algeria,
which might delay his return, she did not think at all. If it was true
that he had enlisted in the Legion, there might be obstacles to a
quick return. But such matters were not in her thoughts. She thought
only of Callon upon the terrace of Monte Carlo. "Would Tony come too
late?" she asked; and she prayed that he might come in time.