THE WOMAN IN THE CASE.
In the sun-spangled stretch of shade under the acacias of the Villa
Rossignol four drank coffee and talked of Andrew Vane. Mrs. Carnby had
remained in Paris three weeks beyond her usual time; first, because the
weather had been no more than bearably warm; and second, because the
decorator who was renovating the _salon_ of the villa had been somewhat
more than bearably slow. The first of June, however, found her at
Poissy, and the Villa Rossignol once more prepared to receive and
discharge a continually varying stream of guests with the regularity of
a self-feeding press.
There was something very admirable about the hospitality of the Villa
Rossignol. In the first place, there were fourteen bedrooms; and in the
second, a hostess who never made plans for her guests; and in the third,
no fixed hour for first breakfast. People came by unexpected trains,
and, finding every one out, ordered, as the sex might be, whiskey and
cigarettes, or tea and a powder-box, and were served, and, in general,
made themselves at home, till Mrs. Carnby returned from driving or
canoeing. And seemingly there was always a saddle-horse at liberty in
the stable, no matter how many might be riding; and a vacant corner to
be found, inside or out, without regard to the number of _tete-a-tetes_
already in progress. In a word, Mrs. Carnby knew to perfection how
_laisser aller_ and whom _laisser venir_--the which, all said and done,
appear to be the qualities most admirable in an out-of-town hostess, by
very reason, perhaps, of their being the least common.
So, at all events, thought Mrs. Carnby's three guests as they took their
coffee-cups from her and, sipping the first over-hot spoonfuls
cautiously, shuffled a few topics of conversation, in an attempt to find
one which invited elaboration. They were consumedly comfortable: for
breakfast had been served on the stroke of one, with five members of the
house-party absent. The remaining three were grateful for a punctuality
which was not concerned with the greatest good of the greatest number.
"It was so wise of you not to wait breakfast, Louisa," observed Mrs.
Ratchett, and her voice resembled as much as anything the purr of a
particularly well-bred kitten. "I was as hollow as a shell an hour ago.
By this time I'd infallibly have caved in."
"It's nothing short of imbecile to wait for people who're out in an
automobile," replied Mrs. Carnby. "Whenever any one brings a machine
down here, and takes some of my guests to ride, I have all the clocks in
the house regulated, and order Armand to announce breakfast and dinner
on the stroke of the hour. It's only just to the sane people who may
happen to be visiting me."
"In the present instance," put in Radwalader, "it's to be supposed that
the others will have sense enough to get breakfast at the spot nearest
available to that of the breakdown."
"The breakdown? You take a deal for granted, Radwalader," said Gerald
Kennedy, gazing up into the shifting foliage of the acacias.
"I, too, have been _en auto_," answered Radwalader, "and am familiar
with the inevitable feature of a run. At this moment Andrew Vane is in
his shirt-sleeves and a pitiful perspiration, violently turning a crank
and talking under his breath. Or else he's flat on his back, under the
car, with only his feet sticking out. Can you believe otherwise, after
the evidence of those five vacant chairs?"
"How sensible we are, we four!" smiled Mrs. Ratchett.
"Ours is the conservatism of the lilies of the field," supplemented
Radwalader. "We spin not, therefore neither do we toil."
"I fancy Vane is regretting having left his chauffeur to breakfast in
the servant's hall," said Kennedy.
"And I, that, if anything, Vane is the better mechanician of the two,"
said Radwalader. "The boy's aptitude is really quite astounding. He
learned that machine in an hour, Pivert tells me, and now knows it
better than Pivert himself. He's only renting it by the week, you know,
but old Mr. Sterling will be called upon for the purchase-price, if I'm
not mistaken, before he's a month older."
"One might be justified in remarking," said Mrs. Ratchett, "that Andrew
Vane is--er--going it--don't you think?--in a fashion little short of
precipitous."
"_Wein--Weib--Gesang_," murmured Kennedy, with his eyes in the trees.
"I know he sings," commented Mrs. Carnby, "but I hadn't heard of his
drinking."
"Or of his--oh yes I had, too!" Mrs. Ratchett caught herself up
abruptly, with a suspicion of a blush. "Some one told me he was fast
going to the--er--"
"Cats?" suggested Kennedy amiably.
"Gerald, you're indecent!" exclaimed Mrs. Carnby. "And remember, I won't
listen to gossip about my guests--except Madame Palffy. For the moment,
Mr. Vane's reputation is under the protection of mine."
Radwalader leaned back in his chair, and yawned without shame.
"Vane is developing, that's all," he said. "It's a thing rather to be
desired than otherwise. Paris does such a deal for the raw American, in
the way of opening his eyes. Vane is just beginning to 'learn how.' I've
no doubt that in Boston he ate his lettuce with sugar and vinegar, and
thought it effeminate to have his nails manicured. Now that he's
acquiring the art of living, pray make some allowance for the crude
colouring of his _exquisses_. The finished picture will be a creation
of marked merit, I warrant you. I've seen a good bit of Vane, and he can
be trusted to take care of himself."
"The question is whether he can be trusted to have other people take
care of him," said Mrs. Ratchett viciously, looking at Radwalader over
the edge of her coffee-cup.
"I don't think you dangerous, dear lady."
"Radwalader is always so unselfish," said Mrs. Carnby. "He escapes
embarrassing situations by walking out on other people's heads."
"I deserved it," laughed Mrs. Ratchett. "But I really wasn't thinking of
you, Radwalader. I heard there was a lady in the case of Mr. Vane."
"I credit him with more originality," said Radwalader. "No, believe me,
the facts are no more than must be expected in a young man who has been
tied to apron-strings for an appreciable number of years."
"Not that old Mr. Sterling wears aprons," observed Mrs. Carnby.
"And not that I was referring to old Mr. Sterling. I had in mind the
very estimable United States of America, which wash so much dirty linen
in public that it would be something more than surprising if there were
not a supply of particularly starchy apron-strings continually on
hand--in Boston in particular. Vane has been taught her creed, which is
to make a necessity of virtue. His daily fare has been a _rechauffe_ of
worn-out fallacies. I haven't a doubt but what he's been instructed
that an honest man is the noblest work of God, and I've no idea that
he's ever understood till now that vice is its own reward, or how
immaterial it is whether a thing is gold or not, so long as it really
glitters."
He turned a tiny glass of _fine_ into his coffee, and continued,
stirring it thoughtfully:
"What happens when you turn your stable-bred colt out to pasture for the
first time? Doesn't he kick up his heels and snort? Assuredly. And we
don't take that as an evidence, do we, that, all in good time, he won't
run neck and neck with the best of them, and perhaps carry off the Grand
Prix? I always believe in cultivating charity, if only for one
comfortable quality attributed to it. Let's be charitable in the case of
Vane. He's only kicking up his heels and snorting."
"If you're going to assume the mantle of charity with the view of
covering the multitude of your sins--!" suggested Mrs. Carnby.
"We'll have to send it to the tailor's to have the tucks let out," said
Radwalader, with infinite good humour. "Exactly, dear friend. Forgive me
my little sermon. You see, the physician doesn't preach, as a rule, and
I'm afraid the priest is equally unapt to practise. You must pardon me
my shortcomings. I can't very well be all things to all men--much less
to one woman. And, while we are on this subject, it may interest you to
know that Vane has chosen his profession: he's going to be a novelist."
"Do you mean that he's going to write novels?" asked Mrs. Carnby.
Radwalader appeared to reflect.
"No," he said presently. "I think I mean that he's going to be a
novelist. I stand open to correction," he added, with an affected air of
humility.
"By no means," answered Mrs. Carnby. "Probably I don't understand. It
sounds to me a good deal like saying he's going to be a German Emperor
or a Pope--that's all."
"Nevertheless, I'm quite sure that's what I mean. He has read me several
chapters of a novel upon which he's at work, and I must say that they
display a knowledge of women which, in a man of his years, is nothing
less than remarkable."
"That's not impossible," put in Mrs. Carnby. "I had a letter, only
yesterday, from a woman who knows him, and it appears that he's as good
as engaged to a very charming young American."
"However," said Radwalader mildly, "I think the knowledge of women
displayed by Vane in the chapters he was so good as to read to me is
hardly such as one would expect to deduce from the fact that he is as
good as engaged to a very charming young American."
"His choice of a profession must be a very recent resolution," said Mrs.
Carnby. "To be sure, until to-day, I haven't seen him in a week."
"An eternity in Paris," said Kennedy. "Extra-ordinary people, the
Americans! Not content with securing monopolies of tramways and
industrial trusts over here, they appear to control a monopoly of
feminine consideration as well. I confess--though only to the
acacias--that I'm in the least degree weary of the subject of Mr. Andrew
Vane. Radwalader, I'll give you twenty at cannons."
"Done!" said Radwalader, rising.
"The cigars are on the corner-table in the billiard-room," observed Mrs.
Carnby, "and the Scotch is on the dining-room _buffet_, with ice and
soda. Don't call the servants for a half-hour, at least: it irritates
them immeasurably to have their eating confused with other people's
drinking."
"I really don't mean it as gossip," said Mrs. Ratchett, as the men
vanished into the house. "I'm interested in Mr. Vane. He seems more
rational and cleaner-cut than the American cubs one sees over here as a
rule; and if he's only going to go the way of the rest of them--if
there's a woman in the case--"
Mrs. Carnby shrugged her shoulders. "Andrew Vane has been in Paris for
ten weeks," she said. "I think it not improbable that Paris will be in
Andrew Vane for the rest of his natural life."
"Then there _is_ a woman in the case!" exclaimed Mrs. Ratchett.
"So you say, my dear."
Mrs. Ratchett's pointed slipper began to beat an impatient tattoo on the
grass.
"Could anything be more ludicrous than for us two to beat about the
bush in this fashion?" she broke out, after a moment. "You know
perfectly what I mean, Louisa--what one _always_ means, in short, by 'a
woman in the case'!"
"Yes, of course I know," agreed Mrs. Carnby frankly. "The women one
speaks of as being in cases are always more or less disreputable. Well,
there _is_ a woman in the case of our young friend--and a very engaging
woman at that."
"Engaging appears to be a habit with Mr. Vane's flames," said Mrs.
Ratchett. "It's a little hard on the one in America. And pray where did
_you_ see her?--the other, I mean."
"Oh, here, there, and everywhere. Vane made the mistake, at first, of
trying to carry on his little affair _sub rosa_. People are always seen
when they try not to be, you know. Lately, I believe, they've been going
about quite openly, so it has been almost impossible to keep track of
them."
"But how do you arrive at the conclusion that the lady--"
"Isn't respectable? I've walked up the Opera Comique stairway behind
her, my dear, and there was no mistaking the social grade of her
petticoats. They were entirely beyond a reputable woman's means. And
you're quite right. It's downright hard on the other one. She's like my
own daughter--Margery Palffy is."
"Margery Palffy! Why, how very surprising! I thought you said the girl
was in America."
"No--I said 'a charming young American.' And it's really not surprising
at all. My letter was from Mrs. Johnny Barrister--Madame Palffy's
sister-in-law, you know. She always took charge of Margery during the
summer vacations. They've a big house at Beverly, which I've never seen,
and heaps of money. That's how Mr. Vane met Margery, I suppose: he seems
to have had the run of the house. Molly Barrister mentioned him
casually, but quite as if the engagement were a matter of course--quite
as if he had come over here on purpose to see Margery."
"The lady with--er--the petticoats," suggested Mrs. Ratchett, "strikes
me in the light of evidence to the contrary."
"One can never tell," said Mrs. Carnby. "He wouldn't be the first man to
drive tandem. There's apt to be a leader, you see--a high-stepping,
showy thoroughbred, that attracts all the attention, and does none of
the work: and then, an earnest, faithful little cob, as wheeler. After a
time, a man gets tired of the frills and furbelows, sells the leader to
break some other fellow's neck, and settles down. Then you'll see the
earnest little wheeler as much appreciated as may be, and dragging the
domestic tilbury along at a rational, _bourgeois_ rate of speed. One can
never tell, my dear."
"All that," observed Mrs. Ratchett dryly, "doesn't ring true, Louisa,
and--what's worse--it isn't even clever. You're fond of Margery Palffy."
"It's froth!" exclaimed Mrs. Carnby, "the kind of froth one sticks on
the top of a horrid little pudding to conceal its disgusting lack of
merit. Don't ask me what I think of men, Ethel. I couldn't tell you,
without employing certain violent expletives, and nowadays no really
original woman swears!"
A distant, whirring snore, very faint at first, had grown louder as they
were speaking, and now swelled into a muffled roar, as Andrew's
automobile lunged up the driveway, and stopped, sobbing, before the
villa. Mrs. Carnby raised her voice, to carry across the lawn:
"Have you had breakfast?"
Andrew, turning from the automobile, waved his hand in reply.
"We broke down near the Pavilion Henri Quatre," he called. "The others
had breakfast while I was making repairs. I coffeed so late that I
wasn't hungry. I knew that I could hold over till tea-time."
The party, five in number, came chattering toward them across the lawn.
Old Mrs. Lister led the way, followed by her son and Madame Palffy, whom
Mrs. Carnby always invited to Poissy for the first Sunday of the
season--"to get it over with," as she had been heard to say. Behind were
Andrew and Margery. Jeremy was to bring Palffy, De Boussac, and Ratchett
down by the late train, and these, with Kennedy, Radwalader, and Mrs.
Ratchett, completed the house-party.
Mrs. Lister, whom Radwalader had described to Andrew as "the
jail-breaker, because she never finishes a sentence," plunged abruptly
into one of her disconnected prolations, addressing herself to Mrs.
Carnby:
"Of course, we are _most_ reprehensibly late--but you see--I don't
understand about these things--Mr. Vane said--it's so difficult to
comprehend--but it was something that the gravel--or was it the
dust?--at all events--and I always say that meals above _all_
things--but then accidents are simply _bound_ to occur--I do hope you
didn't wait--and it was delightful--my first experience--but of course
we _had_ to--there was no telling how long--though fortunately--and I'm
quite fagged out, dear Mrs. Carnby--as I say to Jack--when one is young,
you know--but when one gets to fifty-four--though I don't complain--I
think one should never regret--and I enjoyed the drive--or does one say
ride?--it's so difficult--"
She paused for breath, and Madame Palffy took up the tale.
"It was _fas_--cinating, _fas_--cinating," she said, "and most exciting.
I reached St. Germain quite _en deshabille_. Mr. Vane kindly took
Margery on the front seat. Mrs. Lister and I sat behind, and Mr. Lister
on the floor, with his feet on the step. It was flying."
And she waved her fat hands, and sank ponderously into a chair.
"My most humble apologies, Mrs. Carnby," said Andrew. "It couldn't
really be helped, and I provided my crew with sufficient nourishment to
keep them alive till dinner."
"You're forgiven," replied his hostess, "only don't do it again. After
all," she added, looking Andrew wickedly in the eye, "your crime, like
dear old Sir Peter Teazle's, carried its punishment along with it."
"Now I come to think of it," observed young Lister vacuously, "she's his
second wife, Madame Palffy--or _is_ she? Do you know the
Flament-Gontouts, Mrs. Carnby? No? They live up in the Monceau quarter.
She was an American, a Bostonian. Her maiden name was Fayne--sister of
Clarence Fayne, the painter, who married Mary Clemin, the daughter of
Anthony Clemin, who used to own the Parker House--"
He did not appear to be addressing any one in particular, which was
fortunate, as no one had ever been known to vouchsafe him the compliment
of attention. He spoke with as much variety of expression as an
accountant making comparisons, and invariably, as now, upon the subject
of birth, marriage, and death--a hopelessly dull young man.
"_He_ write plays?" said Mrs. Carnby, when the purpose of his presence
in Paris had been explained to her. "Never! But he may have written the
thirty-sixth chapter of Genesis."
"I'm afraid that's quite cold," said Mrs. Carnby, as, in compliance with
a request, she handed Andrew a cup of coffee, "but it's your own fault."
"Never mind," he laughed. "Coffee is one of the few things which are
more or less good all the way up and down the thermometer from
thirty-two to two hundred and twelve."
Mrs. Carnby looked at him critically, as he stirred, and told herself
that he came up strikingly well to many standards. His hair was neither
too short nor too long, he was perfectly shaved, his stock was tied to a
nicety, his clothes were on friendly terms with him, his hands were
excellently well-kept--and an hour before he had been tinkering with a
motor!--and his teeth were even and studiously cared for. He was an
aristocrat, a patrician, from his head to his heels--and it _would_ be a
pity, thought Mrs. Carnby, to have him go the way of what Mrs. Ratchett
had called "the rest of them"--the way of Tommy Clavercil, for example,
whose late _affaire_ had been so crudely mismanaged that he was no
longer invited to the best tables in the Colony, or the way of
Radwalader's young acquaintance, Ernest Baxter, who ended up in the
Morgue. And then there was Margery--
Mrs. Carnby's eyes came round to her, instantly narrowed, and dropped.
There are moments when the souls of us come to their twin windows, and
look out, and shout our secrets to the veriest passer-by. Margery was
looking at Andrew Vane--and Mrs. Carnby _saw_!
"_Good_ Lord!" she thought. "Then at least half of the story's true--and
I'm afraid that's about fifty per cent. too much!"
"The list of my offences isn't complete, as yet, Mrs. Carnby," said
Andrew. "I very stupidly left my camera at the Pavilion. I'm afraid I
shall have to go back for it."
Once more Mrs. Carnby looked at him.
"I'll go with you," she said suddenly. "I haven't had a chance to see
how your machine runs, as yet, and, besides, every one of these lazy
people will be wanting to take a nap presently. I know them of old. I
never nap myself. It's a fattening habit."
"Delighted to have you, I'm sure, Mrs. Carnby."
There was the slightest trace of hesitation in Andrew's voice, but Mrs.
Carnby rose to her feet.
"I may be back to tea, and I may be back to-morrow," she said to the
others. "One never knows, _en automobile_."
She was still frowning perplexedly, as Andrew steered the automobile
deftly out of the gate.
"It's turned a bit windy," he said. "We didn't use the dust-cloths
coming over, but there's one under the seat. What do you say--shall we
have it?"
He bent forward, as she nodded, and dragged the cloth from its place
beneath them. Something heavy rapped smartly on Mrs. Carnby's foot, and
she looked down with a little exclamation.
"What's that?"
"That?" answered Andrew. "Why--er, that's my camera."
Mrs. Carnby leaned back in her seat, drawing the dust-cloth smoothly
over her knees.
"Don't you think," she said deliberately, "that you had better tell me
your _real_ reason for wanting to go back to St. Germain--and wanting to
go back alone?"