THE CHÂTEAU OF ÉTARPE
"One would scarcely believe," Wrayson remarked, leaning back in his chair
and drawing in a long deep breath, "that we are within three miles of one
of the noisiest and most bustling of French watering places."
"It is incredible," his companion admitted.
They were seated in a garden behind the old inn of the _Lion d'Or_, in
the village of St. Étarpe. Before them was a round table, on whose
spotless white cloth still remained dishes of fruit and a bottle of
wine--not the _vin ordinaire_ which had been served with their repast,
but something which Wrayson had ordered specially, and which the landlord
himself, all smiles and bows, had uncorked and placed before them.
Wrayson produced his cigarette case.
"How did you hear of this place?" he asked, watching the smoke curl
upwards into the breathless air. "I fancy that you and I are the only
guests here."
Wrayson's companion, tall, broad-shouldered, and heavily bearded, was
busy filling a pipe from a pouch by his side. His features were
unmistakably Saxon, and his cheeks were tanned, as though by much
exposure to all sorts of weathers. He was still apparently on the right
side of middle age, but his manners were grave, almost reserved.
"I was in the neighbourhood many years ago," he answered. "I had a fancy
to revisit the place. And you?"
"I discovered it entirely by accident," Wrayson admitted. "I walked out
from Chourville this morning, stayed here for some luncheon, and was so
delighted that I took a room and went straight back for my bag. There
isn't an emperor in Europe who has so beautiful a dining-room as this!"
Together they looked across the valley, a wonderful panorama of vine-clad
slopes and meadows, starred with many-coloured wild flowers, through
which the river wound its way, now hidden, now visible, a thin line of
gleaming quicksilver. Tall poplars fringed its banks, and there were
white cottages and farmhouses, mostly built in the shelter of the
vine-covered cliffs. To the left a rolling mass of woods was pierced by
one long green avenue, at the summit of which stretched the grey front
and towers of the Château de St. Étarpe. Wrayson looked long at the
fertile and beautiful country, which seemed to fade so softly away in the
horizon; but he looked longest at the chateâu amongst the woods.
"I wonder who lives there," he remarked. "I meant to have asked
the waiter."
"I can tell you," the stranger said. "The château belongs to the Baroness
de Sturm."
"A Frenchwoman?" Wrayson asked.
"Half French, half Belgian. She has estates in both countries, I
believe," his companion answered. "As a matter of fact, I believe that
this château is hers in her own right as a daughter of the Étarpes. She
married a Belgian nobleman."
"You seem well acquainted with the neighbourhood," Wrayson remarked.
"I have been here before," was the somewhat short answer.
Wrayson produced his card-case.
"As we seem likely to see something of one another during the next few
days, _nolens volens_," he remarked, "may I introduce myself? My name is
Wrayson, Herbert Wrayson, and I come from London."
The stranger took the card a little doubtfully.
"I am much obliged," he said. "I do not carry a card-case, but my name
is Duncan."
"An Englishman, of course?" Wrayson remarked smiling.
"I am English," Mr. Duncan answered, "but I have not been in England for
many years."
There was something about his manner which forbade any further
questioning on Wrayson's part. The two men sat together in silence, and
Wrayson, although not of a curious turn of mind, began to feel more than
an ordinary interest in his companion. One thing he noticed in
particular. Although, as the sun sank lower, the beauties of the
landscape below increased, Duncan's eyes scarcely for a moment rested
upon them. He had turned his chair a little, and he sat directly facing
the chateâu. The golden cornfields, the stained-glass windows of the grey
church rising like a cathedral, as it were, in the midst of the
daffodil-starred meadows, caught now with the flood of the dying sunlight
mingled so harmoniously with their own time-mellowed richness, the
increasing perfume of the flowers by which they were surrounded,--none of
these things seemed for one moment to distract his attention. Steadily
and fixedly he gazed up that deep green avenue, empty indeed of any
moving object, and yet seemingly not empty to him. For he had the air of
one who sees beyond the world of visible objects, of one who sees things
dimmed to those of only natural powers. With what figures, Wrayson
wondered, idly, was he peopling that empty avenue, what were the fancies
which had crept out from his brain and held him spellbound? He had
admitted a more or less intimate acquaintance with the place: was he,
perhaps, a former lover of the Baroness, when she had been simply Amy de
St. Étarpe? Wrayson forgot, for a while, his own affairs, in following
out these mild speculations. The soft twilight stole down upon them; here
and there little patches of grey mist came curling up the valley. A bat
came flying about their heads, and Wrayson at last rose.
"I shall take a stroll." he remarked, "and turn in. Good night, if I
don't see you again!"
The man named Duncan turned his head.
"Good night!" he said, mechanically.
Wrayson walked down the garden and passed through a wicket-gate into the
broad white road. Setting his back to the village, he came, in a few
minutes, to the great entrance gate of the château, hung from massive
stone pillars of great age, and themselves fashioned of intricate and
curiously wrought ironwork. The gates themselves were closed fast, and
the smaller ones on either side, intended for pedestrians, were fastened
with a padlock. Wrayson stood for a moment looking through the bars into
the park. The drive ran for half a mile perfectly straight, and then,
taking an abrupt bend, passed upwards into the woods, amongst which was
the château.
"What do you want?" an abrupt voice demanded.
Wrayson looked round in surprise. A man in gamekeeper's clothes had
issued from the lodge, carrying a gun.
"Good evening!" Wrayson said. "Is it permitted for the public to enter
the park?"
"By no means," was the surly answer. "Cannot monsieur see that the gates
are locked?"
"I understood from the landlord of the _Lion d'Or_" Wrayson said, "that
the villagers were allowed the privilege of walking in the park."
The man looked at him suspiciously.
"You are not of the village," he said.
"I am staying there," Wrayson answered.
"It makes nothing. For the present, villagers and every one are forbidden
to enter. There are visitors at the château."
Wrayson turned away.
"Very well," he said. "Good night!"
The man did not answer him. Wrayson continued to climb the hill which
skirted the park. He did not turn round, but he heard the gates open, and
he was convinced that he was being watched, if he was not followed. He
kept on, however, until he came to some more iron gates, from which
stretched the grass avenue which led straight to the gardens of the
château. Dimly, through the gathering dusk, he caught a view of it, which
was little more than an impression; silver grey and quiet with the peace
which the centuries can bring, it seemed to him, with its fantastic
towers, and imperfectly visible outline, like a palace of dreams rather
than a dwelling house, however magnificent, of material stone and brick.
An owl flew out from the trees a few yards to the left of him, and
drifted slowly over his head, with much flapping of wings, and a weird,
soft call, faintly answered in the distance by his mate; from far away
down in the valley came the slow ringing of a single evening bell. Save
for these things, a silence almost wonderful reigned. Gradually Wrayson
began to feel that sense of soothed nerves, of inexpressible relief,
which Nature alone dispenses--her one unequalled drug! All the agitation
and turmoil of the last few months seemed to fall away from him. He felt
that he had been living in a world of false proportions; that the maze of
doubts and fears through which he had wandered was, after all, no part of
life itself, merely a tissue of irrelevant issues, to which his distorted
imagination had affixed a purely fictitious importance. What concern of
his was it how Morris Barnes had lived or died? And who was Bentham that
his fate should ever disturb him? The secrets of other people were theirs
to keep. His own secret was more wonderful by far. Alone, from amidst the
tangle of his other emotions, he felt its survival--more than its
survival, its absolute conquest of all other feelings and considerations.
It was truth, he knew, that men sought after in the quiet places, and it
was the truth which he had found. If he could but see her coming down the
avenue, coming to him across the daisy-strewn grass, beneath the shadow
of the stately poplars! The very thought set his heart beating like a
boy's. He felt the blood singing in his veins, the love-music swelling in
his heart. He shook the gates. They, too, were padlocked. Then he
listened. There was no sound of any footfall in the road. He moved a few
steps higher up, and, making use of the pillars of the gate, he climbed
on to the wall. It was a six-foot drop, but he came down noiselessly
into a bed of moss. Once more he paused to listen. There was no sound
save the burring of some night insect over his head. Stealthily, and
keeping in the shadow of the trees, he began to climb the grassy avenue
towards the château.