She Fell Among Thieves (15 page)

‘I do not care for just walking. I must have sport. I am born like that, I suppose. It is not my fault.’

Quem deus vult perdere…

Unconsciously I stepped on the trap.

‘But what do you shoot?’ I asked him. ‘I thought–’

‘Gaston stalks singing-birds,’ said Vanity Fair.

Below made a rattling noise.

‘I do not see,’ began Gaston…

‘How should you? You’re born like that. It isn’t your fault.’

I began to perceive how it was that Gaston fell so foul of Vanity Fair. The thing was vain. He simply had to establish that he was a man of parts. So Sisyphus simply had to roll his stone up the hill.

Dinner became a coconut-shy, and Vanity Fair had the sticks. I suffered least of all, but she knocked me down more than once.

‘Be as frank as your face, Richard Chandos. I hate a simple serpent. Your servant’s as well as you are. Why didn’t you bring him back?’

‘He was taken ill–’

‘I know. As the clock chimed the quarter – the castle clock at Jezreel.’

Before the laughter had died, she was aiming at somebody else.

‘Virginia, don’t bounce. This isn’t a Sunday-school treat. I shouldn’t be here if it was. No more would Below: he is “too lovely and too temperate”. Acorn, Gaston complains that his new chambermaid will not compare with his old. That was, of course, why we chose her. But tell her to be more attentive. She’s nothing to fear – with that squint. Which reminds me – your eyes need attention – three mistakes this evening in the letters you sent me to sign. If you read them through – and missed them, you ought to be flogged: if you didn’t read them through, you ought to be sacked. Virginia, Suzanne reports that you’re putting on weight. That is the normal result of eating and drinking too much. If you don’t believe me, ask Below. He’s a leading case.’

‘Madame, I protest–’

‘Why should you? We can’t all have the digestion of John the Baptist. Besides, he appealed to the ear: but you fill the eye. He is the Authorised Version: you are the Illustrated Edition. I often say to myself, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for Below”.’

Never have I subscribed to so electric and mordant a flow of soul. She certainly whetted our wits, but the play which she made with her tongue would have made a Juvenal gasp. I had found her brilliant before, but never like this – an expert swordsman at work on a body of clowns. But the brilliance was sinister. I had an uneasy feeling that the vials of wrath were brimming and this was their overflow. It was like a display of sheet lightning – that distant, restless magic that teases sight. The storm was to come.

‘Then I am a liar?’ mouthed Gaston.

‘Of sort,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘But you do it very badly, like everything else.’

Gaston attempted a sneer.

‘I am afraid that you see through me – as through Chandos: I hope–’

‘You don’t resemble the lanterns, if that’s what you mean. They’re very valuable things.’

‘But I am worthless?’

The man was trembling with rage.

‘Not at all,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘“The toad, ugly and venomous, bears nevertheless a precious jewel in its head.” The truth is you’ve missed your vocation – as nine out of ten of us have. I ought to have been a gangster – a really big one, I mean. Virginia ought to have been a music-hall star. Acorn could have managed a night-club extremely well. Below should have been wine-steward at some very old-fashioned club. And you should have been a shepherd.’

‘A shepherd?’ cried Gaston.

‘A shepherd…attached to some casino…guiding the steps of massive Cleopatras, whom age has withered, but whose custom will never fail.’

Below was shaking like a jelly: the singing-birds were avenged.

I emptied my glass.

‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I’ll buy it. What should I have been?’

Her eyes came to rest upon mine.

‘A professional poker-player,’ said Vanity Fair.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I wished very much for Mansel and tried to fit into the puzzle the curious fact which I had been handed that day – that Vanity Fair and Virginia were fully aware that Gaston had been the servant of the Count he was pretending to be.

That explained the contempt which they showed him: it also explained why he suffered their whips and scorns: but it made Virginia’s engagement more than ever incomprehensible. ‘Living dogs have their uses.’ Perhaps. But you do not use them as husbands or sons-in-law, nor do you present them with incomes beyond the dreams of greed.

I left the bed and fell to pacing the room.

My standing with Vanity Fair was very much what it had been ten days ago. She had then suspected me – deeply. By leaving Jezreel, I had sent her suspicions packing; but Jenny’s abduction had brought them back in full force – only to be disconcerted by the intimate knowledge of Burgos which I had taken care to display. All the same…

For the hundredth time I wondered what was to come. Things could not go on like this. A child could have felt the tension. The waters of vengeance were swollen beyond belief. Unless they were offered some outlet, the dam would burst.

In a way I felt sorry for the woman, ruthless and evil as she was. For years her whim had been law. For years she had kept her palace, so that her goods were in peace. And now in the twinkling of an eye a stronger than she had come upon her, had taken away her armour and was dividing his spoils. Luis gone, Jean gone, Jenny gone. And all without trace. Three desolating blows. Yet whence they had come she had not the faintest idea. Little wonder that she was raging.

For the first time for nearly three weeks the night was close; and when I leaned out of the window I saw that the west of the heaven was blotted out. Plainly a storm was approaching. Thunder was in the air.

I left the casement, more than half-minded to bathe. Though the air could not refresh me, the water would.

As I crossed the room, I stopped to regard the mirror – the pier-glass which gave to the system pervading the house. If Mansel thought it safe, he would certainly visit me: that anyone else would come was unlikely enough: if they did…

I had made myself a bed –
beneath
the sumptuous bedstead on which I had lain before. The valance would hide me, and, though the quarters were close, I should do very well. So I could take my rest without any fear. Any search of the bed above me was certain to wake me at once and would put at my mercy the man who was making the search. My pistol, of course, lay ready, by the side of my lowly couch.

I was just about to return to the bathroom, when something moved.

For an instant I thought it was the pier-glass. And then I saw that the glass itself was not moving, but was reflecting the movement of something else.

The door behind me was moving – the door of my bedroom that opened into the hall.

With my eyes on the mirror, I waited, as still as death.

The door stopped moving. It was little more than ajar. I began to wonder if the latch and some draught between them were playing an ancient trick.

Then a slight figure, swathed in silk, slid into the room. Virginia.

She did not see me at once, for, though a lamp was burning, the chamber was dim: but when she had shut the door, she turned to find me before her, two paces away.

She caught her breath and lay back against the door.

I can see her there now, with her fair head against the oak. She was dressed in powder blue – a dressing-gown over pyjamas. The colour matched her eyes and suited her very well. But the droop of her mouth was tragic and her palms were planted on the woodwork as though, in soul as in body, she had her back to the wall.

That she knew something was clear. And she was risking her honour to save me from Vanity Fair.

‘What is it, Virginia?’ I whispered. ‘Why have you come?’

A hand went up to her brow.

‘Because I’m mad, I suppose. I don’t care. Any answer you like.’ For a moment she hung her head. Then she looked up and clasped her hands and held them up to her breast.

‘Oh Richard, why did you come back? I asked you not to. I told you to go away.’

I braced myself to play the difficult game.

‘I know you did, Virginia. And I didn’t mean to come back. But after I’d gone I received some information which I felt that your mother should know.’

She turned her head and laid her cheek to the oak.

‘You could have written,’ she said. ‘Why did you have to come? I told you not to. I told you…’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know. But please believe–’

‘I told you you’d make me unhappy. I went as far as I could. To save my soul I stripped it – I tore up my self-respect. I made you free of the secret no woman can ever tell. I told you I – liked you, Richard. And I asked you to pocket that knowledge and go away…’ She looked me full in the face. ‘And because you’ve some news for my mother, you come straight back.’

She threw up an arm and laid it across her eyes.

It occurred to me that her mother was perfectly right. Virginia had missed her vocation. She would have made her mark on the stage. And something else I saw – with a sinking heart. And that was that the game was beyond me. No one – not even Mansel could stand up to bowling like this.
If I was to stay at Jezreel, I must lift the edge of my mask
.

Although I was sure that I could trust her, this seemed a most desperate move. Still, in order to do me a service, she was playing a desperate part.

‘Virginia,’ I said, ‘now listen. I’m older than you. I haven’t forgotten what happened the other day. I never shall forget what has happened tonight. You’ve done me extraordinary honour – God only knows why. But fancy’s not fact, my dear, and–’

‘It isn’t fancy, Richard. I know what I know. And I asked such a little thing of you, to leave me in peace. You’re rich and independent: you’ve got the world to wander, but I’m tied here. And so I asked you to choose another – hotel. What was it to you? Nothing. And I told you why, Richard… What if it had been fancy? What would it have cost you to humour that pitiful fancy and let me come to my senses by keeping away from Jezreel? Fancy!’ She let fall her arms, and I saw that her eyes were shut. ‘What stuff d’you think I’m made of? D’you think it was fancy tonight that brought me here?’

I moistened my lips.

‘Virginia,’ I said, ‘you’re making it frightfully hard.’

‘I want to make it frightfully hard. I came tonight to – to force you to leave Jezreel. I – I…’ She bowed her head and clapped her hands to her face. ‘I’ve told you right out that I – I love you. I’m under no illusions – I know that I’m nothing to you. But I’m weak – the weaker vessel. And you’re so terribly strong. D’you mean to stay and break me? Does that sort of thing amuse you? To watch a girl writhe and–’

‘Virginia, listen to me.’ I set a hand on her shoulder. ‘This play has gone far enough.’

She dropped her hands and stared up into my eyes.

‘This play?’ she repeated.

‘This play,’ said I, and gave her back look for look. ‘Why you should have done as you have, I’ve no idea. But I’ll never forget it, Virginia, as long as I live.’

‘What’s that to me? Can’t you see–’

‘Please listen to me. There’s something I want to tell you, that you ought to know. That day when you showed me the lanterns and – and spoke as you did. Your mother was present, Virginia.’

She started violently. Then she knitted her brows.

‘Mother? But that’s absurd. She was–’

‘She was in the sedan-chair, Virginia.’

I saw the blood leave her face, but she did not speak. For a moment she stood, swaying. Then a hand went up to her head and her knees gave way.

I was just in time to catch her, before she fell.

I laid her in the great bed, which was, of course, open and ready for me to use. Then I ran for water, fell on my knees beside her and bathed her temples and wrists. After what seemed an age, she put up a hand for mine and, when she had caught it, she carried it down to the sheet. But her eyes were still shut. So we stayed for some moments. Then –

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m better now.’

‘I’ll make you still better, my dear. It’s true that your mother was there and heard what you said. But she doesn’t suspect you, Virginia. She thinks you were speaking the truth when you said that, unless I went, you might come to like me too well.’

There was a long silence.

At length –

‘What makes you think that I wasn’t speaking the truth?’

Her eyes were open now and were fast on the silken canopy, hanging above.

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I’m not like Gaston,’ I said.

‘You’re not like anyone. A thousand men out of a thousand would have – taken me at my word.’

‘I’ve – no illusions, Virginia. In fact I can’t conceive why you should have gone such lengths to save an odd stranger’s life. As I say, your mother believed you – I’m sure of that. But if she had dreamed that you were trying to save me…’

I stopped.

Virginia was trembling. I took her hand in mine and held it tight.

‘Don’t have any fear, Virginia. It’s quite all right. Believe me, I know what I’m doing. And I’m not going to ask any questions. But I simply had to show you that I knew what your object was. Otherwise I’d have had to go. And I don’t want to go, Virginia.’

‘Why…don’t you want…to go?’

The words came stiffly – as though her tongue were reluctant to handle the naked truth. Her hesitation seemed to give me address.

‘I’m rather curious,’ I said. ‘I want to know why Jean, the chauffeur, attempted to take my life.’

Virginia lay still as death. Then, very slowly, she turned her head to look me full in the eyes.

‘To – take – your – life?’

‘In this bed,’ said I. ‘While I slept. The night before you showed me the lanterns. You knew that I was in danger. Didn’t you know an attempt had already been made?’

The strangest gleam was lighting Virginia’s eyes.

‘Was that why Jean went?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Well, she had to pretend to sack him. I mean, I caught him red-handed and tied him up.’

‘Pretend?’ breathed Virginia. ‘Pretend? D’you mean she didn’t sack him?’