The Chink in the Armour

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Sylvia pushed open the little white gate of the Chalet des Muguets andbegan walking up the path which lay through the neglected, untidy garden.

  To eyes accustomed to the exquisitely-kept gardens of an English countrytown, there was something almost offensive in the sight presented by thehigh, coarse grass and luxuriant unkemptness of the place, and once moreSylvia wondered how the Wachners could bear to leave the land surroundingtheir temporary home in such a state.

  But the quaint, fantastic-looking, one-storeyed chalet amused and ratherinterested her, for it was so entirely unlike any other dwelling withwhich she was acquainted.

  To-day a deep, hot calm brooded over the silent house anddeserted-looking garden; the chocolate-coloured shutters of thedining-room and the drawing-room were closed, and Sylvia told herselfthat it would be delightful to pass from the steamy heat outside into thedimly-lighted, sparsely-furnished little "salon," there to have a cup oftea and a pleasant chat with her friends before accompanying them in thecool of the early evening to the Casino.

  Sylvia always enjoyed talking to Madame Wachner. She was a little bitashamed that this was so, for this cosmopolitan woman's conversation wasnot always quite refined, but she was good-natured and lively, and hertalk was invariably amusing. Above all, she knew how to flatter, andafter a chat with Madame Wachner Sylvia Bailey always felt pleased bothwith herself and with the world about her.

  There was very little concerning the young Englishwoman's simple,uneventful life with which Madame Wachner was not by now acquainted. Shewas aware for instance, that Sylvia had no close relations of her own,and that, like Anna Wolsky, Mrs. Bailey knew nobody--she had not evenan acquaintance--living in Paris.

  This fact had enlisted to a special degree Madame Wachner's interest andliking for the two young widows.

  Sylvia rang the primitive bell which hung by the door which alone gaveaccess, apart from the windows, to the Chalet des Muguets.

  After some moments the day-servant employed by Madame Wachner opened thedoor with the curt words, "Monsieur and Madame are in Paris." The womanadded, in a rather insolent tone, "They have gone to fetch some money,"and her manner said plainly enough, "Yes, my master and mistress--sillyfools--have lost their money at the Casino, and now they are gone to getfresh supplies!"

  Sylvia felt vexed and disappointed. After what had been to her a veryexciting, agitating conversation with Count Paul, she had unconsciouslylonged for the cheerful, commonplace talk of Madame Wachner.

  As she stood there in the bright sunlight the thought of the long,lonely, hot walk back to the Villa du Lac became odious to her.

  Why should she not go into the house and rest awhile? The more so thatthe Wachners would almost certainly return home very soon. They dislikedParis, and never stayed more than a couple of hours on their occasionalvisits there.

  In her careful, rather precise French, she told the servant she wouldcome in and wait.

  "I am sure that Madame Wachner would wish me to do so," she said,smiling; and after a rather ungracious pause the woman admitted her intothe house, leading the way into the darkened dining-room.

  "Do you think it will be long before Madame Wachner comes back?" askedSylvia.

  The woman hesitated--"I cannot tell you that," she mumbled. "They neversay when they are going, or when they will be back. They are very oddpeople!"

  She bustled out of the room for a few moments and then came back, holdinga big cotton parasol in her hand.

  "I do not know if Madame wishes to stay on here by herself? As for me,I must go now, for my work is done. Perhaps when Madame leaves the houseshe will put the key under the mat."

  "Yes, if I leave the house before my friends return home I will certainlydo so. But I expect Madame Wachner will be here before long."

  Sylvia spoke shortly. She did not like the day-servant's independent,almost rude way of speaking.

  "Should the master and mistress come back before Madame has left, willMadame kindly explain that she _insisted_ on coming into the house? I amabsolutely forbidden to admit visitors unless Madame Wachner is here toentertain them."

  The woman spoke quickly, her eyes fixed expectantly on the lady sittingbefore her.

  Mrs. Bailey suddenly realised, or thought she realised, what that lookmeant. She took her purse out of her pocket and held out a two-francpiece.

  "Certainly," she answered coldly, "I will explain to Madame Wachner thatI insisted on coming in to rest."

  The woman's manner altered; it became at once familiar and servile. Afterprofusely thanking Sylvia for her "tip," she laid the cotton parasol onthe dining-table, put her arms akimbo, and suddenly asked, "Has Madameheard any news of her friend? I mean of the Polish lady?"

  "No," Sylvia looked up surprised. "I'm sorry to say that there is stillno news of her, but, of course, there will be soon."

  She was astonished that the Wachners should have mentioned the matter tothis disagreeable, inquisitive person.

  "The lady stopped here on her way to the station. She seemed in very highspirits."

  "Oh, no, you are quite mistaken," said Sylvia quickly. "Madame Wolsky didnot come here at all the day she left Lacville. She was expected, both totea and to supper, but she did not arrive--"

  "Indeed, yes, Madame! I had to come back that afternoon, for I hadforgotten to bring in some sugar. The lady was here then, and she wasstill here when I left the house."

  "I assure you that this cannot have been on the day my friend leftLacville," said Mrs. Bailey quickly. "Madame Wolsky left on a Saturdayafternoon. As I told you just now, Madame Wachner expected her to supper,but she never came. She went to Paris instead."

  The servant looked at her fixedly, and Sylvia's face became what itseldom was--very forbidding in expression. She wished this meddling,familiar woman would go away and leave her alone.

  "No doubt Madame knows best! One day is like another to me. I begMadame's pardon."

  The Frenchwoman took up her parasol and laid the house key on the table,then, with a "_Bon jour, Madame, et encore merci bien!_" she noisilyclosed the door behind her.

  A moment later, Sylvia, with a sense of relief, found herself in solepossession of the Chalet des Muguets.

  * * * * *

  Even the quietest, the most commonplace house has, as it were, anindividuality that sets it apart from other houses. And even those whowould deny that proposition must admit that every inhabited dwelling hasits own special nationality.

  The Chalet des Muguets was typically French and typically suburban; butwhere it differed from thousands of houses of the same type, dotted roundin the countrysides within easy reach of Paris, was that it was let eachyear to a different set of tenants.

  In Sylvia Bailey's eyes the queer little place lacked all the elementswhich go to make a home; and, sitting there, in that airless, darkeneddining-room, she wondered, not for the first time, why the Wachners choseto live in such a comfortless way.

  She glanced round her with distaste. Everything was not only cheap, butcommon and tawdry. Still, the dining-room, like all the other rooms inthe chalet, was singularly clean, and almost oppressively neat.

  There was the round table at which she and Anna Wolsky had been so kindlyentertained, the ugly buffet or sideboard, and in place of the dullparquet floor she remembered on her first visit lay an ugly piece oflinoleum, of which the pattern printed on the surface simulated a redand blue marble pavement.

  Once more the change puzzled her, perhaps unreasonably.

  At last Sylvia got up from the hard cane chair on which she had beensitting.

  There had come over her, in the half-darkness, a very peculiarsensation--an odd feeling that there was something alive in the room. Shelooked down, half expecting to see some small animal crouching under thetable, or hiding by the walnut-wood buffet behind her.

  But, no; nothing but the round table, and the six chairs stiffly placedagainst the wall, met her eyes. And yet, still that feeling tha
t therewas in the room some sentient creature besides herself persisted.

  She opened the door giving into the hall, and walked through the shortpassage which divided the house into two portions, into the tiny "salon."

  Here also the closed shutters gave the room a curious, eerie lookof desolate greyness. But Sylvia's eyes, already accustomed to thehalf-darkness next door, saw everything perfectly.

  The little sitting-room looked mean and shabby. There was not a flower,not even a book or a paper, to relieve its prim ugliness. The onlyornaments were a gilt clock on the mantelpiece, flanked with two shamEmpire candelabra. The shutters were fastened closely, and the room wasdreadfully hot and airless.

  Once more Sylvia wondered why the Wachners preferred to live in thischeerless way, with a servant who only came for a few hours each day,rather than at an hotel or boarding-house.

  And then she reminded herself that, after all, the silent, gaunt man, andhis talkative, voluble wife, seemed to be on exceptionally good terms theone with the other. Perhaps they really preferred being alone togetherthan in a more peopled atmosphere.

  While moving aimlessly about the room, Sylvia began to feel unaccountablynervous and oppressed. She longed to be away from this still, emptyhouse, and yet it seemed absurd to leave just as the Wachners would bereturning home.

  After a few more minutes, however, the quietude, and the havingabsolutely nothing to do with which to wile away the time, affectedSylvia's nerves.

  It was, after all, quite possible that the Wachners intended to wait inParis till the heat of the day was over. In that case they would not beback till seven o'clock.

  The best thing she could do would be to leave a note inviting MadameWachner and L'Ami Fritz to dinner at the Villa du Lac. Count Paul was tobe in Paris this evening, so his eyes would not be offended by the sightof the people of whom he so disapproved. Madame Wachner would probably beglad to dine out, the more so that no proper meal seemed to have beenprepared by that unpleasant day-servant. Why, the woman had not even laidthe cloth for her employers' supper!

  Sylvia looked instinctively round for paper and envelopes, but therewas no writing-table, not even a pencil and paper, in the littledrawing-room. How absurd and annoying!

  But, stay--somewhere in the house there must be writing materials.

  Treading softly, and yet hearing her footsteps echoing with unpleasantloudness through the empty house, Sylvia Bailey walked past the open doorof the little kitchen, and so to the end of the passage.

  Then something extraordinary happened.

  While in the act of opening the door of Madame Wachner's bed-room, theyoung Englishwoman stopped and caught her breath. Again she had suddenlyexperienced that unpleasant, eerie sensation--the sensation that _she wasnot alone_. But this time the feeling was far more vivid than it had beenin the dining-room.

  So strong, so definite was Sylvia's perception of another presence, andthis time of a human presence, in the still house, that she turnedsharply round--

  But all she saw was the empty passage, cut by a shaft of light thrownfrom the open door of the kitchen, stretching its short length down tothe entrance hall.

  Making a determined effort over what she could but suppose to be hernerves, she walked through into the Wachners' bed-room.

  It was very bare and singularly poorly furnished, at least to Englisheyes, but it was pleasantly cool after the drawing-room.

  She walked across to the window, and, drawing aside the muslin curtains,looked out.

  Beyond the patch of shade thrown by the house the sun beat down ona ragged, unkempt lawn, but across the lawn she noticed, much moreparticularly than she had done on the two former occasions when she hadbeen in the house, that there lay a thick grove of chestnut trees justbeyond the grounds of the Chalet des Muguets.

  A hedge separated the lawn from the wood, but like everything else in thelittle property it had been neglected, and there were large gaps in it.

  She turned away from the window--

  Yes, there, at last, was what she had come into this room to seek!Close to the broad, low bed was a writing-table, or, rather, a dealtable, covered with a turkey red cloth, on which lay a large sheet ofink-stained, white blotting-paper.

  Flanking the blotting-paper was a pile of Monsieur Wachner's little redbooks--the books in which he so carefully noted the turns of the game atthe Casino, and which served him as the basis of his elaborate gambling"systems."

  Sylvia went up to the writing-table, and, bending over it, began lookingfor some notepaper. But there was nothing of the sort to be seen;neither paper nor envelopes lay on the table.

  This was the more absurd, as there were several pens, and an inkpotfilled to the brim.

  She told herself that the only thing to do was to tear a blank leaf outof one of L'Ami Fritz's note-books, and on it write her message ofinvitation. If she left the little sheet of paper propped up on thedining-table, the Wachners would be sure to see it.

  She took up the newest-looking of the red note-books, and as she openedit she suddenly felt, and for the third time, that there was a livingpresence close to her--and this time that it was that of Anna Wolsky!

  It was an extraordinary sensation--vivid, uncanny, terrifying--the moreso that Sylvia Bailey not only believed herself to be alone in the house,but supposed Anna to be far from Lacville....

  Fortunately, this unnerving and terrifying impression of an unseen andyet real presence did not endure; and, as she focussed her eyes on theopen book she held in her hand, it became fainter and fainter, while sherealised, with a keen sense of relief, what it was that had brought thepresence of her absent friend so very near to her.

  There, actually lying open before her, between two leaves of the littlenote-book, was a letter signed by Anna Wolsky! It was a short note, inFrench, apparently an answer to one Madame Wachner had sent remindingher of her engagement. It was odd that the Wachners had said nothing ofthis note, for it made Anna's conduct seem stranger than ever.

  Opposite the page on which lay the little letter, Monsieur Wachner hadamused himself by trying to imitate Anna's angular handwriting.

  Sylvia tore out one of the blank pages, and then she put the note-bookand its enclosure back on the table. She felt vaguely touched by the factthat the Wachners had kept her friend's last letter; they alone, so shereminded herself, had been really sorry and concerned at Anna's suddendeparture from the place. They also, like Sylvia herself, had been painedthat Madame Wolsky had not cared to say good-bye to them.

  She scribbled a few lines on the scrap of paper, and then, quickly makingher way to the dining-room, she placed her unconventional invitation onthe round table, and went out into the hall.

  As she opened the front door of the Chalet des Muguets Sylvia was metby a blast of hot air. She looked out dubiously. She was thoroughlyunnerved--as she expressed it to herself, "upset." Feeling as she nowfelt, walking back through the heat would be intolerable.

  For the first time Lacville became utterly distasteful to Sylvia Bailey.She asked herself, with a kind of surprise, of self-rebuke, why she wasthere--away from her own country and her own people? With a chokingsensation in her throat she told herself that it would be verycomfortable to see once more the tall, broad figure of Bill Chester,and to hear his good, gruff English voice again.

  She stepped out of the house, and put up her white parasol.

  It was still dreadfully hot, but to the left, across the lawn, lay thecool depths of the chestnut wood. Why not go over there and rest in theshade?

  Hurrying across the scorched grass to the place where there was anopening in the rough hedge, she found herself, a moment later, plungedin the grateful green twilight created by high trees.

  It was delightfully quiet and still in the wood, and Sylvia wonderedvaguely why the Wachners never took their tea out there. But foreignersare very law-abiding, or so she supposed, and the wood, if a piece ofno-man's land, was for sale. Up a path she could see the back of a largeboard.

  It was clear
that this pretty bit of woodland would have been turned intovilla plots long ago had it been nearer to a road. But it was still astretch of primeval forest. Here and there, amid the tufts of grass, laythe husks of last autumn's chestnuts.

  Sylvia slowly followed the little zigzag way which cut across the wood,and then, desiring to sit down for awhile, she struck off to the right,towards a spot where she saw that the brambles and the undergrowth hadbeen cleared away.

  Even here, where in summer the sun never penetrated, the tufts of coarsegrass were dried up by the heat. She glanced down; no, there was no fearthat the hard, dry ground would stain her pretty cotton frock.

  And then, as she sat there, Sylvia gradually became aware that close toher, where the undergrowth began again, the earth had recently beendisturbed. Over an irregular patch of about a yard square the sods hadbeen dug up, and then planted again.

  The thought passed through her mind that children must have been playingthere, and that they had made a rude attempt to destroy their handiwork,or rather to prevent its being noticed, by placing the branch of a treeacross the little plot of ground where the earth had been disturbed. Itwas this broken branch, of which the leaves had shrivelled up, that hadfirst drawn her attention to the fact that someone must have been there,and recently.

  Her thoughts wandered off to Bill Chester. He was now actually journeyingtowards her as fast as boat and train could bring him; in a couple ofhours he would be in Paris, and then, perhaps, he would come out toLacville in time for dinner.

  Sylvia had not been able to get a room for him in the Villa du Lac, butshe had engaged one in the Pension Malfait--where she had been able tosecure the apartment which had been occupied by Anna Wolsky, whose thingshad only just been moved out of it.

  She could not help being sorry that Bill would see Lacville for the firsttime on a Sunday. She feared that, to his English eyes, the place,especially on that day, would present a peculiarly--well, disreputableappearance!

  Sylvia felt jealous for the good fame of Lacville. Out in the open airher spirits had recovered their balance; she told herself that she hadbeen very happy here--singularly, extraordinarily happy....

  Of course it was a pity when people lost more money than they couldafford at the Casino; but even in England people betted--the poor, soshe had been told, risked all their spare pence on horse racing, and theothers, those who could afford it, went to Monte Carlo, or stayed at homeand played bridge!

  After all, where was the difference? But, of course, Bill Chester, withhis tiresome, old-fashioned views of life, would think there was a greatdifference; he would certainly disapprove of the way she was now spendingher money....

  Something told her, and the thought was not wholly unpleasing to her,that Bill Chester and the Comte de Virieu would not get on well together.She wondered if Count Paul had ever been jealous--if he were capable ofjealousy? It would be rather interesting to see if anything or anyonecould make him so!

  And then her mind travelled on, far, far away, to a picture with whichshe had been familiar from her girlhood, for it hung in the drawing-roomof one of her father's friends at Market Dalling. It was called "TheGambler's Wife." She had always thought it a very pretty and patheticpicture; but she no longer thought it so; in fact, it now appeared to herto be a ridiculous travesty of life. Gamblers were just like otherpeople, neither better nor worse--and often infinitely more lovablethan were some other people....

  At last Sylvia got up, and slowly made her way out of the wood. She didnot go back through the Wachners' garden; instead, she struck off to theleft, on to a field path, which finally brought her to the main road.

  As she was passing the Pension Malfait the landlady came out to the gate.

  "Madame!" she cried out loudly, "I have had news of Madame Wolsky atlast! Early this afternoon I had a telegram from her asking me to sendher luggage to the cloak-room of the Gare du Nord."

  Sylvia felt very glad--glad, and yet once more, perhaps unreasonably,hurt. Then Anna had been in Paris all the time? How odd, how reallyunkind of her not to have written and relieved the anxiety which she musthave known her English friend would be feeling about her!

  "I have had Madame Wolsky's room beautifully prepared for the Englishgentleman," went on Madame Malfait amiably. She was pleased that Mrs.Bailey was giving her a new guest, and it also amused her to observewhat prudes Englishwomen could be.

  Fancy putting a man who had come all the way from England to see one, ina pension situated at the other end of the town to where one was livingoneself!