CHAPTER V
Sylvia could hardly have said how it came about that she found herself established in the Villa du Lac only a week after her first visit to Lacville! But so it was, and she found the change a delightful one from every point of view.
Paris had suddenly become intolerably hot. As is the way with the Siren city when June is half-way through, the asphalt pavements radiated heat; the air was heavy, laden with strange, unpleasing odours; and even the trees, which form such delicious oases of greenery in the older quarters of the town were powdered with grey dust.
Also Anna Wolsky had become restless—quite unlike what she had been before that hour spent by her and by Sylvia Bailey in the Club at Lacville; she had gone back there three times, refusing, almost angrily, the company of her English friend. For a day or two Sylvia had thought seriously of returning to England, but she had let her pretty house at Market Dalling till the end of August; and, in spite of the heat, she did not wish to leave France.
Towards the end of the week Anna suddenly exclaimed:
"After all, why shouldn't you come out to Lacville, Sylvia? You can't go to Switzerland alone, and you certainly don't want to go on staying in Paris as Paris is now! I do not ask you to go to the Pension Malfait, but come to the Villa du Lac. You will soon make acquaintances in that sort of place—I mean," she added, "in your hotel, not in the town. We could always spend the mornings together"
"And I, too, could join the Club at the Casino," interjected Sylvia, smiling.
"No, no, I don't want you to do that!" exclaimed Anna hastily.
And then Sylvia, for some unaccountable reason, felt rather irritated. It was absurd of Anna to speak to her like that! Bill Chester, her trustee, and sometime lover, always treated her as if she was a child, and a rather naughty child, too; she would not allow Anna Wolsky to do so.
"I don't see why not!" she cried. "You yourself say that there is no harm in gambling if one can afford it."
This was how Sylvia Bailey came to find herself an inmate of the Villa du Lac at Lacville; and when once the owner of the Hôtel de l'Horloge had understood that in any case she meant to leave Paris, he had done all in his power to make her going to his relation, mine host of the Villa du Lac, easy and agreeable.
Sylvia learnt with surprise that she would have to pay very little more at the Villa du Lac than she had done at the Hôtel de l'Horloge; on the other hand, she could not there have the use of a sitting-room, for the good reason that there were no private sitting-rooms in the villa. But that, so she told herself, would be no hardship, and she could spend almost the whole of the day in the charming garden.
The two friends arrived at Lacville late in the afternoon, and on a Monday, that is on the quietest day of the week. And when Anna had left Sylvia at the Villa du Lac, driving off alone to her own humbler pension, the young Englishwoman, while feeling rather lonely, realised that M. Polperro had not exaggerated the charm of his hostelry.
Proudly mine host led Mrs. Bailey up the wide staircase into the spacious, airy room which had been prepared for her. "This was the bed-chamber of Madame la Comtesse de Para, the friend of the Empress Eugénie" he said.
The windows of the large, circular room, mirror-lined, and still containing the fantastic, rather showy decorations which dated from the Second Empire, overlooked the broad waters of the lake. Even now, though it was still daylight, certain romantic-natured couples had lit paper lanterns and hung them at the prows of their little sailing-boats.
The scene had a certain fairy-like beauty and stillness.
"Madame will find the Villa du Lac far more lively now" exclaimed M. Polperro cheerfully. "Last week I had only M. le Comte Paul de Virieu—no doubt Madame has heard of his brother-in-law, the Duc d'Eglemont?"
Sylvia smiled. "Yes, he won the Derby, a famous English race," she said; and then, simply because the landlord's love of talking was infectious, "And does the Count own horses, too?" she asked.
"Oh, no, Madame. He loves them, yes, and he is a fine horseman, but Count Paul, alas! has other things that interest and occupy him more than horses!"
After M. Polperro had bowed himself out, Sylvia sat down close to one of the open windows and looked out over the enchanting, and to her English eyes, unusual panorama spread out before her.
Yes, she had done well to come here, to a place of which, no doubt, many of her English friends would have thoroughly disapproved! But, after all, what was wrong about Lacville? Where, for the matter of that, was the harm of playing for money if one could afford to lose it?
Sylvia had hardly ever met so kind or so intelligent a woman as was her new friend, Anna Wolsky: and Anna—she made no secret of it at all—allowed playing for money to be her one absorbing interest in life.
As she thought of the Polish woman Sylvia felt sorry that she and her friend were in different pensions. It would have been so nice to have had her here, in the Villa du Lac. She felt rather lost without Anna, for she had become accustomed to the other's pleasant, stimulating companionship.
M. Polperro had said that dinner was at half-past seven. Sylvia got up from her chair by the window. She moved back into the room and put on a pretty white lace evening dress which she had not worn since she had been in France.
It would have been absurd to have appeared in such a gown in the little dining-room of the Hôtel de l'Horloge, which opened into the street; but the Villa du Lac was quite different.
As she saw herself reflected in one of the long mirrors let into the wall, Sylvia blushed and half-smiled. She had suddenly remembered the young man who had behaved, on that first visit of hers to the Villa du Lac, so much more discreetly than had all the other Frenchmen with whom she had been brought in temporary contact. She was familiar, through newspaper paragraphs, with the name of his brother-in-law, the French duke who had won the Derby. The Duc d'Eglemont, that was the racing French duke who had carried off the blue riband of the British Turf—the other name was harder to remember—then it came to her. Count Paul de Virieu. How kind and courteous he had been to her and her friend in the Club. She remembered him very vividly. Yes, though not exactly good-looking, he had fine eyes, and a clever, if not a very happy, face.
And then, on going down the broad, shallow staircase, and so through the large, oval hall into the dining-room, Sylvia Bailey saw that the man of whom she had been thinking was there, sitting very near to where she herself was now told that she was to sit. In the week that had gone by since Sylvia had paid her first visit to Lacville, the Villa had gradually filled up with people eager, like herself, to escape from the heat and dust of Paris, and the pleasant little table by the window had been appropriated by someone else.
When the young Englishwoman came into the dining-room, the Comte de Virieu got up from his chair, and clicking his heels together, bowed low and gravely.
She had never seen a man do that before. And it looked so funny! Sylvia felt inclined to burst out laughing. But all she did was to nod gravely, and the Count, sitting down, took no further apparent notice of her.
There were a good many people in the large room; parties of two, three, and four, talking merrily together, as is the way with French people at their meals. No one was alone save the Comte de Virieu and herself. Sylvia wondered if he felt as lonely as she did.
Towards the end of dinner the host came in and beamed on his guests; then he walked across to where Mrs. Bailey sat by herself. "I hope Madame is satisfied with her dinner," he said pleasantly. "Madame must always tell me if there is anything she does not like."
He called the youngest of the three waitresses. "Félicie! You must look very well after Madame," he said solemnly. "Make her comfortable, attend to her slightest wish"—and then he chuckled—"This is my niece," he said, "a very good girl! She is our adopted daughter. Madame will only have to ask her for anything she wants."
Sylvia felt much happier, and no longer lonely. It was all rather absurd—but it was all very pleasant! She had never met an hotel keeper like little Polperro, one at once so familiar and so inoffensive in manner.
"Thank you so much," she said, "but I am more than comfortable! And after dinner I shall go to the Casino to meet my friend, Madame Wolsky."
After they had finished dinner most of M. Polperro's guests streamed out into the garden; and there coffee was served to them on little round iron tables dotted about on the broad green lawn and sanded paths.
One or two of the ladies spoke a kindly word to Sylvia as they passed by her, but each had a friend or friends, and she was once more feeling lonely and deserted when suddenly Count Paul de Virieu walked across to where she was sitting by herself.
Again he clicked his heels together, and again he bowed low. But already Sylvia was getting used to these strange foreign ways, and she no longer felt inclined to laugh; in fact, she rather liked the young Frenchman's grave, respectful manner.
"If, as I suppose, Madame, seeing that you have come back to Lacville"
Sylvia looked up with surprise painted on her fair face, for the Count was speaking in English, and it was extremely good, almost perfect English.
"and you wish to join the Club at the Casino, I hope, Madame, that you will allow me to have the honour of proposing you as a member."
He waited a moment, and then went on: "It is far better for a lady to be introduced by someone who is already a member, than for the affair to be managed"—he slightly lowered his voice—"by an hotel keeper. I am well known to the Casino authorities. I have been a member of the Club for some time"
He stood still gazing thoughtfully down into her face.
"But I am not yet sure that I shall join the Club," said Sylvia, hesitatingly.
He looked—was it relieved or sorry?
"I beg your pardon, Madame! I misunderstood. I thought you told M. Polperro just now in the dining-room that you were going to the Casino this evening."
Sylvia felt somewhat surprised. It was odd that he should have overheard her words to M. Polperro, amid all the chatter of their fellow-guests.
"Yes, I am going to the Casino," she said frankly, "but only to meet a friend of mine there, the lady with whom I was the other day when you so kindly interfered to save us, or rather to save me, from being ignominiously turned out of the Club." And then she added, a little shyly, "Won't you sit down?"
Again the Comte de Virieu bowed low before her, and then he sat down.
"I fear you will not be allowed to go into the Club this time unless you become a member. They have to be very strict in these matters; to allow a stranger in the Club at all is a legal infraction. The Casino authorities might be fined for doing so."
"How well you speak English!" exclaimed Sylvia, abruptly and irrelevantly.
"I was at school in England," he said, simply, "at a Catholic College called Beaumont, near Windsor; but now I do not go there as often as I should like to do."
And then, scarcely knowing how it came about, Sylvia fell into easy, desultory, almost intimate talk with this entire stranger. But there was something very agreeable in his simple serious manners.
After a while Sylvia suddenly remembered that the Count had thrown his cigarette away before speaking to her.
"Won't you smoke?" she said.
"Are you sure you don't mind, Madame?"
"No, of course I don't mind!" and she was just going to add that her husband had been a great smoker, when some feeling she could not have analysed to herself made her alter her words to "My father smoked all day long"
The Count got up and went off towards the house. Sylvia supposed he had gone to get his cigarette-case; but a moment later he came back and sat down by her again. And then very soon out came the host's pretty little niece with a shawl over her arm. "I have brought Madame a shawl," said the girl, smiling, "for it's getting a little cold," and Sylvia felt touched. How very kind French people were—how kind and how thoughtful!
It struck half-past eight. Mrs. Bailey and the Comte de Virieu had been talking for quite a long time.
Sylvia jumped up. "I must go now," she cried, a little regretfully. "I promised to meet my friend in the hall of the Casino at half-past eight. She must be there waiting for me, now."
"If you will allow me to do so, I will escort you to the Casino," said the Count.
Sylvia ran upstairs to put on her hat and gloves. On the table which did duty for a dressing-table there was a small nosegay of flowers in a glass of water. It had not been there before she had come down to dinner.
As she put on a large black tulle hat she told herself with a happy smile that Lacville was an enchanting, a delightful place, and that she already felt quite at home here!
The Comte de Virieu was waiting for her in the hall.
"I think I ought to introduce myself to you, Madame," he said solemnly. "My name is Paul de Virieu."
"And mine is Sylvia Bailey," she said, a little breathlessly.
As they were hurrying along the short piece of road which led to the lane in which the Casino of Lacville is situated, the Count said suddenly, "Will you pardon me, Madame, if I take the liberty of saying that you should arrange for your friend to call for you on those evenings that you intend to spend at the Casino? It is not what English people call 'proper' for you to go to the Casino alone, or only accompanied by a stranger—for I, alas! am still a stranger to you."
There was no touch of coquetry or flirtation in the voice in which he said those words. Sylvia blushed violently, but she did not feel annoyed, only queerly touched by his solicitude for—well, she supposed it was for her reputation.
"You see, Madame," he went on soberly, "you look very young—I mean, pardon me, you are very young, and I will confess to you that the first time I saw you I thought you were a 'Miss.' Of course, I saw at once that you were English."
"An English girl would hardly have come all by herself to Lacville!" said Sylvia a little flippantly.
"Oh, Madame, English young ladies do such strange things!"
Sylvia wondered if the Count were not over-particular. Was Lacville the sort of place in which a woman could not walk a few yards by herself? It looked such a happy, innocent sort of spot.
"Perhaps I do not make myself clear," went on Count Paul.
He spoke very quickly, and in a low voice, for they were now approaching the door of the Casino. "Not very long ago a lady had her hand-bag snatched from her within a few yards of the police-station, in the centre of the town. Everyone comes here to make or to lose money"
"But most of the people look so quiet and respectable," she said smiling.
"That is true, but there are the exceptions. Lacville contains more exceptions than do most places, Madame."
They were now in the hall of the Casino. Yes, there was Anna Wolsky looking eagerly at the great glass doors.
"Anna? Anna? Here I am! I'm so sorry I'm late!"
Sylvia turned to introduce the Comte de Virieu to Madame Wolsky, but he was already bowing stiffly, and before she could speak he walked on, leaving Mrs. Bailey with her friend.
"I see you've already made one acquaintance, Sylvia," said the Polish lady dryly.
"That's the man who was so kind the last time we were here together. He is staying at the Villa du Lac," Sylvia answered, a little guiltily. "His name is Count Paul de Virieu."
"Yes, I am aware of that; I know him by sight quite well," Anna said quickly.
"And he has offered to propose me as a member of the Club if I wish to join," added Sylvia.
"I shall propose you—of course!" exclaimed Anna Wolsky. "But I do not think it is worth worrying about your membership to-night. We can spend the evening downstairs, in the public Salle des Jeux. I should not care to leave you alone there, even on a Monday evening."
"You talk as if I were sugar or salt that would melt!" said Sylvia, a little vexed.
"One has to be very careful in a place like Lacville," said Anna shortly. "There are all sorts of queer people gathered together here on the look-out for an easy way of making money." She turned an affectionate look on her friend. "You are not only very pretty, my dear Sylvia, but you look what the people here probably regard as being of far more consequence, that is, opulent."
"So I am," said Sylvia gaily, "opulent and very, very happy, dear Anna! I am so glad that you brought me here, and first made me acquainted with this delightful place! I am sure Switzerland would not have been half as amusing as Lacville"
The public gambling room was much quieter and emptier than it had been on the Saturday when Sylvia had first seen it. But all the people playing there, both those sitting at the table and those who stood in serried ranks behind them, looked as if they were engaged on some serious undertaking.
They did not appear, as the casual holiday crowd had done, free from care. There was comparatively little talking among them, and each round of the monotonous game was got through far quicker than had been the case the week before. Money was risked, lost, or gained, with extraordinary swiftness and precision.
A good many of the people there, women as well as men, glanced idly for a moment at the two newcomers, but they soon looked away again, intent on their play.
Sylvia felt keenly interested. She could have stopped and watched the scene for hours without wanting to play herself; but Anna Wolsky soon grew restless, and started playing. Even risking a few francs was better to her than not gambling at all!
"It's an odd thing," she said in a low voice, "but I don't see here any of the people I'm accustomed to see at Monte Carlo. As a rule, whenever one goes to this kind of place one meets people one has seen before. We gamblers are a caste—a sect part!"
"I can't bear to hear you call yourself a gambler," said Sylvia in a low voice.
Anna laughed good-humouredly.
"Believe me, my dear, there is not the difference you apparently think there is between a gambler and the man who has never touched a card."
Anna Wolsky looked round her as she spoke with a searching glance, and then she suddenly exclaimed,
"Yes, I do know someone here after all! That funny-looking couple over there were at Aix-les-Bains all last summer."
"Which people do you mean?" asked Sylvia eagerly.
"Don't you see that long, thin man who is so queerly dressed—and his short, fat wife? A dreadful thing happened to them—a great friend of theirs, a Russian, was drowned in Lac Bourget. It made a great deal of talk in Aix at the time it happened."
Sylvia Bailey looked across the room. She was able to pick out in a moment the people Anna meant, and perhaps because she was in good spirits to-night, she smiled involuntarily at their rather odd appearance.
Standing just behind the croupier—whose task it is to rake in and to deal out the money—was a short, stout, dark woman, dressed in a bright purple gown, and wearing a pale blue bonnet particularly unbecoming to her red, massive face. She was not paying much attention to the play, though now and again she put a five-franc piece onto the green baize. Instead, her eyes were glancing round restlessly this way and that, almost as if she were seeking for someone.
Behind her, in strong contrast to herself, was a tall, thin, lanky man, to Sylvia's English eyes absurdly as well as unsuitably dressed in a grey alpaca suit and a shabby Panama hat. In his hand he held open a small book, in which he noted down all the turns of the game. Unlike his short, stout wife, this tall, thin man seemed quite uninterested in the people about him, and Sylvia could see his lips moving, his brows frowning, as if he were absorbed in some intricate and difficult calculation.
The couple looked different from the people about them; in a word, they did not look French.
"The man—their name is Wachner—only plays on a system," whispered Anna. "He is in fact what I call a System Maniac. That is why he keeps noting down the turns in his little book. That sort of gambler ought never to leave Monte Carlo. It is only at Monte Carlo—that is to say, at Roulette—that such a man ever gets a real chance of winning anything. I should have expected them to belong to the Club, and not to trouble over this kind of play!"
Even as she spoke, Anna slightly inclined her head, and the woman at whom they were both looking smiled broadly, showing her strong white teeth as she did so; and then, as her eyes travelled from Anna Wolsky to Anna's companion, they became intent and questioning.
Madame Wachner, in spite of her unwieldy form, and common, showy clothes, was fond of beautiful things, and especially fond of jewels. She was wondering whether the pearls worn by the lovely young Englishwoman standing opposite were real or sham.
The two friends did not stay very long in the Casino on that first evening. Sylvia drove Anna to the Pension Malfait, and then she came back alone to the Villa du Lac.
Before drawing together the curtains of her bed-room windows, Sylvia Bailey stood for some minutes looking out into the warm moonlit night.
On the dark waters of the lake floated miniature argosies, laden with lovers seeking happiness—ay, and perhaps finding it, too.
The Casino was outlined with fairy lamps; the scene was full of glamour, and of mysterious beauty. More than ever Sylvia was reminded of an exquisite piece of scene painting, and it seemed to her as if she were the heroine of a romantic opera—and the hero, with his ardent eyes and melancholy, intelligent face, was Count Paul de Virieu.
She wondered uneasily why Anna Wolsky had spoken of the Count as she had done—was it with dislike or only contempt?
Long after Sylvia was in bed she could hear the tramping made by the feet of those who were leaving the Casino and hurrying towards the station; but she did not mind the sound. All was so strange, new, and delightful, and she fell asleep and dreamt pleasant dreams.