White Motley: A Novel

by Max Pemberton

Of course, the girl, Susette, would have told him. Benny recollected that she was a Catholic, and his odd notions about the ancient faith included the belief that nothing is kept secret, not even the most trivial things of a common day. So he argued that Susette would have "confessed," and the gendarme, Philip, have done the same, putting the abbé in possession of all the facts, and dictating this friendly intervention. The priest had been the man to warn Sir Luton. Possibly he had done so directly Philip Gaillarde left Andana. And if it were so, then the baronet was safe, and this journey had been vain indeed.

He had come to this conclusion anew when he heard someone open the front door of the shanty, and presently recognised the hacking cough of the beldame who should have been keeping it. Her feminine outburst when she discovered him, the muttered oath and then the trembling recognition were brushed aside while he asked her of his guest and heard her garrulous answer. Ah, that Englishman!—what she had suffered at his hands! And now he had gone—he went at eleven o'clock. This very morning, Bajazet, the postboy from the inn, had driven him; he would know all about it. For her part, Mother of God, she was glad that the house was quit of him. Such a man to serve—such anger, such words! She hoped that he would never return; but now that the master was come again she could be content. Which being said, she began with the method of a Swiss to set the house in order, and to justify her existence. It blazed with lights from garret to kitchen before half an hour had passed; fires roared in the grates; pots were steaming upon the hob. And while she worked she repeated her story that the Englishman had driven away at eleven o'clock, and that Bajazet could say where he had gone.

Benny let her have her say, and then went to the telephone to ring up the inn as she advised him. Being answered immediately, he asked for help to get his airship into shelter, and begged them to send up Cordivet, the gendarme, and as many young fellows of the place as they could summon. As to Bajazet, he must come to the villa immediately, if he could; and there would be ten francs for him if he hurried. Which being done, and the woman instructed to have supper ready within the hour, he went out to the lakeside and there waited for the postboy.

The night had fallen clear and the heavy clouds were now breaking to show a monstrous moon, shining full and round upon the sleeping water. By here and there the siren of a steamer could be heard, and the voices of young people who sang as they rowed; while from the village inn, some third of a mile up the road, the music of fiddles and a harp floated down upon the still air. Such a contrast to the rigour and cold of the heights was hardly to be imagined, and it seemed to Benny to stand for such a haven of rest as a man might win when he had crossed the pass and emerged victorious.

For himself, he knew that he was at the crisis of his life, and faced it with all the resolution he could command. To-night, or if not to-night, to-morrow, would tell him plainly enough whither his road lay, and to what house of fortune it would lead. Luton Delayne's possible flight had been in his calculations vaguely when he set out for Andana. He knew that his desire for this man's safety was honest, and that he would have contrived it whatever the sacrifice had cost him. Henceforth these people must lead their own lives. He perceived that it would be better that he should not see Lily again, and that she had been wise to leave Andana without a word to him. If the very fact led also to another conclusion, he strove to turn from it at such a moment. The vanity of his secret hopes was not to be disguised. Sometimes he had been ready to say that this sense of inglorious defeat, this merciless rebuke which fortune administered to him was well deserved. What had he, born to so humble a station, to do with such a friendship or its privileges? When he answered that his attainments had given him every right, he flushed secretly, as though someone overheard him. Success found him a shy lover, though he had wooed her daringly enough.

This passed at the lakeside, but the interlude of waiting galled him, and he found himself impelled resistlessly to act—he knew now how. When the coachman, Bajazet, appeared, he was greeted as an old friend: taken apart and made much of, and wine commanded for him. It seemed good to be talking to a man who had played a part, however humble, in the drama of the day. Benny led him to the little study and poured out a tumbler of red wine with his own hands, while he asked him twenty questions and hardly waited for an answer.

"So milord went away at eleven o'clock, Bajazet?"

"He did, Monsieur—it was just before the hour."

"He was very anxious to go?"

Bajazet raised his eyes to the ceiling.