White Motley: A Novel

by Max Pemberton

Here was a prophet, who had been without honour yesterday, but who stood to-night upon the brink of that kingdom of success which few may enter. A woman of the world, she understood what all this might mean to the honest fellow who had befriended her so staunchly. She saw him fêted and honoured, grown rich in an hour, a leader among men. Her perception discovered the soul of the man, that soul which a woman—perhaps but one woman in all the world—might fathom.

What ironical destiny had brought these two together? She reflected upon it, contrasting him with others she had known, the ornaments of her world and the drones. Many of these would hardly enter a room which harboured Benny to-night, but she knew that they would fawn upon him to-morrow, for such are the concessions of sycophants to success. He in turn would come to despise the humbler circles in which he had moved and to lose some of those rare qualities which were his strength. Of one thing, however, she had no doubt, and it was this—that a woman's love would be necessary to such a career as his, and that without it mere material success might carry him but a little way.

She had not answered Luton's letter, and it was still unanswered when she went to bed at half-past eleven. The plateau of Andana, usually so still after ten o'clock, then echoed the music of the sleigh bells with a persistence almost intolerable. She heard the cries of workmen, the lumbering of heavy vehicles, the muffled sounds of hammering. And all this contrasted so strangely with the great mountains across the valley, where the moon shone clear upon the giant Weisshorn, and the lesser peaks paid to the greater the homage of a glorious iridescence. A white and silent world it was, mocking the ambitions of men—yet not of all men, for would not one conquer them to-morrow? Such ambition appealed to her womanly instincts unerringly. She trembled when she made the silent confession that this man loved her, but that his love would remain unspoken to the end.

It would have been about one o'clock when the last of the sleighs arrived at the Palace Hotel, and a little later when the workmen had finished their labours. She sank to a dreamless sleep about this time, but awoke almost immediately with the conviction that someone had entered the chalet. A vague intuition of unwonted sounds set her heart beating and held her almost breathless. Someone had entered the little sitting-room, and was not twenty paces from the bed in which she lay. She could hear the man's footsteps as he crossed the room, and believing that he was at her own door she began to tremble violently. A realisation of her lonely situation afflicted her with a sense of inevitability which robbed her of every shred of her courage. She lay quite still, afraid to move a hand. The silence of the night without surpassed belief.

The man had crossed the room and was now at her writing-table. She could hear the rustle of papers and the click as of a lock. In a sense this was a relief, and gave her the necessary respite. She began to remember how unlikely it was that any thief would visit so poor a house as this chalet, or, if he did visit it, would trouble himself about letters. The excellent reputation well earned by the people of Andana occurred to her, and would have reassured her but for the alternative. For if this man were not a common thief, what then? Instantly she recalled the affair at Vermala, and a new fear came upon her. Yes, she understood it all in an instant and, creeping from her bed, she dressed herself with tremulous fingers.

Surely the man must hear her and take alarm. This was her idea as her clothes rustled in her hand, and her tiny feet shuffled upon the polished boards. The man would hear her and burst through the folding doors presently. When, however, he made no sign, she became a little emboldened, and being now quite dressed, she went to the interstice of the doors and looked through. Then she perceived her husband's valet, Paul Lacroix, who was searching her writing-table by the aid of an electric torch, whose aureole fell weirdly upon the scattered papers.

Paul Lacroix! That it should be he! She remembered that she had last seen him at Holmswell on the eve of the debacle. He had always been a silent, civil fellow whom it was a pleasure to have in the house. Luton, she knew, trusted him entirely, and the others gave a very good account of him. When the crash came, he had followed his master without complaint, to Africa and then to the East. She believed him staunch, and would have named him as one of the few in her own house who had done his duty loyally both to master and to mistress. And here he was at Andana, prying among her papers! The very fact robbed her of all fear and, opening the door immediately, she asked him what he was doing.

He was a man of the middle height, clean-shaven, and with crisp black hair, which contrasted sharply with a very pale face. It may be that he was not unprepared for interruption; for he merely looked up as Lily entered, and then, shutting down the desk with a click, he held his hand upon it while he answered her.

"Madame," he said, "I am seeking Sir Luton's address."

The effrontery of it astonished her. She switched on the electric light and came a little further into the room.