The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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you are to take it now, at once. Just leave it at the Villa du Lac. You will come for us—you will come, that is, for me"—Monsieur Wachner raised his voice—"to-morrow morning at half-past six. I desire to catch the 7.10 train to Paris."
There was a jingle of silver, and then Sylvia caught the man's answering, "Merci, c'est entendu, M'sieur."
But L'Ami Fritz did not come back at once to the dining-room. He went out into the garden and accompanied the man down to the gate.
When he came back again he put a large key on the dining-table.
"There!" he said, with a grunt of satisfaction. "Now there will be nothing to disturb us any more."
They all three sat down at the round dining-table. To Sylvia's surprise a very simple meal was set out before them. There was only one small dish of galantine. When Sylvia Bailey had been to supper with the Wachners before, there had always been two or three tempting cold dishes, and some dainty friandises as well, the whole evidently procured from the excellent confectioner who drives such a roaring trade at Lacville. To-night, in addition to the few slices of galantine, there was only a little fruit.
Then a very odd thing happened.
L'Ami Fritz helped first his wife and himself largely, then Sylvia more frugally. It was perhaps a slight matter, the more so that Monsieur Wachner was notoriously forgetful, being ever, according to his wife, absorbed in his calculations and "systems." But all the same, this extraordinary lack of good manners on her host's part added to Sylvia's feeling of strangeness and discomfort.
Indeed, the Wachners were both very unlike their usual selves this evening. Madame Wachner had suddenly become very serious, her stout red face was set in rather grim, grave lines; and twice, as Sylvia was eating the little piece of galantine which had been placed on her plate by L'Ami Fritz, she looked up and caught her hostess's eyes fixed on her with a curious, alien scrutiny.
When they had almost finished the meat, Madame Wachner suddenly exclaimed in French.
"Fritz! You have forgotten to mix the salad! Whatever made you forget such an important thing? You will find what is necessary in the drawer behind you."
Monsieur Wachner made no answer. He got up and pulled the drawer of the buffet open. Taking out of it a wooden spoon and fork, he came back to the table and began silently mixing the salad.
The two last times Sylvia had been at the Châlet des Muguets, her host, in deference to her English taste, had put a large admixture of vinegar in the salad dressing, but this time she saw that he soused the lettuce-leaves with oil.
At last, "Will you have some salad, Mrs. Bailey?" he said brusquely, and in English. He spoke English far better than did his wife.
"No," she said. "Not to-night, thank you!"
And Sylvia, smiling, looked across at Madame Wachner, expecting to see in the older woman's face a humorous appreciation of the fact that L'Ami Fritz had forgotten her well-known horror of oil.
Mrs. Bailey's dislike of the favourite French salad-dressing ingredient had long been a joke among the three, nay, among the four, for Anna Wolsky had been there the last time Sylvia had had supper with the Wachners. It had been such a merry meal!
To-night no meaning smile met hers; instead she only saw that odd, grave, considering look on her hostess's face.
Suddenly Madame Wachner held out her plate across the table, and L'Ami Fritz heaped it up with the oily salad.
Sylvia Bailey's plate was empty, but Monsieur Wachner did not seem to notice that his guest lacked anything. And at last, to her extreme astonishment, she suddenly saw him take up one of the two pieces of meat remaining on the dish, and, leaning across, drop it on his wife's plate. Then he helped himself to the last remaining morsel.
It was such a trifling thing really, and due of course to her host's singular absent-mindedness; yet, even so, taken in connection with both the Wachners' silence and odd manner, this lack of the commonest courtesy struck Sylvia with a kind of fear—with fear and with pain. She felt so hurt that the tears came into her eyes.
There was a long moment's pause—then,
"Do you not feel well," asked Madame Wachner harshly, "or are you grieving for the Comte de Virieu?"
Her voice had become guttural, full of coarse and cruel malice, and even as she spoke she went on eating voraciously.
Sylvia Bailey pushed her chair back, and rose to her feet.
"I should like to go home now," she said quietly, "for it is getting late,"—her voice shook a little. She was desperately afraid of disgracing herself by a childish outburst of tears. "I can make my way back quite well without Monsieur Wachner's escort."
She saw her host shrug his shoulders. He made a grimace at his wife; it expressed annoyance, nay, more, extreme disapproval.
Madame Wachner also got up. She wiped her mouth with her napkin, and then laid her hand on Sylvia's shoulder.
"Come, come," she exclaimed, and this time she spoke quite kindly, "you must not be cross with me, dear friend! I was only laughing, I was only what you call in England 'teasing.' The truth is I am very vexed and upset that our supper is not better. I told that fool Frenchwoman to get in something really nice, and she disobeyed me! I was 'ungry, too, for I 'ad no déjeuner to-day, and that makes one 'ollow, does it not? But now L'Ami Fritz is going to make us some good coffee! After we 'ave 'ad it you shall go away if so is your wish, but my 'usband will certainly accompany you—"
"Most certainly I will do so; you will not move—no, not a single step—without me," said Monsieur Wachner solemnly.
And then Madame Wachner burst out into a sudden peal of laughter—laughter which was infectious.
Sylvia smiled too, and sat down again. After all, as Paul de Virieu had truly said, not once, but many times, the Wachners were not refined people—but they were kind and very good-natured. And then she, Sylvia, was tired and low-spirited to-night—no doubt she had imagined the change in their manner, which had so surprised and hurt her.
Madame Wachner was quite her old self again; just now she was engaged in heaping all the cherries which were in the dessert dish on her guest's plate, in spite of Sylvia's eager protest.
L'Ami Fritz got up and left the room. He was going into the kitchen to make the coffee.
"Mr. Chester was telling me of your valuable pearls," said Madame Wachner pleasantly. "I was surprised! What a lot of money to 'ang round one's neck! But it is worth it if one 'as so lovely a neck as 'as the beautiful Sylvia! May I look at your pearls, dear friend? Or do you never take them off?"
Sylvia unclasped the string of pearls and laid it on the table.
"Yes, they are rather nice," she said modestly. "I always wear them, even at night. Many people have a knot made between each pearl, for that, of course, makes the danger of losing them much less should the string break. But mine are not knotted, for a lady once told me that it made the pearls hang much less prettily; she said it would be quite safe if I had them restrung every six months. So that is what I do. I had them restrung just before coming to France."
Madame Wachner reverentially took up the pearls in her large hand; she seemed to be weighing them.
"How heavy they are," she said at length, and now she spoke French.
"Yes," said Sylvia, "you can always tell a real pearl by its weight."
"And to think," went on her hostess musingly, "that each of these tiny balls is worth—how much is it worth?—at least five or six hundred francs, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Sylvia again, "I'm glad to say they have increased in value during the last few years. You see, pearls are the only really fashionable gems just now."
"And they cannot be identified like other fine jewels," observed Madame Wachner, "but I suppose they are worth more together than separately?" she was still speaking in that thoughtful, considering tone.