The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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caught her breath. Again she had suddenly experienced that unpleasant, eerie sensation—the sensation that she was not alone. But this time the feeling was far more vivid than it had been in the dining-room.
So strong, so definite was Sylvia's perception of another presence, and this time of a human presence, in the still house, that she turned sharply round—
But all she saw was the empty passage, cut by a shaft of light thrown from the open door of the kitchen, stretching its short length down to the entrance hall.
Making a determined effort over what she could but suppose to be her nerves, she walked through into the Wachners' bed-room.
It was very bare and singularly poorly furnished, at least to English eyes, 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 on a ragged, unkempt lawn, but across the lawn she noticed, much more particularly than she had done on the two former occasions when she had been in the house, that there lay a thick grove of chestnut trees just beyond the grounds of the Châlet des Muguets.
A hedge separated the lawn from the wood, but like everything else in the little 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 deal table, covered with a turkey red cloth, on which lay a large sheet of ink-stained, white blotting-paper.
Flanking the blotting-paper was a pile of Monsieur Wachner's little red books—the books in which he so carefully noted the turns of the game at the 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 looking for 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 inkpot filled to the brim.
She told herself that the only thing to do was to tear a blank leaf out of one of L'Ami Fritz's note-books, and on it write her message of invitation. If she left the little sheet of paper propped up on the dining-table, the Wachners would be sure to see it.
She took up the newest-looking of the red note-books, and as she opened it she suddenly felt, and for the third time, that there was a living presence close to her—and this time that it was that of Anna Wolsky!
It was an extraordinary sensation—vivid, uncanny, terrifying—the more so 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 and yet real presence did not endure; and, as she focussed her eyes on the open book she held in her hand, it became fainter and fainter, while she realised, with a keen sense of relief, what it was that had brought the presence of her absent friend so very near to her.
There, actually lying open before her, between two leaves of the little note-book, was a letter signed by Anna Wolsky! It was a short note, in French, apparently an answer to one Madame Wachner had sent reminding her of her engagement. It was odd that the Wachners had said nothing of this note, for it made Anna's conduct seem stranger than ever.
Opposite the page on which lay the little letter, Monsieur Wachner had amused himself by trying to imitate Anna's angular handwriting.
Sylvia tore out one of the blank pages, and then she put the note-book and its enclosure back on the table. She felt vaguely touched by the fact that the Wachners had kept her friend's last letter; they alone, so she reminded herself, had been really sorry and concerned at Anna's sudden departure from the place. They also, like Sylvia herself, had been pained that Madame Wolsky had not cared to say good-bye to them.
She scribbled a few lines on the scrap of paper, and then, quickly making her way to the dining-room, she placed her unconventional invitation on the round table, and went out into the hall.
As she opened the front door of the Châlet des Muguets Sylvia was met by a blast of hot air. She looked out dubiously. She was thoroughly unnerved—as she expressed it to herself, "upset." Feeling as she now felt, 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 was there—away from her own country and her own people? With a choking sensation in her throat she told herself that it would be very comfortable 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 the cool depths of the chestnut wood. Why not go over there and rest in the shade?
Hurrying across the scorched grass to the place where there was an opening in the rough hedge, she found herself, a moment later, plunged in the grateful green twilight created by high trees.
It was delightfully quiet and still in the wood, and Sylvia wondered vaguely why the Wachners never took their tea out there. But foreigners are very law-abiding, or so she supposed, and the wood, if a piece of no-man's land, was for sale. Up a path she could see the back of a large board.
It was clear that this pretty bit of woodland would have been turned into villa plots long ago had it been nearer to a road. But it was still a stretch of primeval forest. Here and there, amid the tufts of grass, lay the 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 had been cleared away.
Even here, where in summer the sun never penetrated, the tufts of coarse grass were dried up by the heat. She glanced down; no, there was no fear that the hard, dry ground would stain her pretty cotton frock.
And then, as she sat there, Sylvia gradually became aware that close to her, where the undergrowth began again, the earth had recently been disturbed. Over an irregular patch of about a yard square the sods had been dug up, and then planted again.
The thought passed through her mind that children must have been playing there, 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 tree across the little plot of ground where the earth had been disturbed. It was this broken branch, of which the leaves had shrivelled up, that had first 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 journeying towards her as fast as boat and train could bring him; in a couple of hours he would be in Paris, and then, perhaps, he would come out to Lacville in time for dinner.
Sylvia had not been able to get a room for him in the Villa du Lac, but she had engaged one in the Pension Malfait—where she had been able to secure the apartment which had been occupied by Anna Wolsky, whose things had only just been moved out of it.
She could not help being sorry that Bill would see Lacville for the first time on a Sunday. She feared that, to his English eyes, the place, especially on that day, would present a peculiarly—well, disreputable appearance!
Sylvia felt jealous for the good fame of Lacville. Out in the open air her spirits had recovered their balance; she told herself that she had been very happy here—singularly, extraordinarily happy....
Of course it was a pity when people lost more money than they could afford at the Casino; but even in England people betted—the poor, so she had been told, risked all their spare pence on horse racing, and the others, those who could afford it, went to Monte Carlo, or stayed at home and played bridge!
After all, where was the difference?