"The Countess possesses a cat--a thing to which in itself I have no objection. To give this creature, which she likes to have with her constantly, the opportunity of exercise, she has caused an opening to be made from the pa.s.sage on to the roof. This piece of bread will represent--"
"I understand, I a.s.sure you," murmured Dieppe.
"Every evening she lets the cat into the pa.s.sage, whence it escapes on to the roof. On its return it would naturally betake itself to her room again."
"Naturally," a.s.sented the Captain. Are not cats most reasonable animals?
"But," said the Count, beginning to walk about again, "she shuts her door: the animal mews at it; my wife ignores the appeal. What then?
The cat, in despair, turns to my door. I take no heed. It mews persistently. At last, wearied of the noise, I open my door.
Always--by design, as I believe--at that very moment my wife flings her door open. You see the position?"
"I can imagine it," said Dieppe, discreetly.
"We are face to face! Nothing between us except the pa.s.sage--and the cat! And then the Countess, with what I am compelled to term a singular offensiveness, not to say insolence, of manner, slams the door in my face, leaving me to deal with the cat as I best can! My friend, it became intolerable. I sent a message begging the Countess to do me the favour of changing her apartment.
"She declined point-blank. I determined then to change mine, and sent word of my intention to the Countess." He flung himself into a chair.
"Her reply was to send back to me her marriage contract and her wedding-ring, and to beg to be informed whether my present stay at the Castle was likely to be prolonged."
"And you replied--?"
"I made no reply," answered the Count, crossing his legs.
A combination of feelings prevented Dieppe from disclosing the incident of the previous night. He loved a touch of mystery and a possibility of romance. Again, it is not the right thing for a guest to open bolted doors. A man does not readily confess to such a breach of etiquette, and his inclination to make a clean breast of it is not increased when it turns out that the door in question leads to the apartments of his host"s wife.
Finally, the moment for candour had slipped by: you cannot allow a man to explain a locality by means of forks and knives and pieces of bread and then inform him that you were all the while acquainted with its features. Dieppe was silent, and the Count, who was obviously upset by the recital of his grievances, presently withdrew to his study, a room on the upper floor which looked out on the gardens at the back of the house.
"What did they quarrel about?" Dieppe asked himself; the Count had thrown no light on that. "I "ll be hanged if I "d quarrel with her,"
smiled the Captain, remembering the face he had seen at the other end of the pa.s.sage. "But," he declared to himself, virtuously, "the cat may mew till it"s hoa.r.s.e--I won"t open that door again." With this resolve strong in his heart, he took his hat and strolled out into the garden.
He had no sooner reached the front of the house than he gave an exclamation of surprise. The expanse of rather rough gra.s.s sprinkled with flower-beds, which stretched from the Castle to the point where the ground dipped steeply towards the river, was divided across by a remarkable structure--a tall, new, bare wooden fence, const.i.tuting a very substantial barrier. It stood a few paces to the right of the window which the Captain identified as his own, and ran some yards down the hill. Here was plain and strong evidence of the state of war which existed between the two wings. Neither the Count nor the Countess would risk so much as a sight of the other while they took their respective promenades. The Captain approached the obstacle and examined it with a humorous interest; then he glanced up at the wall above, drawing a couple of feet back to get a better view. "Ah," said he, "just half-way between my window and--hers! They are very punctilious, these combatants!"
Natural curiosity must, so far as it can, excuse Captain Dieppe for spending the rest of the morning in what he termed a reconnaissance of the premises, or that part of them which was open to his inspection.
He found little. There was no sign of anybody entering or leaving the other wing, although (as he discovered on strolling round by the road) a gate in the wall on the right of the gardens, and a carriage-drive running up to it, gave independent egress from that side of the Castle.
Breakfast with the Count was no more fruitful of information; the Count discussed (apropos of a book at which he had been glancing) the question of the Temporal Power of the Papacy with learning and some heat: he was, it appeared, strongly opposed to these ecclesiastical claims, and spoke of them with marked bitterness. Dieppe, very little interested, escaped for a walk early in the afternoon. It was five o"clock when he regained the garden and stood for a few moments looking down towards the river. It was just growing dusk, and the lights of the inn were visible in the village across the valley.
Fishermen are a persevering race, the young man in the soft hat was still at his post. But no, he was not fishing! He was walking up and down in a moody, purposeless way, and it seemed to the Captain that he turned his head very often towards the Castle. The Captain sat down on a garden-seat close under the barricade and watched; an idea was stirring in his brain--an idea that made him pat his breast-pocket, twirl his moustache, and smile contentedly. "Not much of a fisherman, I think," he murmured. "Ah, my friend, I know the cut of your jib, I fancy. After poor old Jean Dieppe, are n"t you, my boy? A police-spy; I could tell him among a thousand!"
Equally pleased with the discovery and with his own acuteness in making it, the Captain laughed aloud; then in an instant he sat bolt upright, stiff and still, listening intently. For through the barricade had come two sounds--a sweet, low, startled voice, that cried half in a whisper, "Heavens, he "s there!" and then the rustle of skirts in hasty flight. Without an instant"s thought--without remembering his promise to the Count--Dieppe sprang up, ran down the hill, turned the corner of the barricade, and found himself in the Countess"s territory.
He was too late. The lady had made good her escape. There was n.o.body to be seen except the large yellow cat: it sat on the path and blinked gravely at the chagrined Captain.
"Animal, you annoy me!" he said with a stamp of his foot. The cat rose, turned, and walked away with its tail in the air. "I "m making a fool of myself," muttered Dieppe. "Or," he amended with a dawning smile, "she "s making a fool of me." His smile broadened a little.
"Why not?" he asked. Then he drew himself up and slowly returned to his own side of the barricade, shaking his head and murmuring, "No, no, Jean, my boy, no, no! He "s your host--your host, Jean," as he again seated himself on the bench under the barricade.
Evening was now falling fast; the fisherman was no longer to be seen; perfect peace reigned over the landscape. Dieppe yawned; perfect peace was with him a synonym for intolerable dulness.
"Permit me, my dear friend," said a voice behind him, "to read you a little poem which I have beguiled my leisure by composing."
He turned to find the Count behind him, holding a sheet of paper.
Probably the poet had his composition by heart, for the light seemed now too dim to read by. However this may be, a rich and tender voice recited to Dieppe"s sympathetic ears as pretty a little appeal (so the Captain thought) as had ever been addressed by lover to an obdurate or capricious lady. The Captain"s eyes filled with tears as he listened--tears for the charm of the verse, for the sad beauty of the sentiment, also, alas, for the unhappy gentleman from whose heart came verse and sentiment.
"My friend, you love!" cried the Captain, holding out his hand as the Count ended his poem and folded up the paper.
"And you are unhappy," he added.
The Count smiled in a sad but friendly fashion.
"Is n"t it the same thing?" he asked. "And at any rate as to me you are right."
Dieppe wrung his hand. The Count, apparently much moved, turned and walked slowly away, leaving Dieppe to his meditations.
"He loves her." That was the form they took. Whatever the meaning of the quarrel, the Count loved his wife; it was to her the poem was written, hers was the heart which it sought to soften. Yet she had not looked hard-hearted. No, she had looked adorable, frankly adorable; a lady for whose sake any man, even so wise and experienced a man as Captain Dieppe, might well commit many a folly, and have many a heartache; a lady for whom--
"Rascal that I am!" cried the Captain, interrupting himself and springing up. He raised his hand in the air and declared aloud with emphasis: "On my honour, I will think no more of her. I will think, I say, no more of her."
On the last word came a low laugh from the other side of the barricade.
The Captain started, looked round, listened, smiled, frowned, pulled his moustache. Then, with extraordinary suddenness, resolution, and fierceness, he turned and walked quickly away. "Honour, honour!" he was saying to himself; and the path of honour seemed to lie in flight.
Unhappily, though, the Captain was more accustomed to advance.
CHAPTER III
THE LADY IN THE GARDEN
It is possible that Captain Dieppe, full of contentment with the quarters to which fortune had guided him, under-rated the merits and attractions of the inn in the village across the river. Fare and accommodation indeed were plain and rough at the Aquila Nera, but the company round its fireside would have raised his interest. On one side of the hearth sat the young fisherman, he in whom Dieppe had discovered a police-spy on the track of the secrets in that breast-pocket of the Captain"s. Oh, these discoveries of the Captain"s! For M. Paul de Roustache was not a police-spy, and, moreover, had never seen the gallant Captain in his life, and took no interest in him--a state of things most unlikely to occur to the Captain"s mind. Had Paul, then, fished for fishing"s sake? It by no means followed, if only the Captain could have remembered that there were other people in the world besides himself--and one or two others even in the Count of Fieramondi"s house. "I "ll get at her if I can; but if she "s obstinate, I "ll go to the Count--in the last resort I "ll go to the Count, for I mean to have the money." Reflections such as these (and they were M. de Roustache"s at this moment) would have shown even Captain Dieppe--not, perhaps, that he had done the fisherman an injustice, for the police may be very respectable--but at least that he had mistaken his errand and his character.
But however much it might be abashed momentarily, the Captain"s ac.u.men would not have been without a refuge. Who was the elderly man with stooping shoulders and small keen eyes, who sat on the other side of the fire, and had been engaged in persuading Paul that he too was a fisherman, that he too loved beautiful scenery, that he too travelled for pleasure, and, finally, that his true, rightful, and only name was Monsieur Guillaume? To which Paul had responded in kind, save that he had not volunteered his name. And now each was wondering what the other wanted, and each was wishing very much that the other would seek his bed, so that the inn might be sunk in quiet and a gentleman be at liberty to go about his private business un.o.bserved.
The landlord came in, bringing a couple of candles, and remarking that it was hard on ten o"clock; but let not the gentlemen hurry themselves.
The guests sat a little while longer, exchanged a remark or two on the prospects of the weather, and then, each despairing of outstaying the other, went their respective ways to bed.
Almost at the same moment, up at the Castle, Dieppe was saying to his host, "Good night, my friend, good night. I "m not for bed yet. The night is fine, and I "ll take a stroll in the garden." A keen observer might have noticed that the Captain did not meet his friend"s eye as he spoke. There was a touch of guilt in his air, which the Count"s abstraction did not allow him to notice. Conscience was having a hard battle of it; would the Captain keep on the proper side of the barricade?
Monsieur Guillaume, owing to his profession or his temperament, was a man who, if the paradox may be allowed, was not surprised at surprises.
Accordingly when he himself emerged from the bedroom to which he had retired, took the path across the meadow from the inn towards the river, and directed his course to the stepping-stones which he had marked as he strolled about before dinner, he was merely interested and in no way astonished to perceive his companion of the fireside in front of him, the moon, nearly full, revealed Paul"s Tyrolean headpiece mounting the hill on the far side of the stream. Guillaume followed it, crossed the river at the cost of wet boots, ascended the slope, and crouched down behind a bush a few yards from the top. He had gained on Paul, and arrived at his hiding-place in time to hear the exclamation wrung from his precursor by the sudden sight of the barricade: from the valley below the erection had been so hidden by bushes as to escape notice.
"What the devil"s that for?" exclaimed Paul de Roustache in a low voice. He was not left without an answer. The watcher had cause for the smile that spread over his face, as, peeping out, he saw a man"s figure rise from a seat and come forward. The next moment Paul was addressed in smooth and suave tones, and in his native language, which he had hurriedly employed in his surprised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.
"That, sir," said Dieppe, waving his hand towards the barricade, "is erected in order to prevent intrusion. But it does n"t seem to be very successful."
"Who are you?" demanded Paul, angrily.
"I should, I think, be the one to ask that question," Dieppe answered with a smile. "It is not, I believe, your garden?" His emphasis on "your" came very near to an a.s.sertion of proprietorship in himself.
"Pray, sir, to what am I indebted for the honour of this meeting?" The Captain was enjoying this unexpected encounter with his supposed pursuer. Apparently the pursuer did not know him. Very well; he would take advantage of that bit of stupidity on the part of the pursuer"s superior officers. It was like them to send a man who did n"t know him! "You wish to see some one in the house?" he asked, looking at Paul"s angry and puzzled face.