The Riddle of the Sands Part 34

It will be remembered that Davies had never been to the villa before.

XXIV. Finesse

THE door of a room on the ground floor was opened to us by a man-servant. As we entered the rattle of a piano stopped, and a hot wave of mingled scent and cigar smoke struck my nostrils. The first thing I noticed over Davies's shoulder, as he preceded me into the room, was a woman--the source of the perfume I decided--turning round from the piano as he pa.s.sed it and staring him up and down with a disdainful familiarity that I at once hotly resented. She was in evening dress, p.r.o.nounced in cut and colour; had a certain exuberant beauty, not wholly ascribable to nature, and a notable lack of breeding. Another glance showed me Dollmann putting down a liqueur gla.s.s of brandy, and rising from a low chair with something of a start; and another, von Bruning, lying back in a corner of a sofa, smoking; on the same sofa, _vis-a-vis_ to him, was--yes, of course it was--Clara Dollmann; but how their surroundings alter people, I caught myself thinking. For the rest, I was aware that the room was furnished with ostentation, and was stuffy with stove-engendered warmth. Davies steered a straight course for Dollmann, and shook his hand with businesslike resolution. Then he tacked across to the sofa, abandoning me in the face of the enemy.

'Mr--?' said Dollmann.

'Carruthers,' I answered, distinctly. 'I was with Davies in the boat just now, but I don't think he introduced me. And now he has forgotten again,' I added, dryly, turning towards Davies, who, having presented himself to Fraulein Dollmann, was looking feebly from her to von Bruning, the picture of tongue-tied awkwardness. (The commander nodded to me and stretched himself with a yawn.)

'Von Bruning told me about you,' said Dollmann, ignoring my allusion, 'but I was not quite sure of the name. No; it was not an occasion for formalities, was it?' He gave a sudden, mirthless laugh. I thought him flushed and excitable: yet, seen in a normal light, he was in some respects a pleasant surprise, the remarkable conformation of the head giving an impression of intellectual power and restless, almost insanely restless, energy.

'What need?' I said. 'I have heard so much about you from Davies--and Commander von Bruning--that we seem to be old friends already.'

He shot a doubtful look at me, and a diversion came from the piano.

'And now, for Heaven's sake,' cried the lady of the perfume, 'let us join Herr Bohme at supper!'

'Let me present you to my wife,' said Dollmann.

So this was the stepmother; unmistakably German, I may add. I made my bow, and underwent much the same sort of frank scrutiny as Davies, only that it was rather more favourable to me, and ended in a carmine smile.

There was a general movement and further introductions. Davies was led to the stepmother, and I found myself confronting the daughter with quickened pulses, and a sudden sense of added complexity in the issues. I had, of course, made up my mind to ignore our meeting of yesterday, and had a.s.sumed that she would do the same. And she did ignore it--we met as utter strangers; nor did I venture (for other eyes were upon us) to transmit any sign of intelligence to her. But the next moment I was wondering if I had not fallen into a trap. She had promised not to tell, but under what circ.u.mstances? I saw the scene again; the misty flats, the spruce little sail-boat and its sweet young mistress, fresh as a dewy flower, but blanched and demoralized by a horrid fear, appealing to my honour so to act that we three should never meet again, promising to be silent, but as much in her own interest as ours, and under that implied condition which I had only equivocally refused. The condition was violated, not by her fault or ours, but violated. She was free to help her father against us, and was she helping him? What troubled me was the change in her; that she--how can I express it without offence?--was less in discord with her surroundings than she should have been; that in dress, pose and manner (as we exchanged some trivialities) she was too near reflecting the style of the other woman; that, in fact, she in some sort realized my original conception of her, so brutally avowed to Davies, so signally, as I had thought, falsified. In the sick perplexity that this discovery caused me I dare say I looked as foolish as Davies had done, and more so, for the close heat of the room and its tainted atmosphere, succeeding so abruptly to the wholesome nip of the outside air, were giving me a faintness which this moral check lessened my power to combat. Von Bruning's face wore a sneering smile that I winced under; and, turning, I found another pair of eyes fixed on me, those of Herr Bohme, whose squat figure had appeared at a pair of folding doors leading to an adjoining room.

Napkin in hand, he was taking in the scene before him with fat benevolence, but exceeding shrewdness. I instantly noticed a faint red weal relieving the ivory of his bald head; and I had suffered too often in the same quarter myself to mistake its origin, namely, our cabin doorway.

'This is the other young explorer, Bohme,' said von Bruning. 'Herr Davies kidnapped him a month ago, and bullied and starved him into submission; they'll drown together yet. I believe his sufferings have been terrible.'

'His sufferings are over,' I retorted. 'I've mutinied--deserted--haven't I, Davies?' I caught Davies gazing with solemn _gaucherie_ at Miss Dollmann.

'Oh, what?' he stammered. I explained in English. 'Oh, yes, Carruthers has to go home,' he said, in his vile lingo.

No one spoke for a moment, and even von Bruning had no persiflage ready.

'Well, are we never going to have supper?' said madame, impatiently; and with that we all moved towards the folding doors. There had been little formality in the proceedings so far, and there was less still in the supper-room. Bohme resumed his repast with appet.i.te, and the rest of us sat down apparently at random, though an underlying method was discernible. As it worked out, Dollmann was at one end of the small table, with Davies on his right and Bohme on his left; Frau Dollmann at the other, with me on her right and von Bruning on her left. The seventh personage, Fraulein Dollmann, was between the commander and Davies on the side opposite to me. No servants appeared, and we waited on ourselves. I have a vague recollection of various excellent dishes, and a distinct one of abundance of wine.

Someone filled me a gla.s.s of champagne, and I confess that I drained it with honest avidity, blessing the craftsman who coaxed forth the essence, the fruit that harboured it, the sun that warmed it.

'Why are you going so suddenly?' said von Bruning to me across the table.

'Didn't I tell you we had to call here for letters? I got mine this morning, and among others a summons back to work. Of course I must obey.' (I found myself speaking in a frigid silence.) 'The annoying thing was that there were two letters, and if I had only come here two days sooner I should have only got the first, which gave me an extension.'

'You are very conscientious. How will they know?'

'Ah, but the second's rather urgent.'

There was another uncomfortable silence, broken by Dollmann.

'By the way, Herr Davies,' he began, 'I ought to apologize to you for--'

This was no business of mine, and the less interest I took in it the better; so I turned to Frau Dollmann and abused the fog.

'Have you been in the harbour all day?' she asked, 'then how was it you did not visit us? Was Herr Davies so shy?' (Curiosity or malice?)

'Quite the contrary; but I was,' I answered coldly; 'you see, we knew Herr Dollmann was away, and we really only called here to get my letters; besides, we did not know your address.' I looked at Clara and found her talking gaily to von Bruning, deaf seemingly to our little dialogue.

'Anyone would have told you it,' said madame, raising her eyebrows.

'I dare say; but directly after breakfast the fog came on, and--well, one cannot leave a yacht alone in a fog,' I said, with professional solidity.

Von Bruning p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at this. 'I'll be hanged if that was _your_ maxim,' he laughed; 'you're too fond of the sh.o.r.e!'

I sent him a glance of protest, as though to say: 'What's the use of your warning if you won't let me act on it?'

For, of course, my excuses were meant chiefly for his consumption, and Fraulein Dollmann's. That the lady I addressed them to found them unpalatable was not my fault.

'Then you sat in your wretched little cabin all day?' she persisted.

'All day,' I said, brazenly; 'it was the safest thing to do.' And I looked again at Fraulein Dollmann, frankly and squarely. Our eyes met, and she dropped hers instantly, but not before I had learnt something; for if ever I saw misery under a mask it was on her face.

No; she had not told.

I think I puzzled the stepmother, who shrugged her white shoulders, and said in that case she wondered we had dared to leave our precious boat and come to supper. If we knew Frisian fogs as well as she did--Oh, I explained, we were not so nervous as that; and as for supper on sh.o.r.e, if she only knew what a Spartan life we led--

'Oh, for mercy's sake, don't tell me about it!' she cried, with a grimace; 'I hate the mention of yachts. When I think of that dreadful 'Medusa' coming from Hamburg--' I sympathized with half my attention, keeping one strained ear open for developments on my right. Davies, I knew, was in the thick of it, and none too happy under Bohme's eye, but working manfully. 'My fault'--'sudden squall'--'quite safe', were some of the phrases I caught; while I was aware, to my alarm, that he was actually drawing a diagram of something with bread-crumbs and table-knives. The subject seemed to gutter out to an awkward end, and suddenly Bohme, who was my right-hand neighbour, turned to me. 'You are starting for England to-morrow morning?' he said.

'Yes,' I answered; 'there is a steamer at 8.15, I believe.'

'That is good. We shall be companions.'

'Are you going to England, too, sir?' I asked, with hot misgivings.

'No, no! I am going to Bremen; but we shall travel together as far as--you go by Amsterdam, I suppose?--as far as Leer, then. That will be very pleasant.' I fancied there was a ghoulish gusto in his tone.

'Very,' I a.s.sented. 'You are making a short stay here, then?'

'As long as usual. I visit the work at Memmert once a month or so, spend a night with my friend Dollmann and his charming family' (he leered round him), 'and return.'

Whether I was right or wrong in my next step I shall never know, but obeying a strong instinct, 'Memmert,' I said; 'do tell me more about Memmert. We heard a good deal about it from Commander von Bruning; but--'

'He was discreet, I expect,' said Bohme.

'He left off at the most interesting part.'

'What's that about me?' joined in von Bruning.

'I was saying that we're dying to know more about Memmert, aren't we, Davies?'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Davies, evidently aghast at my temerity; but I did not mind that. If he roughed my suit, so much the better; I intended to rough his.