Читать книгу No Way Home - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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Mr. Campion came back to the inn late that evening. He was surprised to see the small glow of a pipe under the linden trees; a man must be standing there, at ease.

"Are you staying at the Drei Mohren?" he asked sharply.

The other, a dark figure with his hat pulled over his eyes, barely discernible in the shadows, muttered an apology in French, and disappeared in the darkness beyond the faint light of the public lamp.

The Englishman entered the hotel. Herr Kugler, as if waiting for him, was in the doorway of the public parlour.

"Who was that man under the trees outside?"

"I don't know, sir, indeed."

"A tall fellow, he spoke in French."

"Ah, that is Madame Daun's servant, he uses French as a polite language, as having been much in Paris, but he is, like Madame herself, an Austrian."

"You permit lackeys to lounge in front of the hotel, smoking?"

"It is understood," replied Herr Kugler uncomfortably, "that a certain liberty—a trusted valet de place—"

"It is little concern of mine," interrupted Mr. Campion, brusquely, "but I should not long reside in an establishment where such poor manners are permitted."

Herr Kugler suffered the rebuke in silence. His desire that the secretive lady should depart became stronger; romantic, even enthusiastic as he might be, his livelihood was with sober, every-day folk.

"I brushed against the fellow," said Mr. Campion haughtily, as he went upstairs. Outside the tall, classical door that led to Madame Daun's apartments he paused, then shrugged his shoulders, as if despising himself, and proceeded to the chamber allotted to him on the second floor.

Here, after Mr. Campion had finished his excellent supper, Herr Kugler presented himself, to the Englishman's annoyance.

"You want your account settled?" he asked, stiffly.

"No, your lordship mistakes the character of my house," replied Herr Kugler reproachfully. "I intrude on the affair of Madame Daun. I am a little troubled there. I thought it wiser to confide in your honour as a gentleman, than to make any secrecy."

"Indeed, and what affair is this of mine?"

"I understand the rebuke, sir. Please understand my difficulty. I have been made the recipient of a secret—a sad secret."

Mr. Campion seemed still to find this talk pompous, even impertinent.

"Then what right have you to chatter to me?" he demanded.

"Because I feel sure you are suspicious—perhaps in trouble yourself, sir," replied the innkeeper with desperate boldness, "and because I know this lady is not the person you look for. She has royal connections, need I say more?"

"I don't understand at all."

"An exile, sir, a fugitive from scenes of the utmost horror—bereaved, shocked, ill, in disguise and seclusion."

Mr. Campion eyed the talkative foreigner with indifference.

"This is no affair of mine, and you waste your trouble. I am searching for two people. A lady travelling alone is of no interest to me."

Herr Kugler bowed.

"I have my good name to think of. It could not be my wish for you to have any doubts as to guests of mine. I saw a letter from the Duke offering them protection—"

"Then, indeed she is no one whom I seek," interrupted Mr. Campion, contemptuously. "What have I to do with such?" His grey eyes shot a glance so cold and sulky at Herr Kugler that the innkeeper became precise and civilly remarked that the light carriage would be ready soon after breakfast on the following morning.

Left to himself, the Englishman paced the waxed boards, up and down before the handsome tester bed with the white, rose sprigged curtains, before the side table on which he had set out his travelling toilet case, on which stood the candles in brass sticks, before the window that gave on the topmost leaves of the linden trees, outlined, amber yellow, against the glow of the street lamp.

Without his cumbersome coat he showed as a fine man, tall and heavily built, with a broad chest, thick neck, and blunt features. His curly, dark brown hair was cut short and close whiskers accentuated his prominent cheek bones. His bearing was stiff and aristocratic; he had no gestures and few intonations in his speech. When he sighed, which was not infrequently, gusts of passion seemed to tear his breast.

At length his restlessness expended itself in the action that had become a nightly ritual with him. He paused by the candle light, seated himself, indifferently, on the dressing stool and drew from the inner pocket of his coat a crimson velvet case, worn by continual fingering and rubbing. He touched the spring and gazed, with a grim intensity of emotion, at a miniature that showed a young woman with two small children gathered affectionately in her arms. She wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, with black ribbons, that shadowed her face, and a white muslin morning gown. The boy's blue coat contrasted prettily with the rose-coloured sash of his younger sister. It was a delicate and attractive, if slightly insipid, portrayal of a charming young mother, only a girl herself, with infants as dainty as wax dolls. Round the miniature, fitted neatly into the case, was a plait of shining hair, of a dark, yet brilliant, red colour.

Mr. Campion continued to stare at this simple miniature that was not skilful enough in the execution to be more than a pallid suggestion of the original, with eyes heavy with a concentration of passion. His mouth, usually stern, twitched into a grimace and his body became set in a sombre, hunched attitude, expressive of his desperate absorption in the thoughts stimulated by the trivial painting. These thoughts never left him during his waking hours and, transformed into fearful shapes, haunted his hideous dreams. But never did they reach such a pitch of agony as when he, unable to resist the nightly torment, gazed at the presentment of these three fair faces.

The unsnuffed candles flared, then guttered into what the gossips name winding sheets, but Mr. Campion took no heed of this uncertain light that cast his ragged shadow jumping on the wall behind him, and across the trim and empty bed.