Читать книгу The Quest: A Romance - Forman Justus Miles - Страница 3

Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of distaste.

"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle," he said, lowering his voice. "I'm off. I shall abandon you to him. He's a good old soul but he bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then made his way to the end of the table where their host sat discussing Aero-Club matters with a group of the other men.

Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying —

"May I recall myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple of years ago. My name's Stewart."

Captain Stewart – the title was vaguely believed to have been won some years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much about it – was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him "old Stewart" and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance, he might have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good deal more lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste. Marie's adjective had been rather apt. The man had a dessicated appearance. Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was still red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and withered like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair was almost gone from the top of his large round head, but it remained at the sides, stiff colourless hair with a hint of red in it. And there were red streaks in his grey moustache, which was trained outwards in two loose tufts like shaving brushes. The moustache and the shallow chin under it gave him an odd cat-like appearance. Hartley, who rather disliked the man, used to insist that he had heard him mew.

Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at Captain Stewart with a real curiosity and interest, in his character as Miss Benham's uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make these friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do so.

"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece, Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met, is it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am quite sure she said that she had not met you. Ah! yes, of course, you have been away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother – her mother is my sister, that is to say, my half-sister – have come here to live with my father." He gave a little gentle laugh.

"I take an elderly uncle's privilege," he said, "of being rather proud of Helen. She is called very pretty and she certainly has great poise."

Ste. Marie drew a quick breath and his eyes began to flash as they had done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon the ladder to the stars.

"Miss Benham," he cried. "Miss Benham is – " He hung poised so for a moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient splendour, but in the end he shook his head, and the gleam faded from his eyes. He sank back in his chair sighing.

"Miss Benham," said he, "is extremely beautiful." And again her uncle emitted his little gentle laugh which may have deceived Hartley into believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound was as much like mewing as it was like anything else.

"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more into the world. She needs distraction. We – you may possibly have heard that the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of my young nephew. Helen has suffered particularly because she is convinced that the boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very unlikely, very unlikely indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and for another – Ah well, a score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be comforted. It seems to me much more like a boy's prank – his idea of revenge for what he considered unjust treatment at his grandfather's hands. He was always a headstrong youngster, and he has been a bit spoilt. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very trying for us all – very wearing."

"Of course," said Ste. Marie gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah, by the way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We walked up the Champs Elysées from the Concorde, and on the way Hartley had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance. Near the Rond Point we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the street – there had been an accident of no consequence, a boy tumbled over but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the motor-car was a man whom I used to see about Maxim's and the Café de Paris and the Montmartre places too, some time ago – a rather shady character whose name I've forgotten. The odd part of it all was that at the last occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I think it was in Henry's Bar. Of course it means nothing at all. Your nephew doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to have information about his present whereabouts than any of the others. Still, I should have liked to ask him. I didn't remember who he was till he had gone."

Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette from which he had knocked the ash.

"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys kept in a glass case, but – Yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too careful." He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips.

"This man now, this man whom you saw to-night, what sort of looking man will he have been?"

"Oh, a tall lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and a heavy old-fashioned moustache. I just can't remember the name."

The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette, and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled over the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his chair.

After a moment he said —

"I fancy – from your description I fancy I know who the man was. If it is the man I am thinking of, the name is – Powers. He is, as you have said, a rather shady character, and I more than once warned my nephew against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes, I warned him."

"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure – that is, I think – it's not Powers."

"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart with an elderly man's half-querulous certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I remember – Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that just as you were talking of Arthur. You – oh, you didn't speak to him, you say? No! no, to be sure. You didn't recognise him at once. Yes, it was odd. Of course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been for what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none, away with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night, I wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie. A sad business."

Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at the table before him and twisting with his thin fingers the little liqueur glass and the coffee cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste. Marie thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and the man's fingers twitched on the cloth of the table, but when at last the group at the other end of the board rose and began to move towards the door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them.

At the door he seemed to think of something, and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.

"This, ah, Powers," he said in a low tone, "this man whom you saw to-night. You said he was one of two occupants of a motor-car. Yes? Did you by any chance recognise the other?"

"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw her before. She was very handsome."

Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said, in a man-of-the-world manner which sat rather oddly upon him —

"Ah well, we all have our little love affairs. I dare say this shady fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech peculiarly offensive.

In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead of him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before her turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie listlessly played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it, and he was glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and departed to look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a little with Marian de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of adoring him. She complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which was not true: he was only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone; and so, at last, he took his leave without waiting for Hartley.

Outside in the street he stood for a moment hesitating, and an expectant fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an interrogative whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away on foot. It was a still sweet night of soft airs and a moonless starlit sky, and the man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the Etoile he walked down the Champs Elysées, but presently turned towards the river. His eyes were upon the mellow stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. He found himself crossing the Pont des Invalides, and halted midway to rest and look. He laid his arms upon the bridge's parapet and turned his face outwards. Against it bore a little gentle breeze that smelt of the purifying water below and of the night and of green things growing. Beneath him the river ran black as flowing ink, and across its troubled surface the coloured lights of the many bridges glittered very beautifully – swirling arabesques of gold and crimson. The noises of the city – beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn of tram or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab horse – came here faintly and as if from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the sky glowed softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.

Ste. Marie closed his eyes and, against darkness, he saw the beautiful head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut exquisite modelling of feature and contour, the perfection of form and colour. Her eyes met his eyes, and they were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the new contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect than before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the movement was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen should have. The heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him and he would have gone down upon his knees.

He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something unprecedented, wholly new to his experience had befallen him – an awakening to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He was usually in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same sweet and bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and gone upon him, the eternal and ever-new miracle had wakened spring in his soul, had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets to winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited asleep.

He found himself wondering dully what it was, wherein lay the great difference, and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees to worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervour of his forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far above him upon a throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and untroubled. She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of the base passions of men. The other women whom Ste. Marie had, as he was pleased to term it, loved, had certainly come at least halfway to meet him, and some of them had come a good deal farther than that. He could not, by the wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl doing anything of that sort. She was to be won by trial and high endeavour, by prayer and self-purification, not captured by a warm eye glance, a whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy he looked from the crowding cohorts of these others to that still sweet figure set on high, wrapt in virginal pride, calm in her serene perfection, and his soul abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and worshipful adoration.

So, before quest or tournament or battle, must those elder Ste. Maries – Ste. Maries of Mont-les-Roses – have knelt, each knight at the feet of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardour of chivalry.

The man's hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his face again to the shining stars whereamong, as his fancy had it, she sat enthroned. Exultingly he felt under his feet the rungs of the ladder, and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done for ever with blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to climb, until at last he should stand where she was – cleansed and made worthy by long endeavour – at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.

It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in earnest about it, but his guardian angel, indeed Fate herself, must have laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in less exalted hours.

It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some mysterious fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been elsewhere diverted, and sometimes hours afterwards, or even days, produces quite suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste. Marie had turned with a little sigh to take up once more his walk across the Pont des Invalides, when seemingly from nowhere, and certainly by no conscious effort, a name flashed into his mind. He said it aloud —

"O'Hara! O'Hara. That tall thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It wasn't Powers at all." He laughed a little as he remembered how very positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that the mistake was an odd one since Stewart had evidently known a good deal about this adventurer. Captain Stewart though, Ste. Marie reflected, was exactly the sort to be very sure he was right about things. He had just the neat and precise and semi-scholarly personality of the man who always knows. So Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with another brief laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. The name brought with it a face, a dark and splendid face with tragic eyes that called. He walked a long way thinking about them, and wondering. The eyes haunted him. It will have been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie was a fanciful and imaginative soul. He needed but a chance word, the sight of a face in a crowd, the glance of an eye, to begin story building, and he would go on for hours about it and work himself up to quite a passion with his imaginings. He should have been a writer of fiction.

He began forthwith to construct romances about this lady of the motor-car. He wondered why she should have been with the shady Irishman – if Irishman he was – O'Hara, and with some anxiety he wondered what the two were to each other. Captain Stewart's little cynical jest came to his mind, and he was conscious of a sudden desire to kick Miss Benham's middle-aged uncle.

The eyes haunted him. What was it they suffered? Out of what misery did they call? – and for what? He walked all the long way home to his little flat overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, haunted by those eyes. As he climbed his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they had quite driven out of his mind the image of his beautiful lady who sat amongst the stars, and the realisation came to him with a shock.