Читать книгу Devil's Laughter: A Tale of Paris - John Hunter A.A. - Страница 3

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Tom Baring was dining with his father’s friend, John Calverley, at the Ermitage Moscovite in the Rue Caumartin.

Calverley was due to leave Paris early the following morning on a journey that would take him to the hinterland of Bokhara; and as he listened while Calverley discussed his plans and explained that he would be out of touch with Western civilization for many months, Baring wondered if his companion’s recurrent expeditions to strange and distant lands were solely inspired by an amateurish interest in archæology and geology, or whether they indicated a great and fretting unrest which occasionally drove Calverley away from the haunts of his fellows and sent him into solitude.

It was while he wondered and listened that Baring saw Gabrielle Laroche for the first time, and momentarily John Calverley and his travels were forgotten.

He saw her as she came up the stairs. He had an instant impression of youth—slim, vivid, vibrant—of bronze-coloured hair changing to gold, as the light struck it, of deep blue eyes touched with violet, of smiling red lips showing little white teeth.

A quiet-looking young man followed her; he looked a year or two her senior, and had a thoughtful, clever face.

Baring heard Calverley utter an exclamation of pleasure, and saw him get to his feet. A look of surprised recognition showed in the girl’s eyes and she came across the little dance floor to the corner in which their table was set.

“John! This is splendid. Why haven’t you been to see us?” Her English was almost perfect, touched with the slightest of Parisian accents. Her eyes were shining with genuine delight at the encounter. Calverley took her hand and touched it with his lips. Baring had never seen his friend kiss a woman’s hand before, for though he spent much of his time in Paris, Calverley remained essentially Anglo-Saxon.

“I’ve been entertaining my friend Baring, who doesn’t come to Paris often enough to know it as he should. And how is brother Anton behaving himself nowadays?”

The young man with the clever face shook hands heartily with Calverley, and Baring found himself being introduced to Mademoiselle and Monsieur Laroche.

“You’ll join us, won’t you?” suggested Calverley. “We haven’t started our meal and such a delightful encounter merits some kind of celebration.”

Gabrielle laughed and shot a sly glance in Anton’s direction. “John,” she said, “it is at this moment, and taking the opportunity for doing so, that I reveal a dark and dreadful secret. I am a surplus woman to-night. I’m quite sure Anton would be glad if you would take me off his hands.”

“That’s not fair,” protested Anton, with a smile. “She pressed me into being her escort, although she knew that I had an engagement with two of my friends at the Café Procope. And now she’s holding me up to contempt as an unwilling squire of dames. Now look here, Gabrielle....”

“I refuse to look anywhere except at John,” declared Gabrielle. “Anton, you are dismissed. Go to your friends at the Café Procope and leave your sister in better hands than yours.

“Anton’s a dear,” she added, as he disappeared down the stairs after taking his leave. “He tried to hide his disappointment when I upset his plans, and didn’t confess his engagement until we got here, and then only under pressure. Well, John”—her eyes softened as they rested on Calverley’s face—“mother tells me that you’re deserting Paris again. Another of those journeys to the ends of the earth?”

“Yes, I leave Paris to-morrow.”

“We can never keep him long,” Gabrielle said to Baring. “The older John grows, the more restless he becomes. He fills us with despair.”

“Isn’t it natural that a man should become more restless as he becomes older?” Calverley responded. “He realizes how few are the years left to him, and how much there is still to be done and to be seen. If I were like Baring here, just over thirty, and with all my life before me, I should probably send him after Anton and flirt with you.”

“I’m perhaps a bit more determined than Anton,” smiled Baring. “Besides, I’m English, and when I’ve seated myself at a dinner table, I feel entrenched against all attacks.”

Gabrielle laughed. “I’m glad you’re determined, because it would be dreadful if John flirted openly with me. You see he was mother’s sweetheart. He has known her ever since they were young. That’s so, isn’t it, John?”

Baring saw a shadow pass across Calverley’s face and vanish. “We were children together,” he said quietly. “Madame Laroche, Baring, was one of the Warwickshire Graydons before she married.” Calverley paused almost imperceptibly. “So Gabrielle’s half English. She and Anton went to school in England and finished over here.”

The meal passed very rapidly for Baring. Gabrielle chattered all through it, the light ingenuous talk of the girl who sees life’s pathway strewn with roses. That she was very fond of Calverley was obvious, and Baring found himself envying his older companion.

He admired Gabrielle tremendously, the level frankness in her eyes, her eager and abundant happiness; and when she suggested that instead of taking her home they should allow her to dance in Montparnasse, Baring was immensely pleased.

On this evening Gabrielle’s wish was law, and they accordingly drove to Valentin’s in the Rue de l’Ecole des Medicins. Valentin’s was new and a direct challenge to the gaieties of Montmartre up the hill across the river.

They found it fairly full. There was a sprinkling of foreign tourists and a few quite pretty girl students among the crowd that danced on the wide sleek floor. Garish and ugly mural decorations assisted in creating the desired atmosphere.

Calverley did not dance, and it was Baring who took Gabrielle on to the floor and drifted round with her amid the gay crowd. It was, Baring told himself, one of the most delightful experiences of his life—this holding Gabrielle close in the rhythm of a dance, with the subtle perfume she used stealing to his nostrils, with her glorious hair brushing his cheek.

He hardly knew what they talked about, as they danced, for mainly he was noting how her hair changed from bronze to gold in certain lights, how the blue of her eyes deepened to violet, how effortless were her movements, how exquisite her grace.

“This is a funny crowd,” said Baring.

“Yes,” agreed Gabrielle. “Strange people come to Valentin’s. They are encouraged to do so. That brings tourists, because tourists love to see outré folk. Here’s a queer fellow.”

A man had walked through the curtained doorway. He was a giant of a fellow, with a great black beard which dropped half-way down his white shirt-front. The bulk of his shoulders seemed to fill the doorway. In his right hand he carried a great short-stocked whip, its long lash wound and gathered round his immense hand. Baring stared at him.

“There was once,” said Gabrielle, “a coloured boxer who used to lead a wild animal into restaurants in Paris; but I’ve never known a man bring a whip to a dance before.”

It was quickly evident that the giant with the whip was a well-known patron of Valentin’s, for not only was he greeted effusively by the headwaiter, but Baring heard his name spoken by some of the people about them.

“Jan Dekker. The Boer with a whip....”

Dekker was swinging the big whip idly. Its lash dawdled through the air, curled gently and softly round the throat of a pretty girl and rested there without harming the flesh. Amid laughter, Dekker pulled her to the table at which he sat, and the whip fell away.

Once more its lash came out like a languorously-striking snake, curled round the slender stem of a wine glass, flicked it into the air, so that Dekker caught it as it came towards him.

He was obviously immensely proud of his uncanny control of the devilish thing which was so docile under his hand; but Baring, watching him, thought that under other circumstances and in different surroundings the whip and the man who wielded it might be a combination formidable beyond gauging, a dreadful partnership potent for death.

Just as the whip’s slow movement did not disguise the savagery of its possibilities, so did Dekker’s rude laughter fail to hide from Baring the man’s crude and brutal nature.

The dance took Baring and Gabrielle past where Dekker sat. Suddenly Dekker ceased to talk to the girl his whip had brought to his table and leaned forward, staring, with a look on his face which was, to Baring, as insulting as a foul word. For Dekker was staring at Gabrielle.

Baring saw his eyes drop to her feet, lift slowly to the bronze of her hair, and drop again. They followed her until the crush hid her, and they picked her out once more when she drew close to the table.

Baring, fixing Dekker with his eyes, found the man momentarily bestowing a glance on him. The glance was full of challenge. The whip swung slowly, hesitantly, as though it reflected an indecision on Dekker’s part, a pondering as to whether he should do unto Gabrielle as he had done to the girl at his side. Baring felt his pulses racing madly, hot rage drumming at his temples.

He heard Gabrielle say quietly: “I think I shall go home, Mr. Baring. That man rather frightens me.” He took her to their table and Calverley called for the bill.

The episode seemed definitely to stamp the evening as finished, for Gabrielle had no desire to go anywhere else, and Calverley was anxious to snatch an hour or two’s sleep before catching his early train. Accordingly they took a taxi down to her father’s house in the Avenue Malakoff, and Gabrielle, leaning back in her corner, watched Baring on the little occasional seat facing her and wondered whether she had enjoyed the evening so much because he had been present. She liked his quiet manner. Girlishly, she found a reticent strength in him which she could admire. She wished Calverley had not been leaving Paris on the morrow.

And Baring studied her dim outline in the darkness of the interior as she sat by Calverley’s side and thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever met. He must, he decided, not lose touch with her. His pulses quickened to the thought.

As he said “Good night” to her, he held her fingers gently. “I am wondering if I might call and see you?” he asked.

She smiled at him.

“That’s very nice of you. I should like it immensely. You won’t forget, will you?”

“That would be impossible,” said Baring quietly.