Ричард Марш
Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings
IX
THE END OF HIS HOLIDAY
I
"That's a fine girl!"
The lady thus tersely referred to by Mr Harry Davison was followed into the room by a gentleman who was as noticeable as herself. As they searched for a vacant seat they were attended by the glances of the breakfasters. Chance had it that they found an unoccupied table which was close to that at which Mr Davison was seated. Mr Lintorn finished his breakfast, eating it steadily through, while Mr Davison, eating nothing, stared at the lady. Having discussed the meal, Mr Lintorn, fitting his eyeglass into its place, eyed the new-comers.
"I thought so."
"Thought what?"
Mr Lintorn paused before replying. He rose from his chair. An odd smile was on his face.
"They're some people I knew in the Riviera."
With a little nod to his friend, he moved towards the new arrivals. Left alone, Mr Davison observed Mr Lintorn's proceedings with surprise. He thought he perceived that that gentleman was not received with too effusive a welcome. It pleased Mr Davison to perceive it. But Mr Lintorn seemed in no way discomposed. Breakfasters finished and rose and went, but he stayed on. Mr Davison stayed too. He got up at last and began to walk about the room, lingering once or twice in the vicinity of the little table. Still Mr Lintorn declined to take the hint. In the end he had the courage of despair.
"Er, excuse me, Lintorn: er-"
There he ceased. He was Nottinghamshire born and bred, a handsome, sunny-faced lad scarcely out of his teens, with the flush of health upon his cheeks; but assurance was not his strongest point. Scarcely had he opened his mouth than he was overwhelmed by the fear that he was making an ass of himself. He became a ruby. Then the young lady did an extraordinary thing; she helped him over the stile.
"Mr Lintorn," she spoke English with quite a charming accent, "will you not permit us to know your friend?"
It was said with such a pretty little air that the request was robbed of singularity. Mr Lintorn, to whom, indeed, the proposition seemed a little unexpected, acceded to the lady's wishes.
"M. de Fontanes, Mdlle. de Fontanes, permit me to introduce to you Mr Davison."
Mr Davison's awkwardness continued, although the lady was so gracious. Perhaps her exceeding graciousness only increased his sense of awkwardness; it is so with some of us when the grass is green. They left the hotel together, this quartet; together they even wandered on the sands. Behind, the old gentleman with Mr Lintorn; in front, mademoiselle with Mr Davison. Under these circumstances, despite his awkwardness, Mr Davison seemed to enjoy himself, for when they parted he turned to Mr Lintorn.
"Lintorn, she's a goddess!"
Mr Lintorn, through his eyeglass, surveyed his friend. Then he lit a cigarette. Then he pointed to a lady, who could boast of some sixteen stone of solid figure.
"Another goddess," he observed.
"That monstrosity!"
"Perhaps some people do prefer them lean."
"Lean? You call Mdlle. de Fontanes lean? Why, she's as graceful as a sylph!"
"I shouldn't be surprised. What is a sylph?"
"Did you see such eyes?"
"Yes; often."
"Where?"
"In other people's heads."
"Lintorn, you're a brute!"
On that they parted. They joined forces again at dinner. Afterwards they went to the Casino. There was a little ball that night. The place was crowded. M. de Fontanes and his daughter were there. Mdlle. de Fontanes behaved towards Mr Davison like an old-time friend. She danced with him, not once nor twice, but three times running; and, oddly enough, between the dances they lost her father. Looking for him occupied a considerable amount of time; and still they could not find him. At the end of the search the young lady was compelled to seat herself while Mr Davison procured her an ice. As he was engaged in doing so, someone touched him on the shoulder. It was Mr Lintorn.
"Take care," he said, his hand upon the other's arm.
"What do you mean?" asked Mr Davison. He was heated with pleasure and excitement. Mr Lintorn eyed him fixedly.
"Take care; you're spilling that ice."
The fact was correctly stated. Mr Davison was holding the plate in such a manner that the half-melted mass was dripping over the edge. Still it was scarcely necessary to stop him in order to tell him that; the more especially as it was the stoppage which was the cause of the ice being spilt.
Mr Davison saw Mdlle. de Fontanes home. Under the circumstances he could scarcely help it. When a lady is alone-we need not lay stress on such incidentals as youth and beauty-where is the man who would not proffer her his escort through the perils of the midnight streets? The night was fine, the breeze was warm; they lingered first in the gardens of the établissement to look upon the sea. Then they strolled gently through the Boulogne streets. They had told each other tales-unspoken tales-by the time they reached the Rue des Anges, but perhaps she understood his tale better than he did hers.
The lady paused. She addressed her cavalier, -
"This is our apartment. I am afraid my father will scold me."
"Scold you! Why?"
"You see, I am all he has, and so-I wait upon his pleasure. I am so seldom away from him that, when I am, even for a little time, he misses me. But will you not come in? Perhaps your presence may save me from my scolding."
Mr Davison was not in the mood, nor was he the man, to say "No" to such an invitation. He went in to save her from her scolding. They found the old gentleman in the salon, seated, in solitary state, in front of a table on which were a couple of packs of cards. His manner in greeting his daughter was more than a trifle acid.
"Well? You have come! It is good of you, upon my honour. I have not waited quite two hours-yet."
"I am so sorry."
She put her arms about his neck, her soft cheek against his rough one. He disengaged himself from her embrace.
"Permit me! I am not in the vein!"
"Father, you see that Mr Davison is here. Mr Davison, my father is justly angry with me. I have kept him waiting two hours for his écarté."
Mr Davison advanced to the old gentleman with outstretched hand.
"Let me pay forfeit in Mdlle. de Fontanes' stead: play with me."
The old gentleman touched the extended palm with the end of his frigid fingers. He looked the speaker up and down.
"Do you play écarté?"
"I ought to; I have played it my whole life long."
"Then," said the old man, with beautiful irony, "you should be a foeman worthy of my steel."
They sat down. But the young lady did not seem easy.
"Is it not too late to play to-night? I am already guilty of detaining Mr Davison."
Mr Davison repudiated the idea with scorn.
"Too late! Why, sometimes I sit up playing cards the whole night long."
"After that," murmured the old man softly, "what has one left to say?"
They played, if not all night, at least until the tints of dawn were brightening the sky. The stakes were trifling, but, even so, if one never wins, one may lose-in time. When Mr Davison rose to go he had lost all his ready money and seventeen pounds besides. This he was to bring to-morrow, when he was to have his revenge.
Mdlle. de Fontanes let him out. In the hall, before she opened the door, she spoke to him.
"I wish you would promise me not to play with my father again."
"Promise you! But why?"
"Do not be offended. You are a younger man. You do not play so well as he, my friend."
The "friend" came softly at the end. But Mr Davison chafed at the under-estimation of his powers.
"You think so because I have not won to-night. Let me tell you, for your satisfaction, that I was not afraid of meeting any man at the 'Varsity, and there are some first-rate players there."
The lady smiled.
"At the 'Varsity? I see." She opened the door. The dawn streamed in. "Good-night."
As Mr Davison strolled homewards he saw before him in the air, not a pack of cards, but a woman's eyes.
II
Mr Davison saw Mr Lintorn again at the eleven o'clock breakfast that morning.
"Find her father?" was Mr Lintorn's greeting to him as he took his seat.
"Find her father? Whose? Oh, Mdlle. de Fontanes'! No; I had to see her home."
"Hard lines!"
Mr Lintorn waited until the second course was served before he spoke again.
"It took you a long time to see her home?"
"I don't understand you."
"I sat up for you until nearly two, and you weren't in then."
"It was very good of you to sit up for me, I'm sure."
Mr Lintorn, adjusting his eyeglasses, looked his friend fixedly in the face.
"Davison, if you will allow me, on this occasion only, to play the part of mentor, you will have as little to do with the de Fontanes as you conveniently can.
"What the deuce do you mean?"
"Nothing; only a word to the wise-"
"Considering that they are not my friends, but yours-"
"Who said they were my friends?"
"You introduced me."
"I introduced you? The like of that!"
The pair sallied forth together to see the bathers. Who should they chance upon but M. and Mdlle. de Fontanes. Mademoiselle had bathed. She looked radiant. Unlike the average woman, who finds the ordeal of emerging from the sea a trying one, the sea had but enhanced her charms. They were quite a family party. M. de Fontanes even unbent so far as to express a hope that the two Englishmen would dine with them that same evening. They were but in a temporary apartment; he could not promise them much, but they should have something to eat. Mr Davison accepted with effusion. Mr Lintorn, a little to his friend's surprise, after what had passed between them, accepted too.
Mr Davison spent the rest of the day in looking forward to his dinner. It was to be at seven. As a matter of course, he was dressed at six. Yet, owing to Mr Lintorn, it was half-past seven before they reached the Rue des Anges. Mr Davison was perspiring with rage. Mdlle. de Fontanes received them. Her father was standing, looking black, behind. Mr Lintorn was the first to enter the room.
"I pray your pardon, but Mr Davison has not yet reached an age at which punctuality at dinner is esteemed a virtue."
The thing was gratuitous.
"I assure you, Mdlle. de Fontanes-" burst out Mr Davison.
The young lady cut him short.
"I forgive you," she said. "It is so nice to be young."
During dinner Mr Davison scarcely spoke a word. His feelings were too strong for speech-at least, at such a gathering. The young lady, observing his silence, commented on it in what seemed almost a spirit of gratuitous malice.
"I am afraid, Mr Davison, we do not please you."
"Mdlle. de Fontanes!"
"Or perhaps you are not so eloquent as Mr Lintorn-ever?"
"No, never."
Mdlle. de Fontanes spoke so hesitatingly, and in such low tones, that only Mr Davison caught the words she uttered next.
"Perhaps-there is a certain manner-which-only comes with age."
"You seem to think that I am nothing but a boy. I will prove to you that at least in some things I am a man."
She looked up at him and smiled. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were bright. To make up, perhaps, for his lack of conversation, he had been drinking all the time. When they re-entered the salon the card-table was arranged for play. Mr Davison went up to it at once.
"M. de Fontanes, I hope for my revenge."
Mdlle. de Fontanes went to his side and whispered him, -
"I asked you!"
"But I had promised. Besides, I wish to show you that écarté is one of the things in which you underrate my age."
M. de Fontanes sat down. There was a curious look upon his face.
"Mr Lintorn, you and I are old antagonists. Who was it used to win?"
"Invariably you."
"Ah, then it is your turn now!"
"Perhaps."
They played gallery. In spite of his prediction, fortune, as a rule, was with their host. The stakes were trifling, his losses small, yet it was curious to see the irritation with which Mr Lintorn saw his francs forsake him. He was playing with M. de Fontanes. The old gentleman scored the king. Suddenly Mr Lintorn, throwing his cards on the table, rose to his feet.
"It is enough!" he said.
His opponent looked up in not unnatural surprise.
"How?"
"You have won, and you will win certainly." He turned to the lady. "Mdlle. de Fontanes, you must excuse me. I have letters to write."
Without another word he left the room. A pause of blank amazement followed his disappearance. M. de Fontanes sat like a figure carved in stone.
"Is Mr Lintorn ill?" his daughter asked.
Mr Davison took upon himself to answer.
"He must be, or else mad. I believe he always is half-mad. But never mind! I'm glad he's gone. Now, M. de Fontanes, you have to reckon with me. For revenge! Your daughter doubts if I can play écarté. I will show her that her doubts are vain."
He drank two glasses of Maraschino, one after the other, emptying each at a draught. Placing the liqueur case beside him on the table, he sat down again to play. And they played on, and on, and on, hour after hour. Mr Davison continually lost. Fortune never varied; it was against him all the time. As his losses increased, he insisted on increasing the stakes. At last they were playing for really considerable sums.
"Fortune must turn!" he cried. "I never saw such cards in all my life! And, when it turns, I want to have a chance, you know."
So he persisted in raising the stakes still higher. And he drank! He emptied the flask of Maraschino, and began upon the Kummel, and would have emptied that if his host's daughter had not, probably in a moment of abstraction, removed the case of liqueurs from the table. He was in the highest spirits, and lost as though losing were a pleasure. And mademoiselle leant over his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
But at last her father declared that play must cease.
"You have had bad fortune," he observed.
"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Mr Davison; his utterance was a little thick. "Extraordinary! Never had such bad fortune in my life before. It isn't fair to judge of a man's form from the play tonight? What do I owe you? A heap, I know."
"A trifle," M. de Fontanes looked through his tablets. "Three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs."
"Three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs! Why, that's a-that's a hundred and fifty pounds! Great snakes!"
The magnitude of the sum almost sobered him. M. de Fontanes smiled.
"You must try again for your revenge."
As before, the lady escorted the guest downstairs, "assisted" him would, on the present occasion, perhaps, have been the better word. The touch of her hand at parting increased his sense of intoxication. The cool air of the early morning did not tend to lessen it. He went staggering over the cobblestones. On the quay he encountered a solitary figure-the figure of a man who was strolling up and down and smoking a cigar. Mr Davison, with a burst of tipsy surprise, perceived that it was Mr Lintorn.
"Lintorn! I thought you were writing your letters."
Mr Lintorn quietly surveyed him.
"Did you? How much have you lost?"
"How do you know I've lost?"
"Why?" Mr Lintorn shrugged his shoulders. "The man happens to be a cheat."
"Don't-don't you say that again!"
"Why not? You would have seen it yourself if you had had your wits about you. He was cheating all the time."
"You-!"
Mr Davison struck at his friend. Mr Lintorn warded off the blow. Mr Davison struck again. The man was drunk and bent upon a row. It was impossible to avoid him without actually turning tail and fleeing. So Mr Lintorn let him have it. Mr Davison lay on his back among the cobble-stones. Mr Lintorn advanced to his assistance. The recumbent hero greeted him with a volley of abuse. Seeing that to persist would only be to bring about a renewal of hostilities, Mr Lintorn strolled off to the hotel alone, leaving Mr Davison to follow at his leisure.
III
The next morning Mr Davison did not put in an appearance at breakfast. So Mr Lintorn went to look for him in his room. He knocked at the door.
"Who's there?" growled a voice within.
"Lintorn. May I come in?"
Without waiting for the required permission he entered. The hero was still in bed. There was that look about him which is noticeable in the ordinarily sober youth who has enjoyed the night before not wisely, but too well. And his eye-outside the actual organ-was a beautiful black. Mr Lintorn started at sight of these signs of mourning.
"Davison, I had no idea-"
"You had no idea of what, sir? What do you mean by entering my room?"
"I cannot express to you how ashamed of myself I feel. I-I had no idea that I had hit so hard."
Mr Lintorn felt-too late-that this was one of those delicate subjects which are best avoided. But the words were spoken.
"Look here, Mr Lintorn: I chanced to stay in the same hotel with you at Nice, and it has suited me since, as a traveller, to adapt my movements to yours. Beyond that, you are a perfect stranger to me. You are, at best, but a chance acquaintance. Be so good as to consider that acquaintance dropped."
Mr Davison spoke, or intended to speak, with the dignity and the hauteur which are appropriate to the travelling man of fashion, who has spent six weeks abroad. But such a character is difficult to maintain when one has "hot coppers" and a black eye, and is lying in bed. None the less Mr Lintorn perceived that the present was not a favourable moment for argument. He fixed his glass in his eye, gave Mr Davison just one look, bowed, and left him to his dignity.
Mr Davison rang for his shaving-water, and the waiter who brought it was so indiscreet as to notice the gentleman's condition-the condition, that is, of what has been called his optic.
"Mais, monsieur est blessé!"
Mr Davison's knowledge of French was not peculiar for its extent, but it was sufficient to render him aware that the man exaggerated the actual fact.
"Get out!" he shouted.
The man got out, having learned, it is to be hoped, a lesson in tact. When Mr Davison began to shave he found that his hand was shaky. His temper was ruffled, his head ached most dreadfully. The looking-glass revealed with terrible distinctness the state of his eye; it was really not surprising that the waiter had found it impossible to avoid making his little observation. In shaving-not, by the way, in his case an absolutely indispensable operation-he cut a gash about an inch and a half in length on the most prominent part of his chin. This, ornamented with a strip of yellow sticking-plaster, did not, so to speak, harmonise with the rest of his appearance. It did not harmonise with his temper, either; he was in a mood to cut the throat of the first man he met.
When he had completed his toilet he sat down and penned the following note: -
"Mr Davison presents his compliments to M. de Fontanes. He encloses notes to the value of three thousand seven hundred and fifty francs-the amount of his overnight losses at écarté. As such a sum is larger than Mr Davison cares to lose, he would be obliged by M. de Fontanes giving him his revenge at the earliest possible moment-say this evening at eight o'clock."
Mr Davison felt this was a communication which any man might be proud of having written; that it conveyed the impression that he was not a lad to be trifled with, and that it would give M. de Fontanes and his daughter to understand that, sooner or later, he would be quits, and more. Before enclosing the notes it was necessary to have the notes to enclose. That involved sallying forth to get them. So he sallied forth, patched chin, black eye, and all, to the banking-house of MM. Adam et Cie. Those gentlemen were so good as to honour his cheque to the extent he required-not, however, without commiserating him both on the state of his chin and the state of his eye. Having received his notes, he sent his letter. Then he returned to the hotel to wait for a reply. It came.
"Mon Brave. – Ce soir, à huit heures, chez moi. Mille remercîments.
"De Fontanes."
Although M. de Fontanes spoke such fluent English, it appeared that he preferred to trust to his own language when it came to pen and paper.
On the stroke of eight Mr Davison made his appearance in the Rue des Anges. His entry made a small sensation. Mdlle. de Fontanes, advancing to meet him, stopped short with a little cry.
"Mr Davison! Oh, what is the matter! Are-are you ill?"
Mr Davison turned the colour of a boiled beetroot.
"I do not understand you," he said.
The father's tact was finer than the daughter's.
"On the stroke of the hour!" he murmured, extending his hand to greet his guest, as though guests with patched chins and black eyes were everyday occurrences.
They sat down to play. Before they commenced Mr Davison delivered himself of a few remarks.
"You must understand, M. de Fontanes, that I have lost more than I quite care to lose. Therefore, I cannot afford to play for trifling stakes. I suggest with your permission, that we commence with five-pound points."
"Five-pound points!" cried mademoiselle. Her distress seemed genuine.
"I said five-pound points."
Mr Davison's manner towards the daughter of the house was scarcely courteous. Perhaps he resented the surprise she had shown at his appearance.
"Five pounds-or fifty."
M. de Fontanes smiled at the board as he murmured this liberal agreement with his guest's suggestion.
It was not the drink that night, but the cards! The younger player never touched a king. Never had a man such luck before. In so short a space of time as to make the whole affair seem like a conjuring trick, his debt to M. de Fontanes had entered its second century. He appeared to grow bewildered, as, indeed, in the face of such a run of luck an older player might easily have done. He got into such a state that he would have been unable to play the cards even if he had had them, and he never had them.
"This-this is awful!" he groaned. "At this rate I shall be able to do nothing even if luck turns. What do you say to doubling the stakes?"
Mdlle. de Fontanes was reclining in an easy-chair, ostensibly reading a book; in reality following the game. She sprang to her feet.
"I forbid it!" she cried. "Father, I forbid it!"
"Do not disturb yourself, my child. I am in all things moderate. The stakes are high enough-for me."
Mr Davison's losses increased. He never scored a trick. He was making a record in bad luck. His lips were parched, his hands trembling.
"That makes three hundred pounds," said M. de Fontanes, reading his tablets.
"Three hundred pounds!" repeated the young man, a little hoarsely, perhaps.
"It shall not be!"
The interruption came from Mdlle. de Fontanes. She advanced to the table. She laid her hand upon the pack of cards which Mr Davison was about to deal. Her father looked up at her interrogatively.
"I say it shall not be. I will not have it, father. Mr Davison, you owe my father nothing; he cheats you all the time."
M. de Fontanes rose. His tall figure seemed to tower to an unusual height.
"I care not. I tell you, Mr Davison, you owe my father nothing-not a sou-! He cheats you all the time!"
Mr Davison staggered to his feet, his eyes opened, as it were, by a sudden flash of lightning. He threw the pack of cards, which he was holding, into the old man's face.
There was silence. Then the old man's lips moved.
"To-morrow," he muttered, so that the words were scarcely audible, and left the room.
When he was gone, the lady addressed the gentleman:
"You, too, had better go."
Mr Davison went. Mdlle. de Fontanes was left alone. She did not escort him down the stairs. And this time, as he walked through the night to his hotel, it was not a woman's eyes, but a pack of cards which he saw before him in the air.
