Courts of Idleness (8 page)

Robin moved to the spot she indicated and felt under the purple tassels. The next moment the jangle of an old bell came faintly from the direction of the house.

In silence they sat waiting till they heard a shuffle of steps beyond the gates. Then one of these swung open, and an old man stood uncovered while they rode within. Under the shadow of tall trees about the drive, that swept to the villa’s entrance, they dismounted, giving the reins to a bare-legged urchin, who received them with a shy smile. Then:

“This way,” said Phyllis, stepping towards a broad path that clearly led into the depths of the garden.

Out of the tall trees’ shadow they passed into the hot sunshine, a glowing riot of colour on either hand, and so to where the path ran between the faded pillars of a long corridor. At the entrance to the latter Phyllis Fettering stopped.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” she said.

The corridor might have been hewn through a hill of living blossom. Here, not content to make a gorgeous canopy, a bougainvillea streamed down the sides of the pergola, staining with scarlet the snowy fabric of screens that clustering roses made, while further along the gaudy yellow of bignonias hung down beside a purple arras of wisteria, now in its full beauty. Framed in the far mouth of the corridor was a distant headland with the white surf beating about it, and a glimpse of the sparkling ocean beyond.

For a moment they stood looking at the picture. Then:

“Appearances,” said Robin, “are deceptive. I thought the gate we came in by was made of wood. I now realize that it was made of ivory.”

Beyond the corridor, steps led down to a little flagged terrace facing the sea, with white clumps of daisies and large-flowered violets all about it, while over an old stone seat leaned a great pink peach tree in full bloom, so that seat and terrace alike were littered with delicate peach-blossom.

With almost the air of a proprietress, Phyllis sat down. Pleasedly she watched Robin looking slowly about him. At length:

“What a wonderful place!” he said. “I suppose this is my lady’s bower, where she sighs and works tapestry on off-days. I can hardly believe I’m awake. Do you mind pinching my left ear – low down on the lobe?”

Sitting down, he placed his head at a convenient angle. With a smile Miss Fettering flicked his ear with her glove.

“Wake up,” she said. “If this is my bower, I desire to be amused. Perhaps I’m asking too much.”

“There was once,” said Robin, “an old king, and he had one daughter, who was the apple—”

“Of his eye,” said Miss Fettering. “I know this one.”

“Not at all. She was the apple-women’s delight, because she lived on apples. She and her father were very happy and proud of their home, which was full of beautiful things. They had a gold telephone and a cuckoo clock and one of the finest collections of picture postcards in the country.

“One day, just as they were finishing breakfast, the telephone went.

“‘I’ll answer it,’ said the Princess, for the King had just put a large piece of trout into his mouth.

“When she asked who it was:

“‘I’m the Chief of the Police,’ said a man’s voice. ‘I want to speak to the King.’

“‘I’m afraid you can’t just now,’ said the Princess. ‘His mouth’s full.’

“‘What of?’ said the voice.

“‘Trout,’ said the Princess. ‘Can I give him a message?’

“‘Take him by the throat at once,’ said the voice. ‘He mustn’t swallow, whatever happens. That stuff is poisoned. Goodbye.’

“‘Goodbye,’ said the Princess. Then she replaced the gold receiver and took her father firmly by the throat.

“It took some time to make him understand the position, and several servants had to be called in to hold his arms and legs, but at length he began to realize that the trout was poisoned. After a very painful scene, order was restored. The King used up most of the mouth-wash in the castle before lunch, and the remains of the trout were given to the poor with the other scraps.

“The beggar who got the trout counted himself lucky, ate it, and was not one penny the worse. The King, however, expired at luncheon before he had emptied his tankard.

“The Chief of the Police, who had just arrived at the castle, expecting a knighthood, left ten years later without any ears, the golden telephone was disconnected, and the Princess let the palace and took the veil shortly afterwards.

“The only people well out of it were the beggar who got the trout and the King’s physician, who had repeatedly advised His Majesty that ‘stout was poison’ to a man of his corpulence.”

Miss Fettering clapped her hands. “I like that,” she said, smiling. “What’s the moral?”

Broke shook his head. “My tales,” he said, “resemble my cousin Bill – they have no morals.”

“But I love Mr Fairie.”

“He is a good chap, isn’t he?” said Broke meditatively. “Very offensive, though.” He looked at her for a moment. Then: “I wonder if you realize what a lovely picture you make,” he said simply.

“Another fairy tale?” queried Miss Fettering.

“No. A true one this time.”

Steady grey eyes met his. Broke regarded them thoughtfully. The thud of a heavy gun broke the silence suddenly. As the echoes rumbled into the hills, Robin stepped to the balustrade. The girl followed him.

Starra lay all before them, twinkling in the sunshine about the bay, and, beyond, the dancing ocean stretched away till the sky met it.

“Never knew they fired off guns here,” said Broke. “Never knew they had any to fire.”

“Do they? Have they?”

Robin looked sharply at his companion. “Didn’t you hear that one, just this moment?” he said.

Phyllis Fettering shook her head.

“I heard a steamer give a long hoot,” she said.

“Hoot!” cried Broke. “This was a gun. You must have heard it. No steamer has hooted since we’ve been here.”

“One did a moment ago – just before you got up. Surely you heard it. It must have been that Castle liner.” She indicated the great grey ship riding easily in the bay.

“The sound I heard was made by a gun,” said Broke positively.

“If you ask me,” said Phyllis, “I think this is another of your dreams.”

“But you refuse to share it this time.”

“You started for Thought without telling me.”

“If I had told you, would you have come too?”

“I don’t know.”

Broke took a small bare hand into his own.

“Whether you would have or not doesn’t matter now. In future you’ll always be there. That is why I shall go. You are such stuff as dreams are made of, dear. You—”

The hand slipped from his. Miss Fettering turned suddenly and smiled into his eyes.

“Anyway,” she said, “I’m not going there with you now, because I’m going back to lunch. But don’t let me take you out of your way. I know the ways of Starra just as well as you know those of Thought, though I’m afraid I haven’t a gallery of throats here.”

“Three quarters of an hour ago,” said Broke, “a disastrous fire broke out in Bond Street, Past. No attempt was made to subdue the flames. Amongst other buildings the south wing of my gallery was almost completely destroyed.”

“Oh!” said Phyllis.

“Yes,” said Broke. “The only portion left standing was a room which had been recently added.”

For the eleventh time Mrs Fairie placed a florin on
impair
.

“It must turn up this time,” she said.

After a tense moment:

“
Le vingt
,” said the croupier.

“Bill,” said his wife, “‘even’ has turned up twelve times running.”

“Then put your shirt on odd,” said her husband shortly.

Betty choked.

“But I have,” she said in a shaking voice.

“Do it again,” said Fairie, standing up and covering most of the numbers below twenty-five.

Betty pinched him savagely. His involuntary cry of pain attracted some attention. A Frenchman on his right was courteously solicitous.

“A mere nothing,” said Bill gravely. “A sudden brutal assault upon my person. That was all.”

“
Le neuf
,” announced the croupier.

“And I wasn’t on,” wailed Betty. “I can’t stand any more. Let’s go out into the garden. Come, Fay.”

Rising, the two girls made their way to one of the French windows, Broke and Fairie following them.

Night comes to Rih as a wizard, wand in hand. And Magic with her. Her very entrance is that of a sorcerer. There is no twilight at all. The shadows lengthen, but Rih knows no dusk. One minute it is yet evening – the quiet hour – and the next, night. In the twinkling of an eye the universe has shed her gay blue gown for one of violet, all glorious within, stiff with the broidery of myriad stars. From being an island, Rih has become an isle. Though there has been a breeze in the daytime, it will fall at sundown, so that from then till cock-crow Nature is very still. Not a leaf of all the foliage trembles, not a flower sways. It is as if a spell had been cast about the island, wrapping everything in the sleep of a fairy tale – an enchantment which only the caress of some destined lover’s lips may unloose.

The four passed through the starlit garden to the edge of the low cliff, from the foot of which the leisurely lap of the waves rose to meet the languid dream music which was floating out into the darkness from the Casino’s ball-room. The white blossoms of an incense-tree loaded the soft air with perfume.

Bill Fairie seated himself on the broad stone parapet and lighted a cigarette.

“I’ll tell you a funny thing,” he said, turning to Robin.

“No,” said Broke. “Not that. We can stand a good deal, but—”

“Now then, Polo,” said his cousin, “I shan’t buy those leggings if you aren’t careful, and you’ll have to advertise. Pair gent’s riding-gaiters, size twelve, sell four shillings, or would exchange for fowls.”

“What were you going to tell us?” said The White Hope, who had joined them unobserved.

“Ah, there you are,” said Betty. “We wondered where you had got to. I’m afraid the dinner—”

“Not at all,” said the lawyer. “My digestion improved with every course, but the manner in which
rouge
persistently defied convention during the twenty minutes which I was so ill-advised as subsequently to spend at the tables was more than I could stomach. It was only your dainty tones that just now lured me from the dudgeon in which I have been labouring for the last half-hour. But let us have the humorous communication promised us by our friend.”

“Sorry,” said Bill, “but when I said ‘funny’ I meant ‘strange.’ This morning, when we were sitting in the garden of the restaurant on the mountain-top, a gun went off. Deuce of a big gun it was. Echoed like anything. Fettering’ll bear me out. He heard it. You couldn’t help hearing it. The funny thing is that, when I asked what it meant, Betty and Fay swore they hadn’t heard any gun. Said they’d heard the hoot of a steamer. Well, no steamer had whistled for hours. We bad quite a row about it. Fettering and I heard a gun, while the girls both heard the steamer. I confess it beats me.”

“I heard that gun,” said Robin.

“There you are,” said Bill excitedly. “I knew—”

“But Miss Fettering didn’t.” They all stared at him. “We had just the same argument. She insisted that she had heard a long hoot—”

“That’s right,” cried Betty. “It was a long hoot to begin with, and then the hills took it up. The echoes went on for a long time.”

“I’ll swear no steamer hooted just then,” said Broke. “I didn’t understand it at the time,” he added slowly, “but your story makes it uncanny.”

A silence fell upon the little group. Robin tossed the end of his cigarette over the cliff and strolled away into the darkness.

Betty shivered.

“I hate anything uncanny,” she said. “I feel afraid, somehow.”

But the White Hope laughed it off.

“Remember,” he said, “you were upon an expedition, and alarms and excursions always go together.”

As they strolled back to the Casino, Fairie and the man of law fell behind.

“Between you and me,” said the former, “was that a gun we heard?”

The White Hope shook his head.

“I will wager that no gun has today been fired within a hundred miles of Starra.”

“Then what d’you make of it?”

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“Occasionally Fate writes upon the wall,” he said.

“You think it was a premonition?”

“Who can say?” said the lawyer. “I don’t really believe in that sort of thing, but—”

He hesitated.

“Go on,” said Bill.

“Well, if I were you, and I heard that gun again, for instance, just as I was going to enter a lift, I think I should walk down.”

About this time Robin Broke was standing under a jackaranda tree, looking very hard at Phyllis Fettering.

“Give me your other hand,” he said unsteadily.

She gave it him.

“This morning,” he said, “you told me I mustn’t take you too seriously.” Wondering grey eyes were raised to his. “I don’t want to, dear. I want to take you for better or for worse.”

The grey eyes fell. Then:

“I can hardly believe I’m awake,” said Phyllis softly. “Do you mind – er – pinching my left ear?”

The smell was very unpleasant, and the reek of the fumes made you cough. It was something, however, to have a whole throat to cough with.

Bill Fairie removed a large slab of mud from the side of his face, and turned to his Adjutant.

“Robin,” he said, “that was extremely objectionable.”

“I concur,” said Robin. “It was also extremely dangerous. That gunner chap ought to be more careful.” He turned to the Forward Officer, who was feverishly wiping the lenses of a pair of binoculars with a silk pocket-handkerchief. “Fettering,” he said, “you witnessed that assault?”

“I did,” said Surrey.

“Then, for God’s sake, tell your battery to knock that fellow out. He’s no gentleman. Look out! Here’s another.”

The shell fell to their right, but from the fragments that soared into the air it was clear that a direct hit on the trench had been scored.

“Gosh!” said the Commanding Officer. “Anyone would think the swine knew we were going to attack.”

“They probably do,” said Broke bitterly. “They’ve never concentrated on us like this before.”