Down Under (22 page)

“They go well together—
hein?
You don't like that? Nor do I. Philippe is a good dancer, is he not? He should be, since he has practised with me for—I don't remember how long. Come—we are to dance together. Let us show them what we can do.”

“Please don't expect very much,” said Oliver. “I haven't had Rennard's advantages, you see.”

She threw back her head and laughed. Her laughter had the same ringing sound as her voice when she called on them to dance.

“No, it is he who has taken the advantage of you.” Then, as they slid into the dance, “What is going to come of it,
mon brave Capitaine?
”

“I don't know,” said Oliver. “Do you?”

“That depends—”

“Upon what?”

“Upon how brave you are,
mon Capitaine
.”

“Oh, enormously,” said Oliver.

She was so light in his arms that he could hardly feel her there, yet in some mysterious way she imparted her own movement and grace. She imparted too a sense of adventure, a quickening of the pulses.

She looked up at him between those amazingly dark lashes, and he saw a little green devil there. It winked and beckoned to him. The lashes went down again. He was in no mood to follow little green devils, and in no mood to play with fire in Philip's private powder-magazine. He thought he had enough on hand without that.

Violette said softly, “I think you are brave. You will need to be. All these people whom you see, they have no courage any more. If they ever had any, it has been stolen away from them by Dr Spenlow's drug. Now they are not brave any more, nor sad any more, nor happy any more, nor anything any more at all. Oh,
mon Dieu
, Captain Loddon—do you want to be like that? For me I would rather die. And you?”

Oliver said, “Yes,” and felt it very sincerely.

Mademoiselle Violette went on, low and quick.

“Just now if I had stabbed your Miss Rose, Philippe would have killed me—I would be dead—it would be all over—finished. It is a pity, is it not?”

“You don't expect me to say yes to that, do you?” said Oliver.

She laughed.

“Perhaps not. You love her very much, your Miss Rose?”

“Yes.”

“What a block of ice you are,
mon Capitaine!
One cold word—is that all you have for her?… Well then, I am to understand that you love her very much—all in this one cold word. Now, my brave, my very brave Captain, what will you do for her? Anything? Nothing?”

“Anything.”

“
Je te crois bien!
Well then, listen to me. If you are to do anything at all you will have to do it quickly. Philippe has waited, but he will not go on waiting. It has intrigued him this pose of the patient lover, but it is only a pose. He is not patient at all, he is cruel—like a cat with a mouse. If he can make anyone suffer, that amuses him very well. It has amused him to make me jealous, to insult me, to drive me if he can into some folly which he can laugh at. But now—I know him so well—he is getting tired of all that. He looks for a new pose—he will be the strong man who takes what he wants.” She laughed a little hysterically. “It will be all most
comme il faut
, most respectable. The Reverend Luke will marry him to your Miss Rose. That is another slap in the face for me, do you understand?”

Oliver's hand closed hard on hers.

“Do you know this, or is it guesswork?”

She looked up at him defiantly.

“I know what I know. I am not clever enough to guess.”

“How do you know?”

“You do not believe me? What an unamiable disposition you have,
mon Capitaine!
Very well, I will tell you how I know. Do you see that woman there? No, not dancing—the one in black. She is a compatriot of mine. Her name is Louise Couperin, and once she was Louise and a famous
couturière
in Paris. Philippe had her brought down here because he did not wish that I should lose my
chic
. He said all these women were too dowdy.” She laughed. “Louise herself cannot make the Reverend Mrs Luke anything but dowdy. Well—
à nos moutons!
Louise has told me tonight that she is to make the wedding dress for your Miss Rose—
and she is to make it quick
. Philippe has asked her how quick she can make it, and she has answered in two days, with Marie to help her—that is, today and tomorrow. So I think that the wedding will be on the next day after that. You have two nights and one day to save your Miss Rose.”

All this time they were dancing, their feet keeping time to music which they did not hear. Oliver said,

“You've not told me this for nothing, I suppose. How can I save her?”

She lifted her chin and said scornfully,

“You can take her away, my brave Captain.”

“As easily as that? I have been told that there is no way out except by leave of the Rennards.”

Her eyes were green as she looked at him.

“They have two gates, and they keep them locked. You cannot get out by the gates—that is quite true.”

“Is there another way? I have been told there is none.”

“Then you must make up your mind whom you will believe.”

Oliver said quick and low, “Is there another way—
is there?
”

Her hand pressed his shoulder. She dropped her voice.

“When Philippe was in love with me he would talk about this place and boast about it. You know, some of it is old mines, and some caverns, and some they have made for themselves. The galleries of the old mines run a long way, and they do not use them all. There are some that are dangerous, and some that are fallen in, and some have—what do you call it?—a shaft that has been filled up, and some have perhaps a shaft that has not been quite filled up. I will tell you this, I have seen a star shining overhead when I was there with Philippe in one of those galleries, and when I said to him, ‘Now,
mon ami
, I know what I shall do when I am tired of you—I shall climb up to that star.' And Philippe he laughed and said, ‘You would have a long way to climb.'”

“What was the place like?” said Oliver.

“Like a big chimney.”

“Climbable?”

“For me, no—for you, perhaps. I do not know. It is a long time ago. You would need a rope for your Miss Rose.”

“Where is this place?”

“In the old galleries. I cannot tell you more than that. I do not remember the way.”

“The way into the old galleries?”

She laughed and shook her head.

“There are twenty ways into the old galleries. All the roads we use run into them if you go far enough. So far they are lighted, but pass the lights and you are in the old galleries, and you may lose yourself and never come back. I have been in them with Philippe, but by myself—
jamais de la vie!
”

“But you suggest that I should take Rose Anne there?”

She shrugged her very white shoulders.

“You might find the star—there is always a chance. Here there is none.”

Oliver said suddenly, “I'm going to say just what I think. It seems to be the fashion here.”

She looked at him, half smiling, wholly alert.

“Well, M'amselle Violette, I can see that it would suit your book uncommonly well if I were to take Rose Anne into the old galleries and lose her and myself and never come back. That jumps to the eye, doesn't it? What I don't quite see is, what do we get out of it?”

Her eyes flashed green, and were veiled again.

“If you prefer that she marries Philippe—” she said. Then, with a sudden rush of words, “You do not trust me! You suspect—you think that I am not sincere—that I would betray you! Very well then, think what you please—it does not matter to me! I was a fool to be sorry for you, to have the wish to help—and I think that I have danced with you long enough, and perhaps a little too long!”

She twisted away from him and was gone.

CHAPTER XXV

Oliver crossed over to Fanny and asked her for a dance. She flushed, looked troubled, and turned her eyes on Ernie.

“Don't you let her dance with anyone else?” said Oliver, smiling. “We're old acquaintances, you know.”

Ernie looked troubled too.

“She can dance with you all right, Captain Loddon, but—well, least said soonest mended.”

Oliver put his arm round Fanny and steered her into the dance. The pianist struck up a noisy foxtrot, all fireworks and bangs. It made very good cover for a confidential talk. But it was immediately obvious that a confidential talk was the last thing Fanny wanted. Oliver's “I had to speak to you,” was met by a nervous giggle.

“Fancy you saying that to Ernie! Why you might have made trouble between us.”

“Fanny—”

She rattled on.

“I love dancing. Don't you? And the floor's good—isn't it? They do all this sort of thing awfully well. Have you noticed the lights? They're the very latest idea—natural sunshine. Uncle had them put in because it gave him the pip seeing nothing but a lot of pale faces all the time. To tell you truth and honest, it scared him seeing his own face in the glass without any colour, so he got these lights put in. They make you real brown like being at the seaside. Uncle's ever so pleased with them.”

“Fanny—for God's sake—is it true—about Rose Anne—that he means to marry her?”

Fanny was silent. The pianist hit the piano till it screamed. She said at last,

“Who's been telling you that? M'amselle Violette, I suppose.”

“Is it true?”

“It's no use your asking me.”

“Fanny!”

“It's no use, I tell you. I've Ernie to think about, and my baby, and I'm not going to be drawn in. Ernie and me we've talked it over, and we've got to think about ourselves. It isn't as if there's anything we can do neither. If Philip wants her he'll take her, and she'd better be married to him when all's said and done. There isn't nobody and nothing can stop Philip when he's set on a thing. You shouldn't have come butting in on his affairs, and that's the truth.”

Oliver's face hardened.

“It seems to me that it's the other way round. It was Philip who did the butting in, and he's going to pay for it.”

“I think we'd better stop dancing.”

“And tell the would we are talking so seriously that we've quarrelled? I really shouldn't if I were you, Fanny.”

“Well, what about it if you make me cry?”

“You mustn't—that's what about it. You must smile and look as if I was paying you compliments. And if you've got to look scared, look scared at Ernie as if you thought he might be going to cut up jealous.”

“Well, and he might too,” said Fanny with a shaky giggle. “And I'm scared all right. Get on with what you've got to say and have done. Philip's watching us.”

“Let him! He can't hear a word through this din. Fanny,
is
there any way out?”

“Not except through the gates there isn't. Don't you believe anyone who says there is—not on any account. If it's that Violet, you just look out, Captain Loddon. She's as spiteful as a monkey, and she fair hates Miss Rose Anne.”

The pianist's fingers raced up seven octaves and down again to a final explosive chord. Fanny disengaged herself with decision.

“
There
—thank goodness that's over!” she said. “And it's no use your asking me again neither, because I'm through.”

Oliver smiled.

“Did you ever hear of Jenny Baxter?”

“No. Who's she?” She stared suspiciously.

“She refused the man before he axed her. Thank you for a most enjoyable dance, Mrs Rennard.”

Fanny said, “Well, I never!” And then, as Ernie joined her, “I didn't say anything—I didn't really—only about the lights, and the floor, and such-like. But M'amselle's been talking. He knows. Oh mercy, Ernie,—just you look at that! He's asking Miss Rose Anne to dance! Whatever will Philip say?”

“It's what he'll do that matters,” said Ernie in a gloomy voice.

What Philip did was to take the floor with Mademoiselle Violette. Their steps went together so perfectly, there seemed a chance that she might retain at least a dancing hold on his erratic affections. No man who fancied himself as a dancer could be insensible to the attraction of such a partner.

Oliver danced with Rose Anne, his hand at her waist, her fingers lightly held in his. He looked down on the bright hair from which she had taken Philip's diamond wreath. His crown had hurt her head. She had uncrowned herself—at Oliver's word? He thought so. He was not sure. He had to be sure.

They moved to the soft melody of a waltz. No fireworks now, worse luck, but a gentle, gliding air, haunting and sweet:

“I was not in love with you

Till you loved me.

I was only in love with love

Till you loved me.

Now the moon and the stars above

All are singing a song of love,

All are singing a song that's new,

For I love you.”

The crooner wailed the words. The time slowed and dragged. The air dripped sentiment. Oliver would have liked to take the pianist by one of his flapping ears and the crooner by his second chin, bang their heads together, and chuck them sprawling in amongst the strings of the grand piano. He said in a stiff, hard voice,

“There's been about enough of this.”

The lashes lay dark upon her smooth, pale cheeks. She smiled faintly. Without any movement of the lips her voice came to him like a ghost. It carried words just audible, but only just.

“What can we do?”

It was the first response he could be sure about, and it moved him dangerously. His love, his passion, his agony of fear for her had been beating unavailingly against the blank wall of her gentle silence. Now that she answered him at last, he had no words with which to answer her. If they had been alone, no words would have been needed between them, but all those Rennard eyes were watching.