The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

closeted in the gun-room, with the door locked against all intruders, and all thoughts of Aunt Philippa and any other troublous problems as resolutely excluded from their minds.
The hours of the morning literally flew. Luncheon-time found them absorbed in a most critical process.
"Bust lunch!" said Noel. "We can't possibly leave this now."
But Chris's sense of duty proved too strong for her inclination at this juncture, and she sallied forth from their retreat to rescue Bertrand from a _tete-a-tete_ meal with her aunt.
There was a sparkle of merriment in her eyes when she entered the dining-room. The engrossing work of the morning had done her good. She was fully five minutes late, and Bertrand, who had presented himself sharp on the hour with military punctuality, was waiting by the window.
He came swiftly to meet her. She had not seen him before that day.
"You are looking well this morning," he said, in his quick, friendly way. "You have been busy, yes?"
His soft eyes interrogated her, as for an instant he held her hand. Never once had she found those eyes impossible to meet. They held the fidelity of unswerving friendship.
"Oh yes," she said, "busy in a fashion--a very childish fashion, Bertie. Noel and I are making fireworks!"
"Fireworks!" he echoed.
"Yes, we are going to have a grand display tonight. Will you come and look on?"
He smiled. "But yes," he said. "I think that I will come and take care of you."
She nodded. "Do! But they are not dangerous, not very. Where is Aunt Philippa?"
He spread out his hands whimsically. "She has not given me her confidence."
Chris laughed. Actually she was feeling almost lighthearted. Till that moment she had had a morbid dread of being alone with him, and now behold her dread vanishing in mirth! Surely she had been very foolish, like a child frightened at shadows!
"I wonder where she is," she said. "I am afraid I have been playing truant this morning. I shall have to apologize, though it was all Noel's fault. Do see if you can find Mrs. Forest," she added to a servant just entering. "Ask her if she is ready for luncheon."
"Mrs. Forest is out in the motor, and has not yet returned," was the information this elicited.
"How odd!" said Chris. "What had we better do?"
Bertrand shrugged his shoulders, still looking quizzical. "We must not lunch without her, _bien sur_. Let us go into the garden."
They went into the garden, and walked for a space in the September sunshine.
They talked at first upon commonplace topics, and Chris was wholly at her ease. But presently Bertrand turned the conversation with an abrupt question.
"Christine, tell me, you have never seen that scoundrel Rodolphe again?"
She started a little, and was conscious that she changed colour, but she answered him instantly. "No, never. But--why do you ask?"
Very gravely he made reply. "I have feared lately that there was something that troubled you. I was wrong, yes?"
He looked at her anxiously.
She did not answer him, she could not.
"_Eh bien_," he said gently, after a moment. "It was not that. You have heard that he has been recalled to France--that there is a rumour that there have been revelations that may lead to a court-martial?"
"No!" said Chris in amazement. "Do you mean--"
He bent his head. "It is possible."
"That you may be vindicated?" she questioned eagerly. "Oh, Bertie!"
"It is possible," he repeated. "Yet I will not permit myself to hope. It is no more than a rumour. It is also possible that it may not even touch the old _affaire_, since he made no appearance at my trial."
"But if it did!" said Chris.
He gave her an odd look. "If it did, Christine?" he questioned.
"You would go back with flying colours," she said. "You would be reinstated surely!"
He shook his head. "I do not think it."
"You mean you wouldn't go?" she asked.
He turned his face up to the sun with a peculiar gesture. "Who can say?" he said, with closed eyes. "Me, I think that the good God has other plans for me. I may be justified--I do not know. But I shall wear the uniform of the French Army--never again."
He spoke perfectly calmly, with absolute conviction; but there was that in his face that startled her, something she had never seen before.
She put out a hesitating hand, and touched his sleeve. "Bertie!"
Instantly he looked at her, saw the scared expression in her eyes, and, smiling, pressed her hand.
"_Mais_, Christine, these things--what are they? Ambition, success, honour--loss, failure, shame; they seem so great in this little life of mortality. But, after all, they are no more than the tools with which the good God shapes us to His destiny. He uses them, and when His work is done He throws them aside. We leave them behind us; we pass on to that which is greater." He paused a moment, and his eyes kindled as though he were on the verge of something further; then suddenly they went beyond her, and he relinquished her hand. "Madame has returned," he said. "Let us go!"
Looking up, Chris saw Aunt Philippa upon the terrace above them.
The expression on her relative's face was one of severe and undisguised disapproval, as her gaze rested upon the two in the garden. Chris, as she moved to meet her, felt a sudden flame of indignation at her heart. How dared Aunt Philippa look at them so?
"We have been waiting for you," she said, speaking in some haste to conceal her resentment. "Has anything happened?"
Aunt Philippa replied in the measured accents habitual to her. "Nothing has happened. I have been to Sandacre Court, at Mrs. Pouncefort's invitation, to see the gardens. I waited for you, Chris, for nearly an hour this morning, but you did not see fit either to come to me or to send any word of explanation to account for your absence. Therefore I started late. Hence my late return."
Chris coloured. "I am sorry, Aunt Philippa. Noel wanted me. I am afraid I forgot you were waiting."
"It seems to me," said Aunt Philippa, with cutting emphasis, "that you are apt to forget every obligation when in Mr. Bertrand's society."
"Aunt Philippa!"
Furious indignation rang in Chris's voice. In a second--in less--it would have been open war, but swift as an arrow Bertrand intervened.
"Ah! but pardon me," he said, in his soft voice. "I am not responsible for Mrs. Mordaunt's negligence. She has been occupied with her affairs, and I with mine. Had she been in my society"--he smiled with a flash of the teeth--"she would not have forgotten her duties so easily. I am an excellent monitor, madame. Acquit me, I beg, of being accessory to the crime, and accept my sympathies the most sincere."
Aunt Philippa ignored them in icy silence, but he had accomplished his end. The evil moment was averted. Whatever Chris might have to endure later, at least she would be spared the added mortification of his presence during the infliction. Airily he turned the subject. He could overlook a snub more adroitly than Aunt Philippa could administer one.
They went into the house, and during the meal that followed Bertrand made himself gracefully agreeable to both ladies. So delicate were his attentions that Chris found herself more than once on the verge of hysterical laughter.
But when he left them at length, with many apologies, to resume his interrupted labours, her sense of humour ceased to vibrate. Never before had she desired her husband's presence as she desired it then.
Her hope that Aunt Philippa might retire to her room to rest was a very slender one, and destined almost from the outset to disappointment. Aunt Philippa was on the war trail, and she would not rest until she had tracked down her quarry.
She began at once to speak of her morning's visit to Mrs. Pouncefort, whom she knew as a London hostess. Personally, she disapproved of her, but she could not afford to pass her over, since her status in society was by no means inconsiderable, being, in fact, almost capable of rivalling her own.
"I should have remained to luncheon," she said, "but for the fact that you were here quite unchaperoned. Had you accompanied me, as I had hoped you would, I should not have had to hasten back in the heat."
"But I wasn't invited," said Chris, "and I know every inch of those gardens. I knew them long ago, before the Pounceforts came."
"The invitation," said Aunt Philippa, not to be diverted from her purpose, "was quite casual. You could quite well have accompanied me. In fact, I think Mrs. Pouncefort was surprised not to see you. However, we need not discuss that further. Doubtless you had your own reasons for desiring to remain at home, and I shall not ask you what those reasons were. What I do ask, and what I think I have a right to know, is whether you have had the proper feeling to tell your husband that the Captain Rodolphe you met at Pouncefort Court a little while ago is the man with whom you were so deplorably intimate at Valpre in your girlhood, or whether you have had the audacity to pretend that he was a total stranger to you."
Chris almost gasped at this unexpected attack, but its directness compelled an instant reply without pausing to consider the position.
"I was never intimate with Captain Rodolphe," she said quickly. "I never spoke to him before the other day."
And there she stopped suddenly short, arrested by the look of open incredulity with which her aunt received her hasty statement.
There was a moment's silence. Then, "Really!" said Aunt Philippa. "He gave Mrs. Pouncefort to understand otherwise."
Chris felt the blood rush to her face. This was intolerable. "What did he give Mrs. Pouncefort to understand?" she demanded.
"Merely that you were old friends," said Aunt Philippa, with the calm superiority of one not to be shaken in her belief.
"Then he lied!" said Chris fiercely.
Aunt Philippa said "Indeed!" with raised eyebrows.
Chris's hands clenched unconsciously. "He lied!" she repeated. "We are not friends! We never could be! I--I hate the man!"
"Then you know him well enough for that?" said Aunt Philippa.
Chris sprang to her feet with hot cheeks and blazing eyes. "Aunt Philippa, you have no right--you and Mrs. Pouncefort--to--to talk me over and discuss my acquaintances!"
"My dear child," said Aunt Philippa, "all that passed between us was a remark made by Mrs. Pouncefort to the effect that one of her guests, Captain Rodolphe--an old friend of yours whom she believed you had originally met at Valpre--had just returned to Paris. What led to the remark I do not remember. But naturally the name recalled certain regrettable circumstances to my mind, and I felt it my duty to ask if you had been quite candid with Trevor upon the subject. I am sincerely grieved to know that my suspicion in this respect was but too well founded."
"He was not the man I knew at Valpre" burst forth Chris, with passionate vehemence. "You may believe it or not; it is the truth!"
"Then, my dear," said Aunt Philippa, with the calmness of unalterable conviction, "there must have been two men who enjoyed that privilege."
Chris broke into a wild laugh--a laugh that had been struggling for utterance for the past hour.
"Two! Why, there were a dozen at least, some soldiers, some fishermen! Ask Trevor! He can tell you all about them--if he thinks it worth while!"
"And yet you have not mentioned Captain Rodolphe to him?" said Aunt Philippa. Her eyes were fixed unsparingly upon the girl's face, and she saw the colour dying away as swiftly as it had risen.