The Truant Spirit (22 page)

Only when she reached the terrace did Sabina remember that she had forgotten the key. Brock had given her a key that other time, but she did not think now he could have got it from the agent, whose office was in Truro or Bodmin. Brock then, or Bunny, must have had a key of their own, and that in itself was puzzling.

She walked round the house looking for a door or window that might be open, but the shutters were firmly bolted and no door yielded to her touch. She went round to the front of the house, nearly crying with vexation, and stopped suddenly. A small car stood on the overgrown drive and the great front door was wide open. For a moment she thought Brock had returned unexpectedly, but the car was not his, and after a moment’s hesitation Sabina went into the house and called.

It was eerie standing in that vaulted hall with her voice echoing back from the roof high above her. No one answered, and she began to walk through the chain of rooms looking for the intruder, but there was no sign of a living soul. She thought of Willie’s fear of ghosts, then laughed a little uncertainly; ghosts did not arrive in cars. Sabina knew a moment’s panic. In this great house no one would hear if you called; any minute the front door might slam behind the unknown visitor and she would be locked in for the night. She turned with a feeling of stricture in her throat and ran swiftly back through the empty rooms to the hall. The front door was still open and a woman was coming very slowly down the stone staircase.

Sabina stood and watched her. She walked with graceful deliberation, as though she was making a studied entrance down a flight of stage stairs. She was bareheaded and her red hair was caught like a flaming aureole as she passed through a slanting ray of light. There was something very strange in the progress of that slow descent, for although she could not know that she was being observed, she gave an impression of being watched by a large audience.

“Who are you?” asked Sabina, speaking suddenly and loudly as she came forward out of the shadows.

The woman paused, but did not start, and her long, slender hand caressed the stone carving of the balustrade.

“Who are
you
?” she retorted, and her voice was deep and husky with the faintest trace of a foreign accent. She completed her passage down the stairs and smiled as she saw Sabina more clearly. Her mouth was exquisitely painted and her long eyes shadowed with mascara.

“Oh, just a little girl,” she said with amusement. “Do you trespass, finding the door open?”

“I found the door open, yes, but I wasn’t trespassing,” Sabina said. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I have an order to view. This is quite correct, you know.”

“The house is not for sale. Didn’t they tell you that?”

“Oh, yes, but I had a fancy to see the place that a good friend of mine is willing to barter his heart and his freedom for. It does not impress me.”

Sabina knew a moment’s excitement.

“Are you a friend of the Bergeracs, then?” she asked, and saw the other woman’s fine eyebrows lift in surprise.

“Why, yes; but how should you know?” she replied, then her eyes suddenly narrowed. “It is not possible that you are the little English girl who hopes to marry Rene!” She threw back her head and laughed till the house echoed.

“You are not very polite,” said Sabina gravely. “I’m the owner of the house, yes.”

The woman descended the remaining stairs and her high heels rang sharply on the stone. She was taller than Sabina and very elegant.

“You are Mademoiselle Lamb?” she said, her eyes travelling with amusement over the girl.

“Yes,” said Sabina, very conscious of her rough skirt and jersey and the artless disorder of her hair. “And you?”

“I am Jeanne Jouvez. You have heard of me, perhaps?” Sabina’s eyes were guarded.

“Yes, but not from M. Bergerac,” she said.

The woman’s smile showed little even teeth, sharp as any cat’s.

“No, no, it would be from Blaireau you have heard, of course,” she said.

“Blaireau?” The name sounded strange.

“It is my nickname for the good Brock. Do you not know that
blaireau
is French for a badger? When I wish to tease I call him that.”

“I see. But I understood that he had gone to see you. Why are you here?” asked Sabina, puzzled by yet another mysterious link with the Chateau Berger.

“But I told you, mademoiselle—to see for myself the house which is of such interest to my old friend, Rene Bergerac. And, look you, I find the bride elect also, so my curiosity is doubly rewarded,” said Jeanne Jouvez. “Come, mademoiselle, let us walk through the rooms together and plan the future of this house, yes?” She put a hand lightly under Sabina’s elbow and began to walk towards the first big salon.

Sabina was puzzled. Was it Brock or Rene Bergerac who held this woman’s affections, if, indeed, she had affection to offer? Brock had said that the part she had played in his life carried no ties, but he had wished to keep Madame Jouvez from coming to Truan all the same.

“Now this,” Jeanne was saying, “would make an excellent ballroom, no doubt, and the smaller salons have an air, yes; but the house is
triste.
I would not care to live here.”

“You will not have to, madame,” said Sabina politely. “If Penruthan became a hotel it would be the choice of guests whether they stayed or not.”

Jeanne gave her a quick glance, as though she had underestimated an adversary, and Sabina knew in that moment that, she was, in fact, just that. Madame Jouvez, she thought, had more at stake than the doubtful future of an English country house.

“But not,
ma petite,
a choice for the wife of the proprietor,”

Jeanne said.

“But I—” began Sabina, then the other woman’s meaning became suddenly plain.

Tante’s hints, Marthe’s philosophic conclusions were explained. The Bergeracs, both father and son, were given to entanglements of the heart. It was not surprising that Rene Bergerac might have committed himself more deeply with this elegant, utterly feminine woman before the need for a prudent marriage had arisen.

“Were you engaged to M. Bergerac?” she asked blankly.

“No. Rene has not thought of marriage until lately. And you, my little one—does the French arrangement not shock your sentimental English heart?” Jeanne sounded amused.

“I’m not easily shocked by a business arrangement, said Sabina, wishing to hold on to her advantage a little longer. “I have a French aunt.”

“Ah, yes, Lucille Lamb.”

“You have met her?”

“Naturally. I have been staying until a week past at the Chateau Berger.”

The colour came into Sabina’s cheeks. She could not like or trust this woman, who would, she felt instinctively, have little compassion where another woman was concerned, but she knew Tante. She knew that Tante, more ruthless still, would have allowed no one to stand in her way when she held the trump card.

“Forgive me, madame,” she said awkwardly, “but if you—if you want Rene Bergerac for yourself, I—I’m not standing in the way.”

Jeanne leaned against the dusty
armoire
that was the pair to Bunny’s, and surveyed Sabina with insolent amusement.

“And Lucille Faivre has already taught you that?” she said.

“What?” asked Sabina stupidly.

“That though you shall
ranger
yourself to the best advantage you will do well to close your eyes to the women your husband finds necessary to him?”

Now the bright colour mounted high to Sabina’s cheekbones. Jeanne made her feel gauche and immature, but she stood her ground.

“No, I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I meant that you and Rene Bergerac are free to follow whatever plans you may have had, because I am not going to marry him. You would have left before my letters arrived at the Chateau.”

It was strange, talking of such things in this empty house, she thought uneasily; when you stopped speaking a silence fell, as if your voice had been an affront to the deserted rooms. Jeanne looked at her lazily through narrowed lids. It was as if her news had made no impression.

“And you, perhaps, have had a girlish fancy for another—for Blaireau, the good badger who visits so dutifully his old governess?” Jeanne said.

“Do you want them both?” demanded Sabina, outraged, and Jeanne laughed.

“Perhaps,” she said. “And what would you do then, my prim little schoolgirl?”

“I would hope,” said Sabina steadily, “that I was—important enough to fight for.”

“But no,” said Jeanne, her eyes tilting at the corners with careless amusement; “it would be you who fight, my inexperienced child. Do you think you have much chance against a woman of the world?”

“My chances,” said Sabina, lifting her chin, “would not depend on that, I hope. If a man wants a woman, I think he will know his own mind.”

The other woman surveyed her, still with that indolent air of amusement, but her red, painted mouth twisted in a wry smile.

“No man knows his own mind when it comes to women,” she said. “It is we, the desired, the pursued, who set the pace. That you must learn,
cherie,
before you can hope to hold your man.”

For a moment Sabina knew uncertainty. Had not Brock said the day before he left that possibly he wished to bid farewell to his old love? Had he known of that
affaire
in this double game of intrigue? with Rene Bergerac? Had she herself only been a catspaw?

“I think, madame,” she said, suddenly weary, “that we do no good here talking in riddles. I have told you that so far as M. Bergerac is concerned, I am no longer in the way.”

“And Blaireau?”

But she did not know what Jeanne Jouvez had been to Brock nor how either linked up with the Chateau Berger.

“I think you have seen Brock in the last few days, haven’t you?” she said, and Jeanne laughed.

“Oh, yes, but a man can talk nonsense,
hein
! Especially when he is unsure, himself.”

“Very likely,” said Sabina. “Have you finished your inspection, madame? We should be going, I think. The days are still short and I have some way to walk.”

“And you do not care to leave me in possession, even though I have an order to view?” laughed Jeanne. “Well, let us go—this house has few attractions for me. May I drop you, mademoiselle, at the rectory if you have far to walk?”

“No, thank you,” replied Sabina, remembering the waiting Willie. She did not ask where Jeanne was staying, nor if she knew when Brock would return.

Jeanne shrugged and began to walk back through the empty rooms, leaving a wave of heavy perfume behind her. In the hall she paused and tapped Sabina’s cheek with cool, flippant fingers.

“We shall meet again,
Cherie,”
she said.

“I don’t think so.”

“But yes, for I am staying nearby and my business is not yet finished.”

“That need not concern me,” Sabina said, and Jeanne stepped on to the porch and stood laughing in the evening sunlight.

“You are a little fool!” she said with careless tolerance.
“Au revoir
...”

“Good-bye,” replied Sabina, and slammed the door behind her.

She found Willie Washer where she had left him, sitting on a crumbling molehill beyond the wall. He seemed relieved to see her and, observing her disturbed face, remarked:

“Did ’e see a ghost, missy? You look like summat upset ’e.”

“Not the kind you mean, Willie,” she replied. “But perhaps you were right. It would have been better not to have gone to Penruthan.”

“I told ’e so,” he said with childlike satisfaction, and an odd, furtive look settled on his face as he set off across the moor with surprising speed.

Sabina looked back once. Penruthan lay grey and deserted beyond its broken walls; she would probably never see it again. As she followed Willie over the tracks and paths that only he could recognise, she thought longingly of Bunny and the quiet rectory, and of Brock’s return.

CHAPTER NINE

“DID you know this Madame Jouvez who wrote to you for Brock’s address?” Sabina asked Bunny that evening after supper.

Bunny was sorting embroidery silks on her knees by the fire and she looked up quickly, her pince-nez flashing in the light. “No. Why do you ask?” she said.

“Because I met her today by chance at Penruthan. She had an order to view,” Sabina said, and saw the mild alarm pinching Bunny’s thin nostrils.

Sabina leant forward into the circle of light.

“Bunny,” she said, “you and Brock have kept certain things from me, haven’t you?”

Bunny went on sorting her silks. Blues here, pinks there, greens with yellow and neutral colours in a tidy pile of their own.

“What has Madame Jouvez been saying to you,” she Asked. “She talked in riddles, rather like Brock,” she said; “but one thing seemed clear. She has an attachment for M. Bergerac and I—well, I’d rather interfered with her plans.”

“She was rude to you?”