Part 15 (1/2)
Riviere was enjoying the frank camaraderie of their conversation.
Suddenly the thought of the newspaper cutting came back to him sharply.
If Olive had inserted that advertis.e.m.e.nt, she must have some special reason for it. Perhaps she wanted to communicate with him in reference to the ”death” of Matheson. Some hotel-keeper or railway-guard would no doubt have seen the advertis.e.m.e.nt and answered it, letting her know of Riviere's stay at Arles.
It would be prudent to write and allay suspicion. But he could not pen the letter himself, because his handwriting would be recognized by Olive.
Riviere solved the difficulty in his usual decisive fas.h.i.+on. ”Miss Verney,” he said, ”I wonder if you would do me a very big favour without asking for my reasons in detail? It's a most unusual request I'm going to make.”
Elaine remembered her resolve to thaw this man of ice, and bring him to her feet, and then dismiss him. She had thawed him already. To do him some special favour would be a most excellent means of attaining the second end. She answered:
”Anything in reason I'll do gladly.”
”You know that I want to avoid Monte Carlo. I don't even want my sister-in-law to know that I'm at Nimes.”
”Yes?”
”Will you write a letter for me to say that I'm unwell and can't travel away from Arles?”
Elaine looked at him searchingly. ”It's certainly a most unusual request to make of a mere acquaintance,” she remarked.
”I have good reasons for asking it.”
”Then I'll do what you ask.”
”Would you mind coming round to my rooms?”
”Certainly; if you'll wait until I've finished this sketch.”
She worked on in silence for another quarter of an hour, completing her picture with rapid, vigorous brush-strokes. Then he took up her campstool and easel, and they walked together alongside the Roman aqueduct to the centre of the town, under an avenue of tall, spreading plane trees, yellow with the first delicate leaves of Spring like the feathers of a newborn chick.
The suns.h.i.+ne caressed the little garden of the Villa Clementine, coquetting with the flaming cannas, twinkling amongst the pebbles of the paths, stroking the backs of the lazy goldfish. Seating Elaine in the arbour, Riviere brought out pen and ink and a sheet of paper headed ”Hotel du Forum, Place du Forum, Arles,” which he happened to have kept by accident from his visit to the town. Then he dictated a formal letter to Mrs Matheson, explaining that he was laid up with a touch of fever and would not be able to join her at Monte Carlo. The illness was not serious, and there was no cause for anxiety. Nevertheless it kept him tied. He hoped she would excuse him.
”There will be a Nimes postmark on the envelope,” commented Elaine as she wrote the address.
”No; I shall go over to Arles this afternoon and post it there. As you know, it's scarcely an hour away by train.” He glanced at his watch.
”Past twelve o'clock already! Won't you stay and take lunch with me?
Madame Giras is famous in Nimes for her _bouillabaisse_.”
She agreed readily, and a dainty lunch was soon served them in the covered arbour. Over the olives and _bouillabaisse_ and the _oeufs provencals_ they chatted in easy, friendly fas.h.i.+on about impersonal matters--the strange charm of Provence, art, music, the theatre.
From that the conversation pa.s.sed imperceptibly to more personal matters. Elaine, keeping to her resolve of the morning, led it in that direction. He learnt that she was an orphan; that her nearest relatives were entirely out of sympathy with her ideas and aspirations, and profoundly distasteful to her; that she took full pride in her independence and the position she was carving out for herself in the world of theatrical art.
”To be free; to be independent; to live your own life; to know that you buy your bread and bed with the money you've earned yourself--it's fine, it's splendid!” said Elaine, with flushed cheek. ”I wonder if men ever have that feeling as strongly as we women do?”
”'To be free, sire, is only to change one's master,'” quoted Riviere.