At the Villa Rose (23 page)

They walked accordingly up the hill, Mme. Dauvray slowly, since she was
stout, and Celia keeping pace with her. Thus it seemed natural that
Adele Tace should walk ahead, though a passer-by would not have thought
she was of their company. At the corner of the Rue du Casino Adele
waited for them and said quickly:

"Mademoiselle, you can get some cord, I think, at the shop there," and
she pointed to the shop of M. Corval. "Madame and I will go slowly on;
you, who are the youngest, will easily catch us up." Celia went into
the shop, bought the cord, and caught Mme. Dauvray up before she
reached the villa.

"Where is Mme. Rossignol?" she asked.

"She went on," said Camille Dauvray. "She walks faster than I do."

They passed no one whom they knew, although they did pass one who
recognised them, as Perrichet had discovered. They came upon Adele,
waiting for them at the corner of the road, where it turns down toward
the villa.

"It is near here—the Villa Rose?" she asked.

"A minute more and we are there."

They turned in at the drive, closed the gate behind them, and walked up
to the villa.

The windows and the glass doors were closed, the latticed shutters
fastened. A light burned in the hall.

"Helene is expecting us," said Mme. Dauvray, for as they approached she
saw the front door open to admit them, and Helene Vauquier in the
doorway. The three women went straight into the little salon, which was
ready with the lights up and a small fire burning. Celia noticed the
fire with a trifle of dismay. She moved a fire-screen in front of it.

"I can understand why you do that, mademoiselle," said Adele Rossignol,
with a satirical smile. But Mme. Dauvray came to the girl's help.

"She is right, Adele. Light is the great barrier between us and the
spirit-world," she said solemnly.

Meanwhile, in the hall Helene Vauquier locked and bolted the front
door. Then she stood motionless, with a smile upon her face and a heart
beating high. All through that afternoon she had been afraid that some
accident at the last moment would spoil her plan, that Adele Tace had
not learned her lesson, that Celie would take fright, that she would
not return. Now all those fears were over. She had her victims safe
within the villa. The charwoman had been sent home. She had them to
herself. She was still standing in the hall when Mme. Dauvray called
aloud impatiently:

"Helene! Helene!"

And when she entered the salon there was still, as Celia was able to
recall, some trace of her smile lingering upon her face.

Adele Rossignol had removed her hat and was taking off her gloves. Mme.
Dauvray was speaking impatiently to Celia.

"We will arrange the room, dear, while Helene helps you to dress. It
will be quite easy. We shall use the recess."

And Celia, as she ran up the stairs, heard Mme. Dauvray discussing with
her maid what frock she should wear. She was hot, and she took a
hurried bath. When she came from her bathroom she saw with dismay that
it was her new pale-green evening gown which had been laid out. It was
the last which she would have chosen. But she dared not refuse it. She
must still any suspicion. She must succeed. She gave herself into
Helene's hands. Celia remembered afterwards one or two points which
passed barely heeded at the time. Once while Helene was dressing her
hair she looked up at the maid in the mirror and noticed a strange and
rather horrible grin upon her face, which disappeared the moment their
eyes met. Then again, Helene was extraordinarily slow and
extraordinarily fastidious that evening. Nothing satisfied her, neither
the hang of the girl's skirt, the folds of her sash, nor the
arrangement of her hair.

"Come, Helene, be quick," said Celia. "You know how madame hates to be
kept waiting at these times. You might be dressing me to go to meet my
lover," she added, with a blush and a smile at her own pretty
reflection in the glass; and a queer look came upon Helene Vauquier's
face. For it was at creating just this very impression that she aimed.

"Very well, mademoiselle," said Helene. And even as she spoke Mme.
Dauvray's voice rang shrill and irritable up the stairs.

"Celie! Celie!"

"Quick, Helene," said Celia. For she herself was now anxious to have
the seance over and done with.

But Helene did not hurry. The more irritable Mme. Dauvray became, the
more impatient with Mlle. Celie, the less would Mlle. Celie dare to
refuse the tests Adele wished to impose upon her. But that was not all.
She took a subtle and ironic pleasure to-night in decking out her
victim's natural loveliness. Her face, her slender throat, her white
shoulders, should look their prettiest, her grace of limb and figure
should be more alluring than ever before. The same words, indeed, were
running through both women's minds.

"For the last time," said Celia to herself, thinking of these horrible
seances, of which to-night should see the end.

"For the last time," said Helene Vauquier too. For the last time she
laced the girl's dress. There would be no more patient and careful
service for Mlle. Celie after to-night. But she should have it and to
spare to-night. She should be conscious that her beauty had never made
so strong an appeal; that she was never so fit for life as at the
moment when the end had come. One thing Helene regretted. She would
have liked Celia—Celia, smiling at herself in the glass—to know
suddenly what was in store for her! She saw in imagination the colour
die from the cheeks, the eyes stare wide with terror.

"Celie! Celie!"

Again the impatient voice rang up the stairs, as Helene pinned the
girl's hat upon her fair head. Celie sprang up, took a quick step or
two towards the door, and stopped in dismay. The swish of her long
satin train must betray her. She caught up the dress and tried again.
Even so, the rustle of it was heard.

"I shall have to be very careful. You will help me, Helene?"

"Of course, mademoiselle. I will sit underneath the switch of the light
in the salon. If madame, your visitor, makes the experiment too
difficult, I will find a way to help you," said Helene Vauquier, and as
she spoke she handed Celia a long pair of white gloves.

"I shall not want them," said Celia.

"Mme. Dauvray ordered me to give them to you," replied Helene.

Celia took them hurriedly, picked up a white scarf of tulle, and ran
down the stairs. Helene Vauquier listened at the door and heard
madame's voice in feverish anger.

"We have been waiting for you, Celie. You have been an age."

Helene Vauquier laughed softly to herself, took out Celia's white frock
from the wardrobe, turned off the lights, and followed her down to the
hall. She placed the cloak just outside the door of the salon. Then she
carefully turned out all the lights in the hall and in the kitchen and
went into the salon. The rest of the house was in darkness. This room
was brightly lit; and it had been made ready.

Helene Vauquier locked the door of the salon upon the inside and placed
the key upon the mantel-shelf, as she had always done whenever a seance
had been held. The curtains had been loosened at the sides of the
arched recess in front of the glass doors, ready to be drawn across.
Inside the recess, against one of the pillars which supported the arch,
a high stool without a back, taken from the hall, had been placed, and
the back legs of the stool had been lashed with cord firmly to the
pillar, so that it could not be moved. The round table had been put in
position, with three chairs about it. Mme. Dauvray waited impatiently.
Celia stood apparently unconcerned, apparently lost to all that was
going on. Her eyes saw no one. Adele looked up at Celia, and laughed
maliciously.

"Mademoiselle, I see, is in the very mood to produce the most wonderful
phenomena. But it will be better, I think, madame," she said, turning
to Mme. Dauvray, "that Mlle. Celie should put on those gloves which I
see she has thrown on to a chair. It will be a little more difficult
for mademoiselle to loosen these cords, should she wish to do so."

The argument silenced Celia. If she refused this condition now she
would excite Mme. Dauvray to a terrible suspicion. She drew on her
gloves ruefully and slowly, smoothed them over her elbows, and buttoned
them. To free her hands with her fingers and wrists already hampered in
gloves would not be so easy a task. But there was no escape. Adele
Rossignol was watching her with a satiric smile. Mme. Dauvray was
urging her to be quick. Obeying a second order the girl raised her
skirt and extended a slim foot in a pale-green silk stocking and a
satin slipper to match. Adele was content. Celia was wearing the shoes
she was meant to wear. They were made upon the very same last as those
which Celia had just kicked off upstairs. An almost imperceptible nod
from Helene Vauquier, moreover, assured her.

She took up a length of the thin cord.

"Now, how are we to begin?" she said awkwardly. "I think I will ask
you, mademoiselle, to put your hands behind you."

Celia turned her back and crossed her wrists. She stood in her satin
frock, with her white arms and shoulders bare, her slender throat
supporting her small head with its heavy curls, her big hat—a picture
of young grace and beauty. She would have had an easy task that night
had there been men instead of women to put her to the test. But the
women were intent upon their own ends: Mme. Dauvray eager for her
seance, Adele Tace and Helene Vauquier for the climax of their plot.

Celia clenched her hands to make the muscles of her wrists rigid to
resist the pressure of the cord. Adele quietly unclasped them and
placed them palm to palm. And at once Celia became uneasy. It was not
merely the action, significant though it was of Adele's alertness to
thwart her, which troubled Celia. But she was extraordinarily receptive
of impressions, extraordinarily quick to feel, from a touch, some dim
sensation of the thought of the one who touched her. So now the touch
of Adele's swift, strong, nervous hands caused her a queer, vague shock
of discomfort. It was no more than that at the moment, but it was quite
definite as that.

"Keep your hands so, please, mademoiselle," said Adele; "your fingers
loose."

And the next moment Celia winced and had to bite her lip to prevent a
cry. The thin cord was wound twice about her wrists, drawn cruelly
tight and then cunningly knotted. For one second Celia was thankful for
her gloves; the next, more than ever she regretted that she wore them.
It would have been difficult enough for her to free her hands now, even
without them. And upon that a worse thing befell her.

"I beg mademoiselle's pardon if I hurt her," said Adele.

And she tied the girl's thumbs and little fingers. To slacken the knots
she must have the use of her fingers, even though her gloves made them
fumble. Now she had lost the use of them altogether. She began to feel
that she was in master-hands. She was sure of it the next instant. For
Adele stood up, and, passing a cord round the upper part of her arms,
drew her elbows back. To bring any strength to help her in wriggling
her hands free she must be able to raise her elbows. With them trussed
in the small of her back she was robbed entirely of her strength. And
all the time her strange uneasiness grew. She made a movement of
revolt, and at once the cord was loosened.

"Mlle. Celie objects to my tests," said Adele, with a laugh, to Mme.
Dauvray. "And I do not wonder."

Celia saw upon the old woman's foolish and excited face a look of
veritable consternation.

"Are you afraid, Celie?" she asked.

There was anger, there was menace in the voice, but above all these
there was fear—fear that her illusions were to tumble about her. Celia
heard that note and was quelled by it. This folly of belief, these
seances, were the one touch of colour in Mme. Dauvray's life. And it
was just that instinctive need of colour which had made her so easy to
delude. How strong the need is, how seductive the proposal to supply
it, Celia knew well. She knew it from the experience of her life when
the Great Fortinbras was at the climax of his fortunes. She had
travelled much amongst monotonous, drab towns without character or
amusements. She had kept her eyes open. She had seen that it was from
the denizens of the dull streets in these towns that the quack
religions won their recruits. Mme. Dauvray's life had been a
featureless sort of affair until these experiments had come to colour
it. Madame Dauvray must at any rate preserve the memory of that colour.

"No," she said boldly; "I am not afraid," and after that she moved no
more.

Her elbows were drawn firmly back and tightly bound. She was sure she
could not free them. She glanced in despair at Helene Vauquier, and
then some glimmer of hope sprang up. For Helene Vauquier gave her a
look, a smile of reassurance. It was as if she said, "I will come to
your help." Then, to make security still more sure, Adele turned the
girl about as unceremoniously as if she had been a doll, and, passing a
cord at the back of her arms, drew both ends round in front and knotted
them at her waist.

"Now, Celie," said Adele, with a vibration in her voice which Celia had
not remarked before.

Excitement was gaining upon her, as upon Mme. Dauvray. Her face was
flushed and shiny, her manner peremptory and quick. Celia's uneasiness
grew into fear. She could have used the words which Hanaud spoke the
next day in that very room—"There is something here which I do not
understand." The touch of Adele Tact's hands communicated something to
her—something which filled her with a vague alarm. She could not have
formulated it if she would; she dared not if she could. She had but to
stand and submit.

"Now," said Adele.

She took the girl by the shoulders and set her in a clear space in the
middle of the room, her back to the recess, her face to the mirror,
where all could see her.