The Last of the Virgins

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

“Madame's visitor's face hardened. Only his voice, so carefully restrained, gave indication of his suffering.”

 

THE LAST OF THE VIRGINS

Closing a Brilliant Series of Mystery Stories

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

Illustrated by Marshall Frantz

GEOFFREY FRANCIS, Earl of Westerton, like many a man of his age, state of health, and profession—he had been a guardsman in his younger days—was disposed to be irritable. Three times he had blown the whistle of the speaking tube which was supposed to communicate with his chauffeur, and on none of these occasions had the man taken the slightest notice. He was still sitting, stolid and immovable, in his place, and his passenger, who on entering the limousine had distinctly indicated his desire to be driven to Nice, was rapidly losing his temper. Without a word of warning or explanation the chauffeur had taken an abrupt turn to the left off the main road and was proceeding inland at a pace which, along such narrow roads and in an entirely unknown direction, was certainly on the venturesome side.

“Hi! You there! Where the devil are you going? I told you Nice,” Lord Westerton bawled down the tube.

There was no response whatever. The occupant of the car suddenly remembered that this temporary chauffeur might possibly not understand English. He repeated his protestations in French with similar lack of success and afterwards let down the window and reiterated in both languages everything which he had previously said to the motionless figure at the wheel. Still the man took not the slightest notice.

“Are you deaf, confound you?” his lordship demanded at last, leaning out so far that he could jog the other's arm.

The chauffeur spoke for the first time, choosing his own language. He was obviously a Frenchman.

“Milord is not to derange himself,” he said. “All will be well. It is a little call which we pay among the hills quite close at hand.”

Milord, who was exhausted, leaned back in his seat.

“Abducted, by God!” he muttered.

Lord Westerton, among other qualities not all so admirable, possessed a sense of humor and inclinations toward philosophy. He clearly perceived that, situated as he was, he was helpless. They were traveling at thirty miles an hour and any form of appeal to a casual passer-by or to the peasants working in the fields would be only ridiculous. For some reason or other, not in the least apparent, this chauffeur, who had taken the place of his own man, suddenly indisposed, for one day, had made up his mind to disobey instructions and to pilot him to some unknown spot. To leave the car was impossible. To make any sort of attack upon the chauffeur in this narrow thoroughfare would be dangerous. On the whole he decided to resign himself.

THE country through which they were passing was at least picturesque and interesting—a great improvement upon the main road. There were many little homesteads with their vineyards and strip ol meadow land, here and there a sheltered orchard, a flurry of cherry blossoms in the soft wind, the perfume of an occasional grove of orange trees, fainter but more insistent. It was a country which Lord Westerton knew indifferently well and into which he had always felt an inclination to penetrate. The road wound round a great château of historic memory and curved itself deeper into the bosom of the hills. In his younger days this involuntary passenger had been fond of adventures. Some faint revival of this instinct for the unexpected stirred in his blood with every kilometer. Where was he to be taken? How was it possible to escape far enough from civilization to hold him anywhere against his will? Or was it, perhaps, a joke on the part of one of his friends? Meanwhile it was a very pleasant drive, a little change from the monotony of his ordinary life. Of fear or apprehension he had none whatever. Such evil qualities were unknown in his family.

So, with his irritability merging into a faintly excited sense of curiosity, Lord Westerton gave himself up to the enjoyment of his unforeseen adventure. Its meaning was hidden from him even when at last they turned into the gates of the villa, and, climbing the avenue of oleanders, budding rhododendrons, and many flowering shrubs, drew up at last before the wide-flung piazza. Obeying, apparently, a summons from the porter's lodge, a very correct-looking English butler descended the steps and threw open the door of the car, Lord Westerton was conscious for a moment of a ridiculous feeling of disappointment. Nothing exceptional could happen with such an environment.

“Will your lordship be so good as to descend?” the man invited.

“Why the dickens should I?” was the querulous response. “I don't even know who lives here or why I have come.”

A woman who had been reclining in a long chair hidden by the clustering roses came slowly to the steps. She was dressed in a very beautiful morning wrap, hung with wonderful lace. She was obviously no longer young but her eyes were still brilliant, her figure slim, and she carried herself with grace and dignity. Her involuntary visitor gazed at her in bewilderment. Then her lips parted in a faint smile of welcome, and he remembered. He also understood.

“Madame!” he exclaimed.

“I am very glad to welcome you at last, dear friend,” she said, holding out her hands. “I have been very patient, but I must remind you that you are the last of my Virgins. It was not like that years ago.”

Lord Westerton descended from the car and bowed over the fingers which he raised to his lips.

“Madame,” he declared, “in one respect at least you are unchanged. You are, an epicure in the unexpected. May I hope that my humble apologies will be received with your usual generosity—?”

“That depends upon your state of mind,” was the not ungracious reply. “His lordship will lunch here, William,” she added, turning to the butler. “Send the car to the garage. We will telephone when it is required. Meanwhile,” she went on, pointing to two chairs on the piazza, “we will talk for a little time.”

“'But I do not wish to go,' Claire protested vigorously. 'I have taken this country into my heart. I do not wish to leave it.'”

LORD WESTERTON seated himself by her side with a chuckle.

“So I was abducted!” he observed.

She looked at him reproachfully.

“You should not have needed such a method of persuasion,” she declared.

He sighed. After all, it was amazing how easily the threads were picked up. For a moment he forgot that he was sixty-nine years old. He thought only of the days when the near presence of Madame meant always the stir of life. “I have been to blame,” he admitted.

“You knew that you were summoned?” she asked.

“I knew,” he assented, “but for a man of my age what did it mean?”

“You have not received your quittance,” she reminded him. “I still hold your confession.”

He frowned.

“A foolish affair,” he murmured.

“Nevertheless,” she persisted, “it would be better destroyed.'

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Will you destroy it for me?”

'Upon terms,” she answered.

He looked at her curiously.

“What terms?” he inquired. “What is there I could do for you? One knows that you are wealthy. One imagines that you have long since passed from that exotic but wonderful world in which for a few years we lived. What service could I render to you?”

“That I shall explain presently,” she promised. “Do you remember why you broke off your connection with us so abruptly?

“I do,” he answered drily. “I broke it off because I discovered one day that my son had joined the little band of your adherents. The Virgins were a wonderful society, dear Madame, but there was something incongruous in the idea of a father and son both belonging.”

She assented with a little sigh.

“It is your foolish English custom of varying names,” she observed. “How was I to know that Hugh Cardinge was the son of the Earl of Westerton?... Have you seen or heard of your son lately?” she continued, after a moment's pause.

Her visitor's face hardened. Only his voice, so carefully restrained that its inflexions became almost unnatural, gave indication of his suffering.

“Not for sixteen years,” he replied. “That was about the time that the few pounds a week I was sending out to Canada began to come back to me. I had hoped,” he went on, “that the war might have brought him once more into the world. He had led a wild enough life, but there were many who found salvation in that way.”

Madame leaned over and deliberately possessed herself of his hand. She called him by a name which I belonged to the past.

“Francis,” she said, “I suppose you read—there were notices about him in all the English papers—of a Colonel Carde, a Canadian private when he joined up at the beginning of the war, a V. C. and a Brigadier when he finished.”

“What about him?” he demanded sharply.

“That Colonel Carde was Hugh Cardinge—your son.”

For a moment he knew then that it must be all a dream—that forced drive up into the hills, the stolid chauffeur, the villa, Madame, this odor of roses and lemon verbena which seemed all the time in his nostrils. Now it was fading away. Yet Madame was still there, leaning over him; the sound of another voice, too, the pressure of a glass between his lips. The sudden darkness was passing.

“Francis, be brave, dear friend,” she whispered. “Drink this. Now sit quite close to me. I shall tell you the story of a hero, and presently—well—you shall see.

CLAIRE, a vision of loveliness in her pale pink summer gown, bareheaded, her face turned sunwards, as though defying alike the wind or the sun itself to affect her almost perfect complexion, crossed the road a few minutes before the car containing Lord Westerton turned in at the villa gates, passed along the avenue of cypresses, and, skirting the farm-house beyond, climbed to where Cardinge was working in a field adjoining the vineyard. He welcomed her cordially enough but showed slight disposition for conversation.

“No golf this morning?” he asked.

“No golf, no tennis, no diversion of any sort,” she replied. “Consequently, here I am.”

“You are very welcome,” he assured her, “but I am desperately busy.

“That is fortunate,” she observed, picking up an empty basket, “because I am in the mood to make myself useful in any desired direction. There are preparations for a visitor at the villa and Madame, my dear aunt, although she will never admit it, is, I think, a little nervous. What can I do?”

“You can pick that second row of peas,” Cardinge directed. “'Who is this visitor? I thought we had come to the end of the list.”

“It is the last,' Claire confided. “I do not know his name, but I do not imagine from Madame's manner that it is a serious affair. In any case you will meet him. I was to tell you to be sure and not forget that you were expected to luncheon this morning.

Cardinge sighed.

“Madame is indeed hospitable,” he observed, “but I wish that it were not right in the middle of a busy day.'

“What swank!” she scoffed. “Just because you are doing a few days' work—probably for the first time in your life—you pretend that the place can't get on without you for an hour or so. What do you think could possibly happen to the peas and the strawberries and the artichokes, the vines and the beans and the little field of corn? Nobody's going to run away with them, are they?”

“My child,” he replied with a grin, as he paused in his labors for a moment to fill his pipe and light it, “you are profoundly ignorant of the arts of husbandry. These things all need attention.'

She laughed back at him as she turned at the end of one row of peas and began another.

“So proud of your little farm, aren't you?” she observed. “You think that everything on it languishes if you are not strolling about with your hands in your pockets encouraging things to grow.

He removed his pipe from his mouth and looked at her fixedly.

“Is it my fancy,” he demanded, “or are you making fun of me?”

“No one would dare to do such a thing,” she assured him hastily. “Certainly not a little coward like me.... This basket of peas is getting very heavy.”

“Set it down and fill another,” he advised. “There are plenty of empty ones at the end of the row. You haven't been working for a quarter-of-an-hour yet.”

She fetched another basket.

“Another ten minutes will be all you're getting out of me this morning,” she declared. “Luncheon is at twelve o'clock, and Madame likes us to be on the terrace a few minutes before.”

He glanced at his watch.

“I must go and get ready,” he announced. “Come and sit on the porch | when you have done as much as you want to.

CLAIRE watched him descend the hill; a lean, masterful figure, whom no one could possibly have mistaken for a peasant, although he wore the blue jean clothes and thick boots of his fellow laborers. After he had disappeared she filled her second basket and presently strolled down to the farm-house, sinking with a little exclamation of relief into a comfortable chair on the cool white flags, and drinking half a glass of the cider which Marthe, the fat old bonne, brought out for her.

Marthe was in a depressed state of mind. She extended her hands with a lugubrious gesture.

“Again to-day,” she complained, “Monsieur takes his déjeuner away. And to me not a word of warning. All is ready for the omelette. The chicken, the vegetables, they prepare themselves. It is the third time in five days. I ask you, mademoiselle, how can one keep house with economy under such conditions.”

“Very soon,” Claire reminded her, “we shall be away. Then the villa will be shut and monsieur will take his luncheon here every day.”

Marthe withdrew, still grumbling, and Claire leaned back in her seat. Several pigeons were waddling about in the shade, and there was an insistent buzzing from the long row of hives a few yards away. Overhead the sky was blue and unclouded and a little breeze came murmuring down the rustic rose pergola. The farm-house had been built on the ruins of an old château and masses and pinnacles of the cool, gray stone still remained. It was a place which seemed to breathe the very atmosphere of rest. Claire rose to her feet with a little sigh of regret when at last Cardinge appeared.

“I cannot tell you why,” she remarked, “but it seems so much more peaceful down here than at the villa. You don't want a housekeeper, do you, Hugh?”

“Badly,” he answered.

“My keep might be a little expensive,” she ruminated. “'I always seem to eat more than any one else in hot weather, and you know I am naturally very lazy. I could not possibly get: up at those awful hours you say you are in the fields. Otherwise, I should certainly not be grasping.”

“And the villa?” he queried.

She made a little grimace.

“Hugh,” she confided, “Madame is getting restless. I know the signs so well. To-day she is expecting the last of her Virgins. I am sure that when he is gone, she will make up her mind to leave—that one morning I shall wake up and find a maid packing my things.”

“Well,” he reminded her, “it is getting late in the season for this part of the world. You will probably go to Deauville wherA\rmand is, or to Aix. It will be gayer for you there.”

“But [ do not wish to go,” she protested vigorously. “I have taken this country into my heart. I do not wish to leave it. I prefer to wait for the vintage. I want to see you press your grapes, Hugh. I want to see you unbend and attend the fête up at the village.”

“It would give me great pleasure to have you stay here,” he assured her fervently. “I shall find it very lonely without you.”

She was suddenly serious; a condition of mind to which she seldom attained.

“How nice to hear that, Hugh!” she exclaimed. “I wish you would tell me so more often.”

SHE seized his hand impulsively and they went swinging up the steep meadow together. Presently she looked at him with anxious eyes. 'I believe that you are not well, Hugh,” she declared.

“Well? I am perfectly well,” he insisted. “Whatever put such an idea into your head?”

“Why, your hand is hot, for one thing,” she told him, “and you seem out of breath already. Am I walking too fast? I always have the idea that I can never tire you.”

He laughed and slackened his pace. “All the same,” he confessed, “I am getting old.”

“Rubbish!” she scoffed. “I wish you would not talk like that, Hugh. You are always trying to play the elder brother with me and I do not like it. I know exactly how old you are, so it makes no difference. I suppose you realize, too, that you look years younger since you settled down here.

“Who wouldn't?” he answered. “One thrives always in the surroundings one loves, and I do love the place and the life here.”

“So do I,” she agreed. “I love the villa, too,” she added, as they crossed the road and entered the grounds through a small gate. 'The only drawback is that sometimes I feel absolutely terrified here. There is sometimes an atmosphere about the place which is almost sinister. That dear aunt of mine creates it, I suppose, with all these strange visitors and the things she sets them to do. I was simply terrified last week. I loved Mr. Sarle and I have never seen any one in the world I detested so much as Maurice Tringe. Shall you ever forget that luncheon?”

“It was not a cheerful meal,” he admitted.

“It was ghastly,” she declared. “My aunt always tells me,” Claire continued, “that I must walk through these days of my life with my eyes shut. But how can I, Hugh? I am not a child any longer. Aunt forgets sometimes my age. She often treats me as though I were a child.”

“When is Armand coming home, Claire?” he asked her abruptly.

“When I promise to marry him, he says,” she replied flippantly. “If he means it, then it will be never.”

“That will be a great disappointment to him,” Cardinge said gravely.

“I am not so sure,” she rejoined. “You know how short a time he has been in Deauville, and he has confided to me that he has already a love affair with a manicurist, a professional danseuse, and an English countess. He is willing, however, it seems, to relinquish all these if I send for him.”

“And you?” he asked. “As you are not able to indulge in the feminine equivalent of these little enterprises, how do you feel about his absence?”

“I miss him for golf and tennis,” she admitted. “Sometimes I used to enjoy an expedition up into the hills with him, although he grumbled always when I made him walk far. On the whole, though, I find life more comfortable when he is not here. There have been times when I have hated him.”

“Madame still clings to her scheme. She wishes you to marry him, I am sure,” he remarked.

“Do you?” she asked him point-blank.

“No.

Claire halted for a moment and laughed. She thrust her arm through his. “Why not?” she ventured softly.

There was a fire in his eyes which for a moment brought her a sort of frightened happiness. The smile faded from her lips. She listened eagerly.

“Because,” he said, “if I were Armand's age and if I were not next door to a pauper, I should want to marry you myself.”

“I should never marry any one so young as Armand,” she told him, “and—I have plenty of money.”

He laughed a little hardly.

“We don't understand that sort of marriage in England,” he said. “If a man has nothing to give, he offers nothing.”

“You have your dear self,” she whispered, with a little sob in her throat.

MADAME leaned over the balcony and called to Claire. To Cardinge's surprise, Eric Brownleys descended the steps and advanced to meet him.

“Hullo, Brownleys!” he exclaimed, as they exchanged greetings. “I thought you'd shaken the dust of this place off your feet—got your quittance, and all that.”

Brownleys nodded.

“l came over to-day,” he explained, “on rather a different errand. There's some one up there, Cardinge, wants to see you very much—some one whom I think you, too, ought to be glad to see.”

Cardinge seemed unconsciously to stiffen, Brownleys laid his hand upon his shoulder.

“Look here, Cardinge,” he continued, “I don't know a damned thing about the trouble there was in the past between you and your father, but although we're sort of distant connections I wouldn't have dreamed of interfering if it hadn't been rather thrust upon me. But after all, you know, we're none of us getting any younger and the old man—I beg his pardon—Lord Westerton, has been shaky for a year or two. They roped me in this morning to come and look after him. Couldn't make out where he'd got to!”

“Brownleys!”

“Hold on, old fellow! Think well before you turn away. He is your father after all, you know, and, to be brutally frank, I am afraid his number isn't far from being up, I'll tell you something you perhaps don't know. Before you joined Madame's little company, he was one of the Virgins—her senior Virgin, she used to call him.”

“Good God!” Cardinge muttered.

“He cleared out when you came along. Father and son in that galerie didn't seem exactly in order.... Anyway, Madame sent for him and, though he wouldn't come at first, he's here now right enough. She's just told him that little story about Colonel Carde, and the old man's as proud as Lucifer. Of course, he was wrong to cut up so rough just because you went the pace a bit, and he knows it, but you can afford to be generous. You've a good many years left. He hasn't.”

“Where is he?” Cardinge asked, a little unsteadily.

“On the terrace there, waiting.”

Cardinge started off at once. They met on the steps, the likeness curiously apparent as the elder man straightened himself. They grasped hands.

“Hugh, my dear boy,” his father began—

“Your coming here is quite sufficient, sir,” Cardinge interrupted. “Come and sit down. I want to hear about Westerton.

“And I,” his father said, “want to hear a little more about this 'Colonel Carde....'”

Presently the bell rang for luncheon and the others found their way on to the terrace.

“And who is the young lady?” Lord Westerton inquired, as he took his son's arm. “I saw you coming through the wood together. May I not be presented?”

Cardinge held his hand to Claire.

“Claire,” he said, “this is my father, Lord Westerton. I hope that you will be very great friends.”

Lord Westerton bowed; an art which he had learned in the old days when he had been ambassador to the Court at Vienna.

“You are my son's friend,” he said, “and I am grateful to all those who have tried to make up for the shortcomings—I am afraid I must say, the injustice—”

“Not another word, sir, please,” Cardinge interrupted.

His father let go his arm and took Claire's.

“If Madame permits, you will sit next me, perhaps,' he begged. “Afterwards I hope to persuade you and Hugh to motor back with me to Cannes.”

MADAME met Cardinge and Claire on their return from Cannes that evening with an open telegram in her hand. There was tragedy in her face, but also more than a gleam of humor.

“Hugh!” she exclaimed. “Claire! What am I to make of this? I had a long letter from Armand this morning—a third of it about an English countess—I have forgotten her name—a third about a little manicurist, and a third about a danseuse at the Casino. There was a postscript too about an American widow whom he had just met. Now I get this dispatch. Listen! 'Have married her. Love. Armand.'”

“But which?” Claire cried.

Madame extended her hands. Her expression was one of helpless consternation.

“But who knows?” she replied.

They all three looked at one another. Then Madame began to laugh softly.

“Armand is a fool, she said. “He has enough money fortunately, and I have no real responsibility with regard to his doings. I suppose the world would say, though, that he is not more of a fool than I. Paul must be taken care of, so T have promised to marry him next week. It is your future alone which disturbs me, Claire.”

“My affair entirely,” Cardinge declared joyously. “We've got most of it planned already. I am putting a caretaker in at the farm and we are going back to England with my father next week, and returning here at vintage time for our honeymoon.”

Madame leaned over in a rare fit of graciousness and kissed her niece tenderly. “So we are all fools together,' she murmured.