Mr. Ricardo progressed in a leisurely fashion from Bordeaux, staying a day here and a night there, and arrived at the Château Suvlac at six o’clock on the evening of the twenty-first of September, a Wednesday. The day of the week is important. For the last mile he had driven along a private road which sloped gently upwards. On the top of this rise stood the house, a deep quadrangle of rose-pink stone with its two squat round turrets breaking the line of the main building at each end, and the two long wings stretching out to the road. The front of the quadrangle was open, and in the middle of this space rose a high arch completely by itself, like some old triumphal arch of Rome. This side of the house looked to the southwest, and the ground fell away from it in a slope of vineyard to a long and wide level of pasture. At the end of this plain of grass there rose a definite hill upon which, through a screen of trees, a small white house could just be seen. As Mr. Ricardo stood with his back to the Château Suvlac, stretching his legs after his long drive, he saw that a secondary road struck off at the end of the sloping vineyard, descended the incline, passed a group of farm buildings and a garage just where the vineyard joined the pastureland, but on the opposite side of the road, and climbed again towards the small white house.
No one of the house party was at home except the aunt and chaperon, Mrs. Tasborough, who was lying down. Mr. Ricardo was served with a cup of tea by Jules Amadée, the young manservant, in the big drawing-room, which opened on to the stone terrace and looked out over the wide Gironde to the misty northern shore. Having drunk his tea he sauntered out on to the terrace. Four shallow steps led down into a garden of lawns and flowers, and on his right hand a closely planted avenue of trees sloped almost to the hedge at the bottom of the garden, sheltering the house and shutting out from its view the massive range of chäis where the wine was stored and the big vats were housed.
Mr. Ricardo walked down across the lawn to the hedge and, passing through a gate on to a water meadow, saw a little to his right a tiny harbour with a landing-stage to which a gabare, one of those sloop-rigged heavy sailing boats which carry the river trade, was moored. A captain and two hands were engaged in unloading stores for the house. Mr. Ricardo, curious as ever, made his inquiries. The captain, a big black-bearded man, was very willing to accept a cigarette and break off his work.
“Yes, monsieur, these are my two sons. We keep the work in the family. No, the gabare is not mine yet. Monsieur Webster, the agent of Mademoiselle, bought her and put me in charge, and when I pay off the cost she will be mine. Soon?” The captain flung out his arms in a gesture of despair. “It is difficult to grow rich on the Gironde. For half of our lives we are waiting for the tide. See, monsieur! But for those cursed tides, I could finish my work here, and start back for Bordeaux later in the night. But no! I must wait for the flow and I shall not put out until six o’clock in the morning. Ah, it is difficult for the poor to live, monsieur.” He had his full share of the French peasant’s compassion for himself, but he was sitting on the stout bulwark of the boat and he began to stroke and caress the wood as though there were nothing nearer to his heart. “The gabare is a good gabare,” he continued. “She will last for many years, and perhaps I shall own her sooner than a lot of people think.”
His little eyes, set too close together under heavy black eyebrows, gleamed unpleasantly. He had not only the self-pity of his kind but its avarice too. He was not however very clever, Mr. Ricardo inferred. No man could be clever who paraded such an air of cunning before a stranger. The captain, however, waked to the knowledge that his two sons had stopped working too. He thumped upon the bulwark.
“Rascals and good-for-nothings, it is not to you that the gentleman talks! To work!” he cried in a rage. “Bah! You are only fit to turn the paddles of Le Petit Mousse in the public gardens.”
Mr. Ricardo smiled. He had sauntered through the public gardens at Bordeaux only yesterday. He had seen Le Petit Mousse, a little pleasure boat shaped like a swan, floating on an ornamental water. It had two little paddle-wheels which were turned by two little boys, and on Sundays and fête days it set out upon adventurous little voyages under the palms and chestnuts.
The youths resumed their work, and Mr. Ricardo turned away from the little dock. He noticed, without paying any particular attention to the circumstance, the name upon her bows—La Belle Simone. He would probably never have noticed it at all, but the first two words of it were weathered and the third stood out glaringly in fresh white paint. Inquisitiveness made him ask:
“You have changed her name?”
“Yes. I named her La Belle Diane. A little compliment, you understand. But Monsieur Webster said no, I must change it. For Mademoiselle would think she looked the fool if ever she perceived it. Not that Mademoiselle perceives very much these days,” and his little black eyes glittered between half-closed lids. “However, I changed it.”
Mr. Ricardo turned away. He walked back along the broad avenue and saw beyond the border of trees, on the far side from the house, a little chalet of two storeys, which stood by itself
