Chapter Three
Breaking the Ice
“We sha’n’t be intolerably crowded here, Phil,” remarked Fordham, as they sat down to table d’hôte. “It’s early in the season yet, you see.”
But although the long tables running round the fine dining-hall – the latter occupying the whole ground-floor of one wing – were only laid half-way down the room, yet there was a good concourse flowing in. Portly matrons with bevies of daughters, clergymen and clergywomen with or without daughters, spectacled old maids hunting in couples, an undergraduate or two abroad for the “Long,” here and there a long-haired German, and a sprinkling of white-whiskered Anglo-Indians, by the time they had all taken their seats, constituted a gathering little short of threescore persons. A pretty cheerful gathering, too, judging from the clatter of tongues; for the Briton abroad is a wholly expansive animal, and as great a contrast to his or her – especially her – starch and buckram personality at home as the precept of the average professor of faith and morals is to his practice.
Our two friends found themselves at the transverse table at the lower end of the room, with their backs to the bulk of the diners. But in front of them were the open windows, no small advantage in a room full of dining fellow-creatures. The sunset glow fell redly on the purple heads of the Savoy Alps, and the thick, heavy perfume of narcissus came floating in, triumphing over the savoury odours of fleshpots.
The room had just settled down steadily to work through the menu when Phil’s neighbour, a lady of uncertain age with spinster writ large, opened fire upon him in this wise:
“How very thick the scent of the narcissus is this evening.”
“It is. A sort of Rimmel’s shop turned loose in the Alps.”
“But such a heavy perfume must be very unhealthy, must it not?”
“Possibly.”
“But don’t you think it must be?”
“I really can’t give an opinion. You see, I don’t know anything about the matter,” replied Phil, good-humouredly, and in something like desperation as the blank truth dawned upon him that he was located next to a bore of the first water, and the worst kind of bore at that – the bore feminine. His persecutor went on:
“But they say that flowers too strongly scented are very unhealthy in a room, don’t they?”
“Do they? I don’t know. But, after all, these are not in the room; they are outside.”
“But don’t you think it comes to the same thing?” Heavens! What was to be the end of this? Instinctively he stole a glance at Fordham, but that worthy’s impassive countenance betrayed nothing, unless it were the faintest possible appreciation, in his grim, saturnine way, of the humour of the thing. He mumbled something not very intelligible by way of reply, and applied himself with extra vigour to the prime duty of the gathering. But he was not to escape so easily.
The lady was intently scrutinising the menu. Then to Phil:
“Don’t you think ferras is an extremely bony fish?”
This was too much even for Fordham. The corners of his mouth dropped perceptibly, and a faintly audible chuckle escaped him.
“I – I – ’pon my life I don’t know,” stuttered poor Phil. “The fact is I never knew the scheme of creation comprised such a fish.”
“Didn’t you really? How very odd. But do you really mean it though?”
“Oh, yes; it’s a fact,” he declared, wearily.
“Ah! they are bringing it round now. You will soon be able to give me your opinion.”
Phil was deciding that he would die rather than prosecute any investigations into the osseously reputed ferras, and was on the point of asserting that he loathed the whole finny race, when a diversion occurred. Three chairs opposite had remained vacant, and into these three persons were now seating themselves. Looking up suddenly, Phil found himself face to face with the girl who had so strongly attracted his attention on board the Mont Blanc.
The old couple were her parents, of course, he decided straight out of hand. Military and Indian, he went on, pursuing his verdict, and a fine-looking old man. The elder lady seemed in frail health. Of course they were the girl’s parents – not a doubt about it. But what a piece of luck! She to be his vis-à-vis at the table! He quite forgot the existence of the exemplary bore at his elbow, now.
The girl herself, as soon as she was seated, sent a searching glance all down the room, as if appraising the style of people who were to be their fellow-sojourners. This he noted; also her perfect and graceful self-possession. But for all the interest taken in the new arrivals by Fordham, they might just as well not have come in.
Dinner was more than half through, and still he had found no opportunity of utilising the pleasant unconventionality afforded by the table d’hôte system. If only they had been next to him; but being opposite tended to hinder matters. He could not even volunteer the salt or the mustard, and under cover of that flimsy advance work up a conversation, for both those condiments – and everything needful – were as lavishly supplied on the other side of the table as on his own. What the deuce was he to say? For once in his life, easy-going Philip Orlebar felt his normal stock of assurance fail him.
“Alma, child,” the elder lady was saying in a low tone, but audible across the table, “hadn’t you better change places with your uncle and come next to me? I don’t think he ought to sit with his back to the window.”
“Not her parents, by Jove!” thought Phil. “‘Alma.’ That’s a name I never heard before.”
“’Tisn’t that,” grumbled the veteran, before his niece could reply. “There’s no draught – none at all. But what the deuce do they mean by sticking us up in this corner with our backs to the view? I don’t want to look at a lot of other animals feeding. I want to get the benefit of the mountains opposite, and the sunsets and all that.”
“But, uncle,” struck in the girl – and Phil noted that she had a sweet voice, beautifully modulated and clear – “we can look at the mountains opposite all day long, but this grand opportunity of studying a considerable collection of our fellow-creatures all off their guard is only vouchsafed at table d’hôte time. And I was just congratulating myself on having the whole population in front of me.”
“Pooh-pooh, child! When you get to my age you’ll have had quite enough of studying your fellow-creatures – more than enough, I’ll lay a guinea. And confound it, we come to this country to study Nature,” added the old man, relapsing into his original growl.
Now this conversation, though carried on in a low tone, was distinctly audible across the table – a fact of which the parties to it should have been aware but for that inconceivable fatuity peculiar to our fellow-countrymen when abroad, a conviction that everybody but themselves is either deaf or afflicted with an opacity of understanding which could hardly exist outside an asylum for imbeciles. So they were not a little surprised and slightly perturbed when Fordham, looking up, said quietly:
“If you will allow me, sir, I shall be happy to exchange seats. It is perfectly immaterial to me which way I face.”
The trio looked astonished, but the relief on one countenance could hardly dissemble itself.
“Er – you are very kind,” stuttered the veteran. “But – er – really – I hardly like – er – unfair advantage to take of your good-nature.”
“It is kind of you, indeed,” struck in the old lady, somewhat hurriedly, as though she feared the offer would be allowed to drop. “But the fact is the General never can bear to sit with his back to the light. And, if it is really all the same to you – ”
“It is, I assure you. I am delighted to be of service. So I’ll mention the matter to the head waiter, and you may consider it settled.”
The girl was placed between her uncle and aunt. This change would result in Fordham being placed next to her. “What the deuce is the fellow driving at now?” thought Philip, in mingled wrath and alarm. Then it dawned upon him that his friend was driving at nothing less than the securing of that coveted position for him, Philip. “Good old Fordham! What a brick he is!” he mentally resolved, with a glow at his heart. “Best fellow that ever lived, by Jove?”
But the ice thus broken, our two friends and the new arrivals were soon chatting away as if they had known each other for at least some time.
“I noticed you on board the Mont Blanc this afternoon,” said Phil to the old General, with magnificent mendacity – the fact being that he was unaware of that veteran’s very existence. “But you didn’t land at Montreux, did you?”
“No. We went on to Territet. The ladies drove, with the luggage. I took the funicular railway up to Glion and walked the rest.”
“Don’t you think that Glion railway is very dangerous?” struck in Philip’s neighbour, seeing her opportunity.
“Oh, dear no. Perfectly safe, they tell me,” answered the old gentleman. “I daresay, though, it’s rather a trying affair for you ladies, finding yourselves let straight down the steep side of a mountain in a thing for all the world like a bucket in a well.”
“But don’t you think it may one of these days come to grief?” pursued the Infliction.
“But, my dear madam, just consider the number of times it has gone up and down in perfect safety.”
“Ah, but don’t you think it may break down just that one time you may happen to be in it?”
It was dreadful. The octopus-like tenacity of this bore was enough to paralyse the most mercurial. There fell a kind of languid despair upon the countenances of the group, and each looked helplessly at the other, as if to ascertain who was equal to the titanic task of warding off this terrible person. But, meeting the large eyes of his vis-à-vis, Phil at any rate found comfort. They would have something to laugh at between them, anyway.
“Here! I say – you! What are you doing?” called out Fordham, as at that moment a waiter came bustling up and began to shut the window.
“I shut de window, sir. Dere is one German gentleman at de oder end of de room say dat de window must be shut.”
“Oh, indeed! Well, then, give my compliments to the one German gentleman at the other end of the room and tell him the window won’t be shut. We’ll see him in Halifax first.”
The waiter paused a moment, then skipped away to deliver the message.
“Confound the fellow’s cheek!” cried Philip, indignantly. “Likely we are going to have our window bossed by some cadaverous brass-band player at the other end of the room.”
And one and all in the vicinity of the disputed window seconded, in varying terms, his protest.
Just then the waiter reappeared.
“Ver’ sorry, sir; but de German gentleman say it must be shut.”
“Does he?” said Fordham. “Well, look here. Tell him – this time without my compliments – that there are a few people at this end of the room whose convenience is of as much importance as his own, and that they are equally resolved that this window shall stand open. There – leave it alone. If you do shut it we shall open it again at once.”
The waiter paused again very irresolute, shrugged his shoulders, smirked, shrugged his shoulders again, then skipped away. Watching him, they had no difficulty in locating the offender – a lank-haired bespectacled Teuton occupying the remotest possible seat from the window in dispute. He, in wrath, vehemently evoked the proprietor, who, however, at that moment was not on hand.
“That Battle of the Windows is an oft-recurring phase of hotel life out here,” remarked Fordham. “No man is more absolutely unprejudiced against Continental nationalities than myself: yet it is a fact that whenever there is anything like a respectable sprinkling of Germans or Frenchmen in these hotels, they invariably insist upon having the room hermetically sealed all through dinner-time.”
“The deuce they do!” growled the old General. “But do you mean to tell me, sir, that a few of these unbarbered music-masters are going to cram their confounded love of fustiness down our throats?”
“Well, I’ve seen more than one lively episode over that window question,” replied Fordham. “And the fact of that one fellow trying it on just now is sufficient proof that the tradition exists – and exists pretty strongly too.”
“But don’t you think they may perhaps, after all, be more susceptible to cold than we English?” struck in the Infliction.
“Undoubtedly,” assented Fordham, blandly, preparing to beat a retreat from the table under cover of his reply, for the dessert had already gone round, and the room was emptying fast.
“By Jove, Fordham, but isn’t it a deuced rum thing they should have turned up here?” said Phil, as the two made their way to the promenoir for a cigar.
“She, I suppose you mean. No, it isn’t particularly rum. I knew they were bound here all along.”
“What – on board the steamer? No. How did you know?”
“Oh, while you were taking particular stock of the chick, I happened to overhear tags of the old birds’ conversation,” said Fordham, acidly, as if the subject bored him.
“Well, and why didn’t you tell a fellow?”
“Why didn’t I? Hang it all, it’s bad form to repeat what you hear by accident, you know. Besides, it was rather sport to watch your face under the pleasant little surprise.”
“Oh, that be hanged for a yarn?” cried Philip, impatiently. “But I say, who are they, I wonder? What’s their name?”
“Don’t know. Easily found out though.”
“But how?”
“Why, go and look at the arrival book in the bureau. I’ll wait for you here. I’m not interested in the matter.”
Away went Philip without a word. Turning the pages of the book, the last entry of all, freshly made, read:
“Major-General and Mrs Wyatt.”
“Miss Wyatt.”
Chapter Four
Alma
Everybody visiting at Les Avants for the first time while the narcissus is in full bloom, is apt to grow more than enthusiastic over that lovely and fragrant flower, even as in higher localities everybody is bound to gush inordinately over that other blossom which is like unto a gun-wad picked into fluff, and is neither lovely nor fragrant – to wit, the edelweiss. This being so, it is not surprising that Alma Wyatt should have seized the very first opportunity of escaping from the house with intent to cull as huge a bunch of the beautiful blossoms as she could possibly carry.
It was a radiant morning. The sky a deep and dazzling blue, such as is never to be seen over this uncertain and watery England of ours, was unflecked by a single cloud, and the air, mellow and balmy in the early forenoon, distilled a most exquisite perfume. To Alma it seemed as if all the glories of Paradise lay spread around her as she wandered on through the white and shining fields, drinking in the floods of fragrance diffused by the breath of a million snowy petals. Opposite, the great slopes were all aglow with green and gold, relieved by the sombre plumage of shaggy pines straggling up to the frowning scarp of the Dent de Jaman as though they aspired to scale that grim and forbidding wall, and had been forced to yield sullenly in the attempt. A mellow haze rested upon the soaring peaks beyond the fragment of blue lake just visible – blue as the sky above; and from his pent-up prison far down in the deep and wooded gorge the hoarse thunder of the mountain torrent was borne upward in subdued and unending cadence, to mingle with the hum of bees culling their sweet stores from the luscious cells of the narcissus blossoms. Small wonder that to this girl with the large, earnest eyes and poetic temperament – small wonder that to this girl, but two days out from damp and cockneyfied Surbiton, the majesty of the great mountains, the hoary cliffs still flaked with snow towering on high, the black and stately pines, the vernal pastures and the far-away echo of melodious cow-bells, the blue lake and the golden splendour of this radiant Swiss summer, should be as something more than a glimpse of the glories of Paradise.
She was glad that she had come out alone, glad that she had not met any of the other girls with whom she had made acquaintance the evening before. It was delicious to be free to drink in all the wealth of this Elysium without feeling constrained to talk, to reply to commonplaces which should let in the outside world, vulgar by comparison, upon the illimitable charm of this fairy scene. For this was her first experience of Switzerland – almost of the Continent – and it in nowise fell short of the ideal she had formed.
Alma Wyatt had been left fatherless at an early age. Better for her had she been orphaned altogether. Her childhood had been wholly uncared for, and, as far as her mother was concerned, unloved. For she had a younger sister upon whom that mother’s love was concentrated to doting point. All the bitterness of home life had fallen to Alma, all the sweets thereof to her sister. Their mother, a selfish, domineering woman, whose redeeming qualities were infinitesimal even to vanishing point, simply made the elder girl’s life wretched within that semi-detached villa at cockneyfied Surbiton, but for the younger the slender resources of a cramped income were strained to the uttermost. No wonder that the beautiful face was seldom free from a tinge of sadness; no wonder that her character had acquired a concentrativeness and reserve beyond her short twenty years of life.
We said that it would have been better for her were she an orphan indeed, and in saying this we are not exaggerating. Her uncle and aunt, under whose care we first make her acquaintance, looked upon her almost as their own child – would have been only too glad to have adopted her as such, for they were childless. But her mother would not hear of this. Alma was necessary as, figuratively speaking, a whipping-post for Constance, the younger girl. She could not part with her altogether – besides, she was useful in other ways. But the General and his wife managed to have her with them as frequently as they could, and the widow, who could not afford to quarrel with her brother-in-law, dared not oppose his wishes in the matter beyond a certain point. So here was Alma, with a prospect of two months to spend with her dearly-loved and indulgent uncle and aunt; two months of easy travel and varying sojourn among the fairest and most inspiring scenes that this world can show; two months of unconventional life as near to perfect freedom as the trammels of civilisation will allow; and above all, two months of emancipation from home worries and suburban semi-detached pettinesses, and the galling fetter of a show of “duty” towards those whom she could neither love nor honour.
Standing there among the narcissus, gazing around upon the radiant scenes spread in lustrous splendour about her, she made a wondrously beautiful picture. Her eyes shone with a light of gladness, and the normally calm regularity of the patrician features had given way to a slight flush of eagerness which was infinitely winsome. But as her glance suddenly met that of another the glad light vanished as by magic, yielding place to a look of vexation, coldness, reserve. She had been surprised in the midst of a rhapsody – taken off her guard.
But as though he read her thoughts, Philip Orlebar was not the man to add to her discomfiture. He was thoroughbred, aux bouts des ongles, and with all his lightheadedness and devil-may-care jollity, was endowed with tact beyond the endowment of most Englishmen —young Englishmen at any rate.
“Good morning, Miss Wyatt,” he said, snatching the pipe from between his teeth. “Out among the narcissus already, I see. Just what I’ve been doing myself – though, as a rule, flower gathering isn’t much in my line. I only pick up an extra fine blossom now and again as I stroll along, which may account for the meagreness of my bunch,” exhibiting a small handful containing some dozen of stalks. “But you – you have got a grand bouquet.”
The unaffectedness of his address, the breezy lightheadedness of his tone, was not without its influence even upon her. The gravity of her reserve melted into a smile.
“They are so lovely,” she answered; “I couldn’t remain indoors a moment longer.”
“Just the state of the case with me. Surprising how great minds always jump together. But to be serious, I believe the blossoms up above there are larger than these. Some one or other in the hotel told me I ought to go and look at them, and I did,” added mendacious Phil. “That lazy dog, Fordham, wouldn’t move – planted himself at the end of a pipe in a cane chair in one of those arbours. I couldn’t stand that, so I started a stroll in a small way. Let me carry those for you.” And in a twinkling he had possessed himself of the two huge bunches of narcissus which she had gathered.
“Thanks. It’s a shame to burden you, though. Isn’t this a beautiful place?”
“Rather. Old Fordham is enthusiastic about it, and I don’t much wonder. He knows it well, you see. I never was here before in my life, but now I am here I’m in no hurry to move on. There are some grand walks and first-rate climbs to be had. You were saying last night you were looking forward to that sort of thing. I hope we shall be able to show you the way about a little. We must make up a party for a climb somewhere before this splendid weather changes. Fordham is worth any round dozen of guides.”
“But – we can hardly lay your friend’s good-nature under such a heavy contribution,” she said, with a queer little smile.
“Oh, can’t we! Old Fordham is the best fellow in the world – only wants knowing a bit. He’ll do anything he’s asked.”
That queer smile broadened round Alma’s lips. She had sat opposite the now eulogised Fordham during the whole of dinner-time; and, be it remembered, she was given to studying character. But she said nothing, and by this time they had regained the hotel.
A cool fountain was playing in the terraced garden in front of the promenoir, shooting high in the air and falling back into its basin in a shower of scattering diamond drops. Beside this, leaning on an alpenstock, a big meerschaum in his mouth, stood General Wyatt.
“Well, Alma. Been ravaging the narcissus fields?” he said, as they came up. “But what on earth will you do with all that lot? A trifle too strong, won’t it be, for any ordinary-sized room?”
“I don’t think so, uncle. Why, in England people would give anything for such magnificent blossoms as these, and here we are already beginning to think them nothing very great. But I’ll go and put them in water for the present.”
“Well, don’t be long, dear, or we sha’n’t get our walk,” he called after her.
“Grand day, General?” said Philip, re-lighting his pipe.
“It is, indeed. By the bye, since I’ve heard your name, are you in any way related to Francis Orlebar – Sir Francis he is now?”
“Rather closely. He happens to be my father. Did you know him well?”
“You don’t say so! Well, well! It’s a small world, after all. Know him well? I should think I did. I was some years his senior though, and he wasn’t long in the service. But that must have been before you were born.”
“And have you never met since, General?”
“Only once – just about the time he got into that – er – ah.” And the old man, remembering who he was talking to, suddenly pulled himself up and launched forth into a tremendous sneeze. The slip was not lost upon Phil, but he came to the rescue promptly.
“Think we are like each other, General?” he said.
“N-no! Don’t know though. There is a likeness. You’re the finer built fellow of the two – taller and broader. Bless my soul, though, but the world is a small one. To think of Frank Orlebar’s son turning up in this way?”
“I hope I’m not interrupting, General Wyatt,” said a feminine and tentative voice. “Your niece was saying last night she was a perfect stranger here, and we thought she might like to go with us. We are going to the Cubly. It isn’t far, and we shall be back to lunch. We hope you will come too.”
The speaker was one of the two girls who had passed our friends in the Gorge du Chauderon. Phil had already made a little conversation with her the evening before. So now she turned and extended the invitation to him. He gladly accepted, while the General answered for Alma and himself that nothing would give them greater pleasure. And at that moment Alma reappeared and they started. The Miss Ottleys were pleasant well-bred girls of artistic tastes and plenty of conversation, and the walk promised to be a success.
We shall not, however, follow the party to the pine-crowned height sheering up from the vine-clad slopes immediately behind Montreux, nor share in the magnificent panorama which it affords. Sufficient to say that at the end of three hours they returned, in the highest spirits and on the best of terms with themselves and each other. In such free and easy fashion are acquaintanceships formed and often consolidated into friendships, amid the pleasant unconventionally of life in mountain hotels.