The Pennycomequicks (Volume 3 of 3)

CHAPTER XLV.

OBER-ALP

After Philip had looked sufficiently long at the caged eagle, he went in search of the captain, and found him smoking in the veranda of the hotel.

'Lambert,' said he, 'there's a deal of fuss being made about this American lady, but who is she?'

'Comes from Chicago,' answered the captain.

'I know that, but I want to know something more concerning her.'

The captain shrugged his shoulders. 'She's good-looking, deucedly so.'

'That, also, I can see for myself. Have you made no inquiries about her?'

'I? why should I?'

Philip called the head waiter to him.

'Here. Who is this American lady?'

'Oh, from Chicago.'

'Exactly; the visitors'-book says as much. I don't see how she can be rich; she has no lady's-maid.'

'Oh, saire! De American leddies aire ver' ind'pendent.'

There was nothing to be learnt from anyone about Miss Durham. He applied to the squeaky-voiced chaplain with the military moustache.

'She may belong to the Episcopal Church of America,' said the chaplain; 'but I don't know.'

Some of the waiters had seen her elsewhere, at other summer resorts, always well dressed. Philip, after he had spent half an hour in inquiries, discovered that no one knew more about her than himself. He had heard nothing to her disadvantage, but also nothing to her advantage. He might just as well have spared himself the trouble of asking.

At table d'hôte, Miss Durham sat at the long table. Salome was disappointed. She thought that she had succeeded in completely patching up the difference. Philip was indifferent. Just as well that she should be elsewhere. She was an occasion of dissension, a comet that threw all the planetary world in his system out of their perihelion. He made no bones about saying as much. Salome looked sadly at him, when Colonel Yeo took his seat beside Miss Durham, and entered into ready converse with her. She could not take her attention off her friend; she was uneasy for her, afraid what advantage the crafty colonel might take of her inexperience. But it was not long before Philip heartily wished that Miss Durham had been in her place in their circle, for conversation flagged without her, or ceased to be general and disintegrated into whisperings between the girls Labarte, and confidences between Janet and Lambert. Salome was silent, and Mrs. Sidebottom engrossed in what she was eating. Philip spoke about politics, and found no listeners; he asked about the excursions to be made from Andermatt, and was referred to the guide-book; he tried a joke, but it fell dead. Finally he became silent as his wife and aunt, with a glum expression on his inflexible face, and found himself, as well as Salome, looking down the long table at Miss Durham. The young lady was evidently enjoying an animated and entertaining conversation with Colonel Yeo, whose face became blotched as he went into fits of laughter. She was telling some droll anecdote, making some satirical remark. Philip caught the eye of Yeo turned on him, and then the colonel put his napkin to his mouth and exploded. Philip's back became stiff. It offended him to the marrow of his spine, through every articulation of that spinal column, to suppose himself a topic for jest, a butt of satire. He reddened to his temples, and finding that he had seated himself on the skirts of his coat, stood up, divided them, and sat down again, pulled up his collars, and asked how many more courses they were required to eat.

'Oh! we have come to the chicken and salad, and that is always the last,' said Salome.

'I am glad to hear it. I never less enjoyed a meal before – not even – ' He remembered the dinner alone at Mergatroyd, with the parlourmaid behind his back observing his mole. He did not finish his sentence; he did not consider it judicious to let his wife know how much he had missed her.

It was not pleasant to be at enmity with a person who by gibe and joke could make him seem ridiculous, even in such eyes as those of Beaple Yeo. It would be advisable to come to an agreement, a truce, if not a permanent peace, with this woman.

Presently Philip rose and walked down the salle. Several of those who had dined were gone, some remained shelling almonds, picking out the least uninteresting of the sugar-topped biscuits and make-believe macaroons, that constituted dessert. He stepped up to Miss Durham, and said, with an effort to be amiable and courteous: 'We are meditating a ramble this afternoon, Miss Durham, to some lake not very distant; and I am exponent of the unanimous sentiment of our table, when I say that the excursion will lose its main charm unless you will afford us the pleasure of your society.'

He had been followed by the Labarte girls, and they now put in their voices, and then Mrs. Sidebottom joined; she came to back up the request. It was not possible for the American girl to refuse. The captain and Janet had not united in the request, but they had attention for none but each other, and Salome had not risen and united in the fugue, for a reason unaccountable to herself – a sudden doubt whether she had acted wisely in pressing the lady to stay after she had resolved to go; and yet – she could give to herself no grounds for this doubt.

A couple of hours later the party left the hotel. It was thought advisable that Janet should be taken to the summit of the pass in a small low carriage; she could walk home easily, down-hill. Into the carriage was harnessed an ungroomed chestnut cob, that had a white or straw-coloured tail, and like coloured patches of hair about the hocks. It had the general appearance of having been frost-bitten in early youth, or fed on stimulants which had interfered with its growth, and deprived it of all after-energy. The creature crawled up the long zigzag that leads from Andermatt to the Ober-Alp, and the driver walked by its head, ill-disposed to encourage it to exertion. The captain paced by the side of the carriage, equally undesirous that the step should be quickened, for he had no wish to overheat himself – time was made for man, not man for time – and he had an agreeable companion with whom he conversed.

Mrs. Sidebottom engaged the Labarte girls, who – inconsiderate creatures – wanted to walk beside their aunt Janet, and take part in the conversation with the captain. Mrs. Sidebottom particularly wished that her son should be left undisturbed. As an Oriental potentate is attended by a slave waving a fan of feathers to drive away from his august presence the tormenting flies, so did the mother act on this occasion for her son – she fanned away the obtrusive Labarte girls. When she found that they were within earshot of the carriage, 'Now,' said she, 'I am sure this is a short cut across the sward. You are young, and I am no longer quite a girl. Let us see whether you, by taking the steep cross-cut, or I, by walking at a good pace along the road, will reach that crucifix first.' By this ruse she got the three girls well ahead of the conveyance; but Claudine found a patch of blue gentianella, and wanted to dig the bunch up. 'No, no,' advised Mrs. Sidebottom, 'not in going out – on your return homewards; then you will not have the roots to carry so far, and the flowers will be less faded.' There was reason in this advice, and Claudine followed it.

Presently Amélie, the second, exclaimed, 'But we are just in advance of Aunt Janet. Let us stay for her.'

'Yes, we will,' agreed Félicité, the third; 'Claudine can go on with madame.'

'We will all stay,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Now Amélie, I have seen your sketches, and you have your book with you. Is not that a superb view up the gorge, to the right? I do not know the name of the mountain at the head. What a picture it would make! And finished off with the spirit you throw into a drawing! See, there is a châlet, and some goats for foreground!'

'C'est vrai! I will draw it.' So Amélie sat on a rock, and got out her materials; and the sisters sat by her, talking and advising what was to be left in and what left out of the sketch. Meanwhile the conveyance containing Janet crawled by. The picture was still incomplete, and the little party was thrown a long way in the rear by this detention.

To anyone observing the zigzag road up the Ober-Alp Pass from a distance, the party would not have been supposed to possess homogeneity. At starting it was led by three – Philip, Salome, and the American lady; but after the first stage of the ascent Salome fell back, then, little by little, the other two quickened their pace till they had completely distanced the rest. At a lower stage of the inclined road, ascending at an even pace, was Salome, alone. At about an equal distance below, on another stage of the zigzag, was the carriage with Janet and the captain, and the driver, of whom no account was taken; and sometimes ahead of the carriage, sometimes behind, making rushes, then halts, like a covey of doves followed by a hawk, was the little cluster of girls with Mrs. Sidebottom. From a distance at one moment the three girls seemed to be flying before the elder lady armed with a parasol, which she swung about her head, then they seemed to cower on the ground into the herbage as birds beneath a swooping falcon.

The reason why Salome was alone must be given. Before starting on the excursion, Philip said to his wife, 'Let me have a minute alone with that person. I'll make some sort of apology, and set all to rights.'

Accordingly Salome had dropped back where the road made its first twist. But this does not explain why she remained alone for more than the minute. That this may be understood, it will be necessary to follow the conversation that passed between Philip and 'that person.'

'My wife has found a pink,' said Philip; 'she is fond of flowers.' Then, as Miss Durham said nothing, he added, 'I afforded you some amusement at dinner.'

'Amusement?'

'Apparently. It is not pleasant to be an object of criticism. If you desired to punish me for my indiscretion, you must be satisfied. You made me very uncomfortable.'

'Amusement! Oh! do you mean when Colonel Yeo laughed and look at you? I saw you turn red.'

'Enough to make a man turn red, when aimed at by the bow and arrow of female lips and tongue.'

'You are quite mistaken,' said Miss Durham, laughing. 'I was not shooting any poisoned arrow. Do you desire to know what I said?'

'Interest me it must, as I was the object of the arrow, even if tipped with honey.'

'Very well, you shall know. I had seen you looking at the eagle in his cage. And I said to Colonel Yeo that the eagle reminded me of you.'

Philip winced. He remembered his own estimate of that wretched bird.

'And pray,' said he, 'why am I like the eagle?'

'Because both are in situations for which neither was designed by nature. Do you suppose the eagle looks the draggled, disconsolate bird he does now, when on wing soaring over the glaciers? Were his wings made that they might droop and drop their crushed feathers? That stern eye, that it should stare at iron bars, at inquisitive faces peering between them? Now, come, be open; make me your confessor. Have you never had yearnings for something nobler, freer, than to be behind the bars of a counting-house, and condemned to the perpetual routine of business, like the mill of a squirrel's cage?'

Philip considered. Yes, he had wished for a less monotonous life. He had often desired to be able to hunt and shoot, and move in cultivated society, tour in Europe, and have leisure to extend his thoughts to other matters than the details of a lawyer's office, or a manufacturer's set of books.

'Your time is all barred,' continued Miss Durham, 'and the music of your life must be in common time. No elasticity, no initiative, all is barred and measured. Tell me something about yourself.'

'I!' This was a daring question to address to one so reserved as Philip. 'I have had nothing occur in my life that could interest you.'

'Because it has been spent in a cage. I know it has. I can see the gaol-look in your face, in your back, in the way you wear your hair, in your coat, in your every action, and look, and tone of voice.'

'This is not complimentary.'

'It is true. But you were not made to be a gaol-bird. No one is; only some get caught early and are put behind bars, and see the world, and know it, only through bars; the wind blows in on them only between bars, and the sun is cut and chopped up to them by bars and cross-bars, and all they know of the herbs and flowers are the scraps of chickweed and plantain, drooping and dying, that are suspended to their cage bars for them to peck at. I know exactly what they come to look like who have been encaged all their lives; they get bald on the poll and stiff in their movements, and set in their back, and dull of eye, and narrow of mind.'

'You – have you not been a cage-bird?' asked Philip with some animation.