"I didn't suppose you would have started yet," said I.
"I thought the same thing about you," he retorted. "We got off very quietly from the Cantine––"
"Ah, you wished to steal a march on me," I broke in, "But really, my young friend, you need not have feared that I should impose myself upon you as a travelling companion. My one object in making this excursion is, if not to enjoy my own society, at any rate to experiment with it, therefore––"
"I have two objects in making mine," the boy interrupted. "One is to avoid men; the other is to find materials for writing a book, with no men in it—only places."
"It will not be owing to me, if you fail in the former," said I. "As for the latter, naturally it will depend upon yourself. What shall you call it—'A Chiel takkin' Notes' or 'In Search of the Grail'?"
He blushed vividly. "I haven't decided on the name yet, but it can't matter to you, as I do not expect you to buy the book when it comes out; nor need you be afraid that you will figure in the pages. If I were to call my book 'In Search of—anything,' it would be, 'In Search of Peace.'"
With this, the strange child rose from the table, and bowing, departed, leaving me lost in wonder at him. He was but an infant, and an impertinent infant at that; yet suddenly I had had a glimpse through the great sea-blue eyes, of a soul, weary after some tragic experience. At least this was the impression which flashed into my mind, with the one look I surprised before lashes hid its secret; but in a moment I was laughing at myself. Ridiculous to have such a thought in connection with a slip of a boy, seventeen at most! I lingered over my breakfast, so that the Brat have finished his sightseeing and got away, before my tour of the Hospice began.
He and I had had the table to ourselves at first, but I sat so long that others came in, evidently persons who had spent the night at the monastery. There was a Russian family, of so many daughters that I wondered their parents had found names for them all; a couple of German women in plaid blouses so terrible that they set me speculating. Had the material been chosen by their husbands, with the view of alienating all masculine admiration, as a Japanese girl, when married, blackens her teeth? Or had the ladies inflicted the frightful things upon themselves, by way of penance for some grievous sin? I should have liked to ask, especially as one of the wearers was very pretty, with a large, madonna loveliness. But under my dreaming eyes, she began eating honey with her knife, and I sprang from the table hastily. As I paused, I heard two stolid Cockneys asking each other why the—dickens they had come to this "beastly, cold, God-forsaken hole, with nothing but a lot of ugly mountains to see. There was better sport in Oxford Street." I should not have considered it murder if I had killed them where they sat, but I refrained, rather than soil my hands. And after all, if a primrose on a river's brim, but a yellow primrose was to them, what did it matter to me?
I visited the bibliothèque, which was haunted by a fragrance intoxicating to booklovers, of dead centuries, leather bindings, and parchment. I saw the piano given by the King when he was Prince of Wales; the fine collection of coins and early Roman remains found in the neighbourhood of the monastery; I dropped a louis into the box of offerings in the chapel, and then was taken by a mild-eyed, frail-looking monk to see some of the rooms allotted to guests at the Hospice. Seeing them, I was inclined to wish that I had pushed on through the darkness last night, and reached this mountain-top to sleep. I liked the wainscoted walls, the white, canopied beds, but most of all, I liked the deep-set windows with their view of the silent lake, asleep in the bosom of the mountains, and dreaming of the sky. On most of the walls were votive offerings in the shape of pictures, sent to the monks by grateful visitors in far-off countries. One was an engraving which had adorned the nursery in my youth, and had been a never-failing source of curiosity to me. It was Gustave Doré's "Christian Martyrs," and I had once been deprived of pudding at the nursery dinner, because I had remarked (with irreverence wholly unintentional) that one of the lions seemed ill, and anxious to "climb up the wall and get away from the nasty martyrs." Thus it is that children are misunderstood by their elders! and now, as I gazed at the same picture on the monastery wall, I felt again all the old, impotent rebellion against injustice and misplaced power.
Later, I wandered through the pathetically interesting Alpine garden, carefully kept by the monks; and then, sure that by this time the Brat and his cavalcade must be far on their way, I started, with Joseph and Finois, to stroll down the Pass towards Aosta.
I had promised Jack and Molly to tell them in my letters, whether it would be possible for them, with a motor, to go by some of the routes which I chose. Over the St. Bernard from Martigny to the Hospice they could not have ventured, even in the stealthy, fly-by-night manner in which they had "done" the St. Gothard and the Simplon; for on the St. Bernard the road was always narrow, often stony and dangerous. Beyond, on the other side, even carriages cannot yet pass, descending to Aosta, though in another year the new road will be finished. As it is, for many a generation pilgrims from the Hospice to Italy have been obliged to go down as far as the mountain village of St. Rhémy either on foot or mule-back; thus there was no hope for Mercédès there.
I went swinging down the steep and winding path, my heart chanting a psalm to the mountains. Mountains like cathedrals, with carved, graceful spires; mountains like frozen waves left by some great sea when the world was chaos; mountains like leaning towers of Pisa; mountains like sentinel Titans; mountains silver-grey; mountains dark-red. The "Pain de Sucre" was strangest of all in form, perhaps, and Joseph distressed me much by remarking guilelessly that it, and other white shapes at which he pointed, looked exactly like frosted wedding-cakes. It was true; they did; but they looked like nobler things also, and I resented having so cheap a simile put into my head.
With every step the way grew more glorious. This was an enchanted land. I could hardly believe that thousands of travellers had seen it before, and would again. I felt as if I had fallen Sindbad-like, into a valley undiscovered by man; and, like Sindbad's valley, this sparkled to my dazzled eyes with countless gems. Not all cold, white diamonds, like his, but gems of every colour. The rocks through which our path was cut, glowed with rainbow hues, like different precious metals blended. This effect struck me at first (in the brilliant sunshine which alone kept me from being nipped with cold) as puzzling, but in a moment I had solved the "jewel mystery" of the mountains. The rocks were of porphyry, and marble, and granite, spangled with mica; and over all spread in patches a lichen of rose, and green, and yellow, like chipped rubies and emeralds among gold-filings.
So wild and splendid was the scene, composed and painted by a peerless Master, that I slackened my pace, reluctant to leave so much splendour behind; but despite all delaying, we came after a time down to tree-level. The landscape changed; the diamond spray of miniature cataracts dashed over high cliffs, among balsamic pine forests; the sunshine brought out the intense green of moss and fern. We met porters struggling up the height with luggage on their backs, and fat women riding depressed mules. It was very mediæval, and I had the sensation of having walked into a picture—round the corner of it, into the best part which you know must be there, though it can't be seen by outsiders.
It took us an hour and a half to walk the eleven kilometres down to St. Rhémy, where we lunched well, and drank a sparkling wine of the country which may have been meretricious, but tasted good. There was a douane, for we had now passed out of Switzerland into Italy, and my mule-pack was examined with curiosity; but why I should have been questioned with insistence as to whether I were concealing sausages, I could not guess, unless a swashbuckling German princeling who married into our family eight generations ago, was using my eyes for windows at the time.
I need not have feared that the best of the journey would be over at St. Rhémy, for the road (which broadened there, and became "navigable" for motor cars as well as horse-drawn vehicles), wound down still among stupendous mountains capped with snow, jagged peaks of dark granite, and purple porphyry which glowed crimson in contrast with the dazzling snow.
We did not leave St. Rhémy till long past one, and as we descended upon lower levels the sun grew hot. More than once I called a halt, and we had a delicious rest under a tree in some exquisite glade a little removed from the roadside. It was during one of these, while Finois cropped an indigestible branch, that Joseph opened his heart, and told me his life's history. It had been more or less adventurous, and it had held a tragedy, for Joseph had loved, and the fair had jilted him on the eve of their marriage, for a prosperous baker. This fellow-feeling (for had we not both been thrown over for tradesmen?) made me wondrous kind towards Joseph; and when I had drawn from him the fact that his great ambition was to own three donkeys, and start in business for himself, I secretly determined to see what could be done towards forwarding this end.
We did not hurry, and while we were still far above Aosta, the shadows lengthened and thinned, like children who have grown too fast. We exchanged chestnuts for pines, and the pure ethereal blue of Italy burned in the sky. Everywhere was rich abundance of colour. The green of trees and grass was luscious; even the shadows were of a translucent purple. Below us the valley of Aosta lay, so dreamily lovely, so peaceful, that one could imagine there only happiness and prosperity.
I remarked this to Joseph, and he smiled his melancholy smile. "It is beautiful," he said, "and when you are down at the bottom, you will not be disappointed in the country. But for happiness? it is no better than elsewhere. Wait till you see the crétins; there is a crétin in almost every family. And not long ago there was a dreadful murder in the neighbourhood of Aosta. The criminal has not yet been caught. He is supposed to be hiding somewhere in the mountains, and the police cannot find him. There is a printed notice out, warning people to beware of the murderer—so I read in a newspaper not long ago and I have heard that the inhabitants of all these little hamlets we see here and there, dare not go from village to village after dark, for fear of being attacked."
"Then, if we should happen to be belated, we might have an adventure?" I said.
"Indeed, it is not at all unlikely, Monsieur. No doubt the man is desperate, and if he saw a chance to get a change of clothing, a mule, and some money, he might risk attacking even two travellers, from behind. But we shall arrive at Aosta before dark, and I am afraid––"
"I'll warrant you're not afraid of danger."
"That we shall get no such sport, Monsieur."
Even as he spoke there came, with the wind blowing up from the valley, a loud, long-drawn shriek of fear or distress, uttered by a woman. We looked at each other, Joseph and I, and then without a word set off running down the hill, in the direction of the cry. Again it came, "À moi—à moi!" We could hear the words, now, and then a wild, inarticulate scream.
I bounded down the winding white road, where the evening shadows lay, and Joseph followed, somehow dragging Finois—at least, I am sure that he would not have left his beloved beast behind,—and so at last we turned a sharp bend of the path, thickly fringed with a dense wood, where suddenly Innocentina sprang almost into my arms. She ran to me, blindly, not seeing who it was, but knowing by instinct that help was at hand. "A robber—a murderer!" she panted. "Oh, save—" and then, I think, she fainted.
I have a vague recollection of tossing her to Joseph, and plunging into the dim wood, where something moved, half-hidden by the crowding trees. It was the donkeys I saw at first, and then I came full upon a man, dressed all in the brown of the tree trunks, so that at a distance he would not be seen among them, in the dusk. He had the rücksack I had noticed at the Cantine de Proz in one hand, and with the other he had just drawn a knife from the belt under his coat. On the ground crouched the Boy, shielding his bowed face with a slim, blue-serge arm.
The Princess
—Shakespeare.
This was the tableau photographed on my retina as I sprang forward; but I drew the revolver which had occasioned Winston's mirth when Molly gave it to me at Brig, and in an instant the picture had dissolved. The man in brown dropped the rücksack, and ran as I have never seen man run before—ran as if he wore seven-leagued boots. My revolver was not loaded, and all the cartridges were among my shirts and collars, on Finois' back, therefore I could pursue him with nothing more dangerous than anathemas, unless I had deserted the boy, who seemed at first glance to be almost as near fainting as Innocentina.
Reluctantly letting the man go free, I bent over the little figure in blue, still on its knees. "Are you hurt?" I asked in real anxiety, such as I had not thought it possible to feel for the Brat.
"No—only my arm. He wrung it so. And perhaps I have twisted my knee. I don't know yet. He pushed me back, and I fell down."
I lifted him up and supported him for a moment, he leaning against me, the colour drained from cheeks and lips. But suddenly it streamed back, even to his forehead; and raising his head from my shoulder where it had lain for a few seconds, he unwound himself gently from my arm. "I'm all right now, thank you awfully," he said. "I believe you have saved my life and Innocentina's. You see, we fought with the man for our things; and when he saw that he couldn't steal them without a struggle, he whipped out a knife and—and then you came. Oh, he was a coward to attack two—two people so much weaker than himself, and then to run away when a stronger one came!"
I kept Joseph's story to myself, and hoped that the boy had not heard it. Perhaps, after all, this lurking beast of prey had not been the murderer in hiding. The place was desolate, and evening was falling. Some tramp, or thievish peasant, taking advantage of the murder-scare, might easily have dared this attack; and when I glanced at the picnic array under a tree near by, I was even less surprised than before at the thing which had happened.
The mouse-coloured pack-donkey had been denuded of his load, and the most elaborate tea basket I had ever seen (finer even than Molly's) was open on the ground. If the cups, plates and saucers, the knives, spoons and forks, were not silver, they were masquerading hypocrites; and I now discovered that the large, dark object which I had seen Innocentina putting into the rücksack (at this moment half on, half off) was a very handsome travelling bag. It was gaping wide, the mouth fixed in position with patent catches, and it lay where the disappointed thief had flung it, tumbled on its side, with a quantity of gold and crystal fittings scattered round about. On the gold backs of the brushes, and the tops of the bottles, was an intricate monogram, traced in small turquoises.
"By Jove!" I exclaimed. "Do you travel with these things? What madness to spread them out in the woods by an unfrequented mountain road! That is to offer too much temptation even to the honest poor."
"I know," said the boy meekly. "It was stupid to picnic in such a place, but we had come fast" (with this he had the grace to look a little shame-faced, knowing that I knew why he had come fast) "and we were tired. It was so beautiful here, and seemed so peaceful that we never thought of danger, at this time of day. We had just begun to pack up our things to move on again, when there was a rustling behind us, the crackling of a branch under a foot, and that wretch sprang out. I was frightened, but—I hate being a coward, and I just made up my mind he shouldn't have our things. Innocentina screamed, and I struck at the man with the stick she uses to drive Fanny and Souris. Then he got out his knife, and Innocentina screamed a good deal more, and—I don't quite know what did happen after that, till you came."
"Well, I'm thankful I was near," I said. "And I must say that, though it was foolhardy to make such a display of valuables, you were a plucky little David to defend your belongings against such a Goliath. I admire you for it."
The boy flushed with pleasure. "Oh, do you really think I was plucky?" he asked. "Everything was so confused, I wasn't sure. I'd rather be plucky than anything. Thank you for saying that, almost as much as for saving our lives. And—and I'm dreadfully sorry I called you a—brute, last night."
"It was only because I called you a brat. I fully deserved it, and we'll cry quits, if you don't mind. Now, I'd better see how the fainting lady is, and then I'll help you get your things together. How are the knee and arm?"
"Nothing much wrong with them after all, I think," said the boy, limping a little as he walked by my side back to the road, where I had left Innocentina with Joseph.
We had taken but a few steps, when they both appeared, the young woman white under her tan, her eyes big and frightened. She was herself again, very thankful for so good an end to the adventure, and volubly ashamed of the weakness to which she had given way. In the midst of her explanations and enquiries, however, I noticed that she took time now and then to throw a glance at my muleteer, not scornful and defiant, as on the day before, but grateful and mildly feminine. In conclave we agreed to say nothing in Aosta of the grim encounter, lest our lives should be made miserable by gendarmes and much red tape. But Joseph, less diplomatic than I, had not scrupled to seize the moment of Innocentina's recovery to pour into her ears the story of the escaped criminal, and the excitement in which he had plunged the neighbouring country. She was anxious to hurry on as quickly as possible, lest night should overtake her party on the way, and, still pale and tremulous, she sprang eagerly to the work of gathering up the scattered belongings. While she and Joseph put the tea-basket to rights, the boy and I rearranged the gorgeous fittings of the bag, and discovered that not even a single bottle-top was missing.
"What a burden to carry on a donkey's back!" I laughed. "You are a regular Beau Brummel."
"Why not?" pleaded the boy. "I like pretty things, and this is very convenient. It is no trouble for Souris. When the bag is in the rücksack, no one would suspect that it is valuable. I have carried all this luggage so, ever since Lucerne, and never had any bother before."
"What, you too started from Lucerne?"
"Yes. I had Innocentina and the donkeys come up from the Riviera, to meet me there. We have been a long time on the way—weeks: for we have stopped wherever we liked, and as long as we liked. Until to-day we haven't had a single real adventure. I was wishing for one, but now—well, I suppose most adventures are disagreeable when they are happening, and only turn nice afterwards, in memory."
"Like caterpillars when they become butterflies. But look here, my young friend David, lest you meet another Goliath, I really think you'd better put up with the proximity (I don't say society) of that hateful animal, Man, as far as Aosta. Joseph and I will either keep a few yards in advance, or a few yards in the rear, not to annoy you with our detestable company, but––"
"Please don't be revengeful," entreated the ex-Brat. "You have been so good to us, don't be un-good now. I suppose one may hate men, yet be grateful to one man—anyhow, till one finds him out? I can't very well find you out between here and Aosta, can I?—so we may be friends, if you'll walk beside me, neither behind nor in front. I am excited, and feel as if I must have someone to talk to, but I am a little tired of conversation with Innocentina. I know all she has ever thought about since she was born."
"It's a bargain then," said I. "We're friends and comrades—until Aosta. After that––"
"Each goes his own way," he finished my broken sentence; "as ships pass in the night. But this little sailing boat won't forget that the big bark came to its help, in a storm which it couldn't have weathered alone."
"Do you know," said I, as we walked on together, the muleteer and the donkey girl behind us, with the animals, "you are a very odd boy. I suppose it is being American. Are all American boys like you?"
"Yes," said he, twinkling, "all. I am cut on exactly the same pattern as the rest," and he smiled a charming smile, of which I could not resist the curious fascination. "Did you never meet any American boys, till you met me?"
"I can't remember having any real conversation with one, except once. His mother had asked me in his presence (it was in New York) how I liked America, and I had answered that it dazzled me; that the only yearning I felt was for something dark and quiet, and small and uncomfortable. She was rather pleased, but the boy put a string across the drawing-room door when I went out, and tripped me up. Then we had a little conversation—quite a short one—but full of repartee. That's my solitary experience."
"I should have wanted to trip you up for that speech, too; so you see the likeness is proved. It is a funny thing, I know very few Englishmen. I've met several, but, as you say, I never had any real conversation with them."
"Maybe, if you had, you wouldn't be so down on your sex when it has reached adolescence."
"I'm afraid there isn't much difference in men, whatever their country. But it's—their attitude towards women which I hate."
I laughed. "What do you know about that?"
"I have a sister," said he, after a minute's pause. And he did not laugh. "She and I have been—tremendous chums all our lives. There isn't a thing she has done, or a thought she has had, that I don't know, and the other way round, of course."
"Twins?" I asked.
"She is twenty-one."
"Oh, four or five years older than you."
The boy evidently did not take this as a question. "She is unfortunately an heiress," he said. "Money has brought misery upon her, and through her, on me; for if she suffers, I suffer too. She used to believe in everybody. She thought men were even more sincere and upright than women, because their outlook on life was larger, and so it was easy for her to be deceived. When she came out she wasn't quite eighteen (you see we have no father or mother, only a lazy old guardian-uncle), and she thought everyone was wonderfully kind to her, so she was very happy. I suppose there never was a happier girl—for a while. But by-and-bye she began to find out things. She discovered that the men who seemed the nicest only cared for her money, not for her at all."
"How could she be sure of that?"
"It was proved, over and over again, in lots of ways."
"But if she is a pretty and charming girl––"
"I think she is only odd—like me. People don't understand her, especially men. They find her strange, and men don't like girls to be strange."
"Don't they? I thought they did."
"Think for yourself. Have you ever been at all in love? And if you have, wasn't the girl quite, quite conventional; just a nice sweet girl, who was pretty, and who flirted, and who was too properly brought up ever to do or to say anything to surprise you?"
"Well," I admitted, my mind reviewing this portrait of Helen, which was really a well-sketched likeness, "now you put it in that way, I confess the girl I've cared for most was of the type you describe. I can see that now, though I didn't think of it then."
"No, you wouldn't; men don't. My sister soon learned that she wasn't really the sort of girl to be popular, though she had dozens of proposals, heaps of flowers every day, had to split up each dance several times at a ball, and all that kind of thing. It was a shock to find out why. To her face, they called her 'Princess,' and she was pleased with the nickname at first, poor thing. She took it for a compliment to herself. But she came to know that behind her back it was different; she was the 'Manitou Princess.' You see, the money, or most of it, came because father owned the biggest silver mines in Colorado, and he named the principal one 'Manitou,' after the Indian spirit. I shan't forget the day when a man she'd just refused, told her the vulgar nickname—and a few other things that hurt. But I don't know why I'm talking to you like this. I wanted to get away from you yesterday, because I—don't care to meet people. Everything seems different though, now. I suppose it's because you saved our lives. I feel as if you weren't exactly a new person, but as if—I'd known you a long time."
"I have the same sort of feeling about you, for some queer reason," said I. "Are we also to know each other's names?"
"No," he answered quickly. "That would spoil the charm: for there is a charm, isn't there? But we won't call each other Brat and Brute any more. That's ancient history. I'll be for you—just Boy. I think I will call you Man."
"But you hate Man."
"I don't hate you. If I were a girl I might, but as it is, I don't. I like you—Man."
"And I like you, Boy. We are pals now. Shall we shake hands?"
We did. I could have crushed his little brown paw, if I had not manipulated it carefully.
After that, we did not talk much. By-and-bye, he was tired, and remounted his donkey, but we still kept side by side, Innocentina sending at intervals a perfunctory cry of "Fanny-anny," from a distance, by way of keeping the small brown âne to her work.
So we reached the beautiful valley of Aosta, as the transparent azure veil of the Italian dusk was drawn, and out of that dusk glimmered now and then, as if born of the shadows, strange, stunted, and misshapen forms, gnome-like creatures, who stood aside to let us pass along the road. It was as if the Brownie Club were out for a night excursion; and I remembered my muleteer's lecture about the crétins of this happy valley. These were some of them, going back to town from their day's work in the fields. I had set my mind upon stopping at a hotel of which Joseph had told me, extolling its situation at a distance from Aosta ville, the wonderful mountain-pictures its windows framed, and a certain pastoral primitiveness, not derogatory to comfort, which I should find in the ménage. But when my late enemy and new chum remarked that he was going to the Mont Blanc, I hesitated.
"And you?" he asked.
"Oh, I—well, I had thought—but it doesn't matter."
"I see what you mean. Would it be disagreeable for you if I were in the same hotel?"
"On the contrary. But you––"
"I know now that we shall never rub each other up the wrong way—again. Besides, we shan't have the chance. I suppose you go on somewhere else to-morrow?"
"No, I want to stop a day or two. Some friends have asked me to tell them about the sights of the neighbourhood, and what sort of motoring roads there are near by."
"I'm stopping, too. So, after all, the little sailing boat and the big bark aren't going to pass each other this night? They are to anchor in the same harbour for a while."
"And here's the harbour," said I, for we had come down from the hills into a marvellous old town of ancient towers and arches, with a background of white mountains. Molly should have been satisfied. I had obeyed her instructions to the letter, and I was in Aosta at last.
Afternoon Calls
I don't see where your eyes can stop."
—Robert Browning.
Our hotel had a big loggia, as large as a good-sized room, and we dined in it, with a gorgeous stage setting. The mountains floated in mid-sky, pearly pale, and magical under the rising moon. The little circle of light from our pink-shaded candles on the table (I say our, because Boy and I dined together) gave to the picture a bizarre effect, which French artists love to put on canvas; a blur of gold-and-rose artificial light, blending with the silver-green radiance of a full moon.
I don't know what we had to eat, except that there were trout from the river, and luscious strawberries and cream; but I know that the dinner seemed perfect, and that the head waiter, a delightful person, brought us champagne, with a long-handled saucepan wrapped in an immaculate napkin, to do duty as an ice-pail. I wondered why I had not come long ago to this place, named in honour of Augustus Cæsar, and why everybody else did not come. The ex-Brat was in the game frame of mind. We talked of more things than are dreamed of in philosophy—(other people's philosophy)—and there was not a book which was a dear friend of mine that was not a friend of this strange child's.
We sat until the moon was high, and the candles low. I felt curiously happy and excited, a mood no doubt due in part to the climate of Aosta, in part to the discovery of a congenial spirit, where I had least expected to find one.
Last night, we had been, at best, on terms of armed neutrality; to-night we were friends, and would continue friends, though we parted to-morrow. But parting was not what we thought of at the moment. On the contrary, half to our surprise, we found ourselves planning to see Aosta in each other's company.
After ten o'clock, when, deliciously fatigued, I was on my way to my room along a great arcaded balcony which ran the length of the house, I met Joseph, lying in wait for me. My conscience pricked. I had forgotten to send the poor, tired fellow definite instructions for the next day. He had come to solicit them, but, if I could judge by moonlight, he looked far from jaded; indeed, he had an air of alertness, for him almost of gaiety.
"You and Finois can have a rest to-morrow and the day after," said I, "while I do some sightseeing. I hear that I shall need one day at least for the town, and another for a drive to the châteaux and show-places of the neighbourhood. I hope you will be able to amuse yourself."
"Monsieur must not think of me. I shall do very well," dutifully replied Joseph.
"It is a pity that you and Innocentina do not get on. Otherwise––"
"Ah, perhaps I should tell monsieur that I may have misjudged the young woman a little. It seems a question of bringing up, more than real badness of heart. It is her tongue that is in fault; and I am not even sure that with good influences she might not improve. I have been talking to her, Monsieur, of religion. She is black Catholic, and I Protestant, but I think that some of my arguments made a certain impression upon her mind."
After this, I gave myself no further anxiety about Joseph's to-morrow, but went to bed, and dreamed of fighting for the Boy's life, Gulliver-like, against a band of infuriated Brownies.
My first morning thought was to look out of all four windows at the mountains; my next, to ring for a bath.
Now, as a rule, your morning tub is a function you are not supposed to describe in detail; but not to picture the ceremony as performed at Aosta, is to pass by the place without giving the proper dash of local colour.
I rang. A girl appeared who struck me as singularly beautiful, but I discovered later that all girls are more or less beautiful at Aosta. The propriety of this morning visit was insured by the white cap, which was, so to speak, an adequate chaperon. On my request for a bath, the beauty looked somewhat agitated, but, after reflection, said that she would fetch one, and vanished, tripping lightly along the balcony.
Twenty minutes then passed, and at the end of that time the young lady returned, almost obliterated by an enormous linen sheet which engulfed her like an avalanche. She was accompanied by a man and a boy, staggering under a strange object which resembled a vast arm-chair, of the grandfather variety. When placed on the floor, I became aware that it was a kind of cross between a throne and a bath-tub, and, having seen the huge sheet flung over it, I still rested in doubt as to the latter's purpose. The man and boy, who had not stood upon the order of their going, returned after an embarrassing absence, with pails of water, the contents of which, to my surprise, they flung upon the sheet.
I tried to explain that, if this were a bath, I preferred it without the family linen, but the femme de chambre seemed so shocked at these protestations, that I ceased uttering them, and determined to make the best of things as they stood.
When I was again alone, after several rehearsals I found a way of accommodating the human form to the hybrid receptacle, and was amazed at its luxuriousness. The secret of this lay in the sheet, which was fragrant of lavender, and protected the body from contact with a cold, base metal which hundreds of other bodies must have touched before.
"'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands," might be said of a hotel bath-tub as well as of a stolen purse; and having once known the linen-lined bath of Aosta, I was promptly spoiled for common, un-lined tubs. This was a lesson not to form hasty opinions; but being a normal man, I shall no doubt continue to do so until the day of my death.
The Boy and I broke our fast together on the loggia, which was even more entertaining as a salle-à-manger by morning than by night. The coffee was exquisite; the hot, foaming milk had but lately been drawn from its original source, a little biscuit-coloured Alderney with the pleading eyes of that fair nymph stricken to heiferhood by jealous Juno. The strawberries and figs came to the table from the hotel garden, and so did the luscious roses, which filled a bowl in the centre of our small white table.
This was Arcadia. The very simplicities of the hotel endeared it to our hearts, and there was no real comfort lacking which we could have obtained in London or in Paris.
After breakfast we set off with our cameras to the town, a walk of ten or fifteen minutes. It was strange, in this pilgrimage of mine, how often I found myself running back into the Feudal or Middle Ages, as far removed from the familiar bustle of modern days as if an iron door had been shut and padlocked behind me.
There was little of the Twentieth Century in Aosta (named by Augustus the "Rome of the Alps"), except the monument to "Le Roi Chasseur," and the bookshops, which seemed extraordinarily well supplied with the best literature of all countries. The type of face we met was primitive; scarcely one which would have been out of place on some old Roman coin. Here, at the end of a narrow, shadowed street, where St. Anselm first saw the light (it must have been with difficulty) we came upon a magnificent archway, built to do honour to Augustus Cæsar's defeat of the brave Salasses, four and twenty years before the world had a Saviour. A few steps further on, and we were under the majestic mass of the Porta Pretoria; or we were crossing a Roman bridge, or gazing at the ruins of Roman ramparts. Or, we lost our way in searching for the amphitheatre, and found ourselves suddenly skipping over centuries into the Middle Ages, represented by the mysterious Tour Bramafam, the Tour des Prisons, or the Tour du Lepreux, round which Xavier Maistre wrote his pathetic dialogue. Then, there was the cathedral with its extraordinary painted façade, like a great coloured picture-book; and the tall cross, straddling a spring in a paved street, put up in thanksgiving by the Aostans when they joyfully saw Calvin's back for the last time.
We spent all day in sightseeing, and had another moonlight evening on the loggia. We were great pals now, Boy and I. I had never met anyone in the least like him. At one moment he was a human boy, almost a child; at another his brain leaped beyond mine, and he became a poet or a philosopher; again he was an elfin sprite, a creature for whom Puck was the one thinkable name. There was a single thing only, about which you could always be sure. He would never be twice the same.
Still, though we were friends, "Boy" and "Man" we remained. He kept his name a secret, and he had forbidden me to mention mine. Nor had he spoken of his route or destination, after Aosta. As to this I was curious, for I knew now that it would be a wrench to part with the strange little being whose ears I had tingled to box three days (or was it three years?) ago. Already he had done me good; and though I had hardly reached the point of confessing as much to myself, as a plain matter of fact I would not have exchanged his quaint companionship for that of my lost love. How she would have hated this idyllic Arcadia! How triste she would have been; how weary after a day's tour among relics of past ages; and how much she would have preferred Bond Street to the Arch of Augustus, or the park to our snow mountains and green valley! Even Davos she would have found intolerable had it not been for the tobogganing, the dances and the theatricals, in all of which she had played a leading part. Deep down in the darkest corner of my soul, I now knew that I would not have fallen in love with Helen Blantock had I first met her in Aosta.
The Boy and I agreed that our head waiter was one of the nicest men we had ever met, and when he pledged his personal honour that a day's wandering among neighbouring castles would be "very repaying," we determined to bolt the five he most recommended in one gulp, on our second and last afternoon. If he could, he would have sent us spinning like teetotums from one concentric ring of historic châteaux to another, until goodness knows how far from Aosta, Finois, Souris, and Fanny-anny, we should have ended. He would also have despatched us on a two or three days' excursion to Courmayeur; and I fear that his respect for us went down like mercury in a chilled thermometer, when he understood that we had not come to the country to do any of the famous climbs. He named so many, dear to the hearts of my Alpine Club acquaintances, that it would have taken us well into the new year to accomplish half; and he accepted with mild, disapproving resignation our fiat that there were other parts of the world worth seeing.
As we had to cover a radius of many miles, in our rounds of visits at the few sample châteaux we had selected from the waiter's list, we decided to spare our legs and those of the animals. It was hardly playing the game we had set out to play—we two strangely-met friends—to amble conventionally from show-house to show-house, in a carriage, with guide-books in our hands, like everyday tourists; nevertheless, we did this unworthy thing. Perhaps, therefore, I deserved the punishment which fell upon me.
Little did I dream, when I flippantly spoke of our expedition as "driving out to pay calls," how nearly my thoughtless words were to be realised. We started immediately after an early déjeuner, sitting side by side in a little low-swung carriage, a superior phaeton, or poor relation of a victoria. The day was hot, but a delicious breeze came to us from the snow mountains, and there was a peculiar buoyancy in the air.
Our first castle was Sarre, the Château Royal, an enormous brown building with a disproportionately high tower. This hunting-lodge of the King would have been grimly ugly, were it not for its rocky throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening white mountains. The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and I could not imagine it an amusing place for a house party. I was glad that the Boy was not animated with that wild mania for squeezing the last drop from the orange of sightseeing which makes some travelling companions so depressing. The castle was closed to visitors, yet many people would have insisted on climbing the steep hill for the barren satisfaction of saying that they had been there. I rejoiced that my little Pal was not one of these; but I should have been more prudent had I waited.
We drove on, after a pause for inspection, along a road which would have rejoiced the motor-loving heart of Jack Winston, and I made a note to tell him what a magnificent tour he might have in this enchanted country one day with his car, tooling down from Milan. As I mentally arranged my next letter to the Winstons, the Boy gave a little cry of delight. "Oh, what a queer, delightful place! It's all towers, just held together by a thread of castle. It must be Aymaville."
I looked up and beheld on a high hill an extraordinary château, something like four chess castles grouped together at the corners of a square heap of dice. It does not sound an attractive description, yet the place deserved that adjective. It was charming, and wonderfully "liveable," among its vineyards, commanding such a view as is given to few show-places in the world.
"The descendants of the original family have restored it, and live there, don't they?" asked the Boy in Italian of the cocher.
The man answered that this was the case, and was inspired by my evil genius to enquire if ces messieurs would like to go over the château.
"Is it allowed?" the Boy questioned eagerly.
"But certainly. Shall I drive up to the house? It will be only an all little ten minutes."
Without waiting for my answer, the Boy took my consent for granted, and said yes.
Instantly we left the broad white road, and began winding up a narrow, steep, and stony way, among vineyards. The cocher's all little ten minutes lengthened into half an hour, but at last we halted before a garden gate—a high, uncompromising, reserved-looking gate.
"The fellow must be mistaken," said I. "This place has not the air of encouraging visitors;" but, before the words were out of my mouth, the enterprising cocher had rung the gate bell.
After an interval a gardener appeared, and betrayed such mild, ingenuous surprise at sight of us that I wished ourselves anywhere else than before the portals of the Château d'Aymaville. Gladly would I have whipped up our fat, barrel-shaped nag, and driven into the nearest rabbit-hole, but it was too late. The gardener took the enquiry as to whether visitors were admitted, with the gravity he would have given to a question in the catechism: Is your name N. or M.? Can one see your master's house?
Oh, without doubt, one could see the house. Would les messieurs kindly accompany him? His aspect wept, and mine (unless it belied me) copied his. "Isn't it hateful?" I asked, sotto voce, of the Boy, expecting sympathy which I did not get. "No, I think it's great fun," said he.
"But I'm sure they are not in the habit of showing the house. You can tell by the man's manner. He's nonplussed. I should think no one has ever had the cheek to apply for permission before."
"Then they ought to be complimented because we have."
I was silenced, though far from convinced; but if you have made an engagement with an executioner, it is a point of honour not to sneak off and leave him in the lurch, when he has taken the trouble to sharpen his axe, and put on his red suit and mask for your benefit.
We arrived, after a walk through a pretty garden, upon a terrace where there was a marvellous view. The gardener showed it to us solemnly, we pacing after him all round the château, as if we played a game. At the open front door we were left alone for a few minutes, heavy with suspense, while our guide held secret conclave with a personable woman who was no doubt a housekeeper. Astonished, but civil, with dignified Italian courtesy she finally invited us in, and I was coward enough to let the Boy lead, I following with a casual air, meant to show that I had been dragged into this business against my will; that I was, in fact, the tail of a comet which must go where the cornet leads.
Everywhere, inside the castle, were traces that the family had fled with precipitation. Here was a bicycle leaning abject against a wall; there, an open book thrown on the floor; here, a fallen chair; there, a dropped piece of sewing.
Once or twice in England, I had stayed in a famous show-house, and my experience on the public Thursdays there had taught me what these people were enduring now. At Waldron Castle we had been hunted from pillar to post; if we darted from the hall into a drawing-room, the public would file in before we could escape to the boudoir; the lives of foxes in the hunting season could have been little less disturbed than ours, and we were practically only safe in our own or each other's bedrooms—indeed, any port was precious in a storm.
By the time that the Boy and I had been led, like stalled oxen, through a long series of living-rooms, I knowing that the rightful inhabitants were panting in wardrobes, my nerves were shattered. I admired everything, volubly but hastily, and broke into fireworks of adjectives, always edging a little nearer to the exit, though not, I regret to say, invariably aided by the Boy. He, indeed, seemed to find an impish pleasure in my discomfiture.
During the round, I was dimly conscious that the entire staff of servants, most of them maids, and embarrassingly beautiful, flitted after us like the ghosts who accompanied Dante and his guide on their tour of the Seven Circles. As, at last, we returned to the square entrance hail, they melted out of sight, still like shadows, and I had a final moment of extreme anguish when, at the door, the housekeeper refused the ten francs I attempted to press into her haughty Italian palm.
"No more afternoon calls on châteaux for me, after that experience," I gasped, when we were safely seated in the homelike vehicle which I had not sufficiently appreciated before.
"Oh, I shall be disappointed if you won't go with me to the Château of St. Pierre which we saw in the photograph—that quaint mass of towers and pinnacles, on the very top of a peaked rock," said the Boy. "I've been looking forward to it more than to anything else, but I shan't have courage to do it alone."
"Courage?" I echoed. "After the brazen way in which you stalked through the scattered belongings of the family at Aymaville, you would stop at nothing."
"In other words, I suppose you think me a typical Yankee boy? But I really was nervous, and inclined to apologise to somebody for being alive. That's why I can't go through another such ordeal without company; yet I wouldn't miss this eleventh-century castle for a bag of your English sovereigns."
"If only it had been left alone, and not restored!" I groaned. "In that case we should meet no one but bats."
"We? Then you will go with me?"
"I suppose so," I sighed. "It can't add more than a dozen grey hairs, and what are they among so many?"
A few kilometres further on we reached the "bizarre monticule," from which sprouted a still more bizarre château. From our low level, it was impossible to tell where the rock stopped, and where the castle began, so deftly had man seized every point of vantage offered by Nature—and "points" they literally were.
The ascent from the road to the château was much like climbing a fire-escape to the top of a New York sky-scraper, but we earned the right to cry "Excelsior!" at last, had we not by that moment been speechless. History now repeated itself. I rang; the castle gate was opened, but this time by a major-domo who had already in some marvellous way learned that strangers might be expected.
Never was so appallingly hospitable a man, and I trusted that even the Boy suffered from his kindness. Madame la Baronne, who was away for the afternoon, would chide him if guests were allowed to leave her house without refreshment. Eat we must, and drink we must, in the beautiful hall evidently used as a sitting-room by the absent châtelaine. Her wine and her cakes were served on an ancient silver tray, almost as old as the family traditions, and it was not until we had done to both such justice as the major-domo thought fair that he would consent to let us go further.
The house was really of superlative interest, though spoiled here and there by eccentric modern decoration. Much of the window glass had remained intact through centuries; the walls were twelve feet thick; the oak-beamed ceilings magnificent, and the secret stairways and rooms in the thickness of the walls, bewildering; but when our conductor began leading us into the bedrooms in daily use by the ladies of the castle, my gorge rose. "This is awful," I said. "I can't go on. What if Madame la Baronne returns and finds a strange man and a boy in her bedroom? Good heavens, now he's opening the door of the bath!"
"We must go on," whispered the Boy, convulsed with silent laughter. "If we don't, the major-domo won't understand our scruples. He'll think we're tired, and don't appreciate the castle. It would never do to hurt his feelings, when he has been so kind."
"To the bitter end, then," I answered desperately; and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the bitter end came. It consisted of a collision with the Baronne's dressing-jacket, which hung from a hook, and tapped me on the shoulder with one empty frilled sleeve, in soft admonition. I could bear no more. One must draw the line somewhere, and I drew the line at intruding upon ladies' dressing-jackets in their most sacred fastnesses.
If I had been a woman, my pent-up emotion at this moment would have culminated in hysterics, but being a man, I merely bolted, stumbling, as I fled, over my absent hostess' bedroom slippers. I scuttled down a winding flight of tower stairs, broke incontinently into a lighted region which turned out to be a kitchen, startled the cook, apologised incontinently, and somehow found myself, like Alice in Wonderland, back in the great entrance hail. There, starting at every sound, lest a returning family party should catch me "lurking," I awaited the Boy.
We left, finally, showering francs and compliments; but I crawled out a decrepid wreck, and refused pitilessly to do more than view the exterior of other châteaux. It was evening when we saw our white hotel once more, and a haze of starlight dusted the sky and all the blue distance with silver powder.