“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