BARBARA
Barbara and her father left Paris one evening and arrived at Montreux
the next morning. In the afternoon they climbed up by the electric train
to Chateau d'Oex, where they had spent a happy fortnight five winters
before, skating and ski-ing and lugeing. Barbara had been given the
choice of a place to go to, and had chosen this. She wanted to see the
mountain pastures, which they had known only under snow, in their early
summer dress. Grafton did not want to travel about. They were to stay
wherever they went to, and perhaps visit a few other places on their
homeward way.
The next day Barbara wrote to Caroline.
"Here we are, in the same old rooms, with the same jolly old view, but
you've no idea of the difference. There is still snow on the Gummfluh
and the Ruebli, but only in the clefts and hollows, and all the rest is
the most lovely pinks and purples and yellows and heavenly green. All
the fields are simply full of flowers, growing with the hay. They say
that a month ago they were white with narcissus, but they couldn't have
been more beautiful than they are now, with all their colours. Dad and I
had a walk this morning across the valley to where we used to ski. It
was like walking through a garden, and the river looks topping, all free
of ice, and flowing between the rocks and firs. The cows are feeding
half-way up the Cray, and those that are still down here all have great
cow-bells. You hear them booming and tinkling all the time. We are going
to have a lot of walks, and go up to the chalets where they make the
cheeses. The rink is now a tennis court, but the people who play there
don't look very interesting and Dad hasn't brought any things so I don't
think we shall launch ourselves among them. There aren't many people in
the hotel yet--very different from what it was when we were here. But we
like it, and are going to be thoroughly lazy, and loll about with books,
except when we go for walks.
"Now I've got Dad all to myself, of course I can _see_. I was a fool to
write what I did from Paris. The poor old darling had made up his mind
to keep it all to himself, and had screwed himself to be extra merry and
bright with me, so that I shouldn't twig anything. He did take me in,
but I only saw him for a few hours. Of course he can't really hide it,
though he thinks he's doing it beautifully, poor lamb! I do believe I'm
the proper person to be with him, Cara dear. Perhaps you would do it
better, but you can't be here, so I hope you'll be glad that I am, and
not think that I only want to enjoy myself, though I am doing that, and
it is lovely to be here, and with Dad. It's rather pathetic how he likes
to be always with me, and I _know_ he is glad that he brought me here.
When we were reading on the balcony this afternoon, I could see he
wasn't reading much, but every now and then he looked at me, and once
he said how jolly it was that we were here, and were going home
together. So I'm a sort of comfort to him, which I'm frightfully glad
of, and is just what I want to be. I'm not sure I shan't try to get him
to say something later on. After all, everybody knows. I hate her for
treating him like that, though of course I'm glad in a way. It shows
what she would have been like. She must have made him think that she
loved him, and of course he is bowled over. I heard him walking up and
down the balcony last night. When he came into my room this morning he
said that he had got up to see the sun rise, but it was quite dark when
I heard him. After he had had his _petit dejeuner_ he went back to bed
and slept till ten nearly, which is a good thing.
"But you mustn't think he is moping. It isn't like that at all. He is
very cheerful and amusing generally, and we are having a lovely time.
I've only told you what I have seen behind it. I'm sure he just wants to
forget all about it, and I'm going to help him the very best way I can.
I do love him. I shan't marry at all, but shall live at home and look
after him. Of course I don't blame you for marrying, darling, as you had
to. But I've thought it over and I don't care about it for myself."
Barbara also wrote to Bunting--a not too indulgent description of the
people staying in the hotel, with references to the changed aspect of
the country, and to some places that he knew.
"Dad is enjoying his holiday," she wrote, "and looks better already. He
was rather run down, but he is picking up in this jolly air, and getting
very active. He makes me laugh all the time, he is so pleased with
everything. I was rather a fool to write to you what I did from Paris. I
suppose I was bored at not being at home, and got ideas into my head.
But when you told me what that little ass Jimmy said, I didn't worry any
more. I knew that I was safe in believing the opposite. Dad is very
pleased at Ella's engagement to Sir John Ambleside, as of course he is
very fond of her, as she has been almost like one of us to him, and was
nice to him when all of us were away. She has been in love with Sir John
for months, but couldn't quite make up her mind to marry him when she
found out he was Jimmy's cousin. However, that seems to be his only
drawback, and when Jimmy grows up he _may_ improve. There's always
hope."
Grafton's letters were short, but fairly frequent. There was no further
mention of Ella in them, but there was a good deal about Barbara.
"Barbara is a delightful companion," he wrote, some days after they had
gone to Chateau d'Oex. "I've never had her to myself so much before. We
never bore one another, and we talk about all things under the sun.
She's a dear child, and has developed extraordinarily. There's a lot in
that investigating mind of hers, and it's all beginning to come out. It
was a good thing to send her to Paris, though I'm glad enough that the
time is over, and I shall have her at home now. She says she is going to
stay with me for years and years. But I doubt if I shall keep the sort
of young woman she's growing into for more than two or three at the
outside. However, they will be happy ones, and there's no reason why the
happiness should end when she does get married, bless her!"
One morning they set out very early to walk to the coombe of the Vanil
Noir. Grafton carried a ruecksack with their lunch, and they walked
slowly, as they had learnt to do with a long day's expedition before
them. The air was deliriously fresh and fragrant, and the sun had not
yet become hot.
They crossed pasture after pasture deep in flowers, and as they slowly
mounted, the great panorama shifted and changed; distant snowpeaks
lifted themselves into view, and became new mountain ranges; the
windings of their own valley were displayed, and little towns and
villages on its green floor looked like scattered children's buildings.
They came to the wide solemn coombe, and went up it to the foot of the
mountain. The snow lingered here, sometimes in deep drifts, among the
rocks, but almost every foot of ground that had shaken off its winter
covering was jewelled with Alpine flowers. It was another world they had
come to, above the trees and the coarser growths, with a sense of
freedom and space and bigness about it that was lacking in the lower
valleys. The silence was broken only by the tinkle of the rivulets and
the occasional shrill chatter of a _marmotte_, which they could
sometimes descry sitting alert on a distant rock.
They ate their lunch of sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, chocolate, Gruyere
cheese, and oranges, with a bottle of Valais wine, and agreed that they
had never enjoyed a lunch more. Then they sat with their backs against a
rock, while Grafton smoked, and a deep peace and contentment settled
down upon them.
"Isn't it perfect?" said Barbara, after a time. "I feel that this is the
best that life has to offer, Dad. I wonder how much of that feeling is
due to being rested and fed, after having been rather tired and rather
hungry."
"I should think about half," he said.
"That only leaves half for the scenery, and the lovely air and the
sunshine, and _not_ being in Paris, and being with you, and looking
forward to going home as the next thing. It isn't enough."
"And it leaves nothing at all for being young, and having nothing on
your mind; nothing at all to worry yourself about. That's the great
advantage of being young, which you never realise till you're no longer
young. When something good comes along, like this, you can enjoy it to
the full."
"You've got nothing to worry you now, have you, Dad?" she asked, after a
pause.
"No, darling," he said, after another. "The way is pretty clear ahead
now. Lots of jolly things to be done and some quite nice people to take
an interest in. You and I will be able to do some of the nice things
together, won't we?"
"It will be lovely," she said. "We're doing one of the nice things now.
It was rather a good move, our coming here together, wasn't it, Dad?"
"Yes, a first-class move. Do you ever read Wordsworth, Barbara?"
"Not more than I'm obliged, darling. I've read about the tiresome child
who couldn't count, and he nagged at her."
"I don't mean that sort of Wordsworth. Mother loved him. She read me
things when we were on our honeymoon, going to beautiful places
together."
"Then I should like to read him. What sort of things?"
"He makes you see how beautiful Nature is: I can't explain it exactly,
but if you take it right it has a sort of soothing uplifting influence
on you."
"Yes, I've felt that sometimes, especially since we went to live at
Abington. But--perhaps it's because I'm too young--I don't think you can
enjoy it so much alone."
He looked at her in some surprise. "Have you found that out already?" he
said. "I found it out after Mother died. I was frightfully unhappy. I
went away by myself to some of the places we'd been to together. But it
made me unhappier still. In fact, it spoilt the memory of those places
for me till I went there again years afterwards, with Cara and B. Then I
got back my first impression of them."
She snuggled up to him. "Take me to them, sometime, Daddy," she said.
"Yes, I will, darling. You were too young then. I think perhaps we
might go this autumn. It was in September that she and I were married.
How happy we were! She had planned out where we were to go to. Mostly
out-of-the-way beautiful places. I suppose I had been too busy amusing
myself, with other people, to want to go to places simply because they
were beautiful, before. But she taught me to love the beauty of Nature,
though for a time after she died it did nothing for me."
"Perhaps it doesn't when you're unhappy and alone. Do you think Caroline
loves it in the same way as Mother did, Daddy?"
He thought for a moment. "She gets it from her, I suppose," he said.
"Perhaps she has it even more strongly. She's going to make it the chief
thing in her life, you know, she and Maurice together. And one doesn't
feel that she is wrong in doing it."
"Of course, she has tried the other," she said, after a pause.
He smiled at her. "Are you thinking that it wouldn't be enough for you?"
he asked. "I don't think it would, darling; it wouldn't have been enough
for Mother and me--a refreshment--perhaps the best sort of refreshment,
while we were young, and something to come to more and more if we had
grown old together. At any rate, you'll have your taste of pleasure, as
Cara and B had it, and you'll be right to enjoy it, as they did. It did
neither of them any harm and it won't do you any harm."
"Why should it do anybody harm, Dad?"
"Oh, well--if pleasure were put in the first place, for the whole of a
lifetime! That's what you see all round you, among people of our sort.
It would have been more of a danger for B than for Caroline. But B is
all right now. She'll make a good loving wife and mother. She'll have a
good time, but she won't put having a good time first."
"I should like you to expound that for me a little, Daddy; for my good,
you know."
"Well, I don't know that I'm the best person to expound it to you,
except perhaps that I've done it a bit too much myself. You see when you
have enough money to do pretty well what you like, you do rather get
into the way of gratifying yourself at every turn--or trying to. Even
the good things in life--love is the best of them all--you're apt to
think more of yourself than of other people--even of the very people you
love."
She thought this might be the beginning of a confidence, and listened
eagerly for more.
"I'm not sure that the best thing for a man isn't to have something
stiff to do," he went on. "I never have had. I've been too lucky."
"You've made all of us happy, darling."
"Well, that's something, isn't it, if I have? You've all made me happy
too. Best not to be always looking out for happiness for yourself--much
less pleasure. Some clever fellow said once that happiness only came
when you weren't looking for it."
"I think the best thing is to do what you can to make other people
happy. I don't mean in a priggish sort of way--setting yourself out to
do it--but because you love them and it comes natural to you to want
to."
"I believe you've hit upon the whole duty of women, darling. It's what
they are here for. A selfish woman always seems more off the lines than
a selfish man. But selfishness is ugly everywhere. You can't always see
it in yourself, but when you do you had better get rid of it as quickly
as possible."
"You're not selfish."
"Most men are. I don't think I'm much different from other fellows. But
I like you to think I am."
"You know, Daddy, I've been thinking lately that it's rather like what
you said just now--you mustn't grab at things, and it may not be
altogether good for you to be able to get everything you want. By far
the nicest of the girls you sent me to Paris to consort with is Nora
O'Brien, whom I told you about. Her people are very hard up, and one of
her aunts is educating her. The others are all rich--at least their
people are--and the richest are the horridest, except Katie Brown, whose
father is a millionaire; and she laughs at it, and would be just as
happy if he were poor. I think _we_ are all so nice because we really
love each other, and that's the best of all the things we have at home;
though it's very jolly having a beautiful house and lots of friends
too."
"Yes, it's love that makes the world go round, wherever you find it. It
gives you a reason for enjoying yourself too. At least it does when
you've a young woman of nearly eighteen, soon to be launched on the
world. I hope you'll enjoy yourself, darling, when it comes to the time
for you to go out and about."
"I shall like best being at home with you, Daddy."
"Well, you'll be at home a lot too, I hope. But you must have your
fling, and see what the world is like all round."
"I think I shall like it, you know. Caroline did, though she got tired
of it afterwards."
"I don't think it was so much that she got tired of it as that she found
something else she liked better to put in its place. Oh, I'm happy about
Caroline and B both. And about you too, darling. And about Bunting, who
is growing into a very good sort of man. In fact I've nothing to grouse
about at all, except that I can't have the last five and twenty years
all over again. Now I think it's time to be getting down to our happy
valley."
THE END