Life at a mountain hotel affected by our compatriots is very much like
life on board a passenger ship, with the difference and manifest
advantages that the Johnsonian definition of the latter does not apply
to the former, and you can generally steer clear of a bore--unless he,
or she, should happen to be too near you at table, that is. But life on
the whole is a free and easy unconventional thing, and as a rule
everybody knows everybody, and people who as neighbours at home would
take about two years to get beyond the rigid afternoon call, and
cup-of-weak-tea stage of social intercourse, here become as "thick as
thieves" in the same number of days. A chance walk does it, or a seat
in proximity at _table d'hote_; peradventure the fact that both venerate
the same star Boanerges at home, or are alike enthusiastic believers in
"General" Booth's scheme; or it may be that both hold in common a choice
bit of scandal concerning some other person or persons in the house.
And then, as our said compatriots are nothing if not clique-ish,
coteries will abound wherever these may be gathered together. There
will be the chaplain's clique and the worldly clique; the clique that
won't tolerate bores at any price, and that in which they reign
paramount, and so on, and so on. But with all these dubious elements of
weak humanity in active operation, life at such an hotel is rather a
pleasant thing than otherwise, and to him who can derive diversion from
the study of a heterogeneous crowd of his compatriots off their guard,
vastly amusing.
Now with a gathering of this sort, three-fourths of it composed of the
other sex, such a fellow as Philip Orlebar was pretty sure to be in
general request; and within forty-eight hours of his arrival he was on
good terms with very nearly everybody in the house. In fact, he was in
danger of becoming "the rage"; for, apart from his good looks and rather
taking manners, the superior sex was almost entirely represented by two
or three quiet university men, a sprinkling of parsons, and a few
contemporaries of General Wyatt. So, as was his wont, he threw himself
with zest into the thing, determined to get all the fun out of it he
could; and, truth to tell, he managed to get a good deal.
When Fordham, on the day of their arrival, predicted for himself a
series of solitary undertakings, as far as his friend's company was
concerned, he was foretelling no more than the truth. For an expedition
_a deux_, he, Fordham, being the second, Philip was never available.
The Misses This wanted to be taken up the Cape-au-Moine, or the Misses
That had organised a picnic to the Folli or the Cret de Molard; but why
the deuce couldn't Fordham shake himself together and be sociable, and
come too? To which the latter would tranquilly reply that the _role_ of
universal flunkey was not congenial to his temperament.
Of late, however, Master Phil's popularity had been on the wane. While
he was an open question, each and all the damsels up there "on spec,"
with but few exceptions, vied with each other to make things pleasant
for him, and their mammas showed unimpeachable dentist's fronts in
beaming approval of their efforts. But when he devoted himself to one,
and one only, manifestly and exclusively, then it became surprising how
suddenly all these little attentions cooled down; how the dimpling smile
became an acidulated sneer, and the bell-like voice rang a hard note;
how the mammas aforesaid awoke to the fact that he seldom went to
church, and when he did it was only to sit near that Miss Wyatt.
"That Miss Wyatt," however, must be held to constitute pre-eminently one
of the few exceptions referred to above. If Philip Orlebar had
concentrated all his attentions upon her with that blundering suddenness
men will be guilty of under such circumstances, she certainly had not
given him a lead; in fact, he was wont to complain bitterly to himself--
and sometimes to Fordham--that she treated him rather too calmly, might
give him a few more opportunities. But Alma Wyatt was not the sort of
girl who gives "opportunities."
Fordham's comment was characteristic.
"Oh! the divinity has a fault, then? See here, Phil. Supposing she had
never come here, you would have cut out one of those other girls as your
divinity, _pro tem_, and have planted her on a pedestal in the usual
way. Now you see what sort of a crowd they are. Why do you think the
other one more endowed with god-like attributes than they? I tell you
all women are deadly alike, in spite of the spurious philosophical cant
which affects to stamp them as an unknown quantity, inscrutable,
mysterious, and so forth. The fact being that there is nothing
incomprehensible about them or their ways except to such of ourselves
who are greater fools than they. Now to me it is a perfectly safe
conjecture how any given woman will act under any given circumstances."
"How do you get at it?"
"By starting on the sure basis that she will act with cussedness, either
overt or concealed, be it remembered. But what I want you to see is,
that as long as you go on setting up these clay idols _pro tem_, it's
all right. Only don't come to me and ask me to help you to hang one of
them round your neck for life. You'll find it a lumping heavy burden,
my boy, I don't care who it is, even if it doesn't throttle you at the
start."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two days after the boating incident Philip was strolling in the garden
of the hotel with Alma and her aunt. It was Sunday, and they had just
returned from the little tabernacle where, during his month of office,
the irrepressible Scott dispensed spiritual nourishment to his flock--or
was supposed to--and whither it is to be feared that one of the trio had
betaken himself in obedience to the vitiated motives ascribed to him by
sundry disappointed mammas above mentioned.
"What do you think I heard some of them saying as we came out of
church?" said Mrs Wyatt, with an amused smile. "That Mr Scott's
sermon about the storm on Gennesaret was the finest ever preached."
"Ha-ha! So it was, in one sense," said Philip. "I know I was divided
between an impulse to hurl a book at his head and to roar out laughing.
You should have seen the fellow grovelling at the bottom of the boat and
screaming--Wasn't he, Miss Wyatt?"
"The poor man was rather frightened, certainly," replied Alma. "But I
never for a moment expected we should live through it. In fact, I was
horribly frightened myself--quite shaken all day yesterday."
"_You_!" cried Philip, in a blending of admiration and tenderness and
incredulity. "I never heard such a libel in my life. But for your
splendid nerve we should all have gone to the bottom, to a dead
certainty. Even old Fordham admitted that much."
"No--no?" expostulated Alma, a tinge of colour suffusing her face.
"Please don't try and make a heroine of me. And, talking of Mr
Fordham, you know I told you the other day I didn't like him, and you
were very much offended with me."
"I might have been with any one else," he replied, meaningly.
"Well, now," she went on rather shyly, "I want to retract what I said
then. I never saw a man behave so splendidly in an emergency as he
did."
We dare not swear that the suspicion of a jealous pang did not shoot
through Phil's loyal heart at this warmly-spoken eulogy. But if so, he
did manful penance by promptly informing his friend. Fordham gave vent
to a sardonic chuckle.
"That's a woman all over. She allows her deliberately-formed judgment
to be clean overthrown by a mere fortuitous circumstance. From looking
upon me with aversion and distrust the pendulum now swings the other
way, and she invests me with heroic virtues because on one occasion I
happen to demonstrate the possession of a negative quality--that of
_not_ being afraid, or seeming not to be. Faugh! that's a woman all
over! All impulse and featherhead."
Which was all poor Alma's warm-hearted little retraction gained from
this armour-plated cynic; but she had the negative consolation of never
knowing it.
"It isn't the first time I've seen him all there at a pinch; in fact, he
got me out of a queer corner once when we were in China. I shouldn't be
here or any where to-day, but for him. But it was a horrid business,
and I can't tell you how he did it; in fact, I hardly like to think of
it myself."
The look of vivid interest which had come over Alma's face faded away in
disappointment.
"Have you been roaming the world long together?" she said.
"Perhaps a couple of years, on and off. We ran against each other first
in the course of knocking about. It was at a bull-fight in Barcelona.
We had adjoining seats and got into conversation, and, as Britishers are
few in the Peninsula, we soon became thick. But, you know, although
he's the best fellow in the world once you know him, old Fordham has his
cranks. For instance, he's a most thorough and confirmed woman-hater."
"I suppose he was badly treated once," said Mrs Wyatt. "Still, it
strikes me as a foolish thing, and perhaps a little childish, that a man
should judge all of us by the measure of one."
"I don't know, aunt," said Alma. "It may be foolish from a certain
point of view, morbid perhaps; but I think it shows character. Not many
men, I should imagine, except in books, think any of us worth grieving
over for long; and the fact that one affair turning out disastrously
should stamp its mark on a man's whole life shows that man to be endowed
with a powerful capacity for feeling."
"Perhaps so," assented the old lady. "But, Alma, I don't know what Mr
Orlebar will think of us taking his friend to pieces in this
free-and-easy fashion."
"My dear Mrs Wyatt, there is really nothing to be uneasy about on that
score," cried Philip. "We are not abusing him, you know, or running him
down. And by the way, queer as it may seem, I know absolutely no more
of Fordham's earlier life than you do. He may have had an `affair,' or
he may not. He has never let drop any clue to the mystery--if mystery
there is."
"You see, auntie, how different men are to us poor girls," said Alma,
with a queer little smile. "They know how to keep their own counsel.
No such thing as pouring out confidences, even to their closest
friends!"
There was a vague something about her tone and look which struck Philip
uncomfortably. He could not for the life of him have told why, yet the
feeling was there. Not for the first time either. More than once had
Alma shown indications of a very keen tendency to satire underlying her
normal openness of ideas and the fascination of her utterly unaffected
manner. For a few moments he walked by her side in silence.
It was a lovely day. The air was heavy with the scent of narcissus and
roses; languid and glowing with the rich warmth of early summer. Great
bees drowsily boomed from flower to flower, dipping into the purple
pansies, hovering round a carnation, and now and again unwarily
venturing within the spray of the sparkling fountain. A swallow-tail
butterfly on its broad embroidered wings fluttered about their faces so
tamely, that by stretching out a hand they could almost have caught it.
Cliff and abrupt slope, green pastureland and sombre pine forest, showed
soft and slumbrous in the mellow glow; while overhead, her burnished
plumage shining in the sun, floated a great eagle, the rush of whose
pinions was almost audible in the noontide stillness as the noble bird
described her airy circles in free and majestic sweep. An idyllic day
and an idyllic scene, thought Philip, with more than one furtive glance
at the beautiful face by his side.
Then, as usual at such moments, in came the prose of life in the shape
of the post. A green-aproned porter, a sheaf of letters in his hand,
drew near.
"_Pour vous, Monsieur_!" he said, handing one to Philip.
When a man starts, or describes a ridiculous _pirouette_ at a street
crossing because a hansom cabman utters a war-whoop in his ear, it is
safe to assume that man's nerves to be--well, not in the state they
should be. But the war-whoop of the hansom cab fiend athirst for--
bones, is nothing in the way of a test compared with the wholly
unexpected receipt of an objectionable and unwelcome letter. When
Philip took the missive from the porter's hand, a glance at the
superscription was enough. A very dismayed look came over his
countenance. He held the obnoxious envelope as though it might sting
him, then crushed it hurriedly into his pocket. But not before he, and
peradventure his companion, had seen that it was directed in a very
slanting, pointed, and insignificant feminine hand.
Then the luncheon bell rang.