Under the golden sunshine, the _luxe_ steamed on: after Toulon no longer
tearing through the country with few pauses, but stopping at many
stations. For the first time Mary saw olive trees, spouting silver like
great fountains, and palms stretching out dark green hands of Fatma
against blue sky and bluer sea. For the first time she saw the
Mediterranean that she had dreamed of in her cold, dim room at the
convent. This was like the dreams and the stories told by Peter, only
better; for nothing could give a true idea of the glimmering olive
groves. Under the silvery branches delicate as smoke-wreaths, and among
the gnarled gray trunks, it seemed that at any moment a band of nymphs
or dryads might pass, streaming away in fear from the noises of
civilization.
At St. Raphael and Fréjus colossal legs of masonry strode across the
green meadows, and Mary knew that they had been built by Romans. Pine
trees like big, open umbrellas were black against a curtain of azure.
Acres of terraces were planted with rows of flowers like straightened
rainbows: young roses, carnations, pinky white stock and blue and purple
hyacinths; and over the coral or gamboge painted walls of little railway
stations bougainvillea poured cataracts of crimson. By and by, the
train ran close to the sea, and miniature waves blue as melted turquoise
curled on amber sands, shafts of gilded light glinting through the crest
of each roller where the crystal arch was shattered into foam.
Then came the wonderful red rocks which Peter had described; ruddy
monsters of incredible shapes which had crawled down to drink, and lay
basking in the clear water, their huge rounded backs bright as copper
where the westerly sun smote them; for by this time it was afternoon. At
Cannes, yachts sat high in the quaint harbour like proud white swans:
mysterious islands slept on the calm surface of the sea, dreaming of
their own reflections; and a company of blue-clad mountains, strangely
crowned, were veiled below their foreheads like harem women with
delicate fabric of cloud, thin as fine muslin.
After Cannes, appeared Antibes, with its peninsula of palms and pines,
its old harbour, town, and white lighthouse; and at last, Nice.
Many people whose faces Mary had seen at dinner the night before, and
again at luncheon, left the train at Nice; and on the platforms, waiting
for local trains, she saw girls in flowery hats, and white or pale
tinted serge dresses, such as they might wear on a cool day of an
English summer. They could not be travelling far, in such frocks and
hats, and Mary wondered where they were going, with their little plump
hand-bags of netted gold or embroidered velvet.
By and by a train moved in, also on its way to Monte Carlo. Women and
men suddenly surged together in a compact wave, and struggled with each
other at the doors of the corridor carriages. Fat men had no hesitation
in pushing themselves in front of thin women; robust females dashed
little men aside, and mounted triumphantly. All were eager, and bent
upon some object in which they refused to be thwarted.
The beauty of the coast was dreamlike to Mary, who had lived ever since
she could remember in the north of Scotland, among moorland and hills
whose only intrinsic brilliance of colour came at the time of heather.
She had loved the browns and cloudy grays, and the deep blue of the lake
and the pensive violet shadows; but this was like a burst of gorgeous
day after an existence in sweet, pale twilight. She rejoiced that she
had persisted in seeing the Riviera before passing into Italy.
It seemed that, after Nice, each stopping-place was prettier and more
flowery than the one before. She had no one to admire them with her, for
since luncheon, which Mary had taken early, Miss Wardropp had been in
another compartment playing the game with the little wheel and spinning
ivory ball. But after passing Villefranche harbour, Beaulieu drowned in
olives, and Eze under its old hill-village on a horn of rock, the
Australian girl came back, to exchange a cap of purple suède for her
cartwheel of a hat.
"The next station where the train stops will be Monaco," she announced.
"Oh, then you'll be getting out almost at once?" And Mary prepared to
say goodbye.
"Not yet. The station after Monaco: Monte Carlo--darling place! But the
principality begins at Monaco of course. I told you how I stayed three
days before I went to England. Almost everybody who lands at Marseilles
wants to run on to Monte for a flutter, in season or out."
Miss Wardropp put away a novel, and dusted a little powder over her
face, with the aid of a gold vanity-box. The train plunged through a
tunnel or two, and flashed out, giving a glimpse of Monaco's high red
rock with the Prince's palace half girdled by ruinous gray walls and
towers of ancient feudal days. Dodo was ready to go. She bade her
companion goodbye, and good luck in Florence. "Too bad you're not
getting out here!" she said, as they shook hands. And then Mary forgot
her in gazing at the Rock of Hercules, the red rock crowned with walls
as old as history, and jewelled with flowers. Close to shore the water
was green and clear as beryl, and iridescent blue as a peacock's breast
where the sea flowed past the breakwater. In the harbour were yachts
large and small, a trading ship or two, and fishing boats drawn up on a
narrow strip of beach. Across from the Rock, and joined to it by the
low-lying Condamine, was Monte Carlo, with the white Casino towers
pointing high above roofs and feathery banks of trees, like the horns of
a great animal crouched basking in the gay sunlight.
Mary remembered how Peter had told her the tale of Hercules landing
here: how he had come in a small boat, and claimed the rock and the
lovely semi-circle of coast for his own. "The guests of Hercules, going
to pay him a visit," she said to herself now, as passengers began to
push their way along the corridor, in order to be the first ones down.
The girl's heart began suddenly to beat very fast, she did not know why.
"What is there to be excited about?" she asked herself. No answer came.
Yet the fact remained. She was intensely excited.
"If I were getting out, like all these other people," she thought,
"there'd be an excuse. But as it is----"
Then, far down within herself, a tiny voice said: "Why shouldn't you get
out--now, quickly, while there's time?"
It was a voice which seemed quite separate from herself, and she could
feel it as if her body were a cage in which a tiny bird sang a small
song in a sweet voice that must be listened to intently.
There was no strong reason, when she came to think of it, why she should
not listen, although to listen gave her a sensation of childish guilt.
She was her own mistress. She had never promised Peter, nor any one
else, not to come to Monte Carlo. Peter had advised her against coming,
that was all. And Peter, though dear and kind, had no right----
Why not obey the bird voice, and get out quickly while there was time?
It was beautiful here, and this was the best season. Florence could be
very cold, people said, and so could Rome. But on the Riviera, in
December, roses and a thousand flowers were in bloom.
To dash out of the train unexpectedly, as a surprise to herself, would
be a great adventure. To come another time, according to a plan, would
not be an adventure at all.
Never in her whole past life had she had an adventure. What fun to land
at Monte Carlo with only hand-luggage! The rest would go on to Florence,
but somehow she could retrieve it sooner or later, and meanwhile how
amusing to spend a little part of her legacy in fitting herself out with
new things, clothes which would give her a place in the picture! And she
needn't stay long. What were a few days more or less?
There was only a minute to make up her mind. The train was slowing into
the station, a large attractive station, adorned with posters of
dream-places painted in rich dream-colours, like those of stained glass.
On the platform, to the left of the station building, stood a boy twelve
or fourteen years old, dressed in livery. He had a bullet head, with
hair so black as to seem more like a thick, shining coat of varnish than
hair. His eyes were very large and expressed a burning energy, as if he
were nerving himself to a great feat, and the moment of action had
arrived. Mary watched him, in a sudden flash of curious interest, as if
she must at all costs see what he was going to do, and then make her
decision. This was a ridiculous idea, but she could not take her eyes
off the child, as the train slowly approached him on its way into the
station. He drew in a great breath, which empurpled the brown of his
face, and then emitted a single word, "As-cen-s-e-u-r!" in a singing
roar, into which he threw his whole soul, as a young tiger does. As the
train passed the boy, Mary, gazing out of the corridor window, looked
straight down the deep round tunnel that was his open mouth, and caught
his strained eye. He suddenly looked self-conscious, and broke into a
foolish yet pleasant smile. Mary smiled too, like a child, showing her
dimples. Then she knew that she would get out at Monte Carlo no matter
what happened.
At this instant, as the train stopped with a slight jerk, the attendant
in his neat brown uniform whisked past Mary into her compartment, to
snatch Miss Wardropp's bag and earn his fee. By this time the passengers
who were alighting at Monte Carlo had pressed down the corridor in a
procession, treading on each others' heels.
"If I should get out here, could I use my ticket afterward on to
Florence?" Mary hastily inquired in French. But whatever the answer
might be, her mind was obstinately set on the adventure she wanted.
"But yes, certainly, Mademoiselle," replied the man.
"Then will you take my bag, too, please?"
The porter's tired eyes dwelt on her for an instant understandingly,
sympathetically, even pityingly. Perhaps he had seen other passengers
make up their minds at the last minute to stop at Monte Carlo. He said
nothing, but seized the bag; and with her heart beating as if this
decision had changed the whole face of the world, Mary hurried after the
stout brown figure, and joined the end of the procession as it poured
from the _wagon lit_ on to the platform.
V
Mary followed the other people who had left the train. Lord and Lady
Dauntrey, with their party, were far ahead, and she could not have
spoken to them if she had wished, without running to catch them up; but
she did not wish to speak. She had taken no dislike to them; on the
contrary, she was interested, but she did not feel inclined to ask
advice, or attach herself to any one. She enjoyed the idea of a
wonderful new independence.
The sunshine made her feel energetic, and full of courage and
enterprise, which had been crushed out of her in London by the chilly
manner of her relatives, and the weight of the black fog.
Passing through the station, after having part of her ticket torn from
its book, she reached the front of the building, where a great many
hotel omnibuses and a few private motors were in waiting. A station
porter was following her now, with the one dressing-bag which remained
of her abandoned luggage. "Quel hôtel, Mademoiselle?" he inquired.
Mary hesitated, her eyes roaming over the omnibuses. One was
conspicuous, drawn by four splendid horses, driven by a big man with a
shining conical hat, and a wide expanse of scarlet waistcoat.
No other omnibus looked quite so important. On it, in gold letters, Mary
read "Hôtel de Paris." The name sounded vaguely familiar. Where had she
lately heard this hotel mentioned! Oh, yes! by Miss Wardropp.
"Hôtel de Paris, s'il vous plaît," she answered.
In another moment her bag was in the omnibus, and she was climbing in
after it in the wake of other persons, enough to fill the roomy vehicle.
As she settled into her corner she saw a man walk slowly by at a
distance. He was not looking at her for the moment, and she had no more
than a glimpse of a dark, clearly drawn profile; yet she received a
curious impression that he had just turned away from looking at her; and
she was almost sure it was the man she had noticed at Marseilles. Now
her Romeo idea of him struck her as sentimental. She wondered why she
had connected such a thought with a man in modern clothes, in a noisy
railway station. The morning and its impressions seemed long ago. She
felt older and more experienced, almost like a woman of the world, as
the big horses trotted up a hill, leaving all the other omnibuses
behind. From under the large hat of a large German lady, she peered
eagerly, to lose no detail in approaching Monte Carlo.
High at the right rose a terrace like a hanging garden, attached to a
huge white hotel. In front of the building, and also very high, ran a
long covered gallery where there appeared to be restaurants and shops.
At the left were gardens; and then in a moment more, coming out into an
open square, all Monte Carlo seemed made of gardens with extraordinary,
ornate white buildings in their midst, sugar-cake buildings made for
pleasure and amusement, all glass windows and plaster figures and
irrelevant towers, the whole ringed in by a semi-circle of high, gray
mountains. It was a fantastic fairyland, this place of palms and bosky
lawns, with grass far too green to seem real, and beds of incredibly
brilliant flowers.
One section of the garden ran straight and long, like a gayly patterned
carpet, toward a middle background of climbing houses with red roofs;
and it began to spread almost from the steps of the cream white building
with jewelled and gilded horns, which Mary had seen in Peter's Riviera
snapshots: the Casino. As the omnibus swung round a generous half
circle, slowly now to avoid loitering groups of people, Mary saw many
men and women arriving in motors or on foot, to go up the shallow flight
of carpeted marble steps which led into the horned building. She thought
again of an immense animal face under these erect, glittering horns; a
face with quantities of intelligent, bright glass eyes that watched, and
a wide-open, smiling mouth into which the figures walked confidently. It
looked a kind, friendly animal basking in the gardens, and the big clock
above its forehead, round which pigeons wheeled, added to its air of
comfortable good nature. Mary was suddenly smitten with a keen curiosity
to see exactly what all these people would see who allowed themselves
to be swallowed by the mouth which smiled in receiving them. Most of the
women were smartly dressed and had gold or embroidered bags in their
hands, like those she had seen at Nice station. They went in looking
straight ahead, and men ran up the steps quickly. Surely this was more
than a mere building. There was something alive and vital and
mysteriously attractive about it, though it was not beautiful at all
architecturally, only rich looking and extraordinary, with its bronze
youths sitting on the cornice and plaster figures starting out of the
walls, laughing and beckoning. It had a personality which subtly
contrived to dominate and make everything else in the little fairyland
of flowers subservient to it, almost as if the emotions and passions of
thousands and tens of thousands of souls from all over the world had
saturated the materials of its construction.
As this fancy came to Mary's mind, the sun in its last look over the
gray Tête de Chien struck her full in the eyes as with a flung golden
gauntlet, then dropped behind the mountain, setting the sky on fire. An
unreal light illumined the buildings in the fairy gardens, and Mary
became conscious of an invisible tide of burning life all around her
which caught her in its rushing flood. She was impelled to float on a
swift and shining stream which she knew was carrying many others besides
herself in the same direction toward an unseen but definite end. She was
like a leaf snatched from a quiet corner by the wind and forced to join
the whirl of its fellow-dancers. It was a feeling that warmed her veins
with excitement, and made her reckless.
The omnibus passed the Casino, and a little farther on stopped in front
of the Hôtel de Paris. It too was fantastically ornate, surely the most
extraordinary hotel on earth, with a high roof of a gray severity which
ironically frowned down upon gilded balconies and nude plaster women who
supported them, robustly voluptuous creatures who faded into foliage
below the waist, like plump nymphs escaping the rude pursuit of gods.
Their bareness and boldness startled the convent-bred girl, even
horrified her. She was the last to leave the omnibus, and then, instead
of pushing in with her fellow-passengers to secure a room before others
could snap up everything, she lingered a moment on the steps.
Still that magical light illumined the _Place_, under the sky's rosy
fire. The long glass façade of the restaurant sent out diamond flashes.
The pigeons strutting in the open space in front of the Casino were
jewels moving on sticks of coral. As they walked, tiny purple shadows
followed them, as if their little red legs were tangled in pansies.
Across the _Place_, on the other side of the garden and opposite the
hotel, was an absurd yet gay collection of bubbly Moorish domes, and
open or glassed-in galleries, evidently a café. Music was playing there,
and in front of the balconies were many chairs and little tables where
people drank tea and fed the strutting pigeons. Beyond the bubbly domes
shimmered a panorama of beauty which by force of its magnificence
redeemed the frivolous fairyland from vulgarity, rather than rebuked it.
Under the rain of rose and gold, as if seen through opaline gauze, shone
sea and hills and distant mountains. On a green height a ruined castle
and its vassal rock-village seemed to have fallen from the top and been
arrested by some miracle halfway down. Beneath, a peninsula of pines
silvered with olives floated on a sea of burnished gold; and above
soared mountains that went billowing away to the east and to Italy, deep
purple-red in the wine of sunset.
Mary forgot that people do not come to hotels for the sole purpose of
standing on the steps to admire a view. It was a liveried servant who
politely reminded her of her duty by holding the glass door open and
murmuring a suggestion that Mademoiselle should give herself the pain of
entering. Then, slightly dazed by new impressions and the magnitude of
her independence, Mary walked humbly into an immense hall, marble paved
and marble columned. She had never seen anything half so gorgeous, and
though she did not know yet whether she liked or disliked the
bewildering decorations of mermaids and sea animals and flowers, she was
struck by their magnificent audacity into a sense of her own
insignificance. Before she could dare to walk here as by right, or seat
herself in one of those great gilded and brocaded chairs, she must buy
clothes which suited Monte Carlo as all this florid splendour of
ornamentation suited it. She did not put this in words, but like all
women possessed of "temperament," had in her something of the
chameleon, and instinctively wished to match her tints with her
environment.
Suddenly she recalled a solemn warning from Mrs. Home-Davis that some
hotels refused to receive women travelling alone, and her heart was
inclined to fail as she asked for a room. But fortunately this was not
one of those cruel hotels Aunt Sara had heard about. Mary was received
civilly and without surprise. A view of the sea? Certainly Mademoiselle
could have a room with a view of the sea. It would be at the price of
from thirty to fifty francs a day. Mary said that she would like to see
a room for thirty francs, and felt economical and virtuous as she did
so. She had been brought up to consider economy a good thing in the
abstract, but she knew practically nothing of the value of money, as she
had never bought anything for herself until she went to London. It
seemed to her now that, with fifty thousand pounds, she was so rich that
she could have anything she wanted in the world, but she had nebulous
ideas as to what to want.
A pretty little pink and gray room was shown her, so pretty that it
seemed cheap until she heard that food and everything else was "extra";
but the view decided her to take it. The large window looked southwest,
with the harbour and rock of Monaco to the right, and to the left an
exquisite group of palms on the Casino terrace, which gave an almost
mysterious value to a background of violet sky melting into deeper
violet sea. As she stood looking out, silver voices of bells chimed
melodiously across the water, from the great Byzantine cathedral on the
Rock. It was all beautiful and poetic. Mary would have taken the room if
it had been a hundred instead of a paltry thirty francs a day. But she
could not afford to stop and look at the violet sea, still haunted by
the red wreckage of sunset. She had her shopping to do, for she must
somehow find exactly the right hat and dress, ready to put on, or she
would have to dine in her room, and that would be imprisonment on the
first night at Monte Carlo.
She ran quickly downstairs again, not in the least tired after her
journey, and changed a thousand-franc note, which perhaps inspired
official confidence in the young English lady with only a hand-bag for
luggage. Also, she inquired where she could buy the prettiest things to
wear, and was directed to the Galerie Charles Trois, which turned out to
be that covered gallery with shops and restaurants that she had noticed
when driving up the hill.
By this time, though it was not yet dark, lights gleamed everywhere like
great diamonds scintillating among the palms, or stars shining on the
hills. The grass and trees and flowers in the _Place_ of the Casino
looked twice as unreal as before, all theatrically vivid in colour, and
extraordinarily flat, as if cut out of painted cardboard against a
background of gauze.
The ruined castle and old rock-town tumbling down the far-off hillside
still smouldered in after-sunset fire, windows glittering like the
rubies in some lost crown, dropped by a forgotten king in battle. But
the red of the sky was paling to hyacinth, a strange and lovely tint
that was neither rose nor blue. As Mary went to buy herself pretty
things, walking through a scene of beauty beyond her convent dreams, she
murmured a small prayer of thanksgiving that she had been guided to this
heavenly place.
She must write to Reverend Mother and Peter, she thought, explaining why
she was here, and how glad she was that she had happened to come. Then
it struck her suddenly, though more humorously than disagreeably, that
it would be rather difficult to explain, especially in a way to satisfy
Peter. Perhaps dear Reverend Mother would be anxious for her safety, if
Peter said any of those rather silly things of Monte Carlo which at the
last she had said to her--Mary. After all, maybe it would be better to
keep to the first plan and not write until she could date a letter
Florence. Then she put the little worry out of her mind and gave her
soul to the shop-windows in the Galerie Charles Trois.
It was a fascinating gallery, where lovely ladies walked, wonderfully
dressed, pointing out dazzling jewellery in plate glass windows, to
slightly bored men who were with them. Nearly everybody who passed sent
out wafts of peculiarly luscious perfume. Mary walked the length of the
gallery, so as to see all the shops there were to see, before deciding
upon anything. She passed brilliantly lighted restaurants where people
were having tea, some of them at little tables out of doors, protected
by glass screens; and as she walked, people stared at her a good deal,
especially the men who were with the lovely ladies; and the bored look
went out of their eyes. Mary noticed that she was stared at, and was
uncomfortable, because she imagined that her gray tweed and travelling
hat drew unfavourable attention.
But she intended to change all this. She would soon be as well dressed
as anybody, and no one would stare any more. In one window there were
displayed, not only gowns, but hats and cloaks, and exquisite furs, all
shown on wax models with fashionably dressed hair and coquettish faces.
One pink and white creature with a startlingly perfect figure wore a
filmy robe of that intense indigo just taken on by the sea. Underneath a
shadowlike tunic of dark blue chiffon there was a glint of pale gold, a
sort of gold and silver sheath which encased the form of the waxen lady.
"My hair is that colour," Mary thought, and imagined herself in the
dress. The next thing was to walk in and ask a very agreeable
Frenchwoman if the gown were likely to fit her without alteration. "I
must have something at once," Mary explained. "My luggage has gone to
Italy."
The agreeable Frenchwoman was sympathetic. But yes, the dress would fit
to perfection, not a doubt of it, for Mademoiselle had the ideal figure
for model robes. And if, unfortunately, the trunks had all gone,
Mademoiselle would want not only one dress but several? And hats? Yes,
naturally. Other things also, of the same importance. The house made a
speciality of trousseaux. Had Mademoiselle but the time to look? She
need not buy anything, or fear giving trouble. Then Madame added a few
compliments against which Mary, unaccustomed to such food, was not
proof.
She bought the blue chiffon over pale gold, which was hastily tried on
behind a gilded screen; and the wax lady was robbed of gold embroidered
stockings and golden shoes to match. There was a hat of dark blue with a
crown of silver-threaded golden gauze, which was indispensable with the
dress. To wear over this a long cloak of white satin with a wide collar
of swansdown, was the _dernier cri_ of Paris, Madame assured her
customer. There were other dresses and hats too, for morning and
afternoon, and even more extravagant _dessous_ than those Jennings had
tabooed in London.
After the first, Mary forgot to ask prices. She was lost in a delirium
of buying, and ordered whatever she liked, until her brain was tired.
She then thanked Madame charmingly for her politeness and asked to have
the things sent home at once.
But yes, they should go on the moment. And would Mademoiselle pay now,
or at her hotel?
Mary laughed at herself, because she had forgotten about paying. It
might as well be now, as she wished to go farther and get some gloves.
Deftly Madame made out the account. It came to three thousand eight
hundred and ninety francs.
When Mary had mentally turned francs into pounds she was a little
startled; but luckily, against her aunt's advice, she had come away with
a good deal of ready money, English, French, and Italian. It took nearly
all she had to settle the bill, but, as Madame remarked gayly,
Mademoiselle had left herself enough for an evening game at the Casino.
This was, of course, true, as more could somehow be obtained to-morrow.
For the moment Mary had forgotten her curiosity about the pleasant,
basking animal in the garden, but she decided that, after dinner--which
she must have soon, as she was already beginning to be hungry--she would
walk into the monster's smiling mouth.