Eve Dauntrey was in the act of opening the door as the curé of
Roquebrune put out his hand to touch the bell at the Villa Bella Vista.
Somehow it was a shock to find herself face to face with a priest, on
her own doorstep; and before she could quite control her nerves, she
broke out with a brusque, "What do you want?"
The curé looked calmly at her, his pleasant, sunburned face betraying
none of the surprise he felt at such a reception. In his modest way he
was a quick and keen observer, though he had never deliberately prided
himself on being a judge of character. It seemed to him that the
handsome, hard-eyed woman with the white face and scarlet lips was
startled at the sight of his black cassock, as if she had done something
which she would not like to have a priest find out.
This made him spring to the conclusion that she had been brought up as a
Catholic, but was one no longer.
"I have called upon a lady who, I am told, is staying here," he
explained politely in French. "Miss Grant."
"Miss Grant?" Eve could not help showing that she was puzzled and not
pleased. "Yes, Miss Grant is visiting me," she admitted. Then, with a
sudden impulse which she could hardly have explained, quickly added:
"Unfortunately she's out. Is there any message you would like to leave?"
As she asked this question, Lady Dauntrey stared with almost
ostentatious frankness straight into the curé's face, and her voice had
lost its sharpness. She was dressed in purple velvet, and wore a large
purple hat. The rich dark hue gave her light eyes a very curious colour,
more green than gray; and as she stood on the doorstep, tall and somehow
formidable, the curé thought that she looked Egyptian, an elemental
creature who might have lived by the Nile when the Sphinx was new.
The afternoon sunshine streamed into her eyes, and caused her pupils to
shrink until they appeared to be no larger than black pinheads. Perhaps,
the curé acknowledged to himself, it was only this that gave them a
deceitful effect; nevertheless he felt suddenly sure that for some
reason she was lying to him. He did not believe that Miss Grant was out.
"This lady does not wish me to meet her guest," he told himself. But
aloud he said that he regretted missing Miss Grant; and there was no
message, thanks, except that the curé of Roquebrune had called again. He
was making up his mind to a certain course, and stood aside politely,
meaning to let Lady Dauntrey pass, and then follow her down the steps of
her villa. What he would do after that was his own affair; for with
those who are subtle it is permitted to be subtle in return. Lady
Dauntrey, however, seemed unwilling to let him linger. Instead of
passing him, she asked, "Are you coming my way?"
"As you tell me, Madame, that Miss Grant is out, I will go on to the
Church of Sainte Devote, which is not far away," the curé answered.
"Oh!" The slight look of strain on Lady Dauntrey's face passed, as if
her muscles relaxed. "Then we go in different directions. I am walking
up the hill to Monte Carlo. Good afternoon. I will remember to give Miss
Grant your message."
They parted, but Lady Dauntrey turned her head twice, each time to see
the curé's black-robed figure marching at a good pace away from the
villa. Then she went on faster; and the importance of the incident began
to fade from her mind. Not that it had ever had any real importance, she
assured herself. Only, she hated priests as she would hate to see a
raven fly over her head. They seemed somehow ominous; and she could not
understand why a member of the interfering tribe wanted to see Miss
Grant, unless to try and get her away into less worldly surroundings.
Lady Dauntrey did not wish Mary to go; and she was glad she had acted on
impulse, saying that the girl was out. It was lucky that she had met the
priest, for had he arrived a minute sooner or a minute later, a servant
would have told him that Miss Grant was in. Eve decided that she would
forget to mention the curé of Roquebrune's visit.
Having said that he would go to the Church of Sainte Devote, the curé
conscientiously kept his word. Luckily the Villa Bella Vista was not far
from the deep, dim ravine where the patron saint of Monaco was supposed
to have drifted ashore in a boat, piloted by a sacred dove, and rowed by
faithful followers after suffering martyrdom in Corsica. The curé was
fond of the strange little church of sweet chimes, almost hidden between
immense, concealing walls of rock; but to-day he merely paid his
respects to the saint and quickly went his way again. Twenty minutes
after parting from Lady Dauntrey, he rang the bell of her villa, and was
told by an untidy servant that Miss Grant was at home.
Mary was waiting in the house to receive Mrs. Winter, who had been
persuaded by Carleton to overlook the girl's neglect, and to call once
more, with him. Dick had asked Mary not to speak of the visit in advance
to Lady Dauntrey, as his cousin wanted a chance for a talk,
uninterrupted by the mistress of the villa; and Mary half guiltily,
though with a certain pleasure, had consented. Instinctively she guessed
that Eve would have taken the call for herself, and that Mrs. Winter
would have found little time to chat with any one else. It was hateful
to be hypercritical, Mary felt, yet she had begun to see that Lady
Dauntrey was curiously jealous of her; that she did not like to see her
talk with strangers, or alone even with other guests of the house.
When the curé of Roquebrune was ushered in, Mary was expecting Dick to
arrive with his cousin; but for the moment she was alone in the
drawing-room which she had made less depressing by a generous gift of
flowers. The alertness with which the girl sprang up, on his entrance,
and the quick change of expression told the curé that she was expecting
another visitor. "Could it be the Prince?" was the question which darted
through his mind. But, no. There was neither disappointment nor relief
on her face, only surprise. He argued in consequence that the visitor
was not awaited with emotion.
The servant who admitted the curé had not said that the occupant of the
drawing-room was Miss Grant, but his first glance assured him of her
identity. Yes, this must be the face, the eyes, which had appealed to
all the romance in Vanno. Even the man whom conviction had dedicated
body and soul to the religion of self-sacrifice had enough humanity
mingling with his saintliness to feel the peculiar appeal of this gentle
girl. She was not only a woman, she was Woman. Unconsciously she called,
not to men, but to man, to all that was strong, to all that was
chivalrous and desired to give protection.
There was nothing modern about the type, the curé told himself, though
it might be that this particular specimen of it had been trained to
modern ideas. Such a woman would never struggle for her "rights." They
would be flung at her feet as tribute, before she could ask, and quite
without thought she would accept them. The curé would have laughed had
he been accused of lurking tendencies toward romance, except perhaps in
his love of gardens; yet he seemed to reflect the impressions of Vanno,
to realize with almost startling keenness the special allurement Miss
Grant had for the Prince; that remoteness from the ordinary which
suggested the vanished loveliness of Greece with all its poetry; which
would make an accompaniment of music seem appropriate to every movement,
like the _leit motif_ for a woman in grand opera.
"She is good and sweet," he said to himself, even before he spoke. "I
seem to see her surrounded by a halo of purity." And he thought that a
man who loved this girl could not forget, or love another woman. He did
not lose sight of Vanno's position, or belittle it, in thinking it of
small consequence compared to love: but he said, "This is a girl in a
million. She is worthy of the highest place." And in an undertone
something else was whispering in him, "I may have but a few minutes to
do what I have come for." His spirit rose to the occasion. If the
certain reward had been a cardinal's hat, he could not have determined
more obstinately on success; perhaps he would not have strained toward
the goal with the same energy, for rightly or wrongly the curé had no
temporal ambition for himself. He loved his mountain flock, and had no
wish to leave it. His garden was to him what a boxful of jewels is to
some women. What he had to do in the next few minutes was to secure
Vanno's happiness and the girl's; for it did not occur to him as
possible that she had no love for Vanno.
"I think," began Mary, "that you must be the curé of Roquebrune, and
that it was you who came to see me at the hotel. It was very kind of
you, and so kind to come again. I meant to have gone up to your church,
but----"
"I understand," he put in when she paused, showing embarrassment.
"Still, I want you to come not only to my church, but to my garden. It
will do you good. It is that which I have called to ask you to do. That,
and one other thing."
"One other thing?" Mary looked a little anxious. Now he would perhaps
say that he had heard from the convent, that they knew where she was,
and had begged him to admonish her.
"Yes, one other thing. You will think I am abrupt in mentioning it, but
you see, I must speak quickly, for at any moment I may be interrupted,
and the thing is of great importance--to me, because it concerns one
whom I love--he who first asked me to come and see you, Prince Vanno
Della Robbia."
"It was he who asked you?" The words burst from her. She had been pale;
but suddenly the lilies of her face were turned to roses, as one flower
may seem to be transformed into another, by the trick of an Indian
fakir.
"Yes. Because I am his old friend, and he wished that you and I might
also be friends. That was before he had ever spoken one word to you, or
you to him; but now, I feel sure, you have met?"
Mary's flaming face paled and hardened. "What has he told you?" she
asked sharply.
"Nothing. I have not seen him for many days. But because I have not, and
because of what I hear of him, I think you have met. I think, too, that
perhaps you both made some mistakes about each other. I will not even
beg you not to consider me impertinent or intrusive. It would insult
your intelligence and your heart. I ask you, my child, to tell me
whether or no I have guessed right?"
"He made mistakes about me," she replied, almost sullenly. "I don't see
how it's possible that I have made any about him."
"It is not only possible but certain if you believe him capable of
wronging you in thought or act. I know him. And I heard him speak of
you. Any woman might thank heaven for inspiring such words from a man. I
tell you this, I who am a priest: He loves you, and did love you from
the moment he first set eyes upon your face."
"I know," Mary answered simply, and with something of the humbleness of
a child rebuked by high authority. "He said that to me. But--no, I can't
tell you any more."
"That 'but' has told me everything. You sent him away?"
"Yes."
"And I know him well enough to be sure that he has tried to see you
again, to justify himself?"
"He has written. I sent back the letter. And he has wanted to speak,
but I have never let him. I thought it would be wrong."
"Then, my poor child, did you think it less wrong to send him to his
ruin?"
"To his ruin--I?"
"Because you believed him evil, you have roused evil in him, and driven
him to evil. I wish to read you no moral lecture on gambling; but for
him, for a man of his nature, it is a dangerous and powerful drug if
taken to kill pain. I have come to ask you to save him, since I believe
only you can do it."
"I?" she echoed, bitterly. "But I am a gambler! There's gambler's blood
in my veins. I was warned, and wouldn't listen. Now I know there's no
use struggling, so I go on. How can I save any one from a thing I do
myself--a thing I feel I shall keep on doing?"
"Because he loves you, you can save him; and because you love him, too."
She threw her head back, with the gesture of a fawn in flight. "Why
should you say that?"
"I say what I know. I read your heart. And it is right that you should
love him."
"No! For he insulted me."
"You thought so. It was a deceiving thought. Let him prove it false.
Come to my garden to-morrow, and I will bring him to you there. I would
not say this unless I were sure of him. And I tell you again, his
salvation is in you. You have driven him to the drug of forgetfulness.
You owe it to his soul to give him justice. For the rest, let him
plead."
"Madame Veentaire and Meestaire Carleton," announced the shabby
man-servant, blundering abruptly in, as if the door had broken away in
front of him.
The fire died out of the priest's face, but there was no sense of defeat
in his eyes. His calm after excitement was communicated subtly to Mary,
and enabled her to greet her new guests without confusion.
The curé bowed with old-fashioned politeness, and with a slight
fluttering of the voice Mary made him known to the chaplain's wife and
Dick Carleton.
"But we know each other already, Monsieur le Curé and I," exclaimed
Rose, putting out her hand. She explained this to Mary with her bright,
enthusiastic smile. "My husband and I take long walks together. One of
our first was up to Roquebrune; and we went into the church--such a
huge, important church for a little hill town! Monsieur le Curé was
there, and we talked, and he showed us the picture under a curtain. How
I do love pictures under curtains, don't you? They're so beautifully
mysterious. And through a door there was a glimpse of fairyland. I
couldn't believe it was real--I hardly believe so now, though Monsieur
le Curé waved his wand and made us free of the place, as if it were a
'truly' garden. Have you been there yet, Miss Grant?"
"I was just inviting her to come for the first time, to-morrow," said
the curé. "Advise her to accept, Madame, for three o'clock."
"Indeed I do!" Rose smiled from him to Mary.
The curé moved forward, holding out his hand. He made it evident that
this was goodbye. "Will you not take Madame's advice, and my
invitation?" he asked, his good brown eyes warm and gentle.
"Yes!" Mary answered impulsively, laying her hand in his.
He clasped it, looking kindly into her face. "I am very glad. Thank you.
I will meet you in the church," he said; no more; but Mary knew that he
meant, "Thank you for trusting me."
* * * * * * *
"His Highness is out," was the answer at the Hôtel de Paris to the
curé's inquiries. No, the Prince had left no word as to when he would
come in. Often he was away for dinner, and sometimes did not return
until late at night.
"Eh bien! I will wait," said the curé with a sigh. He had determined to
carry the thing through, and would not fail for lack of persistence.
Vanno might be in any one of a dozen places, but the curé with his
mind's eye saw the young man at the Casino. There he could not seek him
even if he would, as a man in clerical dress would not be admitted.
Resignedly the priest sat down in a retired corner of the hall, where he
could watch those who came in by the revolving door. That he should be
sitting in this home of gayety and fashion at Monte Carlo appealed to
his sense of humour. "A bull in a china shop," he thought, "is in his
element compared to poor Father Pietro Coromaldi in the hall of the
Hôtel de Paris."
At first he was half shyly diverted by the gay pageant around him, the
coming and going of perfectly dressed men and women of many nations, who
drank tea and ate little cakes, while the band played the sort of music
which can have no mission save as an incentive to conversation.
But time went on, and Vanno did not come. The curé tired of the people,
most of whom he felt inclined to pity, as no real joy shone out of their
eyes, even when they laughed. He thought the pretty, smiling young women
were like attractive advertisements for tooth-pastes, and face-powders,
and furs, and hats. They did not look to him like real people, living
real, everyday lives; and Miss Grant, though perhaps she led just such
an existence, seemed to belong to a different order of being.
At last Lady Dauntrey, in her smart purple dress, came in with a tall,
haggard man who had the eyes of a chained and starving dog. They joined
a conspicuous party whose principal members were a fat woman massaged to
the teeth, a dark girl who had evidently a sharp eye to the main chance
as well as to the picturesque, and a hook-nosed, appallingly pompous man
who would strut on the edge of the grave.
"Those are the Holbeins," said a woman, who at that moment came with
another to a seat near the curé's inconspicuous corner. "They represent
the ideal vulgarity. Rich beyond the dreams of reasonable avarice! When
the mother and father die, the girl's last tribute to their memory will
be to order them bijou tombstones. And _they_ are the sort of people
those wretched Dauntreys are driven to know!"
The curé, catching a name made familiar to him earlier in the day,
turned his head to glance at his neighbours, who were seating themselves
at a small round table. At the same time one of the two women, the one
who had not spoken, looked at him. Instant recognition flashed in the
eyes of both. The lady bowed with distant politeness, and he returned
the courtesy. She it was who had come to him at Roquebrune, one day
weeks ago, asking for news of Prince Della Robbia, of whose acquaintance
with him she was evidently informed.
She was dressed more elaborately this afternoon. The curé had described
her to Vanno as wearing a gray travelling dress. To-day she was in
black, with a large velvet hat which set off her pale face, her pale
eyes and hair, making her look striking and almost handsome; younger,
too, than the curé had thought, though she had no air of girlishness.
"Idina Bland" was the name Vanno had ejaculated, on hearing her
description; and he had gone on to say that she was a distant relative,
who had lived for some time in Rome and at Monte Della Robbia.
Certainly Vanno's surprise at hearing of her presence on the Riviera,
and her questions concerning the family, had not been of an agreeable
nature. He had thought that she was in America, and evidently would not
have been sorry if she had stayed there; yet any uneasiness he felt had
not, apparently, been on his own behalf. Angelo's name had been
mentioned, and then Vanno had rather abruptly turned to another subject.
The curé blamed himself for curiosity, yet he could not help feeling
curious concerning the young woman with eyes which he had described as
like those of a statue.
He wondered if she knew that the Prince was at the Hôtel de Paris, and
if she had come there to see him; or if, perhaps, they had already met
since he first mentioned her to Vanno. He wished that his small
knowledge of English were larger, but though he spoke the language not
at all, and understood only a little, he gathered here and there a word
of the conversation. Idina Bland's companion was evidently telling her
about the "celebrities"; therefore he deduced that she was better
acquainted with the Riviera than was the younger woman. Now and then the
curé caught the word "Annonciata," and he wondered if the pair were
staying at the place of that name. He knew it well, the beautiful little
pointed mountain above Mentone, with its deserted convent, its sad
watching cypresses, its one hotel in a fragrant garden, and its famous
view of the Corsican mirage. If Vanno's cousin lived in that hotel,
which could be reached only by a funicular or a picturesque mule path,
it looked as if she had a wish for retirement.
The priest would have liked to know if she had been at the Annonciata
ever since her visit to him. Prince Della Robbia had not mentioned her,
on New Year's Day, but that was no sure argument of his ignorance. Miss
Bland's presence might not seem of importance to him. The curé asked
himself if it would be indiscreet to bring up the subject when he next
saw Angelo. Any day, now, he might have a summons to lunch with the
bride and bridegroom, and to bless their villa, which he had been
requested to do as soon as they were settled.
Almost involuntarily he kept alert, listening for the name of Della
Robbia, but it was not uttered. The elder woman evidently enjoyed her
position as cicerone, and at last her catalogue of celebrities so
wearied the curé that he grew nervous. He turned to watch Lady Dauntrey,
at a distance, trying to read her face and that of the melancholy man he
took to be her husband. He did not like to think of Miss Grant--his
Principino's Miss Grant--being at that woman's house.
"We shall see what can be done," he said to himself, trying to enliven
the long minutes of his waiting, minutes which seemed to grow longer and
ever longer, like shadows at evening.
By six o'clock the great hall and tea-room adjoining were nearly empty.
The Dauntreys and the Holbeins had gone, and nearly all the pretty,
chattering young women who were like advertisements in picture-papers.
Still Miss Bland and her friend lingered over their tea and cakes,
though they had ceased to eat or drink; and the curé could not help
thinking that they had a special object in staying on. Eventually,
however, they paid the hovering waiter, and slowly walked out, Idina
Bland once again bending her head coldly to the priest.
Night's darkness shut round the brilliant _Place_ of the Casino, like a
blue wall surrounding a golden cube of light, and the curé would have a
dark walk up the mule path. In order to come down that afternoon, he had
given the service of vespers to a friend from Nice, who had just arrived
for a short visit and a "rest cure"; still, he had expected to be back
by this time. He began to feel oddly homesick and even unhappy in this
hall which to his taste appeared garish. It seemed to him that he was a
prisoner, and that he would be detained here forever. A childish
yearning for his little parlour filled his heart. The waiters stared at
him. But he sat very upright and unyielding on the chair which was made
for lazy comfort.
"I will stay," he said to himself, "if it must be, till after midnight.
Those two shall be made to save one another. It is the only way. And
there is no time to waste."
At seven o'clock Vanno came in hastily, glancing at his watch. He walked
so fast across the marble floor, with its islands of rugs, that he was
at the foot of the stairway before the shorter-legged curé could
intercept him; but at the sound of the familiar voice calling
"Principino!" he turned, astonished.
The curé thought that he looked weary, and older than on that first
blue-and-gold morning on the mountain; but the weariness was chased away
by a smile of welcome.
"Why, Father, you here! This is an honour," Vanno said; but in his eyes
there was the same shadow the curé had seen in Mary Grant's, the
expectation of blame. Poor Vanno! He was resigning himself, his old
friend saw, to a lecture. Perhaps he thought that Angelo, hearing of and
disapproving certain stories, had begged the priest to come and scold
him.
"You look tired," Vanno added, as they shook hands.
"So do you, my son," said the curé.
"I am, rather. But----" He stopped, yet the older man guessed the end of
the sentence.
"You are dining out, and must get ready in a hurry."
"I'm due at Angelo's at eight. I've plenty of time though. I shall take
a taxi. I hope you haven't been waiting long?"
"More than two hours. I would not go--even to oblige the waiters."
"Two hours! Then----"
"Yes. It was that, my Principino. I had to see you. I have come--to make
you a reproach. You know why?"