'That, also, I can see for myself. Have you made no inquiries about
her?'
'I? why should I?'
Philip called the head waiter to him.
'Here. Who is this American lady?'
'Oh, from Chicago.'
'Exactly; the visitors'-book says as much. I don't see how she can be
rich; she has no lady's-maid.'
'Oh, saire! De American leddies aire ver' ind'pendent.'
There was nothing to be learnt from anyone about Miss Durham. He
applied to the squeaky-voiced chaplain with the military moustache.
'She may belong to the Episcopal Church of America,' said the chaplain;
'but I don't know.'
Some of the waiters had seen her elsewhere, at other summer resorts,
always well dressed. Philip, after he had spent half an hour in
inquiries, discovered that no one knew more about her than himself. He
had heard nothing to her disadvantage, but also nothing to her
advantage. He might just as well have spared himself the trouble of
asking.
At _table d'hote_, Miss Durham sat at the long table. Salome was
disappointed. She thought that she had succeeded in completely patching
up the difference. Philip was indifferent. Just as well that she should
be elsewhere. She was an occasion of dissension, a comet that threw all
the planetary world in his system out of their perihelion. He made no
bones about saying as much. Salome looked sadly at him, when Colonel
Yeo took his seat beside Miss Durham, and entered into ready converse
with her. She could not take her attention off her friend; she was
uneasy for her, afraid what advantage the crafty colonel might take of
her inexperience. But it was not long before Philip heartily wished
that Miss Durham had been in her place in their circle, for conversation
flagged without her, or ceased to be general and disintegrated into
whisperings between the girls Labarte, and confidences between Janet and
Lambert. Salome was silent, and Mrs. Sidebottom engrossed in what she
was eating. Philip spoke about politics, and found no listeners; he
asked about the excursions to be made from Andermatt, and was referred
to the guide-book; he tried a joke, but it fell dead. Finally he became
silent as his wife and aunt, with a glum expression on his inflexible
face, and found himself, as well as Salome, looking down the long table
at Miss Durham. The young lady was evidently enjoying an animated and
entertaining conversation with Colonel Yeo, whose face became blotched
as he went into fits of laughter. She was telling some droll anecdote,
making some satirical remark. Philip caught the eye of Yeo turned on
him, and then the colonel put his napkin to his mouth and exploded.
Philip's back became stiff. It offended him to the marrow of his spine,
through every articulation of that spinal column, to suppose himself a
topic for jest, a butt of satire. He reddened to his temples, and
finding that he had seated himself on the skirts of his coat, stood up,
divided them, and sat down again, pulled up his collars, and asked how
many more courses they were required to eat.
'Oh! we have come to the chicken and salad, and that is always the
last,' said Salome.
'I am glad to hear it. I never less enjoyed a meal before--not
even----' He remembered the dinner alone at Mergatroyd, with the
parlourmaid behind his back observing his mole. He did not finish his
sentence; he did not consider it judicious to let his wife know how much
he had missed her.
It was not pleasant to be at enmity with a person who by gibe and joke
could make him seem ridiculous, even in such eyes as those of Beaple
Yeo. It would be advisable to come to an agreement, a truce, if not a
permanent peace, with this woman.
Presently Philip rose and walked down the _salle_. Several of those who
had dined were gone, some remained shelling almonds, picking out the
least uninteresting of the sugar-topped biscuits and make-believe
macaroons, that constituted dessert. He stepped up to Miss Durham, and
said, with an effort to be amiable and courteous: 'We are meditating a
ramble this afternoon, Miss Durham, to some lake not very distant; and I
am exponent of the unanimous sentiment of our table, when I say that the
excursion will lose its main charm unless you will afford us the
pleasure of your society.'
He had been followed by the Labarte girls, and they now put in their
voices, and then Mrs. Sidebottom joined; she came to back up the
request. It was not possible for the American girl to refuse. The
captain and Janet had not united in the request, but they had attention
for none but each other, and Salome had not risen and united in the
fugue, for a reason unaccountable to herself--a sudden doubt whether she
had acted wisely in pressing the lady to stay after she had resolved to
go; and yet--she could give to herself no grounds for this doubt.
A couple of hours later the party left the hotel. It was thought
advisable that Janet should be taken to the summit of the pass in a
small low carriage; she could walk home easily, down-hill. Into the
carriage was harnessed an ungroomed chestnut cob, that had a white or
straw-coloured tail, and like coloured patches of hair about the hocks.
It had the general appearance of having been frost-bitten in early
youth, or fed on stimulants which had interfered with its growth, and
deprived it of all after-energy. The creature crawled up the long
zigzag that leads from Andermatt to the Ober-Alp, and the driver walked
by its head, ill-disposed to encourage it to exertion. The captain
paced by the side of the carriage, equally undesirous that the step
should be quickened, for he had no wish to overheat himself--time was
made for man, not man for time--and he had an agreeable companion with
whom he conversed.
Mrs. Sidebottom engaged the Labarte girls, who--inconsiderate
creatures--wanted to walk beside their aunt Janet, and take part in the
conversation with the captain. Mrs. Sidebottom particularly wished that
her son should be left undisturbed. As an Oriental potentate is
attended by a slave waving a fan of feathers to drive away from his
august presence the tormenting flies, so did the mother act on this
occasion for her son--she fanned away the obtrusive Labarte girls. When
she found that they were within earshot of the carriage, 'Now,' said
she, 'I am sure this is a short cut across the sward. You are young,
and I am no longer quite a girl. Let us see whether you, by taking the
steep cross-cut, or I, by walking at a good pace along the road, will
reach that crucifix first.' By this ruse she got the three girls well
ahead of the conveyance; but Claudine found a patch of blue gentianella,
and wanted to dig the bunch up. 'No, no,' advised Mrs. Sidebottom, 'not
in going out--on your return homewards; then you will not have the roots
to carry so far, and the flowers will be less faded.' There was reason
in this advice, and Claudine followed it.
Presently Amelie, the second, exclaimed, 'But we are just in advance of
Aunt Janet. Let us stay for her.'
'Yes, we will,' agreed Felicite, the third; 'Claudine can go on with
madame.'
'We will all stay,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Now Amelie, I have seen your
sketches, and you have your book with you. Is not that a superb view up
the gorge, to the right? I do not know the name of the mountain at the
head. What a picture it would make! And finished off with the spirit
you throw into a drawing! See, there is a _chalet_, and some goats for
foreground!'
'_C'est vrai_! I will draw it.' So Amelie sat on a rock, and got out
her materials; and the sisters sat by her, talking and advising what was
to be left in and what left out of the sketch. Meanwhile the conveyance
containing Janet crawled by. The picture was still incomplete, and the
little party was thrown a long way in the rear by this detention.
To anyone observing the zigzag road up the Ober-Alp Pass from a
distance, the party would not have been supposed to possess homogeneity.
At starting it was led by three--Philip, Salome, and the American lady;
but after the first stage of the ascent Salome fell back, then, little
by little, the other two quickened their pace till they had completely
distanced the rest. At a lower stage of the inclined road, ascending at
an even pace, was Salome, alone. At about an equal distance below, on
another stage of the zigzag, was the carriage with Janet and the
captain, and the driver, of whom no account was taken; and sometimes
ahead of the carriage, sometimes behind, making rushes, then halts, like
a covey of doves followed by a hawk, was the little cluster of girls
with Mrs. Sidebottom. From a distance at one moment the three girls
seemed to be flying before the elder lady armed with a parasol, which
she swung about her head, then they seemed to cower on the ground into
the herbage as birds beneath a swooping falcon.
The reason why Salome was alone must be given. Before starting on the
excursion, Philip said to his wife, 'Let me have a minute alone with
that person. I'll make some sort of apology, and set all to rights.'
Accordingly Salome had dropped back where the road made its first twist.
But this does not explain why she remained alone for more than the
minute. That this may be understood, it will be necessary to follow the
conversation that passed between Philip and 'that person.'
'My wife has found a pink,' said Philip; 'she is fond of flowers.'
Then, as Miss Durham said nothing, he added, 'I afforded you some
amusement at dinner.'
'Amusement?'
'Apparently. It is not pleasant to be an object of criticism. If you
desired to punish me for my indiscretion, you must be satisfied. You
made me very uncomfortable.'
'Amusement! Oh! do you mean when Colonel Yeo laughed and look at you?
I saw you turn red.'
'Enough to make a man turn red, when aimed at by the bow and arrow of
female lips and tongue.'
'You are quite mistaken,' said Miss Durham, laughing. 'I was not
shooting any poisoned arrow. Do you desire to know what I said?'
'Interest me it must, as I was the object of the arrow, even if tipped
with honey.'
'Very well, you shall know. I had seen you looking at the eagle in his
cage. And I said to Colonel Yeo that the eagle reminded me of you.'
Philip winced. He remembered his own estimate of that wretched bird.
'And pray,' said he, 'why am I like the eagle?'
'Because both are in situations for which neither was designed by
nature. Do you suppose the eagle looks the draggled, disconsolate bird
he does now, when on wing soaring over the glaciers? Were his wings
made that they might droop and drop their crushed feathers? That stern
eye, that it should stare at iron bars, at inquisitive faces peering
between them? Now, come, be open; make me your confessor. Have you
never had yearnings for something nobler, freer, than to be behind the
bars of a counting-house, and condemned to the perpetual routine of
business, like the mill of a squirrel's cage?'
Philip considered. Yes, he had wished for a less monotonous life. He
had often desired to be able to hunt and shoot, and move in cultivated
society, tour in Europe, and have leisure to extend his thoughts to
other matters than the details of a lawyer's office, or a manufacturer's
set of books.
'Your time is all barred,' continued Miss Durham, 'and the music of your
life must be in common time. No elasticity, no initiative, all is barred
and measured. Tell me something about yourself.'
'I!' This was a daring question to address to one so reserved as
Philip. 'I have had nothing occur in my life that could interest you.'
'Because it has been spent in a cage. I know it has. I can see the
gaol-look in your face, in your back, in the way you wear your hair, in
your coat, in your every action, and look, and tone of voice.'
'This is not complimentary.'
'It is true. But you were not made to be a gaol-bird. No one is; only
some get caught early and are put behind bars, and see the world, and
know it, only through bars; the wind blows in on them only between bars,
and the sun is cut and chopped up to them by bars and cross-bars, and
all they know of the herbs and flowers are the scraps of chickweed and
plantain, drooping and dying, that are suspended to their cage bars for
them to peck at. I know exactly what they come to look like who have
been encaged all their lives; they get bald on the poll and stiff in
their movements, and set in their back, and dull of eye, and narrow of
mind.'
'You--have you not been a cage-bird?' asked Philip with some animation.
'Oh no, not I. I have kept outside the bars. I have been too fond of
my liberty to venture behind them.'
'What do you mean by bars?' asked Philip, with some gravity in his tone.
'Bars? There are bars of all sorts--social, religious,
conventional--but there! I shock you; you have lived so long behind
them, that you think the bars form the circumference of the world, and
that existence is impossible, or improper outside of them.'
'Beyond some none are at liberty to step. They are essential.'
'I am not talking of the natural, but of the artificial restraints which
cramp life. Have you any Bohemian blood in you?'
'Bohemian!'
'Wild blood. I have. I confess it. A drop, a little drop, of fiery
African blood. You in England have your class distinctions, but they
are nothing beside our American separations between white and black.
With you a blot on the escutcheon by a _mesalliance_ is nothing; with us
it is ineradicable. There is a bar sinister cast over my shield and
shutting me out from the esteem of and association with those whose
blood is pure. Pure! It may be muddied with the mixture of villainous
blood enough--of swindlers and renegades from justice, but that counts
nothing. One little drop, an eighth part of a drop, damns me. I do not
care. I thank that spot of taint. It has liberated me from
conventional bonds, and I can live as I like, and see the sun eye to eye
without intervening bars.'
Philip had winced when she spoke about the co-existence of pure blood
with that of swindlers and renegades. He stopped and looked back.
They had been walking fast, though up-hill. When talkers are excited
and interested in what they say they naturally quicken their pace. They
had far outstripped Salome; as Philip looked back he could not see her,
for the ground fell away steeply and concealed the several folds of the
road.
'What?' asked Miss Durham mockingly, 'looking for one of your bars?'
Philip turned and walked on with her. They had reached the summit, and
the ground before them was level. On this track of level mossy moor lay
the lake of deep crystal water, in which floated masses of snow or ice,
that had slidden from the mountain on the opposite side. Hardly a tree
grew here, on this neck, exposed to furious currents of wind.
'May I take your arm?' asked Miss Durham. 'I am heated and tired with
this long climb.'
Philip offered her the support she demanded.
'I suppose,' she said, 'that you have not associated much with any but
those who are cage-birds?'
He shook his head and coloured slightly.
'Do you know what I am?' she asked abruptly, and turned and looked at
him, loosing her hand from his arm.
'I have heard that you are a lady with a large independent fortune.'
'It is not true. I earn my living. I am a singer.'
She saw the surprise in his face, which he struggled to conceal.
'It is so; and I am here in this clear air that my voice may regain its
tone. I sing--on the stage.'
She put her hand through his arm again.
'Yes, chained, imprisoned eagle, I am a free singing-bird. What do you
say to that?'
What could he say? He was astonished, excited, bewildered. He felt the
intoxication which falls on an evangelical preacher when he mounts the
platform to preach in a music-hall. He was frightened and pleased; his
decorum shaken to its foundation, and cracking on all sides.
'What do you say to that?' she asked, and looked full in his eyes, and
her splendid orbs shot light and fire into his heart and sent the flames
leaping through his veins. He heaved a long breath.
'Yes,' she said, 'you suffocate behind bars.'
Then she burst into a merry peal of laughter, and Philip involuntarily
laughed also, but not heartily.
*CHAPTER XLVI.*
*ARTEMISIA.*
'There is the restaurant,' said Miss Durham, 'and being painted within
and without, impossible for us to enter. What say you to walking on to
the head of the lake? I want to look over the _col_, and see the
mountains of the Rhine valley above Dissentis.'
Philip hesitated, and again looked back.
'I see,' said Miss Durham; 'you are afraid of stepping out of your
cage.'
'Not at all,' answered Philip, flushing. 'I am prepared to go to the
end of this trough in the mountains with you, but I greatly doubt seeing
much from the further end.'
'Well--if we see nothing, we can talk. Have you looked about you much
since we began the ascent?'
'The time has flown,' said Philip, looking at his watch. 'It seems to
me but a few minutes since.'
The long dreary valley or basin in which lay the lake was apparently
closed at the end by a hill surmounted by a cross or flagstaff. The
road ran along the north side of the lake, without a tree to shade it.
The party behind, when they came to the restaurant, could not fail to
see them if they continued along the road, and might follow, or await
them there.
Philip walked on, but no longer gave Artemisia Durham his arm. He saw
far away in the rear Mrs. Sidebottom signalling with her parasol; but
whether to him, or to the Labarte girls who were dispersed in the morass
at the end of the lake, picking butterwort, soldanella, and primula, he
could not tell.
His eyes were on the ground. He was thinking of his companion, what a
strange life hers must be, incomprehensible to him. He felt how, if he
were thrown into it, he would not know how to strike out and hold his
chin above water. At the same time his heart beat fast with a wild vain
desire for a freer life than that of commerce.
The restraints to which he had been subjected had compressed and shaped
him, as the Chinese lady's shoe compresses and shapes her foot--but the
pressure had been painful; it had marked him, but the marks were ever
sensitive. The ancient robe of the Carmelite fathers was of white wool
barred with black, and they pretended that they derived this habit from
the mantle of Elijah, which he had dropped as he was being carried up to
heaven, and the mantle had touched as it fell the spokes of the chariot
of fire in which he ascended, and was scorched in stripes. Philip, and
many another successful man of business who has been exalted to a
position of comfort and warmth, has the inner garment of his soul
scarred by the wheels of the chariot in which he has mounted. Philip
felt his own awkwardness, his want of ease in other society than that
narrow circle in which he had turned, his inability to move with that
freedom and confidence which characterizes those born and reared in
generous society. Even with this girl--this Bohemian--he was as one
walking and talking with chains to his feet and a gag to his tongue.
She was right; he was born to be at ease everywhere, to be able
everywhere to walk upright, and to look around him; he had been put in a
cramping position, tied hand and foot, and his head set in such a vice
as photographers employ to give what they consider support and
steadiness, and he was distorted, stiffened, contracted. Had his life
been happy? He had never accounted it so--it had been formal at the
solicitor's desk, and it was formal in the factory. Was man made and
launched into life to be a piece of clockwork? He had thought, acted,
lived an automaton life, and taken his pleasure in measuring glasses,
never in full and free draughts.
'Have you had a happy existence?' he asked thoughtfully.'
'Oh yes, the birds are happy; all nature is happy so long as it is free.
It is in the cage that the bird mopes, and in the pot that the plant
sickens.'
Had Philip looked in her face he would have seen a strange expression of
triumph pass over it. She had carried her first point and gained his
interest.
'Here,' she said, 'is a large rock above the water; let us sit on it,
and I will tell you about myself. You had no confidence in me, and
would not give me your story. I will return good for evil, and show you
my past. I agree with you, there will be no view of the mountains above
Dissentis from the _col_. It is not worth our while going on. Besides,
I am tired.'
She took a seat on a broad boulder that had fallen from the mountains,
and hung fast, wedged on one side, disengaged on the other, over the
crystal water that, stirred by the light wind, lapped its supports.
Looking into the clear flood beneath, they could see the char darting
about, enjoying the sun that penetrated the water and made it to them an
element of diffused light.
Artemisia pointed to them, and said:
'Who would not rather be one of these than a goldfish in a glass
bottle?'
Philip at once recalled the pond at Mergatroyd, with the hot water
spurted into it from the engine, in which the goldfish teemed, and the
globes in every cottage-window supplied with the unfortunate captives
from this pond, swimming round and round all day, all night, every year,
seeing nothing novel, without an interest, a zest in life. Such had his
career been; he, a fish--not a gold one, nor even a silver one till
recently, but quite a common brown fish--in a common glass receiver full
of stale water, renewed periodically, but always flat.
He looked at the darting char with interest.
'We are in the land of freedom,' said Miss Durham. 'Then don't stand on
the rock like a semaphore. Sit down beside me, and let your feet dangle
over the water. Oh! as Polixenes says, "to be boy eternal!"'
'"With such a day to-morrow as to-day,"' added Philip, completing the
quotation, as he seated himself on the rock.
How wonderfully brilliant the sun was at that height! So utterly unlike
the rusty ball that gave light at Mergatroyd, and there gave it charily.
How intense the blue of the sky!--dark as the deep-belled gentian, not
the washed-out cobalt of an English heaven. And the air was fresh; it
made the heart dance, and the pulses throb faster, with a trip and a
fandango such as the blood never attains in our gray and sober land.
At a few hundred yards' distance was a road-mender leisurely performing
his task, repairing a track made by a stone that had leaped from the
cliffs above, torn up the road, and then plunged into the lake. Far
behind could be seen Mrs. Sidebottom flourishing her parasol and
gathering the rest of the disconnected party together before the
restaurant.
It was clear that she had decided they were not to go further, but to
rest at one of the tables in the open air beside the lake, till it
pleased the two of the advanced party to return.
Had they been seen? Philip asked himself. Where he and Artemisia now
sat, they were screened from observation from the tavern, though not
from the road-mender, who was ahead on the way.
'I am not quite sure,' said Philip, and he fidgeted with his fingers as
he said it, 'I think I ought to be going back to the party--to my aunt.'
'To your wife, you mean. Why not say so? No; you shall not go. There
are plenty with her, five in all, and I--I have only you.'
A flutter and then a scalding rush of blood through Philip's veins.
'This is the land of freedom,' said Artemisia; 'as you came over the
Lake of Lucerne you saw Ruetli, the sacred spot where the three
confederates swore to shake off the chains that bound them and to be
free, and its freedom is the glory of Switzerland now. Let this be
Ruetli. Break those conventional bonds that have tied you, and as a
pledge remain seated and listen to me. Remember what I have told you--I
want to give you a peep into my past life, and have your advice.'
Philip made no more objection, but he plucked little scraps of sedum
that grew on the stone and threw them into the water. Presently fish
came to snap at them, and turned away in disgust, leaving them, when
they saw they were not flies nor worms.
'My mother,' said Miss Durham, 'was a German--that is how I can speak
the language with as much ease as English. She was married to my father
shortly after her arrival in America, and she never acquired the English
tongue perfectly; she always spoke it with an accent and intonation that
was foreign. But, though she did not acquire perfectly the language of
the country of her adoption, she assimilated its prejudices pretty
easily, and held them with that intensity which characterizes, in my
experience, acquired prejudices, especially when unreasonable. My
father had in him a couple of drops of dark blood, and although my
mother thought nothing of that when she took him, she speedily came to
regard it as an indelible stain. She threw it in his teeth, she fretted
over it, and when I was born did not regard me with the love a child has
a right to exact from its mother. The continual quarrels and growing
antipathy between my parents led at length to their separation. My
father left, and I believe is dead; I never saw him after they parted.
He may have married again. I do not know; but I believe he is dead. He
made no inquiries after me and my mother, to whom I was a burden and a
reproach; she looked about for, and secured another, a more suitable
partner, a German, working in a factory. They had children,
fair-haired, moon-faced, thick-set--and I was alone amidst them, the
drudge or enemy of all. I had a good voice, and I was made nurse to the
youngest children, and to still them I was accustomed to sing to them.
The eldest boy had a clear good voice also, and him I liked best of all
my half-brothers and sisters. It was a great amusement to us to follow
brass bands, or Italians with organs and monkeys; and when we saw how
that these obtained money, my brother Thomas and I agreed together that
we would try our luck. One day--it was the day of the Declaration of
Independence, when everyone was out and all enjoying themselves--Tom and
I went into the most-frequented avenue of our town, and began to sing.
Carriages with ladies and gentlemen passed, and troops of people in
their best clothes, all in good humour, and all seeking amusement. We
began to sing "Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten," Tom taking a
second. Some Germans at once gathered about us, and threw coppers into
Tom's cap. Presently a man came up with a red beard and a violin. He
stood for a long time listening, and then instead of giving us money he
asked where we lived, and what our parents were. I told him, and next
day he came to see my mother. He was a musician, and he offered to buy
me of her, that he might teach me to sing and accompany him.'
Philip's face grew gray, and the lines in it became more marked. He no
longer threw bits of sedum at the fish. He clutched the rock with both
hands.
'And--what did your mother say?' he asked.
'She sold me--for seventy-five dollars.'
Philip shuddered. He turned and looked in Artemisia's face--to see,
perhaps, if her story had left its traces there.
'She wanted a hundred dollars, he offered fifty. They came to terms for
seventy-five.'
Philip said nothing. He looked down into the bottle-green depths of the
lake, and for some moments Artemisia was silent also.
Presently--with a strange, forced voice--Philip asked:
'How old were you when this transaction took place?'
'Still a child. I travelled about with the red-bearded man, and he
taught me to sing, trained me well, and at concerts made me sing, and I
got great applause. I liked that. I was happier with him than at my
mother's; I had no babies to carry about, and to hush; none of the house
drudging to do. Besides, he was kind, and he was an honourable man
after his fashion. He treated me as if I were his daughter, and took
immense pains to form me to be a public singer. But always the burden
of his song was, "See what you cost me, what trouble you give me!
Afterwards, when you are a finished artist, you must be engaged to me
for a set of years and repay me for my pains." I had not a word against
that. I was quite aware that I was indebted to him, and I intended to
show my gratitude by doing as he required. So I grew up, going about
with him, and he never allowed me to be treated with impertinence by any
man; he always protected me, though not always in the most heroic
manner. Once, in California, we were performing, he with his fiddle and
I singing, at a liquor-bar, when a half tipsy gold-digger became
offensively attentive to me. My master made me leave the place with
him, and he ran away with me to San Francisco. I asked him why? He
said that he must do that, or shoot or be shot by that fellow, and he
had no wish for either. I remember sulking; I would have liked to see
them fight about me.'
'How long did you remain with this man?'
'Till I was eighteen, and then, just as I was fit for something better,
and to earn more money, my master spoiled his own game.'
'How so?'
'He wanted to marry me. I reckon he thought he could secure me best
that way. If he had not asked me, and himself pestered me about this, I
would have stayed with him and let him have a share--a lion's share, of
my earnings; but he would not leave me in peace--he spoiled his own game
by that, and set me free. I left him.'
'And then?'
'Oh! I have been independent since then. I have sung in America, but I
have met with most success in Germany. I go about where I will. I have
no master. I earn enough to enable me out of the opera season to go to
the mountains or the seaside. This is a dull spot, and I would not have
made so long a stay in it had it not been that I was ordered to the
elevated air here, because I had suffered from a relaxed or overstrained
organ. Now you know my story. What do you think of it?'
Philip was watching her face, and feeling as if he received a shot in
his heart every time she turned her splendid full eyes on him, and his
hands trembled as they held the stone. 'Ever since I left my
red-bearded master I have been alone--alone in the world; I have had no
one to whom to cling, no mind to which to go for advice in times of
doubt and distress. Alone--do you know what it is to be alone?'
'Yes,' said Philip; he let sink his head on his breast, and looked down
into the water. He also had spent a lonely youth, but in what opposite
circumstances!
'You can have no idea,' she continued, 'how I have longed, with agony of
heart, for someone--someone whose judgment I could trust, whose mind was
superior, whose experience had been made in just those departments of
life to which I am strange. I have longed for such an one, whom I could
regard as a very dear friend, and to whom I could go in trouble and
perplexity. But I have no one! For all these years I have been as much
alone as the man in the moon.'
Philip put his hand to his collar. He tried to straighten the points
which had become limp--his hand shook so that he could do nothing with
them; he was being burnt up, consumed, by her eyes which were on him as
she spoke of her desire to find a friend.
'Is it not strange,' she said, 'that I who have been preaching freedom
should feel the need of a bar--not of many, but just one to hold by. Do
you know what it is to stand at the verge of a precipice? To stand on a
spire top where there is sheer abyss on every side? Can you imagine the
giddiness, the despair that comes over one? My place is one surrounded
by precipices, dangers, everywhere; I see hands thrust out to give me
the push to send me over, but not one--no, not one--to hold me.'
'You have mine,' said Philip, and laid his on her wrist. She took his
hand and pressed it thankfully.
'Now,' she continued, 'you can understand what it must be to one on a
dizzy peak, or apex of a building, if there be a something--a bar even,
to which to hold. Then the abysses below can be gazed into with
impunity. Holding to that support, the dangers are no longer dreadful,
there is no more fear of falling out of sheer desperation.'
She let go Philip's hand, and stood up.
'It is time to return to our party. Oh, what a relief it has been to me
to pour out my heart to you! And now, in return, tell me about Colonel
Yeo.'
The sound of that name at once brought Philip to his senses. He rose to
his feet and stepped into the road.
'I am sorry to be unable to tell you about him, because I know little
about him. As I said before, we belong to different spheres.'
They walked back together, talking of the weather and the mountains and
flowers, and found the rest at a table. The restaurant was under
repair, and no refreshments could be obtained there.
'Well?' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'you have kept us waiting a long time.'
'We have been waiting for you,' said Miss Durham. 'We thought you would
come on to the head of the pass.'
Philip caught Salome's eye and avoided it. She looked wistfully,
wonderingly at him. What did he mean by at one minute treating the
American lady with coldness and rudeness, and then reversing his
behaviour towards her absolutely and at once?
She took her husband's arm as they walked back to Andermatt. Philip was
silent. He thought about the story he had heard, of the loneliness of
the poor girl who had confided her history to him.
'What a long way this is, dear!' said Philip. 'It seems an age since we
began the descent.'
*CHAPTER XLVII.*
*EDELWEISS.*
Philip could not sleep during the night that followed the expedition to
the Ober-Alp. His mind was occupied with what he had heard. He thought
of the poor girl, sold by her mother; of her rude apprenticeship, of the
risks she had undergone; beautiful, young, attractive. He tossed in his
bed. What would become of her? Could she stand exposed to the dangers
that beset her and not, as she half-threatened, throw herself over?
What could be done for her?
She had spoken of the freedom of her life as giving zest to existence,
but too great freedom may pall; it had palled on the girl, and she had
put up her hands, pleading to be fitted with light but strong manacles.
What a contrast was to be found between his life and hers! He had been
cramped and hedged about with restrictions: she had enjoyed an excess of
liberty. Virtue, says Aristotle, is to be found in a happy medium, and
not virtue only, but the plenitude and manifoldness of life can only
unfurl itself in a happy medium between excess of freedom and oppressive
restriction. Philip was and ever had been conscious that his abilities
had not been allowed due expansion in the career into which he had been
squeezed; and this American girl, with doubtless splendid capabilities
of mind and heart, had allowed them to run riot and dissipate their
fragrance in untutored independence. When she fixed her great dark eyes
on him, what a thrill passed through him! and when she took his hand,
fire ran up his veins, and broke into a blaze in his heart.
What could he do for her? How was it possible for him to assist her? to
be to her the wise friend she desired? If he had made her acquaintance
two years ago it would have been another matter, he would have thrown
himself at her feet--metaphorically, of course--and asked her to take
him as her guide, protector, and friend, to tie up her future with his,
and so each would have contributed something to the other to make up
what each lacked. Then what a different sort of life his would have
been! His present mode of existence was similar, only better in
quality, to that he had led before; one had been a sordid drudgery, the
present was a gilded drudgery. The difference was in the adjective that
qualified, not in the substance of which the stuff of his life was made
up. He had now to devote the same attention to figures and
technicalities and details as before. The figures, technicalities,
details, were formerly relative to conveyancing, they now concerned
linen manufacture. Such acquaintances as he had formed at Nottingham had
not been interested in much beyond their business, and the acquaintances
he had formed at Mergatroyd had their interests concentrated on their
business. Art, literature, science, had been to those he knew at
Nottingham, and were to those he knew at Mergatroyd, names, not ideas.
Was life worth living in such surroundings, tied to such a routine? It
is said that man as he gets older fossilizes, the currents of his blood
choke the arteries, veins, vessels of heart and brain, till like furred
waterpipes and crusted boilers they can no longer act. But was not the
life to which he was condemned, with its monotony, its constraint, its
isolation from the current of intellectual life--a mechanizing of man?
Philip knew that he was losing, had lost, much of his individuality,
almost all the spontaneity that had been lodged in him by the Creator,
and was growing more and more into a machine, like his spinning-jennies
and steam looms. He thought of Salome. Had she many ideas outside the
round of ordinary life? Was she not an ennobled, sweeter lodging-house
keeper? She had been well educated, but her mind did not naturally soar
into the ideal world. It went up, spasmodically, like the grasshoppers,
a little way, and was down on its feet again directly. She was
interested in her baby, anxious to have her house neat, the cobwebs all
away, the linen in perfect order, all the towels marked and numbered,
the servants in thorough activity, the quotients for the cake and
pudding measured in scales, not guessed. She was devoted to her flowers
also--he recollected the hyacinths, and certainly they had filled his
room with fragrance and anticipations of spring. But he had sent her to
sleep by reading aloud Addison's 'Spectator,' and when he tried
Shakespeare he found that she had no insight into the characters, and
accepted the beauties rather than seized on them.
What, Philip asked with a tremor--what if he had never met Salome, and
had met Artemisia? Then indeed he would have been transported on strong
wings out of the world of common-place, and the sound of common talk,
and the murky atmosphere of vulgar interests, into a region where he
would have shaken off his half-acquired habits of formality, his
shyness, his cumbrousness and angularity, and become light-hearted,
easy, and independent.
In dreams we sometimes imagine ourselves to be flying; we rise from the
ground and labour indefatigably with our arms as wings; and Philip was
now dreaming, though not asleep, fancying that he could part with some
of his gravity and by an effort maintain himself in another sphere. He
had missed his way in life; he was never designed to become a piece of
clockwork, but to enjoy life, seize it with both hands, and hold it
fast, and drink the mingled cup to the dregs, crowned with roses.
Hitherto he had not suspected that the blood in his arteries was an
effervescing wine; he had supposed it very still.
What was to be done for Artemisia? It would be inhuman, not to be
reconciled with conscience, to turn away, to cast her off, when she
entreated him to be her friend and help her with counsel. But how could
he assist her? A drowning, despairing girl cried out for help. Could
he suffer her to sink? Had he not promised her his assistance?
'I am positively determined,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, next day, 'that we
shall go to-morrow to the hospice. I want to see it, and the dogs, and
the scenery. So I have ordered carriages; and what is more, we will
stay there a day or two; then, such as like, can descend the Val
Tremola, and such as like can climb the Pizzo Centrale.'
'I have no objection.' answered Salome. 'We must not leave Andermatt
until we have been over the pass and seen the beauties or terrors of the
further side. What do you say, Philip?'
'I shall be glad.'
He stood up from table.
'Where are you going, Philip?'
'To Miss Durham, to invite her to join us.'
'Of course,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Let me see, we are eight. Oh! it
won't matter, one of the girls can sit outside. The drivers always walk
going up hill, so that there will be five in one carriage, and five in
the other. And Miss Durham will pay her share. Besides, if there is any
climbing and excursioning to be done, she will pay half of a guide.'
But--strange caprice in Salome, she put her hand on Philip's arm, and
said, in a low tone:
'No! Philip; no!'
Philip looked at her with surprise. Why should she not wish the
American lady to join the party? She was her friend. She had been so
desirous that he and Miss Durham should conclude peace, and now that
peace was agreed upon, Salome said, 'No! Philip; no!' when he proposed
to invite the Chicago girl to join them. How capricious! How
unreasonable Salome was! She forms a wish, he hastens to accord it, and
lo! she hangs back and is dissatisfied.
His aunt's favourite expression, 'Fiddlestick-ends!' rose to his lips.
He was not the man to be turned about by the wayward, unreasoned fancies
of his wife.
'Why not?' he asked.
But Salome gave him no answer. She had formed no motive in her heart
for asking him not to invite Miss Durham; she had not considered a
reason. She reddened to the roots of her hair, but neither gave a
reason nor repeated her request.
There lingered all that day a little something, a dissonance of mood
between Philip and Salome; neither could account for it, and neither
attempted to account for it. He was silent; he wandered about the hotel
and the grounds with a hope to light on Miss Durham He did not go into
the _salle_ or on the terrace, into the reading-room, or about the
garden searching for her. He did not ask the waiters where she was, but
he looked about wherever he went, expecting to see her, and when he
found her not in the reading-room or _salle_, on the terrace or in the
garden, he felt that the place was uninteresting, and he must perforce
go elsewhere.
Salome was gentle as usual, spending much time with her baby, showing it
to those guests who were so gracious as to notice it, and smiling with
pleasure when it was admired; but she was not herself, not as happy as
she had been. Hitherto the only jar to her content was her husband's
prejudice against Artemisia; now the jar arose--she did not explain to
herself how it arose, but she wished that Philip had not gone so far in
his change of sentiment. Yet with her natural modesty and shrinking
from casting blame, she reproached herself for grudging to her friend
that friendship which she had herself invited Philip to bestow.
The next day was lovely, with a cloudless sky, and the carriages
departed. Some grumbling ensued and had to be resisted, on the part of
the drivers, because five persons were crammed into one carriage. Mrs.
Sidebottom pointed out that the driver would walk. That was true, was
the reply, but not till Hospenthal was reached; moreover the horses
could not draw more than four up the St. Gothard road to the hospice.
There was still snow over a considerable tract; however, at length the
difference was overcome by the promise of a small extra payment--two and
a half francs extra--which threw such energy into the horses, and so
increased their power of traction, that they consented for that price to
draw five instead of four persons up the ascent from Hospenthal to the
hospice. In one carriage, that in front, sat Mrs. Sidebottom, Janet and
the captain, and one of the girls, the youngest. In the other carriage
were Salome and Miss Durham, Philip, and the two other Labarte girls.
But Philip did not remain long in it; at the steep ascent above the
little picturesque cluster of houses, church, and castle that constitute
Hospenthal, he got out and walked. The banks were overgrown with the
Alpine rhododendron, as flames bursting out of the low olive-green
bushes, and Philip hastened to pick bunches for the ladies. By a
singular chance the best flowers and those best arranged went to Miss
Durham.
'See dere?' said the driver, taking off his hat. 'Vot ish dat? Dat is
edelweiss. You shee?'
He held his dirty brown cap to Philip and showed him a tuft of white
flowers as though made out of wool. Philip had never seen the like
before.
'Are these found here, in these mountains?'
'Jawohl! round here. Up high! Shee!' The man pointed with his whip to
the rocky heights. 'She grow up very high, dat vlower you give to your
loaf!'
'Loaf?'
'Jawohl!' The man winked, put his hand to his heart. 'To your
loaf--shatz! You undershtand.'
Philip flushed dark. He was hot with walking.
'Let me have some of that flower. You shall have it back. No, thank
you, not your hat.'
The man pulled the blossoms out from the dirty ribbon that retained
them. 'Dey is dry. But you should shee when dey fresh.'
Philip took the little flowers to the side of the carriage.
'Look at these,' he said. 'The man calls them--no, I cannot say the
name.'
'Edelweiss,' said Salome; 'I have seen it dried in the shop windows. It
is rare.'
'Edelweiss means the noble white flower,' said Miss Durham. 'It grows
far from human habitation, and is much sought after. I have never found
it myself, and never had any fresh picked given to me.'
'Would you like some?' asked Philip.
'Very much indeed,' answered Artemisia.
'If it be possible to get any, you shall have it,' he said. Then he
walked on.
The fore carriage was stopped, and Mrs. Sidebottom was descending with
Claudine Labarte, whom she had persuaded to get out with her and pick
flowers, thus leaving the captain and Janet by themselves.
'Before long,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'we shall be beyond the line where
flowers grow, so we must make the best of our opportunity now, Miss
Labarte.'
Then Mrs. Sidebottom fell back to where Philip was and took his arm, and
pressed it, looked up at him humorously and said, 'I have a bit of news
to tell you. He is going to propose. That is why I have got Felicite
out of the carriage.'
'Who? Lambert?'
'Lambert, of course. Not the driver. And to Janet. Have you not seen
it coming?'
'But perhaps she will not have him.'
'Fiddlestick-ends! Of course she will. Don't you see that she likes
him, and has been drawing him on? Besides, I have sounded her. The only
difficulty is about Salome.'
'How can she be a difficulty?'
'Oh, she may think it too soon for them to get married when Mrs.
Cusworth died so recently.'
'Then they can postpone the marriage.'
'Fiddle-faddle! Of course not. Always strike whilst the iron is hot.
That is edelweiss in your hand, is it? Oh, could you manage to find or
get a man to find some quite fresh, for Lambert to present to Janet. It
is the correct thing in the Alps. The graceful accompaniment of a
declaration.'
'I will try to get some,' said Philip.
'Lambert, you see, will be too much engaged with Janet to go far
himself; besides, he is not able to take great exertion. Climbing has a
deteriorating effect on the trouser-knees, it makes them baggy. You
will get him some?'
'I will go searching for edelweiss when we reach the hospice,' said
Philip. To himself he muttered, 'But not for Lambert and Janet.'
*CHAPTER XLVIII.*
*TRAPPED.*
For the last hour of the ascent the carriages passed through snow, not
continuous, but between walls cut in the avalanches and drifts that had
formed in the basins. The air was cold. The ground was so wet through
melted snow that Philip and Mrs. Sidebottom and Mdlle. Labarte were
obliged to ride. The walls of snow had fallen in here and there, so
that the horses were obliged to flounder through. The scenery was bleak
and wintry. The ladies shivered. At length the lake was reached in
which the Reuss has its source, and a little beyond it the roofs of the
hospice and the inn were visible. In ten minutes the shivering party
was assembled in the _salle-a-manger_, which was heated, and was
ordering dinner.
The monks had been banished for many years, and the hospice let by the
Canton of Tessin to an inn-keeper of Airolo, who with his worthy wife
and family have been in no way inferior in hospitality, in care for the
poor travellers, and in providing for the comforts of the rich than were
the brothers of old.
Signora Lombardi, stout, hale, and smiling, was in the hospice, exerting
all her energies to get food ready for the large party that had come in.
Wines--the best of North Italy, were to be had, and veal in various
forms--but always veal, call it what you will.
'Oh! my goodness, gracious me!' cried Mrs. Sidebottom, 'there is a
dog--a Mount St. Bernard dog! Oh! the size! the beauty! It must become
the rage. Why--I have heard of more than two hundred pounds being given
for a tulip, and what would not be given for such a dog as this--and
with pulmonary complaint too, that develops on the plains.'
'You do not mean to say, aunt, that you are going to invest in shares in
the Beaple Yeo dog-breeding establishment?' said Philip satirically.
'Colonel Yeo are you speaking about?' interrupted Miss Durham eagerly.
'Do tell me--do you think he will establish his claims to the title of
Schofield?'
'He can establish his title to that name whenever he pleases,' said
Philip, 'and--once more, if you have any regard for our feelings, you
will not mention that person again in our hearing. Oh! here--in this
glass on the table--are some draggled specimens of the white fluffy
flower you call edelweiss. Perhaps our landlady, Signora Lombardi, will
tell us if it grew near this inn.'
'Oh, signor,' answered the stout woman, 'it is to be found by the
searchers, but I have never discovered it. I am too fat to climb, and,
besides, my day for edelweiss is over.' She laughed and shook her sides
as though she had made a good joke. 'I leave the edelweiss to the young
people.' Her eye rested with a sly twinkle, first on the captain and
Janet, about whom there could be no doubt, and then on Philip and--her
eye hesitated a moment between Salome and Artemisia, and then rested on
the latter. Philip looked uneasily out of the little window at the
bleak outer world.
When dinner was finished the afternoon was advanced. Philip went out in
front of the inn, on the platform of rock upon which it is built. Some
of the ladies talked of taking a stroll to the head of the Val Tremola,
but determined not to go far, they would reserve their strength for the
ensuing day. He did not volunteer to accompany them. He had another
scheme in his head. Outside the inn was a guide lounging about, smoking
and calling to such as passed in the road.
Philip signed to him that he desired to speak to him, and the man came
to him with alacrity, but shook his head, and pointed to one of the
snowpeaks. He could speak only Italian, and Philip only English. They
were obliged to converse in dumb show. Philip showed him the flower of
edelweiss he had brought from the glass on the table inside. The man
nodded his head. Philip raised his eyebrows in note of query and
pointed to the rocks around.
'Si! si!' answered the man, shaking his head like a poised China
mandarin.
'All about there? anywhere?' asked Philip, speaking very loud, as though
by loudness he could make the man comprehend.
'Oh! if it is anywhere I can find it easily.'
The man shook his head and again pointed to a snow-peak over which a
film of cloud was forming, then being blown away, then forming again.
'Do you mean that it is not out there?' asked Philip. 'I knew that as
well as you. There are only ice and snow yonder. Bless my soul, what
idiots these men are!'
Then he went back into the inn to equip himself with gaiters and strong
boots, and to fetch his stick, with a chamois horn for a handle, that he
had bought. Whilst he was engaged fastening his leggings, he heard the
voices of the young ladies outside the house. They were starting for a
walk. Presently he descended from his room and studied the map of the
district, suspended in the _salle_, till he thought he had it well
impressed on his brain, after which he sallied forth. The guide was no
longer outside. The afternoon was verging to a close, and no one would
be likely to require his services, he supposed; consequently he had
retired to the lower room of the hospice on a level with the road, where
the drivers and carriers, the guides and peasants were regaled with sour
wine.
Philip was relieved to see that the fellow was no longer there. He
might have wanted to come with him and show him the way, and it would
have been irksome to trudge beside a man with whom it was not possible
to converse; besides, edelweiss was to be found everywhere, Madame
Lombardi had said, if looked for on the rocks. Those guides made
difficulties about finding it, so as to induce the uninitiated and
easily persuaded to engage them to direct them to spots where it grew.
Philip resolved to go by himself. He would not go far; he could not
lose his way; there were no yawning chasms down which he might tumble
that he could see, and avalanches, he was told; fell in the early
spring. He must do some climbing, of course, because the tourists would
have picked all the edelweiss within reach on both sides of the road,
and he must scramble to places they had not ransacked, but he would not
go into any danger; he would keep his eye on the hospice, or at least,
the road. Along the road he trudged in his heavy boots till he came to
a great weather-beaten crucifix, that marked the beginning of the
descent on the Italian side. The cross was painted dull red, but the
paint had peeled away in patches, blistered by frost or sun. Philip
looked up wonderingly at it. How out of place it seemed there, in that
wilderness of bare rock and pure snow! He seemed to be in the midst of
a primeval world, which had not yet begun to produce green trees and
herbs, the fowl and living beasts--all around was utter silence, the
world around was lifeless. The sun was behind the great wall of snowy
glacier mountains, and the vapour that was collected like smoke on its
head, so that the prospect seemed to be that of a world such as existed
when there was light but the sun was uncreate. And, in the centre of
this inchoate, unvitalized world, stood the crucifix. The mountains
looked down on it, the glaciers frowned on it, as a thing of to-day, as
though they said, 'We were before ever you were dreamed of, and we shall
be long after mankind has ceased to believe in self-devotion, and has
come to laugh at every creed save the idolatry of self.'
Then Philip diverged from the road, and began to climb. There was a
valley opening here from the highest peaks, down which a little rill
fell; and on the flank of the mountain which faced the south there was
comparatively little snow, and Philip saw tracts of moss and herbage.
That would be the garden of the edelweiss; there he must search, and he
would find the desired flower without serious trouble.
He was surprised to find the distances greater than they appeared. In
that highly-rarefied and clear air things far off appeared close, and
dimensions as well as distances were deceptive. He found green carpets
of dwarf campion, studded with pink flower, dense as moss; and in the
bogs soldanella shaking their delicately fringed purple bells--but no
edelweiss. Disappointed in his search on the slope which had promised,
he crossed the brook and crept along the flank of the opposite mountain;
he would turn its shoulder and get to the side well exposed to the sun;
that which he had just explored was, he now perceived, shut off from all
but vertical rays by the mountain-ridge south of it. He groped and
scrambled, turned back, went higher, had long lost sight of the hospice,
had not, indeed, remembered to look for it, when suddenly he was
enveloped in dense white fog. He could, however, see the sun through it
like a copper ball, but only for a minute, and then it sank behind a
ridge, at least so he supposed, for it was extinguished gradually. He
must now retrace his steps. He dare not advance; he thought he could
find his way back. He remembered several landmarks--a rock, on the top
of which was some dwarf shrub, like a wig worn by an old fellow he knew
at Nottingham, and a furrow which, if he followed it, must lead him to
the brook. But he soon found that he had lost all sense of direction;
the disappearance of the sun had taken from him the only clue as to the
points of the compass.
He was hot. He sat down for a moment and wiped his face; the water was
streaming off it. He was not as yet alarmed, only vexed--vexed
especially at his having made this expedition in vain. He would have to
return without the edelweiss.
'That is old Jarvis's head with the wig thrust back!' he said, as a
nodule of rolled rock appeared through the mist. But when he took a
second look at it he doubted.
'I wish I had brought a whisky-flask with me,' he muttered; 'I am
beginning to feel an ache in my muscles.'
He stumbled on, and now, to his alarm, saw that the darkness was closing
in rapidly. He had not considered, when he started, that in the South
of Europe there is no twilight, and that night comes after day without
hours of grace.
Now it flashed upon him that what the guide had meant when indicating
the mountain-top wreathed in vapour was--not that edelweiss grew there,
but that the weather was going to change, or the fog to descend. He
hurried on, but did not know in which direction he was going. He was on
a steep slope of snow that stretched before him apparently interminably,
lost itself in vapour and curled over and enveloped him as in an
apple-pie bed, a cold sheet of white below, before, above, behind. And,
at that moment, he saw on the rock above him, almost within reach, the
white, starry, nodding head of an edelweiss; the woolly flower was
burdened with the moisture that had condensed on it from the fog, and
was hanging over the stone to shake itself free.
With an exclamation of satisfaction Philip sprang up the slope, caught
the rock with the hook of his stick, and tore the edelweiss away.
Had the crook of his stick been what it professed to be--a chamois'
horn, he would have been safe, it would have sustained his weight; but
as it was only bone, and the curve came across the grain, it snapped,
and Philip shot down the snowy declivity. He still grasped the tuft of
edelweiss; he thrust his stick into the snow to arrest his descent; he
tore up the snow, twisted the stick in his hand, and shot further
down--shot instantaneously out of the fog into dusk, in which everything
was distinct, and below he saw a great sweep of snow like a sheet. He
looked into it as Sancho Panza into that in which he was being tossed.
He drove his heels into the snow, his elbows, his stick, to retard his
descent, and suddenly dropped. Then found himself on rubble, still
sliding, and brought up with a jerk by a rock. For a few minutes Philip
was unconscious. He was aware of a shock, a slide, darkness and noise,
that was all. But--where was he? He had vanished from the face of the
earth, gone through the surface of snow into a depth beneath. A field
of snow had filled the bottom of a valley, and the river ran beneath in
a ravine. Nothing could be seen of the cleft, nothing of the river, the
smooth sheet of snow hid both; but the force of Philip's descent had
broken through that portion of the covering where it was thinnest, near
the rock and rubble; he had gone through, and was buried alive. Beneath
him, about him, was darkness--pitch darkness; only above could he see
the hole through which he had fallen, looking like a silver-gray disc.
The air about him was filled with thunder, the pulsating thunder such as
he had heard at the fall of the Reuss at the Devil's Bridge, such as he
had heard that very day where the river plunged over a wall of rock in
the gorge above Hospenthal. The air moreover was as full of water here
beneath as it had been above in the fog, but the particles here were
much larger. This was the spray cast up by the raging, leaping,
headlong water in the abyss.
How far down was it to that torrent? Eye could not penetrate, ear could
not tell. The vault of snow overhead reverberated with the boom of the
water, and cast it back into the gulf as it cast back the up-thrown
spray. He could see no water, he could see nothing save the gap
overhead.
What was he to do? His arms were heavy and numbed with cold. He
cautiously lifted one and found that the snow had been driven, even
rammed, hard up the sleeve by his descent. He was safe where he lodged,
on rock, and he shook out the snow from one sleeve and then the other.
In doing this he found the bunch of edelweiss. He did not see it; he
felt it up his sleeve; it had been carried there by the snow. He did
not throw it away; he left it where it was. What was he to do? His
situation was precarious. He might turn giddy and fall over. That
terrible fascination there is in an abyss might lay hold of him and draw
him down. Artemisia had spoken of that fascination, the fascination of
despair. Now he felt it.
He tried to scramble up, but the shale slipped away beneath his feet,
and he was fain, in an agony of terror to recover his former place on
firm rock. It was not practicable to ascend. He leaned back against
the stones, that dripped and ran with water, the melting of the snow
overhead, the condensation of the foam from the river beneath. The
water condensed also on his forehead and ran off his brows--water cold
as ice. Where his fingers worked hollows in the loose soil, the water
settled, and soaked his fingers and turned them dead with cold.
Was it that there was rhythm in the fall of the water, or was it that
his pulses beat in his ear and gave rhythm to the continuous thunder?
He could not tell. He heard the throb of sound, or it seemed to him to
be the rattle of the machinery of his mill at Mergatroyd multiplied to
infinity.
His feet had glowed with the exercise, but now they began gradually to
lose heat, and turn stone-cold. In time, they would cease to have
feeling in them, then in numbness and weariness his knees would buckle
under him, and he would shoot head-long, like a diver into the black
void. How far down was it to the water--to death--he wondered. Would
he feel--be conscious of the shock over the edge before he went into the
water, or crash with his head against a rock? He had heard a fellow
clerk say that as he was drowning the whole of his past life rushed
before his eyes and spread itself out as a panorama, a succession of
scenes, in a moment of time, twenty years unfolded leisurely in one
second, displaying every incident, not crowded but in sequence, and all
articulate. Would it be so as he went over the edge, in the span of
time between the rocks on which he stood and the clash and extinction
below? His heart grew faint; and he felt in him the qualm that a bad
sailor knows as the vessel plunges into a deep sea-trough.
But--surely he would be sought by the people at the inn. Certainly he
would be sought, but in what direction would they look for him? How
trace him in the mist? How suppose he was below the surface of the
smooth quilt of snow in the Val Tremola, sunk out of sight, hanging over
a boiling torrent? And now down past Philip ran a thread of silver; it
startled him, and he looked up the line to see a glimpse of the moon
appear above the hole through which he had fallen. The fog must have
cleared away, or be clinging partially to certain mountain-tops. If the
moon were clear, then the search for him could be prosecuted with some
chance of success. But Philip was not over-confident. His powers of
endurance were ebbing. He raised his feet and stamped on the rock; he
could feel the shock in his joints, but not in his feet--they were dead.
His hands were stiff. He put his fingers into his mouth, but this only
momentarily restored vitality. After the feeling had gone the muscular
power would become paralyzed. He was not hungry, but squeamish. He
looked again at the moon, and continued watching it eagerly; it slid
forward and shone full through the window of his dungeon. The light
fell on rocky point and rill of leaping water, but could not illumine
the abyss below, out of which rose the voices and thunderings--the
voices of death, the thunderings preceding judgment.
And now the white ray of the moon smote down into the gulf below his
feet and disclosed a shoot of the purest, most sparkling silver, the
leaping torrent as it danced over a ledge into utter darkness, into
which no moon-ray could dive.
Suddenly from above a mass of snow detached itself and fell past him, a
mass so big that had it smitten him it would have carried him down with
it.
The side of the hole in the snow-dome grazed the moon and ate more and
still more out of it. Philip looked with fear--he felt that when the
whole of the moon had passed beyond that opening, and not another ray
fell into it, when again the darkness of that vault would become utter,
hope would die away from his heart, and he must fall.
But as he stood looking up, watching the slipping away of the moon, he
saw sharp cut against it a black something, and heard, above the roar of
the water, the discordant sounds of a bark. He was found--found by one
of the hospice dogs.
The first giddiness of renewed hope almost overcame him. He trembled as
in a fit, and his knees bent so that only by a supreme effort of the
will could he brace them again. He believed he heard shouts, but was
uncertain.
What followed remained ever after confused in his memory. He heard some
Italian words in his ear, saw or felt someone by him, was grasped, a
rope fastened round him, he heard himself encouraged to make an effort,
tried to scramble, helped by the rope, broke through the snow, was in
the upper world again, was surrounded, had brandy poured down his
throat.
Then he was seized by the hand and shaken.
'Old fellow! Phil! 'Pon my word, you have given us a turn. We have
been hunting you everywhere.'
'Lambert!'
'Yes, Phil, and who'd have thought to find you trapped under the snow?'
The men of the party urged immediate movement to restore circulation.
Philip's hand, when dropped by Lambert, was seized again and held
tightly, but he had lost feeling in it. Nor could he see clearly; he
was dazzled by the light--the brilliance of the moon and the glare of
the snow--after the darkness below.
'Who is that laughing?' he asked suddenly.
'Oh--Miss Durham,' answered Lambert.
'And--who is that crying?'