Produced by Al Haines.
*WHITE MOTLEY*
_A NOVEL_
BY
MAX PEMBERTON
AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE HUGUENOT," "THE
GARDEN OF SWORDS," ETC., ETC.
New York
STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
1911
_All rights reserved_
Copyright 1911
By STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1911
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
PROLOGUE
I THE GRAND PRIX AT ANDANA
II A DARK HORSE GOES DOWN
III CONCERNING A DISOBLIGING GHOST
IV THE MAN WHO KNEW
V THE GHOST TAKES WINGS
VI A LESSON UPON SKIS
VII AN ULTIMATUM
VIII BENNY BECOMES AN OPTIMIST
IX IN WHICH WE BAG A BRACE
X A SPECIALIST IS CONSULTED
XI THE VIGIL OF TRAGEDY
XII FLIGHT
XIII AFTER THE STORM
XIV THE GENDARME PHILIP
XV THE CORTEGE
XVI TWO OPINIONS
XVII HERALDS OF GREAT TIDINGS
XVIII THE EVE OF THE GREAT ATTEMPT
XIX THE THIEF
XX THE FLIGHT IS BEGUN
XXI THE FLIGHT IS FINISHED
XXII THE EMPTY HOUSE
XXIII THE NIGHT MAIL
XXIV THE DOCTOR INTERVENES
XXV THE LIGHTS OF MAGADINO
XXVI AT THE HOSPICE
XXVII BENNY SETS OUT FOR ENGLAND
*WHITE MOTLEY*
*PROLOGUE*
*THE NEW HOUSE AT HOLMSWELL*
The New House at Holmswell lies, far back from the road, upon the great
highway to Norwich. Local topographers delight to tell you that it is
just forty-five miles from that city and five from the Cesarewitch
course at Newmarket. They are hardly less eloquent when they come to
speak of its late owner, Sir Luton Delayne, and of that unforgotten and
well-beloved woman, the wife he so little deserved.
To be sure, the house is not new at all, for it was built at the very
moment when the great Harry put his hands into the coffers of the
monasteries and called upon high Heaven to witness the justice of his
robberies. They faced it with wonderful tiles some years ago, and
stamped the Tudor rose all over it; but the people who first called it
"new" have been dead these four hundred years, and it is only the local
antiquary who can tell you just where the monastery (which preceded it)
was built.
Here, the master of a village which knows more about the jockeys of the
day than about any Prime Minister, here lived Sir Luton Delayne and that
gentle woman who won so many hearts during her brief tenure of the
village kingdom. Well the people knew her and well they knew him. A
florid, freckled-faced man with red hair and the wisp of an auburn
moustache, the common folk said little about his principles and much
about his pugnacity. Even these dull intellects knew that he had been
"no gentleman" and were not afraid to tell you so. His fame, of a sort,
had culminated upon the day he thrashed the butcher from Mildenhall,
because the fellow would halt on the high road just when the pheasants
were being driven from the Little Barton spinneys. That was no famous
day for the House of Delayne; for the butcher had been a great bruiser
in his time, and he knocked down the baronet in a twinkling without any
regard at all for his ancestry or its dignities. Thereafter, Sir
Luton's violent speech troubled the vulgar but little, and when he rated
Johnny Drummond for wheeling a barrow over the tennis-court, the lad
fell back upon the price of mutton and took his week's notice like a
man.
To Lady Delayne local sympathy went out in generous measure. If little
were known of the sorrows of her life, much was surmised. The "county"
could tell you many tales and would tell them to intimates. These spoke
of a ruffian who had sworn at that gentle lady before a whole company at
the meet; who openly snubbed her at her own table; who had visited upon
her the whims and the temper of a disposition at once vicious and
uncontrollable. Darker things were said and believed, but the sudden
end surprised no one; and when one day the village heard that she had
gone for good, when a little while afterwards the bailiffs came to the
New House and Sir Luton himself disappeared, it seemed but the sudden
revelation of a tragedy which all had expected.
Whither had Lady Delayne gone, and what was the truth of the disaster?
Few could speak upon matters so uncertain, but amongst the few the name
of Redman Rolls, the bookmaker, stood high. Report from Newmarket said
that Luton Delayne had lost twenty-seven thousand pounds upon the
Cambridgeshire and that this loss, following extensive and disastrous
speculation in American insecurities, had been the immediate instrument
of disaster. As to Lady Delayne's hurried flight from the New House,
that was a delicate affair upon which no one could throw much light. She
had relatives in the North, and was believed to possess a small fortune
of her own; but no news of her came to Holmswell, and the far from
curious village had no particular interest in the whereabouts of a man
who had browbeaten and bullied it for more than ten years. He had gone
to Somaliland to join his brother who was out after big game, the parson
said. It meant little to the simple folk, who had not the remotest idea
where Somaliland was unless it lay somewhere beyond Norwich--a
conclusion to which they arrived in the kitchen of the ancient inn.
To be sure, there were many tales told of the final separation of these
unhappy people, and some of them were sad enough. The servants at the
New House well remembered how Sir Luton had come home upon that unlucky
day; and what he had done and what he had said upon his arrival. To
begin with, Martin, the motor-man, could speak of a savage, silent
figure, driving blindly through the twilight of an October afternoon, of
the narrow escape from accident at the lodge gate and of the oaths with
which his attentions were received. Morris, the butler, would tell how
Sir Luton had almost knocked him down when he opened the door, and had
cursed her ladyship openly when he heard she had company. There was the
maid Eva, to tell of her mistress half dressed for dinner and of a scene
which in some part she had witnessed. Few believed her wholly when she
said that her master had attributed his misfortunes to the day when he
met his wife, and had told her that "he had done with her, by Heaven!"
And then upon that there would be Morris's further story of the table
laid for dinner, the candles lighted, the soup hot and steaming--and not
a soul in the great room where dinner was served. They waited a long
time, this faithful old gossip and the lean footman with the dull eyes;
but neither Sir Luton nor her ladyship came down. And then, shortly
before nine, the old horse and the single brougham were ordered--and the
kindest lady they would ever know went from them and they heard of her
no more.
But the man remained, though he had become but a shadow in the house.
All night he drank in the little study behind the billiard room, and a
light still burned there at six o'clock next morning, as Jelf, the
under-gardener, could testify. If he made any effort to recall the
wife, who would willingly have stood by him in the darkest hour, none
knew of it. For a few days, Morris carried his meals to the study and
would discover him there, sitting at a table and staring blankly over
the drear park as though dim figures of his own life's story moved
beneath the stately trees. Then, following an outburst which surpassed
all the servants could remember, an outburst of passion and of obscenity
inconceivable, he was driven one morning to Mildenhall Station, and
Holmswell heard with a satisfaction it made no attempt to conceal that
this was the end.
The New House was the scene of a great sale shortly afterwards, and
brokers came from London to buy the porcelain and the pictures, while
many a country gentleman drove in to bid for the well-proved '63 port
and the fine bin of Steinberg Cabinet. Few in the village could be more
than spectators at such a scene as that; but the old clergyman, Mr.
Deakins, bought Lady Delayne's mirror for three pounds fifteen
shillings, and when they asked him why, had a ready answer.
"An old man's fancy," he said; "and yet--who knows that some day it may
not show me again the face of the gentlest lady I have ever known?"
*CHAPTER I*
*THE GRAND PRIX AT ANDANA*
The sleigh climbed the heights laboriously, jolting heavily in the ruts
which last night's frost had hardened. Minute by minute now new
pictures were revealed. The Rhone valley appeared to be shaping itself
more clearly at every zigzag; so that, while Sierre below had become but
a toy village upon a child's board, the majestic Weisshorn now stood up
in detached sovereignty and all the encircling peaks could be named with
assurance.
There had been a blizzard blowing for thirty hours, and it had detained
the little company at Sierre; but the morning of the day broke
gloriously fine, so that the travellers set off at eight o'clock and
were to reach the hotel at Andana before eleven.
A truly British company, some of them had come to winter in Switzerland
for the first time. Others were veterans, who brought their own skis,
talked knowingly of Vermala and the Zaat, and could show you, even when
far down the valley, exactly where the Palace Hotel lurked behind a
forest of pines. Of these the gentle old clergyman, Harry Clavering,
was the most prominent--and he, as one of whom much was expected,
offered generous and courtly help to the more timid of the wayfarers.
But even Harry Clavering, despite his seven and fifty years, was not
insensible to the charm of the "little widow," and his conscience found
a ready excuse when he craved permission to share a sleigh with her--and
obtained it, to the great annoyance of Sir Gordon Snagg, the
coal-merchant from Newcastle, who had already confided to his intimates
of the company the unnecessary information that the "little woman" in
violet was the best "view" he hoped to see in Switzerland.
There were five sledges in all taking the company to Andana, and two of
them devoted to ungovernable youth. These lads from the universities
and the schools, convinced that Switzerland existed as a republic merely
by their patronage, hastened at every turn to give some demonstration of
their superiority, either as performers upon the bugle, or as
"yoodlers," or merely as marksmen, with the passers-by on the slopes
below for their targets. The newly-fallen snow delighted them by its
promise of good ski-ing for some days to come. But for the glorious
panorama of the Rhone, for the wonder of height and valley, they cared
not a straw.
Of the others, a fat man in a well-made suit of tweeds, and a bright
little woman, whose luggage was marked "Lady Coral-Smith," were the
subjects of some mischief in the other sleighs and of not a little
gossip. They were old friends, as they were careful to tell everyone
who did not ask; and by the oddest coincidence in the world, they met on
the platform at the Gare de Lyon. So they were travelling to Andana
together--where, as Lady Coral-Smith explained, her poor dead husband,
who had thrice been mayor of Brampton-upon-Sea, died after a long
illness some four years ago. She would tell this with the air of one
who invited sympathy for what she had gone through and some tolerance
for a gaiety of spirit natural to the circumstance. Nor was she without
a certain measure of good looks, bravely as her "art" strove to disguise
them.
The Major on his part--Major Boodle to be exact--was an excellent
example of the half-pay officer, who is driven to a perpetual conflict
between his desires and his pension. He had seen a little service in
the South African War and in Egypt, and spoke of it good humouredly, but
without any sense of proportion. To him, the Boers were still "those
d----d Dutchmen," and he remembered little about the campaign apart from
the attack of enteric which kept him three months at Colesberg. His
laugh was loud, his face fat and without distinction, and his chief
concern the absence of any restaurant between Sierre and the hotel.
Someone, he thought, should write to the _Times_ about that, and he had
said as much to the "little widow" before they started--and would have
said more but for the sharp eyes of the mayor's relict, who called him
to her side with the asperity of a colonel on parade.
This was the little company which left Sierre at eight o'clock upon the
morning of the first day of February and searched with eager eyes for
the first glimpse of the plateau of Andana and its destination. The most
part of them, newly come out of England, discussed the glorious sunshine
to begin with, and upon that the fog and rain which would then be
exasperating their own countrymen. By here and there, they paused to
cast backward glances at the genial parson and the "little widow"; while
Bob Otway, a mature philosopher of one-and-twenty, remarked to his
friend, Dick Fenton, a practised cynicist of like years, that "old
Harry" was certainly "going it." Which reflection he capped by the
assurance that Andana was a "devilish mouse-trap" for the men, and that
a fellow was wise to be careful.
"It's perfectly impossible not to propose to a girl if her Q's are all
right," he said--and then, by way of illustration--"look at Mondy Thurl,
who was here last year. He married that Toogood girl just because she
could hold out the tails of her threes. Rotten idea, I call it--"
Dick Fenton, who was tramping doggedly by the side of his sledge,
admitted that there was something in it--but he spoke of consolations.
"Anyway, my boy, she didn't hold out the tails of your threes, and
that's something. Poor old Mondy! I expect he's wondering what he did
it for now. He must have thawed a bit before he got back to town. A man
can't be expected to know what he's doing out here--and that Toogood
girl could fall down. Why, I believe she practised it before the glass
just to show what a pretty ankle she had got. She always used to come
down just when old Mondy was there to pick her up."
"Of course she did. She specialised in him, just as those Rider girls
would specialise in you, Dick, if they got the chance. You heard they
came over from Caux on Thursday?"
"Yes, the parson told me--what an old dear he is, making love to the
'little widow' at his time of life! Why, she can't be five-and-twenty--"
"And she is undoubtedly 'it.' I'm beginning to be sorry for the Rider
girls, Dick."
Dick sighed.
"It's the way they take the last corner on the ice-run," he said
sorrowfully, "I know I shall be done for if I win the doubles with
Marjory. She holds my neck so tight that I believe she'll strangle me
some day--"
"She'll do that unless you propose to her; you'd better get it over, old
chap, and I'll write to your people. By Jove, though, it's hot, isn't
it?--couldn't you drink a lager beer?"
He stopped to wipe his forehead and to look back for an instant at the
valley below and the little town of Sierre, now become more toy-like
than ever, but for its skating rink, which sparkled like a jewel dropped
from the heights. Even the pines carried a burden of the hoar to-day,
and every thicket upon the steep slopes, every wood through which the
sleighs carried them, had some picture more fantastic than its
predecessors to show them. The air was keen as a breath of life itself;
it had brought the colour anew to the "widow's" pale cheeks, and her
eyes were dancing while she listened to the rhapsodies of the genial old
clergyman, who knew and loved the scene and delighted to dwell upon it.
Twenty times already had he named the different peaks to her, but his
enthusiasm was unabated.
"Vermala is up above the forest," he said, "we often take luges and have
tea up there. You can see the Matterhorn from the plateau before the
tea-house. Oh, yes, and Mont Blanc; there's a fine view of that and of
the Dents Blanches from the Park Hotel. Beginners always go there to
learn to ski--I suppose you are already an expert?"
The "little widow" shook her head.
"It's all quite new to me. I have been to Switzerland many times in the
summer; but never in the winter--I had expected something quite
different. All this is very beautiful--but is it not just a little too
exciting? Would not one have to be something of an acrobat to enjoy it
thoroughly?"
Harry Clavering laughed.
"Ah," he said, "everyone thinks that when he first comes out. But we
all become acrobats and do the most wonderful things before we have been
here a week. Why, even I have been down the ice-run at my age--dear,
dear, to think of it--and I am fifty-seven.
"Do you not believe, then, that a man is as old as his capacities?"
The parson beamed beneath his glasses--she certainly was a delightful
woman to travel with, and he had yet to learn her name.
"I believe in thinking of pleasant things," he said, "old age is
pleasant enough if you forget it. And we all become young here; the air
inspires us--I think it makes us quite mad sometimes. Then the scenery
is so beautiful, so very, very beautiful. Look at those peaks--how the
sun shines upon them! And I have wasted one whole week in London when I
might have been here. Deplorable! That week has gone forever--"
She liked his enthusiasm, yet could not forbear to intrude upon it.
"But I hear of blizzards," she exclaimed. "Whatever do you do at Andana
when there is a blizzard?"
"We grumble and are happy. Snow is as necessary to us here as water to
the Arab of the desert. We are thankful to see the snow falling, and we
go into our corners and play bridge. I suppose you will join us there?
I felt sure you played bridge directly I saw you."
She laughed, showing him how white were her teeth, and how deeply the
blue of her eyes contrasted with the azure of the cloudless sky.
"Oh," she said, "one has to do the necessary things. But I am a dreadful
player, and the old ladies get very angry with me. I should never have
the courage to play with strangers--"
He hastened to correct her.
"No one is a stranger here. That is the best of it. In a way, we are
all friends--though, of course, there are people we like better than
others."
"Which means to say that you find yourself already devoted heart and
soul to Lady Coral-Smith, and the intimate acquaintance of that dreadful
person in the yellow suit, Sir Gordon Snagg."
He shook his head as one who would not do battle with her.
"Come, come," he said. "We must not be unkind. Some give and take is
necessary in a society like this--and we can always choose our own road
if we prefer. Sometimes, I wander by myself all day--once, when I felt
the need of rest, I went over to Grindelwald--with a guide for my
companion."
She turned upon him with a face grown suddenly white.
"Grindelwald! But we are not near Grindelwald? It can't be."
"Indeed," he said, quite unconscious of her embarrassment, "it is quite
near for the climbers, though men of my age generally prefer to go by
train. Do you know Grindelwald, by chance?"
She feigned an answer, glad to think that her betrayal had escaped the
ears of her kindly cicerone.
"I stayed there three nights; it seems a century ago, but I was on my
honeymoon, and you will understand--"
"Perfectly, perfectly; I should not have put the question. You must
forgive me."
The "little widow" replied with a commonplace, but both were silent for
a full mile or more, and when next Clavering spoke, they had come out
upon a wide plateau of the snow and were within twenty minutes of their
destination. Here the scene changed in a measure, for there were woods
upon the right hand, while the broad expanse of the snow hid the valley
from their sight. A little village with a winding street and houses
that should have come out of a child's play-box, stood between the
plateau and the hotel; and when they had passed it, they entered the
forest itself, following a tortuous path amid the pines and already
meeting many of the revellers. From these, news of Andana was to be
had, especially from a delightful woman of the world, whose age was
thirteen and whose uncle was a Cabinet Minister. Skis permitted her to
follow the sledge gracefully, and she talked as though the end of the
world were at hand and would find her budget undelivered.
"Keith Rivers is here and he's winning everything," she said. "I'm in
for the doubles with him to-morrow, and it's a certainty. Dr. Orange
came yesterday. Of course, everyone is more in love with him than ever.
The ice has been beastly, but we've put in a protest--in fact, we've
riddled the enemy with potholes, and I suppose he'll do something. Do
you know Ian Kavanagh, I wonder? He was a blue, and his father left him
thousands and thousands. It's awful to start life with that on your
shoulders, isn't it? But he seems strong. Of course, he can't skate a
bit, but we forgive him, because he can do other things. Then I must
tell you, there's Benny--do you know Benny? If you do not, you have
missed the joy of your life. He's the most good-natured, stupidest,
obstinate creature I ever met in all my days. Think of it--he'd never
been on skis before, and he went out the day before the blizzard and
actually tried to jump. I thought he was going to fall over the edge of
the world before he'd stop. Oh, he is such a dear, and I do wish he'd
move into the hotel, and not stop at that awful villa--"
An empty sleigh, drawn by two sturdy horses tandem fashion, came
cantering down the path and the business of passing in so difficult a
place stilled the ravenous tongue for a moment. When they got on again,
Harry Clavering ventured upon an introduction:
"This is our philosopher and reigning monarch," he said genially--"Miss
Elizabeth Bethune. Permit me to introduce her"; and he turned and
waited, remembering that he had not yet the "little widow's" name. She
remembered it also, and her face was crimson when she said:
"I am Mrs. Kennaird--I am glad to meet my sovereign."
"Oh, indeed," exclaimed Miss Elizabeth with a pretty pout; "this is not
a golden age, I assure you, Mrs. Kennaird, and Mr. Clavering never will
be sensible; I don't believe he could be if he tried. It would serve
him right if I said nothing about the ghost--"
They both looked at her.
"The ghost! Here at Andana?"
"I should think so; everybody's seen it but Mr. Benny, and, of course,
he's blind. Do you know the people in the villages are so frightened
that some of them are going down to Sierre? Well, it's true, and even
that horrid Dr. Orange, who believes in nothing but his 'brackets,' why,
he's in a dreadful way about it. We're to have a picnic after dinner
to-night, just to see if we can find it."
"I shall certainly come," rejoined Clavering; and then to Mrs. Kennaird
he said:
"Perhaps you will join the expedition?"
But the "little widow" shook her head sadly.
"No," she said, "I think not--my life is too full of ghosts. I would
not add to the number."
And that was the end of it, for the drivers whipped up their horses at
the moment, and with a jangling of bells and guttural cries from the
men, they emerged from the wood, and the Palace Hotel was before them.
Here Dr. Orange and a few others were gathered, waiting the bell for
luncheon. They greeted such of the new-comers as were known to them
with an exuberant welcome; nor did they fail to bestow their interest
upon the "little widow."
"A devilish dainty little woman," said that condescending young
gentleman, Keith Rivers.
Dr. Orange, however, a slim, good-looking man of forty, had become
suddenly preoccupied.
"By Jove!" he said, "I know that face almost as well as my own. Now
where--?"
*CHAPTER II*
*A DARK HORSE GOES DOWN*
The morning of the following day surpassed the expectation even of those
who wrote the story of Andana for the English newspapers. People who
were out of the hotel by nine o'clock returned to tell their friends
that the sun was broiling. Others went to the little bazaar for blue
glasses at one franc fifty.
There had been mist in the Rhone valley at dawn and wisps of it still
hung about the entrance to the Simplon. Weather prophets detected a
good omen here, and stood before the porch of the hotel to peer down
into that unsurpassable ravine and to say that the cluster of black dots
immediately below them stood for the church and streets of Sierre. To
the right and left were the great clefts of the mighty chasm, a vast pit
digged by the waters that flowed before man was, and were now sown with
towns and villages and the iron links of civilisation.
The hotel at Andana stands upon the brink of the valley at a height of
five thousand feet. Immediately facing it upon the farther side are the
twin peaks of the Weisshorn with its sheer and glistening precipices,
and a little to the right of that, the Rothhorn and the shining glaciers
which are the windows to that supreme escarpment. Look farther to the
right across the vast abyss, and you have Sion in the hollow and for
your heights the Becs de Bosson--or farther yet, the Aiguilles Rouges
and all their story of hazard and achievement. These stand up amid
countless peaks, while from the lesser mountains of the Simplon upon the
one hand, right away to Mont Blanc upon the other, the eye is spellbound
both by the number and the grandeur of these dominating summits.
Deep in the valley lies the Rhone, but a thread of silver to those upon
the heights. Andana stands high above its right bank, and the mountains
behind it, lacking something in variety, are yet incomparable in the
delights they afford to the winter sportsman. Here the climber seeks
the wider fields of untrodden snows, the gentler valleys and the
vanquished summits. And here in the woods there is a solitude of winter
whose charm is not readily to be forgotten.
The "little widow" had slept well after her long journey, and she awoke
to the delights of this unfamiliar scene just when the clocks were
striking nine. Lying a little while to speculate upon the events of the
long journey from Egypt and to wonder if any in the hotel would know
her, presently her ears became aware of an unusual clatter below her
window. When she looked out she discovered a party on skis about to set
out for a paper chase, and announcing the fact with the boisterous
spirit of the mountains.
There they were, fathers of families and their sons; generals who had
cast off the shackles of Whitehall; colonels from India; merchants waxed
fat; boys from the universities--all dressed in the once-white sweaters,
the short knee-breeches and the regulation boots. Troops of girls and of
ladies of uncertain age accompanied them--gliding, sliding, staggering
upon the ungainly runners; and thus, in splendid disorder, the motley
march began.
When they were gone, the two young gentlemen who had come up with the
party from Sierre yesterday appeared upon the plateau with Miss Bessie
Bethune, and having bestowed upon her the gift of a few buckets of snow
applied chiefly to the nape of her neck, began to ask ironically when
the "show" would begin.
"Rivers said nine o'clock. I put my three-and-six-penny watch down the
back of the customs' man at Pontarlier, so I don't know, but I'll bet
it's nearly ten. Beastly shame to keep the cracks waiting. Snagg ought
to ask a question in Parliament about it."
To which Dick Fenton replied that Rivers was certainly "a nut" and that
they had better go up and crack him--which suggestion, adopted _nem.
con._, left Miss Bessie to herself for an instant and then to a duologue
with the "little widow," whom she espied at the window.
"Aren't you coming down to see the races, Mrs. Kennaird?"
"Oh, I hope so; what time do they begin?"
"That's what I want to know. If they don't come down soon, I shall race
by myself, and then they'll have to give me a prize. Do come and help
me. I'm in a dreadful minority."
"Then I must certainly come to your assistance. Is Mr. Clavering down
yet?"
"I haven't seen him; but, of course, we don't want the Church until
Sunday. There's no one on the run at all but Benny, and he doesn't
count. Have you seen Benny? Then it's a thing to dream about. He
lives all by himself in the chalet up there--such a wonderful man, and
always going about as though he were looking for his own soul. You'll
see him in a minute, for he's just gone up--but I don't suppose he'll
come down on the luge--I really can't believe that Benny would be
faithful to anything for more than five minutes. And, oh! here's Mr.
Kavanagh--I would like to introduce you, for he is such a dear!"
A tall, fair-haired man emerged from the hotel door at the moment, and
Miss Bessie immediately took possession of him, to his apparent
satisfaction, for they were gossiping like two old women when next the
"little widow" saw them. Immediately afterwards, someone shouted
"_Achtung!_" and a figure came flying down the ice-run which finishes at
the very door of the hotel. Roughly clad in a grey sweater and check
breeches, wearing no hat, and showing a thick crop of black hair, Mr.
Benjamin Benson, for it was he, clung to his toboggan wildly, his teeth
set and his eyes staring. When at last it flung him violently to the
snow, he got up with the smile of a child, and looked at it for many
minutes almost reproachfully. Then, patiently and laboriously he set out
to climb the hill again to have another try.
When he had gone, the "little widow" dressed herself without further
delay, and by a quarter to ten she also joined the throng before the
hotel door, and was immediately recognised by Harry Clavering, who told
her that the races were about to begin.
"Perhaps you would like to go up with me," he suggested a little
nervously. "I am time-keeper to-day, and I can show you just how it is
done. Everyone toboggans here, and you will like to begin as soon as
possible. Shall we go now?"
She offered no objection, and they set out at once, climbing steep steps
cut in the snow to a little bridge above the final straight of the
course. To his question whether she had discovered any friends at
Andana, she replied in the negative; but added that Mrs. Allwater and
her daughter Pansy were coming on from Caux in a few days' time--"and
they," she said, "are very old friends of mine."
When they arrived at the bridge they found quite a concourse of people,
that very self-conscious person, Ian Kavanagh, among the number. Hardly
had he set eyes on the "little widow" when he begged the parson to
introduce him.
"Do you do this sort of thing, Mrs. Kennaird?" he asked her, as he took
his stand near by. She answered with a smile that she was quite
unaccomplished on the ice.
"Prefer hunting, I suppose? Well, so do I, though what my twenty nags
are doing just now I won't ask. Eating their heads off, I suppose. Let
me get you a seat; this sun takes it out of one, and some of the girls
are staggering. You'll want all your courage, I can tell you."
He brought a cane chair, and set it upon the high bank so that she could
see the toboggans as they passed under the little bridge. Harry
Clavering watched all this ceremony with some impatience, and hastened
to cut in before the thing went any farther.
"I think they are wanting you, Mr. Kavanagh, at the starting-post," he
said with a smile of entreaty. "There's no flag there, and we must have
one. Would you very much object?"
"I should indeed, but, of course, if you command--" And the man, with a
look at the "little widow" which he meant to be unutterable, set out for
the unwelcome duty. Then the parson spoke.
"I don't understand Kavanagh," he said; "no energy at all--so
listless--and he is only twenty-seven, I believe. They say he has a
large fortune; it really is a great pity if it is true. Young men with
much money are dreadfully handicapped in the race for happiness--but
there, it is not my business after all, and I have no right to mention
it. Can you see quite well, Mrs. Kennaird?--the start is up there, you
know, by the little white cottage. I take the time directly the red
flag is lowered, and the man at the finish signals to me with his flag
when the course is finished. This is what we call an ice-run. They
flood the surface every night, and that makes it very fast. These high
banks are to guard the corners. If it were flat, they could not get
round at all. Some of them are very clever--Mr. Rivers, for instance.
He is standing over there, just by Lady Coral-Smith--the thin man in the
sweater with our Trinity colours."
He babbled on as though she had been a child; nor could her ignorance
quarrel with the lesson. Not for many a month had she felt so much
alive as out here upon the mountain-side, with the valley at her feet
and the whited woods above. The sense of vast space and dominion
delighted her--the merry people; the skaters upon the rink to the right
of her; the curlers upon the rink to the left; the sunshine, the feeling
that all the men and women in the world had suddenly become children and
were at play, combined to suggest an ecstasy of repose and
forgetfulness.
"Tell me, for I am very ignorant," she said, "do two people come down
the slide together?"
Harry Clavering was startled.
"We don't call it a slide--an 'ice-run' is the proper name," he said
almost apologetically. "There is only room for one runner at a time, as
you will see presently. They go so very fast. Why, it's more than a
mile from the cottage up there to the door of the hotel, and they do it
in a minute and a half! You must watch them as they take the corners;
that's the real fun--that's where they generally fall off."
"So we are here to support their miseries. How very noble of us! And
the man with the red flag up on the hillside?"
"He is the starter. Now see, there is young Bob Otway just about to
come down."
He was very excited, and watched the starting-box with restless eyes,
while she tried to follow him and to trace the serpentine course of the
run which might have been just a wide stretch of the ice extending from
the pine-woods above to the door of the hotel upon the plateau.
Half-way down, the track swept suddenly to the right, and then to the
left again--and here were the high banks of snow to ease the corners and
make them possible at high speeds. The "little widow" had just fallen
to a memory of her own girlhood and of the joy such a game would have
afforded her before the dark days, when Harry Clavering waved his red
flag violently and there was a general shout:
"He's off!"
"Only Bob Otway," said some kindly friend in the crowd who was an
optimist. "He's sure to take a toss." And it was a true saying, for
Master Bob came at the corner like a bull and was clean up and over it
before many realised that he started at all.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" exclaimed the old parson, quite as excited as any
boy about it. "He should not have taken the bank so high. Poor boy, I
hope he has not hurt himself." A comment which provoked a muttered
"D----d fool!" from a choleric colonel, who had seen the thing done in
Canada, and did not believe it possible to do it better in Switzerland.
Then a second competitor, Dick Fenton, started, and he came down
prettily enough, riding low at the banks and getting a splendid course
in the final straight. It was quite thrilling to see him, the "little
widow" declared; and when Harry Clavering announced the time as one
minute thirty-one seconds, she believed that Fenton must have won. Not
so the others. "Wait until Rivers has been down," they said. That
splendid personage obviously was their _piece de resistance_.
Meanwhile, there were "heats" for the ladies, and these found the men a
little nearer to the edge of the bank and frankly enjoying themselves.
Some of the girls rode very well--and, significantly, Marjory Rider,
whose name suggested proficiency, acquitted herself with hardly less
aplomb than her sister Nellie. Tall girls, and excessively thin, it
remained for an artist in the background to suggest that they never
would have got their living as "models." But they flashed down the
ice-run with a bravado that was incontestable, and their corners were,
in Bob Otway's words, "divine." They were followed by a pretty little
girl with a superb figure, who considerately parted company with her
toboggan on the second bank and went half-way down the straight with her
face to the heights and her back toward the winning post. Even this,
however, was capped by a mature lady of forty-three, who rolled over and
over at the first turn and had to be helped up the slope with a curler's
besom. In no way daunted, she set out immediately for the summit to
repeat a performance so diverting to the company.
The "little widow" found all this new enough to be pleasing, and there
was a curious fascination in watching this whirring from the heights;
while the prone figures, the drone of the runners, the leap at the
corners, the hard set faces, suggested that conquest of space and time
which never fails to be exciting. When they told her that Keith Rivers
was about to perform, she craned forward in her chair to see that
dashing youth, with his curly brown hair and his frank open face and his
contempt of other rivals. He had just left Eton and was going into the
army, they told her. And none at Andana could keep pace with him,
whether upon skis or skates. To be sure, he rode magnificently, taking
the corners with unerring judgment, and making a sweep into the straight
which dazzled the company. When the time was announced--one minute
twenty-nine seconds--it seemed that there was nothing for his friends
to do but to throw their caps into the air and claim the stakes. None
was left in now but Benny, and to think of Mr. Benjamin Benson as the
winner of the Grand Prix at Andana was too ridiculous.
Benny had just gone up to the starting-post, a well-made figure of a man
enough, with the kindliest eyes in all Switzerland. He walked with the
lurch of the sailor ashore; and the chaff that followed him was like
hail upon a pent-house roof. To Bess Bethune, who asked him if he were
going to beat record, he shouted back over his shoulder that he meant to
try. It was evident that he had little skill in repartee; and when
anyone wished him luck he took the words as he found them and missed the
irony. To Bob Otway, who recommended him to tie himself on with a rope,
he retorted that he would be the better for the loan of a monkey's tail;
and quite satisfied with the shot, he went plodding on up the hill to
the amusement of every superior person in the company.
There was a little delay at the post, for Benny would fall off his
toboggan before he got on to it, as the starter declared; and when they
did get him going, he leaped high into the air and fell with such a thud
upon the cushion of the machine that any other man's bones would have
been broken. From that moment his performance became entirely
astonishing. No one at Andana had ever taken the earlier bends of the
course so fast and so furiously, and it seemed quite impossible that he
could remain upon the course at all. Benny, however, was a sticker.
"Where I drop, there I lie," was one of the maxims of his life, and so
he lay very close to his toboggan, hugging it as though it were a pretty
girl, and never lifting his eyes from a form so attractive. Approaching
the corner he began to attain a speed which delighted the _cognoscenti_.
Uproarious applause mingled with mocking laughter. All said and done,
the world likes a butt--and what other role could such a man have
filled?
"Stick to it, old chap!" "Hang on, Benjamin!" "Give him his head!" "Now
we're jumping!" "Benny's a nut!" "Oh, my hat, see that!" "Hard to
starboard, Benjamin!"--such were the cries that were to be heard above
the din as the rider approached the corner. Here, surely, the gallery
believed that this meteoric display must terminate. The leap from the
second bank to a long straight run carried Benny to the first of the
monstrous corners, and here he must be unshipped. As the flash of a
blackbird against a curtain of the snow, he rushed the straight and
struck the great mound which defended the bend. People saw him shoot
high into the air, then fall again with hands gripping the bars of the
runners, and eyes which stared from his head. A great "Oh!" went up, a
murmur of wonder and amazement. Someone said that he was round the
second bank, but no one believed it until a cry from the final straight
turned all eyes thither, and Benny was espied leaping to the goal. Then
the red flag fell. The race was over--and more wonderful to tell, Benny
had won it!
No one believed the thing at first. Even Harry Clavering felt very
dubious about it, and looked at his watch a good many times before
daring to announce the result. "One minute twenty-seven and four-fifth
seconds," the chronograph said, and, to be sure, it was no good
disputing that. So the kindly little man admitted almost apologetically
at last that he really believed Mr. Benson had won. Upon which a
curious, half-mocking silence fell upon the company. In a way its pride
of judgment was hurt, and it had not the manliness to say so. That the
Grand Prix, the race of the year, should be won by a half-savage
sailor-man, who knew no more of the science of the game than a heathen
Chinee, was surely an insult to the elect of Andana! And then all the
fine talk on the part of men like Ian Kavanagh and Keith Rivers, the
attitudes and devotions of the Rider girls, were those to count for
nothing? An unspoken resentment against the dark horse, who certainly
had gone down, left Benny without a cheer. There was only one person in
the crowd who spoke an honest word to him, and she was the "little
widow."
"I'm so glad you won," she said, meeting him in the veranda of the
hotel, and quite regardless of the formalities. Benny's eyes lighted up
like lamps when he heard her.
"Do you really mean that, Mrs. Kennaird?"
"I mean every word of it. Pride has had many falls to-day. I am not at
all sorry."
"Thank you very much," he said; and then, as simply as a boy, he added:
"I knew I should do it if I could stick on."
"That's why you won," she rejoined; "because you knew you would," and
with a smile that he would never forget she passed on into the hall.
The "little widow" had awarded Benny his prize. He fell there and then
to wondering if it were the last he would ever win from her.
*CHAPTER III*
*CONCERNING A DISOBLIGING GHOST*
The "little widow" had come to Andana under the mistaken notion that it
was a nook in the backwoods of Switzerland where none might discover
her. She was very much astonished and not a little dismayed to discover
a middle-class society of an exuberant order and a noisy frivolity which
could not but amuse her.
In such a company it was hardly possible for her to remain undiscovered,
and she had not been in the hotel many hours when that Admirable
Crichton, Dr. Orange, invited her to his own table. There she speedily
began to reign to the satisfaction of a little coterie of the elect. If
she, in her turn, shrank from the greatness thus thrust upon her, she
was grateful for the compliment, and hastened to accept it. She had
been alone so many months--she who was but seven-and-twenty, and had the
heart of a child.
It was a great dinner that night, and merry the mood of the company.
The "little widow" herself wore a dress of black velvet with a glorious
"what-do-you-call-it" of white silk beneath it, as Bob Otway told his
sister when describing it. Her diamonds were undoubtedly magnificent.
Obviously a woman of fashion and of the world, she racked the
animosities of prim misses from the suburbs and positively exasperated
their mammas. These were of the "blouse" order, and obviously sober
both in the matter of habit and of fashion. They dined with their eyes
upon the "little widow" and their ears bent to every breath of gossip
which stirred in an atmosphere odorous of dinner and cheap scents.
Dr. Orange, meanwhile, was hardly conscious of the envy he excited. He
had not heard the rhapsodies of the males or the conviction, general
when the fish was served, that her eyes were divine. He saw a charming
woman, with a skin that Greuze would have copied, a mouth that a
suburban poet would have likened to a "rosebud," and hair so fine and
silky and bewitching in its play of browns that another woman would have
been tempted to ask immediately for the name of the hairdresser who
supplied it. Her nose was _retrousse_ and just a little flat; her
forehead spoke of intellect; her neck and arms of a figure which an
artist alone might have criticised. And so back to the eyes
again--those eyes divinely blue, which looked into a man's soul (if he
had one) or sent the devil flying out of him as though holy-water had
been sprinkled round about.
The doctor was aware of all this, and so was Bess, who really rather
despised middle-class folk and consorted with them merely because her
uncle, the Cabinet Minister, was a Radical. But despite their
knowledge, the usual conversation was eschewed altogether, and they
discussed neither the magnificence of the latest production at His
Majesty's, nor the fashionable intelligence from Monte Carlo. Andana
and its excitements were topic enough--for was not this a day of
prize-giving, and was not the doctor at his wits' end to find a
prize-giver?
"I would like you to do it," he said to the beautiful woman at his side,
"but they will have a title here. I suppose it must be that amusing
person, Lady Coral-Smith--her husband made his money out of red
herrings, and we shall have to draw one across the scent. All this kind
of thing devolves upon me. I have to run everything: the hotel, the
races, the invalids--and even Miss Elizabeth here. Do you wonder I am
growing older?"
"No one should grow older in the company of a clever woman," said Miss
Bessie, pouting. "It is only the consciousness of intellectual
inferiority which can say such a thing. I am angry with you, Dr.
Orange. Pass me the chocolates immediately."
"You see," said the doctor, appealing to them generally, "she covers me
with scorn and then dies for my sake. I shall have to prescribe for her
to-morrow."
"But I shall leave an imperishable memory behind me, and if anyone
remembers that such a person as Dr. Orange lived, they will say that he
was my doctor. Thank you, sir--your chocolates are beastly. I shall
keep them for the ghost."
Here was a new topic, and one to which they turned with gusto. Andana
was not so well amused that it had not a corner to spare for this
particularly disobliging phantom, who had scared the peasants out of
their wits and had actually appeared to a party coming down from Vermala
at midnight. Miss Bessie told the story with a sense of drama all
admirable; but she prefaced her narrative with the assurance that she
would as soon believe in it as in the doctor at her side.
"There isn't any ghost, and so we are going out to look for it," she
said; "the doctor wouldn't dress because he thinks he looks nicer in the
green tie. The ghost might be feminine, you know. Perhaps she wants
votes for women, and so appeals first to the weaker intelligence. They
say that no end of people have seen her, including the Swan; but he
doesn't count. Do you know the Swan? Oh, he's a dear, and he thinks
he's swimming when he waltzes. He went up to Vermala to dinner the
other night and saw the ghost as he came down. It's a great big black
bird and makes a noise like a windmill. Dr. Orange says that it is
troubled by asthma, but Mr. Benny says that its bones want greasing. He
is an engineer, you know. He told me so yesterday. He is an engineer
in principle, but in practice they won't have him, for he cannot pass
the exams. Some men are so unlucky, while others--well, no one knows
how they manage to get through. There is Dr. Orange, for instance; I
think they must have passed him because they couldn't stand the green
bow. There could not be any other reason. Well, as I was saying--what,
are you going to begin already, and I haven't finished my ice?
Monster!"
But the doctor had risen and now announced very briefly that Lady
Coral-Smith had kindly offered to present the prizes to the winners in
the various competitions held during the past week; so that brisk little
woman, dressed like a Grecian shepherdess, with little white daisies all
over her gown, came nodding and smiling to the table and began to hand
out various ridiculous presents to the winners in question. Of these,
the most conspicuous were the Rider girls, now resplendent in muslin
dresses with bright blue bows, and their frequent appearances at the
table gave rise to resounding cheers, not unaccompanied by kindly
comments of an amiably derisive order.
Ian Kavanagh, that golden youth with the flaxen hair, had conducted his
conversation chiefly in monosyllables during dinner; but he was a trifle
more condescending at this stage, and declared it to be a pity that
these accomplished young ladies had not to get their living at the
Coliseum!--or other popular resort where acrobatic performances were
properly rewarded. He thought that Andana was unworthy of them.
"They came here to win pots," he said scornfully. "The man who marries
them is sure of a hundred or more _objets d'art_--to say nothing of
virtue--all bought in the bazaar for one franc fifty. That ought to
console him--"