ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE.
"When my child Brian was born we were renting a villa near San Stefano,
and were somewhat far removed from any English doctor. My doctor was,
therefore, an Italian; and what was worse, he was an Italian monk. I
hate foreigners, and I hate monks; so you may imagine for yourself the
way in which I looked upon him. No doubt he had a hand in the plot that
has ended so miserably for me and mine, so fortunately for you.
"My Brian was nursed by our gardener's wife, a young Italian woman
called Vincenza, whose child was about the age of mine. I saw Vincenza's
child several times. Its eyes were brown (like yours); my baby's eyes
were blue. It was when they were both about two months old that I was
seized with a malarious fever, then very prevalent. They kept the
children away from me for months. At last I insisted upon seeing them.
The baby had been ill, they told me; I must be prepared for a great
change in him. Even then my heart misgave me, I knew not why.
"Vincenza brought a child and laid it in my lap, I looked at it, and
then I looked at her. She was deadly white, and her eyes were red with
tears. I did not know why. Of course I see now that she had enough of
the mother's heart in her to be loath to give up her child. For it was
her child that she had placed upon my knee. I knew it from the very
first.
"'Take this child away and give me my own,' I said. 'This is not mine.'
"The woman threw up her hands and ran out of the room. I thought she had
gone to fetch my baby, and I remained with her child--a puny, crying
thing--upon my knees. But she did not return. Presently my husband came
in, and I appealed to him. 'Tell Vincenza to take her wretched, little
baby away,' I said. 'I want my own. This is her child; not mine.'
"My husband looked at me, pityingly, as it seemed to my eyes. Suddenly
the truth burst upon me. I sprang to my feet and threw the baby away
from me upon the bed. 'My child is dead,' I cried. 'Tell me the truth;
my child is dead.' And then I knew no more for days and weeks.
"When I recovered, I found, to my utter horror, that Vincenza and her
child had not left the house. My words had been taken for the ravings of
a mad woman. Every one believed the story of this wicked Italian woman
who declared that it was her child who had died, mine that had lived! I
knew better. Could I be mistaken in the features of my own child? Had my
Brian those great, dark, brown eyes? I saw how it was. The Italians had
plotted to put their child in my Brian's place; they had forgotten that
a mother's instinct would know her own amongst a thousand. I accused
them openly of their wickedness; and, in spite of their tears and
protestations, I saw from their guilty looks that it was true. My own
Brian was dead, and I was left with Vincenza's child, and expected to
love it as my own.
"For nobody believed me. My husband never believed me. He maintained to
the very last that you were his child and mine. I fought like a wild
beast for my dead child's rights; but even I was mastered in the end.
They threatened me--yes, James Colquhoun, in my husband's name,
threatened me--with a madhouse, if I did not put away from me the
suspicion that I had conceived. They assured me that Brian was not dead;
that it was Vincenza's child that had died; that I was incapable of
distinguishing one baby from another--and so on. They said that I should
be separated from my own boy--my Richard, whom I tenderly loved--unless
I put away from me this 'insane fancy,' and treated that Italian baby as
my son. Oh, they were cruel to me--very cruel. But they got their way. I
yielded because I could not bear to leave my husband and my boy. I let
them place the child in my arms, and I learnt to call it Brian. I buried
the secret in my own heart, but I was never once moved from my opinion.
My own child was buried at San Stefano, and the boy that I took back
with me to England was the gardener's son. You were that boy.
"I was silent about your parentage, but I never loved you, and my
husband knew that I did not. For that reason, I suppose, he made you his
favourite. He petted you, caressed you more than was reasonable or
right. Only once did any conversation on the subject pass between us. He
had refused to punish you when you were a boy of ten, and had quarrelled
with Richard. 'Mark my words,' I said to him, 'there will be more
quarrelling, and with worse results, if you do not put a stop to it now.
I should never trust a lad of Italian blood.' He looked at me, turning
pale as he looked. 'Have you not forgotten that unhappy delusion, then?'
he said. 'It is no delusion,' I answered him, composedly, 'to remind
myself sometimes that this boy--Brian, as you call him--is the son of
Giovanni Vasari and his wife.' 'Margaret,' he said, 'you are a mad
woman!' He went out, shutting the door hastily behind him. But he never
misunderstood me again. Do you know what were his last words to me upon
his death-bed? 'Don't tell him,' he said, pointing to you with his weak,
dying hand, 'If you ever loved me, Margaret, don't tell him.' And then
he died, before I had promised not to tell. If I had promised then, I
would have kept my word.
"I knew what he meant. I resolved that I would never tell you. And but
for Richard's death I would have held my tongue. But to see you in
Richard's place, with Richard's money and Richard's lands, is more than
I can bear. I will not tell this story to the world, but I refuse to
keep you in ignorance any longer. If you like to possess Richard's
wealth dishonestly, you are at liberty to do so. Any court of law would
give it to you, and say that it was legally yours. There is, I imagine,
no proof possible of the truth of my suspicions. Your mother and father
are, I believe, both dead. I do not remember the name of the monk who
acted as my doctor. There may be relations of your parents at San
Stefano, but they are not likely to know the story of Vincenza's child.
At any rate, you are not ignorant any longer of the reasons for which I
believe it possible that you knew what you were doing when you were
guilty of Richard Luttrell's death. There is not a drop of honest Scotch
or English blood in your veins. You are an Italian, and I have always
seen in your character the faults of the race to which by birth and
parentage you belong. If I had not been weak enough to yield to the
threats and the entreaties with which my husband and his tools assailed
me, you would now be living, as your forefathers lived, a rude and hardy
peasant on the North Italian plains; and I--I might have been a happy
woman still."
The letter bore the signature "Margaret Luttrell," and that was all.
The custodian of the place wondered what had come to the English
gentleman; he sat so still, with his face buried in his hands, and some
open sheets of paper at his feet. The old man had a pretty, fair-haired
daughter who could speak English a little. He called her and pointed out
the stranger's bowed figure from one of the cloister windows.
"He looks as if he had had some bad news," said the girl. "Do you think
that he is ill, father? Shall I take him a glass of water, and ask him
to walk into the house?"
Brian was aroused from a maze of wretched, confused thought by the touch
of Gretchen's light hand upon his arm. She had a glass of water in her
hand.
"Would the gentleman not drink?" she asked him, with a look of pity that
startled him from his absorption. "The sun was hot that day, and the
gentleman had chosen the hottest place to sit in; would he not rather
choose the cool cloister, or her father's house, for one little hour or
two?"
Brian stammered out some words of thanks, and drank the water eagerly.
He would not stay, however; he had bad news which compelled him to move
on quickly--as quickly as possible. And then, with a certain whiteness
about the lips, and a look of perplexed pain in his eyes, he picked up
the papers as they lay strewn upon the grass, bowed to Gretchen with
mechanical politeness, and made his way to the door by which he had come
in. One thing he forgot; he never thought of it until long afterwards;
the sweet, frail rose that Brother Dino had placed within his hand when
he bade him God-speed. In less than an hour he was in the train; he
hardly knew why or whither he was bound; he knew only that one of his
restless fits had seized him and was driving him from the town in the
way that it was wont to do.
Mrs. Luttrell's letter was a great shock to him. He never dreamt at
first of questioning the truth of her assertions. He thought it very
likely that she had been perfectly able to judge, and that her husband
had been mistaken in treating the matter as a delusion. At any time,
this conviction would have been a sore trouble to him, for he had loved
her and her husband and Richard very tenderly, but just now it seemed to
him almost more than he could bear. He had divested himself of nearly
the whole of what had been considered his inheritance, because he
disliked so much the thought of profiting by Richard's death; was he
also now to divest himself of the only name that he had known, of the
country that he loved, of the nation that he had been proud to call his
own? If his mother's story were true, he was, as she had said, the son
of an Italian gardener called Vasari; his name then must be Vasari; his
baptismal name he did not know. And Brian Luttrell did not exist; or
rather, Brian Luttrell had been buried as a baby in the little
churchyard of San Stefano. It was a bitter thought to him.
But it could not be true. His whole being rose up in revolt against the
suggestion that the father whom he had loved so well had not been his
own father; that Richard had been of no kin to him. Surely his mother's
mind must have been disordered when she refused to acknowledge him. It
could not possibly be true that he was not her son. At any rate, one
duty was plain to him. He must go to San Stefano and ascertain, as far
as he could, the true history of the Vasari family. And in the meantime
he could write to Mr. Colquhoun. He was obliged to go on to Geneva, as
he knew that letters and remittances were to await him there. As soon as
he had received the answer that Mr. Colquhoun would send to his letter
of inquiry, he would proceed to Italy at once.
Some delay in obtaining the expected remittances kept Brian for more
than a week at Geneva. And there, in spite of the seclusion in which he
chose to live, and his resolute avoidance of all society, it happened
that before he had been in the place three days he met an old University
acquaintance--a strong, cheery, good-natured fellow called Gunston,
whose passion for climbing Swiss mountains seemed to be unappeasable. He
tried hard to make Brian accompany him on his next expedition, but
failed. Both strength and energy were wanting to him at this time.
Mr. Colquhoun's answers to Brian's communications were short, and, to
the young-man's mind, unsatisfactory. "At the time when Mrs. Luttrell
first made the statement that she believed you to be Vincenza Vasari's
son, her mind was in a very unsettled state. Medical evidence went to
show that mothers did at times conceive a violent dislike to one or
other of their children. This was probably a case in point. The Vasaris
were honest, respectable people, and there was no reason to suppose that
any fraud had been perpetrated. At the same time, it was impossible to
convince Mrs. Luttrell that her own child had not died; and Mr.
Colquhoun was of opinion that she would never acknowledge Brian as her
son again, or consent to hold any personal intercourse with him."
"It would be better if I were dead and out of all this uncertainty,"
said Brian, bitterly, when he had read the letter. Yet, something in it
gave him a sort of stimulus. He took several long excursions, late
though the season was; and in a few days he again encountered Gunston,
who was delighted to welcome him as a companion. Brian was a practised
mountaineer; and though his health had lately been impaired, he seemed
to regain it in the cold, clear air of the Swiss Alps. Gunston did not
find him a genial companion; he was silent and even grim; but he was a
daring climber, and exposed his life sometimes with a hardihood which
approached temerity.
But a day arrived on which Brian's climbing feats came to an end. They
had made an easy ascent, and were descending the mountain on the
southern side, when an accident took place. It was one which often
occurs, and which can be easily pictured to oneself. They were crossing
some loose snow when the whole mass began to move, slowly first, then
rapidly, down the slope of the mountain-side.
Brian sank almost immediately up to his waist in the snow. He noticed
that the guide had turned his face to the descent and stretched out his
arms, and he imitated this action as well as he was able, hoping in that
manner to keep them free. But he was too deeply sunk in the snow to be
able to turn round, and as he was in the rear of the others he could not
see what became of his companions. He heard one shout from Gunston, and
that was all--"Good God, Luttrell, we're lost!" And then the avalanche
swept them onwards, first with a sharp, hissing sound, and then with a
grinding roar as of thunder, and Brian gave himself up for lost, indeed.
He was not sorry. Death was the easiest possible solution of all his
difficulties. He had looked for it many times; but he was glad to think
that on this day, at least, he had not sought it of his own free will.
He thought of his mother--he could not call her otherwise in this last
hour--he thought of the father and the brother who had been dear to him
in this world, and would not, he believed, be less dear to him in the
next; he thought of Angela, who would be a little sorry for him, and
Hugo, whom he could no longer help out of his numerous difficulties. All
these memories of his old home and friends flashed over his mind in less
than a second of time. He even thought of the estate, and of the Miss
Murray who would inherit it. And then he tried to say a little prayer,
but could not fix his mind sufficiently to put any petition into words.
And at this point he became aware that he was descending less rapidly.
His head and arms were fortunately still free. By a side glance he saw
that the snow at some distance before him had stopped sliding
altogether. Then it ceased to move at a still higher point, until at the
spot where he lay it also became motionless, although above him it was
still rushing down as if to bury him in a living grave. He threw his
hands up above his head, and made a furious effort to extricate himself
before the snow should freeze around him. And in this effort he was more
successful than he had even hoped to be. But the pressure of the snow
upon him was so great that he thought at first that it would break his
ribs. When the motion had ceased, however, this pressure became less
powerful; by the help of his ice-axe he managed to free himself, and
knew that he was as yet unhurt, if not yet safe.
He looked round for his friend and for the guides. They had all been
roped together, but the rope had broken between himself and his
companions. He saw only one prostrate form, and, at some little
distance, the hand of a man protruding from the white waste of snow.
The thought of affording help to the other members of the party
stimulated Brian to efforts which he would not, perhaps, have made on
his own account. In a short time he was able to make his way to the man
lying face downwards in the snow. He had already recognised him as one
of the guides. It needed but a slight examination to convince him that
this man was dead--not from suffocation or cold, but from the effects of
a wound inflicted in the fall. The hand, sticking out of the snow
belonged to the other guide; it was cold and stiff, and with all his
efforts Brian could not succeed in extricating the body from the snow in
which it was tightly wedged. Of the young Englishman, Gunston, and the
other guide, there was absolutely nothing to be seen.
Brian turned sick and faint when the conviction was forced upon him that
he would see his friend no more. His limbs failed him; he could not go
on. He was born to misfortune, he said to himself; born to bring trouble
and sorrow upon his companions and friends. Without him, Gunston would
not, perhaps, have attempted this ascent. And how could he carry home to
Gunston's family the story of his death?
After all, it was very unlikely that he would reach the bottom of the
mountain in safety. He had no guide; he was utterly ignorant of the way.
There were pitfalls without number in his path--crevasses, precipices,
treacherous ice-bridges, and slippery, loose snow. He would struggle on
until the end came, however; better to move, even towards death, than to
lie down and perish miserably of cold.
It is said sometimes that providence keeps a special watch over children
and drunken men; that is to say, that those who are absolutely incapable
of caring for themselves do sometimes, by wonderful good fortune, escape
the dangers into which sager persons are apt to fall. So it seemed with
Brian Luttrell. For hours he struggled onwards, sore pressed by cold,
and fatigue, and pain; but at last, long after night had fallen, he
staggered into a little hamlet on the southern side of the mountain,
footsore and fainting, indeed, but otherwise unharmed.
Nobody noticed his arrival very much. The villagers took him in, put him
to bed, and gave him food and drink, but they did not seem to think that
he was one of "the rich Englishmen" who sometimes visited their village,
and they did not at all realise what he had done. To make the descent
that Brian had done without a guide would have appeared to them little
short of miraculous.
Brian had no opportunity of explaining to them how he had come. He was
carried insensible into the one small inn that the village contained and
put to bed, where he woke up delirious and quite unable to give any
account of himself. When his mind was again clear, he remembered that it
was his duty to tell the story of the accident on the mountain, but as
soon as he uttered a few words on the subject he was met by an animated
and circumstantial account of the affair in all its details. Two
Englishmen, and two guides, and a porter had been crossing the mountain
when the avalanche took place; a guide and a porter had been killed, and
their bodies had been recovered. One Englishman had been killed also,
and the other----
"Yes, the other," began Brian, hurriedly, but the innkeeper stolidly
continued his story. The other had made his way back with the guide to
the nearest town. He was there still, and had been making expeditions
every day upon the mountain to find the dead body of his friend. But he
had given up the search now, and was returning to England on the morrow.
He had done all he could, poor gentleman, and it was more than a week
since the accident took place.
Brian suddenly put his head down on his pillow and lay still. Here was
the chance for which his soul had yearned! If the innkeeper spoke the
truth, he--Brian Luttrell--was already numbered amongst the dead. Why
should he take the trouble to come back to life?
"Were none of the Englishman's clothes or effects found?" he asked,
presently.
"Oh, yes, monsieur. His pocket-book--his hat. They were close to a
dangerous crevasse. A guide was lowered down it for fifty, eighty, feet,
but nothing of the unfortunate Englishman was to be seen. If he did not
fall into the crevasse his body may be recovered in the spring--but
hardly before. Yes, his pocket-book and his hat, monsieur." A sudden
gleam came into the little innkeeper's eyes, and he spoke somewhat
interrogatively--"Monsieur arrived here also without his hat?"
For the first time the possibility occurred to the innkeeper's mind of
his guest's identity with the missing Englishman. Brian answered with a
certain reluctance; he did not like the part that he would have to play.
"I lost my way in walking from V----," he said, mentioning a town at some
distance from the mountain-pass by which he had really come; "and my hat
was blown off by a gust of wind. The weather was not good. I lost my
way."
"True, monsieur. There was rain and there was wind: doubtless monsieur
wandered from the right track," said the innkeeper, accepting the
explanation in all good faith.
When he left the room, Brian examined his belongings with care. Nothing
in his possession was marked, owing to the fact that his clothes were
mostly new ones, purchased with a view to mountaineering requirements.
His pocket-book was lost. Mrs. Luttrell's letter and one or two other
papers, however, remained with him, and he had sufficient money in his
pockets to pay the innkeeper and preserve him from starvation for a
time. He wondered that nobody had reported an unknown traveller to be
lying ill in the village; but it was plain that his escape had been
thought impossible. Even Gunston had given him up for lost. As he learnt
afterwards, it was believed that he had not been able to sever the rope,
and that he, with one of the guides, had fallen into a crevasse. The
rope went straight down into the cleft, and he was believed to be at the
end of it. There was not the faintest doubt in the mind of the survivors
but that Brian Luttrell was dead. It remained for Brian himself to
decide whether he should go back to the town, reclaim his luggage, and
take up life again at the point where he seemed to have let it drop--or
go forth into the world, penniless and homeless, without a name, without
a hope for the future, and without a friend.
Which should he do?