THE LION'S MOUTH
It was a chilly morning, with rather a high wind; from the haze about
the mountains of the Zermatt valley, which were all that I could see
from my bedroom window, it occurred to me that I might look in vain for
the Matterhorn from the other side of the hotel. It was still visible,
however, when I came down, a white cloud wound about its middle like a
cloth, and the hotel telescope already trained upon its summit from the
shelter of the glass veranda.
"See anybody?" I asked of a man who sat at the telescope as though his
eye was frozen to the lens. He might have been witnessing the most
exciting adventure, where the naked eye saw only rock and snow, and cold
grey sky; but he rose at last with a shake of the head, a great gaunt
man with kind keen eyes, and the skin peeled off his nose.
"No," said he, "I can't see anybody, and I'm very glad I can't. It's
about as bad a morning for it as you could possibly have; yet last night
was so fine that some fellows might have got up to the hut, and been
foolish enough not to come down again. But have a look for yourself."
"Oh, thanks," said I, considerably relieved at what I heard, "but if you
can't see anybody I'm sure I can't. You have done it yourself, I
daresay?"
The gaunt man smiled demurely, and the keen eyes twinkled in his flayed
face. He was, indeed, a palpable mountaineer.
"What, the Matterhorn?" said he, lowering his voice and looking about
him as if on the point of some discreditable admission. "Oh, yes, I've
done the Matterhorn, back and front and both sides, with and without
guides; but everybody has, in these days. It's nothing when you know the
ropes and chains and things. They've got everything up there now except
an iron staircase. Still, I should be sorry to tackle it to-day, even if
they had a lift!"
"Do you think guides would?" I asked, less reassured than I had felt at
first.
"It depends on the guides. They are not the first to turn back, as a
rule; but they like wind and mist even less than we do. The guides know
what wind and mist mean."
I now understood the special disadvantages of the day and realised the
obvious dangers. I could only hope that either Bob Evers or his guides
had shown the one kind of courage required by the occasion, the moral
courage of turning back. But I was not at all sure of Bob. His stimulus
was not that of the single-minded, level-headed mountaineer; in his
romantic exaltation he was capable of hailing the very perils as so many
more means of grace in the sight of Mrs. Lascelles; yet without doubt he
would have repudiated any such incentive, and that in all the sincerity
of his simple heart. He did not know himself as I knew him.
My fears were soon confirmed. Returning to the glass veranda, after the
stock breakfast of the Swiss hotel, with its horseshoe rolls and
fabricated honey, I found the telescope the centre of an ominous crowd,
on whose fringe hovered my new friend the mountaineer.
"We were wrong," he muttered to me. "Some fools are up there, after
all."
"How many?" I asked quickly.
"I don't know. There's no getting near the telescope now, and won't be
till the clouds blot them out altogether."
I looked out at the Matterhorn. The loincloth of cloud had shaken itself
out into a flowing robe, from which only the brown skull of the mountain
protruded in its white skull-cap.
"There are three of them," announced a nasal voice from the heart of the
little crowd. "A great long chap and two guides."
"He can't possibly know that," remarked the mountaineer to me, "but
let's hope it is so."
"They're as plain as pike-staffs," continued Quinby, whose bent blond
head I now distinguished, as he occupied the congenial post of Sister
Anne. "They seem stuck.... No, they're getting up on to the snow-slope,
and the front man's cutting steps."
"Then they're all right for the present," said the mountaineer. "It's
the getting down that's ticklish."
"You can see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there
must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the
snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to
meet it."
"All very well going _up_," murmured the mountaineer: there was a
sinister innuendo in the curt comments of the practical man.
I turned into the hall. It, however, was quite deserted. I had hoped I
might see something of Mrs. Lascelles; she was not one of those in the
glass veranda. I now looked in the drawing-room, but neither was she
there. Returning to the empty hall, I passed a minute peering through
the locked glass door of the pigeon-holes in which the careful concierge
files the unclaimed letters. There was nothing for me that I could
discern, in the C pigeon-hole; but next door but one, under E, there lay
on the very top a letter which caught my eye and more. It had not been
through any post. It was a note directed to R. Evers, Esq., in a hand
that I knew instinctively to be that of Mrs. Lascelles, though I had
never seen it in my life before. It was a good hand, but large and bold
and downright as herself.
The concierge stood in the doorway, one eye on the disappearing
Matterhorn, one on the experts and others in animated conclave round the
still inaccessible telescope. I touched the concierge on the arm.
"Did you see Mrs. Lascelles this morning?"
The man's eyes opened before his lips.
"She has gone away, sir."
"I know," I said, having indeed divined no less. "What train did she
catch?"
"The first one from here. That also catches the early train from
Zermatt."
"I am sorry," I said after a pause. "I hoped to see Mrs. Lascelles
before she went; now I must write. She left you an address, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"I shall ask you for it later on. No letters for me, I suppose?"
"No, sir."
"Sure?"
"I will look again."
And I looked with him, over his shoulder; but there was nothing; and
the note for Bob Evers now inspired me with a tripartite blend of
curiosity, envy, and apprehension. I would have had a last word from the
same hand myself; had it been never so scornful, this silent scorn was
the harder sort to bear. Also I wanted much to know what her last word
was to Bob--and dreaded more what it might be.
There remained the unexpected triumph of having got rid of my lady after
all. That is not to be belittled even now. It is a triumph to succeed in
any undertaking, more especially when one has abandoned one's own last
hope of such success. The unpleasant character of this particular
emprise made its eventual accomplishment in some ways the greater matter
for congratulation in my eyes. At least I had done my part. I had come
to hate it, but the thing was done, and it had been a fairly difficult
thing to do. It was impossible not to plume oneself a little on the
whole, but the feeling was a superficial one, with deeper and uneasier
feelings underneath. Still, I had practically redeemed my impulsive
promise to Catherine Evers; her son and this woman once parted, it
should be easy to keep them apart, and my knowledge of the woman
forbade me to deny the fullest significance to her departure. She had
gone away to stay away--from Bob. She had listened to me the less with
her ears, because her reason and her heart had been compelled to heed.
To be sure, she saw the unsuitability, the impossibility, as clearly as
we did. But it was I who, at all events, had helped to make her see it;
wherefore I deserved well of Catherine Evers, if of no other person in
the world.
Oddly enough, this last consideration afforded me least satisfaction; it
seemed to bring home to me by force of contrast the poor figure that I
must assuredly cut in the eyes of the other two, the still poorer
opinion that they would have of me if ever they knew all. I did not care
to pursue this train of thought. It was a subject upon which I was not
prepared to examine myself; to change it, I thought of Bob's present
peril, which I had almost forgotten as I lounged abstractedly in the
empty hall. If anything were to happen to him, in the vulgar sense! What
an irony, what poetic punishment for us survivors! And yet, even as I
rehearsed the ghastly climax in my mind, I told myself that the mother
would rather see him even thus, than married to a widow who had also
been divorced; it was the younger woman who would never forgive me, or
herself.
Disappointed faces met me on my next visit to the veranda. The little
crowd there had dwindled to a group. I could have had the telescope now
for as long as I liked: the upper part of the Matterhorn was finally and
utterly effaced and swallowed up by dense white mist and cloud. My
friend the mountaineer looked grave, but his disfigured face did not
wear the baulked expression of others to which he drew my attention.
"It is like the curtain coming down with the man's head still in the
lion's mouth," said he.
"I hope," said I devoutly, "that you don't seriously think there's any
analogy?"
The climber looked at me steadily, and then smiled.
"Well, no, perhaps I don't think it quite so bad as all that. But it's
no use pretending it isn't dangerous. May I ask if you know who the
foolhardy fellow is?"
I said I did not know, but mentioned my suspicion, only begging my
climbing friend not to let the name go any farther. It was in too many
mouths already, in quite another connection, I was going on to explain;
but the mountaineer nodded, as much as to warn me that even he knew all
about that. It was Bob's office, however, to provide the hotel with its
sensation while he remained, and he was not allowed to perform
anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked
if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery;
desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky
youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal
ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I
gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and
never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded
by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy in all its imaginary
details. As, however, the talk invariably abated at my approach, giving
place to uncomplimentary glances in my direction, I could not but infer
that public opinion had assigned me an unenviable part in the piece.
Perhaps I deserved it, though not from their point of view.
The afternoon was at once a dreariness and a dread. There was no ray of
sun without, no sort of warmth within. The Matterhorn never reappeared,
but seemed the grimmer monster for this sinister invisibility. I
gathered that there was real occasion for anxiety, if not for alarm, and
I nursed mine chiefly in my own room until I heard the news when I went
down for my letters. Bob Evers had walked in as though nothing had
happened, and gone straight up to his room with a note that the
concierge handed him. Some one had asked him whether it was he who had
been up the Matterhorn in the morning, and young Evers had vouchsafed
the barest affirmative compatible with civility. The sunburnt climber
was my informant.
"And I don't mind telling you it is a relief to me," he added, "and to
everybody, though I shouldn't wonder if there was a little unconscious
disappointment in the air as well. I congratulate you, for I could see
you were anxious, and I must find an opportunity of congratulating your
young friend himself."
Meanwhile no such opportunity was afforded me, though I quite expected
and was fully prepared for another visit from Bob in my room. I waited
for him there until dinner-time, but he never came, and I was beginning
to wish he would. It was like the wrapping of the Matterhorn in mist; it
only widened the field of apprehension; and yet it was not for me to go
to the boy. My unrest was further aggravated by a letter which I had
just received from the boy's mother in answer to my first to her. It was
not a very dreadful letter; but I only trusted that no evil impulse had
caused Catherine to write in anything like the same strain to Bob; for
neither was it a very charitable letter, nor one that a man could be
glad to get from the woman whom he had set out on an enduring pinnacle.
There was only this to be said for it, that years ago I had sought in
vain for a really human weakness in Catherine Evers, and now at last I
had found one. She was rather too human about Mrs. Lascelles.
I looked for Bob both at and after dinner, but we were never within
speaking distance and I fancied he avoided even my eye. What had Mrs.
Lascelles said? He looked redder and browner and rougher in the face,
but I heard that he would hardly open his lips at table, that he was
almost surly on the subject of his exploit. Everybody else appeared to
me to be speaking of it, or of Bob himself; but I had him on my nerves
and may well have formed an exaggerated impression about it all. Only I
do not forget some of the things I did overhear that day, and night; and
they now had the effect of sending me in search of Bob, since Bob would
not come near me. "I will have it out with him," I grimly decided, "and
then get out of this myself by the first train going." I had had quite
enough of the place that had enchanted me up to the last four-and-twenty
hours. I began to see myself back in Elm Park Gardens. There, at least,
if also there alone, I should get some credit for what I had done.
It was no use looking for Bob upon the terrace now; yet I did look
there, among other obvious places, before I could bring myself to knock
at his door. There was a light in his room, so I knew that he was there,
and he cried out admittance in so sharp a tone that I fancied he also
knew who knocked. I found him packing in his shirt-sleeves. He received
me with a stare in exact keeping with his tone. What on earth had Mrs.
Lascelles said?
"Going away?" I asked, as a mere preliminary, and I shut the door behind
me. Bob followed the action with raised eyebrows, then flung me the
shortest possible affirmative, as he bent once more over the suit-case on
the bed.
But in a few seconds he looked up.
"Anything I can do for you, Clephane?"
"That depends where you are going."
Bob went on packing with a smile. I guessed where he was going. "I
thought there might be something pressing," he remarked, without looking
up again.
"There is," said I. "There is something you can do for me on the spot.
You can try to believe that I have not meant to be quite such a skunk as
I may have seemed--to you," I was on the point of adding, but I stopped
short of that advisedly, as I thought of Mrs. Lascelles also.
"Oh, that's all right," said Bob, in a would-be airy tone that carried
its own contradiction. "All's fair, according to the proverb; I no more
blame you than you would have blamed me. I hope, on the contrary, that I
may congratulate you."
And he stood up with a look which, coupled with his words, made it my
turn to stare.
"Indeed you may not," said I.
"Aren't you engaged to her?" he asked.
"Good God, no!" I cried. "What made you think so?"
"Everything!" exclaimed Bob, after a moment's pause of obvious
bewilderment. "I--you see--I had a note from Mrs. Lascelles herself!"
"Yes?" said I, carefully careless, but I wanted more than ever to know
that missive's gist.
"Only a few lines," Bob went on, ruefully; "they are the first thing I
heard or saw when I got down, and they almost made me wish I'd come down
with a run! Well, it's no use talking about it, I only thought you'd
know. It was the usual smack in the eye, I suppose, only nicely put and
all that. She didn't tell me where she was going, or why; she told me I
had better ask you."
"But you wouldn't condescend."
Bob gave a rather friendly little laugh.
"I said I'd see you damned!" he admitted. "But of course I thought you
were the lucky man. I still half believe you are!"
"Well, I'm not."
"Do you mean to say that she's refused you too?"
"She hasn't had the chance."
Bob's eyes opened to an infantile width.
"But you told me you were in earnest!" he urged.
"As much in earnest as you were, I believe was what I said."
"That's the same thing," returned Bob, sharply. "You may not think it
is. I don't care what you think. But I'm very sorry you said you were in
earnest if you were not."
And his tone convinced me that he was no longer commiserating himself;
he was sorry on some new account, and the evident reality of his regret
filled me in turn with all the qualms of a guilty conscience.
"Why are you sorry?" I demanded.
"Oh, not on my own account," said Bob. "I'm delighted, personally, of
course."
"Then do you mean to say--you actually told her--I was as much in
earnest as you were?"
Bob Evers smiled openly in my face; it was the only revenge he ever
took; and even it was tempered by the inextinguishable sweetness of
expression and the childlike wide-eyed candour which were Bob's even in
the hour of his humiliation, and will be, one hopes, all his days.
"Not in so many words," he said, "but I am afraid I did tell her in
effect. You see, I took you at your word. I thought it was quite true.
I'm awfully sorry, Duncan. But it really does serve you right!"
I made no answer. I was looking at the suit-case on the bed. Bob seemed
to have lost all interest in his packing. I turned to leave him without
a word.
"I am awfully sorry!" he was the one to say again. I began to wonder
when he would see all round the point, and how it would affect his
feeling (to say nothing of his actions) when he did. Meanwhile it was
Bob who was holding out his hand.
"So am I," I said, taking it.
And for once I, too, was not thinking about myself.