AN INTERLUDE
Helen rose betimes next morning; but she found that the sun had kept
an earlier tryst. Not a cloud marred a sky of dazzling blue. The
phantom mist had gone with the shadows. From her bed room window she
could see the whole length of the Ober-Engadin, till the view was
abruptly shut off by the giant shoulders of Lagrev and Rosatch. The
brilliance of the coloring was the landscape's most astounding
feature. The lakes were planes of polished turquoise, the rocks pure
grays and browns and reds, the meadows emerald green, while the
shining white patches of snow on the highest mountain slopes helped to
blacken by contrast the somber clumps of pines that gathered thick
wherever man had not disputed with the trees the tenancy of each foot
of meager loam.
This morning glory of nature gladdened the girl's heart and drove
from it the overnight vapors. She dressed hurriedly, made a light
breakfast, and went out.
There was no need to ask the way. In front of the hotel the narrow
Silser See filled the valley. Close behind lay the crest of the pass.
A picturesque chateau was perched on a sheer rock overhanging the Vale
of Bregaglia and commanding a far flung prospect almost to the brink
of Como. On both sides rose the mountain barriers; but toward the east
there was an inviting gorge, beyond which the lofty Cima di Rosso
flung its eternal snows heavenward.
A footpath led in that direction. Helen, who prided herself on her
sense of locality, decided that it would bring her to the valley in
which were situated, as she learned by the map, a small lake and a
glacier.
"That will be a fine walk before lunch," she said, "and it is quite
impossible to lose the way."
So she set off, crossing the hotel golf course, and making for a
typical Swiss church that crowned the nearest of the foothills.
Passing the church, she found the double doors in the porch open, and
peeped in. It was a cozy little place, cleaner and less garish than
such edifices are usually on the Continent. The lamp burning before
the sanctuary showed that it was devoted to Roman Catholic worship.
The red gleam of the tiny sentinel conveyed a curiously vivid
impression of faith and spirituality. Though Helen was a Protestant,
she was conscious of a benign emotion arising from the presence of
this simple token of belief.
"I must ascertain the hours of service," she thought. "It will be
delightful to join the Swiss peasants in prayer. One might come near
the Creator in this rustic tabernacle."
She did not cross the threshold of the inner door. At present her mind
was fixed on brisk movement in the marvelous air. She wanted to absorb
the sunshine, to dispel once and for all the unpleasing picture of
life in the high Alps presented by the stupid crowd she had met in the
hotel overnight. Of course, she was somewhat unjust there; but women
are predisposed to trust first impressions, and Helen was no exception
to her sex.
Beyond the church the path was not so definite. Oddly enough, it
seemed to go along the flat top of a low wall down to a tiny mountain
stream. Steps were cut in the opposite hillside, but they were little
used, and higher up, among some dwarf pines and azaleas, a broader way
wound back toward the few scattered chalets that nestled under the
chateau.
As the guidebook spoke of a carriage road to Lake Cavloccio, and a
bridle path thence to within a mile of the Forno glacier, she came to
the conclusion that she was taking a short cut. At any rate, on the
summit of the next little hill she would be able to see her way quite
distinctly, so she jumped across the brook and climbed through the
undergrowth. Before she had gone twenty yards she stopped. She was
almost certain that someone was sobbing bitterly up there among the
trees. It had an uncanny sound, this plaint of grief in such a quiet,
sunlit spot. Still, sorrow was not an affrighting thing to Helen. It
might stir her sympathies, but it assuredly could not drive her away
in panic.
She went on, not noiselessly, as she did not wish to intrude on some
stranger's misery. Soon she came to a low wall, and, before she
quite realized her surroundings, she was looking into a grass grown
cemetery. It was a surprise, this ambush of the silent company among
the trees. Hidden away from the outer world, and so secluded that its
whereabouts remain unknown to thousands of people who visit the Maloja
each summer, there was an aspect of stealth in its sudden discovery
that was almost menacing. But Helen was not a nervous subject. The
sobbing had ceased, and when the momentary effect of such a depressing
environment had been resolutely driven off, she saw that a rusty iron
gate was open. The place was very small. There were a few monuments,
so choked with weeds and dank grass that their inscriptions were
illegible. She had never seen a more desolate graveyard. Despite the
vivid light and the joyous breeze rustling the pine branches, its air
of abandonment was depressing. She fought against the sensation as
unworthy of her intelligence; but she had some reason for it in the
fact that there was no visible explanation of the mourning she had
undoubtedly heard.
Then she uttered an involuntary cry, for a man's head and shoulders
rose from behind a leafy shrub. Instantly she was ashamed of her fear.
It was the old guide who acted as coachman the previous evening, and
he had been lying face downward on the grass in that part of the
cemetery given over to the unnamed dead.
He recognized her at once. Struggling awkwardly to his feet, he said
in broken and halting German, "I pray your forgiveness, _fraeulein_. I
fear I have alarmed you."
"It is I who should ask forgiveness," she said. "I came here by
accident. I thought I could go to Cavloccio by this path."
She could have hit on no other words so well calculated to bring him
back to every day life. To direct the steps of wanderers in his
beloved Engadine was a real pleasure to him. For an instant he forgot
that they had both spoken German.
"No, no!" he cried animatedly. "For lek him go by village. Bad road
dissa way. No cross ze field. _Verboten!_"
Then Helen remembered that trespassers are sternly warned off the low
lying lands in the mountains. Grass is scarce and valuable. Until the
highest pastures yield to the arid rock, pedestrians must keep to the
beaten track.
"I was quite mistaken," she said. "I see now that the path I was
trying to reach leads here only. And I am very, very sorry I disturbed
you."
[Illustration: "I fear I have alarmed you, _fraeulein_."
_Page 88_]
He hobbled nearer, the ruin of a fine man, with a nobly proportioned
head and shoulders, but sadly maimed by the accident which, to all
appearances, made him useless as a guide.
"Pardon an old man's folly, _fraeulein_," he said humbly. "I thought
none could hear, and I felt the loss of my little girl more than ever
to-day."
"Your daughter? Is she buried here?"
"Yes. Many a year has passed; but I miss her now more than ever. She
was all I had in the world, _fraeulein_. I am alone now, and that is a
hard thing when the back is bent with age."
Helen's eyes grew moist; but she tried bravely to control her voice.
"Was she young?" she asked softly.
"Only twenty, _fraeulein_, only twenty, and as tall and fair as
yourself. They carried her here sixteen years ago this very day. I did
not even see her. On the previous night I fell on Corvatsch."
"Oh, how sad! But why did she die at that age? And in this splendid
climate? Was her death unexpected?"
"Unexpected!" He turned and looked at the huge mountain of which the
cemetery hill formed one of the lowermost buttresses. "If the Piz
della Margna were to topple over and crush me where I stand, it would
be less unforeseen than was my sweet Etta's fate. But I frighten you,
lady,--a poor return for your kindness. That is your way,--through
the village, and by the postroad till you reach a notice board telling
you where to take the path."
There was a crude gentility in his manner that added to the pathos of
his words. Helen was sure that he wished to be left alone with his
memories. Yet she lingered.
"Please tell me your name," she said. "I may visit St. Moritz while I
remain here, and I shall try to find you."
"Christian Stampa," he said. He seemed to be on the point of adding
something, but checked himself. "Christian Stampa," he repeated, after
a pause. "Everybody knows old Stampa the guide. If I am not there, and
you go to Zermatt some day--well, just ask for Stampa. They will tell
you what has become of me."
She found it hard to reconcile this broken, careworn old man with her
cheery companion of the previous afternoon. What did he mean? She
understood his queer jargon of Italianized German quite clearly; but
there was a sinister ring in his words that blanched her face. She
could not leave him in his present mood. She was more alarmed now than
when she saw him rising ghostlike from behind the screen of grass and
weeds.
"Please walk with me to the village," she said. "All this beautiful
land is strange to me. It will divert your thoughts from a mournful
topic if you tell me something of its wonders."
He looked at her for an instant. Then his eyes fell on the church in
the neighboring hollow, and he crossed himself, murmuring a few words
in Italian. She guessed their meaning. He was thanking the Virgin for
having sent to his rescue a girl who reminded him of his lost Etta.
"Yes," he said, "I will come. If I were remaining in the Maloja,
_fraeulein_, I would beg you to let me take you to the Forno, and
perhaps to one of the peaks beyond. Old as I am, and lame, you would
be safe with me."
Helen breathed freely again. She felt that she had been within
measurable distance of a tragedy. Nor was there any call on her wits
to devise fresh means of drawing his mind away from the madness that
possessed him a few minutes earlier. As he limped unevenly by her
side, his talk was of the mountains. Did she intend to climb? Well,
slow and sure was the golden rule. Do little or nothing during four or
five days, until she had grown accustomed to the thin and keen Alpine
air. Then go to Lake Lunghino,--that would suffice for the first real
excursion. Next day, she ought to start early, and climb the mountain
overlooking that same lake,--up there, on the other side of the
hotel,--all rock and not difficult. If the weather was clear, she
would have a grand view of the Bernina range. Next she might try the
Forno glacier. It was a simple thing. She could go to and from the
_cabane_ in ten hours. Afterward, the Cima di Rosso offered an easy
climb; but that meant sleeping at the hut. All of which was excellent
advice, though the reflection came that Stampa's "slow and sure"
methods were not strongly in evidence some sixteen hours earlier.
Now, the Cima di Rosso was in full view at that instant. Helen
stopped.
"Do you really mean to tell me that if I wish to reach the top of that
mountain, I must devote two days to it?" she cried.
Stampa, though bothered with troubles beyond her ken, forgot them
sufficiently to laugh grimly. "It is farther away than you seem to
think, _fraeulein_; but the real difficulty is the ice. Unless you
cross some of the crevasses in the early morning, before the sun has
had time to undo the work accomplished by the night's frost, you run a
great risk. And that is why you must be ready to start from the
_cabane_ at dawn. Moreover, at this time of year, you get the finest
view about six o'clock."
The mention of crevasses was somewhat awesome. "Is it necessary to be
roped when one tries that climb?" she asked.
"If any guide ever tells you that you need not be roped while crossing
ice or climbing rock, turn back at once, _fraeulein_. Wait for another
day, and go with a man who knows his business. That is how the
Alps get a bad name for accidents. Look at me! I have climbed the
Matterhorn forty times, and the Jungfrau times out of count, and never
did I or anyone in my care come to grief. 'Use the rope properly,' is
my motto, and it has never failed me, not even when two out of five of
us were struck senseless by falling stones on the south side of Monte
Rosa."
Helen experienced another thrill. "I very much object to falling
stones," she said.
Stampa threw out his hands in emphatic gesture. "What can one do?" he
cried. "They are always a danger, like the snow cornice and the
_neve_. There is a chimney on the Jungfrau through which stones are
constantly shooting from a height of two thousand feet. You cannot see
them,--they travel too fast for the eye. You hear something sing past
your ears, that is all. Occasionally there is a report like a gunshot,
and then you observe a little cloud of dust rising from a new scar on
a rock. If you are hit--well, there is no dust, because the stone goes
right through. Of course one does not loiter there."
Then, seeing the scared look on her face, he went on. "Ladies should
not go to such places. It is not fit. But for men, yes. There is the
joy of battle. Do not err, _fraeulein_,--the mountains are alive. And
they fight to the death. They can be beaten; but there must be no
mistakes. They are like strong men, the hills. When you strive against
them, strain them to your breast and never relax your grip. Then they
yield slowly, with many a trick and false move that a man must learn
if he would look down over them all and say, 'I am lord here.' Ah me!
Shall I ever again cross the Col du Lion or climb the Great Tower?
But there! I am old, and thrown aside. Boys whom I engaged as porters
would refuse me now as their porter. Better to have died like my
friend, Michel Croz, than live to be a goatherd."
He seemed to pull himself up with an effort. "That way--to your
left--you cannot miss the path. _Addio, signorina_," and he lifted his
hat with the inborn grace of the peasantry of Southern Europe.
Helen was hoping that he might elect to accompany her to Cavloccio.
She would willingly have paid him for loss of time. Her ear was
becoming better tuned each moment to his strange patois. Though he
often gave a soft Italian inflection to the harsh German syllables,
she grasped his meaning quite literally. She had read so much about
Switzerland that she knew how Michel Croz was killed while descending
the Matterhorn after having made the first ascent. That historic
accident happened long before she was born. To hear a man speak of
Croz as a friend sounded almost unbelievable, though a moment's
thought told her that Whymper, who led the attack on the hitherto
impregnable Cervin on that July day in 1865, was still living, a keen
Alpinist.
She could not refrain from asking Stampa one question, though she
imagined that he was now in a hurry to take the damaged carriage back
to St. Moritz. "Michel Croz was a brave man," she said. "Did you know
him well?"
"I worshiped him, _fraeulein_," was the reverent answer. "May I receive
pardon in my last hour, but I took him for an evil spirit on the day
of his death! I was with Jean Antoine Carrel in Signor Giordano's
party. We started from Breuil, Croz and his voyageurs from Zermatt.
We failed; he succeeded. When we saw him and his Englishmen on the
summit, we believed they were devils, because they yelled in triumph,
and started an avalanche of stones to announce their victory. Three
days later, Carrel and I, with two men from Breuil, tried again. We
gained the top that time, and passed the place where Croz was knocked
over by the English milord and the others who fell with him. I saw
three bodies on the glacier four thousand feet below,--a fine
burial-ground, better than that up there."
He looked back at the pines which now hid the cemetery wall from
sight. Then, with another courteous sweep of his hat, he walked away,
covering the ground rapidly despite his twisted leg.
If Helen had been better trained as a woman journalist, she would have
regarded this meeting with Stampa as an incident of much value. Long
experience of the lights and shades of life might have rendered her
less sensitive. As it was, the man's personality appealed to her. She
had been vouchsafed a glimpse into an abyss profound as that into
which Stampa himself peered on the day he discovered three of the
four who fell from the Matterhorn still roped together in death. The
old man's simple references to the terrors lurking in those radiant
mountains had also shaken her somewhat. The snow capped Cima di Rosso
no longer looked so attractive. The Orlegna Gorge had lost some of its
beauty. Though the sun was pouring into its wooded depths, it had
grown gloomy and somber in her eyes. Yielding to impulse, she loitered
in the village, took the carriage road to the chateau, and sat there,
with her back to the inner heights and her gaze fixed on the smiling
valley that opened toward Italy out of the Septimer Pass.
Meanwhile, Stampa hurried past the stables, where his horses were
munching the remains of the little oaten loaves which form the staple
food of hard worked animals in the Alps. He entered the hotel by the
main entrance, and was on his way to the manager's bureau, when
Spencer, smoking on the veranda, caught sight of him.
Instantly the American started in pursuit. By this time he had heard
of Helen's accident from one of yesterday's passers by. It accounted
for the delay; but he was anxious to learn exactly what had happened.
Stampa reached the office first. He was speaking to the manager, when
Spencer came in and said in his downright way:
"This is the man who drove Miss Wynton from St. Moritz last night. I
don't suppose I shall be able to understand what he says. Will you
kindly ask him what caused the trouble?"
"It is quite an easy matter," was the smiling response. "Poor Stampa
is not only too eager to pass every other vehicle on the road, but he
is inclined to watch the mountains rather than his horses' ears. He
was a famous guide once; but he met with misfortune, and took to
carriage work as a means of livelihood. He has damaged his turnout
twice this year; so this morning he was dismissed by telephone, and
another driver is coming from St. Moritz to take his place."
Spencer looked at Stampa. He liked the strong, worn face, with its
half wistful, half resigned expression. An uneasy feeling gripped him
that the whim of a moment in the Embankment Hotel might exert its
crazy influence in quarters far removed from the track that seemed
then to be so direct and pleasure-giving.
"Why did he want to butt in between the other fellow and the
landscape? What was the hurry, anyhow?" he asked.
Stampa smiled genially when the questions were translated to him. "I
was talking to the _signorina_," he explained, using his native
tongue, for he was born on the Italian side of the Bernina.
"That counts, but it gives no good reason why he should risk her
life," objected Spencer.
Stampa's weather furrowed cheeks reddened. "There was no danger," he
muttered wrathfully. "Madonna! I would lose the use of another limb
rather than hurt a hair of her head. Is she not my good angel? Has she
not drawn me back from the gate of hell? Risk her life! Are people
saying that because a worm-eaten wheel went to pieces against a
stone?"
"What on earth is he talking about?" demanded Spencer. "Has he been
pestering Miss Wynton this morning with some story of his present
difficulties?"
The manager knew Stampa's character. He put the words in kindlier
phrase. "Does the _signorina_ know that you have lost your situation?"
he said.
Even in that mild form, the suggestion annoyed the old man. He flung
it aside with scornful gesture, and turned to leave the office. "Tell
the gentleman to go to Zermatt and ask in the street if Christian
Stampa the guide would throw himself on a woman's charity," he
growled.
Spencer did not wait for any interpretation. "Hold on," he said
quietly. "What is he going to do now? Work, for a man of his years,
doesn't grow on gooseberry bushes, I suppose."
"Christian, Christian! You are hot-headed as a boy," cried the
manager. "The fact is," he went on, "he came to me to offer his
services. But I have already engaged more drivers than I need, and I
am dismissing some stable men. Perhaps he can find a job in St.
Moritz."
"Are his days as guide ended?"
"Unfortunately, yes. I believe he is as active as ever; but people
won't credit it. And you cannot blame them. When one's safety depends
on a man who may have to cling to an ice covered rock like a fly to a
window-pane, one is apt to distrust a crooked leg."
"Did he have an accident?"
The manager hesitated. "It is part of his sad history," he said. "He
fell, and nearly killed himself; but he was hurrying to see the last
of a daughter to whom he was devoted."
"Is he a local man, then?"
"No. Oh, no! The girl happened to be here when the end came."
"Well, I guess he will suit my limited requirements in the fly and
window-pane business while I remain in Maloja," said Spencer. "Tell
him I am willing to put up ten francs a day and extras for his
exclusive services as guide during my stay."
Poor Stampa was nearly overwhelmed by this unexpected good fortune. In
his agitation he blurted out, "Ah, then, the good God did really send
an angel to my help this morning!"
Spencer, however, reviewing his own benevolence over a pipe outside
the hotel, expressed the cynical opinion that the hot sun was
affecting his brain. "I'm on a loose end," he communed. "Next time I
waft myself to Europe on a steamer I'll bring my mother. It would be a
bully fine notion to cable for her right away. I want someone to take
care of me. It looks as if I had a cinch on running this hotel
gratis. What in thunder will happen next?"
He could surely have answered that query if he had the least inkling
of the circumstances governing Helen's prior meeting with Stampa. As
it was, the development of events followed the natural course. While
Spencer strolled off by the side of the lake, the old guide lumbered
into the village street, and waited there, knowing that he would
waylay the _bella Inglesa_ on her return. Though she came from the
chateau and not from Cavloccio, he did not fail to see her.
At first she was at a loss to fathom the cause of Stampa's delight,
and still less to understand why he should want to thank her with such
exuberance. She imagined he was overjoyed at having gone back to his
beloved profession, and it was only by dint of questioning that she
discovered the truth. Then it dawned on her that the man had been
goaded to desperation by the curt message from St. Moritz,--that he
was sorely tempted to abandon the struggle, and follow into the
darkness the daughter taken from him so many years ago,--and the
remembrance of her suspicion when they were about to part at the
cemetery gate lent a serious note to her words of congratulation.
"You see, Stampa," she said, "you were very wrong to lose faith this
morning. At the very moment of your deepest despair Heaven was
providing a good friend for you."
"Yes, indeed, _fraeulein_. That is why I waited here. I felt that I
must thank you. It was all through you. The good God sent you----"
"I think you are far more beholden to the gentleman who employed you
than to me," she broke in.
"Yes, he is splendid, the young _voyageur_; but it was wholly on your
account, lady. He was angry with me at first, because he thought I
placed you in peril in the matter of the wheel."
Helen was amazed. "He spoke of me?" she cried.
"Ah, yes. He did not say much, but his eyes looked through me. He has
the eyes of a true man, that young American."
She was more bewildered than ever. "What is his name?" she asked.
"Here it is. The director wrote it for me, so that I may learn how to
pronounce it."
Stampa produced a scrap of paper, and Helen read, "Mr. Charles K.
Spencer."
"Are you quite certain he mentioned me?" she repeated.
"Can I be mistaken, _fraeulein_. I know, because I studied the labels
on your boxes. Mees Helene Weenton--so? And did he not rate me about
the accident?"
"Well, wonders will never cease," she vowed; and indeed they were only
just beginning in her life, which shows how blind to excellent
material wonders can be.
At luncheon she summoned the head waiter. "Is there a Mr. Charles K.
Spencer staying in the hotel?" she asked.
"Yes, madam."
"Will you please tell me if he is in the room?"
The head waiter turned. Spencer was studying the menu. "Yes, madam.
There he is, sitting alone, at the second table from the window."
It was quite to be expected that the subject of their joint gaze
should look at them instantly. There is a magnetism in the human eye
that is unfailing in that respect, and its power is increased a
hundredfold when a charming young woman tries it on a young man who
happens to be thinking of her at the moment.
Then Spencer realized that Stampa had told Helen what had taken place
in the hotel bureau, and he wanted to kick himself for having
forgotten to make secrecy a part of the bargain.
Helen, knowing that he knew, blushed furiously. She tried to hide her
confusion by murmuring something to the head waiter. But in her heart
she was saying, "Who in the world is he? I have never seen him before
last night. And why am I such an idiot as to tremble all over just
because he happened to catch me looking at him?"