I stood still considering the situation for a few moments, one eye on my
restless comrade, the other reverting now and then to the totally
emotionless military countenances in front of me.
"Very well," I said. "My inheritance appears to be valuable, according
to the Swiss appraisal. I shall, therefore, pay my taxes, observe the
laws of Switzerland, and reside here until I am at liberty to dispose of
the property. And I'll entertain guests if I must. But I don't think
I'm likely to be annoyed by tourists while this war lasts. Do you?"
"Tourists tour," observed Major Schoot solemnly.
"It's a fixed habit," added Captain Schey,--"war or no war. Tourists
invariably tour or," he added earnestly, "they would not be tourists."
"Also," remarked Schoot, "the wealthy amateur chamois hunter is always
with us. Like the goitre, he is to be expected in the Alps."
"Am I obliged to let strangers hunt on my property?" I asked, aghast.
"The revenue to an estate is always considerable," explained Schoot.
"With your inn, your 'Cure,' your bottling works, and your hunting fees
your income should be enviable, Mr. O'Ryan."
I gazed angrily up at the mountains. Probably every hunter would break
his neck. Then a softer mood invaded my wrath, and I thought of my late
uncle and of his crazy scheme to stock the Andes with chamois--a project
which, while personally pursuing it, and an infant chamois, presently
put an end to his dashing career upon earth. He was some uncle, General
Juan O'Ryan, but too credulous, and too much of a sport.
"Which mountain did he fall off?" I inquired in a subdued voice, gazing
up at the ring of terrific peaks above us.
"That one--the _Bec de l'Empereur_," said Captain Schey, in the funereal
voice which decency requires when chronicling necrology.
I looked seriously at the peak known as "The Emperor's Nose." No wonder
my uncle broke his neck.
"Which Emperor?" I inquired absently.
"The Kaiser."
"You don't mean William of Hohenzollern!"
"The All-Highest of Germany," he replied in a respectful voice. "But
the name is in French. That is good politics. We offend nobody."
"Oh. Well, _why_ all the same?"
"Why what?"
"Why celebrate the All-Highest's Imperial nose?"
"Why not?" retorted the Swiss mildly; "he suggested it."
"The Kaiser suggested that the mountain be named after his own nose?"
"He did. Moreover it was from that peak that the All-Highest declared
he could smell the Rhine. Tears were in his eyes when he said it. Such
sentiment ought to be respected."
"May I be permitted to advise the All-Highest to return there and
continue his sentimental sniffing?"
"For what purpose, Monsieur?"
"Because," I suggested pleasantly, "if he sniffs very earnestly he may
scent something still farther away than the Rhine."
"The Seine?" nodded Captain Schey with a pasty, neutral smile.
"I meant the United States," said I carelessly. "If William sniffs hard
enough he may smell the highly seasoned stew that they say is brewing
over there. It reeks of pep, I hear."
The two neutral officers exchanged very grave glances. Except for my
papers, which were most perfectly in order and revealed me as a Chilean
of Irish descent, nothing could have convinced them or, indeed, anybody
else that I was not a Yankee. Because, although my great grandfather was
that celebrated Chilean Admiral O'Ryan and I had been born in Santiago
and had lived there during early boyhood, I looked like a typical
American and had resided in New York for twenty years. And there also I
practiced my innocent profession. There were worse interior decorators
than I in New York and I was, perhaps, no worse than any of them--if you
get what I am trying not to say.
"Gentlemen," I continued politely, "I haven't as yet any lavish
hospitality to offer you unless that red-headed girl yonder has
something to cook and knows how to cook it. But such as I have I offer
to you in honor of the Swiss army and out of respect to the Swiss
Confederation. Gentlemen, pray descend and banquet with me. Join our
revels. I ask it."
They said they were much impressed by my impulsive courtesy but were
obliged to go back to barracks in their flivver.
"Before you go, then," said I, "you are invited to witness the ceremony
of my taking over this impossible domain." And I took a small Chilean
flag from the breast pocket of my coat, attached it to the halyards of
the white-washed flag pole, and ran it up, whistling the Chilean
national anthem.
Then I saluted the flag with my hat off. My bit of bunting looked very
gay up there aloft against the intense vault of blue.
Smith, although now made mean by hunger, was decent enough to notice and
salute my flag. The flag of Chili is a pretty one; it carries a single
white star on a blue field, and a white and a red stripe.
One has only to add a galaxy of stars and a lot more stripes to have the
flag I had lived under so many years.
And now that this flag was flying over millions of embattled
Americans--well, it looked very beautiful to me. And was looking more
beautiful every time I inspected it. But the Chilean O'Ryans had no
business with the Star Spangled Banner as long as Chili remained
neutral. I said this, at times to Smith, to which he invariably
remarked: "Flap-doodle! No Irishman can keep out of this shindy long.
Watch your step, O'Ryan."
Now, as I walked toward Smith, carrying my suitcase, he observed my
advent with hopeful hunger-stricken eyes.
"If yonder maid with yonder mop can cook, and has the makings of a
civilized meal in this joint of yours, for heaven's sake tell her to get
on the job," he said. "What do you usually call her--if not Katie?"
"How do I know? I've never before laid eyes on her."
"You don't know the name of your own cook?"
"How should I? Did you think she was part of the estate? That boche
attorney, Schmitz, at Berne, promised to send up somebody to look after
the place until I made up my mind what I was going to do. That's the
lady, I suppose. And Smith--did you ever see such very red hair on any
human woman?"
I may have spoken louder than I meant to; evidently my voice carried,
for the girl looked over her shabby shoulder and greeted us with a
clear, fresh, unfeigned, untroubled peal of laughter. I felt myself
growing red. However, I approached her. She wore a very dirty
dress--but her face and hands were dirtier.
"Did Schmitz engage you and are you to look out for us?" I inquired in
German.
"If you please," she replied in French, leaning on her mop and surveying
us out of two large gray eyes set symmetrically under the burnished
tangle of her very remarkable hair.
"My child," I said in French, "why are you so dirty? Have you by chance
been exploring the chimney?"
"I have been cleaning fireplaces and pots and pans, Monsieur. But I
will make my toilet and put on a fresh apron for luncheon."
"That's a good girl," I said kindly. "And hasten, please; my friend,
Mr. Smith, is hungry; and he is not very amiable at such times."
We went into the empty house; she showed us our rooms.
"Luncheon will be served in half an hour, Messieurs," she said in her
cheerful and surprisingly agreeable voice, through which a hidden vein
of laughter seemed to run.
After she had gone Smith came through the connecting door into my room,
drying his sunburned countenance on a towel.
"I didn't suppose she was so young," he said. "She's very young, isn't
she?"
"Do you mean she's too young to cook decently?"
"No. I mean--I mean that she just seems rather young. I merely noticed
it."
"Oh," said I without interest. But he lingered about, buttoning his
collar.
"You know," he remarked, "she wouldn't be so bad looking if you'd take
her and scrub her."
"I've no intention of doing it," I retorted.
"Of course," he explained, peevishly, "I didn't mean that you,
personally, should perform ablutions upon her. I merely meant----"
"Sure," said I frivolously; "take this cake of soap and chase her into
the fountain out there."
"All the same," he added, "if she'd wash her face and fix her hair and
stand up straight she'd have--er--elements."
"Elements of what?" I asked, continuing to unpack my suitcase and
arrange the contents upon my dresser. Comb and brushes I laid on the
left; other toilet articles upon the right; in the drawers I placed my
underwear and linen and private papers.
Then I took the photograph which I had purchased in Berne and stood it
up against the mirror over my dresser. Smith came over and looked at it
with more interest than he had usually displayed.
It was the first photograph of any woman I had ever purchased. Copies
were sold all over Europe. It seemed to be very popular and cost two
francs fifty unframed. I had resisted it in every shop window between
London and Paris. I nearly fell for it in Geneva. I did fall in Berne.
It was called "The Laughing Girl," and I saw it in a shop window the day
of my arrival in Berne. And I could no more get it out of my mind than
I could forget an unknown charming face in a crowded street that met my
gaze with a shy, faint smile of provocation. I went back to that shop
and bought the photograph labeled "The Laughing Girl." It traveled with
me. It had become as necessary to me as my razor or toothbrush.
As I placed it on the center of my dresser tilted back against the
looking-glass, for the first time since it had been in my possession an
odd and totally new sense of having seen the original of the picture
somewhere--or having seen somebody who resembled it--came into my mind.
"As a matter of fact," remarked Smith, tying his tie before my mirror,
"that red-haired girl of yours downstairs bears a curious resemblance to
your lady-love's photograph."
"Good Lord!" I exclaimed, intensely annoyed. Because the same
distasteful idea had also occurred to me.
*II*
*AL FRESCO*
Our luncheon was a delicious surprise. It was served to us on a rustic
table and upon a fresh white cloth, out by the fountain. We had a
fragrant omelette, a cool light wine, some seductive bread and butter, a
big wooden bowlful of mountain strawberries, a pitcher of cream, and a
bit of dreamy cheese with our coffee. The old gods feasted no more
luxuriously.
Smith, fed to repletion, gazed sleepily but sentimentally at the
vanishing skirts of my red-headed Hebe who had perpetrated this miracle
in our behalf.
"Didn't I tell you she'd prove to be pretty under all that soot?" he
said. "I like that girl. She's a peach."
In point of fact her transfiguration had mildly amazed me. She had
scrubbed herself and twisted up her hair, revealing an unsuspected
whiteness of neck. She wore a spotless cotton dress and a white apron
over it; the slouch of the slattern had disappeared and in its place was
the rather indolent, unhurried, and supple grace of a lazy young thing
who has never been obliged to hustle for a living.
"I wonder what her name is?" mused Smith. "She deserves a pretty name
like Amaryllis----"
"Don't try to get gay and call her that," said I, setting fire to a
cigarette. "Mind your business, anyway."
"But we ought to know what she calls herself. Suppose we wanted her in a
hurry? Suppose the house caught fire! Suppose she fell into the
fountain! Shall I go to the pantry and ask her what her name is? It
will save you the trouble," he added, rising.
"_I'll_ attend to all the business details of this establishment," said
I, coldly. Which discouraged him; and he re-seated himself in silence.
To mitigate the snub, I offered him a cigar which he took without
apparent gratitude. But Shandon Smith never nursed his wrath; and
presently he affably reverted to the subject:
"O'Ryan," he remarked, leaning back in his chair and expelling
successive smoke rings at the Bec de l'Empereur across the valley, "that
red-haired girl of yours is a mystery to me. I find no explanation for
her. I can not reconcile her extreme youth with her miraculous
virtuosity as a cook. I cannot coordinate the elements of perfect
symmetry which characterize her person with the bench show points of a
useful peasant. She's not formed like a 'grade'; she reveals pedigree.
Now I dare say you look upon her as an ordinary every-day, wage-earning
pot-wrestler. Don't you?"
"I do."
"You don't consider her symmetrical?"
"I am," said I, "scarcely likely to notice pulchritude below stairs."
Smith laughed:
"For that matter she dwells upstairs in the garret, I believe. I saw
her going up. I'm astonished that you don't think her pretty because
she looks like that photograph on your dresser."
What he said again annoyed me,--the more so because, since her
ablutions, the girl did somehow or other remind me even more than before
of that lovely, beguiling creature in my photograph. And why on earth
there should be any resemblance at all between that laughing young
aristocrat in her jewels and silken negligee and my slatternly
maid-of-all-work--why the one should even remotely suggest to us the
other--was to me inexplicable and unpleasant.
"Smith," I said, "you are a sentimental and romantic young man. You
shyly fall in love several times a day when material is plenty. You
have the valuable gift of creative imagination. Why not employ it
commercially to augment your income?"
"You mean by writing best sellers?"
"I do. You are fitted for the job."
"O'Ryan," he said, "it would be wasted time. Newspapers are to-day the
best sellers. Reality has knocked romance clean over the ropes. Look
at this war? Look at the plain, unvarnished facts which history has
been recording during the last four years. Has Romance ever dared
appropriate such astounding material for any volume of fiction ever
written?"
I admitted that fiction had become a back number in the glare of daily
facts.
"It certainly has," he said. "Every day that we live--every hour--yes,
every minute that your watch ticks off--events are happening such as the
wildest imagination of a genius could not create. You can prove it for
yourself, O'Ryan. Try to read the most exciting work of fiction, or the
cleverest, the most realistic, the most subtle romance ever written. And
when you've yawned your bally head off over the mockery of things
actual, just pick up the daily paper."
He was quite right.
"I tell you," he went on, "there's more romance, more excitement, more
mystery, more tragedy, more comedy, more humanity, more truth in any
single edition of any French, English, Italian, or American daily paper
published in these times than there is in all the fiction ever
produced."
"Very true," I said. "Romance is dead to-day. Reality reigns alone."
"Then why snub me when I say that your red-headed maid is a real enigma
and an actual mystery? She might be anything in such times as these.
She might be a great lady; she might be a scullion. Have you noticed
how white and fine and slim her hands are?"
"I notice they're clean," said I cautiously.
He laughed at me in frank derision, obstinately interested and intent
upon building up a real romance around my maid-of-all-work. His gayety
and his youth amused me. I was a year his senior and I felt my age.
The world was hollow; I had learned that much.
"Her whole make-up seems to me suspiciously like camouflage," he said,
"her flat-heeled slippers, for example! She has a distractingly pretty
ankle, and have you happened to notice her eyes, O'Ryan?"
In point of fact I had noticed them. They were gray and had black
lashes. But I was not going to give Smith the satisfaction of admitting
that I had noticed my housemaid's eyes.
"Her eyes," continued Smith, "are like those wide young eyes in that
pretty photograph of yours. So is her mouth with its charmingly full
width and the hint of laughter in its upcurled childish corners----"
"Nonsense!----"
"Not at all. Not at all! And all you've got to do is to put a bunch of
jewels on her fingers and a thin, shimmery silk thing showing her
slender throat and shoulders, and then some; and then you can fix her
hair like the girl's hair in your photograph, and hand her a guitar, and
drop one of her knees over the other, and hang a slipper to the little
naked foot that swings above its shadow on the floor----"
"I shall do none of those things," said I. "And I'll tell you some
more, Smith: I believe it's your devilish and irresponsible chatter
which has put the unpleasant idea into my head that my red-headed
domestic resembles that photograph upstairs. I don't like the idea.
And I'd be much obliged if you wouldn't mention it again."
"All right," he said cheerfully.
But what he had said about this resemblance left me not only vaguely
uncomfortable, but also troubled by a sort of indefinite curiosity
concerning my cook. I desired to take another look at her immediately.
After a while I threw aside my cigarette: "I'm going into the pantry,"
said I, "to discuss business with my housekeeper. Here's the key to the
wine-cellar. There's more of that Moselle there, I understand."
And I started toward the house, leaving him to twiddle his thumbs and
stare at the Bec de l'Empereur. Or he could vary this program by
smoking his head off if he chose. Or investigate the wine-cellar. But
my cook he could not flirt with as long as I was on the job.
He seemed to be a very nice fellow in his way, but he had put a lot of
nonsense into my head by his random talk.
Yet he was certainly an agreeable young man. I had first met him in
Berne--that hot-bed of international intrigue, where every other person
is a conspirator and every other a boche.
Now Smith's papers and passport revealed him as a Norwegian; his reason
for being in Switzerland a purely commercial one. He had arrived in
Berne, he told me, with a proposition to lay before the Federal
Government. This was a colossal scheme to reforest parts of Switzerland
with millions and millions of Norway pines and hardwoods--a stupendous
enterprise, but apparently feasible and financially attractive.
So far, however, he had made little headway. But somewhere in the back
of my head I had a lively suspicion that Shandon Smith was no more a
Norwegian than was I; and that he could tell a very interesting story
about those papers and passports of his if he cared to. I had lived too
long in New York not to recognize a New Yorker no matter what his papers
showed.
Anyway we seemed to attract each other and during my enforced and
bothersome sojourn in Berne we became companionable to the edge of
friendship.
And when I told him about my ridiculous inheritance and the trouble I
was having in trying to get rid of it, he offered to come up here with
me and keep me company while the Swiss Government was making up its
composite mind about his offer to reforest such cantons as required it.
That is how we came to be here in Schwindlewald together. I was to stay
until the prescribed time elapsed when I should be allowed by law to
sell the place: he was willing to remain with me until his offer to the
Swiss Government had been either accepted or rejected.
I had begun to like Smith very much. We were on those terms of easy and
insulting badinage which marks the frontier between acquaintances and
friends.
Now as I entered the house I turned on the threshold and glanced back to
see what Smith was doing. His hat was off; the Alpine breeze was
ruffling his crisp, blond hair. He sat at ease beside the fountain, a
fresh cigar balanced between his fingers, a cork-screw in the other
hand. Beside him on the grass stood a row of bottles of light Moselle.
He had investigated the cellar. And as I watched what appeared to me a
perfectly characteristic type of American from Manhattan Island, his
voice came across the grass to me, lifted in careless song:--
--"My girl's a corker,
She's a New Yorker,
She plays the races,
Knows the sporty places
Uptown, downtown,
Always wears a nifty gown."--
"Yes," said I to myself, "you're a Norwegian--aye don' t'ank!" which is
good Norwegian for "I don't think."
And I smiled subtly upon Smith as he drew the first cork from the first
bottle of that liquid sunshine called Chateau Varenn, and with which one
may spend a long and intimate afternoon without fear of consequences.
As I entered the house his careless song came to me on the summer wind:
"My girl's a corker,
She's a New Yorker----"
"Such a saga," said I to myself, "could be sung only by that sort of
Viking. Now why the deuce is that young man in Switzerland?"
But it didn't matter to me, so I continued along the wide hallway toward
the kitchen in the rear.
*III*
*IN THE CELLAR*
She was peeling potatoes in the kitchen when I entered;--she did it as
daintily, as leisurely as though she were a young princess preparing
pomegranates--But this sort of simile wouldn't do and I promptly pulled
myself together, frowning.
Hearing me she looked up with a rather sweet confused little smile as
though aroused from thoughts intimate but remote. Doubtless she was
thinking of some peasant suitor somewhere--some strapping, yodling,
ham-fisted, bull-necked mountaineer----
"I have come to confer with you on business," said I, forestalling with
a courteous gesture any intention she might have had to arise out of
deference to my presence. I admit I observed no such intention. On the
contrary she remained undisturbed, continuing leisurely her culinary
occupation, and regarding me with that engaging little half-smile which
seemed to be a permanent part of her expression--I pulled myself
together.
"My child," said I pleasantly, "what is your name?"
"Thusis," she replied.
"Thusis? Quite unusual,--hum-hum--quite exotic. And
then--hum-hum!--what is the remainder of your name, Thusis?"
"There isn't any more, Monsieur."
"Only Thusis?"
"Only Thusis."
"You're--hum-hum!--very young, aren't you, Thusis?"
"Yes, I am."
"You cook very well."
"Thank you."
"Well, Thusis," I said, "I suppose when Mr. Schmitz engaged you to come
up here, he told you what are the conditions and what vexatious problems
confront me."
"Yes, he did tell me."
"Very well; that saves explanations. It is evident, of course, that if
I am expected to board and feed any riff-raff tourist who comes to
Schwindlewald I must engage more servants."
"Oh, yes, you'll have to."
"Well, where the deuce am I to find them? Haven't you any friends who
would perhaps like to work here?"
"I have a sister," she said.
"Can you get her to come?"
"Yes."
"That's fine. She can do the rooms. Could you get another girl to wait
on table?"
"I have a friend who is a very good cook----"
"You're good enough!----"
"Oh, no!" she demurred, with her enchanting smile, "but my friend,
Josephine Vannis, is an excellent cook. Besides I had rather wait on
table--with Monsieur's permission."
I said regretfully, remembering the omelette, "Very well, Thusis. Now I
also need a farmer."
"I know a young man. His name is Raoul Despres."
"Fine! And I want to buy some cows and goats and chickens----"
"Raoul will cheerfully purchase what stock Monsieur requires."
"Thusis, you are quite wonderful."
"Thank you," she said, lifting her dark-fringed gray eyes, the odd
little half-smile in the curling corners of her lips. It was
extraordinary how the girl made me think of my photograph upstairs.
"What is your sister's name?" I inquired--hoping I was not consciously
making conversation as an excuse to linger in my cook's kitchen.
"Her name is Clelia."
"Clelia? Thusis? Very unusual names--hum-hum!--and nothing else--no
family name. Well--well!"
"Oh, there was a family name of sorts. It doesn't matter; we never use
it." And she laughed.
It was not what she said--not the sudden charm of her fresh young
laughter that surprised me; it was her effortless slipping from French
into English--and English more perfect than one expects from even the
philologetically versatile Swiss.
"Are you?" I asked curiously.
"What, Mr. O'Ryan?"
"Swiss?"
Thusis laughed and considered me out of her dark-fringed eyes.
"We are Venetians--very far back. In those remote days, I believe, my
family had many servants. That, perhaps, is why my sister and I make
such good ones--if I may venture to say so. You see we know by
inheritance what a good servant ought to be."
The subtle charm of this young girl began to trouble me; her soft, white
symmetry, the indolent and youthful grace of her, and the disturbing
resemblance between her and my photograph all were making me vaguely
uneasy.
"Thusis," I said, "you understand of course that if I am short of
servants you'll have to pitch in and help the others."
"Of course," she replied simply.
"What do you know how to do?"
"I understand horses and cattle."
"Can you milk?"
"Yes. I can also make butter and cheese, pitch hay, cultivate the
garden, preserve vegetables, wash, iron, do plain and fancy sewing----"