AT ZERMATT
I cannot truthfully say that sad thoughts were uppermost during the
hours that followed. After all, it was my first trip to the Continent,
and although I am thirty-six years old, and might be expected to have
got over mere juvenile excitements, I confess to a feeling of cheerful
anticipation. Of course the squire was always in the background of my
thoughts, but I had no sense of apprehension such as sometimes
oppresses one before an approaching calamity.
And it was so nice to have everything arranged for me, and to find
myself in possession of time-tables and railway-coupons and a clear
itinerary of the journey without the slightest effort or inconvenience
on my part. Undoubtedly man has his uses, if he is a clear-headed,
kind-hearted fellow like the Cynic.
When the whistle sounded and the boat express glided out of Charing
Cross I waved my handkerchief from the window as long as I could see
him, and then settled down into the luxurious cushions and gave myself
up to reflection. How nice and brotherly he had been all the way to
town, and since! I do not wonder that Rose enjoyed the journey. Rose!
I might have let her know that I was leaving by the morning train, but
then she would have had to ask for an hour off; and when she has just
been away for ten days her chief might not have liked it. Besides, the
Cynic had such a lot of minute instructions and emphatic warnings to
which I was forced to listen attentively.
Then there was Mother Hubbard, who had been set upon accompanying me on
the ground that I ought not to travel alone and unchaperoned; but the
Cynic agreed with me that at my age chaperonage is unnecessary. I am
not the sort that needs protection; and the little motherkin would
merely have added to my anxieties.
No, though there was a sick and perhaps dying man at the other end, and
though sorrow might soon compass me about, I determined to enjoy the
present moment, and I did. I enjoyed the breeze upon the Channel, the
glimpses of peasant life in France as the train rushed through the flat
and rather tame country, the dinner in the Northern railway station at
Paris, and the novel experience of the tiny bed which was reserved for
my use on the night journey. I was travelling in luxury, of course,
and am never likely to repeat the experience.
But my chief enjoyment was one which could be shared by any who had
eyes to see, though they were sitting upright on the bare and narrow
boards of the miserable third-class compartments which I caught sight
of occasionally in the stations when morning came.
The glory of the dawn! of the sun rising behind the mountains, when a
pink flush spread over the sky, dissolving quickly into rose and amber
and azure, delicately pencilled in diverging rays which spread like a
great fan to the zenith! The crags of a great hill caught the glow,
and the mountain burned with fire. Below, the grass was gold and
emerald; there were fruit-laden trees in the foreground, and in the
distance, away beyond the belt of low-lying mist and the vague neutral
tints which concealed their bases, were the snow mountains! I pushed
down the window and gorged myself with the heavenly vision.
There was no time to see Geneva, but the ride along the banks of the
lake and through the fertile Rhone valley was one long, delightful
dream. Luncheon was provided at Visp, and then began the journey on
the mountain railway which I can never forget.
As the train snorted and grunted up the steep incline I rejoiced to
realise that it could not travel more quickly. Stream, mountain and
forest; fertile valley, rushing waterfall and lofty precipice--all
contributed to the charm of the experience. But the rush of the Visp,
as it poured down the narrow gorge, and boiled and fretted in turbulent
cascades which hurled their spray through the windows of the passing
train is the one outstanding remembrance. It was glorious! Then the
Matterhorn came in sight for a moment, and just afterwards the toy
train drew up at the toy platform in Zermatt.
The concierge of the Hotel Victoria took my bag and pointed me out to a
diminutive young lady who was standing near. She at once came forward
and held out her hand, whilst a winning smile spread over her pleasant
face.
"You are Miss Holden, are you not? I have stepped across to meet you,
so that you might not feel so strange on your arrival. My husband is a
doctor--Dr. Grey--and he has taken an interest in Mr. Evans, and
continues to do so even though I have fallen in love with the old
gentleman."
I liked the girl straight away. She is quite young--only just
twenty-three, as she told me frankly, and ever such a little creature,
though she carries herself with the dignity of a duchess--in fact, with
much more dignity than some duchesses I have seen.
"Now that is 'real good' of you, as the Americans whose company I have
just left would say," I replied; "and I think it was very nice of you
to think of it. Tell me first, please, if Mr. Evans is worse."
"I really cannot say with certainty," she replied; "the Zermatt doctor
thinks he is not going to recover, and my husband says that he will
live for months. Now my husband, dear, is a _very clever man indeed_,
though he is only young; and although the other man looks very
formidable and wears spectacles I don't believe he is as clever as
Ralph."
I smiled. "You have known the one doctor longer than the other," I
said.
"Not much, as a doctor," she confided. "To let you into a secret which
nobody here has discovered, Ralph and I are on our honeymoon, so that
my experience of his medical abilities is limited, but I am sure he is
very clever. But come! the hotel is only just across the way."
She accompanied me to my room and chatted incessantly whilst I was
endeavouring to remove the grime and grit which the continental engines
deposit so generously upon the traveller behind them.
"There!" she said, as I emptied the water for the third time, and
sponged my face and neck preparatory to a brisk towelling; "you have
emerged at last. But you will never be quite yourself until you have
washed your hair. Do it to-night, dear. I know a splendid way of
tying your head up in a towel so that you can sleep quite comfy."
The squire's face brightened when he saw me. He was sitting near the
window in a great easy-chair which was almost a couch, and his hair was
whiter than when he left England, and his face was--oh! so thin and
grey; but what a gentleman he looked! He held out both hands, but I
bent over and kissed him. If it was a bold thing to do I don't mind.
My Inner Self bade me do it and I obeyed.
He held my face against his for a moment, and neither of us spoke.
Then he said:
"Look at my view, Grace, and tell me if you like it."
I sat on the arm of his chair and looked through the open window. I
saw before me a scene of peaceful loveliness--a valley, richly green,
with here and there oblong patches of yellow framed in olive hedges: a
narrow valley, girded with mountains whose sides rise steeply to
tremendous heights, jagged, scarped, and streaked with snow: a wooded
valley, too, where sombre trees of fir and pine climb the heights and
spread out into thickets which end only with the rock. Quaint,
brown-timbered structures, built on piles and with overhanging roofs,
sometimes isolated, sometimes in little groups, were dotted about the
landscape. A white road wound down the valley, and the yellow waters
of the Visp rushed, torrent-like, along the bottom, to be lost to view
where the land dipped abruptly to the left.
In the far distance mountains of snow lifted up their hoary heads into
the luminous haze; and light clouds, rivalling their whiteness, gave
the illusion of loftier heights still, and led the eye to the brilliant
blue of high heaven.
The sun was behind us, and banks of clouds must have intercepted his
rays from time to time, for the play of light and shade varied like a
kaleidoscope, and the bare, stony flanks of the mountains in the middle
distance shone green or grey or red as the sun caught them. A rude
bridge crossed the stream away below, and I could just make out some
tourists in Tyrolese caps and with knapsacks on their backs, leaning
over the white rails.
The squire put his arm on mine. "I will tell you the names of these
giants later. Meanwhile, tell me, have I chosen well?"
"It is heavenly," I replied. "I should be content to sit here for
days."
"I am content," he said; "there is grander scenery than this around
Zermatt--grander by far. At the other end of the valley you will see
and you will glory in the towering masses of crag and snow which the
Matterhorn and Breithorn present. You will see miles of glaciers and
sparkling waterfalls and a thousand wonders of God's providing; but it
was too cold and massive and hard to suit the mood of a dying man. I
wanted Nature in a kindlier temper, so I sit by the window and commune
with her, and she is always friendly."
There was a stool in the room, and I drew it up and sat at his feet
with one arm upon his knee, as I used to sit for hours in the days of
old, before my father's death left me solitary; and when the squire
placed a caressing hand upon my shoulder I could have thought that, a
chapter had been re-opened in the sealed pages of my life.
"Who is this Dr. Grey," I inquired, "whose charming little wife met me
at the station, and told me you are not going to die for a long
time?--for which I love her."
He smiled. "Grey is an optimist, my dear, and a downright good fellow,
and he has picked up a prize in his wife. They are on their
wedding-tour, as anyone quite unversed in that lore can see at a
glance; and they ought to have left Zermatt a week ago or more but they
have cheerfully stayed on to minister to the physical and mental
necessities of an old man and a stranger. Not many would have done it,
for they are sacrificing one of the most attractive programmes that
Switzerland offers, for my sake."
"What a lot of good people there are in the world," I said. "I am
going to like Dr. Grey as much as I like his wife. He is a big,
strong, well-developed man, of course?"
"Why 'of course?'?" he asked.
"Husbands of tiny wives invariably are; the infinitely small seems to
have a remarkable affinity for the infinitely great."
"Well, he is certainly a strapping fellow, and he is devoted to the wee
woman he has made his wife. I believe, too, he will get on in his
profession."
"His wife says he is a very clever man indeed," I remarked.
"Does she? An unbiassed opinion of that kind is valuable. All the
same, he has done me good, not so much with physic--for I take the
Zermatt man's concoctions--as with his cheery outlook. I believe he
thinks I am a trickster."
"Do you know what I believe, sir?" I asked.
"No; tell me," he said.
"I believe you are going to get better, and I shall take you back to
Windyridge and the moors."
He sighed then, and laid a hand fondly upon mine. "Grace, my child, I
will say now what it may be more difficult to say later. You have
caught me in a good hour, and my weary spirits have been refreshed by
the sight of your face and the sound of your voice; but you must be
prepared for darker experiences. Sometimes I suffer; often I am
terribly weak and depressed. Gottlieb, I know, does not expect me to
recover, and my Inner Self (that is your expression, child, and I often
think of it) tells me he is right. You are too sensible to be unduly
distressed before the time comes, and I want to tell you what I have
planned, and to tell you quite calmly and without emotion. Death to me
is only a curtain between one room and the next, so that it does not
disturb me to explain to you what I wish to be done when it is raised
for me to pass through.
"Midway in the village you will find some gardens opposite the Mont
Cervin Hotel. Pass through them and you will reach a little English
church, surrounded by a tiny graveyard. There lie the bones of men who
have been killed on the mountains, and of others who have found death
instead of life in these health-giving heights. There is one sunny
spot where I want my body to rest, and the chaplain knows it. You can
bear to hear me speak of these things, can you?"
Yes, I could bear it. He spoke so naturally and with such ease that I
hardly realised what it meant: it was unreal, far-off, fallacious.
"At first," he continued, "the idea was repugnant. I longed to be laid
side by side with my wife in the homeland, but that feeling passed. It
was nothing more than sentiment, though it was a sentiment that nearly
took me home, in spite of the doctors. But the more I have thought of
it the more childish it has seemed. I am conscious of her presence
here, always. Metaphysicians would explain that easily enough, no
doubt, but to me it is an experience, and what can one want more? Why,
then, should I run away to Windyridge and Fawkshill in order to find
her, or be carried there for that purpose after death? No, no. Heaven
is about me here, and our spirits will meet at once when the silver
thread is loosed which binds me to earth. Am I right, Grace?"
I was crying a little now, but I could not contradict him.
"Gottlieb shakes his head, but Grey says I may last for months.
Perhaps he is right, but I have no desire to live. Why should I? And
where could I end my days more pleasantly than amidst these
masterpieces of the great Architect?"
Mrs. Grey came for me when the dinner bell sounded, and we went down
together. It has been arranged that I am to lunch with the squire in
his own room, but to have dinner with the rest at a little table which
I share with the Greys.
The doctor is just a great bouncing boy, with merry eyes and thick
brown hair. He is on good terms with everybody--guests of high degree
and low, waiters, porters, chambermaids--all the cosmopolitan crowd.
He adores his little wife, and it is funny to see so big a man
worshipping at so small a shrine.
I expressed my gratitude to them both as we sat at dinner, and he
laughed--such a hearty, boisterous laugh.
"It's my wife. Dot wouldn't hear of leaving, and you cannot get a
separation order in these wilds. She has spent so much time with the
old gentleman that I have been madly jealous for hours at a stretch."
"Don't be untruthful, Ralph," said Mrs. Grey. "You know perfectly well
that you have spoiled our honeymoon with the simple and sordid motive
of gaining professional experience. Besides, you are nicest when you
are jealous."
"Am I, by Jove!" he laughed. "Then 'niceness' will become habitual
with me, for the way all the men look at you fans the flame of my
jealousy. But this is poor stuff for Miss Holden, and I want to talk
seriously to her."
"What is your candid opinion of Mr. Evans?" I asked.
"He is marked to fall, Miss Holden, but if he can be persuaded to make
the effort to live he need not fall for months, perhaps even for years.
The fact is, he has become indifferent to life, and that is against
him."
"What is really the matter with him?"
"Now, there you corner me," he replied. "He has a weak heart,
bronchial trouble, some diabetic tendencies and disordered nerves; but
what is really the matter with him I have not discovered. Can you tell
me?"
"I should have thought all these things were matter enough," I
answered; "but what really ails him, I believe, is what is commonly
termed a 'broken heart.' He is always mourning the loss of his wife
and always dwelling upon reunion."
"He never told me that," replied the doctor thoughtfully; "I am glad to
know it."
"Why should he remain abroad all this time?" I asked.
"Because he shouldn't!" he replied. "In my judgment he has been ill
advised; but it is largely his own fault, too. I think he did well to
leave England for the winter, but he ought to have gone home when the
warm weather came. His medical advisers have always prescribed change
of scene: told him to go anywhere he liked, and 'buck up' a bit, and he
has gone. France, Spain, Egypt, Italy, and now Zermatt. And the old
chap is dying of loneliness. Gottlieb shakes his mournful old head,
and goes out to arrange with the English chaplain where to bury him.
I'd bury them both! If you take my advice you'll pet him and make him
think the world is a nice place to live in, and then we'll take him
home, and let old Gottlieb find another tenant for his grave. If you
will second me we'll have him out of this hole in a week's time."
I felt so cheered, and I will certainly follow his lead. I wrote a
long, explanatory letter to the Cynic, an apologetic one to Rose, and a
picture postcard, promising a longer communication, to Mother Hubbard,
and then turned in and slept like a top.