The Market-Place

CHAPTER XI

FROM their windows, high up and at the front of the big hotel, Julia looked down upon the Lake of Geneva. She was in such haste to behold it that she had not so much as unbuttoned her gloves; she held her muff still in her hand. After one brief glance, she groaned aloud with vexation.

Beyond the roadway, and the deserted miniature pier of Territet, both dishevelled under melting and mud-stained snow, there lay a patch of water—motionless, inconspicuous, of a faded drab colour—which at some small distance out vaguely ceased to look like water and, yet a little further out, became part and parcel of the dull grey mist. Save for the forlorn masts of a couple of fishing boats, beached under the shelter of the pier, there was no proof in sight that this was a lake at all. It was as uninspiring to the eye as a pool of drippings from umbrellas in a porch.

While her uncle and brother occupied themselves with the luggage being brought up by the porters, she opened a window and stepped out upon the tiny balcony. A flaring sign on the inner framework of this balcony besought her in Swiss-French, in the interests of order, not to feed the birds. The injunction seemed meaningless to her until she perceived, over by the water, several gulls lazily wheeling about. They were almost as grey as the fog they circled in. Suddenly they seemed to perceive her in turn, and, swerving sharply, came floating toward the hotel, with harsh, almost menacing cries. She hurried in, and shut the window with decision. It seemed to her that the smile with which, as she turned, she was able to meet her uncle's look, was a product of true heroism.

Apparently this smile did not altogether delude him. “Oh, now, you mustn't get down on your luck,” he adjured her. “We're going to be awfully cozy here. Have you seen your room? It's just there, in a little alley to the right of the door. They say it has an even finer view than these windows. Oh, you needn't laugh—this is the best view in the world, I'm told by those who know. And as a winter-resort, why——”

“I say, look here!” The interruption came from Alfred, who, having gone out on one of the balconies, put in his head now to summon them. “Come here! Here's some fun.”

He pointed out to Thorpe the meaning of the inscription on the sign, and then pulled him forward to observe its practical defiance. A score of big gulls were flapping and dodging in excited confusion close before them, filling their ears with a painful clamour. Every now and again, one of the birds, recovering its senses in the hurly-burly, would make a curving swoop downward past the rows of windows below, and triumphantly catch in its beak something that had been thrown into the air.

Thorpe, leaning over his railing, saw that a lady on a balcony one floor below, and some yards to the left, was feeding the birds. She laughed aloud as she did so, and said something over her shoulder to a companion who was not visible.

“Well, that's pretty cool,” he remarked to his niece, who had come to stand beside him. “She's got the same sign down there that we've got. I can see it from here. Or perhaps she can't read French.”

“Or perhaps she isn't frightened of the hotel people,” suggested the girl. She added, after a little, “I think I'll feed them myself in the morning. I certainly shall if the sun comes out—as a sort of Thanksgiving festival, you know.”

Her uncle seemed not to hear her. He had been struck by the exceptional grace of the gestures with which the pieces of bread were flung forth. The hands and wrists of this lady were very white and shapely. The movements which she made with them, all unaware of observation as she was, and viewed as he viewed them from above, were singularly beautiful in their unconstraint. It was in its way like watching some remarkable fine dancing, he thought. He could not see much of her face, from his perch, but she was tall and fashionably clad. There was a loose covering of black lace thrown over her head, but once, as she turned, he could see that her hair was red. Even in this fleeting glimpse, the unusual tint attracted his attention: there was a brilliancy as of fire in it. Somehow it seemed to make a claim upon his memory. He continued to stare down at the stranger with an indefinable sense that he knew something about her.

Suddenly another figure appeared upon the balcony—and in a flash he comprehended everything. These idiotic, fighting gluttons of gulls had actually pointed out to him the object of his search. It was Lady Cressage who stood in the doorway, there just below him—and her companion, the red-haired lady who laughed hotel-rules to scorn, was the American heiress who had crossed the ocean in his ship, and whom he had met later on at Hadlow. What was her name—Martin? No—Madden. He confronted the swift impression that there was something odd about these two women being together. At Hadlow he had imagined that they did not like each other. Then he reflected as swiftly that women probably had their own rules about such matters. He seemed to have heard, or read, perhaps, that females liked and disliked each other with the most capricious alternations and on the least tangible of grounds. At all events, here they were together now. That was quite enough.

The two ladies had gone in, and closed their window. The sophisticated birds, with a few ungrateful croaks of remonstrance, had drifted away again to the water. His niece had disappeared from his elbow. Still Thorpe remained with his arms folded on the railing, his eyes fixed on the vacant balcony, below to the left.

When at last he went inside, the young people were waiting for him with the project of a stroll before dinner. The light was failing, but there was plenty of time. They had ascertained the direction in which Chillon lay; a servant had assured them that it was only a few minutes' walk, and Alfred was almost certain that he had seen it from the window.

Thorpe assented with a certain listlessness, which they had never noted in his manner before, but when Julia begged him not to stir if he were in the slightest degree tired, he replied honestly enough that he would do anything rather than be left alone. Then, of course, they said, there should be no walk, but to this he would not listen. The party trooped downstairs, accordingly, and out into the street. The walking was vile, but, as Julia had long ago said, if they were to be deterred by slush they would never get anywhere or see anything.

It proved to be too late and too dark to either enter the castle or get much of an idea of its exterior. Returning, they paused again to look into the lighted window of the nice little book-shop. The numerous photographs of what they were entitled to behold from the windows of their hotel seemed more convincing than photographs usually were. As the young people inspected them, they became reassured. It was not credible that such a noble vista would forever deny itself to such earnest pilgrims. When their uncle introduced this time his ancient formula about the certainty of brilliant sunshine in the morning, they somehow felt like believing him.

“Yes—I really think it must change,” Julia declared, with her fascinated glance upon the photographs.

Alfred looked at his watch. “We'd better get along to the hotel, hadn't we?” he suggested.

“By the way”—Thorpe began, with a certain uneasiness of manner—“speaking of dinner, wouldn't you like to dine at the big table d'hote, instead of up in our sitting-room?”

“If you're tired of our dining alone—by all means,” answered Julia, readily. There was obvious surprise, however, in both her look and tone.

“Tired nothing!” he assured her. “I like it better than anything else in the world. But what I mean is—I was thinking, seeing that this is such a great winter-resort, and all the swagger people of Europe come here—that probably you youngsters would enjoy seeing the crowd.”

Julia's glance, full of affectionate appreciation, showed how wholly she divined his spirit of self-sacrifice. “We wouldn't care in the least for it,” she declared. “We enjoy being a little party by ourselves every whit as much as you do—and we both hate the people you get at table d'hotes—and besides, for that matter, if there are any real swells here, you may be sure they dine in their own rooms.”

“Why, of course!” Thorpe exclaimed swiftly, in palpable self-rebuke. “I don't know what I could have been thinking of. Of course they would dine in their rooms.”

Next morning, Thorpe rose earlier than ever—with the impression of a peculiarly restless and uncomfortable night behind him. It was not until he had shaved and dressed that he noted the altered character of the air outside. Although it was not fully daylight yet, he could see the outlines of the trees and vinerows on the big, snow-clad hill, which monopolized the prospect from his window, all sharp and clear cut, as if he were looking at them through an opera-glass. He went at once to the sitting-room, and thrust the curtains aside from one of the windows.

A miracle had been wrought in the night. The sky overhead was serenely cloudless; the lake beneath, stirring softly under some faint passing breeze, revealed its full breadth with crystalline distinctness. Between sky and water there stretched across the picture a broad, looming, dimly-defined band of shadow, marked here and there at the top by little slanting patches of an intensely glowing white. He looked at this darkling middle distance for a moment or two without comprehension. Then he turned and hurriedly moved to the door of Julia's room and beat upon it.

“Get up!” he called through the panels. “Here's your sunrise—here's your Alpine view. Go to your window and see it!”

A clear voice, not unmirthful, replied: “I've been watching it for half an hour, thanks. Isn't it glorious?”

He was more fortunate at the opposite door, for Alfred was still asleep. The young man, upon hearing the news, however, made a toilet of unexampled brevity, and came breathlessly forth. Thorpe followed him to the balcony, where he stood collarless and uncombed, with the fresh morning breeze blowing his hair awry, his lips parted, his eyes staring with what the uncle felt to be a painful fixedness before him.

Thorpe had seen many mountains in many lands. They did not interest him very much. He thought, however, that he could see now why people who had no mountains of their own should get excited about Switzerland. He understood a number of these sentimental things now, for that matter, which had been Greek to him three months before. Unreceptive as his philistinism may have seemed to these delightful youngsters, it was apparent enough to him that they had taught him a great deal. If he could not hope to share their ever-bubbling raptures and enthusiasms, at least he had come to comprehend them after a fashion, and even to discern sometimes what it was that stirred them.

He watched his nephew now—having first assured himself by a comprehensive downward glance that no other windows of the hotel-front were open. The young man seemed tremendously moved, far too much so to talk. Thorpe ventured once some remarks about the Mexican mountains, which were ever so much bigger, as he remembered them, but Alfred paid no heed. He continued to gaze across the lake, watching in rapt silence one facet after another catch the light, and stand out from the murky gloom, radiantly white, till at last the whole horizon was a mass of shining minarets and domes, and the sun fell full on his face. Then, with a long-drawn sigh, he turned, re-entered the room, and threw himself into a chair.

“It's too good!” he declared, with a half-groan. “I didn't know it would be like that.”

“Why nothing's too good for us, man,” his uncle told him.

“THAT is,” said the boy, simply, and Thorpe, after staring for a moment, smiled and rang the bell for breakfast.

When Julia made her appearance, a few minutes later, the table was already laid, and the waiter was coming in with the coffee.

“I thought we'd hurry up breakfast,” her uncle explained, after she had kissed him and thanked him for the sunrise he had so successfully predicted—“because I knew you'd both be crazy to get out.”

He had not over-estimated their eagerness, which was so great, indeed, that they failed to note the excessive tranquility of his own demeanour. He ate with such unusual deliberation, on this exciting morning, that they found themselves at the end of their repast when, apparently, he had but made a beginning.

“Now you mustn't wait for me at all,” he announced to them then. “I'm a little tired this morning—and I think I'd just like to lie around and smoke, and perhaps read one of your novels. But you two must get your things on and lose no time in getting out. This is the very best time of day, you know—for Alpine scenery. I'd hate to have you miss any of it.”

Under his kindly if somewhat strenuous insistence, they went to their rooms to prepare for an immediate excursion. He was so anxious to have them see all there was to be seen that, when Julia returned, properly cloaked and befurred, and stood waiting at the window, he scolded a little.

“What on earth is that boy doing?” he exclaimed, with a latent snarl in his tone which was novel to her ear. “He'll keep you here till noon!”

“He's shaving, I think. He won't be long,” she replied, with great gentleness. After a moment's pause, she turned from the window and came gayly forward.

“Oh, I forgot: I was going to feed the birds. There are several of them out there now.” As she spoke, she busily broke up some of the rolls on the table. Her face was bright with the pleasure of the thought.

“If you don't much mind, Julia,” her uncle began, with almost pleading intonations, “I rather think I wouldn't feed those birds. The rule is there before our eyes, you know—and it's always been my idea that if you're at a hotel it's the correct thing to abide by its rules. It's just an idea of mine—and I daresay, if you think about it, you'll feel the same way.”

The girl freed the last remaining bread-crumb from her gloves. “Why, of course, uncle,” she said, with promptitude.

Although there was no hint of protest in her tone or manner, he felt impelled to soften still further this solitary demonstration of his authority. “You see I've been all round the world, my little girl,” he explained, haltingly, “and when a man's done that, and knocked about everywhere, he's apt to get finicking and notional about trifles every once in a while.”

“You're less so than anybody I ever knew,” she generously interposed.

“Oh, no I'm not. You don't know me well enough yet; that's what's the matter. And you see, Julia—another thing just because you saw that lady throwing out bread, that aint a very good reason why you should do it. You don't know what kind of a person she may be. Girls have got to be so frightfully careful about all that sort of thing.”

Julia offered a constrained little laugh in comment. “Oh, you don't know how careful I can be,” she said.

“But you're not annoyed?” he entreated her—and for answer she came behind him, and rested an arm on his shoulder, and patted it. He stroked her hand with his own. “That's something like the nicest niece in the world!” he exclaimed, with fervour.

When at last she and her brother had gone, he made short work of his breakfast, and drank his coffee at a gulp. A restless activity suddenly informed his movements. He lit a cigar, and began pacing up and down the room, biting his lips in preoccupation as he went. After a little, he opened a window, and ventured cautiously as far out on the balcony as was necessary to obtain a view of the street below. Eventually, he identified his nephew and niece among the pedestrians beneath him, and he kept them in sight till, after more than one tiresome halt at a shop window, they disappeared round a bend in the road. Then he turned and came back into the room with the buoyant air of a man whose affairs are prospering.

He smiled genially to himself as he gathered from the table in one capacious hand all the pieces of bread his beloved niece had broken up, and advanced again to the open window. Waiting here till one of the dingy gulls moving aimlessly about was headed toward him, he tossed out a fragment. The bird dashed at it with a scream, and on the instant the whole squawking flock were on wing. He suffered the hubbub to proceed unappeased for a little while he kept a watchful though furtive eye on that balcony to the left, below. Unhappily he could not get out far enough to see whether the inner curtains of its window were drawn. He threw another bit of bread, and then looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past nine. Surely people travelling to see scenery would be up by this hour.

The strategy of issuing just enough bread to keep the feathered concourse in motion commended itself to his mind. As a precautionary measure, he took all the rolls remaining on the table, and put them in the drawer of a desk by the window. It even occurred to him to ring for more bread, but upon consideration that seemed too daring. The waiter would be sufficiently surprised at the party's appetites as it was.

Half an hour later, his plan of campaign suddenly yielded a victory. Lady Cressage appeared on her balcony, clad in some charming sort of morning gown, and bareheaded. She had nothing in her hands, and seemed indifferent to the birds, but when Thorpe flung forth a handful of fragments into the centre of their whirling flock, she looked up at him. It was the anxious instant, and he ventured upon what he hoped was a decorous compromise between a bow and a look of recognition.

She was in no haste to answer either. He could see rather than hear that she said something to her invisible companion within, the while she glanced serenely in the general direction of his balcony. It seemed to him that the answer to her remark, whatever it was, must have exerted a direct influence upon his destiny, for Lady Cressage all at once focussed her vague regard upon him, and nodded with a reasonably gracious smile.

“It's wonderful luck to find you here,” he called down to her. Having played their part, he wished now that the birds were at Jericho. Their obstreperous racket made conversation very difficult. Apparently she made him an answer, but he could catch nothing of it.

“I'm here with my niece and nephew,” he shouted down. “I don't hear what you say. May I come down and pay my respects—later on? What is your number, and when may I come?”

These questions, as he flashed them in review through his mind, seemed to be all right from the most exacting social point of view. Doubtless it was equally all right that, before replying, she should consult her companion, as she did at some length. Then she replied—and he had no difficulty now in hearing her above the birds—that it would be very nice of him to come, say, in an hour's time. She told him the number—and then almost abruptly went in.

Thorpe, during this hour that ensued, smoked with volcanic energy. He tried to interest himself in one after another of half a dozen Tauchnitz novels his niece carried about, with a preposterous absence of success. He strove to arrange in some kind of sequence the things that he should say, when this momentous interview should begin, but he could think of nothing which did not sound silly. It would be all right, he argued to himself in the face of this present mental barrenness; he always talked well enough on the spur of the moment, when the time came—and still was not reassured.

He wondered if both ladies would be there to receive him, and decided that they would probably regard that as indispensable to the proprieties. In that case, their conversation would necessarily be of the most casual and general character. He would tell them a good deal about his niece, he foresaw. A man travelling about with a niece—and such a delightfully lady-like and engaging little niece—would take on some added interest and dignity, he perceived, in the eyes of ladies travelling alone. He essayed to estimate just how much they would probably like Julia. Of course he would say nothing about her mother and the book-shop; a vague allusion to a widowed sister would be ample on that head. But there could be confident references to Cheltenham; he knew from what Julia had said that it suggested the most satisfactory social guarantees, if taken strictly by itself. And then so much would depend upon Julia herself! If she succeeded in striking up a friendship with them—ah, then everything would be all right. Perhaps they would take a fancy to Alfred too! He was a boy, of course, but conceivably the fact that he wanted to paint, and knew about pictures, would appeal to them. He seemed to have heard somewhere that artists were the very devil among women.

At last the weary time of waiting had worn itself out, somehow, and, after a final polishing before his glass, he went down, and found his right corridor, and knocked at the door. A pleasant voice bade him enter, and, hat and gloves in hand, he went in.

As he had imagined, both ladies were present. He had not been prepared, however, for the fact that it was the American who played the part of hostess. It was she who received him, and invited him to sit down, and generally made him free of the apartment. When he shook hands with Lady Cressage, there was somehow an effect of the incidental in the ceremony, as if she were also a guest.

Nothing could have been simpler or more pleasing than the little visit turned out to be. Miss Madden had suddenly grown tired of the snowless and dripping English winter, and had as promptly decided to come to Switzerland, where the drifts ought to be high enough, and the frosts searching enough, in all conscience. They had selected Territet, because it was familiar to her, and because it was on the way to Martigny and Brieg, and she had had a notion of crossing either the Simplon or the St. Bernard in winter. As she found now, the St. Bernard was quite impracticable, but admittedly a post road was kept open over the Simplon. It was said now that she would not be allowed to proceed by this, but it often happened that she did the things that she was not allowed to do. The hotel-people at both Brieg and Berisal had written refusing to let their horses attempt the Simplon journey, and they were of course quite within their rights, but there were other horses in Switzerland. One surely could buy horses—and so on.

Thorpe also had his turn at autobiography. He told rather whimsically of his three months' experiences at the tail of the juvenile whirligigs, and his auditors listened to them with mild smiles. He ventured upon numerous glowing parentheses about Julia, and they at least did not say that they did not want to know her. They heard with politeness, too, what he could contrive to drag in about his artist-nephew, and said it must be very pleasant for him to have such nice company. At least Miss Madden said this: her companion, as he thought it over afterward, seemed hardly to have said anything at all. She answered the few remarks which he found it possible to direct to her, but the responses took no hold upon his memory. He fancied that she was bored, or unhappy, or both.

Finally, in the midst of commonplaces which, to his apprehension, were verging upon flatness, a bold inspiration disclosed itself—as splendid as the Dent du Midi revealing its glaciers above the mounting sunrise—in his brain.

“We should all be charmed if you would come up and dine with us tonight,” he said, under the abrupt impulsion of this idea. “It's been such an age since we wanderers have had the privilege of company at our table!”

The felicity of these phrases from his lips attracted his admiring attention, even while he waited in suspense for an answer to them.

The ladies exchanged a look. “Yes,” said Miss Madden, after the slightest of pauses, “we shall be very happy.”

Shortly thereafter Thorpe took his leave, and went downstairs and out. He wandered about till luncheon time, observing the mountains across the lake from various standpoints, and, as it were, with new eyes. He was interested in them in a curious new fashion; they seemed to say things to him. His lip curled once at the conceit that he was one of the Alps himself.