Fordham's Feud Part 3

"Don't know. Easily found out though."

"But how?"

"Why, go and look at the arrival book in the _bureau_. I'll wait for you here. I'm not interested in the matter."

Away went Philip without a word. Turning the pages of the book, the last entry of all, freshly made, read:

"_Major-General and Mrs Wyatt_."

"_Miss Wyatt_."

CHAPTER FOUR.

ALMA.

Everybody visiting at Les Avants for the first time while the narcissus is in full bloom, is apt to grow more than enthusiastic over that lovely and fragrant flower, even as in higher localities everybody is bound to gush inordinately over that other blossom which is like unto a gun-wad picked into fluff, and is neither lovely nor fragrant--to wit, the _edelweiss_. This being so, it is not surprising that Alma Wyatt should have seized the very first opportunity of escaping from the house with intent to cull as huge a bunch of the beautiful blossoms as she could possibly carry.

It was a radiant morning. The sky a deep and dazzling blue, such as is never to be seen over this uncertain and watery England of ours, was unflecked by a single cloud, and the air, mellow and balmy in the early forenoon, distilled a most exquisite perfume. To Alma it seemed as if all the glories of Paradise lay spread around her as she wandered on through the white and shining fields, drinking in the floods of fragrance diffused by the breath of a million snowy petals. Opposite, the great slopes were all aglow with green and gold, relieved by the sombre plumage of s.h.a.ggy pines straggling up to the frowning scarp of the Dent de Jaman as though they aspired to scale that grim and forbidding wall, and had been forced to yield sullenly in the attempt.

A mellow haze rested upon the soaring peaks beyond the fragment of blue lake just visible--blue as the sky above; and from his pent-up prison far down in the deep and wooded gorge the hoa.r.s.e thunder of the mountain torrent was borne upward in subdued and unending cadence, to mingle with the hum of bees culling their sweet stores from the luscious cells of the narcissus blossoms. Small wonder that to this girl with the large, earnest eyes and poetic temperament--small wonder that to this girl, but two days out from damp and c.o.c.kneyfied Surbiton, the majesty of the great mountains, the h.o.a.ry cliffs still flaked with snow towering on high, the black and stately pines, the vernal pastures and the far-away echo of melodious cow-bells, the blue lake and the golden splendour of this radiant Swiss summer, should be as something more than a glimpse of the glories of Paradise.

She was glad that she had come out alone, glad that she had not met any of the other girls with whom she had made acquaintance the evening before. It was delicious to be free to drink in all the wealth of this Elysium without feeling constrained to talk, to reply to commonplaces which should let in the outside world, vulgar by comparison, upon the illimitable charm of this fairy scene. For this was her first experience of Switzerland--almost of the Continent--and it in nowise fell short of the ideal she had formed.

Alma Wyatt had been left fatherless at an early age. Better for her had she been orphaned altogether. Her childhood had been wholly uncared for, and, as far as her mother was concerned, unloved. For she had a younger sister upon whom that mother's love was concentrated to doting point. All the bitterness of home life had fallen to Alma, all the sweets thereof to her sister. Their mother, a selfish, domineering woman, whose redeeming qualities were infinitesimal even to vanishing point, simply made the elder girl's life wretched within that semi-detached villa at c.o.c.kneyfied Surbiton, but for the younger the slender resources of a cramped income were strained to the uttermost.

No wonder that the beautiful face was seldom free from a tinge of sadness; no wonder that her character had acquired a concentrativeness and reserve beyond her short twenty years of life.

We said that it would have been better for her were she an orphan indeed, and in saying this we are not exaggerating. Her uncle and aunt, under whose care we first make her acquaintance, looked upon her almost as their own child--would have been only too glad to have adopted her as such, for they were childless. But her mother would not hear of this.

Alma was necessary as, figuratively speaking, a whipping-post for Constance, the younger girl. She could not part with her altogether-- besides, she was useful in other ways. But the General and his wife managed to have her with them as frequently as they could, and the widow, who could not afford to quarrel with her brother-in-law, dared not oppose his wishes in the matter beyond a certain point. So here was Alma, with a prospect of two months to spend with her dearly-loved and indulgent uncle and aunt; two months of easy travel and varying sojourn among the fairest and most inspiring scenes that this world can show; two months of unconventional life as near to perfect freedom as the trammels of civilisation will allow; and above all, two months of emanc.i.p.ation from home worries and suburban semi-detached pettinesses, and the galling fetter of a show of "duty" towards those whom she could neither love nor honour.

Standing there among the narcissus, gazing around upon the radiant scenes spread in l.u.s.trous splendour about her, she made a wondrously beautiful picture. Her eyes shone with a light of gladness, and the normally calm regularity of the patrician features had given way to a slight flush of eagerness which was infinitely winsome. But as her glance suddenly met that of another the glad light vanished as by magic, yielding place to a look of vexation, coldness, reserve. She had been surprised in the midst of a rhapsody--taken off her guard.

But as though he read her thoughts, Philip Orlebar was not the man to add to her discomfiture. He was thoroughbred, _aux bouts des ongles_, and with all his lightheadedness and devil-may-care jollity, was endowed with tact beyond the endowment of most Englishmen--_young_ Englishmen at any rate.

"Good morning, Miss Wyatt," he said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the pipe from between his teeth. "Out among the narcissus already, I see. Just what I've been doing myself--though, as a rule, flower gathering isn't much in my line.

I only pick up an extra fine blossom now and again as I stroll along, which may account for the meagreness of my bunch," exhibiting a small handful containing some dozen of stalks. "But you--you have got a grand bouquet."

The unaffectedness of his address, the breezy lightheadedness of his tone, was not without its influence even upon her. The gravity of her reserve melted into a smile.

"They are so lovely," she answered; "I couldn't remain indoors a moment longer."

"Just the state of the case with me. Surprising how great minds always jump together. But to be serious, I believe the blossoms up above there are larger than these. Some one or other in the hotel told me I ought to go and look at them, and I did," added mendacious Phil. "That lazy dog, Fordham, wouldn't move--planted himself at the end of a pipe in a cane chair in one of those arbours. I couldn't stand that, so I started a stroll in a small way. Let me carry those for you." And in a twinkling he had possessed himself of the two huge bunches of narcissus which she had gathered.

"Thanks. It's a shame to burden you, though. Isn't this a beautiful place?"

"Rather. Old Fordham is enthusiastic about it, and I don't much wonder.

He knows it well, you see. I never was here before in my life, but now I am here I'm in no hurry to move on. There are some grand walks and first-rate climbs to be had. You were saying last night you were looking forward to that sort of thing. I hope we shall be able to show you the way about a little. We must make up a party for a climb somewhere before this splendid weather changes. Fordham is worth any round dozen of guides."

"But--we can hardly lay your friend's good-nature under such a heavy contribution," she said, with a queer little smile.

"Oh, can't we! Old Fordham is the best fellow in the world--only wants knowing a bit. He'll do anything he's asked."

That queer smile broadened round Alma's lips. She had sat opposite the now eulogised Fordham during the whole of dinner-time; and, be it remembered, she was given to studying character. But she said nothing, and by this time they had regained the hotel.

A cool fountain was playing in the terraced garden in front of the _promenoir_, shooting high in the air and falling back into its basin in a shower of scattering diamond drops. Beside this, leaning on an alpenstock, a big meerschaum in his mouth, stood General Wyatt.

"Well, Alma. Been ravaging the narcissus fields?" he said, as they came up. "But what on earth will you do with all that lot? A trifle too strong, won't it be, for any ordinary-sized room?"

"I don't think so, uncle. Why, in England people would give anything for such magnificent blossoms as these, and here we are already beginning to think them nothing very great. But I'll go and put them in water for the present."

"Well, don't be long, dear, or we sha'n't get our walk," he called after her.

"Grand day, General?" said Philip, re-lighting his pipe.

"It is, indeed. By the bye, since I've heard your name, are you in any way related to Francis Orlebar--Sir Francis he is now?"

"Rather closely. He happens to be my father. Did you know him well?"

"You don't say so! Well, well! It's a small world, after all. Know him well? I should think I did. I was some years his senior though, and he wasn't long in the service. But that must have been before you were born."

"And have you never met since, General?"

"Only once--just about the time he got into that--er--ah." And the old man, remembering who he was talking to, suddenly pulled himself up and launched forth into a tremendous sneeze. The slip was not lost upon Phil, but he came to the rescue promptly.

"Think we are like each other, General?" he said.

"N-no! Don't know though. There is a likeness. You're the finer built fellow of the two--taller and broader. Bless my soul, though, but the world is a small one. To think of Frank Orlebar's son turning up in this way?"

"I hope I'm not interrupting, General Wyatt," said a feminine and tentative voice. "Your niece was saying last night she was a perfect stranger here, and we thought she might like to go with us. We are going to the Cubly. It isn't far, and we shall be back to lunch. We hope you will come too."

The speaker was one of the two girls who had pa.s.sed our friends in the Gorge du Chauderon. Phil had already made a little conversation with her the evening before. So now she turned and extended the invitation to him. He gladly accepted, while the General answered for Alma and himself that nothing would give them greater pleasure. And at that moment Alma reappeared and they started. The Miss Ottleys were pleasant well-bred girls of artistic tastes and plenty of conversation, and the walk promised to be a success.

We shall not, however, follow the party to the pine-crowned height sheering up from the vine-clad slopes immediately behind Montreux, nor share in the magnificent panorama which it affords. Sufficient to say that at the end of three hours they returned, in the highest spirits and on the best of terms with themselves and each other. In such free and easy fashion are acquaintanceships formed and often consolidated into friendships, amid the pleasant unconventionally of life in mountain hotels.

CHAPTER FIVE.

FORDHAM PHILOSOPHISES.

"I say, Fordham. We're getting up an expedition for to-morrow, and you've got to come," cried Phil, bursting into his friend's room just before dinner one evening.

"Have I?" replied the latter leisurely, turning round with a half-soaped visage, and razor arrested in mid-air. "But, Phil, it's rather lucky you didn't swoop down in such hurricane method upon a more nervous man than yours truly, or it's wildly hunting for sticking plaster he'd be at this moment. And now, for my enlightenment, who's _we_?"

"Oh, the Ottleys and the Wyatts and one or two more. We want to start early, cross the lake by steamer and get as far up that valley on the other side as we can."

"To Novel? Yes, and then?"

"Why then we are going to charter a boat and row back in the cool of the evening."