Lady Barbarina Part 49

"She wants to get away from her mother"-Madame Beaurepas so far confirmed me. "She wants to _courir les champs_."

"She wants to go to America, her native country."

"Precisely. And she'll certainly manage it."

"I hope so!" I laughed.

"Some fine morning-or evening-she'll go off with a young man; probably with a young American."

"Allons donc!" I cried with disgust.

"That will be quite America enough," pursued my cynical hostess. "I've kept a boarding-house for nearly half a century. I've seen that type."

"Have such things as that happened chez vous?" I asked.

"Everything has happened chez moi. But nothing has happened more than once. Therefore this won't happen here. It will be at the next place they go to, or the next. Besides, there's here no young American pour la partie-none except you, monsieur. You're susceptible but you're too reasonable."

"It's lucky for you I'm reasonable," I answered. "It's thanks to my cold blood you escape a scolding!"

One morning about this time, instead of coming back to breakfast at the pension after my lectures at the Academy, I went to partake of this meal with a fellow student at an ancient eating-house in the collegiate quarter. On separating from my friend I took my way along that charming public walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of immense elevation, overhanging a stretch of the lower town. Here are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and over the tiles and chimneys of the _ville ba.s.se_ a view of the snow-crested Alps. On the other side, as you turn your back to the view, the high level is overlooked by a row of tall sober-faced _hotels_, the dwellings of the local aristocracy. I was fond of the place, resorting to it for stimulation of my sense of the social scene at large. Presently, as I lingered there on this occasion, I became aware of a gentleman seated not far from where I stood, his back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was all radiant, and a newspaper unfolded in his lap. He wasn't reading, however; he only stared before him in gloomy contemplation. I don't know whether I recognised first the newspaper or its detainer; one, in either case, would have helped me to identify the other. One was the _New York Herald_-the other of course was Mr. Ruck. As I drew nearer he moved his eyes from the stony succession, the grey old high-featured house-masks, on the other side of the terrace, and I knew by the expression of his face just how he had been feeling about these distinguished abodes. He had made up his mind that their proprietors were a "mean" narrow-minded unsociable company that plunged its knotted roots into a superfluous past. I endeavoured therefore, as I sat down beside him, to strike a pleasanter note.

"The Alps, from here, do make a wondrous show!"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Ruck without a stir, "I've examined the Alps. Fine thing in its way, the view-fine thing. Beauties of nature-that sort of thing. We came up on purpose to look at it."

"Your ladies then have been with you?"

"Yes-I guess they're fooling round. They're awfully restless. They keep saying _I'm_ restless, but I'm as quiet as a sleeping child to _them_.

It takes," he added in a moment dryly, "the form of an interest in the stores."

"And are the stores what they're after now?"

"Yes-unless this is one of the days the stores don't keep. They regret them, but I wish there were more of them! They told me to sit here a while and they'd just have a look. I generally know what that means-it's _their_ form of scenery. But that's the princ.i.p.al interest for ladies,"

he added, retracting his irony. "We thought we'd come up here and see the cathedral; Mrs. Church seemed to think it a dead loss we shouldn't see the cathedral, especially as we hadn't seen many yet. And I had to come up to the banker's anyway. Well, we certainly saw the cathedral. I don't know as we're any the better for it, and I don't know as I should know it again. But we saw it anyway, stone by stone-and heard about it century by century. I don't know as I should want to go there regularly, but I suppose it will give us in conversation a kind of hold on Mrs.

Church, hey? I guess we want something of that kind. Well," Mr. Ruck continued, "I stepped in at the banker's to see if there wasn't something, and they handed me out an old _Herald_."

"Well, I hope the _Herald's_ full of good news," I returned.

"Can't say it is. d.a.m.ned bad news."

"Political," I inquired, "or commercial?"

"Oh hang politics! It's business, sir. There _ain't_ any business.

It's all gone to-" and Mr. Ruck became profane. "Nine failures in one day, and two of them in our locality. What do you say to that?"

"I greatly hope they haven't inconvenienced you," was all I could gratify him with.

"Well, I guess they haven't affected me quite desirably. So many houses on fire, that's all. If they happen to take place right where you live they don't increase the value of your own property. When mine catches I suppose they'll write and tell me-one of these days when they get round to me. I didn't get a blamed letter this morning; I suppose they think I'm having such a good time over here it's a pity to break in. If I could attend to business for about half an hour I'd find out something.

But I can't, and it's no use talking. The state of my health was never so unsatisfactory as it was about five o'clock this morning."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," I said, "and I recommend you strongly not to think of business."

"I don't," Mr. Ruck replied. "You can't _make_ me. I'm thinking of cathedrals. I'm thinking of the way they used to chain you up under them or burn you up in front of them-in those high old times. I'm thinking of the beauties of nature too," he went on, turning round on the bench and leaning his elbow on the parapet. "You can get killed over there I suppose also"-and he nodded at the shining crests. "I'm thinking of going over-because, whatever the danger, I seem more afraid not to.

That's why I do most things. How do you get over?" he sighed.

"Over to Chamouni?"

"Over to those hills. Don't they run a train right up?"

"You can go to Chamouni," I said. "You can go to Grindelwald and Zermatt and fifty other places. You can't go by rail, but you can drive."

"All right, we'll drive-you can't tell the difference in these cars.

Yes," Mr. Ruck proceeded, "Chamouni's one of the places we put down. I hope there are good stores in Chamouni." He spoke with a quickened ring and with an irony more pointed than commonly served him. It was as if he had been wrought upon, and yet his general submission to fate was still there. I judged he had simply taken, in the face of disaster, a sudden sublime resolution not to worry. He presently twisted himself about on his bench again and began to look out for his companions. "Well, they _are_ taking a look," he resumed; "I guess they've struck something somewhere. And they've got a carriage waiting outside of that archway too. They seem to do a big business in archways here, don't they? They like to have a carriage to carry home the things-those ladies of mine.

Then they're sure they've got 'em." The ladies, after this, to do them justice, were not very long in appearing. They came toward us from under the archway to which Mr. Ruck had somewhat invidiously alluded, slowly and with a jaded air. My companion watched them as they advanced.

"They're right down tired. When they look like that it kind o' foots up."

"Well," said Mrs. Ruck, "I'm glad you've had some company." Her husband looked at her, in silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected that her unusually gracious observation was prompted by the less innocent aftertaste of her own late pastime.

Her daughter glanced at me with the habit of straighter defiance. "It would have been more proper if _we_ had had the company. Why didn't you come after us instead of sneaking there?" she asked of Mr. Ruck's companion.

"I was told by your father," I explained, "that you were engaged in sacred rites." If Miss Ruck was less conciliatory it would be scarcely, I felt sure, because she had been more frugal. It was rather because her conception of social intercourse appeared to consist of the imputation to as many persons as possible-that is to as many subject males-of some scandalous neglect of her charms and her claims. "Well, for a gentleman there's nothing so sacred as ladies' society," she replied in the manner of a person accustomed to giving neat retorts.

"I suppose you refer to the cathedral," said her mother. "Well, I must say we didn't go back there. I don't know what it may be for regular attendants, but it doesn't meet my idea of a really pleasant place of worship. Few of these old buildings do," Mrs. Ruck further mentioned.

"Well, we discovered a little lace-shop, where I guess I could regularly attend!" her daughter took occasion to announce without weak delay.

Mr. Ruck looked at his child; then he turned about again, leaning on the parapet and gazing away at the "hills."

"Well, the place was certainly not expensive," his wife said with her eyes also on the Alps.

"We're going up to Chamouni," he pursued. "You haven't any call for lace up there."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you've decided to go somewhere," Mrs. Ruck returned. "I don't want to be a fixture at an old pension."

"You can wear lace anywhere," her daughter reminded us, "if you put it on right. That's the great thing with lace. I don't think they know how to wear lace in Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine; but I mean to keep it till I get home."

Mr. Ruck transferred his melancholy gaze to her elaborately-appointed little person; there was a great deal of very new-looking detail in Miss Ruck's appearance. Then in a tone of voice quite out of consonance with his facial despondency, "Have you purchased a great deal?" he inquired.

"I've purchased enough for you to make a fuss about."

"He can't make a fuss about _that_," said Mrs. Ruck.

"Well, you'll see!"-the girl had unshaken confidence.

The subject of this serenity, however, went on in the same tone: "Have you got it in your pocket? Why don't you put it on-why don't you hang it round you?"

"I'll hang it round _you_ if you don't look out!" cried Miss Ruck.