The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols Part 8

'Her acquaintance!'

'Yes,' said Nan, simply; 'and I mean to renew it when I get back, if mamma will let me. Singing Sal knows far more about the coast than I do, and I want to learn more. . . . Oh, look!'

Both of them had been for some time aware of a vague luminousness surrounding them, as if the sun wanted to get through the ma.s.ses of vapour; but at this moment she, happening to turn her head, found that the wind had in one direction swept away the mist, and behold, far away in the valley beneath them, they could see the village of Splugen, shining quite yellow in the sunlight. Then the clouds slowly closed over the golden little picture, and they turned and walked on. But in front of them, overhead, the wind was still at work, and there were threads of keen blue now appearing over the twisting vapours. Things began to be more cheerful. Both the carriages behind had been thrown open. Nan's face looked pink, after one's eyes had got so used to the whiteness of the snow.

'I suppose there are no people so warmly attached to their country as the Swiss are, she said (she was not ordinarily a chatterbox, but the cold, keen air seemed to have vivified her). 'I am very glad the big thieves of the world left Switzerland alone. It would have been a shame to steal this little bit from so brave a people. Do you know the song of the Swiss soldier in the trenches at Strasburg? I think it is one of the most pathetic songs in the world.'

'No, I don't,' he said. How delighted he was to let her ramble on in this way, revealing the clear, beautiful soul, as Singing Sal might have thought.

'He tells the story himself,' she continued. 'It is the sound of the Alphorn that has brought this sorrow to him, he says. He was in the trenches at night, and he heard the sound of the Alphorn far away, and nothing would do but that he must try to escape and reach his fatherland by swimming the river. Then he is taken, and brought before the officers, and condemned to be shot; and he only asks his brother soldiers to fire straight---- But I am not going to spoil it.'

She put her hand up furtively for a second to her eyes, and then she said cheerfully--

'I have had enough walking. Suppose we wait for the carriage?'

'I think I ought to apologise to you, Miss Anne,' said he. 'You prefer walking by yourself--I ought not to have come and bothered you.'

'It is of no consequence,' said Nan, looking back for the carriage, 'so long as you haven't wet your feet.'

They got into the carriage and continued on their way; and very soon it became apparent, from the flashes of sunlight and gleams of blue, that they had worked their way up through the cloud-layers. In process of time, indeed, they got clear of the mists altogether, and emerged on to the higher valleys of the Alps--vast, sterile, the white snow-plains glittering in the sun, except where the rocks showed through in points of intense black. There were no longer any pines. They were in a world of snow and barren rocks and brilliant sunlight, with a cold luminous blue sky overhead; themselves the only living creatures visible; their voices sounding strangely distinct in the silence.

When they were quite at the summit of the pa.s.s, a smurr, as we say in Scotland, came over; but it did not last. By the time they had got the drags on the wheels, the vast gorge before them--descending and winding until it disappeared in a wall of mountains of the deepest blue--was again filled with sunlight; and now they began to be a little bit sheltered from the wind as the horses trotted and splashed through the wet snow, carrying them away down into Italy.

They lunched at Campo Dolcino, still some thousands of feet above the level of the sea. Then on again, swinging away at a rapid pace down into a mighty valley; rattling through galleries cut in the solid rock; then out again into the grateful sunlight; taking the sharp curves of the road at the same breakneck speed; with always below them--and so far below them that it was silent--a rushing river sweeping down between fair pastures and dots of villages. As the evening fell, this clatter of hoofs and wheels came to a sudden end; for they were entering the town of Chiavenna, and there you must go at walking pace through the narrow little thoroughfares. It was strange for them to come down from the snow-world into this ordinary little town, and to find in the hotel not only all sorts of products of a high civilisation, but even people who were speaking the familiar English tongue.

There was a telegram addressed 'Lieutenant F. H. King, R.N.,' in the case in the bureau; when Frank King had got it out and read it he was silent for a second or two.

'I hope there is no bad news,' said Miss Beresford, in a kindly way.

She was not a very sympathetic person; but Frank King had brightened up their tour during these last two days, and she was in a measure grateful to him.

'No,' he said, absently. 'Oh no, not bad news. The telegram is from the officer I left in charge of the _Fly-by-Night_; I rather think that I shall be setting out for home again in a couple of days.'

'Oh, I am sorry for that,' she said, quite naturally.

'You go on again to-morrow, Miss Beresford?'

'We were proposing to do so.'

'And where do you think of going to when you get to Lake Como?'

'Bellagio, most probably.'

'Oh, well, I will go with you as far as Bellagio, if I may,' he said, somewhat thoughtfully.

CHAPTER IX.

THE SERENATA.

Next morning also he was preoccupied and anxious, insomuch that even Nan noticed it, and good-naturedly hoped he had had no bad news. He started somewhat.

'No, oh no,' he said. 'Only the telegram I got last night makes it necessary for me to start for home to-morrow.'

'Then, at least,' said Nan cheerfully, 'you will see Lake Como before you go.'

Her eldest sister smiled in her superior way.

'Nan's head is full of romance,' she said. 'She expects to see the Como of the print-shops: don't you, Nan? Blue water and golden boats, and pink hills, and Claude Melnotte's castle lifting its--whatever was it?--to eternal summer. I am afraid the quotation is not quite correct.'

And the truth was that, despite this warning, Nan did seem somewhat disappointed, when, after hours of rattling and splashing along a muddy road, they came upon a stretch of dirty, chalky-green water that in a manner mirrored the gray and barren crags above it.

'That isn't Como!' cried Nan. 'It can't be.'

'Oh, but it is,' Miss Beresford said, laughing. 'At least it's the upper end of it.'

But Nan would not believe it; and when at last they reached Colico, and fought their way through the crowd of swarthy good-for-nothings who strove to attach themselves to every sc.r.a.p of luggage, and when they had got on board the steamer and secured commanding positions on the upper deck, then Nan declared that they were about to see the real Lake of Como. It was observed that the young sailor glanced once or twice rather anxiously at the sky and the seething clouds.

Well, they sailed away down through this stretch of pallid green water, that was here and there ruffled with wind, and here and there smooth enough to reflect the silver-gray sky; and they called at successive little villages; and they began to be anxious about a certain banking up of purple clouds in the south-west. They forgot about the eternal summer, and got out their waterproofs. They were glad to find themselves drawing near to Bellagio, and its big hotels, and villas, and terraced gardens. The wind had risen; the driven green water was here and there hissing white; and just as they were landing, a pink flash of lightning darted across that dense wall of purple cloud, and there was a long and reverberating rattle of thunder.

'It seems to me we have just got in in time,' said Frank King in the hall of the hotel.

The storm increased in fury. The girls could scarcely dress for dinner through being attracted to the window by the witches' cantrips outside.

The thunder blackness in the south-west had deepened; the wind was whirling by great ma.s.ses of vapour; the water was springing high along the terraces; and the trees in the terraced gardens were blown this way and that, even though their branches were heavy with rain. Then it was that Edith Beresford said--

'Nan, you ought to persuade Lieutenant King to stay over another day.

He hasn't seen Como. This isn't Como.'

'I?' said Nan, sharply. 'What have I to do with it? He can go or stay as he pleases.'

'Besides,' continued Edith, 'in consequence of this _tempo cattivo_----'

'I suppose that means weather that rains cats and dogs,' said Nan, whose anger was of the briefest duration.

'----the grand _Serenata_ is put off till to-morrow night. Now he ought to stay and see the illuminations of the boats.'

'The illuminations,' said Nan. 'I should think he had something else to think of.'

Nevertheless, when, at dinner, Miss Edith was good enough to put these considerations before Lieutenant King, he seemed very anxious to a.s.sent, and he at once called for a time-table; and eventually made out that by taking the night train somewhere or other, he could remain at Bellagio over the next day. And he was rewarded, so far as the weather went. The morning was quite Como-like--fair and blue and calm; the sun shining on the far wooded hills, and on the sparkling little villages at their foot; the green lake still running high, with here and there a white tip breaking; a blaze of sunlight on the gardens below--on the green acacia-branches and the ma.s.ses of scarlet salvia--and on the white hot terraces where the lizards lay basking.

It was a long, idle, delicious day; and somehow he contrived to be near Nan most of the time. He was always anxious to know what she thought about this or about that; he directed her attention to various things; he sometimes talked to her about his ship--and about what sailors thought of when they were far from home and friends. They went out on the lake--these four; the hot sun had stilled the water somewhat; reclining in the cushioned stern of the boat, in the shelter of the awning, they could hear the bells on sh.o.r.e faint and distant. Or they walked in that long allee leading from one end of the gardens--the double line of short chestnuts offering cool and pleasant shadow; the water lapping along the stone parapet beside them; and between each two of the stems a framed picture, as it were, of the lake and the velvet-soft slopes beyond. It was all very pretty, they said. It was a trifle common-place, perhaps; there were a good many hotels and little excursion steamers about; and perhaps here and there a suggestion of the toy-shop. But it was pretty. Indeed, towards sunset, it was very nearly becoming something more. Then the colours in the skies deepened; in the shadows below the villages were lost altogether; and the mountains, growing more and more sombre under the rich gold above began to be almost fine. One half forgot the c.o.c.kneyism and familiarity of the place, and for a moment had a glimpse of the true loneliness and solemnity of the hills.

As the dusk fell they began to bethink themselves of what was before them.

'It would have been a bad thing for the musicians from La Scala if they had attempted to go out last evening,' Miss Beresford remarked.

'It will be a bad thing for us,' said Edith, who was the musical one, 'if we attempt to go on board their steamer this evening. It will be far too loud. You should never be too near. And, especially where there is water, music sounds so well at some distance.'