The Princess Passes Part 42

Flying down the perfect road towards the plain where two rivers met, loved, and wedded, the valley which was the white mountain's lap blended vague, soft greens and blues and purples, hinting of grapes and figs cl.u.s.tering under leaves. Here and there a vine had been nipped by early frosts and flung its crimson wreaths, like diadems of rubies, in a red arch across distant billows of mountain snows.

Autumn was in the air, and though the gra.s.s and most of the trees kept all their richness of summer greenery, a faint, pungent fragrance of dying leaves and the smoke of bonfires came to one's nostrils with the breeze. Mingled with the exciting scent of petrol, it was delicious.

At the confluence of the newly married Drac and Isere rose the domes and towers of stately old Gren.o.ble, h.o.a.ry with history; and never a town had a n.o.bler setting. Swooping down in half-circles, as if our car had been a great bird of prey, we saw the valley veiled with a silver haze, which wrapped the city in mystery, while through this gleaming gauze the two rivers threaded like strings of turquoise beads.

"How the Boy would have loved this!" I found myself exclaiming over my shoulder to Molly. "He used often to talk of the great charm of descending from heights upon places, especially new-old places, which one has never seen before."

"Used he?" echoed Molly. "Why, that is rather odd. It is exactly what Mercedes has just been saying."

The Perpetual Mushroom moved impatiently. I fancied by the movement of her shoulder that she resented having her thoughts pa.s.sed on to me. I hastened to turn away, sorry that I had reminded her inadvertently of my c.u.mbersome existence; but I could not help wondering what she had been thinking of in the monastery when we had walked for full five moments side by side.

There was no disappointment when we had plunged into the silver haze, torn it apart, and entered the town over a dignified bridge. All around us spread the city old and new; above, on the hills, were numerous chateaux, a strange fort, and the queerest of ancient convents, like the cork castles I had seen in shop windows and coveted as a child. In the town there were statues, many statues--statues everywhere and in honour of everybody. Bayard was there, dying; and there was a delightfully human old fellow (humorous even in marble) who cleverly "lay low" till his worst enemy had finished an elaborately fortified castle, then promptly took it. Not a s.p.a.cious modern street that had not at least one magnificent old palace, a facade of joyous Renaissance invention, or at least a crumbling mediaeval doorway of divine beauty; and nothing of romance was lost because Gren.o.ble makes gloves for all the world.

We sailed out of the town along the straight five-mile road to the Pont de Claix, and now it was ho! for the Ba.s.ses Alpes, over a road which might have been engineered for an emperor's motoring; past the quaint twin bridges spanning the stream side by side, which our guide-book taught us to recognise as one of the Seven Wonders (with capitals) of Dauphine. Then came a valley, almost theatrical in its romantic grace. One would not have believed in it for a moment if one had seen it first in a sketch. Even the railway, on which we soon looked down, was inspired to gymnastic feats, leaping across chasms on giddy viaducts, and twisting back upon itself in corkscrew tunnels.

There were thrilling retrospective views away to the giant Alps we were leaving behind, but soon, nearer mountains crowded them out of sight. The country grew wild, with a strange grimness, like the face of a blind Fate; cultivation ceased in despair of success; and alike on the bare uplands and in the deep-scored valleys there were few signs of human life. Then, suddenly, in such a setting, we came upon the grandest of the Seven Marvels, the most wonderful lone rock in Europe, Mont Aiguille, more like an obelisk of incalculable immensity than a mountain. Once, it had been considered unscalable, and might have remained virgin until this century of hardy climbers, had not Charles the Eighth had a fancy to hear (not to see!) what was on top.

Up went a few of his bravest satellites, hoisting themselves on to the aerial plateau by means of ropes and ladders, and bringing down wondrous tales of impossible chamois, savage, brilliant-coloured birds, and singular vegetation, which stories promptly went into all the geographies of the day and were believed until a more practical explorer named Jean Liotard climbed up, to please himself, in 1834.

We lost sight of this second Dauphine Marvel (the last one we were to see) just before running up the steep hill which led down again into the dark jaws of another mountain pa.s.s. It was the Col de la Croix Haute; and once past this gateway of the Alps the landscape changed slowly and indefinably, here and there suggesting that we were drawing nearer to the south. Though we were still encompa.s.sed on every side by mountains, they had lost their Alpine splendour of bearing; they stooped, or poked their chins.

The country was now all brown and green; and, surfeited with beauty, it seemed to me that here was nothing great. We sped through Aspres; through Serres, on its rocky promontory; and on through Laragne, whose ancient inn with the sign of a spider gave a name to the town. Pointed brown-green mountains were crowned with pointed green-brown ruins, h.o.a.ry after much history-making; and at the pointed mountains'

brown-green feet those _avant-courriers_ of the South, almond trees, had sat down to rest on their way home.

Still we flew on; but at Sisteron Jack slowed down the motor. Here was something too curious for even spoiled sightseers to pa.s.s in a hurry.

The town struggled hardily up one side of a gorge, deep and steep, where the Durance has forced its patient way through a huge barrier of rock whose tilted strata correspond curiously on both sides of the stream. Driving down to the low bridge across the river, we gazed up at the town piled high above our heads, culminating in a fortress which, cut in a dark square out of the sky's turquoise, looked old as the beginning of the world.

Sisteron was brown, too, but not at all green; and beyond, for a time, the country was still in a grim brown study, though it ought to have remembered that it was now laughing Provence. It gave us crumbling chateaux, high-perched ancient rock villages without stint, and even a house (in the strangely named village of Malijai) where Napoleon had lain, early in the Hundred Days; but not a smile or a wild flower.

Then, in a flash, its mood changed. The savage land had been tamed by some whispered word of Mother Nature, and grew youthfully pretty under our eyes. The poplars, in their autumn cloaks of gold, fringed the road with flame, and scattered largesse of red copper filings in our path; the dark mountains drew up over their bare shoulders scarfs of crimson, and the sun flung a million diamonds into the wide bed of the Durance.

Night was falling as we drove into the lazy-looking Provencal town of Digne, where all was green and sleepy, at peace with itself and the world at large. Even the beautiful Doric _chateau d'eau_ was green with moss, and the water of its fountain laughed in sleep; the famous basilica showed grey through green lichen; its wonderful rose window had a green frame of ivy, and the strange, sculptured beasts guarding the door had saddles of green velvet mould.

We slept at Digne, and made an early morning start, the car plunging us almost from the first into scenery which only Gustave Dore could have imagined. Gnome villages and elfin castles clung to slim pinnacles of rock which seemed to swing, like blown branches, against the sky. Wild grey mountains bristled with rocky spines, and trails of scarlet foliage poured like streams of blood down their rough sides, completing the resemblance to fierce, wounded boars.

Our road was a road of steep gradients, leading us through gorges of a grandeur which would have been called appalling when the world was a little younger, and more in awe of savage Nature. If a midge could be provided with a proportionately tiny motor car, and sent coasting at full tilt down a greased corkscrew, from the handle to the sharp end of the screw, the effect would have been somewhat that of our Mercedes leaping down the steep defiles. We were vaguely conscious now and then that a river far below us clamoured for our bones; on one side we had a precipice, on the other a sheer face of towering cliff.

Gorges, glorious gorges! a plethora of gorges. No sooner were we out of one, and drawing breath in a valley of golden sunshine and silver river, but we were back in another majestic canon. Finest of all, perhaps, was the dark Clou de Rouaine; yet when we sprang out into daylight to throw ourselves into the village of Les Scaffarels, wonders did not cease. Now we were in the true hinterland of the gay, blue-and-gold Riviera, following the course of the Var, down to Nice, not many miles away. Wide and pebbly in its bed by the bright pleasure town, here it led us through a succession of more gorges, thundered us through rock tunnels, swept us over bridges, and at last tumbled us into sight of a marvel which must throw the whole seven of Dauphine out of focus. It was the town of Entrevaux, and to my shame I had never heard of it. Where the narrow valley opens into a broad one, and the green, swift flowing river sweeps in a sickle-curve round the base of a high rock, Entrevaux shoots far up into the sky. The river bathes its dark walls, protected by devices dear to the hearts of mediaeval Vaubans. Pepper-castor sentry-boxes jut out over the water; a great drawbridge with portcullis, triple gateway, and neat contrivances for pouring oil and molten lead upon besiegers, alone gives access to the town; while behind the old crowded houses a fortified stairway in the rock leads dizzily up to a stronghold clamped upon a towering peak--a peak like a black, giant wine-bottle, slender-necked, with the fort castle for the cork.

"If the Boy could see this with me!" I thought. And then, because this place was like a fairy place, I remembered the fairy prince's ring.

Never had I followed his instructions; but I rubbed it now, and wished that the genie of the ring would give me back the Little Pal at Monte Carlo.

After Entrevaux, picturesque Puget-Theniers was an anticlimax; though other fairy towns peered down from high crags and sheer hillsides where they hung by wires caught in spider webs--and though we pa.s.sed through other gorges of grim beauty, my thoughts had flown ahead of our swift car. I was glad when at last we came into sight of a fair white city lying on the blue curve of a bay and ringed with green hills, glad that our journey was all but ended; for the fair city was Nice.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE ROCK OF MONACO".]

CHAPTER x.x.x

The Day of Suspense

"Will you make me believe that I am not sent for ... ?

Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow!"

--SHAKESPEARE.

From Nice to Monte Carlo over the Upper Corniche, was for us a spin of less than two hours; and after that most beautiful drive in the world, we slowed down before the green-shaded loggia of the Royal, early in the afternoon. The hotel was only just open for the season, and it was possible to have a choice of rooms. Jack selected a gla.s.s-fronted suite, with a view more beautiful than any other in the extraordinary little princ.i.p.ality:

"Magic cas.e.m.e.nts Opening on the foam of perilous seas In faery lands forlorn."

which were, respectively, the harbour, and the rock of Monaco (as old as Hercules), with its ancient towers dark against a sky of pearl.

I was given a peep into Molly's salon, which appeared to be a sort of crystal palace, with its two window-walls curtained by trailing roses; and Jack kept me for a moment at the door.

"I suppose we shall meet for dinner about eight, won't we, no matter what we may all choose to do meanwhile?" said he.

"Well--er--no," I mumbled, feeling a little foolish. "I have--er--a sort of engagement for to-night. I think I mentioned it before."

"What, to meet that missing Boy of yours?" asked Jack, in a chaffing tone, so tactlessly loud that it must have been distinctly audible to the ladies in the adjoining room, the door of which was open. "Isn't that rather a mad idea? You were vaguely engaged to meet your pal, I believe you said, on the night after your arrival, at the Hotel de Paris, for dinner. But considering the fact that, if you'd walked down as you then intended, instead of motoring, you would have been a fortnight on the way, isn't it fantastic to expect that he'll turn up?"

"Not quite as fantastic as you think," I retorted, remembering the terms of the Boy's letter, which had not been confided to Jack, in their exactness. "Anyhow, I'm going on the off chance."

"You apparently credit the youth with clairvoyance, my dear chap.

Supposing he has come down here, how could he know that you'd arrived?"

"I wired him from Digne, telegraphing to the Poste Restante at Monte Carlo, where he would certainly think of enquiring, if he took much interest in my movements. In that message I made it very clear that I should expect him to stick to our bargain, and I have an impression that he will."

"He may. But, look here, my dear fellow,"--Jack now had the decency to lower his voice,--"have you no red blood in your veins? Mercedes--the real Mercedes--nearly restored to health and spirits by her run with us through splendid air and scenery, is to unveil her charms this evening at dinner. You have irreverently nicknamed her the Perpetual Mushroom. To-night, you will see--but you don't deserve to be told what you will see, if you haven't the curiosity to find out at the first opportunity for yourself."

"Second opportunities, like second thoughts, are better than first,"

said I. "I shall he delighted to take the second opportunity of meeting Miss Mercedes--by the way, what _is_ her other name? You always seemed to take it for granted that I knew; but if it was ever mentioned in the summer, I've forgotten."

"You should be ashamed to admit that you could deliberately and stoically forget a charming young lady's name, and you don't deserve to have your memory jogged. You shall be told the heiress's name when you meet her, and not before."

"I must possess my soul in patience until to-morrow, then," I replied, "for to me one pal in the bush is worth twenty heiresses in the hand, and I am now going out to scour the said bush."

"Which means the Casino, no doubt."

"I shall stroll in, when I've got rid of the dust. The Rooms are the place to come across people."

"All right, gang your ain gait, my son, and I suppose I must wish you luck. Daresay we shall see each other before bedtime."

A few hours later, I was walking down through the gardens, on my way to the Casino. The young gra.s.s, sown last month, had already become green velvet, and the flowers were as fresh as if they had been created an hour ago. The air smelled of La France roses and orange blossoms, though I saw neither. Some pretty Austrian girls were walking about in muslin frocks and gauzy hats, though by this time, in England, women were putting on their fur boas in deference to autumn; and a few days ago I had been lost in a snowstorm on a middle-sized mountain of Savoie.

As I drew near to the big white Casino, strains of music came to me from the terrace, and thinking that the Boy might be there listening to the band, I went through the tunnel and came out on the beautiful flower-decked plateau overhanging the sea. Out of season though it was, a great many people were sitting there, drinking tea or coffee, and listening to "La Paloma."