Wanderfoot Part 34

CHAPTER XXI

LONELY WAYS

"I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end."--A. C. SWINBURNE.

But for the time being she went no farther than to the South of France.

Not less than she, Bran, after wintering among houses, needed open skies. They were of one blood, and the longing for blue was on them both--the blue of s.p.a.ce and sea and sky. And nowhere better in Europe can that blueness be found in April and May than down along the Mediterranean coast. At first they went to Ste. Maxime, a little village pitched in green and golden beauty beside St. Tropez's azure bay, and from where at dawn the sun can be seen shooting up from his golden bath just behind Corsica. For just several seconds the little island, cradle of the world's greatest general, shows like an inky mound against an aureole of yellow light that swiftly turns to rose, for another moment the sun rests on the peak of its highest mountain, then Corsica seems to sink and disappear into the sea until the next day's dawn.

Val did not stay long at Ste. Maxime. She wanted a villa where she could have Bran to herself, after the long months of enforced absences from him. If her unexpected fortune could not give her the delicious joy of absolute companionship and intimacy with her child it was useless indeed! Besides, in hotels children are swiftly spoilt by people who do not afterwards have to bear the brunt of the spoiling, and Val did not mean Garrett Westenra's boy to become weakened by the petting of Frenchwomen who love to treat other people's children like pretty lap-dogs--to be caressed in certain moods and thrust aside in others.

So after a week or two during which an agent busied himself on her behalf, she moved on to Cannes, and took possession of an ideal villa he had found for her. It lay above the road between Cannes and Cap d'Antibes, but perched high beyond the dust and din of motors; on the right, La Croisette winged away into the sea, on the left, a gaunt shoulder of the Alps with a shawl of snow draped on it showed keen against the mistral-swept skies; while about it, in all the tall beauty and tropical splendour of Riviera foliage, cl.u.s.tered a garden full of dreams. A garden of winding paths edged by ivy leaves lying flat, and little wild strawberry plants thrusting up coral fruits; tall palms and cacti glowing with flaming candelabra, waxen-leaved creepers, branching giant-aloes, delicate fern-like mimosa leaning tenderly above beds of violets, large as purple b.u.t.terflies, great patches of poppies, ma.s.sed clumps of heather white as snow and bright with happy bees; and everywhere roses, roses drowsing in the sunshine, perfuming the air!

It was a garden in which coolness could be found on the sultriest day of summer, but for spring days the open s.p.a.ce before the wide white steps and pillared porch was ideal. The floor of this s.p.a.ce was of gravel, bleached by rain and a southern sun to snowy whiteness. A clump of tall pines spiking against the sky afforded a webwork of flickering shadows under which to sit as in a balcony hung over the blueness of Golfe Juan.

Always there are ships in that bay of molten turquoise; red-sailed fishing boats; leaden-coloured warships, with their grim air of power, lying at anchor; yachts spreading white wings for flight.

The house itself, like nearly all Riviera villas, was square built, and standing alone would have been less beautiful than solid and comfortable-looking. But in its jewelled setting of leaf and gold and blazing colour, the walls of dead white gave a note of quiet beauty and peace. A long balcony from the upper rooms dripped with clematis, and all round the house, high on the walls, large medallions bore the names of the days. Alternately with these were other medallions on which were painted on a pale blue ground white and scarlet-winged storks, flying, flying like the days.

The Villa of Little Days, a poetess who had lived and dreamed there named it. She was a famous woman, a friend of Gambetta, who in his lifetime came often to visit her. It was she who had planned the wild and tender beauty of the garden. Val blessed her often in the spring months she and Bran pa.s.sed there.

The domestic arrangements were, from her point of view, ideal. A garage across the road pertained to the villa, and had attached to it a cottage which was occupied by a man and his wife whose services were at the disposal of those who rented the villa. The man minded the great garden all through the sultry summer, dug, gathered, transplanted, and cut firewood from the pines for the log fires of winter; also he could drive a car, and did not disdain to clean a window. His wife Marietta, a big-boned gay-faced Ma.r.s.eillaise, with the bloom of a peach on her cheeks, and rings of garnets in her ears, made short work of such cleaning as a villa bathed in perpetual sunshine and purified by sea-breezes needed. Incidentally, she could serve up a tureen of _bouillabaisse_ of a flavour and fragrance to seduce the heart of a king and convert a vegetarian from his amazing ways.

Bran, happy as always within sight of the sea, raced the garden with his "fox," or sat under the pines with his mother, listening to the pine needles growing, or hearing stories of the Greek heroes who, on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, seem to be more real and comprehensible than in any other part of the world. Perhaps because old Greece and the Ionian Isles are so near at hand! Indeed, the lure of the horizon is so great on that fair sh.o.r.e, that if she had been alone in the world nothing could have held Val from taking train to Ma.r.s.eilles, and from thence as fast as ship could bear her. But Bran and his well-being bound her fast like Prometheus to his rock. The rush of trains and the throb of ships' machinery are no furtherances to health in young children. It is in quiet gardens and comfortable homes that the young heart expands and the little body shoots and flourishes. The garden of the veldt was what she could most have wished for him--that wild garden where her own heart had grown its dreams. But it was far, far, and only to be reached by such long journeying as the child was not yet fit for.

So she stayed with him in the southern garden, and if her own heart sailed away sometimes in the ships that slid over the horizon down the side of the world, her body remained to guard Westenra's son and to give him what she "possessed of soul."

Her only regret was that Haidee too could not be revelling in the golden southern sunshine. But Haidee was studying at Versailles with quite extraordinary energy. The exams. were close upon her, and Val was far from wishing to divert her attention from the goal. She had never failed to impress upon the child the importance of mental equipment that is grounded on solid instruction. She could see for Haidee too, where she had never seen for herself, that to leave the mind and heart and soul open and waiting for some man to walk in and fill them is to court disaster. There is no man in the world big enough to fill the heart and mind and soul of a woman worth considering. The thing is to fill them first with beauty and learning and wisdom, and let the man come in after, if there be room. For a woman to stake everything on a man is to play a losing game. But another love in the soul, be it music, literature, art, mathematics, or the maternal instinct, is insurance against total beggary. If by great good chance a man's love brings happiness, then the other love is an added glory; if misery comes the other is a refuge.

Poor Val! She had not followed the creed herself, but she saw well enough the wisdom of it for Haidee, and had tried to instil into her the prudence of going nap on Art rather than on Heart. She wanted Haidee to benefit by her own failures, and never ceased from urging and encouraging her on towards a goal. A further instigation she used freely was the mention of the great pride and pleasure Westenra would feel in her successful pa.s.sing of the "_Bacho_" and gaining of the _diplome_.

But Haidee, in response to all letters, kept on saying nothing. Even to Val's promise of a trip to the South as soon as the exams, were over, she made no more than a sullen acknowledgment. But Val knew from the reports of the professors that she was working hard.

Most people flee from the Riviera during the summer months. Of course it is hot, but that is not the reason. With the advent of the hot weather the Riviera becomes very quiet. The "season" is over, and the fashionable birds fly away. But as a matter of fact the charm of the place is only ripening. The blaze and beauty of the scene become riper and more gorgeous. The white villas disappear into their gardens, submerged by a flood of green leaves that hide and protect them from the blaze and dust, though of the last there is less than in the season, for the motors cease from troubling and the siren is at rest. The sweet silence of the night is unbroken by blood-curdling shrieks or jerked-out hoots from the cars of those rushing to, or returning furiously from, Monte Carlo. Of course in the bungalow type of villa built to catch the spring sunshine, and with no well-treed garden in which to shelter from fierce heat, it would be unwise and uncomfortable to stay through the summer; but in the Villa of Little Days there was every comfort within and without, and nothing to irk except the occasional bite of a mosquito that had intrigued its way through wired windows and mosquito netting.

The days pa.s.sed in a great idle peace. For Val was frankly idle--with her hands. With her mind she was always working and giving forth to Bran. But with her hands, for the first time in her life since she had sat idle under the shadow of a buck-sail imbibing her father's vagabond creeds, she did nothing. And, even as in those days Gay Haviland had handed on to his child what was his of greatness of heart and soul, so in the southern garden during long torrid days of tropical peace, when under the tingling ether thought seemed to detach itself in bright fountains from the sluggish ma.s.s of lesser things, Val gave of all that was best in her to Westenra's son. The pity of it is that all mothers cannot have this unlimited leisure to give to their children in the days when character is forming for life.

In a sense, too, Val was at peace for the first time since her early marriage. The menace and terror of Valdana's existence, the load she had carried on her conscience for years with regard to her position in Westenra's life, all had been swept away by the hand of Death, the greatest friend! And she was free of Westenra too. Whether it were true or not that he intended to marry Miss Holland she would never lay claim to his life or name again, never return to that life in New York that crippled her soul, robbed her of her individuality, and turned her into a useless, incapable creature whom she herself despised.

The decision was not even hers to make--at least so it seemed to her.

He had made it for her in Jersey. And it was all old grief and pain!

She had learned during those terrible months of nursing Horace Valdana to hush her heart to rest. She had had her chance with Garrett and his love, and failed, it seemed. Even in spite of Valdana's resurrection she would surely, had she been worthy, have kept Westenra's love? As it was, love had done with her, she would never feel pa.s.sion again.

"All her red roses had fallen asleep, All her white roses were sleeping!"

The brave thing was to face the fact and abide by it. Besides, she had Bran. A woman who is a mother can never be quite lonely and unhappy.

One little chapel of the heart may remain empty and dismantled but all other s.p.a.ces in it are filled to overflowing. And ... away at the back of Val's mind a dream had begun to simmer and waver and take form--a dream of a waggon on the veldt, with Bran. Some day she would return to work and wandering--she knew that now.

In the autumn Haidee pa.s.sed her exams, brilliantly, getting honours with her "_Bacho_" and a first-cla.s.s _diplome_. It was a great achievement, and Val was deeply pleased, knowing how the news would gratify Westenra.

She wrote at once sending Haidee a beautiful gift in celebration of the success, and asking when she should come to Paris and fetch her South.

For by this time she had discovered that she could trust Marietta with Bran, and had no fear of leaving him for a few days.

But Haidee wrote back coldly, barely acknowledging the gift, and stating that she wished to stay on at the Lycee working at her music and painting until December, when Celine Lorrain and her father were coming down to Ma.r.s.eilles to see the last of Rupert, who, having finished his two years' military service, was going out to Morocco. Val made no objection to this plan, but her heart was chilled at this open preference for strangers. The Lorrains were good friends, of course, but after all she and Haidee had been through poverty and sorrow and sickness together. She looked upon the girl, if not as her child, at least as her younger sister. Was it possible that she still cherished resentment about Sacha? At any rate Val was too proud to make any further advances. She knew Haidee to be one of those natures that are not softened by kindly advances, but rather inclined to hold the advancers in contempt for their pains--a fault of youth that pa.s.ses with a wider knowledge and experience of humanity.

When she had gone to say good-bye to Haidee before leaving Paris, it was with the intention of telling her the wonderful news about the necklace, and also as much as was necessary of the return and death of Valdana without exactly revealing the ident.i.ty of the latter and his relationship to herself. However, Haidee's bleak manner had nipped untimely in the bud the good intention. Val could not afford to take into her confidence any one who was not entirely sympathetic, and though she did not believe that Haidee would be capable of deliberate disloyalty, yet she realised that the latter, in spite of the grown-up airs, was only a child, and as such liable to be swayed by moods in which she might fling a confidence to the four winds, and repent her action when it was too late. And the secret of Horace Valdana's resurrection had not been kept these many years for it to be lightly betrayed by a child. As for the matter of the fortune gained by the sale of the Comfort necklace, Val had been obliged to strangle her longing to tell Haidee all about it, for how could she suppose that any one who showed such an almost offensive indifference to her affairs was really burning with curiosity to know the meaning of her suddenly changed circ.u.mstances? Haidee hid her feelings well. Thus it came to pa.s.s that a secret which Val would gladly have shared and felt redoubled pleasure in the sharing, had been kept of necessity to herself. She had not even told Rupert, for she felt that apart from the children no one else before Westenra had a right to know. And since Westenra showed no further interest in her--well, it was no one's affair.

When the week came for the expected arrival of Haidee, what was Val's intense surprise to receive a letter from her saying that she should not be coming down with the Lorrains. For one thing, she wrote, General Lorrain was ill and Celine could not leave him, so that Rupert would be travelling alone. For another, she added casually, as if prompted by an afterthought, "Garry is in Paris and we are going about a great deal together. It is possible that he may come down South--_to see Bran_ before he returns to New York. But this is not quite certain. I will let you know later."

Westenra in Europe for the first time for four years, and this was the way he notified her! Val was stricken to the soul. Never had she so acutely realised the position to which he had relegated her. A mere minder of his child, and in some respects not so good as that, for a nurse or governess would at least have received kindly and courteous letters from her employer. This casual second-hand message seemed to be the cruellest of any of the blows her heart had suffered since first she threw in her lot with Garrett Westenra. And at first she sank under it.

It was the little more that is too much. But presently with some of her old courage she braced herself to the new situation. If she had got to meet Westenra she would be ready for it. She had not trained her soul for years to no avail. She had not lived with austerity, stood apart from temptation, fought spiritual battles, for nothing. A strong rock was at her back for the hour of need, a rock she had been forming for herself in all the years since she last saw Westenra. She would be ready when he came to receive him with dignity and strength untainted by resentment or any petty feeling.

But before that time Rupert the blue-eyed and ardent, in whom she recognised so much of her own nature, came bursting into the Calendar of Little Days. She welcomed him with all the pleasure a woman feels in seeing those whose affection for her is sure and unquestioning, who doubt not her loyalty and pure intention.

His light-heartedness seemed to have waned a little, and his pleasure at having attained his majority and freedom to depart where he listed was not so great as Val had expected. He explained the reason succinctly.

"It is all very well to be rich and free, Val, but I am very alone in the world." His eyes resting in hers took an expression of intense melancholy.

"That is the curse the G.o.ds lay upon us wanderers, Rupert," she said sadly.

"'Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you!'

"Yet it is that loneliness we are always trying by our own efforts to alleviate."

"There is only one person in the world who can alleviate it for me."

"And you have not found her yet," interrupted Val promptly, and before he could say what she read in his eyes, continued swiftly: "I want you to tell me all about Haidee. You saw her recently, didn't you? How is she looking?"

"Very pretty," said Rupert gloomily. "She is a great beauty, that Haidee, and looks no longer like a brown pony."

"Brown pony?"

"Ah, I should not have said that! It was one of poor Sacha's _blagues_ that she always looked like a wild pony with her brown mane flying ...

but she is very different now and quite cured of Sacha, with her hair put up and long frocks and the self-possessed manner of twenty."

"Has she really got her hair up?"

"Yes, indeed. I saw her with the guardian. He is a fine fellow, is n't he? She is much in love with him. I think they will marry."

"Marry!" Val started as if a missile had struck her. A moment later she controlled herself and laughed--an odd, nervous laugh. "Why, Rupert, how silly you are! She is practically Dr. Westenra's child. He has brought her up from a baby."

"That makes nothing. She is not a baby any more, and she does n't look at him like a father. I prophesy to you that Haidee marries him."

He was arrested by Val's expression.

"You do not care for such a marriage?"