The Princess Passes by Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

A >> Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson >> The Princess Passes

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"We will stop and ask for the bag," said I, watching the face of the
man. It did not blench, and I began to wonder if, after all, he might
not be honest.

The priest, a delightful, white-haired old fellow, himself of the
peasant class, had returned, and from a locked cupboard in his bare
little dining-room study produced the much talked of bag, in its
_ruecksack_.

The Boy sprang at it eagerly. So secure had he believed it to be on
the grey donkey's back, that he had not been in the habit of taking
out the key. It was still in the lock, and, the bag standing on the
priest's dinner table, the Boy opened it with visible excitement. Then
he dived down into the contents, without bringing them into sight, and
a bright colour flamed in his cheeks. "Everything is safe," he said,
with a long sigh of relief. "I'm thankful."

He turned to the priest, speaking in French--and his French was very
good. "I have offered a large reward to the finder of this bag. But
the man will not have it. Can you tell me why, _mon pere_?"

"I cannot tell you, Monsieur. Doubtless he has a reason which seems to
him good," answered the priest, who evidently knew that reason, but
was pledged not to tell. "He and his family have not been in my parish
long, but I believe them to be worthy people. I have been trying to
get work for Andriolo, since he has been well again, and able to
undertake it, but so far I have not been fortunate."

The Boy took a handful of gold from his pocket. "For the poor of your
parish, _mon pere_, if you will be good enough to accept it for them,"
said he, with great charm and simplicity of manner. The old priest
flushed with pleasure, saying that he had many poor, and was
constantly distressed because he could do so little. This would be a
Godsend. I glanced at the Italian, and saw that his weary, dark eyes
were fixed with a passionate wistfulness upon the gold. This look, his
whole appearance, bespoke poverty, yet he had deliberately refused
five thousand francs, a fortune to most men of his condition. Now that
he was vouched for by the priest, extreme curiosity took the place of
suspicion in my mind.

I hid the blue cap of the concierge behind my back, in the priest's
house, but the Boy saw it, and saw that I was drenched with rain. I
must have been a figure for laughter, but he did not laugh. "You see,
I was in a hurry," I excused myself, under a long, comprehending gaze
of his. "It's your fault if I look an ass."

"You didn't stop even to go and get a hat," he said. "You came out in
the rain just as you were, and you ran--I heard you running, behind
me. But--but of course it's because you're kind-hearted. You would
have done just the same for anybody. For--the Contessa----"

"Not for the Baronessa, anyhow," said I. "I should have stopped for a
mackintosh and even goloshes, had her safety been hanging in the
balance."

Then we both laughed, and Stefani, who by this time was showing us
the way through the rain to his own home, looked over his shoulder,
surprised and self-conscious, as if he feared that we were laughing at
him.

On the outskirts of straggling Martigny Bourg, he stopped before a
gloomy, grey stone house with four rows of closed wooden shutters,
which meant four floors of packed humanity. Even Martigny has its
tenements for poor workers, or those who would be workers if they
could, and this was one of them.

We followed Andriolo Stefani up four flights of narrow stone stairs,
picking our way by testing each step with a cautious foot, since light
there was none. Arrived at the top floor, we groped along a passage to
the back of the house, and our guide opened a door. There was a yellow
haze, which meant one candle-flame fighting for its life in the dark,
and we waited outside, while the Italian spoke for a moment to someone
we could not see. There came a note of protest in a woman's voice, but
the man's beat it down with some argument, and then Stefani returned
to ask us in.

Two women sat in a room almost bare of furniture, and both tried to
rise on our entrance; but one, who was young as years go, had her lap
full of little worn shoes, and the other, who looked older than the
allotted span, was nursing a wailing baby, half undressed.

I found myself strangely embarrassed with the coarse guilt of
intrusion. I was suddenly oppressed with self-conscious awkwardness,
wishing myself anywhere else, and not knowing what to do or say. In
all probability I looked haughty and disagreeable, though I felt
humble as a worm. How the Boy felt I have no means of knowing; I can
only tell how he acted. One would have thought that he had known these
poor people all his life. I lingered near the door, taking notes of
the sad picture; the two rough wooden boxes, in which slept three
little dark children, all apparently of exactly the same size; the
mattress on the floor near by for the parents; the open door leading
into a dark garret, where, no doubt, the grandmother crept to sleep;
the shelves on the wall, bare save for a few dishes of peasant-made
pottery; the pile of dried mud on the tiled floor, which the young
mother had been carefully scraping with a knife from the little worn
boots in her lap; the rickety, uncovered table, with a bunch of
endives on a plate, and a candle guttering in a bottle. This was the
picture, redeemed from squalor only by the lithograph of the Virgin on
the wall, draped with fresh wild flowers, and its perfect cleanliness;
this was the home of the supposed "kidnapper," the man who had refused
to accept five thousand francs as a reward.

While I stood, stiff and uncomfortable, the Boy went forward quickly,
begging the two women not to rise. "Poor, dear little baby!" he said
in Italian, looking down at the dark scrap of humanity in the
grandmother's arms. "She is ill, isn't she?"

Now, how did he know that the creature was a "she"? If it were a
guess, it was a lucky one, for both women replied together that the
little girl had been ailing since yesterday. They could not tell what
was the matter. They had hoped that she would be better to-day, but
instead, she seemed worse; and with this, a glittering film which had
been overspreading the mother's eyes, suddenly dissolved into silently
falling rain. There were no sobs, no gaspings from this tired woman,
too used to sorrow to rail against it, yet it was plain to see that
her heart was breaking. Still, life must go on: and so, while she
grieved for a little one she feared to lose, she cleaned the boots of
those she hoped to keep.

"Have you called a doctor for her?" asked the Boy.

"The good priest is half a doctor. He came to see the _bambina_."

"What did he say?"

"Oh, Signor, we cannot give her all the things he said she should
have, nor can he help us to them, for he has much to do for others,
and little to do it with."

"Yet you would not let your husband take the reward I offered for
finding my bag. He is out of work, and you are poor; you have four
children to feed, and one of them is ill. Why will you not have the
money? I have come to ask you that. You see, I _want_ you to have it,
for the bag is worth all I've offered and even more to me."

"Ah, Signor, how can I tell you? It was to save my baby I refused."

"Please tell. You need not mind saying anything to me--or to my
friend. We are interested and want to help you."

Now the young woman's tears were falling fast, but silently still, as
if she knew that her heart-break was unimportant in the great scheme
of things, and she wished to make no noise about it. Her lips moved,
but no words came.

"She will not speak against me," Stefani said suddenly, "nor will my
poor mother. But I will tell you the story. I meant to steal your bag,
and sell the gold things and all the valuables that were in it. It was
a great temptation, for we had scarce a penny left, and there was no
work anywhere. I was tired, tired all through to my heart, Signor,
that night on the Pass, and then I found the bag. I brought it home,
and charged Emilia and my mother to say nothing to anyone outside. The
children were at school, so they did not see, or they might have
lisped out something, and set people talking. The two women begged me
to give up the bag, and try for a reward in case one should be
offered, but I was desperate. I said that the gold was worth more than
anything that would be offered--the gold, and some jewelry in a little
box. I knew a man who would buy of me, and I had gone out to find him
yesterday, when, as if Heaven had sent a curse upon us for my sin, the
_bambina_ was struck down with this illness--a terrible aching of her
little head, and a fever. When I came home to take away the things out
of the bag, my wife begged me on her knees, for the child's sake, to
change my mind; and at last I did, for who can hold out against the
prayers of those he loves?

"Quickly, lest I should repent, I carried the bag to our priest, and
told him all. He thought as a penance for the sin which had been in my
heart, I should take no reward if it were offered, though he did not
lay this upon me as a command. Emilia was with him, for, said she, Our
Lady will save the baby if we make this great sacrifice. Now you know
all the truth."

"And I know that you are good people--better than I would have been in
your places--better than anyone I know. There's no credit in keeping
straight if one's not tempted to go wrong, is there? I won't offend
you by begging that you'll take the reward. I offer you no reward, but
I am going to give your children a present, and you are to use it for
the comfort of your family. I have enough with me, because, you see, I
had to get something ready to-day, in case the reward had to be paid.
Now, it isn't needed for that, so I can use it in this other way. And
you have done all that is right, and you would hurt me very much if
you refused to let me do what I wish. It is always wrong to hurt
people, you know. And you must send me word early to-morrow morning
before I go, whether the baby is better. I feel sure, somehow, that
she will be."

Then a roll of notes was thrust into one of the little boots, still
caked with mud, which the mother kept mechanically in her hand. There
was a pat on the shoulder, too, and an instant later the Boy's arm was
hooked into mine; I was whisked away with him in as rapid a flight as
if he had been a thief, and not a benefactor.

"How much did you give them, young Santa Claus?" I asked, when he had
me out in the rain again.

"About one thousand three hundred dollars. I can't stop to calculate
it for you in pounds or francs. I'm too excited. Oh, how wet you are,
poor Man! And all for me! But wasn't it splendid! And I just know that
baby'll be better to-morrow. You see if she isn't."

She was. The news was brought to us early in the morning by a poor man
half out of his wits with joy and gratitude.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVII

The Little Game of Flirtation

"To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you
leave them behind you."
--WALT WHITMAN.

The Contessa had to be pacified, but she adored romance, and she was
pleased to say that the story of the bag, lost and found, which I--not
the Boy--told her, came under that category. She was in the best of
tempers for a day of travelling, and saw us off, before her friends
were dressed and ready to begin their drive to Chamounix.

"They are taking as long as they can, on purpose," she whispered to
me, with the air of a naughty child planning mischief behind the backs
of its elders. "Anything to keep me to themselves and away from you!
But you are walking, and the way is uphill for a very long time, so
the hotel people say. We shall catch you up, and just to spite the Di
Nivolis, if nothing more, I shall beg first one of you, then the
other, to let me give you a lift. Neither of you must refuse, or I
shall cry, and no man has ever made me cry yet."

"I'm sure no man ever will," I answered promptly.

"And no boy?" she asked, with a long-lashed glance at my companion,
who had given no answer save a smile.

"I wonder how you would look when you cried, Contessa?" was the only
reply the little wretch deigned, but instead of offending, it appeared
to amuse her. She watched our cavalcade out of the hotel garden (the
_ruecksack_ once more on Souris' faithless back), and the silver bells
of her laughter lightly rang us down the road.

Again we had to pass through Martigny Bourg, and presently, turning
aside from the road which had led me to the Grand St. Bernard, we took
the way on the right, almost at once feeling the rise of the hill.
Steeper and steeper it grew, and warmer and warmer we, though the day
was young. Often we were glad of the excuse the view gave us to stop
and look back, down into the wide bowl of the Rhone Valley, with a
heat-haze of quivering blue, creating an effect of great distance,
like a "gauze drop" on the stage.

Surely this was the longest lull on earth, and when we reached the
top--if we ever did--we should find that we had been climbing Jack's
Beanstalk, coming out into a different world! Up and up we dragged for
hours, the Boy determined not to take to donkey-back, despite the
protestations of Innocentina, emphatic, but slightly modified by
constant association with the man she was engaged in converting.

Sometimes we were ministered to by small maidens, with marvellously
neat, sleek hair, who sprang up under our eyes, apparently from
rabbit-holes, their arms hooked into the handles of big fruit baskets
which might easily have been their bathtubs or cradles. If we seemed
inclined to turn away with an expressionless gaze, the little
creatures forged after us with a determined trot, laid back with tiny
brown hands the dainty white napkin hiding the basket's contents, and
tempted us with purple plums or mellow pears. In the end, we
invariably succumbed to these wiles, even when we had sickened at the
thought of fruit, and were obliged surreptitiously to hide our
purchases by the wayside, when the sturdy young vendors' backs were
turned.

We carried our panamas in our hands, and the Boy's short chestnut
curls clung to his forehead in damp rings, making him look absurdly
childish. I wondered at myself for discussing with eager interest, as
I often did, so many of life's unanswerable questions with such a slip
of boyhood. Still, I knew that I should often do it again, while we
remained together, and that he would know how to measure wits with
mine, to my disadvantage, compelling always my respect for his
opinions, unless he happened to be in an inconsequential or impish
mood.

After a long climb, we called a halt at the most attractive of several
little wayside chalets we had passed. Each was thoughtfully provided
with an awning or wooden roof stretching across the road to give shade
to travellers, who were lured to pause by bottles of bright-coloured
syrups, wine, and beer displayed on flower-decked tables. Our chosen
chalet made a specialty of milk, and a view. There was a rough balcony
at the back, built over a sheer precipice, and far beneath, the Rhone
Valley spread itself for our eyes. We sat resting, with glasses of
rich yellow milk in our hands, when a voice under the road-shelter in
front roused us from reverie. It was the Contessa greeting Joseph and
Innocentina, who were reposing on a bench in the delicious shade.

"I was just thinking it was rather queer they hadn't caught us up," I
said, rising; and then I asked myself why I had said it; for, when I
came to cross-question my own thoughts, they had to own up that the
Contessa had not been in them.

"Oh, it was the Contessa you were thinking of, then, when you sat
looking as if you were a thousand miles away, and had left your body
behind to keep your place?" said the Boy, jumping up quickly. "Well,
here she is; your mind may be at ease."

We returned to the front of the house, through the neat, bare
"living-room," the Boy a step or two ahead of me, as if anxious to
greet the new arrivals. Off came his hat, and he stood leaning against
the carriage, looking up into the warm brown eyes of Gaeta, which were
warmer and brighter than ever because of this sudden show of devotion.

Had the magnetism of her coquetry fired him? I wondered, it would be
strange if it were not so, for she was beautiful, and her manner
flattering to a boy so young. Somehow, my spirits were dashed at the
thought that my companion's last words to me might be explained by
jealousy of an older man with a pretty woman. It would be hard if it
were to come to this between us. Though I had talked of going to see
her in Monte Carlo, the butterfly Contessa was no more to me than a
delicate pastel on someone else's wall, or a gay refrain, which charms
the ear without haunting the memory. I would not interfere with the
Boy; if he chose to encourage Gaeta to flirt with him, he need not
fear me; but I had liked to think he valued my comradeship. Now, a
fancy for this child-woman would rob me of him. Instead of being
piqued by the Contessa's growing preference for the Boy, as I ought
to have been by all the rules of the game of flirtation, I was
conscious of anger against her as an intruder.

This feeling increased almost to sulkiness when the Boy was invited to
take a seat in the carriage beside the gloomy Baron, and accepted
promptly.

The driving party had been delayed a long time in starting, Gaeta
explained, making large eyes which blamed her friends for everything;
and the driver had brought his horses slowly, oh, so slowly, up the
long hill, the stupid fellow. But now the carriage flashed ahead, and
I was left to tramp on alone, while the Contessa and the Boy flirted,
and Joseph and Innocentina bickered, all alike unmindful of me.

We lunched at the Col de Forclaz, where the hill, tired of going up,
ran down to another valley. There was a godlike assemblage of
mountains, white and blue, mountains as far as the eye could reach,
and I had a thought or two which I would have liked to exchange for
some of the Boy's. But if he had ever really had any thoughts, save
for the fun of the moment, he had the air of forgetting them all for
Gaeta. When, in a tone of unenthusiastic politeness, she asked if I
would not take my friend's place in the carriage for a while when we
started on again, out of pure spite against the little wretch who had
dropped me for her I said that I would.

I could not see the Boy's face, to make sure if he were disappointed,
but I hoped it. As for myself, I would fain have walked. In a scene of
such exalted beauty, Gaeta's little quips and quirks struck a wrong
note. Sitting with my back to the horses, I could see the Boy walking
on behind, his face raised mountain-ward and sky-ward, and I longed to
know of what he was thinking, for evidently he had left his
aggravating, "awfully-jolly-don't-you-know" mood in the carriage with
the Contessa.

[Illustration: "SITTING WITH MY BACK TO THE HORSES."]

The Baron and his wife disputed volubly about the date of one of
Paolo's grand dinners in Paris; Gaeta yawned, and I was stricken with
dumbness. I could think of nothing to say which she would think worth
hearing. Soon, the tremendously steep descent into the valley gave me
the best of excuses to jump down and relieve the horses, which the
coachman was leading. Somehow, I don't quite know how, I fell back a
good distance behind the carriage, and then I found myself so near the
Boy, who had been slowly following, that it would have been rude not
to join him. After all, we had no quarrel, yet oddly enough we could
not take up the thread of our intercourse exactly where it had been
broken off. There seemed to be a knot or a tangle in it, which would
have to be smoothed out.

It was a wholly irrelevant incident which untied the knot, and left us
as we had been, though there was no reason for it but a laugh which we
had together.

The thing came about in this wise. We arrived at a small hotel which
boasted a garden, and was famous as a view-point. From the door a
carriage containing a man was about to drive away. The man was
approaching middle age, and had an air of quiet self-reliance which
redeemed him from insignificance. He was plainly dressed, in clothes
which were not new, and altogether he did not appear to be a personage
who, from the hotel-keeper's point of view, would be of supreme
importance. Yet the landlord and another besieged the quiet man with
compliments and pleadings, to which he did not seem inclined to
listen. Bowing gravely, he told his coachman to drive on, and in a
moment had passed us as we stood in the road.

But when he had gone, the landlord and his assistant still had no eyes
for us. "Mark my words," exclaimed the former, in a tone of anguish,
"we shall lose our star."

Were they astrologers, that they should fear this fate?

Our curiosity was excited, and seeing a head-waiterly person, who wore
a mien between awe and stifled amusement, I called for beer which I
did not wish to drink. It was served on a table in the shady garden,
and I enquired if the carriage just out of sight had contained a
troublesome guest.

"Troublesome is not the word, Monsieur," replied the waiter. "But a
thing has happened. That gentleman whom you saw, arrived a few days
ago, giving the name of Karl. He took the cheapest room in the house;
he drank one of the cheapest wines, having satisfied himself that the
price was within his means. To-day, he said that he was leaving, and
asked for his bill. When it was made out, the wine came to a franc
more than he thought it ought. 'I do not complain,' said he to our
_patron_; 'if that is the price of the wine, I will pay, but I was
told at the table it was less. I do not consider the wine good enough
for the price.' This vexed the _patron_, because one does not think
the more of a person who haggles over a franc, especially if that
person has studied cheapness in all ways during his visit. Perhaps the
_patron_ spoke somewhat irritably, for he did not care whether the
monsieur ever came back to his house or not. Then the monsieur paid
the bill, without another word, and was going away, when a German
gentleman, who had been sitting here in the garden, said to the
_patron_: 'Do you know who that is?' No,' replied our _patron_, 'I do
not know, nor do I care.' 'It is Baedeker,' said the gentleman. This
was terrible; and the patron flew to correct the little mistake about
the wine, with a thousand apologies; but the monsieur would not have
his money back, and you saw him drive away. Now, it is possible that
our hotel will no longer keep its star, and that would be no less than
a catastrophe."

Evidently, what his cherished peacock-feather is to a Chinese
mandarin, that is a Baedeker star to a hotel-keeper; and the Boy and I
were so tickled at the little tragi-comedy that we forgot, as we
walked on side by side, that we had been upon official terms only.

Again we were struck by the extraordinary individuality which
differentiates one valley or mountain-pass from another. We had seen
nothing like this; nothing, perhaps, so purely beautiful. One could
not imagine that winter snow and ice could still the pulse of summer
here. It was as if we wandered from one green glade to another in
fairyland, where all the little people who owned the magic land had
turned themselves hurriedly into strangely delicate ferns and
bluebells to watch us, laughing, as we went by.

The village of Trient lay in deep shadow when we reached it, and found
the others waiting for us in the carriage in front of the chief hotel;
but there was no gloom in the shadow; it was only a deeper shade of
green, with a hint of transparent blue streaked across it. Another
remote, dream-village on the long list of places where I really
_must_ stay for a lazy summer month--when I have time! The list was
growing long now, almost worryingly long, and the Boy felt it so, too,
for he also had a list, and strange to say, it was much the same as
mine.

We had tea, and were vaguely surprised to see a number of people of
our own kind, most of them English and American, engaged in the same
occupation, and evidently at home in the place. Trient was on their
list as well as ours, and now, if they liked, they could cross it off,
and begin with the next place.

The Contessa thought the Boy looked tired, and urged him to drive
again, but though his manner was still flirtatious he found an excuse
to keep to his feet. He was not really tired, not a bit; how could one
be tired in so much beauty? The poor horses were fagged though, for
the carriage was heavy; he would not add to its weight.

"You _are_ getting rather white about the gills," I said to him when
the driving party had once more left us behind. "Why didn't you take
up your flirtation where you left it off, like a serial story to be
'continued in your next'? Your weight is nothing."

"It wasn't that, really," replied the Boy.

"What, then?"

"Do you remember why I wanted to come over the Tete Noire?"

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