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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"If know Joseph, it will afford him infinite satisfaction; and the
more intense his physical suffering, the happier he'll be in the
thought that he is bearing it for her," I replied. "I'll go out and
break the news to the poor chap."

The Boy sprang up. "No, no; don't leave me alone!" he cried. Then, as
I looked surprised, he added, more quietly: "I mean I'll go with you,
and talk to Innocentina. Meanwhile, our things can be sent up to our
rooms."

Though he had asked "what the men at the other end of the room were
like," he showed no desire to verify for himself the description I had
given. He kept his back religiously turned towards his countrymen, and
did not throw a single glance their way as we left the salon with the
landlord, though I saw that the two young Americans were interested in
him.

We returned to the door at the end of the long corridor, where we had
entered the hotel ten or fifteen minutes earlier, and found Joseph,
Innocentina, and the animals still sheltering against the house wall.
The porter had already retailed the bad news, and the faithful
muleteer had of his own accord volunteered to play the part which the
Boy and I had assigned him. Though he was tired, cold, and hungry, and
had the prospect of a gloomy walk, with a night of discomfort to
follow, he was far from being depressed; and I thought I knew what
supported him in his hour of trial.

We saw him off, followed by a piteous trail of asshood, and then,
shivering once more, we re-entered the dim corridor. Innocentina, much
subdued, was with us now, carrying the famous bag in its snow-powdered
_ruecksack_, while a porter went before with the rest of the luggage,
taken from the tired backs of our beasts. We had reached the foot of
the stairs, when we came so suddenly face to face with the two
Americans that it almost seemed we had stumbled upon an ambush.

They stared very hard at the Boy, who did not give them a glance,
though I was conscious of a stiffening of his muscles. He turned his
head a little on one side, so that the shadow of the panama eclipsed
his face from their point of view; but I could see that he had first
grown scarlet, then white.

"By Jove, but it can't be possible!" I heard one of the men say as we
passed and began to ascend the stairs. The answer I did not hear; but
Innocentina, who was close behind me, glared with unchristian
malevolence at the young men, as if instinct whispered that they were
concerning themselves unnecessarily about her master's business.

The Boy ran upstairs as lightly as if he had never known fatigue. The
porter showed him his room; his luggage was taken in, and then he came
out to me in the passage.

"You told Joseph that he needn't come up very early to-morrow, didn't
you?" he enquired.

"Yes, as we're pretty well fagged, and Chambery isn't an all-day's
journey, I thought we might take our time in the morning. That suits
you, doesn't it?" (It was really of him that I had been thinking, but
I did not say so.)

"Oh, yes," he answered absentmindedly, as if already his brain were
busy with something else. "What time did you fix for starting? I didn't
hear?"

"I said to Joseph that it would do if he were on hand at half-past
ten. You can rest till nine o'clock."

"Thank you. And now, good night. You've been very kind to-day. Maybe I
didn't seem grateful, but I was, all the same; very, very grateful."

"Nonsense!" said I. "If you're too tired to go down, shan't I have my
dinner with you? We could have a table drawn up before the fire, and
it would be quite jolly."

He shook his head, a great weariness in his eyes. "I'm too done up for
society, even yours. I'd rather you went down. You will, won't you?"

"Certainly, if you won't have me. Rest well. I shall see that they
send you up something decent."

"It doesn't matter. I'm not as hungry as I was, somehow. Good night,
Man."

"Good night, Boy."

"Shake hands, will you?"

He pressed mine with all his little force, and shook it again and
again, looking up in my face. Then he bade me "Good night" once more,
abruptly, and retreated into his room.

I went to my quarters at the other end of the passage, and was glad of
the fire which had begun to roar fiercely in a small round stove, like
a gnome with a pipe growing out of his head. I had a sponge, changed,
and descended to the salon, only to learn that the eating arrangements
were carried on in another building, at some distance from the hotel.
Feeling like a belated insect of summer overtaken by winter cold, I
darted down the path indicated, to the restaurant, where I found the
Americans, already seated at just such a long table as I had pictured,
and still in their knickerbockers. There was, in the big room, a
sprinkling of little tables under the closed windows, but they were
not laid for a meal; and a chair being pulled out for me by a waiter,
exactly opposite my two fellow-guests, I took it and sat down.

My first thought was to order something for the Little Pal, and to
secure a promise that it should reach him hot, and soon. I then
devoted myself to my own dinner, which would have been more enjoyable
had I had the Boy's companionship. I had worked slowly through soup
and fish, and arrived at the inevitable veal, when I was addressed by
one of the Americans--him of the cleft chin and light curly hair,
whose voice I had heard first in the salon.

"You came up by the mule path, didn't you?"

I answered civilly in the affirmative, aware that all my "points" were
being noted by both men.

"Must have been a stiff journey in this weather."

"We came into the mist and snow just below the Col."

"Your friend is done up, isn't he?"

"Oh, he's a very plucky young chap," I replied, careful for the Boy's
reputation as a pilgrim; "but he's a bit fagged, and will be better
off dining in his own room."

"I expect he'll be all right to-morrow. Are you going to try and get
to Chambery, or will you return to Aix by train?"

"We shall push on, unless we're snowed in," I said.

"That's our plan, too. I dare say we shall be starting about the same
time, and if so, if you don't mind, we might join forces."

"Now, what is this chap's game?" I asked myself. "He isn't drawing me
out for nothing; and as these two are together they have no need of
companionship. There's some special reason why they want to join us."

Taking this for granted, the one reason which occurred to me as
probable, was a previous acquaintance with the Boy, which they wished
to keep up, and he did not wish to acknowledge. I determined that he
should not be thus entrapped, through me.

"That would be very pleasant, no doubt," I replied; "but you had
better not wait for us. Our time of starting is uncertain."

Though I spoke with perfect civility, it must have been clear to them
that I preferred not to have my party enlarged by strangers, and I
rather regretted the necessity for this ungraciousness, as the men
were gentlemen, and I usually got on excellently with Americans.

"Oh, very well," returned the handsomer of the two, looking slightly
offended. "We shall meet on the way down, perhaps. By-the-by, if I'm
not mistaken, your young friend is a compatriot of ours. He's
American, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"I believe I've met him in New York, though it was so dark I couldn't
be sure. Do you object to telling me his name?"

"I'm afraid I do object," I answered, stiffly this time. "You must
satisfy yourself as to his identity, if it interests you, when you see
each other to-morrow."

Of all that remained of dinner, I can only say the words which Hamlet
spoke in dying; for indeed, "the rest was silence."

Directly the meal was over, I hurried back to the hotel, like a rabbit
to its warren; smoked a pipe before a roaring fire in my bedroom, and
wondered if the Little Pal were wandering "down the uncompanioned way"
of dreamland. As for me, I never got as far as that land. I fell over
a precipice without a bottom, before my head had found a nest in the
soft pillow, and knew nothing more until suddenly I started awake
with the impression that someone had called.

"What is it, Boy? Do you want me?" I heard myself asking sharply, as
my eyes opened.

It seemed that I had not been asleep for ten minutes, but to my
surprise an exquisite, rosy light filled the room. Well-nigh before I
knew whether I were sleeping or waking, I was out of bed and at the
window.

It was the light of sunrise, shining over a billowy white world, for
the fog had been rent asunder, and through its torn, woolly folds, I
caught an unforgettable glimpse of glory. The sky was a rippling lake
of red-gold fire, whose reflection turned a hundred snow-clad
mountain-crests to blazing helmets for Titans. Above the majestic
ranks rose their leader, towering head and shoulders over all. "Mont
Blanc!" I had just time to say to myself in awed admiration, when the
snow-fog was knit together again, only a jagged line of fading gold
showing the stitches.

Nobody had called me; I knew that, now, yet I had an uneasy impression
that someone wanted me somewhere, and that something was wrong. It was
stupid to let this worry me, I told myself, however; and having
lingered a few moments at the window studying the lovely pattern of
frost-work lace on the glass, and the fringe of priceless pearls on
branch of bush, and stunted tree, I went back to bed. There, I pulled
my watch out from under my pillow, and looked at it. "Only six
o'clock," I yawned. "Three good hours more of sleep. I wonder if the
Boy----" Then I tumbled over another pleasant precipice.

When I waked again, it was almost nine, and nerving myself to the
inevitable, I rang for a cold bath. The morning was bitterly chill,
but the tingling water soon sent the blood racing through my veins,
and by ten o'clock I was knocking at the Boy's door. No answer came,
and thinking that he must already be down, I was on my way across the
white, frozen grass to the restaurant, when I met the muleteer coming
up with Finois.

"Hallo, Joseph!" I exclaimed in surprise. "Where are Fanny and
Souris?"

"Innocentina has taken them, Monsieur," he answered.

"What--they have started?"

"But yes, Monsieur, and very early."

"Tell me what happened," I prompted him.

"Why, Monsieur, it was this way. There was not much sleep for me last
night, if you will pardon my liberty in mentioning such matters,
because of the little animal which bites and jumps away. I know not
what you call him in your language, though I think he is known in all
lands. Besides, the beasts were noisy in the stable underneath the
room where I lay with the men. About half-past four the others got up,
but I lay still, as it was well with my animals, and there was no
hurry. But a little more than an hour later, they called me from
below, laughing, and saying there was a lady to see me. I had not
undressed, Monsieur, for many reasons, and now I was glad, for I knew
who it must be, though not why she should be there, and so early too.
I could not bear that she should be alone with these rough fellows,
and in two minutes I had tumbled down the ladder.

"I had not been mistaken, Monsieur. It was Innocentina. She said her
master had sent her down to fetch the _anes_, as he was obliged by
certain circumstances to start on in advance of my master. I did not
ask her any questions, but I helped her get ready the donkeys, and I
would have walked up with her to the hotel, had she permitted it. If I
did so, she said, the cattle men would talk; so I stayed behind."

"Well, I suppose we shall overtake them," I replied, hiding surprise,
as I did not care to let Joseph see that I had been left in the dark
concerning this strange change of programme. My mind groped for an
explanation of the mystery, and then suddenly seized upon one. The
Boy, who had evidently met his two compatriots in other days and
another land, disliked and wished to shun them. He had feared that
they might be our companions down to Chambery, and had taken drastic
measures to avoid their society. Rather than get me up early, for his
convenience, after a day of some hardship and fatigue, the plucky
little chap had gone off without us. Possibly I should find that he
had left a note for me, with some waiter or _femme de chambre_. If
not, our route down to Chambery and the hotel at which we were to stay
there, had already been decided upon. He would have said to himself
that there could be no mistake, and that he might trust me to find him
at our destination.

The Americans were not at breakfast, but later, as Joseph, Finois, and
I were starting, I saw them standing at a distance in the corridor.
The porter, who had brought down the miserable hold-alls, and was
waiting for his tip, murmured that "_ces messieurs_" were not going to
make the walking expedition to Chambery; the landlord had advised them
that the weather was too bad, and they had decided to return by the
noon train to Aix-les-Bains.

I felt that I owed the young men a grudge for the Boy's defection; and
as there had been no note or message from him, I was not in a
forgiving mood. Without a second glance towards the pair, I walked
away with Joseph--alone with him for the first time in many a day.

CHAPTER XXVI

The Vanishing of the Prince

"Now to my word:
It is, _Adieu, adieu! remember me_."
--SHAKESPEARE.

As we dipped down below the summit of the mountain, we stepped from
under the snow-fog, as if it had been a great white, hanging nightcap.
The air smelled like early winter, and was vibrant with the melody of
cowbells. On snow-covered eminences near and far, dark, sentinel
larches watched us, weeping slow tears from every naked spine. So high
had they climbed, so acclimatised to the mountains did these
soldier-trees seem, that I named them for myself the Chasseurs Alpins
of the forest.

"We shall have fine weather to-morrow," said Joseph, as we left the
snow and came to what he called the "_terre grasse_," which was greasy
and slippery under foot. "See, Monsieur, a worm; he comes up out of
his hole, and the earth clings to him as he walks abroad. If he were
clean, that would be a sign of another bad day to follow."

"At least we are going down to summer again," I replied; "also to the
young Monsieur; and to Innocentina. But perhaps you are glad of a rest
from her sharp tongue."

Joseph shrugged his shoulders. "I am used to it now, Monsieur," said
he; and I turned away my face to hide a smile. I knew that he missed
the girl, and I was still more keenly aware that I missed a comrade.
My fleeting impressions were hardly worth catching and taming, without
him to help cage them; without his vivid mind to help colour the
thoughts, which mine only sketched in black and white, it was easier
to leave the canvas blank.

We had decided last night that it would not be wise to attempt the
journey by way of the Dent du Nivolets, as it was on a higher level
than the summit of Mont Revard, and we should risk being again
extinguished under a nightcap of snow. We descended, therefore, by the
simpler and shorter route, but it was full of interest for the
strangeness of the landscape, and the buildings which we reached on
lower planes.

The houses were no longer characteristically French, but a bastard
Swiss. The heavy, overhanging roofs were thatched, and of enormous
thickness; the walls of grey stone, with roughly carved, skeleton
balconies. The peasants no longer smiled at us in good-natured
curiosity, but regarded us dourly, though they were gravely civil if
we had questions to ask.

Although I gave Joseph no instructions, and he made no suggestions, by
common consent we hastened on as if a prize were to be bestowed for
our good speed, at the end of the journey. On other days we had
sauntered, allowing the animals to snatch delicious _hors d'oeuvres_
from the bushes as they passed, but to-day Finois was in the depths of
gloom. There was no grey Souris, no spectacled Fanny-anny to cheer him
on the way, and if he reached out a wistful mouth towards a branch, he
was hurried past it. How would we feel, I asked myself, if, with the
inner man clamouring, we were driven remorselessly along a road
decked on either side with exquisitely appointed tables, set out with
all our favourite dishes, to be had for nothing--never once allowed to
stop for a crumb of _pate de foie gras_, or a bit of chicken in aspic?
Yet asking myself this, I had no mercy on Finois.

We stopped for lunch at a queer auberge, in an abortive village
appropriately named Les Deserts, where the highroad for Chambery
began. An outer room roughly flagged with stone, was kitchen, nursery,
and family living-room in one. It swarmed with children, and was
presided over by two of Macbeth's witches, who were not separated from
their cauldrons. I took them to be rival mothers-in-law, and they
could have taught Innocentina some choice new expressions valuable to
test upon donkeys or other heretics; but they sent me a steaming bowl
of excellent coffee, when I half expected poison; fried me a couple of
eggs with crisp brown lace round the edges, and took for my benefit,
from one of the shelves that lined the nursery wall, the newest of a
hundred loaves of hard black bread.

I ventured to ask a down-trodden daughter-in-law of the Ladies of the
Cauldrons, whether a very young gentleman, and an older but still
all-young woman, with two donkeys, had stopped at the auberge some
hours earlier.

The spiritless one shook her head. But no. The only other customers of
the house thus far had been the postman and two soldiers. The party
might have passed. She and her parents were too busy to take note of
what went on outside. A faint chill of desolation touched me. It would
have been cheering to have news of the Boy and his cavalcade _en
route_.

By three o'clock Chambery was well in sight, lying far below us as we
wound down from mountain heights, and looking, from our point of view,
in position something like an inferior Aosta. It basked in a great
sun-swept plain, and away to the left a lateral valley, dimly blue,
opened towards Modane and the Mont Cenis. Descending, we found the
resemblance carried on by a few ancient chateaux and fortified
farmhouses, and as we had now come upon a part of the road which
Joseph knew, he pointed out to me, in the far distance, the little
villa, Les Charmettes, where Rousseau and Madame de Warens kept house
together. Again and again I thought we were on the point of arriving
in the town, and had visions of exchanging adventures with the Boy at
the Hotel de France; but always the place seemed to recede before our
eyes, elusive as a mirage, alighting again five or six miles away; and
this it did, not once, but several times, with singular skill and
accuracy.

At last, however, after a tedious tramp along a monotonously level
road, upon which we had plunged suddenly, we came into an old town,
all grey, with the soft grey of storks' wings. The place had a mild
dignity of its own--as befitted the ancient capital of Savoie--and
might have lived, if necessary, on the romantic reputation of its
ancient chateau, standing up high and majestic above a populous modern
street. There was an air of almost courtly refinement that reminded me
of the wide, sedate avenues of Versailles; and no doubt this effect
was largely due to the fine statues and decorative grouping of the
arcaded streets. One monument was so imposing and so unique, that I
forgot for a moment my anxiety to find the Boy and hear his news. The
huge pile held me captive, staring up at a miniature Nelson column,
supported on the backs of four colossal elephants sculptured in grey
granite of true elephant-colour. These benevolent mammoths, not
content with the duty of bearing a tower of stone with a more than
life-sized general balancing on top of it, generously spent their
spare time in pouring volumes of water from wrinkled trunks into a
huge basin. Joseph knew that the balancing general, De Boigne, had
used a vast fortune made in the service of an Indian prince, to shower
benefits on his native town, as his elephants showered water, and that
it was in gratitude to him that Chambery had raised the monument; but
I was disappointed to learn that the elephants had no prototypes in
real life. It would have satisfied my imagination to hear that the
soldier of fortune had returned from the Orient to his birthplace,
with the four original elephants following him like dogs, having
refused to be left behind. But nothing is quite perfect in history,
and one usually feels that one could have arranged the incidents more
dramatically one's self; indeed, some historians seem to have found
the temptation irresistible.

Joseph promised other choice bits of interest in and near
mountain-ringed Chambery; but I had small appetite for sightseeing
without the Boy, and after my brief reverence to the elephants, I
hurried the muleteer and mule to the hotel.

At the door we were met by a porter, far too polite a person to betray
the surprise which my companions Joseph and Finois invariably excited
in civilisation. He helped to unfasten the pack, and as it disappeared
into the vestibule, I was about to bid Joseph _au revoir_. But his
face gave me pause. Like the key to a cipher, it told me all the
secret workings of his mind.

"You might wait here before putting up Finois," I said, "until I
enquire inside whether the young Monsieur and Innocentina have arrived
safely. No doubt they have, as we did not catch them up on the road,
and it would have been difficult to mistake the way. Still----"

"_Voila_, Monsieur!" exclaimed Joseph, his deep eyes brightening at
something to be seen over my shoulder.

I turned, and there was meek, grey Souris leading the way for
Innocentina and Fanny, who were trailing slowly towards us down the
street.

I was delighted to see them. Not until now had I realised how
beautiful was Innocentina, how engaging the two little plush-coated
donkeys. I loved all three.

"_Eh bien_, Innocentina!" I gaily cried. "How are you? How is your
young Monsieur?"

"He was well when I saw him last," returned Innocentina. "He must be
very far away by this time."

"Very far away?" I echoed her words blankly. "Yes, Monsieur. Here is
a letter, which he told me to deliver to you without fail. I was not
to leave Chambery until I had put it into your hand, myself. I was on
my way to your hotel, to see if you had arrived. Now that I have seen
you"--here a starry flash at Joseph--"I can begin my journey."

"Where, if I may ask?"

"Towards my home. Monsieur had better read his letter."

[Illustration: "VOILA, MONSIEUR!"]

I had taken the sealed envelope mechanically, without looking at it.
Now I fixed my eyes upon the address, which was written in a firm,
original, and interesting hand, that impressed me as familiar, though
I could not think where I had seen it. Certainly, so far as I could
remember, in all my journeyings with him I had never happened to see
the Boy's handwriting. Yet Innocentina said this letter was from him.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I could do something more enlightening
than stare at the envelope: I could open it. I did so, breaking a seal
with the same monogram I had noticed on the gold fittings in the
celebrated bag. Apparently the entwined letters were M.R.L.

"Forgive me, dear Man," were the first words I read, and they rang
like a knell in my heart. Without going further I knew what was
coming. I was to hear that I had lost the Boy.

"Dear Man, the Prince vanishes, not because he wishes it, but because
he must. He can't explain. But, though you may not understand now,
believe this. He has been happier in these wanderings, since you and
he were friends, than he ever was before. You have been more than good
to the troublesome 'Brat' who has upset all your arrangements and
calculations so often. Perhaps you may never see the Boy any more.
Yet, who knows what may happen at Monte Carlo? Anyhow, whatever comes
in the future, he will never forget, never cease to care for you; and
of one thing besides he is sure. Never again will he like any other
man as much as the One Man who deserves to begin with a capital.

"Good-bye, dear Man, and all good things be with you, wherever you may
go, is the prayer of--Boy."

Perhaps never to see the Boy again! Why, I must be dreaming this. I
should wake up soon, and everything would be as it had been. I had the
sensation of having swallowed something very large and very cold,
which would not melt. Reading the letter over for the second time made
it no better, but rather worse. The Boy had become almost as important
in my scheme of life as my lungs or my legs, and I did not quite see,
at the moment, how it would be any more possible to get on without one
than the other.

Behold, I was stricken down by mine own familiar friend; yet no wrath
against him burned within me; there was only that cold lump of
disappointment, which seemed to be increasing to the size of a small
iceberg. Even lacking explanations, or attempt at them, I knew that he
had told the truth without flattery. He had wanted to stay, yet he had
gone. And he said that perhaps I might never see him again! If I could
have had my choice last night, whether to have the Boy lopped off my
life, or to lose a hand, the probabilities are that I would have
sacrificed the hand. But I had been offered no choice.

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