Part 13

“Very small. We are cutting our coat according to the cloth we have. Six francs a day pays our board and lodging,”--at which the Consul permitted himself a brief smile. “But we had to walk all the way from Innsbruck, you see, so we sent all our baggage to Meran with a Mr Lockhart, the man who writes about Tirol,”--the consul nodded--“And we really must buy some few things to go on with. Could I possibly draw on Sir Anthony through you for a small sum?”

“We’ll manage it somehow. You see how I’m situated,”--with a wave of the hand towards the adjoining room full of clamorous applicants. “As far as I can I must do something for everybody. If I find you fifty francs a week at present, how will that do?”

“Splendidly, and I’m ever so grateful to you. I’ve had visions of us sleeping on a seat on the quai and eating grass.”

“We’ll hope it will not come to that for any of you,” smiled the consul. “If the amount grows large enough to make a small draft I will get you to sign one. But I am hoping that some arrangement will be made before long for getting you all home through mid-France. All the fighting is likely to be on the frontiers for some time to come, I should say.”

“And then in Germany we will hope.”

“Germany is very strong,” said the Vice-Consul cautiously. “One can’t foresee what may happen.”

And so their way was to that extent smoothed for them. Board and lodging were at all events assured, and if they were not everything that could be desired they might have been much worse, though truly they could not have been much cheaper. The food, if a little rough, was well-cooked and sufficient, and Monsieur and Madame of the Estèphe and their four comely daughters grew more and more friendly under the influence of prompt and regular payments, and did all they could for their comfort. And Ray and Lois testified their gratitude to Mademoiselle of the tea-shop by having a festive cup and a chat with her every day when their rambles had not led them too far afield.

Walking, since it cost nothing, was their one diversion. Fortunately they were both in good condition, and in spite of the heat they enjoyed their tramps immensely. Madame of the Pension met their wishes and provided them with portable lunches, which, if somewhat monotonous in their constitution, were undoubtedly satisfying, and she generally managed to amplify their evening meal to their entire contentment, and indeed showed herself not a little proud of the distinction such high-class guests conferred upon her establishment.

Their chief lack was news. English papers were beyond their pocket and almost unattainable, and the local ones contained but very one-sided and garbled statements of what was going on at the various fronts. Cook’s offices were closed, so no news could be got there. The ‘Feuille d’Avis’ was indeed stuck up each day in the office-window in the Market-Place, and they went along every morning and read it for what it was worth. But it was only by applying to their friend the consul that they could get any actual facts, and those not of the most recent nor of the most vital. And he was so terribly overworked that they disliked troubling him.

At times, indeed, in sheer self-defence he locked his door and stuck up a notice saying that he was broken down and could see no one. Then the clamorous throng gnashed its teeth and leaned its elbows on his bell-push, and Lois and Ray were so ashamed of their fellows that they preferred getting along as best they could without news sooner than harass him further.

They managed to keep brooding at bay very enjoyably by exploring all their surroundings,--from Chillon--they could not afford to go inside,--to Vevey;--to the Rochers-de-Naye by Veytaux and Recourbes; and up to Les Avants and the Chauderon Gorge. Anywhere and everywhere attainable to pedestrians they went, with unbounded energy and immense satisfaction, and savoured the joy of life to the very fullest.

The restful beauty of the shimmering blue lake, and the uplifting glory of the peaks of the Valais and Vaudois and Savoy, viewed as they were through the glamour of their fulfilled love, wrought themselves into the very texture of their lives.

To Lois it was a time of rare enchantment, heightened and intensified--like the shining of stars in a blue-black sky--by the grim horror of the war-clouds beyond. It might all come to an end any day. The future might have in it unthinkable sorrows. But this at least was theirs, and the joyous memory of it would never fail them.

“Ray! I am so glad it has all happened just so;--as far as we are concerned, I mean. These days are my jewels. They will shine for me always and always, and I can never lose them. Oh I am glad, glad, glad to have lived them!”

“And what do you think I am, dear? Do you think there ever were two happier people on this earth?”

“Never! It is not possible.”

They were perched in a little eyrie, high up the mountain-side near Crêt d’y Bau, shoulder to shoulder for the joyful feeling of one another, gazing out over the lake towards Geneva, eating the little wild raspberries of inexpressibly delicious flavour which they had gathered as they climbed.

“Whatever may come to us now we can bear it because we have had all this,” she sighed contentedly. And asked presently, in a lower key,--“Do you think it is possible for people to be too happy, Ray? ... that we shall have to pay for it later on?”

“No, my dear, I don’t. Why should we? We were meant to be happy. It’s only folly or wickedness--either in ourselves or other people--that brings unhappiness ...”--and, stumbling along after the thread of his thought,--“and, it seems to me that if we keep ourselves up to the pitch of deserving happiness, whatever happens outside us cannot take it from us. Troubles may come. Not many folks get through life without them, and they don’t turn out the best folks as a rule. But if we remain to one another what we are now, we shall be proof against them all and they won’t hurt us.... In other words, my child, it is not outward circumstance that counts, but our own inner feelings.”

“Yes! I’m feeling all that, and more and more every day.... If this horrid war goes on do you think you will really be called up? I thought the London Scottish and the rest were only for home-defence.”

“I wish to goodness we knew just how things stand. If it’s going to be a life-and-death struggle England must do her proper share. Compared with the armies over here ours is trifling,--in point of numbers, I mean. As far as it goes it’s probably better than any of them. But it’s very very small in comparison with their millions. And numbers tell. There may be a national call for volunteers. If it comes you wouldn’t have me shirk it?”

“No ... but oh, I wish it might not come,” and she pressed his arm closer against her heart.

The Kursaal concerts, costing at the lowest one franc each, were beyond them of course. So in the soft autumnal evenings they spent most of their time on the quais outside the gardens, sitting when a seat was obtainable, wandering along with the rest, leaning over the railings, with the dark lake stretching from under their feet away into the infinitude of night. There they could hear the music quite as well as the wealthier folk inside, and without a doubt enjoyed it more than any of them.

The sunsets were wonderful beyond words. The evening star hung like a jewel in the afterglow and twinkled at itself in the smooth mirror below. Then the summer lightning played fitfully over the further hills and set the lake, and the bayonets of the quai-patrol that guarded them from invasion, shimmering and gleaming, and looked so like menacing signals that their thoughts turned constantly to the fact that somewhere over there the world was dreadfully at war.

When it grew quite dark, parties of sober merry-makers would put off in small boats, each with its coloured lantern, and ply quietly to and fro, weaving their trailing reflections into patterns of extraordinary beauty, till the lake below looked like a great dark blue carpet shot through and through with wavering tracery of gleaming gold and all the colours of the rainbow. And it was all undoubtedly very charming and beautiful, but, to Lois, it was also all most strangely unreal and evanescent, as though at any moment, at the sound of bell or whistle, it might all vanish and give place to scenes less tranquil. For somewhere over there the world was at war and how far it might spread none could tell.

So the days ran on, and only now and again when it rained, and trips up aloft were out of the question, did they ever find them long.

Their chief lack still was news of what was actually happening over yonder behind the curtain. And this began to tell on Ray though he did his best at first to hide it. But Lois saw and understood.

Away across there in Belgium and the north of France, England might be feeling already the sore need of every man she could put into the field. His fellows might already be pressing to the front. And he was tied here by the leg.

He did his best not to show how he was feeling it, but there it was, and his thoughtful silences, and an occasional concentrated pinching of the brows which she had never seen in him before, told Lois the tale even before he spoke of it.

To her he was quiet thoughtfulness itself and the perfection of married lovers. For deep down in his heart was the knowledge that before very long the time for parting might come. It would be sore to leave her. It would wring his heart and hers. But he knew that if duty called she would not have him stop. He set himself to make sure, and surer still, that these brief days of married love should hold in their memory no smallest flaw, and he succeeded to the full.

He told her all that was in his heart concerning future possibilities, and they talked it all over quietly, soberly, lovingly, and were the stronger and richer in their love.

“Whatever comes, we have had this, and nothing can take it from us,--and the rest is in God’s hands,”--was the end to which they always came and the strong rope to which they clung. And their love grew ever deeper and stronger for this trying of it.

XVIII

“Absolutely nothing further so far,” said the Colonel, standing with his back to the fire in Mrs Dare’s sitting-room, as she handed him a cup of tea. “All they can say is that quite a dozen of our R.A.M.C.’s of various grades have never turned up since Landrecies, and they believe they were all taken in a bunch. And that seems to me to improve the chances of Con’s being all safe and sound. We shall hear from him before long, you’ll see.”

“It is sore waiting,” said Mrs Dare.

“So many have not even the chance of doing that. The lists are again very heavy, I’m sorry to say.”

“And we are still falling back?”

“Still retiring, but you’ll see we’ll stop before long,”--and then there came a ring at the bell, and presently the door opened and there stood in the doorway a burly figure whom neither of them recognised, and behind it the concerned face of the maid whose attempt at announcement had been forestalled.

The newcomer was tall and broad, and something about his face seemed familiar to both Mrs Dare and the Colonel, and yet they were sure they had never set eyes on it before. For it was most decidedly a face calculated to impress itself on the memory. To Mrs Dare it suggested the late Emperor of the French, but with more alert and wide-awake eyes. It made the Colonel think of Victor Emmanuel the First, of Italy.

“Well, well?” said the stranger, and then they knew him.

“Good heavens, Rhenius! What are you playing at? You gave me quite a shock. I took you for the ghost of Victor Emmanuel,” jerked the Colonel half-angrily.

“And I thought you were Napoleon III come to life again,” smiled Mrs Dare, as she poured him out a cup of tea.

“Ah-ha! So you accorded me promotion on both sides----”

“If you’d call it promotion?” growled the Colonel.

“Quite so. Very questionable. I have never greatly admired either of the gentlemen in question.”

“And why on earth have you been playing such pranks with your face? Think it an improvement?”

“I was in Italy when the troubles broke out,--at Piora, near Airolo. Before I could get through, France was practically closed to any but Frenchmen. I wished to get home so I became a Frenchman for the time being--a Frenchman of the Second Empire, and me voici! But I came to bring you news.”

“Of Con?” asked Mrs Dare eagerly.

“Of Con? No. What is wrong with my good friend Con?”

“He’s reported missing,” said the Colonel.

“Missing!”--with a pinch of the lips that jerked up the long moustache. “I am sorry. But that is better than either killed or wounded. He is at all events safe from harm.”

“You really think so, Doctor?” asked Mrs Dare anxiously.

“Why, of course, my dear madame. As a prisoner of war he will be well-treated and out of harm’s way.”

“If one could only be sure of that,” she sighed.

“What’s your news then?” asked the Colonel brusquely, not having yet quite recovered from his umbrage at the Doctor’s facial metamorphosis.

“Ah, yes--my news.... I came over Furka by way of Hospenthal, and there, at the Golden Lion, I met two of my young friends whom you know very well----”

“Lois and Ray?” and Mrs Dare dropped her knitting and stared up at him in anxious excitement.

“Yes--Lois and Ray----”

“I told you they’d strike down south and get out that way,” said the Colonel triumphantly. “That’s good. I forgive you your barbarisms, Doctor,--neat that, eh? And I’ll take another cup of tea on the strength of it, Mrs Mother, if you please!”

“And they were quite all right?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Quite all right, and as happy as young people ought to be. They were hastening down to Montreux----”

“And why haven’t they got here?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Well, you see, it was no easy matter even for me, and I had made up my mind to get through at any sacrifice,” and he stroked, with a suggestion of regret, the remnant of the flowing beard that had had to go. “I made my way across country to St Nazaire and got across from there. But it was no easy matter, I assure you.--And, besides, they had plans of their own--great plans. They were hastening to Montreux to get married----”

“To get married?” echoed Mrs Dare, while the Colonel greeted the news with a shout of, “Well done, Ray! Da-ash it, that boy’s got brains in him. I knew he had good taste,” and he turned and grasped Mrs Dare’s hands and shook them heartily.

“But why could they not wait till they got home?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Well--I think they felt it not quite proper to be wandering about together like that, you know. And there is no knowing how long they may be detained out there.”

“Why didn’t you bring them along with you?” asked the Colonel.

“I had booked a seat in the diligence to Brigue, and it proved to be the very last seat--and I fear the last diligence. The driver told me they would probably stop next day, as all the horses were wanted by the military at Thun. It may be weeks before you see them, and I’m afraid there are many others in the same predicament. Ray particularly asked me to ask you to send him out some more money to Poste Restante, Montreux. But I’m afraid you’ll have difficulty in doing so.”

“I’ll see the bank first thing in the morning. They’ll manage it somehow. And what opinion did you form of things generally over there, Doctor?”

“I had small chance of hearing anything. I’ve heard a great deal more since I reached home.”

“You were in Italy, you say. Well, what’s Italy going to do? She’s an important factor in the case.”

“Undoubtedly!”--with a sagacious nodding of the ponderous head. “A very important factor.... What she will ultimately decide it is impossible to say. She is not anxious for war, that is pretty certain. She is poor, you see, and somewhat exhausted. If she had been going in of necessity, as a member of the Triplice, she would have declared herself before this. It depends, I should say, on whether the others can force her in.”

“Not a volunteer, eh! And maybe at best an unwilling conscript. I should say she’d be well advised to keep out of it.”

“If she can.... Ah, here are the young ladies!”--as Honor and Vic came in with looks that demanded tea.

“Goodness!--” gasped Vic.

“Gracious!--” continued Honor, and they both ended on a most emphatic “Me!” and stood staring at him with faces full of amazement.

“The voice is the voice of Jacob but the face is as the face of--who is it, Vic?”

“Mephistopheles.... What on earth are you playing at, Doctor?”

“Playing?” he remonstrated, pulling up the point of his Napoleon and trying to look down at it with melancholy regret. “Playing, indeed!”

“I fathom it,” said Vic gleefully. “It’s an omen. Germany’s going to be beaten so you’ve transformed yourself into the likeness--such as it is--of Napoléon Trois. Good business!”

“Napoléon Trois has always been my particular detestation, Miss Vic-who-ought-to-have-been-Balaclava,”--which was his usual counter-stroke to her thrust,--“as you very well know. This was imposed upon me by force of circumstance. I had to get home, you see,--for all your sakes. And to get home I had to come across France.”

“And you were afraid of being taken for a German spy! I see.”

But he had known her since her hair hung down her back and he would not take offence.

“I might very well have been taken for a German, anyway, and Germans are not held in high esteem in France at the moment.”

“Nor anywhere else in the world except in Germany. And I hope they’ll be blotted out even there before long. Detestable wretches!”

“Ta--ta! There speaks hot youth. But it does not trouble me since I have nothing in common with Germany.”

“Except your name, and your birth, and your looks,--when they’re normal that is, mein Herr! They’ll intern you, for certain, at Dorchester, or Porchester, or wherever it is, and you _will_ have a time.”

“All that does not concern me, my dear. I am a British subject just as much as you are.”

“Not a bit of it, mein Herr! I was born one.”

“The more credit to me. You couldn’t help yourself. I acquired the right of my own good free-will.”

“He has you there, Vic,” said the Colonel, who always found huge enjoyment in their sparring. “But he has brought us news of Ray and Lois--Mr and Mrs Ray Luard, I should say----”

“No!” and the two girls flopped down into chairs simultaneously.

“Fact,--at least we have every reason to hope so. When the Doctor saw them--at Hospenthal--they were making their way down to Montreux, with the expressed intention of getting married as soon as they got there.”

“Well!... I--am----”

“‘Hammered!’ as Gregor says,” supplied Honor. “What a pair of families we are! Vic, my dear, the atmosphere of war is packed with marriage-germs. We must be careful. I’m sure they’re catching. Mother, dear, some tea, please. Quick! I feel faint,” and, first carefully taking off her hat, she subsided gracefully against the back of her chair.

“All the same, Nor, it’s rather too bad, you know,” said Vic resentfully. “That’s two weddings we’ve been done out of. It’s really anything but fair.”

“It’s abominably shameful,” said Honor, undergoing a quick revival at thought of their wrongs. “I don’t believe they’ll have been properly married out there. It ought to be done over again as soon as they get home. How do you know it will be all right?” she put it to the Colonel. “Ten years hence it may come out that they are not really married at all and there’ll be a dreadful scandal.”

“I’ll trust Ray to see himself properly married, my dear,” laughed the Colonel. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about it,” and then with a touch of concern in his voice, to the Doctor,--“I hope they’ll not give you any trouble here, Rhenius. Some of the yellow rags are making something of an outcry against foreigners--enemy foreigners, I mean. You see, there undoubtedly is an immense amount of espionage going on, and folks are apt to run to extremes at times and lose all nice sense of discrimination.”

The Doctor shrugged his big shoulders. “I was naturalised years before some of you were born. They will not trouble me,” he said with confidence. “If they do I’ll come to you for a character, Colonel.”

XIX

In course of time and on the principle that Heaven helps them that help themselves, the stranded English in Montreux formed a committee of repatriation, which met in a room placed at their disposal by the authorities of the Kursaal, and, by dint of much writing and wiring and hustling, towards the end of the month their arrangements, such as they were, were, with the assistance of Cooks, who had now returned to business, satisfactorily completed.

The penniless were to be sent off first, then the rest by degrees in inverse ratio to their staying powers.

Anxious as they were, for some reasons, to get home, Lois, at all events,--with the knowledge that getting home might well be but the beginning of sorrows--found herself full of regrets at leaving Montreux. The little inconveniences of their stay there had been gloriously impearled with the glamour of their love. They had been perfectly happy, and perfect happiness comes not often in life nor ever lasts too long.

They had taken leave of their friends, and Ray had duly given the Vice-Consul a draft on Uncle Tony for the money he had advanced them. Monsieur and Madame and all the four demoiselles of the Pension Estèphe, and Anna the maid, had all come to the station to see them off, and were full of regrets at losing them, and now their train was jogging along towards Lausanne bound for Geneva.

They had been instructed to take with them provisions for three days, within which time it was hoped the journey to Paris might--failing accident--be accomplished. And so they had, with the assistance of Madame of the Pension, provided themselves with much bread, and butter, and a tin of tongue, and a cold boiled fowl, and apples and pears and tomatoes, and cheese, and two bottles, one filled with wine and the other with cold tea. And they wondered if they would ever get through such a pile of eatables and felt prepared for a siege.

Hand-baggage alone was to be taken, and theirs consisted entirely of their provisions, as everything else they possessed went into the rucksacs on their backs. Those who attempted to take too much had to leave the excess in the Consigne at the station, to be forwarded later if opportunity permitted.

They had been told to be at the station at 5 a.m. and to form themselves into parties of eight, which would just fill a compartment, and as Lois and Ray had made few acquaintances they had some difficulty in making up their complement. They made hasty quest round, however, and Lois discovered two little elderly maiden ladies, waiting timidly in a corner for someone to take them in hand and tell them what to do, which she immediately did, and they wept gratefully. And Ray picked out two nice-looking boys of about his own age, who were standing watching the confusion in aloof amusement,--found they were not engaged, and secured them on the spot.

The final two in their carriage were thrust upon them at the last moment when the authorities found their numbers short. They were two young men from Lancashire, who did not speak a word of French--or indeed of anything but broad Lancashire--and they rarely opened their mouths. They were decent quiet fellows, however, and made no trouble.

The little ladies had just started on a Swiss trip to which they had been looking forward for years, and the war had made short work of it.

“We came to Switzerland once before, when our father was alive. But since he died--well, we have been keeping a school,”--confided one of them to Lois,--“and we have just disposed of it----”