CHAPTER XXXV.
WEEPING AND LAUGHTER.
Sir Douglas had gone to see his friend, but it was still too early for the concert, so Lady Munro and the girls strolled round to the terrace overlooking the sea.
"How lovely, how lovely!" said Lucy. "I wonder if there is any view in all the world like this?"
"We must find those two statues by Sara Bernhardt and Gustave Doré," said Evelyn, looking up from her Baedeker. "One of them represents——"
"Oh, bother the statues!" cried Lucy. "I want to feel things to-day, not to look at them." Her voice changed suddenly. "Lady Munro," she said very softly, "that is my boy leaning on the stone balustrade. Now, did I exaggerate? Look at him!"
Lady Munro walked on for a moment or two, and then glanced at the lad incidentally; but the glance extended itself with impunity into a very deliberate study. The boy's face was flushed, and he was muttering to himself incoherently as he gazed in front of him with unseeing eyes.
"He looks as if he was going mad," remarked Evelyn frankly.
"He looks a great deal more like an acute maniac than most acute maniacs do," said Lucy, with a proud recollection of a few visits to an asylum. "Oh, Lady Munro, do, do go and speak to him! You would do it so beautifully."
Lady Munro hesitated. She never went out of her way to do good, but this boy seemed to have come into her way; and her action was none the less beautiful, because it was dictated, not by principle at all, but by sheer motherly impulse.
She left the girls some distance off, and rustled softly up to where he stood.
"Pardon, monsieur," she said lightly, "can you tell me where the statue by Gustavo Doré is?"
He started and looked up. One did not often see a gracious woman like this at Monte Carlo.
"I beg your pardon," he said, making a desperate effort to collect his thoughts. Distraught as was his air, his accent and manner were cultured and refined. Lady Munro's interest in him increased.
"Do you know where there is a statue by Gustave Doré?"
He shook his head. "I am sorry I don't," he said, and he turned away his face.
But Lady Munro did not mean the conversation to end thus. "This is a charming view, is it not?" she said.
"Ye-e-s," he said; "oh, very charming."
"I think I saw you at one of the tables in the Casino. I hope you were successful?"
He turned towards her like a stag at bay. There was anger and resentment in his face, but far more deeply written than either of these was despair. It was such a boyish face, too, so open and honest. "Don't you see I can't talk about nothings?" it seemed to say. "You are very kind and very beautiful; I am at your mercy; but why do you torture me?"
"You are in trouble," Lady Munro said, in her soft, irresistible voice. "Perhaps it is not so bad after all. Tell me about it."
A woman more accustomed to missions of mercy would have calculated better the effect of her words. In another moment the tears were raining down the lad's cheeks, and his voice was choked with sobs. Fortunately, the great terrace was almost entirely deserted. Lucy and Evelyn sat at some distance, apparently deep in the study of Baedeker, and in a far-off corner an old gentleman was reading his newspaper.
The story came rather incoherently at last, but the thread was simple enough.
The boy had an only sister, a very delicate girl, who had been ordered to spend the winter at San Remo. He had taken her there, had seen her safely installed, and—had met an acquaintance who had persuaded him to spend a night at Monte Carlo on the way home. From that point on, of course, the story needed no telling. But the practical upshot of it was that the boy had in his purse, at that moment, precisely sixty-five centimes in money, and a twenty-five-centime stamp; he had nothing wherewith to pay the journey home, and he was some pounds in debt to his friend.
Truly, all things are relative in life. While some men were forfeiting their thousands at the tables with comparative equanimity, this lad was wellnigh losing his reason for the sake of some fifteen pounds.
"What friends had he at home?" was of course Lady Munro's first question. "Had he a father—a mother?"
His mother was dead, and his father—his father was very stern, and not at all rich. It had not been an easy matter for him to send his daughter to the Riviera.
"That is what makes it so dreadful," said the lad. "I wish to heaven I had taken a return ticket! but I wanted to go home by steamer from Marseilles. The fatal moment was when I encroached on my journey-money. After I had done that, of course I had to go on to replace it: but the luck was dead against me. Oh, if I could only recall that first five francs! If I could have foreseen this—but I meant——"
"You meant to win, of course," said Lady Munro kindly.
The boy laughed shamefacedly, in the midst of his misery.
"Well, I think my punishment equals my sin," he said. "I would gladly live on bread and water for months, if I could undo two days of my life. I keep thinking round and round in a circle, till I am nearly mad. I cannot write to my father, and yet what else can I do?"
Lady Munro was silent for a few minutes when the lad had finished speaking. She was wondering what Sir Douglas would say. When a married woman is called upon to help her fellows, she has much to think of besides her own generous impulses; and in Lady Munro's case it was well perhaps that this was so. She would empty her purse for the needy as readily as she would empty it for some jewel that took her fancy, sublimely regardless in the one case as in the other of the wants of the morrow. Ah, well! it is a good thing for mankind that a perfect woman is not always essential to the rôle of ministering angel!
"I will try to help you," she said at last, "though I cannot absolutely promise. In the meantime here is a napoleon. That will take you to Cannes, and pay for a night's lodging. Call on me to-morrow between ten and eleven." She handed him her card. "I think," she added as an afterthought, "you will promise not to enter the Casino again?"
It was very characteristic of her to ask as a favour what she might have demanded as a condition. The boy blushed crimson as he took the napoleon. "You are very kind," he said nervously. "Thank you. I won't so much as look at the Casino again."
"Well, Miss Lucy, a pretty scrape you have got me into!" said Lady Munro, as she joined the girls. "It will take fifteen pounds to set that boy on his feet again."
"Tell us all about it," said Lucy eagerly. "Who is he?"
"His name is Edgar Davidson, and he is a medical student."
"I knew it! No wonder I was interested in a brother of the cloth! What hospital?"
"I don't know."
"Is he going in for the colleges or for the university?"
"My dear child, how should I think of asking?"
"I suppose mother did not even enquire who his tailor was," said Evelyn quietly.
"I don't mind about his tailor, but it would interest me to know where he gets his scalpels sharpened. What brings him here during term?"
Lady Munro had just time to give a sketch of the lad's story, when they arrived at the door of the concert-hall—wonderful alike for its magnificence and its vulgarity—to find the orchestra already carrying away the whole room with a brilliant, piquant, irresistible pizzicato.
"Do take a back seat, mother," whispered Evelyn; "we can't have Lucy dancing right up the hall."
Lucy shot a glance of lofty scorn at her friend.
"I am glad at least that Providence did not make me a lamp-post," she said severely.
The last note of the piece had not died away, when a young man came forward and held out his hand to Lady Munro.
"Why, Mr Monteith, my husband has just gone to your hotel."
"Yes; he told me you were here, so I left him and my father together."
He shook hands with the two girls, and seated himself beside Lucy.
"You here?" she said with an air of calm indifference, which was very unlike her usual impulsive manner.
"Nay, it is I who should say that. You here? And you leave me to find it out by chance from Sir Douglas?"
"It did not occur to me that you would be interested," and she fanned herself very gracefully, but very unnecessarily, with her programme.
"Little coquette!" thought Lady Munro. But Lucy looked so charming at the moment, that not even a woman could blame her.
"Oh, lovely—lovelier than ever. Some awfully nice people have come."
"So you don't miss any of those who have gone?"
"Not in the least."
"And you would not care to see any old friend back again for a day or two?"
There was a moment's pause.
"I don't think there would be room; the hotel seems full——"
With a sudden burst of harmony the music began, and there was no more conversation till the next pause.
"Have you ever walked up to the chapel on the hill again?"
"Oh, lots of times!"
"You have been energetic. Have you chanced to see the Maritime Alps in the strange mystical light we saw that day?"
"Yes. They always look like that."
"Curious! Then I suppose the walk has no longer any associations——"
"Oh, but it has—bitter associations! We left the path to get some asparagus, and my gown caught in a bramble-bush, and a dog barked——"
The first soft notes of the violins checked the tragic sequel of her tale, and the music swelled into a pathetic wailing waltz, which brought the first part of the programme to an end.
Sir Douglas came during the interval to take them away, and Mr Monteith walked down with them to the station.
"I am sorry there is no room for me at the hotel," he said, as he stood with Lucy on the platform.
"Pray, don't take my word for it. I don't 'run the shanty.' Perhaps you could get a bed."
"What is the use, if people would be sorry to see an old acquaintance?"
"How can you say such things?" said Lucy, looking up at him cordially. "I am sure there are some old ladies in the hotel who would be delighted to see you."
"But no young ones?"
"I can't answer for them."
"You can for yourself."
"Oh yes."
"And you don't care one way or the other?"
"No;" she shook her head slowly and regretfully.
"Not at all?"
"Not at all."
"Not the least bit in the world?"
Lucy lifted her eyes again demurely. "When one comes to deal with such very small quantities, Mr Monteith," she said, "it is difficult to speak with scientific accuracy. If you really care to know——"
"Yes?"
"Where are the Munros?"
"In the next carriage. Do finish your sentence."
"I don't remember what I was going to say," said Lucy calmly. "A sure proof, my old nurse used to tell me, that it was better unsaid."
She sprang lightly up the high step of the carriage, and then turned to say good-bye. The colour in her cheeks was very bright.
Ten minutes later she seemed to have forgotten everything except the wonderful afterglow, which reddened the rocks and trees, and converted the whole surface of the sea into one blazing ruby shield.
Sir Douglas was nodding over his newspaper. Lucy laid her hand on Lady Munro's soft fur.
"You have been very good to me," she said. "I don't know how to thank you. I really think you have opened the gates of Paradise to me."
The words suggested a meaning that Lady Munro did not altogether like, but she answered lightly,—
"It has been a great pleasure to all of us to have you, dear; but you know we don't mean to let you go on Thursday."
Lucy smiled. "I must," she said sadly. "A week hence it will all seem like a beautiful dream—a dream that will last me all my life."
"Well, I am glad to think the roses in your cheeks are no dream, and I hope they will last you all your life, too."
And then the careless words re-echoed through her mind with a deeper significance, and she wished Sir Douglas would wake up and talk, even if it were only to grumble.
That night there were two private conversations.
Evelyn had gone into Lucy's room to brush her hair in company.
"What a touching sight!" said Lucy, laughing suddenly, as, by the dancing firelight, she caught sight of the two fair young figures in the mirror—their loosened hair falling all about their shoulders. "Come on with your confidences! Now is the time. At least so they say in books."
"Unfortunately I have not got any confidences."
"Nor have I—thank heaven!" She bent low over the glowing wood-fire. "What slavery love must be!"
Evelyn watched her with interest, but Lucy's next words were somewhat disappointing.
"Evelyn," she said, "how is it Mona has contrived to charm your father so? I need not tell you what I think about her, but, broadly speaking, she is not a man's woman, and I should not have fancied she was the sort of girl to fetch Sir Douglas at all."
"I don't think it strange," said Evelyn languidly. "I have often thought about it. You see, she is very like what my mother must have been at her age, though not nearly so charming to mere acquaintances; and then just where the dear old Mater stops short, the real Mona begins. It must be such a surprise to Father!"
"That is ingenious, certainly. How Mr Monteith admires your mother!"
"Does he?"
"I wonder what he would think of Mona!"
"I can't guess."
"Have you known him long?"
"Father and Mother have known his father long."
"Do you think he is honest?"
"Which?"
"The son, of course."
"He never stole anything from me."
"Don't be a goose! Do you think he means what he says?"
Evelyn paused before replying.
"You don't?" said Lucy quickly.
"I was trying to remember anything he did say," Evelyn answered very deliberately. "The only remark I can remember addressed to myself was, 'Brute of a day, isn't it?' I think he meant that. He certainly looked as if he did."
"Douglas," said Lady Munro, "would Colonel Monteith allow his son to marry Lucy Reynolds?"
"Nonsense! what ideas you do take into your head!"
"Because, if he would not, things have gone quite far enough. George said something to me about coming back to Cannes for a day or two. Of course that child is the attraction. If you think it will end in nothing, he must not come."
"So that is what her vocation amounts to!"
"My dear Douglas! what does she know of life? She is a child——"
"Precisely, and her father is another. God bless my soul! Monteith's son must marry an heiress."
Lady Munro did not pursue the subject; she had something else to talk of. She rose presently, and walked across the room.
"Douglas," she said, stopping idly before the glass, "I wish you would give me your recipe for looking youthful. You will soon look younger than your wife."
"Nonsense," he said gruffly, but he smiled. His wife did not often make pretty speeches now-a-days. As it happened she was looking particularly young that night, too. Perhaps that fact had struck her, and had suggested the remark.
For half an hour they chatted together, as they might have done in the old, old days, and then——
And then Lady Munro broached the subject of the boy at Monte Carlo.