XXIII
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MATTERHORN
They had been days at dear Interlaken, walking up and down the_Hoheweg_, of which they never tired, or resting on the benches underthe plane and walnut trees opposite their hotel, just sitting still togaze their fill upon the _Jungfrau_. This was best of all--so Polly andJasper thought; and Phronsie was content to pass hour after hour there,by Grandpapa's side, and imagine all sorts of pretty pictures andstories in and about the snow-clad heights of the majestic mountain.
And the throng of gaily dressed people sojourning in the big hotels,and the stream of tourists, passed and repassed, with many a curiousglance at the stately, white-haired old gentleman and the littleyellow-haired girl by his side.
"A perfect beauty!" exclaimed more than one matron, with a sigh for herugly girls by her side or left at home.
"She's stunning, and no mistake!" Many a connoisseur in feminineloveliness turned for a last look, or passed again for the same purpose.
"Grandpapa," Phronsie prattled on, "that looks just like a little tentup there--a little white tent; doesn't it, Grandpapa dear?"
"Yes, Phronsie," said Grandpapa, happily, just as he would have said"Yes, Phronsie," if she had pointed out any other object in the snowyoutline.
"And there's a cunning little place where you and I could creep intothe tent," said Phronsie, bending her neck like a meditative bird. "AndI very much wish we could, Grandpapa dear."
"We'd find it pretty cold in there," said Grandpapa, "and wish we wereback here on this nice seat, Phronsie."
"What makes it so cold up there, Grandpapa, when the sun shines?" askedPhronsie, suddenly. "Say, Grandpapa, what makes it?"
"Oh, it's so far up in the air," answered old Mr. King. "Don't youremember how cold it was up on the Rigi, and that was about ninethousand feet lower?"
"Oh, Grandpapa!" exclaimed Phronsie, in gentle surprise, unable tocompass such figures.
Mr. King's party had made one or two pleasant little journeys to theLauterbrunnen Valley, staying there and at Muerren, and to Grindelwaldas well; but they came back to sit on the benches by the walnut and theplane trees, in front of the matchless Jungfrau. "And this is best ofall," said Polly.
And so the days slipped by, till one morning, at the breakfast table,Mrs. Selwyn said, "Tomorrow we must say good-by--my boy and I."
"Hey--what?" exclaimed Mr. King, setting his coffee-cup down, not verygently.
"Our vacation cannot be a very long one," said Tom's mother, with alittle smile; "there are my father and my two daughters and my otherboys in England."
Tom's face was all awry as Mr. King said, "And you mean to say, Mrs.Selwyn, that you really must move on to-morrow?"
"Yes; we really must," she said decidedly. "But oh," and her plain,quiet face changed swiftly, "you cannot know how sorry we shall be toleave your party."
"In that case, Mrs. Fisher,"--old Mr. King looked down the table-lengthto Mamsie,--"we must go too; for I don't intend to lose sight of thesenice travelling companions until I am obliged to." Tom's face was onebig smile. "Oh, goody!" exclaimed Polly, as if she were no older thanPhronsie.
Jasper clapped Tom's back, instead of wasting words.
"So we will all proceed to pack up without more ado after breakfast.After all, it is wiser to make the move now, for we are getting so thatwe want to take root in each place."
"You just wait till you get to Zermatt," whispered Polly to Phronsie,who, under cover of the talk buzzing around the table, had confided toher that she didn't want to leave her beautiful mountain. "Grandpapa isgoing to take us up to the Gorner Grat, and there you can see anothermountain,--oh, so near! he says it seems almost as if you could touchit. And it's all covered with snow, Phronsie, too!"
"Is it as big as my mountain here?" asked Phronsie.
"Yes, bigger, a thousand feet or more," answered Polly, glad that shehad looked it up.
"Is it?" said Phronsie. "Every mountain is bigger, isn't it, Polly?"
"It seems to be," said Polly, with a little laugh.
"And has it a little white tent on the side, just like my mountainhere?" asked Phronsie, holding Polly's arm as she turned off to catchthe chatter of the others.
"Oh, I suppose so," answered Polly, carelessly. Then she looked up andcaught Mamsie's eye, and turned back quickly. "At any rate, Phronsie,it's all peaked on the top--oh, almost as sharp as a needle--and itseems to stick right into the blue sky, and there are lots and lots ofother mountains--oh, awfully high,--and the sun shines up there a gooddeal, and it's too perfectly lovely for anything, Phronsie Pepper."
"Then I want to go," decided Phronsie. "I do so want to see that whiteneedle, Polly."
"Well, eat your breakfast," said Polly, "because you know we all haveever so much to do to-day to get off."
"Yes, I will," declared Phronsie, attacking her cold chicken and rollwith great vigour.
"It seems as if the whole world were at Zermatt," said the parson,looking out from the big piazza crowded with the hotel people, out tothe road in front, with every imaginable tourist passing and repassing.Donkeys were being driven up, either loaded down to their utmost withheavy bags and trunks, or else waiting to receive on their patientbacks the heavier people. Phronsie never could see the poor animals,without such distress coming in her face that every one in the partyconsidered it his or her bounden duty to comfort and reassure her. Sothis time it was Tom's turn to do so.
"Oh, don't you worry," he said, looking down into her troubled littleface where he sat on the piazza railing swinging his long legs, "theylike it, those donkeys do!"
"Do they?" asked Phronsie, doubtfully.
"Yes, indeed," said Tom, with a gusto, as if he wished he were adonkey, and in just that very spot, "it gives them a chance to seethings, and to hear things, too, don't you know?" went on Tom, at hiswits' end to know how he was going to come out of his sentences.
"Oh," said Phronsie, yet she sighed as she saw the extremely fat personjust being hauled up to a position on a very small donkey's back.
"You see, if they don't like it," said Tom, digging his knife savagelyinto the railing, "they have a chance to kick up their heels andunsettle that heavy party."
"O dear me!" exclaimed Phronsie, in great distress, "that would hurtthe poor woman, Tom."
"Well, it shows that the donkey likes it," said Tom, with a laugh,"because he doesn't kick up his heels."
"And so," ran on Tom, "why, we mustn't worry, you and I, if the donkeydoesn't. Just think,"--he made a fine diversion by pointing with hisknife-blade up to the slender spire of the Matterhorn--"we're going upon a little jaunt to-morrow, to look into that fellow's face."
Phronsie got out of her chair to come and stand by his side. "I likethat white needle," she said, with a gleeful smile. "Polly said it wasnice, and I like it."
"I should say it was," declared Tom, with a bob of his head. "Phronsie,I'd give, I don't know what, if I could climb up there." He thrust hisknife once more into the railing, where it stuck fast.
"Don't." begged Phronsie, her hand on his sleeve, "go up that big whiteneedle, Tom."
"No, I won't; it's safe to promise that," he said grimly, with a littlelaugh. "Good reason why; because I can't. The little mother wouldn'tsleep nights just to think of it, and I promised the granddaddy that Iwouldn't so much as think of it, and here I am breaking my word; but Ican't help it." He twitched his knife out suddenly, sprawled off fromthe railing, and took several hasty strides up and down the piazza.
"Well, that's all right, Phronsie," he said, coming back to get astridethe railing again; this time he turned a cold shoulder on Phronsie's"white needle." "Now, to-morrow, we'll have no end of fun." And helaunched forth on so many and so varied delights, that Phronsie'spleased little laugh rang out again and again, bringing rest to many awearied traveller, tired with the sights, sounds, and scenes of aEuropean journey.
"I wish we could stay at this nice place," said Phronsie, the nextmorning, poking her head out over the side of
the car, as it climbedoff from the Riffelalp station.
"Take care, child," said Grandpapa, with a restraining hand.
"You would want to stop at every place," said Polly, from the seat infront, with a gay little laugh. "And we never should get on at thatrate. But then I am just as bad," she confessed.
"So am I," chimed in Jasper. "Dear me, how I wanted to get a chance tosketch some of those magnificent curves and rapids and falls in theVisp River coming up."
"Oh, that dear, delicious Visp River!" echoed Polly, while Adela beganto bemoan that it was the best thing they had seen, and the car whizzedthem by so fast, she couldn't do a thing--O dear!
"I got some snap-shots, but I don't believe they are good foranything," said Jasper, "just from the pure perversity of the thing."
"Take my advice," said Tom, lazily leaning forward, "and don't botherwith a camera anyway."
"As if you expected any one to take up with such a piece of advice,"ejaculated Jasper, in high disdain. "Say something better than that,Tom, if you want to be heard."
"Oh, I don't expect to be heard, or listened to in the slightest," hesaid calmly. "Anybody who will trot round with a kodak hanging to hisneck by a villanous strap--can't be--"
"Who's got a villanous strap hanging to his neck?" cried Jasper, whilethe rest shouted as he picked at the fern-box thus hanging to Tom.
"Oh, that's quite a different thing," declared Tom, his face growingred.
"I know; one is a kodak, and the other is a fern-box," said Jasper,nodding. "I acknowledge they are different," and they all burst outlaughing again.
"Well, at least," said Tom, joining in the laugh, "you mustacknowledge, too, that I go off by myself and pick up my wild flowersand green things, and I'm not bothering round focussing every livingthing and pointing my little machine at every freak in nature that Isee."
"All right," said Jasper, good-naturedly, "but you have the strap roundyour neck all the same, Tom."
And Phronsie wanted to stay at the Riffelberg just as much; and old Mr.King was on the point of saying, "Well, we'll come up here for a fewdays, Phronsie," when he remembered Mrs. Selwyn and her boy, and howthey must get on. Instead, he cleared his throat, and said, "We shallsee it after dinner, child," and Phronsie smiled, well contented.
But when she reached the Corner Grat station, and took Grandpapa'shand, and began to ascend the bridle path to the hotel, she couldn'tcontain herself, and screamed right out, "Oh, Grandpapa, I'd ratherstay here."
"It _is_ beautiful, isn't it?" echoed old Mr. King, feeling twentyyears younger since he started on his travels. "Well, well, child, I'mglad you like it," looking down into her beaming little face.
"You are very much to be envied, sir. I can't help speaking to you andtelling you so," said a tall, sober-looking gentleman, evidently anEnglish curate off on his vacation, as he caught up with him on theascent, where they had paused at one of the look-offs, "for having thatchild as company, and those other young people."
"You say the truth," replied old Mr. King, cordially; "from the depthsof my heart I pity any one who hasn't some children to take along whengoing abroad. But then they wouldn't be little Peppers," he added,under his breath, as he bowed and turned back to the view.
"There's dear Monte Rosa," cried Polly, enthusiastically. "Oh, I justlove her."
"And there's Castor and Pollux," said Jasper.
"And there's the whole of them," said Tom, disposing of the entirerange with a sweep of his hand. "Dear me, what a lot there are, to besure. It quite tires one."
"Oh, anybody but a cold-blooded Englishman!" exclaimed Jasper, with amischievous glance, "to travel with."
"Anything on earth but a gushing American!" retorted Tom, "to go roundthe world with."
"I wish I could sketch a glacier," bemoaned Adela, stopping everyminute or two, as they wound around the bridle path, "but I can't; I'vetried ever so many times."
"Wait till we get to the _Mer de Glace_," advised Tom. "You can sitdown in the middle of it, and sketch away all you want to."
"Well, I'm going to," said Adela, with sudden determination. "I don'tcare; you can all laugh if you want to."
"You can sketch us all," suggested Jasper, "for we shall have horribleold stockings on."
"I sha'n't have horrible old stockings on," said Adela, in a dudgeon,sticking out her foot. "I wear just the same stockings that I do athome, at school in Paris, and they are quite nice."
"Oh, I mean you'll have to put on coarse woollen ones that the peasantwomen knit on purpose,--we all shall have to do the same, on over ourshoes," explained Jasper.
"O dear me!" cried Adela, in dismay.
"And I think we shall slip and slide a great deal worse with thosethings tied on our feet, than to go without any," said Polly, wrinklingup her brows at the idea.
"'Twouldn't be safe to go without them," said Jasper, shaking his head,"unless we had nails driven in our shoes."
"I'd much rather have the nails," cried Polly, "oh, much rather,Jasper."
"Well, we'll see what father is going to let us do," said Jasper.
"Wasn't that fun snowballing--just think--in July," cried Polly,craning her neck to look back down the path toward the Riffelbergstation.
"Did you pick up some of that snow?" asked Adela.
"Didn't we, though!" exclaimed Jasper. "I got quite a good bit in myfist."
"My ball was such a little bit of a one," mourned Polly; "I scraped upall I could, but it wasn't much."
"Well, it did good execution," said Tom; "I got it in my eye."
"Oh, did it hurt you?" cried Polly, in distress, running across thepath to walk by his side.
"Not a bit," said Tom. "I tried to find some to pay you back, and thenwe had to fly for the cars."
The plain, quiet face under the English bonnet turned to Mrs. Fisher asthey walked up the path together. "I cannot begin to tell you whatgratitude I am under to you," said Tom's mother, "and to all of you.When I think of my father, I am full of thankfulness. When I look at myboy, the goodness of God just overcomes me in leading me to your party.May I tell you of ourselves some time, when a good opportunity offersfor a quiet talk?"
"I'd like nothing better," said Mother Fisher, heartily. "If there isone person I like more than another, who isn't of our family, or any ofour home friends, it's Mrs. Selwyn," she had confided to the littledoctor just a few days before. "She hasn't any nonsense about her, ifshe is an earl's daughter."
"Earl's daughter," sniffed the little doctor, trying to slip a collarbutton into a refractory binding. "Dear me, now that's gone--no,'tisn't--that's luck," as the button rolled off into a corner of thebureau-top where it was easily captured.
"Let me do that for you, Adoniram," said Mother Fisher, coming up tohelp him.
"I guess you'll have to, wife, if it's done at all," he answered,resigning himself willingly to her hands; "the thing slips and slideslike all possessed. Well, now, I was going to say that I wouldn't hatea title so much, if there was a grain of common sense went along withit. And that Mrs. Selwyn just saves the whole lot of English nobility,and makes 'em worth speaking to, in my opinion."
And after they had their dinner, and were scattered in groups in thebright sunshine, sitting on the wooden benches by the long tables, ortaking photographs, or watching through the big glass some mountainclimbers on one of the snowy spurs of the Matterhorn, "the goodopportunity for a quiet talk" came about.
"Now," said Mother Fisher, with a great satisfaction in her voice, "maywe sit down here on this bench, Mrs. Selwyn, and have that talk?"
Tom's mother sat down well pleased, and folding her hands in her lap,this earl's daughter, mistress of a dozen languages, as well asmistress of herself on all occasions, began as simply and with as muchdirectness as a child.
"Well, you know my father. Let me tell you, aside from theeccentricities, that are mere outside matters, and easily explained, ifyou understood the whole of his life, a kinder man never lived, nor amore reasonable one. But it was a misfor
tune that he had to be left somuch alone, as since my mother's death a dozen years ago has happened.It pained me much." A shadow passed over her brow, but it was goneagain, and she smiled, and her eyes regained their old placid look. "Ilive in Australia with my husband, where my duty is, putting the boysas fast as they were old enough, and the little girls as well, intoEnglish schools. But Tom has always been with my father at thevacations, for he is his favourite, as of course was natural, for he isthe eldest. And though you might not believe it, Mrs. Fisher, my fatherwas always passionately fond of the boy."
"I do believe it," said Mother Fisher, quietly, and she put her handover the folded ones. Mrs. Selwyn unclasped hers, soft and white, todraw within them the toil-worn one.
"Now, that's comfortable," she said, with another little smile.
"And here is where his eccentricity became the most dangerous to thepeace of mind of our family," continued Mrs. Selwyn. "My father seemednever able to discover that he was doing the lad harm by all sorts ofindulgence and familiarity with him, a sort of hail-fellow-well-met waythat surprised me more than I can express, when I discovered it on mylast return visit to my old home. My father! who never toleratedanything but respect from all of us, who were accustomed to despoticgovernment, I can assure you, was allowing Tom!--well, you were withhim on the steamer," she broke off abruptly. The placid look was goneagain in a flash.
"Yes," said Mother Fisher, her black eyes full of sympathy; "don't letthat trouble you, dear Mrs. Selwyn; Tom was pure gold downunderneath--we saw that--and the rest is past."
"Ah,"--the placid look came back as quickly--"that is my onlycomfort--that you did. For father told the whole, not sparing himself.Now he sees things in the right light; he says because your youngpeople taught it to him. And he was cruelly disappointed because youcouldn't come down to visit him in his home."
"We couldn't," said Mother Fisher, in a sorry voice, at seeing theother face.
"I understand--quite," said Tom's mother, with a gentle pressure of thehand she held. "And then the one pleasure he had was in picking outsomething for Polly."
"Oh, if the little red leather case _had_ gone back to the poor oldman!" ran through Mother Fisher's mind, possessing it at once.
"I don't think his judgment was good, Mrs. Fisher, in the selection,"said Mrs. Selwyn, a small pink spot coming on either cheek; "but heloves Polly, and wanted to show it."
"And he was so good to think of it," cried Mother Fisher, her heartwarming more and more toward the little old earl.
"And as he couldn't be turned from it, and his health is precarious ifhe is excited, why, there was nothing to be done about it. And then heinsisted that Tom and I come off for a bit of a run on the Continent,the other children being with him. And as my big boy"--here a lovingsmile went all over the plain face, making it absolutelybeautiful--"had worried down deep in his heart over the past, till Iwas more troubled than I can tell you, why, we came. And then God wasgood--for then we met you! Oh, Mrs. Fisher!"
She drew her hands by a sudden movement away, and put them on MotherFisher's shoulders. And then that British matron, rarely demonstrativewith her own children, even, leaned over and kissed Polly's mother.
"I can't see why it's so warm up here," said Polly, racing over totheir bench, followed by the others. "Dear me, it's fairly hot." Andshe pulled off her jacket.
"Don't do that, Polly," said her mother.
"Oh, Mamsie, it's so very hot," said Polly; but she thrust her armsinto the sleeves and pulled it on again.
"I know; but you've been running," said Mrs. Fisher, "and have gottenall heated up."
"Well, it's perfectly splendid to travel to places where we can run andrace," said Polly, in satisfaction, throwing herself down on the rocks.The others all doing the same thing, Mr. King and the Parson and Mrs.Henderson found them, and pretty soon the group was a big one. "Well,well, we are all here together, no--where is Mrs. Gray?" asked Mr.King, presently.
"She is resting in the hotel," said Mother Fisher, "fast asleep I thinkby this time."
"Yes," said Adela, "she is. I just peeked in on her, and she hasn'tmoved where you tucked her up on the lounge."
"Grandpapa," asked Polly, suddenly, from the centre of the group, "whatmakes it so very warm up here, when we are all surrounded by snow?"
"You ask me a hard thing," said old Mr. King. "Well, for one thing, weare very near the Italian border; those peaks over there, youknow,--follow my walking-stick as I point it,--are in sunny Italy."
"Well, it is just like sunny Italy up here," said Polly, "I think,"blinking, and pulling her little cap over her eyes.
"It's all the Italy you will get in the summer season," said Grandpapa."You must wait for cold weather before I take one of you there."