CHAPTER XI
The affairs of young Stewart and Marie Jedlicka were not movingsmoothly. Having rented their apartment to the Boyers, and throughMarie's frugality and the extra month's wages at Christmas, which wasMarie's annual perquisite, being temporarily in funds the sky seemedclear enough, and Walter Stewart started on his holiday with acomfortable sense of financial security.
Mrs. Boyer, shown over the flat by Stewart during Marie's temporaryexile in the apartment across the hall, was captivated by the comfort ofthe little suite and by its order. Her housewifely mind, restless withlong inactivity in a pension, seized on the bright pans of Marie'skitchen and the promise of the brick-and-sheetiron stove. Shedisapproved of Stewart, having heard strange stories of him, but therewas nothing bacchanal or suspicious about this orderly establishment.Mrs. Boyer was a placid, motherly looking woman, torn from her churchand her card club, her grown children, her household gods of thirtyyears' accumulation, that "Frank" might catch up with his profession.
She had explained it rather tremulously at home.
"Father wants to go," she said. "You children are big enough now to beleft. He's always wanted to do it, but we couldn't go while you werelittle."
"But, mother!" expostulated the oldest girl. "When you are so afraid ofthe ocean! And a year!"
"What is to be will be," she had replied. "If I'm going to be drownedI'll be drowned, whether it's in the sea or in a bathtub. And I'll notlet father go alone."
Fatalism being their mother's last argument and always final, thechildren gave up. They let her go. More, they prepared for her soelaborate a wardrobe that the poor soul had had no excuse to purchaseanything abroad. She had gone through Paris looking straight ahead lesther eyes lead her into the temptation of the shops. In Vienna she woreher home-town outfit with determination, vaguely conscious that thewomen about her had more style, were different. She priced unsuitablegarments wistfully, and went home to her trunks full of best materialsthat would never wear out. The children, knowing her, had bought thebest.
To this couple, then, Stewart had rented his apartment. It is hard tosay by what psychology he found their respectability so satisfactory. Itwas as though his own status gained by it. He had much the same feelingabout the order and decency with which Marie managed the apartment, asif irregularity were thus regularized.
Marie had met him once for a walk along the Graben. She had worn anexperimental touch of rouge under a veil, and fine lines were drawnunder her blue eyes, darkening them. She had looked very pretty, ratherfrightened. Stewart had sent her home and had sulked for an entireevening.
So curious a thing is the mind masculine, such an order of disorder, soconventional its defiance of convention. Stewart breaking the law andtrying to keep the letter!
On the day they left for Semmering Marie was up at dawn. There wasmuch to do. The house must be left clean and shining. There must be nofeminine gewgaws to reveal to the Frau Doktor that it was not a purelymasculine establishment. At the last moment, so late that it sent herheart into her mouth, she happened on the box of rouge hidden fromStewart's watchful eyes. She gave it to the milk girl.
Finally she folded her meager wardrobe and placed it in the HerrDoktor's American trunk: a marvel, that trunk, so firm, so heavy,bound with iron. And with her own clothing she packed Stewart's, thedress-suit he had worn once to the Embassy, a hat that folded, strangeAmerican shoes, and books--always books. The Herr Doktor would studyat Semmering. When all was in readiness and Stewart was taking a finalsurvey, Marie ran downstairs and summoned a cab. It did not occur to herto ask him to do it. Marie's small life was one of service, and besidesthere was an element in their relationship that no one but Mariesuspected, and that she hid even from herself. She was very much inlove with this indifferent American, this captious temporary god of herdomestic altar. Such a contingency had never occurred to Stewart; butPeter, smoking gravely in the little apartment, had more than oncecaught a look in Marie's eyes as she turned them on the other man, andhad surmised it. It made him uncomfortable.
When the train was well under way, however, and he found no disturbingelement among the three others in the compartment, Stewart relaxed.Semmering was a favorite resort with the American colony, but not untillater in the winter. In December there were rains in the mountains, andlow-lying clouds that invested some of the chalets in constant fog.It was not until the middle of January that the little mountain trainbecame crowded with tourists, knickerbockered men with knapsacks, andjaunty feathers in their soft hats, boys carrying ski, women with Alpinecloaks and iron-pointed sticks.
Marie was childishly happy. It was the first real vacation of her life,and more than that she was going to Semmering, in the very shadow of theRaxalpe, the beloved mountain of the Viennese.
Marie had seen the Rax all her life, as it towered thirty miles orso away above the plain. On peaceful Sundays, having climbed the cograilroad, she had seen its white head turn rosy in the setting sun, andonce when a German tourist from Munich had handed her his fieldglass shehad even made out some of the crosses that showed where travelers hadmet their deaths. Now she would be very close. If the weather were good,she might even say a prayer in the chapel on its crest for the souls ofthose who had died. It was of a marvel, truly; so far may one go whenone has money and leisure.
The small single-trucked railway carriages bumped and rattled up themountain sides, always rising, always winding. There were moments whenthe track held to the cliffs only by gigantic fingers of steel, whilefar below were peaceful valleys and pink-and-blue houses and churcheswith gilded spires. There were vistas of snow-peak and avalanche shed,and always there were tunnels. Marie, so wise in some things, was achild in others; she slid close to Stewart in the darkness and touchedhim for comfort.
"It is so dark," she apologized, "and it frightens me, the mountainheart. In your America, have you so great mountains?"
Stewart patted her hand, a patronizing touch that sent her blood racing.
"Much larger," he said magnificently. "I haven't seen a hill in EuropeI'd exchange for the Rockies. And when we cross the mountains there weuse railway coaches. These toy railroads are a joke. At home we'd use'em as street-cars."
"Really! I should like to see America."
"So should I."
The conversation was taking a dangerous trend. Mention of America wasapt to put the Herr Doktor in a bad humor or to depress him, which waseven worse. Marie, her hand still on his arm and not repulsed, becamesilent.
At a small way station the three Germans in the compartment left thetrain. Stewart, lowering a window, bought from a boy on the platformbeer and sausages and a bag of pretzels. As the train resumed itsclanking progress they ate luncheon, drinking the beer from the bottlesand slicing the sausage with a penknife. It was a joyous trip, ared-letter day in the girl's rather sordid if not uneventful life. TheHerr Doktor was pleased with her. He liked her hat, and when sheflushed with pleasure demanded proof that she was not rouged. Proof wasforthcoming. She rubbed her cheeks vigorously with a handkerchief andproduced in triumph its unreddened purity.
"Thou suspicious one!" she pouted. "I must take off the skin to assurethee! When the Herr Doktor says no rouge, I use none."
"You're a good child." He stooped over and kissed one scarlet cheek andthen being very comfortable and the beer having made him drowsy, he puthis head in her lap and slept.
When he awakened they were still higher. The snow-peak towered aboveand the valleys were dizzying! Semmering was getting near. They werefrequently in darkness; and between the tunnels were long lines ofgranite avalanche sheds. The little passage of the car was full oftourists looking down.
"We are very close, I am sure," an American girl was saying just outsidethe doorway. "See, isn't that the Kurhaus? There, it is lost again."
The tourists in the passage were Americans and the girl who had spokenwas young and attractive. Stewart noticed them for the first time andmoved to a more decorous distance from Marie.
Marie J
edlicka took her cue and lapsed into silence, but her thoughtswere busy. Perhaps this girl was going to Semmering also and the HerrDoktor would meet her. But that was foolish! There were other resortsbesides Semmering, and in the little villa to which they went therewould be no Americans. It was childish to worry about a girl whose backand profile only she had seen. Also profiles were deceptive; there wasthe matter of the ears. Marie's ears were small and set close to herhead. If the American Fraulein's ears stuck out or her face were onlyshort and wide! But no. The American Fraulein turned and glanced onceswiftly into the compartment. She was quite lovely.
Stewart thought so, too. He got up with a great show of stretching andyawning and lounged into the passage. He did not speak to the girl;Marie noted that with some comfort. But shortly after she saw himconversing easily with a male member of the party. Her heart sank again.Life was moving very fast for Marie Jedlicka that afternoon on thetrain.
Stewart was duly presented to the party of Americans and offered his owncards, bowing from the waist and clicking his heels together, a Germancustom he had picked up. The girl was impressed; Marie saw that. Whenthey drew into the station at Semmering Stewart helped the Americanparty off first and then came back for Marie. Less keen eyes thanthe little Austrian's would have seen his nervous anxiety to escapeattention, once they were out of the train and moving toward the gateof the station. He stopped to light a cigarette, he put down thehand-luggage and picked it up again, as though it weighed heavily,whereas it was both small and light. He loitered through the gate andpaused to exchange a word with the gateman.
The result was, of course, that the Americans were in a sleigh and wellup the mountainside before Stewart and Marie were seated side by side ina straw-lined sledge, their luggage about them, a robe over their knees,and a noisy driver high above them on the driving-seat. Stewart spoke toher then, the first time for half an hour.
Marie found some comfort. The villas at Semmering were scattered wideover the mountain breast, set in dense clumps of evergreens, hiddenfrom the roads and from each other by trees and shrubbery separated byvalleys. One might live in one part of Semmering for a month and neversuspect the existence of other parts, or wander over steep roads andpaths for days and never pass twice over the same one. The Herr Doktormight not see the American girl again--and if he did! Did he not seeAmerican girls wherever he went?
The sleigh climbed on. It seemed they would never stop climbing. Belowin the valley twilight already reigned, a twilight of blue shadows, ofcows with bells wandering home over frosty fields, of houses with darkfaces that opened an eye of lamplight as one looked.
Across the valley and far above--Marie pointed without words. Her smallheart was very full. Greater than she had ever dreamed it, steeper, morebeautiful, more deadly, and crowned with its sunset hue of rose was theRax. Even Stewart lost his look of irritation as he gazed with her. Hereached over and covered both her hands with his large one under therobe.
The sleigh climbed steadily. Marie Jedlicka, in a sort of ecstasy,leaned back and watched the mountain; its crown faded from rose to gold,from gold to purple with a thread of black. There was a shadow on theside that looked like a cross. Marie stopped the sleigh at a waysideshrine, and getting out knelt to say a prayer for the travelers who haddied on the Rax. They had taken a room at a small villa where board wascheap, and where the guests were usually Germans of the thriftiersort from Bavaria. Both the season and the modest character of theestablishment promised them quiet and seclusion.
To Marie the house seemed the epitome of elegance, even luxury. It clungto a steep hillside. Their room, on the third floor, looked out from theback of the building over the valley, which fell away almost sheer frombeneath their windows. A tiny balcony outside, with access to it by adoor from the bedroom, looked far down on the tops of tall pines. Itmade Marie dizzy.
She was cheerful again and busy. The American trunk was to be unpackedand the Herr Doktor's things put away, his shoes in rows, as he likedthem, and his shaving materials laid out on the washstand. Then therewas a new dress to put on, that she might do him credit at supper.
Stewart's bad humor had returned. He complained of the room and thedraft under the balcony door; the light was wrong for shaving. But thetruth came out at last and found Marie not unprepared.
"The fact is," he said, "I'm not going to eat with you to-night, dear.I'm going to the hotel."
"With the Americans?"
"Yes. I know a chap who went to college with the brother--with the youngman you saw."
Marie glanced down at her gala toilet. Then she began slowly to takeoff the dress, reaching behind her for a hook he had just fastened andfighting back tears as she struggled with it.
"Now, remember, Marie, I will have no sulking."
"I am not sulking."
"Why should you change your clothes?"
"Because the dress was for you. If you are not here I do not wish towear it."
Stewart went out in a bad humor, which left him before he had walked forfive minutes in the clear mountain air. At the hotel he found the partywaiting for him, the women in evening gowns. The girl, whose name wasAnita, was bewitching in pale green.
That was a memorable night for Walter Stewart, with his own kind oncemore--a perfect dinner, brisk and clever conversation, enlivened by abit of sweet champagne, an hour or two on the terrace afterward with thewomen in furs, and stars making a jeweled crown for the Rax.
He entirely forgot Marie until he returned to the villa and opening thedoor of the room found her missing.
She had not gone far. At the sound of his steps she moved on the balconyand came in slowly. She was pale and pinched with cold, but she was wisewith the wisdom of her kind. She smiled.
"Didst thou have a fine evening?"
"Wonderful!"
"I am sorry if I was unpleasant. I was tired, now I am rested."
"Good, little Marie!"