Chapter Seventeen
The Writing on the Wall
Not less imposing was the wild magnificence of this panorama as viewed from the Mountet cabin, which, from its eyrie-like position high up among the rocks, commanded the whole vast ice-amphitheatre. The last climb, after leaving the glacier, had been a steep and trying one, and to most of the party, at any rate, the first consideration on reaching their goal was a twofold one – rest and lunch.
“I suppose you don’t get much sleep in these places, eh, Fordham?” said the General, looking round upon the plank shelves which, plentifully covered with straw, constituted the sleeping places. From the beams above hung rugs of a heavy, coarse texture.
“It depends on a good many things – the absence of fleas, or of a crowd. When there are three or four parties, with their guides, going the same way or coinciding here for the night, a box like this is apt to get crowded and the air thick.”
“It is wonderfully ingenious,” said Alma, taking in the solidity of the building and its contrivances for safety and comfort – every stick of which had to be dragged up there by mules and porters. “Where did they sleep before these cabins were built?”
“Under the rocks. Picked out a sheltered corner and rolled in. A coldish sort of a bedroom too,” answered Fordham.
“And all for the sake of getting to the top of a peak that a hundred other fools have been up already, and a thousand more will go up afterwards,” struck in the flippant Phil. “Throw one of those hard-boiled eggs at me, Fordham. Thanks.”
“Is not that kind of reasoning – er – somewhat fatal to all enterprise?” said the parson.
“There is little enterprise, as such, in all this Alp climbing,” interrupted one of the learned young women before anybody could reply. “Not one in a hundred of all the men who spend summer after summer mountaineering ever thinks of benefiting his species by his experiences. No branch of science is the gainer by it, for the poor creature is lamentably ignorant of science in any branch – almost that such a thing exists, in fact. To him a mountain is – a mountain, and nothing more – ”
“But – what in the world else should it be, Miss Severn?” said Philip.
” – Just so many thousand feet to go up,” continued the oracle, severely ignoring the flippant interruptor.
“Or so many thousand feet to come down – and then return home in a sack,” said the latter, wickedly.
“Just one more peak to add to the number he can already boast of having scaled. Nobody the gainer by it. Grand opportunities thrown away. The only end effected, the aggravation of one man’s already inflated conceit.”
“I don’t know about nobody being the gainer by it, Miss Severn,” said the General. “I am disposed to think this rage for mountaineering by no means a bad thing – in fact a distinctly good one, as anything that calls forth pluck, determination, and endurance is bound to be. Now, by the time a man has done two or three of these gentry there,” with a wave of the hand in the direction of the surrounding peaks, “his nerve is likely to be in pretty good order, and his training and condition not very deficient. No, I don’t agree with you at all, Miss Severn.”
“The guides are very considerably the gainers by it, too,” said Fordham – “the gainers by enough cash to tide them comfortably through the winter.”
“These are all very secondary considerations,” was the lofty rejoinder. “Nobody touches my point after all. General Wyatt thinks that the object of penetrating the wonders of these stupendous ice-worlds has been gained when a man has got himself into the hard muscular training of a mere brutal prize-fighter; while Mr Fordham thinks it quite sufficient if a few hundred francs find their way into the pockets of a few Swiss peasants. But what does science gain by it? Of course I except the researches of such men as Tyndall – but they are the rare exceptions.” And the speaker looked around as if challenging a reply. She was disappointed, however. Nobody seemed to think it worth their while to undertake one. Presently Fordham said —
“It has often been remarked that we are not a logical nation. Hardly a day passes without emphasising that fact to the ordinarily wide-awake observer.”
“How so? Please explain. I don’t quite follow you,” said Miss Severn, briskly, fiercely elate that her challenge had been taken up.
“Well, we British are perennially grumbling at our abominably cold climate – winter all the year round, and so forth; and yet during the few weeks of summer vouchsafed to us away we rush to places like this, and stow ourselves as close to the snow and ice as we possibly can.”
“I – I really don’t see the connection,” said the would-be debater, in tart mystification. “Isn’t that rather a pointless remark – not to say irrelevant?”
“Oh, no. If anything, the reverse,” answered Fordham, tranquilly. “The idea was suggested by seeing several of us shiver, and it naturally occurred to me that we had probably sat as long as was safe if we wanted to avoid catching cold. For present purposes it may be taken to mean that we should be wise to think of going down, still wiser to go down and take the thinking as thought. What do you say, General?”
“I agree with you, Fordham. It doesn’t do to sit too long in this sharp air, after getting heated coming up, too.”
So the wisdom of the elders prevailed, and the party started upon the homeward way. Philip having found a long, steep snow-shoot, preferred the risky delights of a glissade to the more sober and gradual descent of a series of zig-zags. But the snow was soft, with the result that when half-way the adventurous one went head over heels, convulsing with mirth those who witnessed his frantic flounderings from the security of the zig-zag footpath aforesaid. Meanwhile the two erudite damsels were confiding to the parson their rooted conviction that Fordham was the most abominably disagreeable man they had ever met – which view, however, being that of the bulk of their sex on the same subject, was neither original nor striking.
And then as they gained the level of the glacier once more, again the wily Phil managed to pair off – to straggle indeed considerably from the main body – to straggle away almost to the base of the huge cliffs of the Grand Cornier. Here crevasses began to open in all directions – real ones, yawning black in the glistening surface.
“By Jove! look at that!” cried Phil, as a huge rift came into view right across the way they were following. It was overhung by a wreath of frozen snow, and the “lip” thus formed was fringed and festooned with gleaming icicles. It was a lovely and at the same time forbidding spectacle, as the sunlight fell upon the myriad smooth needles of ice – catching the star-like facets in gleaming scintillation – playing upon the translucent walls of the chasm in many a prismatic ray – roseate and gold, and richest azure. Then, below, the black, cold depths, as of the bottomless pit.
“It is splendid, but gruesome,” said Alma, peering tentatively into the silent depths – a process which needed a steadying, not to say supporting, hand. “I wonder how deep it is.”
“It’s a pity, in the interests of science – but on that ground alone – that we haven’t got our two learned friends along,” said Philip, proceeding to roll a big stone, of which there were several on the surface of the glacier, to the brink. “They could locate the depth by the time it takes to fall. Now, listen!”
He rolled over the stone. It was a large one, and spoke volumes for his excellent condition that he was able to move it at all. There was a crash and a shatter like the breaking of glass, as it crushed through the fringe of icicles – then a long pause, followed by a far-away and hollow clang.
“What an awful depth,” said Alma, with a shudder, instinctively drawing back. “Wait!” warned Philip. “There it goes again!” Another clang – this time very faint, together with a ghostly rumbling roar as the prisoned echo strove to break free – told that the crevasse was of appalling depth, even if its bottom was yet reached. The listeners looked at each other.
“Not much chance once over this little bit of crushed snow,” said Philip, breaking away the overhanging edge with the end of his ice-axe.
“Horrible!” rejoined Alma, with a shudder. “Now I think we had better go back to the others, for it seems to me we are getting more and more in among the crevasses, and it must be a trifle dangerous.”
It was even as she said. The whole surface of the glacier was seamed and criss-crossed with yawning rifts – many of them like the one before them – of unknown depth. To a fairly experienced man, and one of average gumption withal, the situation would have held no obstacle. To such the lay of the glacier would have been understood, and he could have threaded his way to safer ground without difficulty. But Philip was not experienced in Alpine features, and there was just a little too much of the bull-at-a-gate about his disposition for him to supplement this lack by ordinary prudence. So they got deeper and deeper into the labyrinth – and moreover the sun was already shut out behind the towering mountain walls rearing up immediately overhead.
Under these circumstances neither of the pair was sorry to hear a shout, and to make out a figure approaching at some distance over the ice.
“It’s Fordham,” cried Phil. “He’ll show us the right line. He’s about as good as a professional guide.”
Not the least lovable trait in Philip Orlebar’s character was his perfect readiness to yield to another’s superior knowledge, and this he was wont to do, not grudgingly or as one making a concession, but fully, frankly, and as a matter of course. It did not, for instance, occur to him that his fortnight of knocking about among the mountains and glaciers in the neighbourhood of Zinal – said knocking about being mostly in picnic fashion, as in the present case – had rendered his experience a trifle superior to that of Fordham, who had done a good deal of serious Alpine climbing in times past; and in stating this we are not dealing with so obvious a truism as the uninitiated would assume. For to many of his age and temperament that very thing would have occurred, and does occur, not infrequently to their own ultimate discomfiture if not disaster. We speak of that which we know.
Philip therefore hailed the advent of his friend with genuine pleasure, not to say relief. But the other in no wise reciprocated that warming sentiment. He didn’t see any fun in coming about two miles out of his way – and towards the end of the day, too – in order to benefit two people whom he had every reason to suppose would be wishing him in Halifax all the time.
“Tired of life already, Miss Wyatt?” he said sourly, as he came up, pointing to a great black crevasse the two were gingerly skirting. “Or do you want to anticipate death, and defeating his ravages and decay, ensure remaining beautiful for ever, although within the depths of a glacier?”
“What a weird style of compliment,” answered Alma, with a little laugh. “But any sort of compliment coming from Mr Fordham should be duly treasured.”
“Well, there’s a far weirder fact underlying it. Look here! If you knew there were half a dozen even indifferent shots posted behind yonder séracs practising at you with rifles, I believe you’d think your run of life was held on exceedingly frail and uncertain tenure. Well, left to yourselves here, the same tenure is a good deal more uncertain than it would be under the other contingency – you two poor greenhorns.”
“Oh, come; I say, Fordham?” exclaimed Philip, deprecatorily. But Alma broke into a ringing laugh.
“You think it a laughing matter, do you?” went on Fordham. “Now you wouldn’t think that a dozen steps further of the line you’re following would perform your own funerals? You’d never be seen again.”
“Now you’re cramming us, old chap,” said Philip, airily, surveying the white unbroken surface in front.
“Am I? Very well. Now, look.”
He counted exactly ten paces forward, then halted, advanced half a pace, and holding his ice-axe by the head, drove the point into the surface. In it went without resistance, as far as he allowed it to, which was almost to the head. Then working it round he made a hole about half a yard in diameter.
“Come, now, and look.” He went on cautiously knocking away more of the snow-crust.
They obeyed, and in a moment were peering through the hole into black depths. The sheeny surface of the opposite ice-wall glared at them through the aperture as with the disappointed glare of the eye of some evil beast baulked of its prey.
“By Jove!” cried Philip, aghast. “You never spoke a truer word, Fordham. There would have been an end of us, sure enough. But I say, old chap, how on earth did you know there was a crevasse there – a dev – , hum – I mean an awful one it is, too? There’s no sign or difference of colour in the surface.”
“I knew that there was bound to be one by the lay of the land. Now look,” he went on, pointing to the main crevasse, which yawned broadly parallel to the line they were pursuing, and out of which a lateral one sprung, and seeming to change its mind, had abruptly terminated – apparently so, at any rate. “I knew that this other crack wasn’t going to end there, although it seems to; it was too deep to start with. Consequently I knew that it was bound to run a considerable way under the surface, and so it does. A dozen more steps, I repeat, and one or both of you would have disappeared for ever.”
“By Jove!” ejaculated Phil again, in mingled admiration and dismay, while Alma shuddered, as she gazed into the ghastly death-trap with a horrible fascination.
“At the same time you’re wrong in saying there is no sign or difference of colour in the surface,” went on Fordham. “There is the last – faint I admit – but quite enough to catch a practised eye. And now, while we are prosing away here, the other people are waiting for us over on the moraine yonder. So keep close behind me, and let’s get out of this.”
Under such able and experienced pilotage they soon got clear of the more dangerous part of the glacier – doubling and zigzaging in the most labyrinthine fashion to avoid perils hidden or displayed.
“You can’t afford to go playing about among bottomless pits in any such careless way, Phil, still more among masked deathtraps like some of those we passed,” said Fordham, as they drew near their party. “So if you must go skylarking on dangerous ground, you’d better have some one with you who knows the ropes rather more than you do, and not rather less.”
But this recollection of peril past added something of a spice to the keen enjoyment of a delightful day as they took their way homeward. And then, as they left the wild wilderness of rocks and ice behind, the great silent glaciers and piled masses of rugged moraine, the westering sunlight flushing upon the soaring peaks as with a glow of fire, to these two it meant one more day closing as it had begun – in a golden unearthly beauty – closing into a brief night, which in its turn should soon melt into another glowing day, even as this one which had just fled. But – would it?
“Two people have arrived, sir,” said the head waiter, meeting Philip in the hall. “Dey ask for you, sir, first thing. One gentleman and lady.”
“Gentleman and lady?” echoed Phil, in amazement. “Who the deuce can it be? Who are they, Franz?”
“I not know, sir. Dey ask first for you; then they ask if we cannot send messenger to find you. I tell them you away to the Mountet cabin – you come back quick as the messenger.”
“The deuce! Who can it be? By Jove – of course! The governor and her ladyship! It’ll be right good getting the old man out here. Don’t know about her ladyship though,” he parenthesised, dubiously. “Where are they, Franz?”
“Here we are, Philip,” cried a masculine voice, which was certainly not that of Sir Francis Orlebar, and a hand dropped upon his shoulder with would-be cordiality.
The recipient of this unceremonious salute started as if he had been shot. Then he turned – turned with what cordiality he could muster, to confront the speaker.
The latter was an elderly man of portentous aspect, ruddy of countenance, and keen of eye. A thick white beard hid the lower half of his face, and a crop of bristling white hair adorned his summit, which last, however, was now concealed by a large pith helmet and puggaree. He wore a great expanse of waistcoat, covering a redundancy of person which went far towards bearing out his sleek and aggressively prosperous appearance. He looked the sort of man who would be a law unto a roomful – the sort of man whose thumbs would oft seek the armholes of his waistcoat. He looked what he was – the prosperous, comfortable British merchant who had begun life a good deal lower down than that. But he did not look what he was not – viz, a gentleman.
“Why, how d’you do, Mr Glover?” blurted out Philip at last. “Who on earth would have thought of seeing you here?”
“Aha! who’d have thought it, indeed! But the little girl wouldn’t give me any peace. Said you hadn’t written to her for so long she didn’t know what had become of you, and we’d better go and see. So we left the rest of them at St. Swithins and started off, and here we are. Why, where is she? Edie – where have you got to?”
“All right, dad; here I am,” and the owner of the voice emerged from the bureau, where she had been arranging about rooms. “Why Phil, dear, this is nice!” she went on, advancing upon him with extended hand and a would-be effective blush.
“Ha ha!” chuckled the old man. “She wouldn’t give me any peace until I brought her here. Now you’ll find plenty to talk about, I’ll warrant.”
Heavens! this was fearful. The feelings of a wild bull in a net must be placidity itself compared with those of poor Philip on finding himself thus cornered and publicly taken possession of. Every soul in the hotel was getting the benefit of these effusive and affectionate greetings, for it was just that time before table d’hôte when everybody was coming in to change, and every head was more or less turned for a glance at the new-comers as its owner passed by. Why Alma herself, who was standing talking to some other ladies in the hall, was well within hearing! What would she think? What sort of construction would she put upon all the affection wherewith these people were bespattering him? Heavens! what would she think?
Ha! there was Fordham. Capital! He would plant the new arrivals upon him.
“Hullo, Fordham!” he sung out, as his friend at that moment passed through the hall. “I want to introduce you to Mr Glover here; just arrived, you know. Miss Glover – Mr Fordham. Knows the country like a book,” he went on, desperately.
But this manoeuvre, so far from helping him had precisely the opposite effect; for the old man, with effusive cordiality, at once buttonholed Fordham, leaving the girl free to take possession of Phil.
Well, what then? To all appearances the situation was the very reverse of an unenviable one – indeed, more than one man passing through the hall at the time looked upon the ill-starred Philip with eyes of downright envy as he grumbled to himself, “Is that conceited ass Orlebar going to monopolise every pretty girl who comes near the place?” Poor Phil! how willingly he would have yielded up this one to the attentions of each and all who might choose to offer them.
In one particular they were right. Edith Glover was a very pretty girl. She had large blue eyes, and profuse brown hair falling in a natural wavy fringe around her brows. She had a clear complexion, regular features, and a bright, laughing expression. She was of medium height, had a good figure, and dressed well. But with all these advantages she lacked one thing, in common with her father, and that was the hallmark of birth. There was no mistake about it. With all her engaging prettiness and tasteful attire there was this one thing painfully, obviously lacking. She would have looked far more in keeping – and therefore possibly more attractive – in the cap, apron, and print dress of a housemaid, and her speech would have agreed thereto.
It is an accepted saying that the letter “h” constitutes a crucial shibboleth to the individual of dubious birth and British nationality; but there is another letter to which this applies with almost equal force, and that is the letter “a”. Now the first letter of the alphabet as enunciated by Edith Glover sounded uncommonly like the ninth – to wit, the letter “i.”
“We will sit together at table, dear, of course,” she murmured, sweetly, with a killing glance into his eyes.
“Um – ah – er,” mumbled Philip. “Awful sorry, but afraid our end of the table’s full up – in fact, crowded.”
“Oh, but you can come down to ours.”
“Er – hardly. You see I’m with some people – very jolly party – came up here together. Can’t desert them, don’t you know.”
Edith Glover had a temper, but now she judiciously dropped her eyes so that he should not see the expression which had come into them.
“Oh, well,” she said, with a little pout, and heaving up an attempt at a sob for the occasion; “of course, if you prefer to be with other people, when I have made Pa bring me all this way because I couldn’t bear to be away from you any longer, I – I – ” And the heave became very much more pronounced.
“This is gaudy!” thought Philip to himself. “They have been pretty well giving me away for the benefit of the whole hotel already, and now she is going to scare up a scene pro bono publico. A scene, by Jove!” he reflected, in dismay. And then, at this additional indication of her want of breeding, he felt hardened. Fancy Alma, for instance, making such an exhibition of her feelings in public! and this idea brought with it a dire foreboding – what if he were to undergo some private but unmistakable indication of Alma’s feelings, as a sequel to this abominable contretemps!
Just then the dinner-bell rang.
“There goes the second bell, and I’m still in my nailed boots and climbing gear. We left at six this morning, you know, to go up to the Mountet Hut, and are only just back,” he added, with forced gaiety and unconcern. “I must really go and change. Sha’n’t be down till dinner is half over as it is.”
“Friends of yours, those new arrivals, aren’t they, Philip?” said the General, soon after the latter had taken his seat.
“They are some people I used to know down at Henley. They had a big riverside place there, and gave dances.”
“What a pretty girl!” said Mrs Wyatt, putting up her glasses to look over at the objects under discussion, who were seated at another table at the further end of the room. “Isn’t she, Mr Fordham?”
“I’m afraid I’m not a competent judge on that point,” was the reply.
“Mr Fordham won’t be betrayed into saying anything in favour of any of us,” said Alma, maliciously.
Poor Philip was in a state of mind which even his worst enemy might have commiserated. He had, with quick instinct, grasped the certainty that all was changed. There was a touch of frostiness in Alma’s manner that betokened this only too plainly. Her serenity was absolutely unruffled, she was as brightly conversational as ever; but there was just that in her manner towards himself, imperceptible however to others, which told him only too unmistakably that the barrier was reared between them. Was she not within earshot during the horrible obtrusive suddenness of this most inopportune meeting! Her woman’s wit had been prompt to put two and two together. He was done for.
Still he would not give up without a struggle. He would tell her all. She might see extenuating circumstances, and then – oh, he hardly dared think of a contingency so entrancing. Now was the time. He would dodge those hateful Glovers somehow, and get her to come out with him for that short twilight stroll which they two, in common with nearly everybody in the hotel, were in the habit of taking almost every night after table d’hôte.
“Which way shall we go to-night, Alma?” he said softly, as she rose from the table.
She paused and turned her glance upon him, her eyes full on his.
“Don’t you think you ought to go and do the civil to your – friends? I do,” she said. And without another word she left him – left him quickly and decisively, her very action, her manner of performing it, laying upon him a curt prohibition to follow.
Philip, however, did not obey her injunction as regarded the Glovers. Avoiding those ill-omened persons, he stole away into the darkness, choosing the most hilly, and therefore, to after-dinner promenaders, unfrequented way. There, in company with his pipe and his thoughts, he wandered, and the latter were very bitter. He saw through the situation only too clearly. There was no exaggerating the magnitude of the disaster. The Glovers were not the sort of people to hide their grievance under a bushel. Every one in the hotel would promptly be made free of it. Alma would never forgive him for putting upon her – however unintentionally – the most unpardonable slight of all – a public slight. No. It was the one unpardonable sin. She would never forgive it.
His estimate of the Glovers proved singularly accurate. Stung by his defection, his marked neglect of her – seeing, moreover, with woman’s instinct the real lay of the land – the fair Edith had by no means buried the secret of her relationship towards Philip within her own breast. Before bedtime it was whispered all over the hotel that the pretty girl who had arrived that evening was no other than his fiancée, whom he had heartlessly jilted in favour of Miss Wyatt.
No; assuredly this was not a thing that Alma was likely to forgive.