Fordham's Feud. Mitford Bertram
They’re bound there all right – in fact they’re quartered there. They’ve just been down into the gorge; one to pick a lot of daisies and buttercups, over which she and a pet parson will enjoy a not altogether scientific tête-à-tête this evening – the other to execute a hideous libel on the existing scenery.”
“Now how the deuce do you know all this, Fordham?”
“Oh, I know all their little ways. I know something more, viz, that in forty-eight hours’ time you will be the chosen and privileged bearer of the truss of hay and the daubing bag – I mean the wild flowers and the sketching gear.”
“Oh, you don’t know everything, old chap,” cried Philip, with a laugh.
“Don’t I? By the bye, if you’re not eager to catch a chill, we’d better start again. I know this much: there will be a flutter of rejoicing in the dovecote when those two arrive, brimful of the intelligence that a couple of new men – one, rather, for I don’t count – are ascending to Les Avants, for at this time of year our estimable sex is almost exclusively represented in these hotels by invalids, parsons, or half-pay veterans. With some of whom, by the way, I shall have to fraternise, unless I want to do my expeditions alone, for you will be in such demand as universal porter in the matter of shawls and wraps and lunch-baskets, up the Rochers de Naye or the Dent de Jaman, or any other point of altitude to which the ambition of the enterprising fair may aspire, that we had better take a formal and affecting farewell of each other as soon as we arrive at the door.”
“Shut up, you old fraud,” was the jolly retort. “At present all my aspirations are of the earth earthy, for they are of the cellar. I hope they keep a good brew up there, for I feel like breeding a drought in the hotel the moment we arrive.”
“Well, the brew’s first-rate, and now the sooner we get over this bit of heavy collar-work the sooner we shall reach it.”
“Right. Excelsior’s the word,” assented Phil, with a glance at the steep and rugged path zigzagging above at a frightfully laborious angle.
There may be more attractive spots than Les Avants as you arrive there within an hour or two of sunset in the early summer, but there cannot be many. The golden rays of the sinking sun light up the frowning Rochers de Naye and the mighty precipice which constitutes the face of the Dent de Jaman with a fiery glow. The quiet reposeful aspect of the hollow, which the aforesaid sunbeams have now abandoned, lying in its amphitheatre of bold sweeping slopes crowned with black pine forests, is soothing, tranquillising of effect; and the handsome, plentifully gabled hotel, rearing up among a sprinkling of modest chalets, is suggestive of comfort and abundance. But what is this milk-white carpet spread in snowy sheen over the meadows, covering the green of the adjoining slopes to a considerable height? Is it snow? Not it. That white and dazzling expanse consists of nothing less than a mass of the most magnificent narcissus blossoms, growing in serried profusion, distilling in heavy fumes a fragrance of paradise upon the balmy evening air. Such was the aspect of Les Avants as our two friends arrived there on that evening in early June.
“By Jove, Fordham, but this is a sweet place!” cried Philip Orlebar, moved to real earnestness as they emerged from the wooded path suddenly upon the beautiful scene. “A perfect Eden!”
“Plenty of Eves, anyhow?” was the characteristic and laconic retort.
But Philip had already noted a flutter of light dresses, though still some little distance off. Tennis racket in hand, a number of girls in groups of twos and threes, here and there a male form interspersed, were wending along a gravel path leading from the tennis-court towards the hotel, for the first dinner-bell was just ringing. The sight called up a sneer to Fordham’s lip.
“Look at that, Phil, and note the vagaries of the British idiot abroad. Fancy coming to the Swiss mountains to play lawn tennis.”
“Well, old man, and if they like it?”
“Ah, yes, quite so; I forgot!” was the significant answer.
Chapter Three
Breaking the Ice
“We sha’n’t be intolerably crowded here, Phil,” remarked Fordham, as they sat down to table d’hôte. “It’s early in the season yet, you see.”
But although the long tables running round the fine dining-hall – the latter occupying the whole ground-floor of one wing – were only laid half-way down the room, yet there was a good concourse flowing in. Portly matrons with bevies of daughters, clergymen and clergywomen with or without daughters, spectacled old maids hunting in couples, an undergraduate or two abroad for the “Long,” here and there a long-haired German, and a sprinkling of white-whiskered Anglo-Indians, by the time they had all taken their seats, constituted a gathering little short of threescore persons. A pretty cheerful gathering, too, judging from the clatter of tongues; for the Briton abroad is a wholly expansive animal, and as great a contrast to his or her – especially her – starch and buckram personality at home as the precept of the average professor of faith and morals is to his practice.
Our two friends found themselves at the transverse table at the lower end of the room, with their backs to the bulk of the diners. But in front of them were the open windows, no small advantage in a room full of dining fellow-creatures. The sunset glow fell redly on the purple heads of the Savoy Alps, and the thick, heavy perfume of narcissus came floating in, triumphing over the savoury odours of fleshpots.
The room had just settled down steadily to work through the menu when Phil’s neighbour, a lady of uncertain age with spinster writ large, opened fire upon him in this wise:
“How very thick the scent of the narcissus is this evening.”
“It is. A sort of Rimmel’s shop turned loose in the Alps.”
“But such a heavy perfume must be very unhealthy, must it not?”
“Possibly.”
“But don’t you think it must be?”
“I really can’t give an opinion. You see, I don’t know anything about the matter,” replied Phil, good-humouredly, and in something like desperation as the blank truth dawned upon him that he was located next to a bore of the first water, and the worst kind of bore at that – the bore feminine. His persecutor went on:
“But they say that flowers too strongly scented are very unhealthy in a room, don’t they?”
“Do they? I don’t know. But, after all, these are not in the room; they are outside.”
“But don’t you think it comes to the same thing?” Heavens! What was to be the end of this? Instinctively he stole a glance at Fordham, but that worthy’s impassive countenance betrayed nothing, unless it were the faintest possible appreciation, in his grim, saturnine way, of the humour of the thing. He mumbled something not very intelligible by way of reply, and applied himself with extra vigour to the prime duty of the gathering. But he was not to escape so easily.
The lady was intently scrutinising the menu. Then to Phil:
“Don’t you think ferras is an extremely bony fish?”
This was too much even for Fordham. The corners of his mouth dropped perceptibly, and a faintly audible chuckle escaped him.
“I – I – ’pon my life I don’t know,” stuttered poor Phil. “The fact is I never knew the scheme of creation comprised such a fish.”
“Didn’t you really? How very odd. But do you really mean it though?”
“Oh, yes; it’s a fact,” he declared, wearily.
“Ah! they are bringing it round now. You will soon be able to give me your opinion.”
Phil was deciding that he would die rather than prosecute any investigations into the osseously reputed ferras, and was on the point of asserting that he loathed the whole finny race, when a diversion occurred. Three chairs opposite had remained vacant, and into these three persons were now seating themselves. Looking up suddenly, Phil found himself face to face with the girl who had so strongly attracted his attention on board the Mont