Читать книгу Fordham's Feud - Mitford Bertram - Страница 7

In his eulogy of the beauties of that fairy glen, the Gorge du Chauderon, Fordham was not exaggerating one whit; and while our two friends are pursuing their way along its winding path, under the cool shelter of a wealth of luxuriant greenery meeting overhead, and the roar and rush of the mountain stream leaping through a succession of black, rock-girt caldrons in their ears, we will take the opportunity of improving their acquaintance.

Philip Orlebar was a tall, fair, well-built young fellow of six and twenty, who had devoted the four years which had elapsed since he left college to sowing his wild oats; though, in justice to him, we must say that his crop was of the most moderate dimensions, in spite of his opportunities, for a sunny lightheadedness of manner, combined with a more than ordinarily prepossessing exterior, rendered him popular with everybody. This especially held good as regarded the other sex, and was bad both for it and for himself; in fact, his susceptibility in that line was a source of chronic misgiving to his friends, who never knew into what sort of entanglement it might plunge him.

He was the only son of a baronet, who doted on him. But his expectations were not great, for Sir Francis Orlebar, who had been a widower since a year or two after Philip’s birth, had recently endowed himself with a second wife, and taking this with the fact that his income did not exceed by a shilling 2,000 pounds per annum, it follows that a superfluity of spare cash was never a distinguishing feature in the Orlebar household.

But if Sir Francis doted on his son, his new spouse did not. She grudged the allowance of five hundred a year which that fortunate youth enjoyed. She would have grudged it just as much if it had been fifty. Two thousand a year to keep up the title and the house upon was a mere pittance, declared Lady Orlebar the Second—who, by the way, had never possessed a shilling of her own—and a quarter of that was to be thrown away upon an idle young man, who squandered it all on his own selfish pleasures. But on this point Sir Francis was firm. He refused to reduce his son’s allowance by one single penny.

So Philip came and went as he chose, and took life easily. He had no expensive tastes, and with a sufficiency of cash, good looks, excellent spirits, and an unlimited capacity for enjoyment, little is it to be wondered at if he found the process of “seeing the world” a very pleasant experience indeed. And he did so find it.

Richard Fordham was the exact antipodes to his friend both in appearance and disposition, which may have accounted for the excellent relations existing between the two. Externally he was of medium height and well-proportioned. His dark, almost swarthy countenance was handsome too, for his features were good and regular. But there was something sinister in his expression, something ruthless in the glitter of his keen black eyes as he emitted one of his pungent sarcasms; and he was a man to whom sarcasm was as the very breath of life. One peculiarity about him was that, though possessed of an abnormal sense of humour, he never laughed. At most he would break into a short dry guffaw which had more of a sneer in it than of mirth; and although he could send a roomful of people into roars whenever he chose, not a muscle of his own saturnine countenance would relax.

He was a good many years older than his travelling companion—how many it would have puzzled most people to determine, for he was one of those men whose ages are hard to guess. And what constituted the bond of union between them was also a poser, unless their utter dissimilarity. Anyhow, light-hearted Phil was wont enthusiastically to declare that “Old Fordham was the best fellow in the world. Only wanted knowing a bit. Why, there never was a fellow easier to get on with, by Jove—once you knew him.”

It is only fair to say that in his own experience the encomium was wholly deserved. They had been travelling companions for some time now, and yet had never had a difference, which is something to be able to say. The dry, caustic sparkle of the older man’s conversation had a great charm for the younger. “He could take any amount of chaff from Fordham,” the latter was wont to declare; “for he was a chap whose head was screwed on the right way, and, moreover, thoroughly knew his way about,” a qualification sure to inspire respect in the young.

We have said that Philip Orlebar was more than popular with the other sex, and here again the dissimilarity between the friends held good. Women detested Fordham uniformly and instinctively. There is something in the theory of reciprocity; Fordham, for his part, cordially and unaffectedly detested women.

“By Jove!” cried Philip, when they had covered rather more than half their distance—“By Jove! but this place is well named—‘Kettle,’ isn’t it, eh, Fordham?”

“No, ‘Caldron,’ to be accurate.”

“Well, it’s pretty steamy just here. Let’s call a halt under that big rock and poke a smipe. What d’you say?”

“Just as you like,” was the tranquil reply. They had reached that part of the gorge where two great perpendicular cliffs, their black surface thickly grown with ferns and trailers, form a huge natural portal, narrowing the way to the road itself and the brawling, leaping mountain torrent which skirts it. A delightfully cool resting-place—almost too cool—for the whirl of the spray reached them even there. Soon the blue curl from a brace of pipes mingled fragrantly with the scent of pine resin and damp fern.

Hardly were they seated than a sound of approaching voices was heard, and two girls appeared in sight round the bend in the path. One carried a basket filled with wild flowers, eke a large handful of the same; the other a bag of sketching materials. Both shot a rapid glance at the two smokers as they walked swiftly by.

“Rather good-looking, eh?” said Phil, as soon as they were out of sight. “English, of course?”

“No mistake. The whole lake-side from Lausanne eastwards simply grows Britishers. I predict we shall soon be for annexing it.”

“They’re bound in the same direction as ourselves,” went on Philip. “At least there’s no other place than Les Avants up this way, is there?”

The other’s mouth drew down at the corners in a faint sneer.

“Don’t be alarmed, Phil. 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.