Chapter XV: R. R. Maurice

"GOOD morning, Mrs. Brutt. I'm going to breakfast. Are you better?"

Doris's face, dimpled and radiant, made its appearance, answering a fretful "Entrez."

"Shut the door, pray. Such a draught. I can't go down this morning— I am feeling so ill. It is the fault of the food, I am sure. And the heat yesterday was fearful—positively fearful."

The elder lady was still in bed, forgetting for once to pose picturesquely. Doris could not help thinking how abnormally plain she was, when deprived of all adventitious aids. Flat and rumpled hair is not becoming; and few faces fail to look plain in a mood of annoyed self-pity. Mrs. Brutt was not well; and, like many, people, when she was bodily out of sorts, she was sure to be also mentally out of sorts—in other words, out of temper.

"You needn't be in such a desperate hurry," she complained as the girl made a move. "You are always wanting to rush away. I must speak first about my breakfast. It is quite unbearable, having no bells—no way to get hold of anybody. I never expected to find this sort of thing, when I settled to come up into the mountains."

She had made the same remark at least twenty times already.

"If I had imagined the wretched accommodation, nothing would have induced me to bind myself to stay. Six weeks of it! I shall be dead before the end."

"Oh, I don't think you will." Doris thought it best to adopt a cheerful tone.

"You are a most unsympathising person! Most unsympathetic!" The two words meant the same for Mrs. Brutt. "You have no feeling at all for others. So very selfish."

"But I'm sorry you are not well. Only—if you hadn't secured the rooms, they would have been taken by somebody else. And, you know, you wanted to come here, because it is a cheap hotel."

Mrs. Brutt objected to this view, and she spoke sharply. "I am paying an excellent price for absolutely nothing. That is not what I call cheapness. These are not rooms; they are mere cupboards. Miserable rat-holes! No comforts! No space! Actually, I have to keep one of my trunks in the verandah. All my things will be ruined."

She gazed disgustedly at the opposite wall, which indeed did not lie far off. The boarded floor had no carpet, but a rug only, beside the bed. A wash-handstand of stained wood, with drawers below, served for a dressing-table; and above it hung an anti-vanity glass of small dimensions. There were also two cane chairs, a cupboard of limited capacity, and a writing-table—that sine quâ non of foreign bedrooms.

As a make-weight to its interior simplicity, the room opened upon a balcony, with a full view of the stately Dent du Midi, seen sideways, and of less distant ranges, all bathed in sunshine. Doris wondered that anybody could grumble, with such an outlook.

She had been up herself since six o'clock; and from her little balcony, facing another way, had watched the goats of the village, starting for their day upon the alps; gathered together by the goatherd with his horn; each small beast coming composedly from its own stable at the sound. Already Doris had had one ramble, and now she was more than ready for breakfast. It was all too delicious—except Mrs. Brutt. The girl was in dancing spirits with the air, the views, the novelty, the freedom.

But the string of complaints went on. Her companion was presenting a new facet for her inspection.

"Not even a stove to boil a kettle on. I really dare not use my spirit-lamp except on a stove. In these wooden houses, it is so fearfully dangerous. Not wood! Of course it is wood. I am certain of it. At all events, there's an immense amount of wood about. And I felt so bad in the night. I would have given anything for a cup of tea. These people never seem to think of the necessaries of life."

"I suppose nobody comes here, except in hot weather; and so stoves are not needed."

"Really, I don't see what that has to do with the question. Pray don't move those shoes, Doris!"—sharply. "I put them there to dry. They are damp still, after that rain of two days ago. The weather here is always in extremes. My room is an absolute oven this morning."

"It is a perfect day," Doris could not help remarking.

"Fearfully hot. I feel quite overpowered. There was such a noise in the night; people starting on excursions, and that sort of thing. These foreigners never mind what uproar they make. And just as I was dropping off, quite worn out, that wretched creature went blowing his horn all through the village. It is barbarous."

Doris was silent. What could she say?

"The food, too, is atrocious. I do not mind how plain the cooking is— nobody can be less particular than I am. But it is most essential that I should have things good. That extraordinary mess that comes round— I believe it is tinned meat, done up in gravy, and I never could eat tinned meat. It is that, I am sure, which has made me ill."

"Shall I tell Mademoiselle that you want your breakfast in bed?"

"And such a bourgeois set! Impossible creatures. Hardly a person one cares to speak to."

"But they are nice and kind. And for six weeks what does it matter? We have the mountains," suggested Doris.

"You might at least have the grace not to argue. Yes, you can tell them that I want my breakfast, and that I must have it at once. I am quite ill and exhausted. Tell them I must have freshly-made tea—not that boiled stuff that has stood for an hour. And mind you come to me after breakfast. I must know what you are going to do."

Doris went downstairs more slowly than she had come up, feeling a little flattened. The message had to be given, and she gave it prettily, with apologies. Mademoiselle, like many Swiss girls, spoke English well, and she and Doris were on friendly terms.

Breakfast was laid out of doors, upon a wide stone terrace, which adjoined the back of the hotel on a lower level than the front door. A good many people were already at the tables. Doris glanced at none of them, but made her way to the edge, where she stood to enjoy herself.

Sharply away from the terrace fell the ground below; and deep down, out of sight, flowed a stream on its way to join another and larger torrent; whence both streams journeyed together to the Rhone.

Away to the left rose the jagged Diablerets peaks; and away to the right the spreading mass of the Dent du Midi. Just opposite, with lesser green heights between, a great range of bare rock-mountains lifted itself high into the blue sky.

Doris stood in rapt delight, drinking it all in, studying wondrous outlines, curves, and flutings. Then a feeling of being watched made her turn. She still looked at nobody, but walked to her own seat and took it, forgetting to bow as she did so. One of the smiling waitresses was already there, with a small teapot; and Doris was about to inquire whether Mrs. Brutt's needs had received attention. But the idea fled. Lifting her eyes, she met the gaze of a steady grey pair, at the same table, just on the other side.

The flash of pleasure in her face came before she was aware; and it met a like flash in his. But she knew at once that he had seen her before she saw him. He was not taken by surprise.

"So you have come to this hotel," she said, a little confused at having shown what she felt. It was like meeting an old friend, she said to herself. Yet she had seen him but once before.

He said—"Yes,"—smiling; and as before, with the smile came a nameless charm, amounting to far more than ordinary good looks. "And you are still here?"

"We've taken our rooms for six weeks. It's a perfectly—ripping place!"

"Seems so this morning. I got in last night."

"Are you going up a mountain to-day?"

"To-morrow. The Grand Muveran."

"Not alone!"

"No. I believe a guide is necessary—unless one is in a guideless party of experts."

Doris dimpled.

"I heard an English lady at Bex talking about the Grand-move-her-on, and the Petty-move-her-on."

"Which fixed the names."

"Don't you like the way the Grand Muveran stands? He throws up his head with such an air. And the Petit Muveran beside him is—Impudence beside Dignity."

He laughed, and asked: "Have you had any excursions yet?"

"Oh no, I've only wandered a little near at hand. But I'm aching to get higher—right up somewhere. Mrs. Brutt can't climb, and we keep to the roads. But I mean to do a little scrambling by myself."

He put down his knife, looking at her gravely. "That won't do! You say this is your first visit to Switzerland. You might be over a precipice, before you dreamt of danger."

"I'll be careful."

"Care is not enough without experience. The most innocent-looking grass-slopes are often the most deadly. Have you nails in your shoes?"

"No. Ought I?"

"It's not safe in these parts to leave the beaten track without them. If you take your boots to a village shoemaker, he will put in the nails. And you should get a strong pointed stick."

"And then I shall be all right?"

He shook his head.

"Not even then—going alone. Have you no one to walk with?"

"Mrs. Brutt—generally. She is a good walker; only to-day she is not well. But she doesn't care for scrambling; and I just love it. I've always loved any bit of climbing I could get hold of. And really I like going about alone. One sees so much more. And I'm beginning to find that I can make myself understood a little."

"You must be very very careful," he repeated, and he looked serious.

As before, they chatted without effort, one topic leading to another. And, as before, she had the sense of being drawn out, played upon, manipulated, made the best of. It was a delightful sensation. She was astonished presently to find that she had been more than an hour at table.

"It is getting late. I ought to go," she said.

"Have you seen any of these?" He drew from his pocket a supply of post-card views, came round to her side, and took Mrs. Brutt's vacant chair. "They are rather good."

Doris glanced through them with interest. "I've got some,—but not all."

A letter, which he had pulled from his pocket with the cards, fell on the table; and without intention she caught sight of the address—

"R. R. Mau—"

The rest was hidden by a post-card, but a movement of his arm brushed the latter inadvertently aside, and she saw the whole—

"R. R. Maurice, Esquire."

He thrust it carelessly into his pocket, and she did not feel impelled to apologise for having seen what he had allowed to lie just before her eyes.

"So now I know his name—Mr. Maurice!" she said to herself. Aloud she asked: "Are you going to take a long walk?"

"Some letters have to be written first. Then I'm going for a lengthy ramble up the valley. Not likely to be back till evening."

"Is it to be jour maigre with you?"

"I take a few sandwiches. That's enough for me."