Chapter X: At Interlaken

It was just a year after the blow-out, and near the close of a lovely afternoon among the Alps, whose tall peaks cut the sky like needles in some points and again spread out in a broad snow-clad surface, glistening in the sunshine like flames of fire, and shining like a sea of glass. Along the mountain road which leads from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen two young people were slowly walking. They had been out for two or three miles, and were returning to the little village over which the Jungfrau keeps watch. They had turned aside from the principal thoroughfare into a circuitous path by the side of a brook which, fed by the glaciers above, went rippling over stones with a musical sound, very soothing in that quiet spot and at that hour of the day. Behind them as they walked was the great mountain which greets you at so many points in Switzerland, and nowhere more cheerily than in the vicinity of Interlaken. Before them were the roofs of the town, while across the fields came the tinkle of the cow bells and faintly in the distance was the echo of an Alpine horn, blown for the benefit of some tourists. It was just the hour and place for love making, and that something of this kind was in progress was evident in the faces of the young couple. He was a handsome young man, with dark hair and eyes, and a voice and smile which seldom failed to win the hearts of strangers. The girl was like a lovely flower, tall and slender, blue eyed and fair, but with a troubled look upon her face and in her eyes, on whose long lashes tears were standing. There had been a pause in their walk just where the brook made a dash over a pile of rocks and fell with a splash into the basin below. Here on a huge bowlder they sat and exchanged vows the nature of which the girl did not understand, except that they bound her to the man who had power to thrill her every nerve and make her as clay in his hands.

Connie, for it was she, had seen much of the world in one way, but was still a child in another, trusting with her whole soul where she trusted and seeing no fault in those she loved. Her close convent life had kept her ignorant of many things it might have been well for her to know. For a year or more she had been free from the restraint of school and had travelled from place to place with her aunt, doing everywhere the same thing,—a little sight-seeing, a good deal of shopping, and driving, dressing for _table-d’hôte_, where she met the same people night after night and heard the same flow of gossip. Told repeatedly how beautiful she was, sought in marriage, by some whose advances she felt to be an insult, and flattered by all till she was tired of it and longed for some quiet place where there was no sham and everything was real. Many times her thoughts had turned to the farmhouse with a longing to go there again, and her heart always beat faster when she recalled the moonlit evening when she sat with Kenneth on the stone wall and said things to him she would scarcely dare say now that she was older. That she did not hear from the Stannards often was her own fault, for her letters were always promptly answered. She had been so busy in school and since, and she disliked letter writing.

She was nearly twenty-two and her own mistress now, with no need to call upon the deacon and no necessity for writing, except for friendship’s sake. But somehow the farmhouse and its inmates, and especially Kenneth, were very distinct in her mind as she walked with this young man, who held her hand as if he had a right to it, and was not spurned as Pondy had been when he touched it in the diligence. He had come into her life at Lucerne, just when she was sick of everything and disgusted with a persistent offer of marriage from a sleepy-eyed Count Costello, many years her senior. She disliked him and was glad when a new comer, over whom the young girls in the hotel were raving, sought her from all the rest. From the first her aunt, who favored Costello and a title, had set her face against him, but it did not matter. Love’s fire was kindled and the light and warmth were very sweet to the trusting, innocent girl. Her lover had followed her to Interlaken, where their acquaintance ripened fast, and they were taking their last walk together, for early the next morning he was to leave for Paris, where friends were awaiting him.

“Remember,” he said, as they neared the hotel, “it is till death do us part.”

“Yes, till death do us part,” she replied, wondering why there came such a tightness about her heart, as if a cold hand had clutched it.

He bade her good-bye that night, after dinner in one of the shadowy corners of the big hotel.

“Remember,” he said again, and raised her hand to his lips.

Through the leaves of a climbing vine the moonbeams filtered and fell upon her face which he would like to have kissed, but something restrained him, and afterward, when the awakening came, Connie thanked God that it was so.

“I will remember,” she said, withdrawing her hand, just as round the corner came the rustle of skirts and Mrs. Hart appeared in view, with Count Costello in attendance, smirking into her face just as he had smirked in Connie’s six weeks ago.

Something in their looks smote Connie like a blow, making her sick at heart, and she walked away and left them alone. The next morning, when the early stage left the hotel, a pair of soft, blue eyes looked eagerly up at a window from which a white hand was waving an adieu. Then the stage rolled away, and Connie was alone with the memory of what had been and was soon to be again in its full fruition, she believed. That morning her aunt had said to her: “I am glad he has gone. I never liked him, and I read people pretty well. I have no doubt you attracted him, but it was your money he wanted. Give him a plainer face with more money, and he would take it.”

“Money!” Connie repeated. “I am sick of the sound, and I certainly have not enough to make me an object for fortune-hunters. I wish you would manage to have people, and even him, think me poor; then I shall know who likes me for myself.”

Her aunt made no reply, but that afternoon she wrote a letter to Paris, which was to bear early fruit. Meanwhile the days passed with the usual round of nothings for Connie, who tired of them all. Old men and young plied her with attentions, which she received graciously, but coldly, biding her time and counting the days which must elapse before she heard from him, or he came back to claim her. But he neither came nor wrote, except a few lines from Paris, saying that he had reached there safely and was with his friends at the Grand. Mrs. Hart had not intended to stop much longer in Interlaken, but she kept lingering, declaring herself infatuated with the place and seemingly infatuated with Count Costello, who had transferred his attentions from the niece to the aunt. Every day Connie waited anxiously for the western mails, but only to be disappointed, and the bright color began to fade from her cheeks, and the lustre from her eyes. Twice she walked out to the boulder by the brook, and sitting down upon it, tried to recall every word he had said to her and what she had said to him. Once she knelt by the rock and prayed that he might come, but God, who knew better than she what was for her good, did not answer her prayer, and her eyes grew larger and more sunken, and her figure lost its symmetrical proportions, until her aunt awoke to the fact that her health was failing. Thinking heroic treatment the best, she one day said abruptly: “If you are pining for that young man, you may as well give him up. The Count has friends in Paris, who write that your friend is there, leading a gay life and very devoted to a young lady of the party.”

After that Connie drooped more and more, until by the time they left Interlaken for Geneva her life seemed to have gone from her, leaving her a pale, silent girl, with a hopeless look in her eyes pitiful to see in one so young. Absolutely true herself, and a child in many things, owing to her convent training, it was hard to imagine deception in any one whom she trusted, and doubly so in him who, if he were alive and well, had deceived her cruelly. She might write to him, for she knew his address, but she was too proud to do that. If he had ceased to care for her, she would make no sign and bear her pain as best she could. Geneva was a little diversion, as she was never tired of the beautiful lake, or of watching the lights and shadows of Mt. Blanc in the distance. She would like to have stayed there all the autumn, but her aunt said no,—her health required the balmy air of Genoa, where Costello had invited them to stop at his palace.

“Oh, Auntie,” Connie cried in dismay, “you surely will not go there!”

“Why not?” was the sharp question, and Connie replied:

“It does not seem proper for two lone women to become the guests of Count Costello, when there are so many hotels and pensions in Genoa.”

“I shall not go as his guest, but as his wife,” was the rejoinder.

“His wife! You? Oh, Auntie!” and Connie sprang to her feet, and then sank pale and trembling into her chair.

She knew her aunt’s fondness for titles, and had seen her growing intimacy with the count, but had never quite believed that it would come to this, that her proud aunt would take one whom she had refused. It was strange, but like many another foolish woman, Mrs. Hart had been won by the glamor of a title and the oily tongue of the Italian, who boasted connection with some of the first families in Italy and Florence. He had a villa in the latter city and a palace in Genoa, and when his wife tired of these, there was her house in New York, where they could spend a portion of each year. Mrs. Hart was a handsome, well-preserved woman of forty-five. The count was only a year or two her junior. He had no bad habits that she knew of, and was very good tempered. He had been devoted to Connie, but had seen the folly of aspiring to the hand of one so young. Mrs. Hart, in her maturity, would suit him better, and be an ornament in the high circles to which he would introduce her. These and similar arguments prevailed, and after yards and yards of “red tape,” the marriage ceremony was performed in Geneva some time in October, and Mrs. Hart was the Countess Costello.

It was a very kind, fatherly air which Costello assumed towards Connie, who, if there had been a spot upon earth to which she could flee, would not have gone with the newly-wedded pair. But there was none except the farmhouse where she felt sure she would be welcome. But if she went to America she might lose her chance of hearing from _him_, and she had not yet given up all hope. She meant to stay in Europe and take her chance. The journey to Genoa was made very slowly, for the countess was not at all averse to showing herself as a countess to her countrymen at different hotels, and the count was in no hurry to reach his palace. He was very happy at Monte Carlo, where he played for high stakes, winning some and losing more, and asking his bride to pay his losses, as he was a little short of funds. She paid them, as well as some of their hotel bills, and said nothing. She was a countess. Her marriage had been heralded in the New York papers, and commented upon as one more instance of a fair American winning a title from all foreign competitors. Costello was a devoted husband, and she was happy and rather anxious to reach the palace of which she was to be mistress. The count had told her that it was a good deal run down and lacked the cheery air of American houses, and he would have given orders to have it repaired if he had not thought she would rather see to it herself. She was free to do whatever she liked.

What Mrs. Hart had in her mind she hardly knew. Certainly not the tall, gloomy house on one of the dark streets of Genoa, so narrow that as you look ahead the buildings seem almost to touch each other.

“Oh, is it here?” she whispered under her breath, as the carriage stopped at the door and the count said, very gayly:

“Here we are, my dear. Home at last.”

It was something that a lackey in faded livery came out to meet them, while old Annunciata, who had been in the family for years as head servant, curtesied nearly to the floor to her new mistress. It was November and the wind was blowing cold through the street, where no sunlight ever fell, and Mrs. Hart was chilled to the bones, while Connie was shaking from her head to her feet. But there were fires in the salon and in the bedrooms, and the count ordered hot tea and biscuits and claret to be sent to the ladies, whose disappointment he read in their faces.

“The villa in Florence is not like this. Wait till we get there,” he said, bustling about and trying to make them comfortable.

When she had drank her tea and was warm, Mrs. Hart began to look around her with some curiosity. Everything was old and faded, but rich in its way, and telling of a past when the Costellos held their heads among the best in the city. The count had not deceived her in that respect. His palace might be no better than a barn, but his family, though poor, was all he had represented it to be. He, too, was very kind, and in his own house assumed a dignity he had before lacked. A few of his acquaintances called, and were especially kind to Connie, who, had she chosen, might have been a belle in the Costello society, but she disliked the Italians. She disliked Genoa and the dark, dull old house, with the punctilious etiquette the count required from his wife and herself and his three servants, who were required to do the work of six. Occasionally she had bits of news from the outside world, but no letter reached her, and she ceased at last to expect one. Deserted, was the bitter thought always present with her, and the soft air of Italy failed to bring back the color to her cheeks and the brightness to her eyes, and thus the winter wore on until March, when they went to Florence, where they found the Costello villa in better repair than the palace in Genoa had been. There were many Americans in the city, and Connie always scanned them curiously, hoping for a face she never found, either there or elsewhere during the summer, a part of which was spent in Paris and a part in Switzerland, but not at Interlaken. The countess did not care to go there, and for Connie there were so many sad memories connected with it that she loathed the thought of seeing it again. The count was fond of travel, and as his wife’s money held out they moved from place to place during the autumn and winter, until the first of February found them again in Genoa, nearly a year after they had left it.

Old Annunciata and her husband had been left to keep the house in their mistress’s absence, and welcomed the family back. Annunciata, who could manage a little English, was very fond of Connie, and had given special care to the arrangement of her room, which, she said, had been thoroughly cleansed in every nook and corner, even to moving the big clothes-press, a thing which did not often happen. “And under it I found this,” she said, handing Connie a newspaper, which must have come nearly a year before, just after the family went to Florence, and by some mischance had been dropped on the floor and pushed under the press, where it lay until Annunciata’s cleaning brought it to light. It was a London paper, addressed in a strange hand, sent first to her Paris address, 7 Rue Scribe, from which place it had been forwarded to her at Genoa. It did not seem to contain anything of interest as she glanced over its pages. Then her eyes fell upon a few lines with a faint pencil mark around them, and she read that on January 15th there was married in St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, Charles H. Morris, of Boston, Mass., to Miss Catherine Haynes, of Lexington, Kentucky, U. S. A.

It was a simple announcement of a year ago, and did not affect Connie at all as she read it, wondering who the parties were and why a notice of their marriage should be sent to her and by whom. Haynes was a new name, while Morris seemed familiar, and suddenly she remembered where she had heard it, and the Morris house at The 4 Corners came back to her, with Kenneth, who had told her of his cousin. This Charles H. might be the same. She had never met him and did not know he was in Europe, nor did it matter. His marriage was nothing to her. And yet there was something about that notice which kept her looking at it, while thoughts of the farmhouse and Kenneth and the old couple crowded her brain with an intense longing to see them again.

“And why not?” she asked herself. “I am my own mistress. Why should I stay in this dreary place when there is America, so large and bright and free? My aunt is seemingly happy with her new home and husband. She will not miss me much, and there is no reason why I should not go,” she thought, and she at once communicated her wish to her aunt, who opposed it strongly, while the count was still more vehement in his opposition, and it was this which decided her at last.

Alone with her he expressed himself more fully, saying that the sight of her fair young face made his home brighter than it would otherwise be, and he could not let her go. He offered no endearment, only his eyes told what he felt, and Connie turned from him in disgust, resolved now upon her future course. She would take her maid, who was a French girl, with her to Paris, leave her there, sail alone from Havre to New York, and go at once to the Stannards, if they would have her. From this nothing could dissuade her, neither her aunt’s protests nor the count’s soft, pleading words, which made her more determined than ever to get away from a place she hated. She was going to America, and before her aunt fully realized the fact she had left Genoa, and the first ship bound for New York which sailed from Havre in March took her with it,—a white-faced, lone girl, who was sick most of the time, but comforted herself with the thought that she was going home to America and the farmhouse and Kenneth. He was the central figure, whom she always saw in the foreground and through whom comfort would somehow come. She had no doubt of her welcome, and within an hour after she reached New York and her hotel, she sent a telegram to Kenneth, saying:

“Arrived on steamer this morning. Shall be at Millville station
to-night.

CONNIE.”