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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
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SWITZERLAND is nearly, if not quite, as cosmopolitan as Egypt. But English and Americans resort thither in greater numbers than any other nationality. It seems at first sight rather odd that they should do so. In the Hispano-American War the "merry Swiss boys" were at no pains to conceal their Spanish proclivities; and in the present South African imbroglio our "brother Boer" is similarly favoured with the sympathy of Helvetia—whatever that may be worth. And yet all this does not prevent us Britishers and our guileless Transatlantic cousins from condoning Swiss offences and patronising—at ruinous cost—Swiss pensions and hotels. It may, perhaps, be alleged in extenuation of our folly that if heaven has done but little for the people themselves, it has done a deal for their country; and John and Jonathan are magnanimous enough to pardon insulting and idiotic newspaper paragraphs for the sake of mountain and cascade, lake and pine-wood, and the purest and most invigorating air to be met with on this planet.
It was an interesting inquiry whether the old Griffons town of Davos am Platz owes its present popularity more to its intrinsic merits as a health resort or to the romantic literary halo with which Miss Beatrice Harraden's book Ships that Pass in the Night has invested it. Perhaps the balance of probability inclines slightly in the former direction owing to the simple fact that the wonderful efficacy of its translucent and sunny atmosphere in combatting the fiendish phthisis microbe was known long before the appearance of the epoch-making novel in question.
However that may be, it is certain that the little mountain town, situated more than 5,000 feet above the sea level, has a powerful attraction for the ordinary tourist as well as for the invalid.
In the early summer of 1898 the Victoria Hotel was full of guests, and amongst them was the protagonist of our idyll, whom we make haste to introduce without further preamble.
Gilbert Davenant was a young English barrister who belonged, we fear, to the ranks of the "briefless." Having inherited, however, from an uncle, who had been "something in the City," a somewhat considerable estate, he could well afford to let things slide and wait for his "silk." He was handsome, agreeable, fairly clever, and remarkably free from our insular angularity and prejudice; so that wherever he went, at home or abroad, he generally contrived to make himself a popular favourite. The men unanimously voted him a "decent fellow," while the gentler sex mincingly described him as "interesting"—a term which in their peculiar phraseology means a good deal.
Sunrise in Alpine lands is a revelation which never palls upon the Londoner. Gilbert Davenant stood enjoying that celestial apocalypse at his bedroom window in June—not by any means for the first time; and yet his delight was as genuine as that of a child watching the transformation scene in a pantomime.
His attention, however, upon the present occasion was, unfortunately, divided between the glories of the heavens and the more prosaic considerations of the toilet; and he was in a hurry, for he was to be one of a small party of excursionists to the Schiahorn, who had arranged to a start from the hotel immediately after an early déjeuner à la fourchette.
"How exquisite that delicate and momentarily deepening tint of rose and opal that soften the rugged outline of the mountain heights! And see how the mists in the valleys sway and float like the drapery of an Undine!" he exclaimed in poetic ecstasy, only the next instant to mutter something beginning with a dental and sounding suspiciously like a very naughty expletive as his razor—an instrument which never forgets or forgives—inflicted a slight cut upon his chin, which instantly recalled him from the transcendent to the mundane, substituting the bathos of courtplaster for the sweet pathos of the aesthetic sense.
"I am rather awkwardly situated between two stools—or, I should say, between two belles," he mused, as he hurriedly concluded dressing. "Sophonisba Smithers is charming, chic, and Chicago; Laura Maltravers is pretty, patrician, and poor—or comparatively so. I fancy, from the remarks of her fat 'mamma,' that Sophonisba's papa is a millionaire; while I should equally imagine that my compatriots, Lady Maltravers and her daughter, are only just comfortably off. But, thank heaven, vile lucre—which, however, ceteris paribus, is not to be sneezed at—would never determine my choice of a wife. Well, at present I am something like Buridan's ass—a sufficiently odious comparison—starving between two equal measures of corn. Two stools! Two beauties! I hope I may not come to the ground between them both... By Jove! there goes the gong."
After a hasty but substantial breakfast the party set out. It consisted of Lady Maltravers and Mrs Amelia B. Smithers, with their respective daughters; a Belgian gentleman, with a waxed moustache, a superfine manner, and a supposed likeness to Maeterlinck, named Anatole Verger; an adipose and somewhat dyspeptic young Greek, who hailed from Athens, and bore the awe-inspiring patronymic of Pericles Chalkondulos; and—surely no unimportant item, although the last—our hero, Gilbert Davenant, barrister, of the Middle Temple.
The morning had not belied its early promise; it was as near perfection as a June morning could well be: and the ladies and gentlemen were in high spirits, although the satisfaction of the Belgian and the Athenian was somewhat marred by the consciousness that the girls regarded them as decidedly de trop, relinquished them as far as they decently could to the society of the dowagers, and openly manoeuvred for a monopoly of the attention of the too fascinating young Englishman.
It soon became evident that a diversion of some sort must be made if the harmony of the party was to be maintained. The two elder ladies, with the acumen of their age and sex, clearly saw how the land lay, and heroically resolved to cast themselves into the "imminent deadly breach."
The obese dame from Chicago promptly voiced her own sentiments and those of Lady Maltravers:
"I guess, Sophonisba, Lady Maltravers and I had better rest here, anyhow, while you and Miss Maltravers go on with the boys. This location ain't so flat as the shores of Lake Michigan, and I calculate neither of us matrons is as spry for scampering about as we used to be twenty years ago. You will find us on the border of this shady plantation on your return."
Lady Maltravers having given in her adhesion to this ingenious scheme, which the damsels accepted as a pis aller, the latter, with their attendant squires, struck into the pine-wood.
"How delightful!" exclaimed Laura presently, with the air of a great discoverer. "Here are quantities of wild strawberries."
Youths and maidens set to work picking the small but luscious fruit, and were soon enjoying an extemporised collation by the side of a sparkling mountain rill which cheered the solemn pine-wood with its babble.
"They are quite as good," ejaculated Miss Smithers, with her mouth full, "as some that mamma and I had last year on the Terrace at St. Stephen's, when Sir Hector Macpherson entertained us at tea after showing us over the Houses of Parliament."
The fair Sophonisba, be it observed, never lost an opportunity of alluding to her acquaintances in the grand monde.
"Do you know Sir Hector?" she added, with a bewitching glance at Mr. Davenant.
"I have not the honour," curtly responded that gentleman.
Question and reply elicited a little smile from Miss Maltravers.
The strawberries having been by this time been disposed of, the pilgrims of pleasure resumed their progress. Schiahorn now rose in its majesty before them. But on the present occasion they had neither time nor inclination to scale the peak; the limit of their extremely dilettante mountaineering was to be a small Alpine hut, or shelter, about half-way up the height.
The lower slopes of Schiahorn were carpeted with a profusion of flowers, and the ladies zealously assisted by the cavaliers, had soon provided themselves with splendid bouquets. Miss Smithers, however, looked rather disdainfully upon her floral treasures.
"Has nobody seen any Alpine roses yet?" she petulantly inquired. "They are quite too lovely. I shall not be satisfied till I have some—like the baby with somebody's soap."
Anatole Verger, who, like most of the continental jeunesse dorée, was an ardent student of Gabriele d'Annunzia, now saw an opening for an elaborate compliment, suggested by the works of his favourite fictionist. "If we can find them," he said, bowing with his hand upon his heart, "they shall be wreathed into garlands for the brows of the two fair 'Maidens of the Rocks.'"
It was a pity, but the hapless Belgian's literary allusion hung fire, for neither of the ladies knew Le Vergini delle Rocce even by name.
And now, after a rather toilsome ascent, they were approaching the little Alpine shelter where they were to rest before retracing their steps, when Miss Smithers, whose eyes were everywhere, chanced to look down the precipice which bordered the rugged path. What she saw there gave her instant pause. Flushed and excited she stopped and pointed down. "There they are at last," she cried, "myriads of Alpine roses!"
It was quite true. Just at the base of the sheer rock, along which the road wound, there was a tiny plateau, about eight feet square, which presented the appearance of a pavement tessellated with rubies, so closely grew the glowing blooms, incarnadine as the Alpine sunset.
"Yes, they are lovely, indeed, but, unfortunately, quite out of reach," sighed Miss Maltravers.
"I don't think so," rejoined the Chicago belle, with a flush in her cornflower eyes. "A brave man would dare a much more dangerous feat for a lady's sake. I have set my heart upon those roses. Whoever fetches me some shall have my bouquet as his reward," and she looked round at the gentlemen.
The brave Belge hung back, unmindful of Civilis; the pasty-faced Athenian forgot all about Marathon; only the Englishman stood forward.
"Miss Smithers," he said very quietly, "you shall have the roses."
And then a very remarkable, very dramatic, but, from a conventional point of view, wholly unjustifiable scene transpired upon that Swiss mountain brow.
The Transatlantic beauty smiled in triumphant acquiescence upon Gilbert Davenant, while she pointedly turned her back upon Greek and Belgian. She was quite ready, if need were, to accept a brave man's life as a homage due to her peerless charms. Not so Laura Maltravers. Pale to the very lips, she came forward and laid her hand upon his arm. "You must not go," she said, and there were tears in her soft hazel eyes as she spoke.
Miss Smithers turned and eyed her rival for a moment with undisguised amazement. Then she laughed meaningly, scornfully, discordantly.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. That was all. But there was any amount of unpleasant innuendo in the simple interjection.
Gilbert Davenant saw, heard, and noticed everything. His heart had thrilled as he felt the light touch of Laura's hand upon his arm. But he had given his promise, and he could not in honour draw back.
The descent, it was true, was almost perpendicular, but he was lithe and agile, and he had a sure foot, a steady brain, and a gallant spirit. Availing himself skilfully of each point of vantage, he had accomplished more than half his task when a shrub to which he had clung gave way. He rolled on to the plateau of roses and was borne by the impetus of his fall to within a few inches of the further extremity, whence a fearsome abyss shot down into unknown depths.
With breathless excitement, the little group above had watched his perilous progress. Now, at what looked like its fatal termination, a woman's shriek rang out on the clear, thin mountain air.
Laura Maltravers had fainted.
We know not the secrets of telepathy. It almost seemed as if that agonising cry, wrung from a despairing heart, had had power to avert the impending catastrophe which had elicited it. With a superhuman effort, the young man succeeded in saving himself when on the brink of the awful chasm.
He was, of course, much shaken, but otherwise uninjured. He rose, and with the utmost sangfroid began collecting the pretty blooms whose ruddy tint had well-nigh been only too symbolical of human blood.
Having gathered a large bunch he next essayed the ascent, and performed the feat without further misadventure.
"I am aware," he said with deliberate emphasis, addressing Miss Smithers, "that in the history of the race and in the eyes of the world the existence of the individual counts for but little; but to the individual himself—unless he be suicidally inclined—the light of the sun is generally, if, perhaps, mistakenly, dear. You were ready to set my life at stake for the possession of these Alpine roses; Miss Maltravers did me the honour to prefer that poor life to a handful of flowers. Here is your share; the rest are for her... But where is she?"
"Oh, she collapsed ignominiously when you had your unlucky tumble," rejoined the lady, quite unmoved by Gilbert's heroics. "The gentlemen carried her to the shelter. She is probably all right by this time... But will you not accept my bouquet, Mr. Davenant; you have fairly earned it?"
Declining the floral offering with a cold bow, Gilbert hastened to the Alpine hut on the wings of love.
When Laura Maltravers regained consciousness she found her head pillowed on the breast of one whom she deemed she had lost forever. Their eyes met, and then their lips in a long, clinging kiss.
WHEN the party rejoined the impatient matrons it was evident to those experienced ladies that some event of importance had transpired during the excursion.
Laura was all smiles and blushes; Gilbert was radiant; while Sophonisba, with a face cold, stern, and implacable as that of a Medusa, was relieving her spiteful feelings by snubbing most unmercifully the sheepish advances of the Greek and the Belgian.
The course of two lives had been happily determined—and true love had been crowned—by the Ordeal of the Roses.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.