Part 10 (1/2)
”I have been over this Pa.s.s more than twenty times,” said Joseph (who was a native of Chamounix, I had learned), ”yet rarely have I met with _anes_. And see, Monsieur, the woman who is with them. She is not of the country, nor of that part of Italy which we enter below the Pa.s.s, at Aosta. It is a strange costume. I do not know from what valley it comes.”
”Well,” said I, as we drew near to the group in the road outside the hotel, ”if that girl, or at any rate her hat, did not come from the Riviera somewhere, I will eat my panama.”
Involuntarily I hastened my steps, and Joseph politely followed suit, dragging after him Finois, who seemed to be walking in his sleep. I felt it almost as a personal injury from the hand of Fate, that after my unavailing search for donkeys in a land where I had thought to be forced to beat them off with sticks, I should find other persons provided with not one but two of the creatures.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THAT IS THE DeJEUNER OF NAPOLeON”.]
They were charming little beasts, one mouse-colour, one dark-brown with large, grey-rimmed spectacles, and both animals were of the texture of uncut velvet. The former carried an excellent pack, which put mine to shame; the latter bore a boy's saddle, and the two were being fed with great bread crusts by a bewitching young woman of about twenty-six or -eight, wearing one of the toad-stool hats affected by the donkey-women of Mentone. She looked up at our approach, and having surveyed the pack and proportions of Finois with cold scorn, her interest in our procession incontestably focused upon Joseph. She tossed her head a little on one side, shot at the muleteer an arrow-gleam, half defiant, half coquettish, from a pair of big grey eyes fringed heavily with jet. She moistened full red lips, while a faint colour lit her cheeks, under the deep stain of tan and a tiger-lily powdering of freckles. Then, having seen the weary Joseph visibly rejuvenate in the brief suns.h.i.+ne of her glance, she turned away, and gave her whole attention to the donkeys.
”Hungry, Joseph?” I asked.
He had to bethink himself before he could answer. Then he replied that he had food in his pocket, bread and cheese, and that Finois carried his own dinner. They would be ready to go on, if I chose, or to remain, if that were my pleasure. ”It is too early for a final stop, at a place where there can no amus.e.m.e.nt for the evening,” said I. ”We had better go on. If you intend to stay outside with Finois, I'll send you a bottle of beer, and you can, if you will, drink my health.”
With this I went in, feeling sure that the time of my absence would not pa.s.s heavily for Joseph.
This was the hour at which, in England, we would sip a cup of tea as an excuse for talk with a pretty woman in her drawing-room; but having tramped steadily for some hours in mountain air, I was in a mood to understand the tastes of that cla.s.s who like an egg or a kipper for ”a relish to their tea.” I looked for the landlady with the ill.u.s.trious ancestors, and could not find her; but voices on the floor above led me to the stairway. I mounted, pa.s.sed a doorway, and found myself in a room which instinct told me had been the scene of the historic _dejeuner_.
It was a low-ceilinged room with wainscoted walls, and at first glance one received an impression of the past. There was a soft l.u.s.tre of much-polished mahogany, and a glitter of old silver candelabra; I thought that I detected a faint fragrance of lavender lurking in the clean curtains, or perhaps it might have come from the square of ancient damask covering the table, on which a meal was spread.
That meal consisted of chicken; a salad of pale green lettuce and coraline tomatoes; a slim-necked bottle of white wine; a custard with a foaming crest of beaten egg and sugar; and a dish of purple figs.
Food for the G.o.ds, and with only a boy to eat it--but a remarkable boy. I gazed, and did not know what to make of him. He also gazed at me, but his look lacked the curiosity with which I honoured him. It expressed frank and (in the circ.u.mstances) impudent disapproval.
Having bestowed it, he nonchalantly continued his conversation with the plump and capped landlady, who was evidently enraptured with him, while I was left to stand unnoticed on the threshold.
Purely from the point of view of the picturesque, there was some excuse for madame's preoccupation. The boy would have delighted an artist, no doubt, though our first interchange of glances gave me a strong desire to smack him.
His panama--a miniature copy of mine--hung over the back of his old-fas.h.i.+oned chair--the one, no doubt, in which Napoleon had sat to eat the _dejeuner_. Soft rings of dark, chestnut hair, richly bright as j.a.panese bronze, had been flattened across his forehead by the now discarded hat. This hair, worn too long for any self-respecting, twentieth-century boy, curled round his small head and behind the slim throat, which was like a stem for the flower of his strange little face. ”Strange” was the first adjective which came into my mind; yet, if he had been a girl instead of a boy, he would have been beautiful.
The delicately pencilled brows were exquisite, and out of the small brown face looked a pair of large, brilliant eyes of an extraordinary blue--the blue of the wild chicory. When the boy glanced up or down, there was great play of dark lashes, long, and amazingly thick. This would have been charming on a girl, but seemed somehow affected in a boy, though one could hardly have accused the little snipe of making his own eyelashes. He wore a very loose-trousered knickerbocker suit of navy-blue; a white silk s.h.i.+rt or blouse, loose also, with a turned-down Byronic collar and a careless black bow underneath. He had extremely small hands, tanned brown, and on the least finger of one was a seal ring. My impression of this youthful tourist was that in age he might be anywhere between thirteen and seventeen, and I was sure that he would be the better for a good thras.h.i.+ng.
”Some rich, silly mother's darling,” I said to myself. ”Little milksop, travelling with a m.u.f.f of a tutor, I suppose. Why doesn't the a.s.s teach him good manners?”
This lesson seemed particularly necessary, because the youth persisted in holding the attention of the landlady, who, with a comfortable back to me, laughed at some sally of the boy's. When I had stood for a moment or two, waiting for a pause which did not come, although the brat saw me and knew well what I wanted, I spoke coldly: ”Pardon, madame, I desire something to eat,” I said in French.
The landlady turned, surprised at the voice behind her.
”But certainly, Monsieur. Though I regret that you have come at an unfortunate time. We have not a great variety to offer you.”
”Something of this sort will suit me very well,” I replied, feeling hungrily that chicken, salad, custard, and figs were the things which of all others I would choose.
”It is most regrettable, Monsieur, but this young gentleman has our only chicken, unless you could wait for another to be killed, plucked, and made ready for the table.”
I shuddered at the suggestion, and did not hide my repulsion. ”I must put up with an omelette, then, I suppose I can have that?”
”At any other time Monsieur could have had two, if he pleased, but to-day all our eggs have gone into this custard. The young gentleman ordered his repast by telegraph, and we did our best. As for the figs, he brought them himself; but if Monsieur would have a cutlet of the _veau_, or----”
”Give me a bottle of wine, and some bread and cheese. I do not like the _veau_,” I said, with the testiness of a hungry man disappointed.
As I spoke, my eyes were on the boy, who ate his breast of chicken daintily. Pretty as he was, I should have liked to kick him.
”Little brat,” I apostrophised him once more, in my mind. ”If he were not a pig, he would ask me to accept half his meal. Not that I would take it. I'd be shot first, so he'd be quite safe; but he might have the decency to offer.”