The Silent Barrier
happened was that the carriage settled down lamely by the side of
the road, with its weight resting on one of her boxes.
The driver spoke no more English. He bewailed his misfortune in free
and fluent Italian of the Romansch order.
But he understood German, and when Helen demanded imperatively that
he should unharness the horses, and help to prop the carriage off a
crumpled tin trunk that contained her best dresses, he recovered his
senses, worked willingly, and announced with a weary grin that if the
_gnaedische fraeulein_ would wait a little half-hour he would obtain
another wheel from a neighboring forge.
Having recovered from her fright she was so touched by the poor
fellow's distress that she promised readily to stand by him until
repairs were effected. It was a longer job than either of them
anticipated. The axle was slightly bent, and a blacksmith had to bring
clamps and a jackscrew before the new wheel could be adjusted. Even
then it had an air of uncertainty that rendered speed impossible. The
concluding five miles of the journey were taken at a snail's pace, and
Helen reflected ruefully that it was possible to "bruk ze leg" on the
level high road as well as on the rocks of Corvatsch.
Of course, she received offers of assistance in plenty. Every carriage
that passed while the blacksmith was at work pulled up and placed a
seat therein at her command. But she refused them all. It was not that
she feared to desert her baggage, for Switzerland is proverbially
honest. The unlucky driver had tried to be friendly; his fault was due
to an excess of zeal; and each time she declined the proffered help
his furrowed face brightened. If she did not reach the hotel until
midnight she was determined to go there in that vehicle, and in none
other.
The accident threw her late, but only by some two hours. Instead of
arriving at Maloja in brilliant sunshine, it was damp and chilly when
she entered the hotel. A bank of mist had been carried over the summit
of the pass by a southwesterly wind. Long before the carriage crawled
round the last great bend in the road the glorious panorama of lake
and mountains was blotted out of sight. The horses seemed to be
jogging on through a luminous cloud, so dense that naught was visible
save a few yards of roadway and the boundary wall or stone posts on
the left side, where lay the lake. The brightness soon passed, as the
hurrying fog wraiths closed in on each other. It became bitterly cold
too, and it was with intense gladness that Helen finally stepped from
the outer gloom into a glass haven of warmth and light that formed a
species of covered-in veranda in front of the hotel.
She was about to pay the driver, having added to the agreed sum half
the cost of the broken wheel by way of a solatium, when another
carriage drove up from the direction of St. Moritz.
She fancied that the occupant, a young man whom she had never seen
before, glanced at her as though he knew her. She looked again to make
sure; but by that time his eyes were turned away, so he had evidently
discovered his mistake. Still, he seemed to take considerable
interest in her carriage, and Helen, ever ready to concede the most
generous interpretation of doubtful acts, assumed that he had heard
of the accident by some means, and was on the lookout for her.
It would indeed have been a fortunate thing for Helen had some Swiss
fairy whispered the news of her mishap in Spencer's ears during the
long drive up the mist laden valley. Then, at least, he might have
spoken to her, and used the informal introduction to make her further
acquaintance on the morrow. But the knowledge was withheld from him.
No hint of it was even flashed through space by that wireless
telegraphy which has existed between kin souls ever since men and
women contrived to raise human affinities to a plane not far removed
from the divine.
He had small store of German, but he knew enough to be perplexed by
the way in which Helen's driver expressed "beautiful thanks" for her
gift. The man seemed to be at once grateful and downhearted. Of
course, the impression was of the slightest, but Spencer had been
trained in reaching vital conclusions on meager evidence. He could not
wait to listen to Helen's words, so he passed into the hotel, having
the American habit of leaving the care of his baggage to the hall
porter. He wondered why Helen was so late in arriving that he had
caught her up on the very threshold of the Kursaal, so to speak. He
would not forget the driver's face, and if he met the man again, it
might be possible to find out the cause of the delay. He himself was
before time. The federal railway authorities at Coire, awaking to the
fact that the holiday rush was beginning, had actually dispatched a
relief train to St. Moritz when the second important train of the day
turned up as full as its predecessor.
At dinner Helen and he sat at little tables in the same section of the
huge dining hall. The hotel was nearly full, and it was noticeable
that they were the only persons who dined alone. Indeed, the head
waiter asked Spencer if he cared to join a party of men who sat
together; but he declined. There was no such general gathering of
women; so Helen was given no alternative, and she ate the meal in
silence.
She saw Mrs. Vavasour in a remote part of the salon. With her was a
vacuous looking young man who seldom spoke to her but was continually
addressing remarks to a woman at another table.
"That is the son lost at Lucerne," she decided, finding in his face
some of the physical traits but none of the calculating shrewdness of
his mother.
After a repast of many courses Helen wandered into the great hall,
found an empty chair, and longed for someone to speak to. At the first
glance, everybody seemed to know everybody else. That was not really
the case, of course. There were others present as neglected and
solitary as Helen; but the noise and merriment of the greater number
dominated the place. It resembled a social club rather than a hotel.
Her chair was placed in an alley along which people had to pass who
wished to reach the glass covered veranda. She amused herself by
trying to pick out the Wraggs, the Burnham-Joneses, and the de la
Veres. Suddenly she was aware that Mrs. Vavasour and her son were
coming that way; the son unwillingly, the mother with an air of
determination. Perhaps the Lucerne episode was about to be explained.
When young Vavasour's eyes fell on Helen, the boredom vanished from
his face. It was quite obvious that he called his mother's attention
to her and asked who she was. Helen felt that an introduction was
imminent. She was glad of it. At that moment she would have chatted
gayly with even a greater ninny than George de Courcy Vavasour.
But she had not yet grasped the peculiar idiosyncrasies of a
woman who was famous for snubbing those whom she considered to be
"undesirables." Helen looked up with a shy smile, expecting that the
older woman would stop and speak; but Mrs. Vavasour gazed at her
blankly--looked at the back of her chair through her body--and walked
on.
"I don't know, George," Helen heard her say. "There are a lot of new
arrivals. Some person of no importance, rather declassee, I should
imagine by appearances. As I was telling you, the General has
arranged----"
Taken altogether, Helen had crowded into portions of two days many new
and some very unpleasant experiences.
CHAPTER V
AN INTERLUDE
Helen rose betimes next morning; but she found that the sun had kept
an earlier tryst. Not a cloud marred a sky of dazzling blue. The
phantom mist had gone with the shadows. From her bed room window she
could see the whole length of the Ober-Engadin, till the view was
abruptly shut off by the giant shoulders of Lagrev and Rosatch. The
brilliance of the coloring was the landscape's most astounding
feature. The lakes were planes of polished turquoise, the rocks pure
grays and browns and reds, the meadows emerald green, while the
shining white patches of snow on the highest mountain slopes helped to
blacken by contrast the somber clumps of pines that gathered thick
wherever man had not disputed with the trees the tenancy of each foot
of meager loam.
This morning glory of nature gladdened the girl's heart and drove
from it the overnight vapors. She dressed hurriedly, made a light
breakfast, and went out.
There was no need to ask the way. In front of the hotel the narrow
Silser See filled the valley. Close behind lay the crest of the pass.
A picturesque chateau was perched on a sheer rock overhanging the Vale
of Bregaglia and commanding a far flung prospect almost to the brink
of Como. On both sides rose the mountain barriers; but toward the east
there was an inviting gorge, beyond which the lofty Cima di Rosso
flung its eternal snows heavenward.
A footpath led in that direction. Helen, who prided herself on her
sense of locality, decided that it would bring her to the valley in
which were situated, as she learned by the map, a small lake and a
glacier.
"That will be a fine walk before lunch," she said, "and it is quite
impossible to lose the way."
So she set off, crossing the hotel golf course, and making for a
typical Swiss church that crowned the nearest of the foothills.
Passing the church, she found the double doors in the porch open, and
peeped in. It was a cozy little place, cleaner and less garish than
such edifices are usually on the Continent. The lamp burning before
the sanctuary showed that it was devoted to Roman Catholic worship.
The red gleam of the tiny sentinel conveyed a curiously vivid
impression of faith and spirituality. Though Helen was a Protestant,
she was conscious of a benign emotion arising from the presence of
this simple token of belief.
"I must ascertain the hours of service," she thought. "It will be
delightful to join the Swiss peasants in prayer. One might come near
the Creator in this rustic tabernacle."
She did not cross the threshold of the inner door. At present her mind
was fixed on brisk movement in the marvelous air. She wanted to absorb
the sunshine, to dispel once and for all the unpleasing picture of
life in the high Alps presented by the stupid crowd she had met in the
hotel overnight. Of course, she was somewhat unjust there; but women
are predisposed to trust first impressions, and Helen was no exception
to her sex.
Beyond the church the path was not so definite. Oddly enough, it
seemed to go along the flat top of a low wall down to a tiny mountain
stream. Steps were cut in the opposite hillside, but they were little
used, and higher up, among some dwarf pines and azaleas, a broader way
wound back toward the few scattered chalets that nestled under the
chateau.
As the guidebook spoke of a carriage road to Lake Cavloccio, and a
bridle path thence to within a mile of the Forno glacier, she came to
the conclusion that she was taking a short cut. At any rate, on the
summit of the next little hill she would be able to see her way quite
distinctly, so she jumped across the brook and climbed through the
undergrowth. Before she had gone twenty yards she stopped. She was
almost certain that someone was sobbing bitterly up there among the
trees. It had an uncanny sound, this plaint of grief in such a quiet,
sunlit spot. Still, sorrow was not an affrighting thing to Helen. It
might stir her sympathies, but it assuredly could not drive her away
in panic.
She went on, not noiselessly, as she did not wish to intrude on some
stranger's misery. Soon she came to a low wall, and, before she
quite realized her surroundings, she was looking into a grass grown
cemetery. It was a surprise, this ambush of the silent company among
the trees. Hidden away from the outer world, and so secluded that its