The Silent Barrier

Thus it came about that these three people went down into the valley, each within a short distance of the others, and Spencer saw them all from the high road, where he was questioning an official of the federal postoffice as to the method of booking seats in the banquette of the diligence from Vicosoprano.

That he was bewildered by the procession goes without saying. Where had they been, and how in the name of wonder could the woman’s presence be accounted for? The polite postmaster must have thought that the Englishman was very dense that morning. Several times he explained fully that the two desired seats in the diligence must be reserved from Chiavenna. As many times did Spencer repeat the information without in the least seeming to comprehend it. He spoke with the detached air of a boy in the first form reciting the fifth proposition in Euclid. At last the postmaster gave it up in despair.

“You see that man there?” he said to a keenly interested policeman when Spencer strolled away in the direction of the village. “He is of the most peculiar. He talks German like a parrot. He must be a rich American. Perhaps he wants to buy a diligence.”

“Wer weiss?” said the other. “Money makes some folk mad.”

And, indeed, through Spencer’s brain was running a Bedlamite jingle, a triolet of which the dominant line was Bower, Stampa, and Millicent Jaques. The meeting of Bower and Stampa was easy of explanation. After the guide’s story of the previous evening, nothing but Stampa’s death or Bower’s flight could prevent it. But the woman from the Wellington Theater, how had she come to know of their feud? He was almost tempted to quote the only line of Molière ever heard beyond the shores of France.

Like every visitor to the Maloja, he was acquainted with each of its roads and footpaths except the identical one that these three descended. Where did it lead to? Before he quite realized what he was doing, he was walking up the hill. In places where the sun had not yet caught the snow there was a significant trail. Bower had come and gone once, Stampa, or some man wearing village-made boots, twice; but the single track left by Millicent’s smart footwear added another perplexing item to the puzzle. So he pressed on, and soon was gazing at the forlorn cemetery, with its signs of a furious struggle between the gateposts, the uncovered grave space, and Millicent’s track round two corners of the square built wall.

It was part of his life’s training to read signs. The mining engineer who would hit on a six-inch lode in a mountain of granite must combine imagination with knowledge, and Spencer quickly made out something of the silent story, – something, not all, but enough to send him in haste to the hotel by the way Millicent had arrived on the scene.

“Guess there’s going to be a heap of trouble round here,” he said to himself. “Helen must be recalled to London. It’s up to me to make the cable hot to Mackenzie.”

He had yet to learn that the storm which brought about a good deal of the preceding twenty-four hours’ excitement had not acted in any niggardly fashion. It had laid low whole sections of the telegraph system on both sides of the pass during the night. Gangs of men were busy repairing the wires. Later in the day, said a civil spoken attendant at the bureau des postes, a notice would be exhibited stating the probable hour of the resumption of service.

“Are the wires down beyond St. Moritz?” asked Spencer.

“I cannot give an assurance,” said the clerk; “but these southwest gales usually do not affect the Albula Pass. The road to St. Moritz is practicable, as this morning’s mail was only forty minutes behind time.”

Spencer ordered a carriage, wrote a telegram, and gave it to the driver, with orders to forward it from St. Moritz if possible. And this was the text:

“Mackenzie, ‘Firefly’ Office, Fleet-st., London. Wire Miss Wynton positive instructions to return to England immediately. Say she is wanted at office. I shall arrange matters before she arrives. This is urgent. Spencer.”

A heavy weight gradually lifted off his shoulders as he watched the wheels of the vehicle churning up the brown snow broth along the valley road. Within two hours his message would reach a telegraph office. Two more would bring it to Mackenzie. With reasonable luck, the line repairers would link Maloja to the outer world that afternoon, and Helen would hie homeward in the morning. It was a pity that her holiday and his wooing should be interfered with; but who could have foretold that Millicent Jaques would drop from the sky in that unheralded way? Her probable interference in the quarrel between Stampa and Bower put Mrs. de la Vere’s suggestion out of court. A woman bent on requiting a personal slight would never consent to forego such a chance of obtaining ample vengeance as Bower’s earlier history provided.

In any case, Spencer was sure that the sooner Helen and he were removed from their present environment the happier they would be. He hoped most fervently that the course of events might be made smooth for their departure. He cared not a jot for the tittle-tattle of the hotel. Let him but see Helen re-established in London, and it would not be his fault if they did not set forth on their honeymoon before the year was much older.

He disliked this secret plotting and contriving. He adopted such methods only because they offered the surest road to success. Were he to consult his own feelings, he would go straight to Helen, tell her how chance had conspired with vagrom fancy to bring them together, and ask her to believe, as all who love are ready to believe, that their union was predestined throughout the ages.

But he could not explain his presence in Switzerland without referring to Bower, and the task was eminently distasteful. In all things concerning the future relations between Helen and himself, he was done with pretense. If he could help it, her first visit to the Alps should not have its record darkened by the few miserable pages torn out of Bower’s life. After many years the man’s sin had discovered him. That which was then done in secret was now about to be shrieked aloud from the housetops. “Even the gods cannot undo the past,” said the old Greeks, and the stern dogma had lost nothing of its truth with the march of the centuries. Indeed, Spencer regretted his rival’s threatened exposure. If it lay in his power, he would prevent it: meanwhile, Helen must be snatched from the enduring knowledge of her innocent association with the offender and his pillory. He set his mind on the achievement. To succeed, he must monopolize her company until she quitted the hotel en route for London.

Then he thought of Mrs. de la Vere as a helper. Her seeming shallowness, her glaring affectations, no longer deceived him. The mask lifted for an instant by that backward glance as she convoyed Helen to her room the previous night had proved altogether ineffective since their talk on the veranda. He did not stop to ask himself why such a woman, volatile, fickle, blown this way and that by social zephyrs, should champion the cause of romance. He simply thanked Heaven for it, nor sought other explanation than was given by his unwavering belief in the essential nobility of her sex.

Therein he was right. Had he trusted to her intuition, and told Millicent Jaques at the earliest possible moment exactly how matters stood between Helen and himself, it is only reasonable to suppose that the actress would have changed her plan of campaign. She had no genuine antipathy toward Helen, whose engagement to Spencer would be her strongest weapon against Bower. As matters stood, however, Helen was a stumbling block in her path, and her jealous rage was in process of being fanned to a passionate intensity, when Spencer, searching for Mrs. de la Vere, saw Millicent in the midst of a group composed of the Vavasours, mother and son, the General, and his daughters.

Mrs. de Courcy Vavasour was the evil spirit who brought about this sinister gathering. She was awed by Bower, she would not risk a snubbing from Mrs. de la Vere, and she was exceedingly annoyed to think that Helen might yet topple her from her throne. To one of her type this final consideration was peculiarly galling. And the too susceptible Georgie would be quite safe with the lady from the Wellington Theater. Mrs. Vavasour remembered the malice in Millicent’s fine eyes when she refused to quail before Bower’s wrath. A hawk in pursuit of a plump pigeon would not turn aside to snap up an insignificant sparrow. So, being well versed in the tactics of these social skirmishes, she sought Millicent’s acquaintance.

The younger woman was ready to meet her more than halfway. The hotel gossips were the very persons whose aid she needed. A gracious smile and a pouting complaint against the weather were the preliminaries. In two minutes they were discussing Helen, and General Wragg was drawn into their chat. Georgie and the Misses Wragg, of course, came uninvited. They scented scandal as jackals sniff the feast provided by the mightier beasts.

Millicent, really despising these people, but anxious to hear the story of Bower’s love making, made no secret of her own sorrows. “Miss Wynton was my friend,” she said with ingenuous pathos. “She never met Mr. Bower until I introduced her to him a few days before she came to Switzerland. You may guess what a shock it gave me when I heard that he had followed her here. Even then, knowing how strangely coincidence works at times, I refused to believe that the man who was my promised husband would abandon me under the spell of a momentary infatuation. For it can be nothing more.”

“Are you sure?” asked the sympathetic Mrs. Vavasour.

“By gad!” growled Wragg, “I’m inclined to differ from you there, Miss Jaques. When Bower turned up last week they met as very old friends, I can assure you.”

“Obviously a prearranged affair,” said Mrs. Vavasour.

“None of us has had a look in since,” grinned Georgie vacuously. “Even Reggie de la Vere, who is a deuce of a fellah with the girls, could not get within yards of her.”

This remark found scant favor with his audience. Miss Beryl Wragg, who had affected de la Vere’s company for want of an eligible bachelor, pursed her lips scornfully.

“I can hardly agree with that,” she said. “Edith de la Vere may be a sport; but she doesn’t exactly fling her husband at another woman’s head. Anyhow, it was amazing bad form on her part to include Miss Wynton in her dinner party last night.”

Millicent’s blue eyes snapped. “Did Helen Wynton dine in public yesterday evening?” she demanded.

“Rather! Quite a lively crowd they were too.”

“Indeed. Who were the others?”

“Oh, the Badminton-Smythes, and the Bower man, and that American – what’s his name?”

Then Millicent laughed shrilly. She saw her chance of delivering a deadly stroke, and took it without mercy. “The American? Spencer? What a delightful mixture! Why, he is the very man who is paying Miss Wynton’s expenses.”

“So you said last night. A somewhat – er – dangerous statement,” coughed the General.

“Rather stiff, you know – Eh, what?” put in Georgie.

His mother silenced him with a frosty glance. “Of course you have good reasons for saying that?” she interposed.

Spencer passed at that instant, and there was a thrilling pause. Millicent was well aware that every ear was alert to catch each syllable. When she spoke, her words were clear and precise.

“Naturally, one would not say such a thing about any girl without the utmost certainty,” she purred. “Even then, there are circumstances under which one ought to try and forget it. But, if it is a question as to my veracity in the matter, I can only assure you that Miss Wynton’s mission to Switzerland on behalf of ‘The Firefly’ is a mere blind for Mr. Spencer’s extraordinary generosity. He is acting through the paper, it is true. But some of you must have seen ‘The Firefly.’ How could such a poor journal afford to pay a young lady one hundred pounds and give her a return ticket by the Engadine express for four silly articles on life in the High Alps? Why, it is ludicrous!”

“Pretty hot, I must admit,” sniggered Georgie, thinking to make peace with Beryl Wragg; but she seemed to find his humor not to her taste.

“It is the kind of arrangement from which one draws one’s own conclusions,” said Mrs. Vavasour blandly.

“But, I say, does Bower know this?” asked Wragg, swinging his eyeglasses nervously. Though he dearly loved these carpet battles, he was chary of figuring in them, having been caught badly more than once between the upper and nether millstones of opposing facts.

“You heard me tell him,” was Millicent’s confident answer. “If he requires further information, I am here to give it to him. Indeed, I have delayed my departure for that very reason. By the way, General, do you know Switzerland well?”

“Every hotel in the country,” he boasted proudly.

“I don’t quite mean in that sense. Who are the authorities? For instance, if I had a friend buried in the cemetery here, to whom should I apply for identification of the grave?”

The General screwed up his features into a judicial frown. “Well – er – I should go to the communal office in the village, if I were you,” said he.

Braving his mother’s possible displeasure, George de Courcy Vavasour asserted his manliness for Beryl’s benefit.

“I know the right Johnny,” he said. “Let me take you to him, Miss Jaques – Eh, what?”

Millicent affected to consider the proposal. She saw that Mrs. Vavasour was content. “It is very kind of you,” she said, with her most charming smile. “Have we time to go there before lunch?”

“Oh, loads.”

“I am walking toward the village. May I come with you?” asked Beryl Wragg.

“That will be too delightful,” said Millicent.

Georgie, feeling the claws beneath the velvet of Miss Wragg’s voice, could only suffer in silence. The three went out together. The two women did the talking, and Millicent soon discovered that Bower had unquestionably paid court to Helen from the first hour of his arrival in the Maloja, whereas Spencer seemed to be an utter stranger to her and to every other person in the place. This statement offered a curious discrepancy to the story retailed by Mackenzie’s assistant. But it strengthened her case against Helen. She grew more determined than ever to go on to the bitter end.

A communal official raised no difficulty about giving the name of the occupant of the grave marked by the seventh cross from the tomb she described. A child was buried there, a boy who died three years ago. With Beryl Wragg’s assistance, she cross examined the man, but could not shake his faith in the register.

The parents still lived in the village. The official knew them, and remembered the boy quite well. He had contracted a fever, and died suddenly.

This was disappointing. Millicent, prepared to hear of a tragedy, was confronted by the commonplace. But the special imp that attends all mischief makers prompted her next question.

“Do you know Christian Stampa, the guide?” she asked.

The man grinned. “Yes, sigñora. He has been on the road for years, ever since he lost his daughter.”

“Was he any relation to the boy? What interest would he have in this particular grave?”

The custodian of parish records stroked his chin. He took thought, and reached for another ledger. He ran a finger through an index and turned up a page.

“A strange thing!” he cried. “Why, that is the very place where Etta Stampa is buried. You see, sigñora,” he explained, “it is a small cemetery, and our people are poor.”

Etta Stampa! Was this the clew? Millicent’s heart throbbed. How stupid that she had not thought of a woman earlier!

“How old was Etta Stampa?” she inquired.

“Her age is given here as nineteen, sigñora; but that is a guess. It was a sad case. She killed herself. She came from Zermatt. I have lived nearly all my life in this valley, and hers is the only suicide I can recall.”

“Why did she kill herself, and when?”

The official supplied the date; but he had no knowledge of the affair beyond a village rumor that she had been crossed in love. As for poor old Stampa, who met with an accident about the same time, he never mentioned her.

“Stampa is the lame Johnny who went up the Forno yesterday,” volunteered Georgie, when they quitted the office. “But, I say, Miss Jaques, his daughter couldn’t be a friend of yours?”

Millicent did not answer. She was thinking deeply. Then she realized that Beryl Wragg was watching her intently.

“No,” she said, “I did not mean to convey that she was my friend; only that one whom I know well was interested in her. Can you tell me how I can find out more of her history?”

“Some of the villagers may help,” said Miss Wragg. “Shall we make inquiries? It is marvelous how one comes across things in the most unlikely quarters.”

Vavasour, whose stroll with a pretty actress had resolved itself into a depressing quest into the records of the local cemetery, looked at his watch. “Time’s up,” he announced firmly. “The luncheon gong will go in a minute or two, and this keen air makes one peckish – Eh, what?”

So Millicent returned to the hotel, and when she entered the dining room she saw Helen and Spencer sitting with the de la Veres. Edith de la Vere stared at her in a particularly irritating way. Cynical contempt, bored amusement, even a quizzical surprise that such a vulgar person could be so well dressed, were carried by wireless telegraphy from the one woman to the other. Millicent countered with a studied indifference. She gave her whole attention to the efforts of the head waiter to find a seat to her liking. He offered her the choice between two. With fine self control, she selected that which turned her back on Helen and her friends.

She had just taken her place when Bower came in. He stopped near the door, and spoke to an under manager; but his glance swept the crowded room. Spencer and Helen happened to be almost facing him, and the girl was listening with a smile to something the American was saying. But there was a conscious shyness in her eyes, a touch of color on her sun browned face, that revealed more than she imagined.

Bower, who looked ill and old, hesitated perceptibly. Then he seemed to reach some decision. He walked to Helen’s side, and bent over her with courteous solicitude. “I hope that I am forgiven,” he said.

She started. She was so absorbed in Spencer’s talk, which dealt with nothing more noteworthy than the excursion down the Vale of Bregaglia, which he secretly hoped would be postponed, that she had not observed Bower’s approach.

“Forgiven, Mr. Bower? For what?” she asked, blushing now for no assignable reason.

“For yesterday’s fright, and its sequel.”

“But I enjoyed it thoroughly. Please don’t think I am only a fair weather mountaineer.”

“No. I am not likely to commit that mistake. It was feminine spite, not elemental, that I fancied might have troubled you. Now I am going to face the enemy alone. Pity me, and please drink to my success.”

He favored Spencer and the de la Veres with a comprehensive nod, and turned away, well satisfied that he had claimed a condition of confidence, of mutual trust, between Helen and himself.

Millicent was reading the menu when she heard Bower’s voice at her shoulder. “Good morning, Millicent,” he said. “Shall we declare a truce? May I eat at your table? That, at least, will be original. Picture the amazement of the mob if the lion and the lamb split a small bottle.”

He was bold; but chance had fenced her with triple brass. “I really don’t feel inclined to forgive you,” she said, with a quite forgiving smile.

He sat down. The two were watched with discreet stupefaction by many.

“Never give rein to your emotions, Millicent. You did so last night, and blundered badly in consequence. Artifice is the truest art, you know. Let us, then, be unreal, and act as though we were the dearest friends.”

“We are, I imagine. Self interest should keep us solid.”

Bower affected a momentary absorption in the wine list. He gave his order, and the waiter left them.

“Now, I want you to be good,” he said. “Put your cards on the table, and I will do the same. Let us discuss matters without prejudice, as the lawyers say. And, in the first instance, tell me exactly what you imply by the statement that Mr. Charles K. Spencer, of Denver, Colorado, as he appears in the hotel register, is responsible for Helen Wynton’s presence here to-day.”

CHAPTER XV

A COWARD’S VICTORY

“It is a queer story,” said Bower.

“Because it is true,” retorted Millicent.

“Yet she never set eyes on the man until she met him here.”

“That is rather impossible, isn’t it?”

“It is a fact, nevertheless. On the day I arrived in Maloja, a letter came from the editor of ‘The Firefly,’ telling her that he had written to Spencer, whom he knew, and suggested that they should become acquainted.”

“These things are easily managed,” said Millicent airily.

“I accept Miss Wynton’s version.” Bower spoke with brutal frankness. The morning’s tribulation had worn away some of the veneer. He fully expected the girl to flare into ill suppressed rage. Then he could deal with her as he liked. He had not earned his repute in the city of London without revealing at times the innate savagery of his nature. As soon as he had taunted his adversaries into a passion, he found the weak joints in their armor. He was surprised now that Millicent should laugh. If she was acting, she was acting well.

“It is too funny for words to see you playing the trustful swain,” she said.

“One necessarily believes the best of one’s future wife.”

“So you still keep up that pretense? It was a good line in last night’s situation; but it becomes farcical when applied to light comedy.”

“I give you credit for sufficient wit to understand why I joined you here. We can avoid unpleasant explanations. I am prepared to bury the hatchet – on terms.”

“Terms?”

“Yes. You are a blackmailer, a somewhat dangerous one. You tempt me to revise the wisest of La Rochefoucauld’s maxims, and say that every woman is at heart a snake. You owe everything to me; yet you are not content. Without my help you would still be carrying a banner in the chorus. Unless I continue my patronage, that is what you must go back to. Don’t imagine that I am treating with you out of sentiment. For Helen’s sake, for her sake only, I offer a settlement.”

Millicent’s eyes narrowed a little; but she affected to admire the gleaming beads in a glass of champagne. “Pray continue,” she said. “Your views are interesting.”

There was some danger lest Bower should reverse his wonted procedure, and lose his own temper in this unequal duel. They both spoke in low tones. Anyone watching them would find the smiles of conventionality on their lips. To all outward seeming, they were indulging in a friendly gossip.

“Of course, you want money,” he said. “That is the be-all and end-all of your existence. Very well. Write a letter to Miss Wynton apologizing for your conduct, take yourself away from here at three o’clock, and from St. Moritz by the next train, and I not only withdraw my threat to bar you in the profession but shall hand you a check for a thousand pounds.”

Millicent pretended to consider his proposal. She shook her head. “Not nearly enough,” she said, with a sweetly deprecatory moue.

“It is all you will get. I repeat that I am doing this to spare Helen’s feelings. Perhaps I am ill advised. You have done your worst already, and it only remains for me to crush you. But I stick to the bargain – for five minutes.”

“Dear, dear!” she sighed. “Only five minutes? Do you get rid of your troubles so quickly? How nice to be a man, and to be able to settle matters with such promptitude.”

Bower was undeniably perplexed; but he held to his line. Unwavering tenacity of purpose was his chief characteristic. “Meanwhile,” he said, “let us talk of the weather.”

“A most seasonable topic. It was altogether novel this morning to wake and find the world covered with snow.”

“If the Maloja is your world, you must have thought it rather chilling,” he laughed.

“Yes, cold, perhaps, but fascinating. I went for a walk. You see, I wanted to be alone, to think what I should do for the best. A woman is so helpless when she has to fight a big, strong man like you. Chance led me to the cemetery. What an odd little place it is? Wouldn’t you hate to be buried there?”