The Red Rat's Daughter

"How did you come to be up here alone?" he inquired, after she had tried to express her gratitude to him for the service he had rendered her.

"It was foolish, I admit," she answered. "I had been painting on the mountain, and was making my way back to the hotel when the fog caught me. Suddenly I felt myself falling. To save myself I clutched at that tree, and was still clinging to it when you called to me. Oh! how can I thank you? But for you I might now be – "

She paused, and Browne, to fill in the somewhat painful gap, hastened to say that he had no desire to be thanked at all. He insisted that he had only done what was fit and proper under the circumstances. It was plain, however, from the look of admiration he cast upon her, that he was very well satisfied with the part he had been permitted to play in the affair.

While, however, they were progressing thus favourably in one direction, it was evident that they were not yet at an end of their difficulties, for the young lady, pretend as she might to ignore the fact, was undoubtedly lame; under the circumstances for her to walk was out of the question, and Merok was fully a mile, and a very steep mile, distant from where they were now seated.

"How am I to get home?" the girl inquired. "I am afraid it will be impossible for me to walk so far, and no pony could come along this narrow path to fetch me."

Browne puckered his forehead with thought. A millionaire is apt to imagine that nothing in this world is impossible, provided he has his cheque-book in his pocket and a stylographic pen wherewith to write an order on his banker. In this case, however, he was compelled to confess himself beaten. There was one way out of it, of course, and both knew it. But the young man felt his face grow hot as the notion occurred to him.

"If you would only let me carry you as far as the main road, I could easily find a conveyance to take you the rest of the distance," he faltered.

"Do you think you could carry me?" she answered, with a seriousness that was more than half assumed. "I am very heavy."

It might be mentioned here, and with advantage to the story, that in his unregenerate days Browne had won many weight-lifting competitions; his modesty, however, prevented his mentioning this fact to her.

"If you will trust me, I think I can manage it," he said; and then, without waiting for her to protest, he picked the girl up, and, holding her carefully in his arms, carried her along the path in the direction of the village. It was scarcely a time for conversation, so that the greater portion of the journey was conducted in silence. When at last they reached the mountain road – that wonderful road which is one of the glories of Merok – Browne placed the girl upon the bank, and, calling a boy whom he could see in the distance, despatched him to the hotel for assistance. The youth having disappeared, Browne turned to the girl again. The pain she had suffered during that short journey had driven the colour from her face, but she did her best to make light of it.

"I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for me," she said, and a little shudder swept over her as the remembrance of how near she had been to death returned to her.

"I am very thankful I happened to be there at the time," the other replied with corresponding seriousness. "If you will be warned by me, you will be careful for the future how you venture on the mountains without a guide at this time of the year. Fogs, such as we have had to-day, descend so quickly, and the paths are dangerous at the best of times."

"You may be sure I will be more careful," she replied humbly. "But do not let me keep you now; I have detained you too long already. I shall be quite safe here."

"You are not detaining me," he answered. "I have nothing to do. Besides, I could not think of leaving you until I have seen you safely on your way back to your hotel. Have you been in Merok very long?"

"Scarcely a week," the girl replied. "We came from Hellesylt."

Browne wondered of whom the we might consist. Was the girl married? He tried to discover whether or not she wore a wedding-ring, but her hand was hidden in the folds her dress.

Five minutes later a cabriole made its appearance, drawn by a shaggy pony and led by a villager. Behind it, and considerably out of breath, toiled a stout and elderly lady, who, as soon as she saw the girl seated on the bank by the roadside, burst into a torrent of speech.

"Russian," said Brown to himself; "her accent puzzled me, but now I understand."

Then turning to the young man, who was experiencing some slight embarrassment at being present at what his instinct told him was a wigging, administered by a lady who was plainly a past mistress at the art, the girl said in English: —

"Permit me to introduce you to my guardian, Madame Bernstein."

The couple bowed ceremoniously to each other, and then Browne and the villager between them lifted the girl into the vehicle, the man took his place at the pony's head, and the strange cortège proceeded on its way down the hill towards the hotel. Once there, Browne prepared to take leave of them. He held out his hand to the girl, who took it.

"Good-bye," he said. "I hope it will not be long before you are able to get about once more."

"Good-bye," she answered; and then, with great seriousness, "Pray, believe that I shall always be grateful to you for the service you have rendered me this afternoon."

There was a little pause. Then, with a nervousness that was by no means usual to him, he added: —

"I hope you will not think me rude, but perhaps you would not mind telling me whom I have had the pleasure of helping?"

"My name is Katherine Petrovitch," she answered, with a smile, and then as frankly returned his question. "And yours?"

"My name is Browne," he replied; and also smiling as he said it, he added: "I am Browne's Mimosa Soap, Fragrant and Antiseptic."

CHAPTER II

When Browne reached the yacht, after bidding good-bye to the girl he had rescued, he found his friends much exercised in their minds concerning him. They had themselves been overtaken by the fog, and very naturally they had supposed that their host, seeing it coming on, had returned to the yacht without waiting for them. Their surprise, therefore, when they arrived on board and found him still missing was scarcely to be wondered at. In consequence, when he descended the companion ladder and entered the drawing-room, he had to undergo a cross-examination as to his movements. Strangely enough, this solicitude for his welfare was far from being pleasing to him. He had made up his mind to say nothing about the adventure of the afternoon, and yet, as he soon discovered, it was difficult to account for the time he had spent ashore if he kept silence on the subject. Accordingly he made the best excuse that occurred to him, and by disclosing a half-truth induced them to suppose that he had followed their party towards the waterfall, and had in consequence been lost in the fog.

"It was scarcely kind of you to cause us so much anxiety," said Miss Verney in a low voice as he approached the piano at which she was seated. "I assure you we have been most concerned about you; and, if you had not come on board very soon, Captain Marsh and Mr. Foote were going ashore again in search of you."

"That would have been very kind of them," said Browne, dropping into an easy-chair; "but there was not the least necessity for it. I am quite capable of taking care of myself."

"Nasty things mountains," said Jimmy Foote to the company at large. "I don't trust 'em myself. I remember once on the Rigi going out with old Simeon Baynes, the American millionaire fellow, you know, and his daughter, the girl who married that Italian count who fought Constantovitch and was afterwards killed in Abyssinia. At one place we very nearly went over the edge, every man-jack of us, and I vowed I'd never do such a thing again. Fancy the irony of the position! After having been poverty-stricken all one's life, to drop through the air thirteen hundred feet in the company of over a million dollars. I'm perfectly certain of one thing, however: if it hadn't been for the girl's presence of mind I should not have been here to-day. As it was, she saved my life, and, until she married, I never could be sufficiently grateful to her."

"Only until she married!" said Lady Imogen, looking up from the novel she was reading. "How was it your gratitude did not last longer than that?"

"Doesn't somebody say that gratitude is akin to love?" answered Foote, with a chuckle. "Of course I argued that, since she was foolish enough to show her bad taste by marrying somebody else, it would scarcely have become me to be grateful."

Browne glanced at Foote rather sharply. What did he mean by talking of life-saving on mountains, on this evening of all others? Had he heard anything? But Jimmy's face was all innocence.

At that moment the dressing gong sounded, and every one rose, preparatory to departing to their respective cabins.

"Where is Maas?" Browne inquired of Marsh, who was the last to leave.

"He is on deck, I think," replied the other; but as he spoke the individual in question made his appearance down the companion-ladder, carrying in his hand a pair of field-glasses.

For some reason or another, dinner that night was scarcely as successful as usual. The English mail had come in, and the Duchess had had a worrying letter from the Duke, who had been commanded to Osborne among the salt of the earth, when he wanted to be in the Highlands among the grouse; Miss Verney had not yet recovered from what she considered Browne's ill-treatment of herself that afternoon; while one of the many kind friends of the American Ambassador had forwarded him information concerning a debate in Congress, in order that he might see in what sort of estimation he was held by a certain portion of his fellow-countrymen. Never a very talkative man, Browne this evening was even more silent than usual. The recollection of a certain pale face and a pair of beautiful eyes haunted him continually. Indeed, had it not been for Barrington-Marsh and Jimmy Foote, who did their duty manfully, the meal would have been a distinct failure as far as its general liveliness was concerned. As it was, no one was sorry when an adjournment was made for coffee to the deck above. Under the influence of this gentle stimulant, however, and the wonderful quiet of the fjord, things brightened somewhat. But the improvement was not maintained; the pauses gradually grew longer and more frequent, and soon after ten o'clock the ladies succumbed to the general inertness, and disappeared below.

According to custom, the majority of the men immediately adjourned to the smoking-room for cards. Browne, however, excused himself on the plea that he was tired and preferred the cool. Maas followed suit; and, when the others had taken themselves off, the pair stood leaning against the bulwarks, smoking and watching the lights of the village ashore.

"I wonder how you and I would have turned out," said Maas quietly, when they had been standing at the rails for some minutes, "if we had been born and bred in this little village, and had never seen any sort of life outside the Geiranger?"

"Without attempting to moralize, I don't doubt but that we should have been better in many ways," Browne replied. "I can assure you there are times when I get sick to death of the inane existence we lead."

"Leben heisst träumen; weise sein heisst angenehm träumen," quoted Maas, half to himself and half to his cigar. "Schiller was not so very far out after all."

"Excellent as far as the sentiment is concerned," said Browne, as he flicked the ash off his cigar and watched it drop into the water alongside. "But, however desirous we may be of dreaming agreeably, our world will still take good care that we wake up just at the moment when we are most anxious to go on sleeping."

"In order that we may not be disillusioned, my friend," said Maas. "The starving man dreams of City banquets, and wakes to the unpleasant knowledge that it does not do to go to sleep on an empty stomach. The debtor imagines himself the possessor of millions, and wakes to find the man-in-possession seated by his bedside. But there is one cure; and you should adopt it, my dear Browne."

"What is that?"

"Marriage, my friend! Get yourself a wife and you will have no time to think of such things. Doesn't your Ben Jonson say that marriage is the best state for a man in general?"

"Marriage!" retorted Browne scornfully. "It always comes back to that. I tell you I have come to hate the very sound of the word. From the way people talk you might think marriage is the pivot on which our lives turn. They never seem to realise that it is the rock upon which we most of us go to pieces. What is a London season but a monstrous market, in which men and women are sold to the highest bidders, irrespective of inclination or regard? I tell you, Maas, the way these things are managed in what we call English society borders on the indecent. Lord A. is rich; consequently a hundred mothers offer him their daughters. He may be what he pleases – an honourable man, or the greatest blackguard at large upon the earth. In nine cases out of ten it makes little or no difference, provided, of course, he has a fine establishment and the settlements are satisfactory. At the commencement of the season the girls are brought up to London, to be tricked out, regardless of expense, by the fashionable dressmakers of the day. They are paraded here, there, and everywhere, like horses in a dealer's yard; are warned off the men who have no money, but who might very possibly make them happy; while they are ordered by the 'home authorities' to encourage those who have substantial bank balances and nothing else to recommend them. As the question of love makes no sort of difference, it receives no consideration. After their friends have sent them expensive presents, which in most cases they cannot afford to give, but do so in order that they may keep up appearances with their neighbours and tradesmen, the happy couple stand side by side before the altar at St. George's and take the most solemn oath of their lives; that done, they spend their honeymoon in Egypt, Switzerland, or the Riviera, where they are presented with ample opportunity of growing tired of one another. Returning to town, the man usually goes back to his old life and the woman to hers. The result is a period of mutual distrust and deceit; an awakening follows, and later on we have the cause célèbre, and, holding up our hands in horror, say, 'Dear me, how very shocking!' In the face of all this, we have the audacity to curl our lips and to call the French system unnatural!"

"I am afraid, dear Browne, you are not quite yourself to-night," said Maas, with a gentle little laugh, at the end of the other's harangue. "The mistake of believing that a marriage, with money on the side of the man and beauty on that of the woman, must irretrievably result in misfortune is a very common one. For my part, I am singular enough to believe it may turn out as well if not better than any other."

"I wasn't aware that optimism was your strong point," retorted Browne. "For my part I feel, after the quiet of this fjord, as if I could turn my back on London and never go near it again."

He spoke with such earnestness that Maas, for once in his life, was almost astonished. He watched his companion as he lit another cigar.

"One thing is quite certain," he said at length, "your walk this afternoon did you more harm than good. The fog must have got into your blood. And yet, if you will not think me impertinent for saying so, Miss Verney gave you a welcome such as many men would go through fire and water to receive."

Browne grunted scornfully. He was not going to discuss Miss Verney's opinion of himself with his companion. Accordingly he changed the subject abruptly by inquiring whether Maas had made any plans for the ensuing winter.

"I am a methodical man," replied the latter, with a smile at his companion's naive handling of the situation, "and all my movements are arranged some months ahead. When this charming voyage is at an end, and I have thanked you for your delightful hospitality, I shall hope to spend a fortnight with our dear Duchess in the Midlands; after that I am due in Paris for a week or ten days; then, like the swallow, I fly south; shall dawdle along the Mediterranean for three or four months, probably cross to Cairo, and then work my way slowly back to England in time for the spring. What do you propose doing?"

"Goodness knows," Browne replied lugubriously. "At first I thought of Rajputana; but I seem to have done, and to be tired of doing, everything. They tell me tigers are scarce in India. This morning I felt almost inclined to take a run out to the Cape and have three months with the big game."

"You said as much in the smoking-room last night, I remember," Maas replied. "Pray, what has occurred since then to make you change your mind?"

"I do not know, myself," said Browne. "I feel restless and unsettled to-night, that is all. Do you think I should care for Russia?"

"For Russia?" cried his companion in complete surprise. "What on earth makes you think of Russia?"

Browne shook his head.

"It's a notion I have," he answered; though, for my own part, I am certain that, until that moment, he had never thought of it. "Do you remember Demetrovitch, that handsome fellow with the enormous moustache who stayed with me last year at Newmarket?"

"I remember him perfectly," Maas replied; and had Browne been watching his face, instead of looking at the little hotel ashore, he would in all probability have noticed that a peculiar smile played round the corners of his mouth as he said it. "But what has Demetrovitch to do with your proposed trip to Russia? I had an idea that he was ordered by the Czar to spend two years upon his estates."

"Exactly! so he was. That accounts for my notion. He has often asked me to pay him a visit. Besides, I have never seen Petersburg in the winter, and I'm told it's rather good fun."

"You will be bored to death," the other answered. "If you go, I'll give you a month in which to be back in England. Now I think, with your permission, I'll retire. It's after eleven, and there's something about these fjords that never fails to make me sleepy. Good-night, mon cher ami, and pleasant dreams to you."

Browne bade him good-night, and when the other disappeared into the companion, returned to his contemplation of the shore. The night was so still that the ripple of the wavelets on the beach, half a mile or so away, could be distinctly heard. The men had left the smoking-room; and save the solitary figure of the officer on the bridge, and a hand forward by the cable range, Browne had the deck to himself. And yet he was not altogether alone, for his memory was still haunted by the recollection of the same sweet face, with the dark, lustrous eyes, that had been with him all the evening. Do what he would, he could not endow the adventure of the afternoon with the common-place air he had tried to bestow upon it. Something told him that it was destined to play a more important part in his life's history than would at first glance appear to be the case. And yet he was far from being a susceptible young man. The training he had received would have been sufficient to prevent that. For upwards of an hour he remained where he was, thinking and thinking, and yet never coming any nearer a definite conclusion. Then, throwing away what remained of his cigar, he bestowed a final glance upon the shore, and went below to his cabin, to dream, over and over again, of the adventure that had befallen him that afternoon.

Whatever else may have been said of it, the weather next morning was certainly not propitious; the mountains surrounding the bay were hidden in thick mist, and rain was falling steadily. After breakfast the male portion of the party adjourned to the smoking-room, while the ladies engaged themselves writing letters or with their novels in the drawing-room below.

Browne alone seemed in good spirits. While the others were railing at the fog, and idly speculating as to whether it would clear, he seemed to derive a considerable amount of satisfaction from it. About ten o'clock he announced his intention of going ashore, in order, he said, that he might confer with a certain local authority regarding their proposed departure for the south next day. As a matter of politeness he inquired whether any of his guests would accompany him, and received an answer in the negative from all who happened to be in the smoking-room at the time. His valet accordingly brought him his mackintosh, and he had put it on and was moving towards the gangway when Maas made his appearance from the saloon companion.

"Is it possible you are going ashore?" he inquired in a tone of mild surprise. "If so, and you will have me, I will beg leave to accompany you. If I stay on board I shall go to sleep, and if I go to sleep I shall wake up in a bad temper; so that, if you would save your guests from that annoyance, I should advise you to take me with you."

Though Browne could very well have dispensed with his company, common politeness prevented him from saying so. Accordingly he expressed his pleasure at the arrangement, and when they had descended the gangway they took their places in the boat together. For the first time during the excursion, and also for the first time in the years they had known each other, Browne felt inclined to quarrel with Maas; and yet there was nothing in the other's behaviour towards him to which he could take exception.

Maas could see that Browne was not himself, and he accordingly set himself to remedy the trouble as far as lay in his power. So well did he succeed that by the time the boat reached the tiny landing-stage his host was almost himself again.

"Now you must do just as you please," said Maas when they had landed. "Do not consider me in the matter at all, I beg of you; I can amuse myself very well. Personally I feel inclined for a walk up the mountain road."

"Do so, then, by all means," said his host, who was by no means sorry to hear him arrive at this decision. "If I were you, however, I should stick to the road; these mists are not things to be taken lightly."

"I agree with you," said Maas. Then, bidding the other good-bye, he set off on his excursion.

Browne, who was conscientiousness itself, walked along the hillside to the residence of the functionary whom he had professedly come ashore to see, and when he had consulted him upon the point at issue, made his way in the direction of the hotel. Accosting the manager in the hall, he inquired whether it would be possible to obtain an interview with Madame Bernstein.

"Most certainly, sir," the man replied. "If you will follow me I will conduct you to her."

So saying, he led the way down the long wooden passage towards a room at the further end. Into this Browne was ushered, while the man departed in search of the lady. What occasioned the delay it is impossible to say, but fully a quarter of an hour elapsed before madame made her appearance. She greeted him with a great appearance of cordiality. Taking his hands in hers, she held them while she thanked him, in fluent French, for what she called his bravery on the preceding afternoon.

"Mon Dieu!" said she. "What should I have done had you not been there to help her? Had she been killed I should never have known happiness again. It was such a risk to run. She is so reckless. She fills me with consternation whenever she goes out alone."

This was not at all what Browne had bargained for. However, under the circumstances, it would not only have been unwise, but practically impossible, for him to protest. You cannot save a young lady's life and expect to escape her relatives' thanks, however much you may desire to do so. After these had been offered to him, however, he managed to discover an opportunity of inquiring after her.

"The poor child is better this morning," Madame replied, solemnly wagging her head. "But, alas! it will be several days before she can hope to put her foot to the ground. She begged me, however, to thank you, monsieur, should you call, for your goodness to her."

Try as he would to conceal it, there could be no sort of doubt that Browne was pleased that she should have thought about him. He begged Madame Bernstein to inform her that he had called to inquire, and then bade her good-bye. He had hoped to have discovered something concerning the girl's history; but as it was plain to him that Madame was not one who would be easily induced to make disclosures, he abandoned the attempt.