Part 23

Nathalie became _femme de chambre_ in the apartment of Mrs. Winter. She was so charmed with her mistress, and with certain hats and blouses that Rose bestowed upon her, that she did not much miss the flirtations. But, being a good Catholic, and having been confirmed by the curé of Roquebrune, her conscience asked itself whether it could be right to live in a household not only Protestant, but the abode of a priest who spread heresy. It occurred to her that she would go and put this question to the curé, her spiritual father; and she was not deterred from her resolve by the fact that Achille Gonzales had finished his military service and returned to visit his family. Achille's father was the Maire of Roquebrune, a peasant landowner of wealth whose pride was in his son and in their Spanish ancestry, which dated back to the days of Saracen fighting on the coast.

Achille was a great match; and the white cows had nibbled mint and clover from his hands before he went away with his regiment to Algeria. His father was about to make over to him some land adjoining the curé's garden, and the young man was there planting orange trees on fine days.

Nathalie chose a fine afternoon to ask Mrs. Winter if she might go to Roquebrune.

The curé, who was broad-minded, set her heart at rest about the possible iniquity of her service. He said that different religions were all paths leading up a steep hill, in the same direction, only some were more roundabout than others. Nathalie need not after all have taken the trouble to climb the mule track in the afternoon sun; yet she was not sorry she had come. Seldom had she looked so beautiful as when her aunt was giving her orange-syrup with water after her talk with the curé, the oranges being a present to the house from Achille Gonzales. On the table in the little kitchen stood a silver photograph frame which Luciola was going to clean, as the salt air had tarnished its brightness. In the frame was a photograph of Prince Giovanni Della Robbia as a boy of eighteen; but so little had eleven years changed Vanno, that Nathalie recognized the picture at once.

"Ah," she exclaimed, "surely that is the handsome, tall young gentleman who walks over often to look at the Villa Mirasole, near our laiterie: the brother of the prince who is coming soon to live there."

"Why, yes, it is he," replied her aunt. "He is a friend of our curé's, and was once his pupil. He is the Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, a very noble, good young man."

"I am not sure he is so very good," retorted Nathalie, pleased to know something which her aunt perhaps did not know, about a person of importance.

Luciola's tiny body quivered with indignation. "Not good! How dare you say such a thing of our curé's Prince? What can you have to tell of a great noble in his position--you--a little no-one-at-all?"

The Storm-cloud lowered. "There are those as important as your Prince who do not think me a 'little no-one-at-all.' The grand folk who come to Cap Martin to call upon our lady the Empress Eugenie tell each other about me; English dukes and duchesses they are, and Spanish grandees, and high nobility from all over the world, who visit the Cap to do her reverence. They make one excuse or another to have a look at your 'little no-one-at-all.' And a famous American artist has sketched me, in the olive woods. He would not let me run home even for five minutes to change into my best dress, nor would he permit that I put away my milk cans: that was my one regret! As for your Prince, he passed, taking a short cut to the villa, while I posed. Do you think he went on without looking? No; he stopped and spoke with the artist."

"Then that was because they were acquaintances," snapped Luciola.

"It is true they knew each other. But it was not for the _beaux yeux_ of the big red-bearded artist that the Prince stopped. It was to look at my face in the sketch-book. There were other faces there, too, and on the page next to mine the profile of a most lovely lady, all blond like an angel, whose name the Prince knew, for he and the artist talked of her, and called her Miss Grant. I have heard much conversation about her since then, at Madame Winter's, at tea-time in the afternoon when I bring in the tray and give cakes to visitors. They all, especially Madame's cousin, speak of Miss Grant, and she is celebrated for her beauty as well as for her gambling: yet your Prince looked as much at my picture as at hers, quite as much; and the artist could have taken no more pains with me if I had been a queen. So you see what other people think. And as it happens, I _do_ know a great deal about this Prince."

"Nothing against him, then, I am sure," persisted Luciola, though somewhat impressed. "Monsieur le Curé loves him, which alone proves that he is good."

"Does Monsieur le Curé consider it good to gamble at Monte Carlo?" inquired Nathalie, with assumed meekness.

"Of course not. Prince Giovanni would not stoop to such a pursuit."

"Oh, would he not? That is all you know of the world, here on your mountain, dear aunt. Me, I hear everything that goes on, though I live in the house of a cleric. Madame's cousin knows well your Prince, who, it is true, did not gamble at first, and seemed to scorn the Casino, so I heard from Monsieur Carleton while I poured the tea. But for some reason he has taken to play, the Prince. He is always in the Casino. He has refused to live in the villa at Cap Martin with his brother and sister-in-law, who have now arrived, because he hates to be too far from the Casino, though perhaps they may not know why. Monsieur Carleton has told Madame that not once have they been inside its doors, or shown themselves at any Monte Carlo restaurant. Oh, your Prince is a wild gambler, aunt, and loses much money, which is a silly way of amusing one's self, in my opinion. And that is why I say he is not so good as you and Monsieur le Curé think him, you who are so innocent."

"I do not believe one word of your foolish gossip," was the only satisfaction Nathalie got from Luciola. But when the girl had gone, the little old woman was in such haste to retell the tale to the curé, that she did not even throw a glance at Nathalie. If she had, she might have seen the Storm-cloud brightening when, quite by accident, she was met by Achille Gonzales within a few yards of the curé's door.

Old as she was, Luciola had an excellent memory for anything that interested her, though she was capable of forgetting what was best forgotten in a household, such as the breaking of a dish, or the reason why the cat had been left out of doors all night in the rain. She repeated what she had heard from her niece, almost word for word, wandering a little sometimes from the straight path of the narrative into side tracks, such as the anecdote of the artist who took as much pains with Nathalie's portrait as with that of the great beauty, Miss Grant, who was always gambling at the Casino, the place where wicked people said that Prince Giovanni played. No exciting detail did Luciola neglect.

The curé listened to the end, without interrupting, greatly to the housekeeper's disappointment, as she had made her narrative piquant in the hope of tempting her master to ask questions. But he showed no emotion of any kind, and only remarked at last that Luciola was quite right not to believe gossip about the Prince, or indeed evil of any one.

Nevertheless her story left him reflective. He thought it not impossible that Vanno was gambling; and if it were the case, several things would be explainable. It was many days since the Prince had come to Roquebrune, although the curé had done what he did not wish to do, in order to please his one-time pupil.

Vanno was well aware that it was not the curé's affair to call upon strangers out of his own parish, except by special request. To call uninvited upon a person in Monaco might seem to the curé and abbé of San Carlo like an intrusion: and to present himself at a hotel, inquiring for a young lady whom he did not even know to be a Catholic, had been an ordeal. This, for the Principino's sake, he had done not once but twice, as Vanno knew. And in truth the Prince had seemed too preoccupied with disappointment because Miss Grant was not at home to express much gratitude when the curé told him of the two calls.

Not since the third day before Christmas had Vanno come to Roquebrune, nor had he written his old friend; and certainly the curé had wondered, for now the new year was more than a week old; and always the weather had been of that brilliance the peasant women consider necessary after Noël for the washing of the Christ child's clothes by the Sainte Vierge, His mother. There had been no such excuse as rain to prevent a visit; but at last the curé guessed at a reason which might have kept Vanno from wishing to see him.

On New Year's Day--the great fête--the priest had called in the afternoon on Prince and Princess Della Robbia, at the Villa Mirasole, knowing that their arrival had been delayed until the night before. Vanno, who had lunched with them, had already gone; and it was no news to the curé that the younger brother was not living at Cap Martin. Angelo referred to this change of plan, saying laughingly that no doubt the foolish boy feared to interrupt a tête-à-tête. Nonsense this, of course; for the honeymoon had extended itself over months, and the Princess was anxious to see as much as possible of her new brother-in-law. Angelo, too, particularly wished Vanno to love Marie as a sister, and report well of her to the Duke, whose favourite he was. It was no secret that Vanno could do what he liked with his father, although no other soul was permitted to take liberties with the Duke.

Nothing had been left unsaid which might assure Vanno of his welcome, yet he insisted on remaining at some Monte Carlo hotel, only coming over to lunch or dinner, though Angelo quite understood that his brother had promised to live with him.

The curé, soothing the elder and defending the younger gayly, thought in his heart that he knew better than Angelo why Vanno clung to Monte Carlo. He supposed Miss Grant to be the attraction, but this was the Principino's affair, and the curé kept the secret. Miss Grant's name was not mentioned. Evidently Prince and Princess Della Robbia had not heard of her.

Vanno's infatuation for the girl did not seem a light thing to the curé, and he thought of it anxiously, hoping and sometimes believing that the young man would be strong enough to hold himself aloof, unless Miss Grant should show herself worthy of a noble, not a degrading, love. The priest had kept his promise in going to see her; but until this rumour of Vanno's gambling reached him he had not been able to regret his failure. The responsibility of judging and truthfully reporting his opinion of a young woman had weighed heavily upon his spirits. Supposing the curé had said to himself that he saw Miss Grant and thought nothing but good of her? The Principino might on the strength of his report be reckless enough to propose marriage. A good and beautiful girl might still be an unsuitable match for a son of the Duke of Rienzi; and on the priest's head would, in a sense, lie the blame if she became the wife of Prince Vanno. Altogether, the curé had been inclined to think that the saints had perhaps had a hand in sending him twice to call when Miss Grant was not visible. Now, however, he took himself to task. He had been careless. He had considered his own selfish feelings too much in this matter. If the Principino had taken to gambling (a vice he had once sneered at as a refuge for the destitute in intellect) there must have been some extraordinary incentive. The curé was sure of this; and granting it without mental argument, he set himself to the task of deduction.

"One would say I flattered myself by thinking that I had been born a detective!" he remarked aloud to his favourite rose-bush, when Luciola had emptied her news-bag for him, in the garden. "Me, a detective? Heaven forbid! Yet at the same time, if I have brain-power to be of service to my Principino, the saints give me wit to use it."

Then he thought very hard, sitting in his arbour, on the wooden seat which gave a view over the whole coast, with its mountains whose feet were promontories. Half amused, half alarmed lest the pretence were sin, he tried to put himself in Vanno's place; and so doing it was borne in upon his mind that something of importance must have happened between the Prince and Miss Grant. She had been gambling all the while, though Vanno had not at first gambled: but if they had met--if there had been a scene which had driven the Prince to desperation--might that not explain the change? Had she definitely proved herself unworthy, or had Vanno openly done her some injustice, which had wrought bitterness for both? In any case, the curé decided that he had been mistaken in the designs of Providence for himself. After all, perhaps it had been meant for him to meet Miss Grant, and he had been indifferent, had turned a deaf ear to the voice which bade him try again and yet again.

He resolved to call upon the girl, not only once more, but many times if necessary, and when there was something to report, he would have an excuse to go and see Vanno.

All this, indirectly through Nathalie Verando's walks with the white cows, in the olive woods of Cap Martin, and more directly through the tarnishing of a silver frame on an old photograph.

XXII

Eve Dauntrey was in the act of opening the door as the curé of Roquebrune put out his hand to touch the bell at the Villa Bella Vista.

Somehow it was a shock to find herself face to face with a priest, on her own doorstep; and before she could quite control her nerves, she broke out with a brusque, "What do you want?"

The curé looked calmly at her, his pleasant, sunburned face betraying none of the surprise he felt at such a reception. In his modest way he was a quick and keen observer, though he had never deliberately prided himself on being a judge of character. It seemed to him that the handsome, hard-eyed woman with the white face and scarlet lips was startled at the sight of his black cassock, as if she had done something which she would not like to have a priest find out.

This made him spring to the conclusion that she had been brought up as a Catholic, but was one no longer.

"I have called upon a lady who, I am told, is staying here," he explained politely in French. "Miss Grant."

"Miss Grant?" Eve could not help showing that she was puzzled and not pleased. "Yes, Miss Grant is visiting me," she admitted. Then, with a sudden impulse which she could hardly have explained, quickly added: "Unfortunately she's out. Is there any message you would like to leave?"

As she asked this question, Lady Dauntrey stared with almost ostentatious frankness straight into the curé's face, and her voice had lost its sharpness. She was dressed in purple velvet, and wore a large purple hat. The rich dark hue gave her light eyes a very curious colour, more green than gray; and as she stood on the doorstep, tall and somehow formidable, the curé thought that she looked Egyptian, an elemental creature who might have lived by the Nile when the Sphinx was new.

The afternoon sunshine streamed into her eyes, and caused her pupils to shrink until they appeared to be no larger than black pinheads. Perhaps, the curé acknowledged to himself, it was only this that gave them a deceitful effect; nevertheless he felt suddenly sure that for some reason she was lying to him. He did not believe that Miss Grant was out.

"This lady does not wish me to meet her guest," he told himself. But aloud he said that he regretted missing Miss Grant; and there was no message, thanks, except that the curé of Roquebrune had called again. He was making up his mind to a certain course, and stood aside politely, meaning to let Lady Dauntrey pass, and then follow her down the steps of her villa. What he would do after that was his own affair; for with those who are subtle it is permitted to be subtle in return. Lady Dauntrey, however, seemed unwilling to let him linger. Instead of passing him, she asked, "Are you coming my way?"

"As you tell me, Madame, that Miss Grant is out, I will go on to the Church of Sainte Devote, which is not far away," the curé answered.

"Oh!" The slight look of strain on Lady Dauntrey's face passed, as if her muscles relaxed. "Then we go in different directions. I am walking up the hill to Monte Carlo. Good afternoon. I will remember to give Miss Grant your message."

They parted, but Lady Dauntrey turned her head twice, each time to see the curé's black-robed figure marching at a good pace away from the villa. Then she went on faster; and the importance of the incident began to fade from her mind. Not that it had ever had any real importance, she assured herself. Only, she hated priests as she would hate to see a raven fly over her head. They seemed somehow ominous; and she could not understand why a member of the interfering tribe wanted to see Miss Grant, unless to try and get her away into less worldly surroundings. Lady Dauntrey did not wish Mary to go; and she was glad she had acted on impulse, saying that the girl was out. It was lucky that she had met the priest, for had he arrived a minute sooner or a minute later, a servant would have told him that Miss Grant was in. Eve decided that she would forget to mention the curé of Roquebrune's visit.

Having said that he would go to the Church of Sainte Devote, the curé conscientiously kept his word. Luckily the Villa Bella Vista was not far from the deep, dim ravine where the patron saint of Monaco was supposed to have drifted ashore in a boat, piloted by a sacred dove, and rowed by faithful followers after suffering martyrdom in Corsica. The curé was fond of the strange little church of sweet chimes, almost hidden between immense, concealing walls of rock; but to-day he merely paid his respects to the saint and quickly went his way again. Twenty minutes after parting from Lady Dauntrey, he rang the bell of her villa, and was told by an untidy servant that Miss Grant was at home.

Mary was waiting in the house to receive Mrs. Winter, who had been persuaded by Carleton to overlook the girl's neglect, and to call once more, with him. Dick had asked Mary not to speak of the visit in advance to Lady Dauntrey, as his cousin wanted a chance for a talk, uninterrupted by the mistress of the villa; and Mary half guiltily, though with a certain pleasure, had consented. Instinctively she guessed that Eve would have taken the call for herself, and that Mrs. Winter would have found little time to chat with any one else. It was hateful to be hypercritical, Mary felt, yet she had begun to see that Lady Dauntrey was curiously jealous of her; that she did not like to see her talk with strangers, or alone even with other guests of the house.

When the curé of Roquebrune was ushered in, Mary was expecting Dick to arrive with his cousin; but for the moment she was alone in the drawing-room which she had made less depressing by a generous gift of flowers. The alertness with which the girl sprang up, on his entrance, and the quick change of expression told the curé that she was expecting another visitor. "Could it be the Prince?" was the question which darted through his mind. But, no. There was neither disappointment nor relief on her face, only surprise. He argued in consequence that the visitor was not awaited with emotion.

The servant who admitted the curé had not said that the occupant of the drawing-room was Miss Grant, but his first glance assured him of her identity. Yes, this must be the face, the eyes, which had appealed to all the romance in Vanno. Even the man whom conviction had dedicated body and soul to the religion of self-sacrifice had enough humanity mingling with his saintliness to feel the peculiar appeal of this gentle girl. She was not only a woman, she was Woman. Unconsciously she called, not to men, but to man, to all that was strong, to all that was chivalrous and desired to give protection.

There was nothing modern about the type, the curé told himself, though it might be that this particular specimen of it had been trained to modern ideas. Such a woman would never struggle for her "rights." They would be flung at her feet as tribute, before she could ask, and quite without thought she would accept them. The curé would have laughed had he been accused of lurking tendencies toward romance, except perhaps in his love of gardens; yet he seemed to reflect the impressions of Vanno, to realize with almost startling keenness the special allurement Miss Grant had for the Prince; that remoteness from the ordinary which suggested the vanished loveliness of Greece with all its poetry; which would make an accompaniment of music seem appropriate to every movement, like the _leit motif_ for a woman in grand opera.