The Vision of Desire Part 4

"That will be Ann," she said. Adding quickly, as though to conclude the subject they had been discussing: "I warn you, Philip, you're driving the boy on too tight a rein."

Sir Philip greeted Ann good-humouredly. In spite of the fact that she showed no disposition to fall in with his wishes and marry Tony, he was extremely fond of her. She was one of the few people who had never been afraid of him. She even contradicted him flatly at times, and, like most autocrats, he found her att.i.tude a refres.h.i.+ng change from that of the majority of people with whom he came in contact.

"Seen Tony in the town?" he demanded. It was evident the boy was hardly ever out of his thoughts.

"Yes. We've just been having tea together."

Sir Philip nodded approvingly.

"Excellent, excellent. Keep him out of mischief, like a good girl."

Ann laughed, a shade scornfully, but vouchsafed no answer, and soon afterwards Sir Philip took his departure.

"The twelve-thirty steamer to-morrow, then, Susan," he said as he shook hands. "I'll call for you in the car on my way to the _debarcadere_."

When he had gone Lady Susan and Ann exchanged glances.

"I've been telling him he drives Tony on too tight a rein," said the former, answering the unspoken question in the girl's eyes.

"It's absurd of him," declared Ann indignantly. "He tries to keep him tied to his ap.r.o.n-strings as if he were a child. And he's not! He's a man. He's been through that beastly war. Probably he knows heaps more about life--the real things of life--than Sir Philip himself, who wants to dictate everything he may or may not do."

"Probably he does. And that's just the trouble. When you get a terribly experienced younger generation and a hide-bound older one there are liable to be fireworks."

"All I can say is that if Sir Philip won't let him have a little more freedom, he'll drive Tony just the way he doesn't want him to go."

Lady Susan's keen glance scrutinised the girl's troubled face.

"You can't help it, you know," she remarked briefly.

"That's just it," answered Ann uncertainly. "I sometimes wonder if I could--ought to--" She broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Lady Susan, apparently not noticing her embarra.s.sment, gathered up her belongings preparatory to leaving the room.

"Marrying to reform a rake never pays," she said in level tones. "It's like rolling a stone uphill."

"But Tony isn't a rake!" protested Ann, flus.h.i.+ng quickly. "There's any amount of good in him, and he might--might steady down if he were married."

"Let him steady down before marriage, not after"--grimly. "A woman may throw her whole life's happiness into the scales and still fail to turn the balance. Without love--the love that can forgive seventy times seven and then not be tired--she'll certainly fail. And you don't love Tony."

It was an a.s.sertion rather than a question, yet Ann felt that Lady Susan was waiting for an answer.

"N-no," she acknowledged at last. "But I feel as though he belongs to me in a way. You see, Virginia 'left' him to me."

"You're not called upon to marry a legacy," retorted Lady Susan.

Ann smiled.

"No, I suppose not." She was silent a moment. "I wish Sir Philip didn't lead him such a life. It's more than any man could be expected to stand."

Lady Susan paused in the doorway.

"Well, my dear, don't vex your soul too much about it all. However badly people mismanage our affairs for us, things have a wonderful way of working out all right in the long run."

Left alone, Ann strolled out on to the balcony which overlooked the lake, and, leaning her arms on the bal.u.s.trade, yielded to the current of her thoughts. Notwithstanding Lady Susan's cheery optimism, she was considerably worried about Tony. She could see so exactly what it was that fretted him--this eternal dancing attendance on Sir Philip, who insisted on the boy's accompanying him wherever he went, and she felt a sudden angry contempt for the selfishness of old age which could so obstinately bind eager, straining youth to its chariot wheels. It seemed to her that the older generation frequently fell very far short of its responsibility towards the younger.

With a flash of bitterness she reflected that her own father had failed in his duty to the next generation almost as signally as old Sir Philip, although in a totally different manner. Archibald Lovell had indeed been curiously devoid of any sense of paternal responsibility. Connoisseur and collector of old porcelain, he had lived a dreamy, dilettante existence, absorbed in his collection and paying little or no heed to the comings and goings of his two children, Ann and her brother Robin. And less heed still to their ultimate welfare. He neglected his estate from every point of view, except the one of raising mortgages upon it so that he might have the wherewithal to add to his store of ceramic treasures. He lived luxuriously, employing a high-priced _chef_ and soft-footed, well-trained servants to see to his comfort, because anything short of perfection grated on his artistic sensibilities. And when an intrusive influenza germ put a sudden end to his entirely egotistical activities, his son and daughter found themselves left with only a few hundred pounds between them. Lovell Court was perforce sold at once to pay off the mortgages, and to meet the many other big outstanding debts the contents of the house had to be dispersed without reserve. The collection of old porcelain to which Archibald Lovell had sacrificed most of the human interests of life was soon scattered amongst the dealers in antiques, who, in many instances, bought back at bargain prices the very pieces they had sold to him at an extravagantly high cost. Every one went away from the Lovell sale well-pleased, except the two whose fortunes were most intimately concerned--the son and daughter of the dead man. They were left to face the problem of continued existence.

For the time being the circ.u.mstances of the war had acted as a solvent.

Robin, home on sick leave, had returned to the front, while Ann, who possessed the faculty of getting the last ounce out of any car she handled, very soon found warwork as a motor-driver. But, with the return of peace, the question of pounds, s.h.i.+llings and pence had become more acute, and at present Robin was undertaking any odd job that turned up pending the time when he should find the ideal berth which would enable him to make a home for Ann, while the latter, thanks to the good offices of Sir Philip Brabazon, had for the last six months filled the post of companion-chauffeuse to Lady Susan Hallett.

The entire six months had been pa.s.sed at Mon Reve, Lady Susan's villa at Montricheux, and with a jerk Ann emerged from her train of retrospective thought to the realisation that her lines had really fallen in very pleasant places, after all.

It seemed as though there were some truth in Lady Susan's a.s.sertion that things had a way of working out all right in the end. But for her father's mismanagement of his affairs--and the affairs of those dependent on him--Ann recognised that she might very well have been still pursuing the rather dull, uneventful life which obtained at Lovell Court, without the prospect of any vital change or happening to relieve its tedium, whereas the catastrophe which had once seemed to threaten chaos had actually opened the door of the world to her.

CHAPTER III

ON THE TOP OF THE WORLD

The rack-and-pinion railway from Montricheux to the Dents de Loup wound upward like a single filament flung round the mountains by some giant spider. The miniature train, edging its way along the track, appeared no more than a mere speck as it crept tortuously up towards the top. At its rear puffed a small engine, built in a curious tilted fas.h.i.+on, so that as it laboured industriously behind the coaches of the train it reminded one ridiculously of a baby elephant on its knees.

Ann was leaning against the windowless framework of the railway carriage, watching the valleys drop away, curve by curve, as the train climbed. Far below lay the lake, a blue rift glimmering between pine-clad heights. Then a turn of the track and the lake was swept suddenly out of sight, while the mountains closed round--shoulder after green-clad shoulder, with fields of white narcissus flung across them like fairy mantles. The air was full of the fragrance of narcissus mingling with the pungent scent of fir and pine.

Ann sniffed luxuriously and glanced round to where Tony was sitting.

"Doesn't it smell clean and delicious?" she said, drawing in great breaths of the pine-laden air. "When I come up to the mountains I always wonder why on earth we ever live anywhere else."

Tony smiled.

"You'd be the first to get bored if you didn't live somewhere else--now that the winter sports are over," he returned. "After all"--mundanely--"you can't derive more than a limited amount of enjoyment from scenery, however fine. Besides, you must know this route by heart."

"I do. But I love it! It's different every time I come up here. I think"--knitting her brows--"that's what is so fascinating about the Swiss mountains; they change so much. Sometimes they look all misty and unreal--almost like a mirage, and then, the very next day, perhaps, they'll have turned back into hard-edged, solid rock and you can't imagine their ever looking like dream-mountains again."

Gradually, as they mounted, they left the verdant valleys, with their sheltered farms and chalets, behind. The pine-woods thinned, and now and again a wedge of frozen snow, lodged under the projecting corner of a rock, appeared beside the track. The wind grew keener, chill from the eternal snows over which it had swept, and sheer, rocky peaks, bare of tree or herbage, thrust upward against the sky.

Presently, with a warning shriek, the train glided into a tunnel cut clean through the base of a mighty rock. The sides dripped moisture and the icy air tore through the narrow pa.s.sage like a blast of winter. Ann s.h.i.+vered in the sudden cold and darkness and drew her furs closer round her. She had a queer dread of underground places; they gave her a feeling of captivity, and she was thankful when the train emerged once more into daylight and ran into the mountain station. Tony helped her out on to the small platform.

"Which is it to be?" he asked, glancing towards where a solitary hotel stood like a lonely outpost of civilisation. "Tea first, or a walk?"

Ann declared in favour of the walk.

"Let's go straight up to the Roche d'Or. I always feel as if I'd reached the top of the world there. It's certainly as near the top as I shall ever get!" she added laughing. "I don't feel drawn towards mountaineering, so I shall probably never ascend beyond the limits of the rack-and-pinion."

The Roche d'Or was a steep upward slope, culminating in a rocky promontory from which was visible the vast expanse of the Bernese Oberland. A railed-in platform capped the promontory, for it was a recognised viewpoint. Opposite, across a shallow valley, the Dents de Loup cut the sky-line--two menacing, fang-shaped peaks like the teeth of a wolf, and beyond them a seemingly endless range of mountains stretched away to the far horizon, pinnacle after pinnacle towering upwards with sombre, sharp-edged shadows veiling the depths between. Along immense ridged scarps lay the plains of everlasting snow, infinitely bleak and desolate till a burst of sunlight suddenly transformed them, clothing the great flanks of the mountains in cloth of silver.

Ann stood still, absorbing the sheer beauty of it all.