Her bow was returned, indifferently by Evelyn, but by Hugh with eyes of steel, and a mouth of bronze. If he had cut her, he would have shown less contempt than in that stiff raising of the hat.
Julie turned and walked straight down to the Condamine, forgetting that her shoes were tight.
CHAPTER NINE
THE LAST WORD OF MADEMOISELLE
Rosemary chose the toys for the children of the rock village, and then the "picnic" began.
The car whizzed them up the zigzag road to La Turbie, while the noon sunshine still gilded Caesar"s Trophy. They lunched in the Moorish restaurant, and then sped on along the Upper Corniche, with a white sea of snow mountains billowing away to the right, and a sea of sapphire spreading to the horizon, on their left.
Out from orange groves and olives they saw the hill of eze rising like a horn; while on its almost pointed apex, the old town hung like some carved fetish, to keep away the witches.
The car swooped down, and up again; but half way up the rocky horn the wide white road turned into a stone paved mule path, old as the Romans.
Evelyn and Rosemary climbed hand in hand, singing a Christmas carol, while Hugh carried the two huge baskets filled with toys, and sweets in little packets.
Some small sentinel perched on high (perhaps hidden among the ruins of that fortress-castle where once the temple of Isis stood) must have spied the odd procession; for as the tall white girl and the little blue one, with the brown young man, reached the last step of the steep mule path, a tidal wave of children swept down upon them, out from the mystery of dark tunnelled streets.
Such eyes were never seen as those that gleamed at the new comers, great with surprise and wonder; eyes of brown velvet with diamonds shining through; eyes like black wells, with mirrored stars in their unfathomed depths; eyes of wild deer; eyes of fierce Saracens; eyes of baby saints, all set in small bronze faces clear-cut as the profiles on ancient Roman coins.
"Bella Madonna, bella Madonna!" piped a tiny voice, and forty other voices caught up the adoring cry.
The brown children of the old rock village had poured down from their high eyrie to bombard the strangers from the world below; to stare, to beg, to laugh, to lisp out strange epithets in their crude _patois_; but at sight of the wonderful white lady and her gold-haired child they crowded back upon each other, hushed after their first cry into awed admiration for visitants from another world.
Few tourists climbed to their dark fastness, and of those who came none had ever shone with such blinding radiance of white and gold.
It was certain that the lovely lady was none other than the Madonna herself, and the child she had brought was some baby angel. The man alone was mortal. He had perhaps been bidden to show la bella Madonna the way to eze.
Rosemary, shy but happy, began giving out the toys, diving with both hands at once into the baskets which the fairy father held. Trumpets, bags of marbles, tops and furry animals for the boys, according to their age; (oh, Rosemary was a good judge, and never hesitated once!) Dolls for the girls, dolls by the dozen, dolls by the legion; and sweets for all.
As the amazed children received their gifts, they fell respectfully back, as if they had received an order to give place to their companions, and others came forward, open mouthed, large eyed, ready to fall upon their knees if but one of their number should set an example.
Still there were toys left, toys in abundance; the wondrous benefactors pa.s.sed slowly on, always going up, up into the huddled village streets--tunnelled in rock or arched with stone, where eager, astonished faces peered from the mystery of shadowed doorways, and the hum of joy and admiration swelled to a sound like the murmur of the sea.
Of grown folk there were not many. A few mothers with brown babies in their arms; a few mumbling crones, and bent old men with faces like strange masks; but the flow of children never ceased.
As the children of Hamlin followed the Pied Piper to the sea, so the black browed children of eze followed the Christmas visitors from crooked street to crooked street, up to the castle ruins and back again.
They did not shout as they took their gifts; but still the murmur ran from mouth to mouth: "Bella Madonna, bella Madonna."
At the end of an enchanted hour, when there was not a child in eze who had not both hands full, the benefactors turned to go, with empty baskets. Ma.s.sed on the plateau above the mule-path, the whole population of the village stood to watch them down the steep descent. As they went, the church bells of eze boomed out, calling all pious souls, young and old, to vespers; and as if the loosened tongues of the bells loosened also the tongues of the children, at last there arose a cry.
"Come again, Bella Madonna and little angel, come again. We shall pray to see you next Christmas Day, Bella Madonna and little angel. Don"t forget, next Christmas Day."
"I"m perfectly happy, dearest," said Rosemary, when once more they sat in the car, spinning back from the shaded eyrie to the fair world where the sunshine lay.
The others did not speak, but the same thought was in their hearts.
When you are positively bursting with happiness the best outlet for the surplus quant.i.ty is to benefit somebody else; and there is no time like Christmas for a successful experiment.
"What else can we do for somebody?" asked Hugh.
"There"s Jane," suggested Rosemary. "I told her this morning how I went out and found a father, and she said Pooh, he was all in my eye; and besides she"d never heard of fathers growing on blackberry bushes. But if we bought her a present, and you gave it to her yourself, she"d have to believe in you."
"I shan"t feel I have a sure hold on existence until she does," said Hugh. "Let"s buy her something without the loss of a moment."
So they bought Jane a ring, which Rosemary chose herself after mature deliberation, and with due regard to the recipient"s somewhat p.r.o.nounced taste in colours.
"She admires red and green together more than anything," said the child, "and I want her to have what she really likes, because if it hadn"t been for her I shouldn"t have known Christmas Eve was the time to search for fathers. Just supposing somebody else had gone out and snapped him up instead of me!"
As a matter of fact somebody else had gone out, and had come very near indeed to snapping him up; but there are things which do not bear thinking of. It was Hugh"s firm conviction that Destiny and not Jane, had flung Rosemary in front of his motor; but Destiny could not be rewarded and Jane could.
Rosemary would be satisfied with nothing less than a formal presentation; and that the ceremony might be gone through without delay, the car was directed towards the Condamine. As they neared the street of the Hotel Pension Beau Soleil, a cab came jingling round the corner.
It was occupied by two ladies who sat half buried in travelling bags, rugs, baskets, and shawl straps, such as women who are not of the Anglo Saxon races love. A tiny motorphobe in the shape of a black Pomeranian yapped viciously at the automobile as the vehicles pa.s.sed each other; and though the ladies--one stout, the other slim--were thickly veiled, Rosemary cried out, "Oh, it"s the Comtesse and Mademoiselle. They must be going away."
Hugh said nothing, but his silence was eloquent to Evelyn, who knew now the whole story of the girl with the soft eyes. Both were pleased that this was the last of her; but neither quite knew Mademoiselle de Lavalette. She had been busy with other matters besides her packing, while la bella Madonna and her suite were collecting adorers on the heights of eze.
Evelyn and Rosemary disappeared to take off their hats before the grand presentation ceremony should begin, and Hugh had begun to occupy the time of their absence by lighting the fire with pine cones, when a cry from the beloved voice called him to the room adjoining.
The door was open, and the woman and the child stood dumbfounded and overwhelmed in a scene of incredible desolation.
The air was acrid with the smell of burning. Blouses, pink and green, and cream, and blue, were stirred into a seething ma.s.s in the fireplace, as in a witch"s cauldron, their fluffy laces burnt and blackened.
Chiffon fichus torn in ribbons strewed the carpet. An ivory fan had been trampled into fragments on the hearth-rug, and a snow-storm of feathers from a white boa had drifted over the furniture. On the wash-stand a spangled white tulle hat lay drowning in a basin half full of water.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Their fluffy laces burnt and blackened. Chiffon fichus torn in ribbons strewed the carpet_]
It was a sight to turn the brain of Madame in the magasin of smart "confections," nor would the presiding genius of the toy shop have gone scathless, for Rosemary"s possessions had not been spared by the cyclone.
Dolls had lost their wigs, their arms, their legs; and beautiful blue eyes had been poked into far recesses of porcelain heads, with ruthless scissors. Little dresses of silk and satin had been flung to feed the flames which devoured ill-starred blouses; picture books had made fine kindlings; and that proud and stately mansion which might have afforded shelter to many dolls had collapsed as if shattered by a cyclone.
"Oh, Angel, is it some dreadful dream?" wailed Rosemary; and Evelyn found no answer. But Hugh had pounced upon a card pinned on the window curtain; and as he held it out, in eloquent silence, she read aloud over his shoulder; "Compliments of Mademoiselle de Lavalette."
At the end of the first shocked instant, they both laughed wildly, desperately. It was the only thing to do.
"After all," gasped Evelyn, "she has paid me back--what she owed me,--and Rosemary."
"She"s given me the pleasure of making Christmas come all over again, to-morrow, that"s all," said Hugh. "Women are strange. Thank heaven, _she_ has vanished."
"But nothing matters--at least not much," said Rosemary, smiling through her tears, "since you"re not going to vanish, fairy father."
THE END