Somebody else arrived, a bold and friendly baby who staggered about on short, fat legs. The baby had been surveying Marie and her book. He was a chubby creature, with jocund dark eyes, and his nether garments would keep slipping down. He was in charge of a good-tempered nursemaid on a neighbouring seat.
“Johan.”
Johan was putting two pudgy hands on Marie’s frock. His drawers were in the dust. The girl recovered him, adjusted the garments, and gave him a kiss.
“O, you bit of mischief!”
She had another small child to watch, and Johan staggered off back to Marie. He had fallen to her, and once more his nether garments showed themselves to be in sympathy.
“O, my dear!”
The offending drawers tripped up his unsure legs, but Marie caught the child, and put him on her knees. Mallison’s Essays extruded, fell to mother earth. The nursemaid intervened, laughing.
“Johan——”
“He’s quite all right. He’s a dear.”
She held Johan while further adjustments were made, but the girl carried Johan off. He could not be allowed to make himself a nuisance to strangers. His temper was serene. He beamed at Marie over authority’s shoulder.
Someone picked up Marie’s book.
“Allow me.”
“Oh, thank you so much.”
She was aware of his amused eyes.
“Nice things, children.”
“Yes.”
So he spoke English, such good English, but then she had always understood that the Austrians were wonderful linguists. It appeared that Herr Babchen had introduced them, and that conversation might be permitted. She was dusting Mr. Mallison with a handkerchief.
She said, “In this country people seem able to sit and watch life. They have happy faces, not the vacant and burnt-out faces one sees in London.”
“You think so?”
“I do. Have you ever been in London?”
He had. He gave it as his opinion that London was both the most dreadful and most fascinating city on earth. Certainly less dreadful than Paris. He said that he loathed Paris. It was so much like a vast exhibition, and all the Parisians were exhibitionists.
She laughed. She had a very charming laugh, with an upward lilt to it.
“I think this Tyrol of yours the most restful country I have ever found.”
She received the impression that he was both amused and surprised. His Tyrol! Well, why not? But he agreed with her.
“Here—people are poor, and so they have to be content with simple things. And only with simple things can one be wholly contented.”
“Birds and flowers.”
“Yes. Also, in a country such as this, one can cultivate a blessed obscurity. Blissfully anonymous. It does not matter whether you are somebody or nobody. It is so much more satisfying to be a nobody.”
Again she laughed.
“I have had no choice in the matter. I am a nobody.”
“And contentedly so?”
“Well, not quite—perhaps. Finance is usually less of a problem if you are a somebody.”
“Not always. Then consider the post. If you are marooned in a country like this you can always pretend that your letters were lost somewhere. Silence answers them. Nine out of ten letters should never have been written, and should never be answered. But I see you read Mallison.”
She looked at the book in her lap.
“Yes. He is supposed to be the most provocative of our English authors. Do you read English? But of course——”
“I have read all Mallison. How do you like those essays?”
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
She gave a little shrug.
“Well—you see—in a sense I am a disciple of Mallison’s—when he is the real Mallison. I think he is wonderful. But this bitter stuff! That’s the other Mallison.”
He was interested, amused, but he concealed his amusement.
“Please explain. Which is the real Mallison?”
Her lips quivered. She appeared to be searching for words.
“What I mean is—was ever a man and his work—so much in contrast? The beauty, the poise, the height of the work—at its best, and the—the tarnish of the man.”
“Just how?”
“Well, his arrogance, his insolence, his bitter tongue, a kind of swashbuckler who swaggers—and strikes out right and left.”
There was a short silence. Then he said, “Yes—so I have been told. Poor Mallison. So you know something of the London world?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Did you ever meet Mr. Mallison?”
“No.”
“Even here in the Tyrol we read him. An eccentric fellow. A huge flaneur, a world’s mountebank. Is it true that he has always refused to be photographed?”
“I have never seen a portrait of him.”
“Was that another pose of his?”
“I imagine so. He is a supreme poser.”
“Poor man. So you like the work and loathe the author, the castigator of critics, the whipper-up of all little literary whelps. That play of his, ‘Harry Highbrow in Hampstead.’ ”
“So bitter, so insolent, so mocking.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well—perhaps.”
She was beginning to realize that not only did he speak wonderful English, but that for an Austrian he appeared to be curiously well informed on English affairs, but then, of course, the cultured Continental was so much more educated than the ordinary Englishman. He did not give all his leisure to golf and bridge.
She said, “Judging by your intimacy with Mallison, you seem to know a great deal about our English world.”
“I have English friends. I have lived in England.”
“I think I understand.”
Yes, no doubt in the pre-war days he had been a person of some social importance. Might he not have been attached to the Austrian Embassy in London? Possibly he had actually been the representative of Austria, its ambassador. Obviously he was so much the man of the world.
“I suppose you are Austrian?”
He smiled.
“Yes, I’m an Austrian citizen. May I introduce myself? My name is Schomberg. But I am keeping you from Mr. Mallison, and I shall be late for lunch. I have a longish climb back to my small house.”
He rose, and, with his hat in his hand, gave her a slight bow.
“Shall I be permitted to see you again?”
She blushed.
“I am often in this garden. I love it. I still have another week of my holiday.”
“I am glad. But you will excuse me, may I know your name?”
“Starneck, Miss Marie Starneck.”
“Thank you. Surely that is not quite——”
“Oh, I’m an awful mongrel. My grandfather was German, my grandmother English, and we had a French side.”
He smiled at her, bowed once more, and walked away.
Her next meeting with him was to be quite unexpected and somewhat dramatic. She was walking by the river, the yellow, foaming turbulent Inn, when she saw a little crowd collected under the trees between the Hofburg and the footbridge leading to St. Nikolaus. Being healthily curious she walked towards the crowd, and as she neared it she saw a head rise above the heads of the other people. Herr Schomberg! And his head was the head of a man who had been soused in the river.
He was speaking to somebody in German. He looked shy and rather embarrassed, as though he hated being the central figure of a crowd. But what had happened? She edged her way in and was able to see a woman holding a very wet child. Herr Schomberg’s clothes were plastered to his figure.
Marie’s German was not fluent, but she managed to ask a question of a working woman next her.
“What has happened?”
“The child fell in the river and the gentleman jumped in and pulled her out. My God, he must be strong. The Inn is like a wild horse.”
So that was it. And sud
denly she met his eyes. He recognized her face among all those other faces. He smiled, and his smile was whimsical and apologetic. He gave a slight toss of his wet, white head, took off his very wet coat, folded it up, and prepared to escape. The woman holding the child started forward, seized his hand and kissed it. He looked embarrassed. The crowd gave a kind of scattering cheer. He laughed, and said something about wet clothes and a two-mile climb up the hills. He extracted himself from the crowd, waved a hand, and walked at a great pace towards the footbridge.
Someone near her in the crowd said, “Aach, but Mein Herr is like a shy boy. He runs away.”
Marie was thinking, “How splendid of him.”
Her mind was so full of Herr Schomberg that at dinner she did not notice the advent of Miss Burr. Miss Burr sat down, conned the menu, scrutinized her neighbour through her pince-nez, and addressed a remark to Marie Starneck.
“I see you read Mallison.”
The book was lying on Marie’s table.
“Yes.”
“A rhetorical person. He lives out here, you know.”
“Mr. Mallison does?”
“I thought everybody in Innsbruck knew that. You will often see him in the Hofgarten feeding the birds and exhibiting his nice white hair. A most conceited person.”
“In the Hofgarten?”
“Yes. He is known here as Herr Schomberg. I believe that is one of his Christian names. Christopher Schomberg Mallison. I met the man once. Couldn’t stand him. He is the sort of creature who looks over the top of your head when you talk to him.”
Marie Starneck was blushing to the roots of her inward soul. But really he might have told her who he was and not have allowed her to make such a complete ass of herself. What, exactly, had she said to him? That Christopher Mallison was an arrogant egoist, an insolent poseur. But what did she know of the real Mallison? Just cheap literary gossip. And she had seen the real Mallison, that rather shy creature with his whimsical eyes and humorous mouth, a man who fed birds and could jump into the turbulent Inn and pull out a child. Hadn’t she described him as a gross egoist? Oh, what a fool she had made of herself! Yes, and in the eyes of her romantic Austrian, a man who had interested her—most seriously!
She thought, “I simply can’t face him again.”
For two days she avoided the Hofgarten, but she was not to escape from circumstance. She met Herr Schomberg in the Marie Theresen Strasse, close to the Palais Taxis. She was confused, furiously self-conscious. He stood there, holding his hat.
“I haven’t seen you for two days. I was afraid you had left.”
She blurted out her grievance.
“I have a quarrel with you.”
“Indeed! I’m sorry.”
“You let me make a hopeless fool of myself.”
“My dear, we all do that—every other day.”
She blushed. She could not be angry with him.
“You ought to have told me. It wasn’t quite fair. You let me talk the most disgraceful tosh.”
“Was it tosh?”
“Well—I suppose so. I was just repeating——”
“What so many of the literary lights say about Mallison?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. He put on his hat.
“I apologize. If I’m one of the worst hated men in London, does that matter? I suggest that we go and sit under the trees in the Hofgarten. Please be kind to me.”
She smiled up at him.
“Do you need—such treatment?”
“My dear, very few people have been kind to me.”
She did not refer to the incident of the river and the child. She was still feeling confused both in her mind and in her emotions. Was it possible to separate those two worlds? She walked beside him like a rather shy little schoolgirl. Wasn’t it true that the Mallison of her secret world and the Mallison of reality were one and the same?
They found a seat under a big chestnut tree. They had the seat to themselves. He offered her his cigarette-case, but she shook her head.
“Do you mind if I do?”
“Please.”
He lit a cigarette, and, getting up, threw the match into a litter receptacle.
“Wonderfully tidy people—these Austrians. I like it. Well, what do you want me to tell you?”
“Everything.”
“What is—everything? Rather a large order. Why, I have the reputation of being the most impossible, swollen-headed bounder in the modern world of—self-advertisement! But I never have advertised. My enemies had done all that for me.”
“Why?”
He gave her a whimsical glance.
“Listen. There were days when I used to sell about fifteen hundred copies of a book. I had wonderful reviews then. All the little fellows patted me on the back. I satisfied their self-complacency. Then, you know, somehow—I became the rage, a popular person, a public abomination. I never went much into the literary world. I didn’t give lunches, or present copies of books and photos. In fact, I was—in a sense—an outsider, a ruddy pirate. My dear, until you have had a rather coruscating success, you don’t realize how much venom there is in other men. Jealousy. Women are not in it. I was attacked—I was misconstrued, I was ridiculed. They tried to damn me as a purveyor of popular tripe. Well, I hit back. I realized that the only way to counter such spite is either to ignore it or to make yourself appear so supremely and insolently complacent that—you cannot be hurt or deflated. As a matter of fact, I was wrong. One shouldn’t indulge in a dog-fight with all the little mongrels. Yes, I gave that up. What I wanted was peace, to be something more than a mere scribbler. So—I came out here.”
She saw the amusement in his eyes.
“But—surely—you have friends?”
“In a sense—yes. But so many of my dear friends—when a particularly unpleasant thing was said or written about me—passed it on to me with assurances of indignation. I found no peace in such friendliness. Birds and dogs don’t worry about what Mr. Tagg of the So-and-So has said about your last book. So, you see.”
He laughed.
“Blessed obscurity. What the devil do these good people here care about the literary reputation of Mr. Mallison? I don’t know that I care much myself. I have got beyond all that. Thank heaven there are no posters on these mountains—and nothing is ‘great’ here but the mountains. I’m a blessed nonentity.”
She said, “And so am I. But I have never been anything else, and I shall never be anything else. I’m one of the little, obscure people who scratch a living out of writing snappy paragraphs and very bad short stories. Sometimes I interview the great. Well, you see, one has to live.”
His face was mischievous.
“I’m still fair game. Why not write a coruscating and destructive little article about me? An Egoist in Exile.”
She said, “Don’t, please. Don’t rub it in.”
She looked so like a hurt and embarrassed child that he was touched.
“That’s all right. You couldn’t do that sort of thing. You are much too nice for the universal scramble. Besides, this is your holiday.”
“Yes, a triennial affair. I save up, and I do enjoy it. And I’ve got just three more days.”
He rose to deposit the fag-end of his cigarette in the litter receptacle.
“Tell me, do you like scribbling?”
“I would rather—— But if you are going to catechize me——”
“Well, retaliate.”
“Are you still writing?”
“Just when I please.”
“Don’t you find it a little lonely out here?”
“My dear, no one is so interesting as one’s self, except, perhaps, one’s second self. The quest of the good wife! Have you ever realized that the most satisfying and successful person in the world is the good wife? What would the clever little people say to that? Old Mallison has become a jam omelette! And raspberry jam at that! By the way, have you been up to the Achensee yet?”
“No.”
“Let m
e take you. It’s like pure and unadulterated beauty preserved in ice and brought out to shine in the sun.”
She blushed.
“I’d love to go. It means a drive?”
“Yes.”
“Well—the fact is, I have just enough money left for the bill, the tips and the journey.”
“Won’t you share my car? It’s quite a small car. We’ll have lunch at the hotel by the lake.”
“I’d love it.”
“To-morrow?”
“Yes.”
“You’re at the Tyrol.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call for you there at half-past ten.”
It was just the day for Achensee, still, blue, tranquil. On the mountain road they passed stout Teutons toiling upwards, with their holiday gear upon their backs, and happily perspiring. The road was dusty, and Marie noticed that Mallison slowed up whenever he passed any of these happy hikers. He did not want to smother them with dust.
“You don’t mind if I’m dumb?”
“No.”
“The road is rather tricky.”
It was, quite perilous in places, but she had no fear, and when they reached that cleft in the mountains she saw it as a little world of exquisite lucidity. Never before had she seen such purity of colour, greens and blues that were not mere surfaces, but colour filled with light. She sat and gazed. She was conscious of strange happiness, infinite peace.
She said, “It’s not like ordinary water. It seems to have something shining below it.”
So she had the inward eyes for such beauty! He drove very slowly to Pertisau, and pulled up by the white hotel.
“It seems rather carnal to talk about lunch, but shall I order it?”
She laughed.
“Even food must be different here.”
He was known at the hotel. A polite head waiter with pencil and notebook listened to his orders and made happy suggestions.
“A table in the loggia, sir?”
“Of course, Fritz, of course.”
They strolled along the lake where the grass was marvellous with flowers. Her face had a kind of radiance. She looked years younger. Her glances seemed to tremble with tenderness over the flowers.
“The darlings!”
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