It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the leaders of Cannes society, the owners of palatial villas, and givers of luncheons and dances, to understand that these pariahs did not desire to enter the charmed circle where wealth was the chief qualification, and where the triple millionaire, however humble his origin, and however dubious the source of his gold, was sure of welcome. Granted that such millionaires were talked of lightly as “good fun.” The smart people who laughed were pleased to eat their luncheons, and dance at their balls, or drive on their coaches, or sail in their yachts. For the smart world of Californie and La Route de Frejus February meant a round of luncheons and teas, dinners and dances. Everybody complained of the “strain,” of being “dragged” from party to party, of having “so much to do;” these butterflies treating the futilities of life as if they were penal servitude without option. To these the tranquil happiness of such a couple as Eve and Vansittart was unthinkable. Of course the poor things would be in society if society would have them. Cannes must be very dreary for such as they. It was really a pity that this kind of people did not stop at St. Raphael or go on to Alassio.
While society—looking at the “pretty young woman with the rather handsome husband” from afar, through a tortoiseshell merveilleuse—compassionated their forlorn condition, Eve and Vansittart found the resources of the neighbourhood inexhaustible, had schemes and delights for every day, and Peggy was never tired of comparing the Maritime Alps to heaven. What less in loveliness than heaven could be a land where one could picnic in February? For Peggy’s sake there were many picnics—now in a rocky gorge on the road to Vallauris, where one could sit about the dry bed of a cataract, and set out one’s luncheon on great rocky boulders, screened by feathery palm trees that suggested the South Sea Islands; now on the hilltop at Mougins, with the pinnacled walls of Grasse looking at them, across the deep valley of flower fields and mulberry orchards, blossoming lilies and budding vines; and now, with even more delight, in some sheltered inlet on the level coast of St. Honorat, some tiny cove where the water was brilliant as the jasper sea of the Apocalypse. Sometimes they landed and took their picnic luncheon under the pine trees, or on the edge of the sea—Peggy keenly interested in everything she saw, the timeworn fortress-monastery that rose tall above the level shore, and the modern building with its low-roofed cells and modest chapel, a building whose monastic rule forbade the entrance of Peggy and all her sex, and which therefore inspired the liveliest curiosity on her part. Not less delightful was the sister island of St. Marguerite, with its thrilling mystery of the nameless prisoner, whom Peggy would allow to be none other than a twin brother of the great Louis, and whose faded red velvet chair she looked at with affection and awe.
“To think of his meekly worshipping in this chapel, with an iron mask upon his face, when he might have been reigning over France and making war all over Europe, like the great King.”
“But in that case Louis must have been here. You wouldn’t have a brace of monarchs, Peggy. One brother must have gone to the wall,” argued Vansittart.
“They needn’t have shut him up in a dungeon, and made him wear a mask,” said Peggy.
“True, Peggy; the whole story involves a want of common sense which makes it incredible. I no more believe in a twin brother of Louis Quatorze than in a twin brother of our Prince of Wales, languishing in the Tower of London at this present moment.”
“But you believe there was a masked prisoner,” exclaimed Peggy, with keen anxiety.
“Oh yes, I am willing to believe in the Italian exile. The record of that gentleman’s existence seems tolerably reliable, and a very bad time he had of it. They managed things wonderfully well in those days. A political agitator, or the writer of an unpleasant epigram, could be promptly suppressed. They had prison walls for inconvenient people of all kinds.”
Peggy sighed. She did not care about the Italian politician. She had read her Dumas, and had a settled belief in the royal twin. She liked to think that he had lived and suffered in that cold grey fortress. She cared nothing for Marshal Bazaine, and his legendary leap from the parapet, which the soldier guide recited with his tongue in his cheek. She despised Vansittart for being so curious about such a humdrum incident—an elderly general creeping out of captivity under the nose of guardians who were wilfully blind, and slipping quietly off in a steamer.
Those tranquil days on the islands or on the sea would have been as exquisite for Eve as for Peggy if the heart of the elder sister had not been heavy with anxiety about the younger. During the first few weeks in that soft climate Peggy’s chance had seemed almost a certainty of cure. Even Dr. Bright had been hopeful for those first weeks, surprised by the marked improvement in his patient; but of late he had been grave to despondency, and every consultation strengthened Eve’s fears.
Indeed, there was little need of medical science to reveal the cruel truth. Every week that went by left something of Peggy’s youth and strength behind it. The walks which were easy for her in February were difficult in March, and impossible in April.
