CHAPTER XXI
LONELY WAYS
"I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end."--A. C. SWINBURNE.
But for the time being she went no farther than to the South of France. Not less than she, Bran, after wintering among houses, needed open skies. They were of one blood, and the longing for blue was on them both--the blue of space and sea and sky. And nowhere better in Europe can that blueness be found in April and May than down along the Mediterranean coast. At first they went to Ste. Maxime, a little village pitched in green and golden beauty beside St. Tropez's azure bay, and from where at dawn the sun can be seen shooting up from his golden bath just behind Corsica. For just several seconds the little island, cradle of the world's greatest general, shows like an inky mound against an aureole of yellow light that swiftly turns to rose, for another moment the sun rests on the peak of its highest mountain, then Corsica seems to sink and disappear into the sea until the next day's dawn.
Val did not stay long at Ste. Maxime. She wanted a villa where she could have Bran to herself, after the long months of enforced absences from him. If her unexpected fortune could not give her the delicious joy of absolute companionship and intimacy with her child it was useless indeed! Besides, in hotels children are swiftly spoilt by people who do not afterwards have to bear the brunt of the spoiling, and Val did not mean Garrett Westenra's boy to become weakened by the petting of Frenchwomen who love to treat other people's children like pretty lap-dogs--to be caressed in certain moods and thrust aside in others.
So after a week or two during which an agent busied himself on her behalf, she moved on to Cannes, and took possession of an ideal villa he had found for her. It lay above the road between Cannes and Cap d'Antibes, but perched high beyond the dust and din of motors; on the right, La Croisette winged away into the sea, on the left, a gaunt shoulder of the Alps with a shawl of snow draped on it showed keen against the mistral-swept skies; while about it, in all the tall beauty and tropical splendour of Riviera foliage, clustered a garden full of dreams. A garden of winding paths edged by ivy leaves lying flat, and little wild strawberry plants thrusting up coral fruits; tall palms and cacti glowing with flaming candelabra, waxen-leaved creepers, branching giant-aloes, delicate fern-like mimosa leaning tenderly above beds of violets, large as purple butterflies, great patches of poppies, massed clumps of heather white as snow and bright with happy bees; and everywhere roses, roses drowsing in the sunshine, perfuming the air!
It was a garden in which coolness could be found on the sultriest day of summer, but for spring days the open space before the wide white steps and pillared porch was ideal. The floor of this space was of gravel, bleached by rain and a southern sun to snowy whiteness. A clump of tall pines spiking against the sky afforded a webwork of flickering shadows under which to sit as in a balcony hung over the blueness of Golfe Juan. Always there are ships in that bay of molten turquoise; red-sailed fishing boats; leaden-coloured warships, with their grim air of power, lying at anchor; yachts spreading white wings for flight.
The house itself, like nearly all Riviera villas, was square built, and standing alone would have been less beautiful than solid and comfortable-looking. But in its jewelled setting of leaf and gold and blazing colour, the walls of dead white gave a note of quiet beauty and peace. A long balcony from the upper rooms dripped with clematis, and all round the house, high on the walls, large medallions bore the names of the days. Alternately with these were other medallions on which were painted on a pale blue ground white and scarlet-winged storks, flying, flying like the days.
The Villa of Little Days, a poetess who had lived and dreamed there named it. She was a famous woman, a friend of Gambetta, who in his lifetime came often to visit her. It was she who had planned the wild and tender beauty of the garden. Val blessed her often in the spring months she and Bran passed there.
The domestic arrangements were, from her point of view, ideal. A garage across the road pertained to the villa, and had attached to it a cottage which was occupied by a man and his wife whose services were at the disposal of those who rented the villa. The man minded the great garden all through the sultry summer, dug, gathered, transplanted, and cut firewood from the pines for the log fires of winter; also he could drive a car, and did not disdain to clean a window. His wife Marietta, a big-boned gay-faced Marseillaise, with the bloom of a peach on her cheeks, and rings of garnets in her ears, made short work of such cleaning as a villa bathed in perpetual sunshine and purified by sea-breezes needed. Incidentally, she could serve up a tureen of bouillabaisse of a flavour and fragrance to seduce the heart of a king and convert a vegetarian from his amazing ways.