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diff --git a/33911-h/33911-h.htm b/33911-h/33911-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..769ac11 --- /dev/null +++ b/33911-h/33911-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8108 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beggars on Horseback, by F. Tennyson Jesse + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} +h3 {text-align: center; clear: both; font-weight: normal;} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 1em; +} +p.heading {font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: normal; text-indent: 0em; text-align: center;} + +hr { margin: 5em auto 3em auto; + height: 0px; + border-width: 1px 0 0 0; + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + width: 500px; + clear: both; +} +hr.hr2 {width: 250px; margin: 2em auto 2.5em auto;} +hr.hr3 {width: 200px; margin: 3em auto 3em auto;} +hr.full {width: 100%; margin: 0;} +hr.double {width: 100%; margin: 0; border-style: double;} +hr.white {border-width: 0px; margin: 8em auto 3em auto; border-style: none; width: 0em;} +hr.white2 {border-width: 0px; margin: 3em auto 3em auto; border-style: none; width: 0em;} + +ins {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px dashed #dcdcdc;} + +blockquote {margin: 1.25em 3em 1.25em 3em;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + border-collapse: collapse; +} + +th {font-size: .8em;} +th.thr {text-align: right;} + +td {vertical-align: bottom; padding-bottom: .5em;} +td.tdl {text-align: left; margin-left: 0em; + text-indent: -2em; padding-right: 2em;} +td.tdr {text-align: right; padding-left: 1em;} + +.pagenum {/* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /*visibility: hidden;*/ + position: absolute; + left: 1%; + font-size: 10px; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + font-style: normal; + letter-spacing: normal; + text-indent: 0em; + text-align: right; + color: #999999; + background-color: #ffffff; +} /* page numbers */ + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} +.right {text-align: right; margin-right: 1em;} +.centerleft {text-align: center; padding-right: 14em;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.noi {text-indent: 0em;} + +.indent {padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; + text-indent: 0em; margin-left: 0em;} + +.nt {margin-top: 0em;} +.nb {margin-bottom: 0em;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: 5em auto 5em auto; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.block {margin: auto; width: 34em;} +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.title {font-size: 2.5em; letter-spacing: .3em;} +.title2 {font-size: 2.5em; letter-spacing: .35em;} +.author {font-size: 1.8em;} +.pub {font-size: 1.4em;} + +.lh {line-height: 2em;} +.ws {word-spacing: 5em;} + +#box1 {border: 1px solid #000000; margin: 5em auto 5em auto; width: 20em;} +#box2 {border: 4px double #000000; margin: 5em auto 5em auto; width: 28em;} +#box3 {margin: 5em auto 5em auto; width: 30em; border: 1px solid #8b8914; clear: left; + padding: .5em 1em .5em 1em;} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beggars on Horseback, by F. Tennyson Jesse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Beggars on Horseback + +Author: F. Tennyson Jesse + +Release Date: October 20, 2010 [EBook #33911] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<hr /> + +<h1>BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK</h1> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + + +<div id="box1"> + +<p class="center"><i>NEW SIX SHILLING NOVELS</i></p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="indent">OLD DELABOLE.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Eden Phillpotts</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">OF HUMAN BONDAGE.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">William Somerset Maugham</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">THE FREELANDS.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">John Galsworthy</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">MUSLIN. <i>By</i> <span class="smcap">George Moore</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">OFF SANDY HOOK.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Richard Dehan</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">THE LITTLE ILIAD. <i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Maurice +Hewlett</span>. <i>Illustrated by</i> <span class="smcap">Sir Philip +Burne-Jones</span>, Bart.</p> + +<p class="indent">THE IMMORTAL GYMNASTS.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Marie Cher</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">MRS. CROFTON.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Marguerite Bryant</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">THE LATER LIFE.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Louis Couperus</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">CARFRAE'S COMEDY.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Gladys Parrish</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">THE BOTTLE-FILLERS.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">Edward Noble</span>.</p> + +<p class="indent">CHAPEL.<br /> +<i>By</i> <span class="smcap">D. Miles Lewis</span>.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="center">LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN<br /> +21 Bedford Street, W.C.</p> +</div> + + + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="400" height="385" alt="Frontispiece" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + + +<div id="box2"> + +<p class="center"><span class="title">BEGGARS ON</span><br /> +<span class="title2">HORSEBACK</span><br /> + +<span class="smcap author">By F. TENNYSON JESSE</span><br /> + +AUTHOR OF "THE MILKY WAY," ETC</p> + +<hr class="double" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 180px;"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="180" height="180" alt="Logo" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"><span class="pub">LONDON MCMXV<br /> +WILLIAM HEINEMANN</span></p> + +</div> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p class="centerleft"><i>London: William Heinemann</i>, 1915</p> + +<hr class="white" /> + + + +<p class="center lh">THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED<br /> + +WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE<br /> + +TO<br /> + +<big>MISS HANNAH MERCY ROBERTS<br /> +(NAN)</big><br /> + +AS A SMALL ACKNOWLEDGMENT<br /> +OF A LARGE DEBT<br /></p> + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> + + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr> +<th class="thr" colspan="2">PAGE</th> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">A SHEPHERDESS OF FAUNS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i">1</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE LADDER</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#ii">29</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE GREATEST GIFT</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#iii">81</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE MASK</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#iv">109</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">A GARDEN ENCLOSED</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#v">135</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE MAN WITH TWO MOUTHS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#vi">181</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">WHY SENATH MARRIED</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#vii">203</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl">THE COFFIN SHIP</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#viii">227</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p class="center"><i>The stories in this volume are printed in chronological order.</i></p> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span> +<a name="i" id="i"></a>A SHEPHERDESS OF FAUNS + +</h2> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + + + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span><br /> +A SHEPHERDESS OF FAUNS +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br /></p> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Archie Lethbridge</span> arrived in Provence thoroughly satisfied with life. He +had just sold a big picture; was contemplating, with every prospect of +success, giving a "one-man-show" in London of the work he would do in +Provence; and the girl he loved had accepted him.</p> + +<p>Miss Gwendolen Gould was eminently eligible—her income, though +comfortable, was not large enough to brand her husband as a +fortune-hunter; she was pretty in a well-bred way that satisfied the eye +without causing it to turn and gaze after her; and above all, she could +be relied upon never to do, say, or think an unusual thing. Like all +painters, when they are conventionally minded, Archie was the fine +flower of propriety—he owned to enough wild oats of his own sowing to +save him from inferiority in the society of his fellow-men, and he held +exceedingly rigid views on the subject of his womenkind. Gwendolen +might—doubtless had, for she was one of the large army of young women +brought up to no profession save that of sex—give this or that man a +kiss at a dance, but she would never have saved all of passion and +possibilities for one man, and lavished them on him, regardless of +suitable circumstances. Archie's name (that he hoped one day to adorn +with some coveted letters at which he now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> pretended to sneer) would be +perfectly safe with Gwendolen.</p> + +<p>The only drawback to his complete content was that his fair, sleek +person showed signs of getting a trifle too plump—for he was only young +as a man who is nearly "arrived" counts youth. On the whole, however, it +was with a feeling of settled attainment that Archie left Nice and +proceeded to strike up into the Alpes Maritimes, totally unprepared for +any bizarre or inexplicable event—he would have laughed satirically at +the bare idea.</p> + +<p>To do him justice, he worked hard, and he had a tremendous facility and +a certain charm that concealed his lack of true artistic sensitiveness. +There is probably nothing more difficult to interpret in paint than an +olive-tree—the incredible grey brilliance of the thing, each leaf set +at a slightly different angle, and refracting the light till the whole +tree seems made of blown mist and sharp-cut shadows. Archie painted +olives under every effect; sparkling in the sun, fog-grey on a grey day, +and pale with the shimmering under-side of straining leaves against a +storm-dark sky. He also painted very dirty children picking the ranked +violets and stocks that grew along the olive terraces, and this he +achieved without once descending into the realms of the "pretty-pretty," +while at the same time infusing just the right amount of sentiment to +ensure a sale.</p> + +<p>He painted here and there from Grasse to Le Broc, and then one day, +feeling he had taken all he could from the soft-scented land of olives +and flowers, he hired a motor to convey him up into the Back o' Beyond, +and drop him there. Once he met a couple of women bearing on their heads +the sheaves of tight little red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> rosebuds that look exactly like bundles +of radishes, and caught a whiff of the strange, bitter-sweet smell of +the newly cut stems. Then he passed an old shepherd in a cloak of faded +blue, with sheepskin legs cross-gartered to the knee, taking his lean, +golden-brown flock up into the mountains.</p> + +<p>After that he saw no living thing, neither bird nor beast nor human, for +many miles. Rounded hills, opening out from each other in endless +succession and covered from crest to base with harsh yellow grass, and +strewn with grey boulders. Deep gullies that at one time had been set +alight and now were scorched and brown like plague-pits, with here and +there a patch of pale stones showing up lividly from the charred thorns +and blackened soil. Archie shivered, partly because of the keen wind +blowing down from the great plateau beyond the hills, partly because +something savage in the scene gripped at him.</p> + +<p>The car throbbed on, higher and higher, till the road, winding acutely +along the edge of precipices, developed a surface that caused his +chauffeur to swear gently to himself. Valley after valley opened out, +long and narrow, and Archie noticed signs of a long-past cultivation in +the curved terraces into which the bed of each valley was cut, forming +an endless series of semicircles. There was no trace of any crop, and +the whole effect was as of some rude amphitheatre where prehistoric man +had sat and watched gladiatorial shows.</p> + +<p>The car, sticking now and then in a rut, or jolting violently over +stones, finally crested the last rise, and Archie found himself on a +vast stretch of land ringed in by sharp-edged hills, like some dead, +gigantic crater; to the right, far away on a slope of the mountain +ring,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> lay a grey straggling town that looked hacked out of the hardened +lava. The only sign of life was in a patch of vividly green grass near +at hand, where hundreds of crocuses had burned their way up through the +earth and showed like a bed of thin blue flames.</p> + +<p>Archie directed the contemptuous chauffeur towards the town, and they +finally drew up at the inn—a little green-shuttered affair, with a +stone-flagged passage, and a tortoise-shell cat drowsing beside the +door. Outside a <i>buvette</i> opposite was a marble-topped table at which +sat a couple of workmen drinking cider. An evanescent gleam of sun shone +out, and the tawny liquid caught and held it, making each glass throw on +to the table a bubble of gold fire enmeshed in the delicate shadow of +the vessel itself. Archie stood transfixed for a moment with pleasure, +then, as the gleam faded and died, he entered the inn.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Like most people with the creative temperament, Archie Lethbridge was +the prey of environment. The unborn child is not more influenced by the +surroundings of its mother than a book or picture by those of its +creator. Draginoules took such a deep, sure grip of Archie that it did +more than merely affect his work—it began to upset his neatly arranged +values, and, since Nature abhors a vacuum, to substitute fresh ones in +their place. Draginoules, in short, behaved like a master of scenic +effects; it allowed a couple of days for the background to permeate +Archie's consciousness, and, when he was ripe for it, introduced the +human element, which, to a man of his type, means a woman.</p> + +<p>It was one morning when he was washing brushes in the dim inn kitchen +that he saw her first. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> came out of the <i>buvette</i> to serve some +workmen, and Archie stopped dead in the act of swirling a cobalt-laden +brush round and round in the hollowed yellow soap he held. He always saw +the whole scene in memory as clearly as he saw it then—the low-fronted +<i>buvette</i>,the glass of the door refracting the light as it still +quivered from her passage; the pools of blue shadow that lay under the +table and chairs on the pavement; the blouse-clad figures of the +workmen, particularly a young man with a deeply burnt back to his neck; +and the girl herself, holding aloft a tray of liqueur glasses, that +winked like little eyes. All this he saw framed by the darkness of the +kitchen and cut sharply into squares by the black bars of the window; +then, as he mechanically went on frothing blue-stained bubbles out of +the soap, he said to himself, "I must paint that girl."</p> + +<p>He soon found out that she was the niece of the stout couple who kept +the <i>buvette</i>, and that her name was Désirée Prévost. As they mentioned +her most people shrugged their shoulders. Oh, no, there was nothing +against the girl—though it was true her eyebrows met in a thick bar +across her nose, and old people had always said that was a sign of the +Loup-Garou; enlightened moderns, however, did not really hold by that. +The town was proud of her looks, for it considered her <i>très bien</i>, the +highest expression of praise from a Provençal, who is a dour kind of +person, taking his pleasures as sadly as the proverbial Englishman, and +whose chief aim in life is to place one sou on the top of another, and +when possible insert a third in between.</p> + +<p>Archie approached the aunt of Désirée on the subject<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> of sittings with +some trepidation, but met with an agreeable pliancy from her, and a calm +though indifferent assent from Désirée herself. She had a high opinion +of her own value, and no amount of appreciation surprised her.</p> + +<p>Scanning her afresh as they stood on the pavement making final +arrangements, Archie inwardly congratulated himself. From the heavy +brass-coloured hair massed with a sculptured effect round her +well-poised head, to the firmly planted feet, admirably proportioned to +the rest of her, she was entirely right for his purpose—she seemed the +spirit of Draginoules incarnate. Owing to the opaque pallor of her skin, +her level bar of fair eyebrow and heavily folded lids, her big, finely +modelled nose and faintly tinted mouth, all took on a sculptured quality +that made for repose; the very shadows of her face were delicate in +tone, mere breaths of shadows. Yet she was excessively vital, but it was +a smouldering, restrained vitality suggestive of a quiescent crater. Her +face was too individual to be perfect—the nose over big; the brow too +narrow for the full modelling across the cheekbones, but she had an +egg-like curve from turn of jaw to pointed chin. When she laughed her +teeth showed large and strong, and her throat was the loveliest Archie +had ever seen—magnificently big—and she had a trick of tilting her +head back that made the smoothly knitted muscles of her neck swell a +little under the white skin. As he painted her Archie used to find +himself racking his brains for some speech that would make her head take +that upward poise, so that he could watch the play of throat.</p> + +<p>He chose his background well; a sheltered spot in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> fold of hill just +beyond the town, where a slim young oak sapling still retained its +copper-hued autumn leaves, that seemed almost fiery against the deep, +soft blue of the sky. He had conceived of her as standing under the +oak-tree, so that, to him, working lower down on the slope she too +showed against the sky, seemingly caught in a network of delicate +boughs. Being below her he was also the richer by the soft, +three-cornered shadow under her chin, and the whole of her became a tone +of exquisite delicacy, as of shadowed ivory, in the setting of sky—that +sky of southern spring which seems literally drenched in light. The +tawny note of the oak-leaves was to be repeated in some sheep, which, +though kept subservient to the figure of Désirée, were to supply the +motive of the picture—or so Archie thought till the sudden freak that +made him introduce the fauns.</p> + +<p>Désirée was all for robing herself in her best—a black silk bodice with +a high collar, and a be-trained, jet-spangled skirt, but Archie coaxed +her into wearing the dress he first saw her in; a mere wrapper of +indefinite prune colour, belted in at the waist to show the lines of her +deep chested, long flanked figure, and cut so low as to leave her throat +bare from the pit of it. Her sleeves were rolled back to the elbow and +her arms showed milk-white as far as the reddened wrists and the big, +work-roughened hands that held a hazel switch across her thighs.</p> + +<p>Archie was Anglo-Saxon enough to feel a slight stiffness at the first +sitting, but Désirée was a stranger to the sensation of tied tongue.</p> + +<p>"I like the English," she announced. "Not many of them come here, but I +have not spent my life in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> Draginoules, no, indeed! I was in a laundry +once at La Madeleine. Do you know it? It is where they take in the +washing of Nice. So I used to go much into Nice, and an English lady +there painted me. She had a talent! She made me look beautiful. In +Draginoules, do you know what they call me? They call me <i>l'Anglaise +manquée</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Because you like the English so?" asked Archie. His French was +considerably purer than hers, she spoke it with the Provençal accent +that sounds exactly like a Cockney twang.</p> + +<p>"Because I have the nature, the habits of an English woman. Oh, I assure +you! I like to live out of doors—to be out all day with one's bread and +a bottle of wine and sleep on the hillside—that is what I call living. +I always open my window at night, though my aunt says it is a folly. I +could go to England if I chose, as a maid. My English lady would have +me. Ah! how I long to see England. One gets so tired with Draginoules."</p> + +<p>"But your friends—you would be sorry to leave them?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, for that, I do not care about the people of Draginoules. It was my +mother's place, not mine. I was born in Lyons, where my father was a +silk-weaver. But he was a bad kind of man, so I came to my aunt to live. +I do not think much of the people of Draginoules. They all like me, but +I do not like them!"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go to England, then? Though I think you are far better +here!" quoth Archie, on whom the glamour of the place was strong.</p> + +<p>"My fiancé would kill himself," said Désirée serenely.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +"Oh—you are fiancée?" murmured Archie, wondering why he felt that +absurd mingling of relief and regret.</p> + +<p>"To Auguste Colombini. He is a mechanician in Nice. We are to marry when +he gets a rise. <i>Hélas! je ne serai plus fille!</i>"</p> + +<p>Her words, so simply and directly spoken, caught at Archie's +imagination—"<i>Hélas! je ne serai plus fille!</i>"</p> + +<p>"What a <i>vierge farouche</i>!" he said to himself. "If I can get that +feeling into my picture!" Aloud he said: "And your fiancé—he is very +devoted, then?"</p> + +<p>"He adores me. It is a perfect folly, see you, to feel for anyone what +he does for me. He is mad about me."</p> + +<p>She spoke with a calm arrogance that was very effective. How sure she +was of her man! Was it a peculiarity of temperament in her or her fiancé +that made such confidence possible? Archie flattered himself he was +something of a student of human nature, and he absorbed all of Désirée +that he could get in a spirit positively approaching that of the +journalist.</p> + +<p>When a man and woman fall into the habit of discussing the intimate +things, such as love and marriage; and, above all, of comparing the +sexes; disaster, even if only a temporary one, is apt to follow. Archie +returned to the themes next time she posed for him.</p> + +<p>"So you think a man can care too much for a woman?" he asked, and +stopped for a moment with raised brush to watch her answer. She shrugged +her shoulders slightly, yet enough to make the folds of her wrapper +strain upward for a fleeting moment.</p> + +<p>"As to that I think women are worth it. But it is foolish to care +everything for one person."</p> + +<p>"You could care for others, then—as well as M.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> Colombini?" asked +Archie with a sudden stir at his pulses.</p> + +<p>"I? One can care a little—here and there. But commit a folly for a man, +that is a thing I would never do. And I am very fond of Auguste. If I +did not think we should be happy and faithful I should not marry him. I +look round on all the married people I know, and see nothing but +betrayal everywhere. Here a husband plays his wife false, there she in +her turn cheats him. Bah!—it is not good, that!"</p> + +<p>"How right you are!" said Archie virtuously. "But you do not then think +it necessary to care as much for Auguste as he cares for you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Damme</i>, no! How should I? He pleases me, and he is good—I can respect +him. And I like him to kiss me . . ." the most charming look of +self-consciousness mingled with reminiscence flitted over her face—"but +for him—he is mad when he kisses me. Women do not care like that. It is +a folly. And it is always happier, Monsieur, when it is the husband who +cares the most. That is how men are made."</p> + +<p>Oh, yes, thought Archie, she was a woman after all, this <i>vierge +farouche</i>, and more unashamedly woman, franker in her admissions of +knowledge—for she admitted in her expressive face and gestures more +than she actually said—than any woman of his world. He worked in +silence for a while then told her to rest.</p> + +<p>She flung herself on the turf with an abandonment of limb and muscle +usually only seen in young animals, and he came and lay a little below +her and lit a cigarette. Désirée lay serenely, her face upturned, and he +studied her thoughtfully.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +"Surely very few of your countrywomen are as blonde as you?" he asked +her. "Your eyes are blue, and your brows and lashes a faint brown and +your hair is——"</p> + +<p>He paused, at a loss how to describe her hair. It was not golden, rather +that strong brass-colour that, had he seen it on a sophisticated +townswoman he would have dubbed "peroxide." It was oddly metallic hair, +not only in its colour, but in the carven ripples of it where she wore +it pulled across her low brow and massed in heavy braids round her head. +That way of wearing her hair right down to her brows, except for a +narrow white triangle of forehead showing, boy-like, at one side, gave +her an oddly animal look—using the word in its best sense. A look as of +some low-browed, heavy-tressed faun, fearless and unashamed—it was only +in her eyes that mystery lay.</p> + +<p>"My hair?" she exclaimed, showing her big white teeth in a laugh as +frank as a boy's; "but that, you know, is not natural! It was an +accident!"</p> + +<p>"An accident! How on earth——?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I was doing the <i>ménage</i> for a chemist and his wife over the +border, at Cannes. And she had hair like this, and one day she gave me a +little bottle and said: 'Désirée, you're a good girl, but you don't know +how to make the best of yourself. You put some of this on your head.' I +rubbed some on, one side only, just to see what would happen, and next +day I found one half of my head golden—golden like the sun. 'Mon Dieu!' +I said, 'but what do I look like, one half yellow and one half brown!' +So I poured it on all over. It is nothing now because I have not put on +the stuff for so long, but at one time it was beautiful.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> Such hair! +Below my waist, and gold, oh, such a gold! Now it wants doing again."</p> + +<p>She ducked her head down for him to see the crown of it, and he +perceived from the parting outwards two inches of unabashed dark +hair—almost blue it looked by contrast with the circling wrappings of +yellow. Archie, immensely tickled at finding this splendid young savage +in the Back o' Beyond with dyed hair, could but shout with mirth, and +Désirée, totally unoffended, joined in. When he went back that evening +he felt he knew her far better than on the preceding day. In intimacies +between men and women each day marks a distinct phase, making a series +of steps; and the only possible thing to do is to see that the steps do +not lead downwards. Like most people when on those magic stairs, Archie +gave no heed to the question.</p> + +<p>The next day he unconsciously took up their conversation of the day +before—a sure sign of intimacy if ever there were one. They were +resting again, for he said it was too hot to work; and the sunset effect +he wanted was growing later every day.</p> + +<p>"So you could care a little for some one else before you marry Auguste?" +he suggested lightly enough, and looking away from her to the snow +mountains that bared white fangs in the blue of the sky.</p> + +<p>She laughed a little, stretched herself, drooped her lids, was in a +flash, and for a flash, entirely woman—alluring, withdrawing, sure of +herself. As she gained in poise Archie felt his own tenure on +self-control slipping away from him.</p> + +<p>"Could you?" he persisted, his eyes by now back on her changing face.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +"How does one care? What is it?" she evaded. "I do not think <i>you</i> would +be able to tell me. You are so cold, so English, you would care just as +much as would be pleasant and never enough to make you uncomfortable!"</p> + +<p>The penetration of this remark displeased Archie.</p> + +<p>"But you are like that yourself," he objected. "You are the most cool, +calculating girl I ever met—everything you say shows it."</p> + +<p>She rolled over slightly on the grass, so that her head, the chin thrust +forward on her cupped hands, was brought nearer to him but kept at the +provocative three-quarter angle suggestive of withdrawal. Her thick +heavy lids were drooped, but suddenly they flickered and half-rose to +show a gleam so wild, so unlike anything he had ever seen in her, that +Archie caught his breath. It was as though some alien spirit, a pagan, +woodland thing, was looking at him through the eyes of the +self-possessed, level-headed young woman, who at times even seemed more +<i>bourgeois</i> than peasant.</p> + +<p>"Désirée! How beautiful you are!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"As beautiful as Mademoiselle your fiancée?" asked Désirée.</p> + +<p>With a run Archie descended into the commonplace, and Désirée became for +him nothing but a pretty girl who went rather too far.</p> + +<p>"Englishmen do not care to discuss the lady of their choice," he said +grandiloquently. "May I ask how you knew I was fiancé?"</p> + +<p>"I have seen her picture in your room," said Désirée frankly; "the +patronne told me there was one there. She is pretty, but yes, very +pretty. Her hair is so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> beautifully done in all those little rolls, one +would say it must be false. She is altogether mignonne, one would say +the head of a doll!"</p> + +<p>Désirée was absolutely sincere in thinking she was giving Miss Gwendolen +Gould the highest praise possible. She would willingly have exchanged +her splendid muscular body for the slim, corseted form of Miss Gould, +and have bartered her strongly modelled head for the small, regular +features and Marcel-waved hair of the other girl. It was only his +perception of this that kept Archie from anger, and as it was the truth +of the praise hit him sharply. That night he sat down before the +miniature and conscientiously tried to conjure up the emotions of a +lover. The experiment was a failure.</p> + +<p>When he came to go to bed he found, to his amazement, a sprig of myrtle +lying on his pillow—just a spray of leaves and a cluster of the purple +berries with their little frilled heads.</p> + +<p>"How did that get there I wonder?" he asked himself, and then stooped, +with an exclamation of disgust. A corner of the turned back sheet that +trailed on the floor was lightly powdered with earth as though a muddy +shoe had stood on it. The footprint—if footprint it were—was oddly +impossible in shape, short and rounded, more like the mark of a hoof.</p> + +<p>"Can the patronne's goat have got up here? I saw it wandering in the +passage to-day," thought Archie vexedly. "Beastly animal to drop +half-chewed green food all over my pillow!"</p> + +<p>The injured man thumped his pillow and turned it over, so that the +despised myrtle sprig lay crushed beneath it. Then he went to bed and to +sleep.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +"I dreamt of you all night, Désirée," he told her next day.</p> + +<p>"I was pursuing you round rocks and over streams and through undergrowth +all night long. You were you and yet you weren't. Somehow I got the +impression that it was you as you would have been hundreds and thousands +of years ago. And I kept on losing you and then little satyrs beckoned +at me to show me the way you'd gone, and I stumbled on after the hoofs +that were always flashing up just ahead—just vanishing round corners."</p> + +<p>"Satyrs? What are they?" asked Désirée.</p> + +<p>Archie explained as picturesquely as possible, but was brought to a stop +by a curious change in Désirée's eyes. They wore the strained, misty +look of the person who is trying hard to catch at some long-lost memory. +Again he was startled by that strange feeling that something else was +looking from between those placid lids of hers.</p> + +<p>"But I know," she began—"those creatures you are telling me—<i>what</i> is +it I know about them?" She broke off and shook herself impatiently. +"Bah! It is gone. And then what happened—did you find me at the end?"</p> + +<p>"I can't quite remember," said Archie slowly "Something happened, but +what it was is all blurred. I believe you're a wood-nymph, Désirée—a +wood-nymph whose father was a satyr—and he chased and caught your +mother and took her down through his tangle of undergrowth with his +hands in her hair, never heeding her screams. You have very definite +little points at the top of your ears, you know! We all have them a bit +to remind us of our wild-dog days, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> yours are the most so I've ever +seen. Do you never take off all your clothes and go creeping and +slipping through the woods at night, to bathe in one of the crater-pools +by the light of the moon?"</p> + +<p>"How did you know?" She turned wide, startled eyes on him, her quickened +breath fluttered her gown distressfully.</p> + +<p>"What!—you do it, then?" exclaimed Archie.</p> + +<p>"No! no! What folly are you talking!" She sprang to her feet and slipped +behind the oak-sapling, as though it were a defence against some danger; +across the boughs he saw her puzzled, fearful eyes. As he watched her +the expression of alarm faded—she put up her hand to her hair, gave it +a quieting pat and tucked some stray strands into place, then she looked +across at the easel.</p> + +<p>"It must be time to work again!" she exclaimed. "Have we been resting +long, M'sieu? I feel as though I'd been asleep and you'd just awakened +me." She yawned as she spoke, stretching her strong arms in a slow, wide +circle, the muscles of her shoulders rounding forward and making two +little hollows appear above her collar-bones. The sight aroused the +artist in Archie, and he too scrambled up, and betook himself to work. +The sheep and goats that he had bribed the shepherd to pasture there +happened to "come" as he wanted them that evening, and he began to work +away at them in silence. One of the goats, a piebald, shaggy creature, +reared itself up on its hind legs, with its fore-feet against the tree +trunk, and began to nibble at the foliage. Something about the pose of +the creature sent a swift suggestion to Archie's mind, and he just had +time to rough in the legs, with their slight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> outward tilt, the hoofs +set firmly apart and the tail sticking out and up from the sharply +curved-in rump, before the animal dropped on all fours and moved away. +Archie, with the smile of the creator in his eyes, worked on, and the +goat's legs merged into the beginnings of a slim human body with the +hands leaning against the tree and the head, tilted on one side, peering +around at the figure of Désirée. Suddenly he gave an exclamation of +annoyance.</p> + +<p>"There is some one watching us from those myrtle bushes. Confound the +beggar—some one from the village, I suppose."</p> + +<p>Désirée turned sharply, just in time to see a brown face grinning +through the leaves. It was a face compact of curiously slanting +lines—upward-twitched tufts of brows, upward wrinkles at the corners of +the narrow eyes, and a slanting mouth that laughed above a pointed, +thrusting chin.</p> + +<p>"That! That is only my little brother, M'sieu. It is one of God's +innocents and lame on both feet. Sylvestre! Come out and speak to +M'sieu—no one will hurt you."</p> + +<p>The bushes rustled and parted and an odd little figure, apparently that +of a boy of about ten, came scrambling out with a queer, lungeing action +from the hips. The child's legs were deformed, but he swung himself +forward at a marvellous speed on a pair of clumsy crutches. Archie saw +that when he was not laughing his brown eyes were wide and grave, with a +look of innocence in them that contrasted oddly with the knowing gleam +they showed a minute earlier.</p> + +<p>"But he is exactly what I want for the picture!" cried Archie, running +his hand through the boy's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> tangled curls and tilting his face gently +backwards. "He is exactly like the things I was telling you of. He must +sit to me."</p> + +<p>He deftly tugged the boy's shirt out of his belt and peeled it off him, +exposing a thin little brown body with a skin as fine as silk. When he +felt the sun on his bare flesh the child made guttural sounds of +delight, flinging himself backwards on the ground; and, supported by his +elbows, letting his head tip back till his curls touched the grass. As +the shielding locks fell away, Archie saw with a thrill which was almost +repulsion, that dark brown hair grew thickly out of the boy's ears. . . .</p> + +<p>"Would he stay still, do you think?" he asked Désirée.</p> + +<p>"He will if I tell him," replied Désirée. "Come to me, Sylvestre," and +drawing the child to her she stroked his head and whispered to him with +a motherly gesture of which Archie would not have thought her capable. +He had listened to her exceedingly modern views on the subject of the +family, and her own strictly limited intentions in that respect.</p> + +<p>After the addition of Sylvestre the picture made great strides, even if +the intimacy between Archie and Désirée advanced less rapidly than +before. And yet every now and again, in sudden flashes of wildness, in a +half-uttered phrase totally at variance with her normal self—little +things that she seemed to remember from some forgotten whole, Désirée +would give him that impression of being two people at once; and always, +on these occasions, she was as puzzled as he, and with an added touch of +something that seemed almost shame. For the everyday Désirée, that calm, +practical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> and comely young woman, Archie's friendliness was touched by +nothing warmer than the inevitable element of sex; but the shy, bold +thing that sometimes peeped from between her lids, that thing that +seemed to take possession of her beautiful body, and mock and allure and +chill him in a breath, that thing was waking an answering spirit in +himself, and he knew it. Miss Gould's portrait was unable to protect him +from wakeful nights, when he turned his pillow again and again to find a +cool surface for his cheek, nights when he would at last fling off the +clothes and lean out of the window to watch the steel-blue dawn turn to +the blessed light of everyday. He was living in a state of tension, and +it seemed to him that some great event was holding its breath to spring, +as though the very trees and rocks, the brooding sky and quiescent +pools, were all in some conspiracy, hoodwinking yet preparing him for +the moment of revelation.</p> + +<p>It was on to the sensitive surface of this mood that a letter from +Gwendolen, announcing her speedy arrival on the Riviera dropped like a +dart, tearing the delicate tissues and stringing the fibres to the +necessity for haste. Gwendolen, aunt-dragoned, and Baedeker in hand, +meant the return to the acceptance of the old values that had once +filled him with complacency. And yet, with all the jarring sense of +intrusion that Gwendolen's advent instilled, there mingled a feeling +that was almost relief—as though he were being saved, against his will, +but with his judgment, from something too disturbing and beautiful to be +quite comfortable.</p> + +<p>Three or four days after receiving Gwendolen's letter, he put the last +touches to the picture and informed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> Désirée he would need her no more. +She received the news quite calmly, apparently without regret—thus do +women tactlessly fail in what is expected of them. Archie felt absurdly +flat as he wrapped up his wet brushes in a week-old sheet of the <i>Petit +Niçois</i>. He also felt very virtuous, and told himself it was not many +men who would have refrained from making love to the girl under the +circumstances. It is astonishing what a comfortless thing is the glow of +conscious virtue—it is bright in hue but gives off no warmth.</p> + +<p>There was a little hut, used for stacking wood, close to where he +worked, and here, thanks to the courtesy of the owner, he was wont to +put his picture for the night. Désirée, as usual, helped him to carry it +in and plant the legs of the easel firmly into the earthen floor. He had +worked late, and the sun had just slipped behind the far ridge of the +mountains; the tiny hut was filled with a deepening half-light, the +stacked brush-wood seemed wine-coloured in the warm shadow, here and +there a peeled twig stood out luminously. By the open door hoof-marks in +the trampled earth showed that the patronne's mule had been carrying +away wood that morning. That was as palpable as the fact that it must +have been Sylvestre's deformed foot which had soiled Archie's sheet, yet +those marks re-created the atmosphere of his dream, and seemed, in the +sudden confusion mounting to his brain at the warmth and nearness of +Désirée, to mix madly with Sylvestre, and rustled undergrowth and the +glimmer of elusive hoofs round myrtle-bushes—and the glimmer of +something whiter and more elusive still.</p> + +<p>He could hear Désirée's breathing beside him—not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> as even as usual, but +deeper-drawn and uncertain, and turning, he met the sidelong glance of +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Désirée . . . you said you sometimes slipped out at night and played in +the woods—and the pools. Take me out with you to-night and show me +where you go and what you do. . . . I'll be awfully good, I swear I +will—you're not a woman, you're a nymph, a strange, uncanny thing. I +believe you meet your kinsfolk there and dance with them—Désirée!"</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a moment in silence. In her eyes her normal and +her unknown selves contended.</p> + +<p>"It is true I often go out as you say, something drives me, but I do not +know why myself. And I get very tired and can never remember clearly +what it has been like. It is as though I did it almost in my sleep, or +had dreamt it."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a dream—everything's a dream, and I've got to wake up soon. +Let's have this bit of dream together—Désirée!"</p> + +<p>She yielded. They took bread and wine and apples for a midnight feast, +and set off together over the lava-fields to the woods that tufted the +mountain slopes. Through the deep, soft night the pallor of her face and +throat glimmered as through dark water. She held his hand to guide him +over the fissures and round the piled boulders, once he slipped on a +hummock of harsh grass, and felt her grow rigid on the instant to check +his fall. They were very silent, until, seated at the edge of the woods, +they ate their supper, and then they laughed softly together like +children, with fragmentary speech; and once Désirée sang a snatch of a +Provençal song; Archie, who knew his Mistral, joining in.</p> + +<p>Presently, when they fell on silence again, it seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> the wood was full +of noises—stealthy footfalls, snapping of dry twigs, the rustling of +parted shrubs. As the late moon, almost at the full, swam up the sky, +making the distant snow-peaks gleam like white flames against the dusky +blue, and shimmering on the pools cupped here and there over the +hollowed expanse below, Archie could have sworn that the penetrating +light showed quick-glancing faces and bright eyes from the thicket. . . . +Once a great white owl did sail out with a beating of wings; so close to +them that they could see the stiff brows that bristled over his lambent +orbs, and once a strong smell and a gleam of black and white told of a +wild cat tracking her prey.</p> + +<p>They buried the disfiguring remnants of their little feast, and then +Archie solemnly poured out what was left of the red wine on to the slope +below.</p> + +<p>"For the gods!" he announced, "the liquor for us and the dregs for +them!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried Désirée, as though his action pricked sleeping memories to +life, "now I remember it all again! I forget when I go home, but then +the next time everything is clear again, and so it goes on."</p> + +<p>She disappeared in a jutting spur of the wood, and Archie scrambled to +his feet and followed her. As he broke through to the further edge, +which hung over a wide pool, he caught his foot in something +soft—Désirée's clothes that lay in a circle, just as she had slipped +out of them.</p> + +<p>She stood at the pool's brim, her hands clasping at the back of her +head; a thing to dream of. She was so lovely that all feeling died save +a passionate appreciation, keen to the verge of pain; she was so lovely +that of necessity she awoke an impersonal motion. Slowly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> she stretched +herself, and as the muscles rippled into curves and sank, the delicate +shadows ebbed and breathed out again on the pearl-white of her body. +Archie's every nerve was strung not to lose one line or one breath of +tone.</p> + +<p>Putting out a foot she touched the water, so that little tremors soft as +feathers fled over the surface; then, as she waded in, deeper and +deeper, the water parted round her in flakes of brightness that shook +and mixed up and broke away. When she rose, dripping wet, the moonlight +refracted off her, was mirrored in the water, and thrown back again on +her—a magic shuttle weaving an aura of whiteness. Long arrows of light +fled back through the pool as she waded to shore, where she stood for a +moment motionless; head slightly forward, arms hanging, and one hip +thrown outwards as she poised her weight. Myriads of tiny, +crescent-shaped drops clung to her limbs like fish-scales, so that she +seemed more mermaiden than wood-nymph, but Archie's eyes proclaimed her +Artemis—she would have calmed a satyr as she stood. Thoughts of forest +glades were chill, sweet sports were held, and the wildest hoof was +tamed to the childlike kinship with Nature that is pagan innocence, +floated through his mind like visible things.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she became conscious of his presence, and gave one glance in +which invitation and a certain calm aloofness seemed to mingle.</p> + +<p>"Désirée!" stammered Archie, "Désirée!"</p> + +<p>All at once excitement tingled through him, blurring his ideas, just as +chloroform sets the blood pricking with thousands of points and edges, +while dizzying the brain. She stayed still a second longer; then, +either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> the fearful nymph swayed her utterly, or, as it seemed to +Archie, a sudden rejection of him, the clumsy, civilized mortal, sprang +into her eyes. She flung up her head, turned, and was gone in the tangle +of the woods. Without more than a second's hesitation he plunged in +after her.</p> + +<p>To Archie, whenever he looked back, that night seemed an orgy of +chase-gone-mad; gathering in force as it went and sweeping into its +resistless flow the most incongruous of elements.</p> + +<p>He ran after her, stumbling, tripping, whipped across the face by +brambles. Everything in life was crystallized into the desire to catch +up, to track her to the enchanted green where, with her, he could become +part of a remote free life he had never imagined before. All his own +personality, except that in him which was hers, had ceased to +exist—work, Gwendolen, the great world, and the inn at Draginoules, +were wiped out of knowledge by the force of his concentration on one +thing. The arbitrary line drawn between the actual and the unreal, the +credible and the impossible, sanity and so-called madness, was swept +away. She, the descendant of the gods knew what strange race—a race +that perhaps had lingered in these crater-fastnesses and myrtle groves +long after it had died off the rest of the earth—was fleeing before him +through a wood alive with brightened eyes and quickened hoofs; and in +her veins the slender strain of blood derived from some goat-legged, +tall-eared thing—a strain asleep through the generations of her +ancestors, had mastered all the rest of her heritage, and was triumphant +in her soul as in Sylvestre's body. She ran on, swiftly, and without +effort, and Archie ran after her.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +Dawn broke at last, reluctant, chill, showing the woods clear-edged and +motionless as though cut out of steel, glimmering on the quiet pools and +the ribbed lava slopes, though the hollow of the plain still held a +great lake of shadow.</p> + +<p>Désirée's clothes lay no longer by the pool where she had bathed; no +trace of human presence remained; even the marshy edge showed only +trampled hoof-marks, as though some goat-footed herd had watered there.</p> + +<p>To Archie, breaking through the undergrowth at the edge of the wood, it +seemed incredible that everything should look so much as usual. Still +more he felt the wonder when, with the broad sunlight, he reached his +inn. He himself felt so shaken in soul that even the thought of the +Englishman's panacea—a cold bath—failed to appeal to him as a solution +of all trouble. Plucked out of his accustomed place, flung by the sport +of what strange gods he knew not, into a headlong medley of undreamed +emotions, his values had been so violently disrupted that he could not +have told which held true worth—the normal life of Gwendolens and +one-man shows and newspaper criticisms, or what had passed in the woods +that night. And, whatever strange rite he had surprised, and whether it +were golden actuality that a man might live happy because he had once +seen, or the mere wildness of a dream, there had been something about it +which taught him not to blaspheme the revelation. He did not tell +himself that the <i>vin ordinaire</i> must have gone to his head, or that he +had been a romantic fool worked on by moonlight. This was remarkable, +for few people are strong enough not to profane the past.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +So much of grace held by him even when he found a letter awaiting him to +tell of Gwendolen's arrival with the obedient aunt at Cannes, whither +she summoned him. He debated whether to say good-bye to Désirée or not. +The matter was settled for him by meeting her accidently outside the +<i>buvette</i>. She was looking pale and jaded, not at all at her best, but +her eyes were blankly unknowing and clear of all embarrassment. She said +good-bye with charming unemotional friendliness and informed him that +she was going to be married very soon—Monsieur Colombini had had a rise +that justified it. Here was anti-climax enough, even if the cold bath, +the letter and the prose of packing were not sufficient. And yet, since +it had not been Désirée, the frank peasant, who had shown Archie the +wonders of that night, his memories remained. Half-fearful and half +splendid, not enough to make him walk with the vision beautiful, but +merely enough to spoil his pictures for the public, because instead of +being content with the merely obvious he was now always trying for +something beyond his powers to express. Enough also, to prick him to an +occasional weary clear-eyed knowledge of his Gwendolen—a knowledge that +was hardly criticism, for he admitted his kinship with her world. And +what it was that companioned him, that he strove to show in his +pictures, he never entirely told; for just as no woman ever tells what +it is her sex has and the other lacks—that something which makes all +the difference—just as no man tells a woman what it is he and his +fellows talk about when the last skirt has trailed from the +dinner-table, so no one ever tells the whole truth about the beloved.</p> + + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +<a name="ii" id="ii"></a>THE LADDER</h2> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span><br /> +THE LADDER</p> + + +<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +I<br /> +<br /> +THE TRIAL</h3> + +<p class="center">(<i>Account taken from a contemporary journal</i>)</p> + +<p class="noi">"<span class="smcap">To-day</span>, March 3, the Court being sat in the Castle at Launceston, about +eight o'clock in the morning, the prisoner was set to the bar.</p> + +<p>"Sophia Bendigo, of the parish of St. Annan in this county, was +indicted, for that she, not having the fear of God before her eyes, but +being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, on October 20, +in the 24th year of his Majesty's reign, and again since, to wit, on +October 21, with force and arms upon the body of Constantine Bendigo, +Gent., her father, did make an assault, and in her malice aforethought, +did kill and murder, by putting into some water-gruel a certain powder +called arsenic, and afterwards giving to him, the said Constantine +Bendigo, a potion thereof, knowing it to be mixed with the powder +aforesaid, so that he, the said Constantine, was poisoned, and of which +poison, he, the said Constantine, died, on the 22nd of the said month of +October; against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and +dignity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +"The Counsel for the Crown were the Hon. Mr. Bathwick; Mr. Sergeant +Wheeler; Mr. Grice, Town Clerk of Launceston; Mr. Rose, Mr. Kirton, and +the Hon. Mr. Harrington: And for the prisoner, Mr. Ford, Mr. Bennett and +Mr. Walton.</p> + +<p>"The Counsel for the Crown having opened the indictment, proceeded to +inform the Court and Jury that this prosecution was carried on by the +order, and at the expense of his Majesty (who is ever watchful to +preserve the lives, liberties, and properties of his subjects) against +the prisoner at the bar, Sophia Bendigo, for one of the most atrocious +crimes; the cruel, inhuman, and deliberate murder of her own father: +That the prisoner at the bar was the daughter and only child of Mr. +Constantine Bendigo, Squire of Troon, in the hundred of Penwith, a +gentleman both by his birth and education; that as she was the only, so +she was the beloved child of her father, who had spared no pains in +giving her a genteel, as well as a pious education; that her father, +indeed, had used this pious fraud (if he might be allowed that +expression) in saying that her fortune would be £10,000, to the end, he +supposed, that his daughter might be married suitable to such a fortune. +That in June of the preceding year one Capt. William Lucius Crandon came +to Penwith map-making, and hearing that Miss Bendigo was a £10,000 +fortune, and having a mind to marry this fortune, notwithstanding he had +a wife and child alive, contrived to get acquainted with this family; +how well he succeeded, and how sadly for this family, this unhappy +catastrophe has shown. That Mr. Bendigo, having been informed that Mr. +Crandon was married, he desired his daughter to break<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> off all +correspondence with him; that instead of doing so, she acquainted Mr. +Crandon with her father's command, who, instead of clearing his +character to her father's satisfaction, contrives the means and +persuades this beloved, this tenderly indulged daughter, to be an actor +in her father's destruction.</p> + +<p>"That the Captain left Cornwall at the end of September, since when, on +the miscarriage of his plans, he had disappeared entirely; and soon +after he is gone, we find this wicked scheme beginning to be put into +execution. That on October 20, Mr. Bendigo found himself much disordered +after taking some tea, that next day, the prisoner having made him +another dish of tea, deceased had thought it to taste odd and sent it +downstairs; that Crandon, to hasten the work of destruction, sent a +letter to the prisoner, making use of an allegorical expression, not to +spare the powder, in order to keep the rust off the pebbles. That the +tea being too thin to admit of a larger quantity at the time, you will +find by the witnesses that shall be produced, that the prisoner did mix +a large quantity of the powder in a pan of water-gruel and gave some of +it to her father next day which had such terrible effects as to occasion +his death on the morning of the 23rd. That he would call the physicians +first, and they would prove that what was administered to the deceased +was poison and the cause of his death.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Harvey, of St. Annan, and Dr. Polwhele, of Penzance, were then +called and both sworn; and Mr. Harvey said that, being on the evening of +the 22nd sent for to Mr. Bendigo, he thus made his complaints: That he +had a violent burning pain, saying it was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> ball of fire in his guts, +that he vomited much since taking some tea two days before and again +after taking some gruel that evening, that he had a cold sweat, hiccups, +prickings all over his body, which he compared to a number of needles. +He desired to drink, but could not swallow, his pulse intermitted, his +tongue swelled, his throat was excoriated, his breath difficult and +interrupted. Towards morning he grew worse, became delirious and sank +gradually, dying about six o'clock in the morning.</p> + +<p>"Being asked if he thought Mr. Bendigo was poisoned, witness answered, +He really believed he was, for that the symptoms, while living, were +like those of a person who had taken arsenic; and the appearances after +death, like those that were poisoned by arsenic."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> + +<p>"King's Counsel: Did you also make an examination of the powder found in +the gruel?</p> + +<p>"Mr. Harvey: I did. I threw it upon a hot iron; boiled ten grains in +water and divided the concoction, after filtering it into five equal +parts. Into one I put oil of vitriol, into another tartar, into the +third spirit of sal ammoniac, into the fourth spirit of salt, and into +the fifth spirit of wine. I tried it also with syrup of violets, and +made the like experiments with the same quantity of white arsenic which +I bought in Penzance. It answered exactly to every one of them, and +therefore I believed it to be white arsenic.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Harvey further deposed that Mr. Bendigo told him that he suspected +poison, and that he believed it came to his daughter with the serpentine +beads,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> for that his daughter had had a present of those damned pebbles +that morning; that if he, this witness, would look in the gruel, he +might find something, that when he, this witness, asked Mr. Bendigo whom +he imagined gave him the poison, he replied, A poor love-sick girl, but +I forgive her; what will not a woman do for the man she loves?</p> + +<p>"That later on the evening of the 22nd, Mr. Bendigo being a trifle +easier, consented to see Miss, that he, this witness, was present when +Miss came into the chamber, and fell down upon her knees, saying, Oh! +sir, forgive me! Do what you will with me, and I'll never see Crandon +more if you will but forgive me. To which Mr. Bendigo replied, I forgive +thee, but thou shouldst have remembered that I am thy father, upon which +Miss said, Oh, sir, your goodness strikes daggers to my soul; sir, I +must down on my knees and pray that you will not curse me. He replied, +No, child, I bless thee and pray that God may bless thee and let thee +live to repent. Miss then declared she was innocent of this illness, and +he replied, that he feared she was not, and that some of the powder was +in such hands as would show it against her. Witness added that deceased, +before Miss Bendigo's entry, had bidden him look to the remainder of the +gruel.</p> + +<p>"Prisoner's Counsel: Who was it sent for you when deceased was taken +ill?</p> + +<p>"Harvey: James Ruffiniac,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> the steward, fetched me and said it was at +the command of Miss Bendigo, who said, to-morrow will not satisfy me, +you must go now, which he did.</p> + +<p>"Prisoner's Counsel: All the years you have known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> Miss Bendigo what has +been her behaviour to her father? Has she not always done everything +that an affectionate child could for her father's ease?</p> + +<p>"Harvey: She always behaved like a dutiful daughter, as far as ever I +knew, and seemed to do everything in her power for her father's recovery +whenever he was indisposed.</p> + +<p>"King's Counsel: Did she tell you that she had put anything into her +father's gruel and that she feared it might in some measure occasion his +death?</p> + +<p>"Harvey: She never did.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Polwhele, having been sworn at the same time as Mr. Harvey, and +stood in Court close by him, was now asked by the King's Counsel if he +was present at the opening of Mr. Bendigo and whether the observations +made by Mr. Harvey were true: he said he was present and made the same +observations himself. He was then asked what was his opinion of the +cause of the death of Mr. Bendigo, and he replied, by poison absolutely.</p> + +<p>"Eliza Ruffiniac, being sworn, said, that on the afternoon of the 20th, +her master being unwell, from (as they thought at the time) an attack of +bile, Miss Bendigo, the prisoner at the bar, made him a dish of tea. +That after taking it he was very sick, but seemed easier next day, when +Miss again made him some tea which he did not drink. That next evening +he sent for the witness and asked for some water-gruel to be made; that +Miss on hearing of it, said, I will make it, that there's no call for +you to leave your ironing; that Miss was a long time stirring the gruel +in the pantry, and on coming into the kitchen said, I have been taking +of my father's gruel, and I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> I shall often eat of it; I have taken +a great fancy to it.</p> + +<p>"King's Counsel: Do you recollect that one Keast, the cook-maid, had +been taken ill with drinking some tea the day before, and tell the Court +how it was.</p> + +<p>"E. Ruffiniac: Hester Keast brought down the tea from my master's room +and afterwards drank it in the scullery, where I found her crying out +she was dying, being taken very ill with a violent vomiting and pains +and a great thirst.</p> + +<p>"Prisoner's Counsel: On that occasion, how did Miss Bendigo behave?</p> + +<p>"E. Ruffiniac: She made Hester Keast go to her bed and sent her a large +quantity of weak broth and white wine whey.</p> + +<p>"King's Counsel: Did you ever see Miss Bendigo burn any papers, and +when?</p> + +<p>"E. Ruffiniac: On the evening of the 22nd, Miss brought a great many +papers in her apron down into the kitchen and put them on the fire, then +thrust them into it with a stick and said, now, thank God, I am pretty +easy, and then went out of the kitchen; that this witness and Hester +Keast were in the kitchen at the time; that they, observing something to +burn blue, it was raked out and found to be a paper of powder that was +not quite consumed; that there was this inscription on the paper; Powder +to clean the pebbles, and that this paper, she, the witness, delivered +to Dr. Polwhele next day. Being shown a paper, with the above +inscription on it, partly burnt, she said she believed the paper to be +the same the prisoner put into the fire and she took out.</p> + +<p>"This witness was asked if she ever heard the prisoner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> use any unseemly +expressions against her father, and what they were? Replied, many times; +sometimes she damned him for an old rascal; and once when she was in the +dairy and the prisoner passing at the time outside, she heard her say, +Who would not send an old father to hell for ten thousand pounds?</p> + +<p>"Hester Keast, the cook-maid, deposed, That, on the 21st she bore down +her master's dish of tea and drank of it, being afterwards taken very +ill, that on the next day, being down in the kitchen after her master +was taken ill, Lylie Ruffiniac brought a pan with some gruel in it to +the table and said, Hester, did you ever see any oatmeal so white? that +this witness replied, That oatmeal? Why, it is flour! and Lylie replied, +I never saw flour so gritty in my life; that they showed it to Mr. +Harvey, the apothecary, who took it away with him.</p> + +<p>"James Ruffiniac was next called and sworn.</p> + +<p>"King's Counsel: When your master was dead, did you not have some +particular conversation with the prisoner? Recollect yourself, and tell +my Lord and the Jury what it was.</p> + +<p>"J. Ruffiniac: After my master was dead, Miss Bendigo asked me if I +would live along with her, and I said no, and she then said, If you will +go with me, your fortune will be made; I asked her what she wanted me to +do and she replied, Only to hire a post-chaise to go to London. I was +shocked at the proposal and absolutely refused her request. On this she +put on a forced laugh, and said, I was only joking with you.</p> + +<p>"Charles Le Petyt, Clerk in Holy Orders, was next called and sworn, and +said, That, meeting Miss Bendigo in St. Annan when the crowd was +insulting her, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> took her into the inn, and spoke with her there, +asking if she would not return home under his protection; she answered +yes, that upon this he got a closed post-chaise and brought her home; +that upon her coming home she asked him what she should do, that he, +having heard her, said that they should fix the guilt upon Crandon if +she could produce anything to that end, but in some agony she replied +she had destroyed all evidences of his guilt.</p> + +<p>"Prisoner's Counsel: Do you, Mr. Le Petyt, believe that the Prisoner had +any intention to go off, from what appeared to you, and if she was not +very ready to come back with you from the inn?</p> + +<p>"Le Petyt: She was very ready to come back, and desired me to protect +her from the mob, and she had, I am sure, no design to make an escape.</p> + +<p>"Here the Counsel for the Crown rested their proof against the prisoner, +and she was thereupon called to make her defence.</p> + +<p>"Prisoner: My Lord, in my unhappy plight, if I should use any terms that +may be thought unfitting, I hope I shall be forgiven, for it will not be +with any desire to offend. My Lord, some time before my father's death, +I unhappily became acquainted with Captain Crandon. This, after a time, +gave offence to my father, and he grew very angry with me over Captain +Crandon. I am passionate, which I know is a fault, and when I have found +my father distrustful over Captain Crandon, I may have let fall an angry +expression, but never to wish him injury, I have always done all in my +power to tend him, as the witnesses against me have not denied. When my +father was dead, being ill and unable to bear confinement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> in the house, +I took a walk over to St. Annan, but I was insulted, and a mob raised +about me, so that when Mr. Le Petyt came to me I desired his protection +and to go home with him, which I did.</p> + +<p>"I will not deny, my Lord, that I did put some powder into my father's +gruel; but I here solemnly protest, as I shall answer it at the great +tribunal, and God knows how soon, that I had no evil intention in +putting the powder in his gruel: It was put in to procure his love and +not his death.</p> + +<p>"Then she desired that several witnesses might be called in her defence, +who all allowed that Miss Bendigo always behaved to her father in a +dutiful and affectionate manner. And Anne Lear and Elizabeth Pollard, +women occasionally employed at Troon, deposed that they had heard Lylie +Ruffiniac say, Damn the black bitch (meaning the prisoner), I hope I +shall see her walk up a ladder and swing.</p> + +<p>"The prisoner having gone through her defence, the King's Counsel, in +reply, observed, That the prisoner had given no evidence in +contradiction of the facts established by the witnesses for the crown; +that indeed, Anne Lear and Elizabeth Pollard had sworn to an expression +of Lylie Ruffiniac, which, if true, served to show ill-will in Ruffiniac +towards the prisoner, but that he thought the incident was too slight to +deserve any manner of credit. That the other witnesses, produced by the +prisoner, served only to prove that Mr. Bendigo was a very fond, +affectionate and indulgent parent, therefore there could be no pretence +of giving him powders or anything else to promote in him an affection +for his daughter. That if the Jury believed the prisoner to be innocent, +they would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> take care to acquit her: but if they believed her guilty, +they would take care to acquit their own consciences.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p> + +<p>"The prisoner desired leave to speak in answer to what the King's +Counsel had said, which being granted, she said, The gentleman was +mistaken in thinking the powders were given to her father to produce his +affection to her, for that they were given to procure her father's love +to Captain Crandon.</p> + +<p>"The judge summed up the evidence in a clear and impartial manner to the +Jury, and they, without going out of Court, brought in their verdict: +Guilty, Death.</p> + +<p>"After sentence of death was pronounced upon her she, in a very solemn +and affecting manner, prayed the Court that she might have as much time +as could be allowed her to prepare for her great and immortal state. The +Court told her she should have a convenient time allowed her; but +exhorted her, in the meantime, to lose not a moment, but incessantly to +implore the mercy of that Being to Whom alone mercy belongs."</p> + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>II<br /> +<br /> +FIRST STEPS</h3> + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">To</span> the making of such a scene as that recounted in the contemporary +journal, much had gone during the months so crudely analysed. That +damning pile of evidence had been building itself up, touch upon touch, +since the first moment when Sophie Bendigo's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> eyes lit on the instigator +of the trouble; and the causes of her own share in it had been +strengthening from far earlier even than that. In after years the Wise +Woman of Bosullow would recount that when the baby Sophie was brought to +her to be passed for luck through the ringed stone of the Men-an-Tol, +she had foretold for her the rise in life that eventually came about. +True, the terms of the prophecy had been so vague that beyond the fact +that a ladder, metaphorical or otherwise, was to play a part in Sophie's +career, Mr. Bendigo had not been much the wiser. The mother had lain in +the bleak moorland churchyard for several years now, but she had had +time, during the most malleable years of a girl's life, the early teens, +to impress Sophie with a sense of destiny. Not for her the vulgar loves +and joys of other country girls, to her some one shining, resplendent, +would come flashing down, and Sophie must learn to bear with powdered +hair and hoops against that moment. For London, of course, would be her +splendid bourne, and as to saying that hoops got in the way of her +legs—why, hoops were the mode and to a hoop she must come. Since Mrs. +Bendigo had died, worn out by the terrible combination of the Squire's +slow cruelty and his suave tongue, Sophie had given up the struggle with +hoops and powder, but she still lived for and by her vision of the +future. If Sophie Bendigo had not glanced over her shoulder in Troon +Lane, thereby presenting an exceptional face at the most alluring of +angles—chin up and eyes innocently sidelong—to the view of Mr. +Crandon, she might never have climbed so high. When she saw Mr. Crandon, +his white wig tied with a black ribbon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> and an excellent paste pin +flashing from his cravat, riding up the lane, she never doubted that her +star had risen at last.</p> + +<p>Sophie Bendigo was of the pure Celtic type still preserved among the +intermarrying villages of West Penwith. Her rather coarse hair was a +burnt black, so were her thick, straight brows, but her eyes were of +that startlingly vivid blue one only meets in Cornish women and Cornish +seas. There was something curiously Puck-like about Sophie; the +cheekbones wide and jaw pointed, while her mouth was long, the thin, +finely cut lips curving up at the ends, and there was a freakish flaunt +at the corners of her brows—Crandon thought of piskies as he looked. +She wore a plain white gown, low in the throat and short in the sleeve, +and she carried an apron-load of elder-flower, the pearly blossoms of it +showing faintly green against the deader white of the linen.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, but does this lead to St. Annan?" asked Crandon, bending a +little towards her. Sophie felt one swift pang lest he should be riding +out of her life straightway, and swiftly answered:</p> + +<p>"You are out of your way," she told him, "this lane only leads to our +house. You must go back to the highway and follow it past the 'Nineteen +Merry Maidens' and turn on to your right—but it is a matter of three or +four miles."</p> + +<p>For a moment they remained looking at each other, then Crandon said:</p> + +<p>"Is there perhaps an inn near here where I and my mare could rest? We +have come from Zennor this morning, and she is newly shod."</p> + +<p>"There is no need for an inn," said Sophie, "we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> are always glad to rest +a traveller at Troon Manor. I am Sophie Bendigo."</p> + +<p>Crandon smilingly dismounted and walked by her side up the lane.</p> + +<p>"It would be ungracious to refuse when the Fates have led me and Venus +herself seconds the invitation. . . . Have you just risen from the sea, I +wonder, that your eyes still hold its hue?"</p> + +<p>Sophie, used only to the clumsy overtures of the county squires, flushed +with pleasure, not at the allusion, which she did not understand, but at +the air of gallantry which pervaded the man. She glanced up admiringly +between her narrowed lids—Crandon was accustomed to such glances, so +had his girl-wife in Scotland looked at him, before he deserted her and +her child. He meditated no harm to this girl, no plan was formulated in +his mind; and as to the ten thousand pounds, of which so much was heard +later on, no whisper of it had then reached his ears. The road had led +to her, her own face lured him on, and a few hours of a pretty girl on +such a June day, where was the harm? The innocence and spontaneity of +his feelings gave the Captain a delightful glow of conscious virtue, and +he walked beside Sophie with a slight swagger of enjoyment.</p> + +<p>The drive was a mere rutted cart-track; hemlock, foxgloves, purple +knapweed, blue scabious and tall, thin-stemmed buttercups grew along the +tangled hedges, and the blackberry flowers patterned the brambles with +pearliness. The luminous chequer-work of sun and shadow fell over +Sophie's white gown, and the green light, filtering through the trees, +reflected on her face and on her glossy head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> so that she seemed to be +walking in the depths of the sea, and Crandon's simile gained in +aptness.</p> + +<p>At the bend of the lane they came on the Manor House, its whitewash +dazzling in the sunshine, even the shadows thrown on it by the eaves and +sills were so clear they gave a curious effect of being as light as the +rest. Only the Bendigo arms—a clenched fist—carved on the granite +lintel, had been left untouched by the whitewash, and showed a sullen +grey. A few fawn-coloured fowls, blazing like copper in the sunshine, +pecked at the dusty ground, and some white pigs, looking as utterly +naked as only white pigs can, snuffled at a rubbish heap, their big ears +flapping. A tall, lean woman, clad in a dirty silk dressing-jacket of +bright yellow, was talking to a labourer by the dairy door. There was +something oddly suggestive of secrecy in the turn of their shoulders and +their bent heads, and the woman's soiled finery made her thin face—that +of a shrewd but comely peasant, framed in an untidy pompadour of +reddish-brown hair—seem oddly incongruous. The man lapsed into +insignificance beside her, yet something of likeness in their sharpened +lines, and in the tinge of hot colour showing up through them, +proclaimed them kin. They were Lylie Ruffiniac, Squire Bendigo's +housekeeper, and her brother James, who acted as bailiff on the estate. +Sophie, her head turned towards her companion, did not see them, but +Crandon did, and was pricked at once to curiosity. Living as he did by +his wits, his every fibre was quickened to superficial alertness, though +of intellectual effort he was almost incapable. An old journal for 1752 +that published, in addition to its account of the trial, some "Memoirs +of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> Life of Lucius William Crandon, Esq.," had enough acumen to +remark: "He was not, however, destitute of parts, for he would often +surprise those who entertained a mean opinion of his abilities, by +schemes and concertions which required more genius than they thought he +had been master of. . . . As he was not of sufficient learning to qualify +him either for law or for physic, he turned his thought towards the +army, where a very moderate share of literature is sufficient, and where +few voices disqualify a man from making a figure. . . ." And a figure +Lucius Crandon certainly made—a figure that caused the woman in the +yellow jacket to stop and stare, then to disappear into the house by a +side-door—Crandon received the impression that she had gone to warn +some one of his approach.</p> + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>III<br /> +<br /> +THE WOOING</h3> + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">It</span> is said that rogues know each other by instinct—certain it is that +the Squire and Captain Crandon had no need of disguises once they had +crossed glances, and therefore each man cloaked himself with an +elaborate pretence of being unable to see through the other's garment. +It was not by any wish of Squire Bendigo's that Captain Crandon heard of +the rumour of the ten thousand pounds, but when one has circulated a +report with diligence for several years it is impossible to withdraw it +at will, and so the Squire found, and it only needed this report of +Sophie's marriage portion for Crandon to attempt the capture in earnest; +what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> happened to the map history does not relate, but the Captain +stayed at the "Bendigo Arms," making explorations in the familiar but +always surprising country of a woman's mind. A mind simpler, more +passionate, and more one-ideaed than any he had met before, a mind at +once proud, confiding and reckless—a mind fitted, both by the quality +of it and its loneliness, to be easily influenced by the flattery of +love.</p> + +<p>Sophie Bendigo had a fixed belief in her star. The predictions of the +Wise Woman and of her eager mother, and her own knowledge of her +superiority to the people among whom she moved, all tended to give her +that confidence in her fate which does not think misfortune possible. +She had always led a hard life with her best of fathers, the smiling old +rogue who had never been heard to address a rude word to her, and who +was harsh and immutable as granite. She had always waited, with such +sureness she had not even felt impatience, for her opportunity to come, +and mingled with the half-shy, half-innocently sensuous imaginings of a +young girl on the subject of love, ran a streak of personal ambition, a +hardness inherited from her father.</p> + +<p>At first, before he had found out beyond a doubt that the Captain was a +needy fortune-hunter, the Squire allowed his visits at Troon, and +Crandon soon grew to be on terms of intimacy with the members of the +household. These consisted of the Bendigos, father and daughter, Lylie +Ruffiniac, her brother, and the servant, a girl called Hester Keast. The +three latter were supposed to live more or less in the back premises and +take their meals in the kitchen, but once when Crandon surprised Lylie +Ruffiniac<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> with the Squire, there were two glasses of spirits and water +on the table, and, several weeks after, when he had to meet Sophie by +stealth and at night, he saw a light being carried from the servants' +quarters towards the Squire's room. As for Hester Keast, she was a +pretty girl in her way—a way at once heavier and less strong than +Sophie's. She had the dewy brown eyes, the easily affected, over-thin +skin, and the soft red mouth, blurred at the edges, which betray +incapacity for resistance. There was no harm in the girl, she was merely +a young animal, with very little instinct of self-protection to +counteract her utter lack of morals. Crandon kissed her behind the door +on his second visit, and James Ruffiniac's wooing of her had long passed +the preliminary stages—so long that with him ideas of marriage were +growing misty, the thing seemed so unnecessary. Lylie's blood was +controlled by scheming, and the most charitable explanation of the +Squire's tortuous nature was that some mental or moral twist in him made +him love evil for its own sake, and embrace it as his good. Such was the +household where, for the last three years, Sophie had lived, practically +alone—her egoism had done her that much service, it had won her +aloofness. Crandon, who was by nature predisposed to think the worst of +humanity, made the mistake, at first, of thinking Sophie's innocence +assumed—it seemed a thing so incredible in that house of hidden +schemings and furtive amours. When he found that partly a natural +fastidiousness, and partly her young crudity had kept her clean in +thought and knowledge as well as in deed, he wisely guessed there must +be some outside influence on the side of the angels, and scenting +opposition to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> his own schemes, he set himself to discover all he could. +That was not difficult in such a sparsely inhabited district, hemmed in +on three sides by the sea, and he soon made, at St. Annan's Vicarage, +the acquaintance of its vicar, Mr. Charles le Petyt. He no sooner set +eyes on the clergyman's plain and frail physique, with the burning eyes +and quick nervous hands, than he knew he was right to fear him as an +influence, though he could scorn him as a rival.</p> + +<p>Charles and Sophie had practically grown up together, Charles' six years +of seniority making him stand in the place of an elder brother to her, +until he had become her urgent lover. Charles' father, the former Vicar +of St. Annan, had given Sophie what little education she possessed—a +medley of mythology and history, some incorrect geography, and a +smattering of literature—all the things that go to fire the +imagination. Mixed with these was a mass of all the wild legendary lore +of the Duchy, solemnly believed in by the common people at that date, +and by no means without its effect on the gentry. Sophie would not have +been of her race and time if she had not had faith in charms, witches, +death-warnings and love-potions; and in Charles the spiritual sense was +so acute that, though from sheer sensitiveness it rejected the more +vulgar superstitions, it responded like a twanged string to the breath +of a less gross world. The finer side of Sophie, the delicate feeling +for the beautiful, which owed so much of its existence to Charles, +received a severe shock when she discovered the change in his viewing of +her. She had been so used to think of him as her brother, and as her +leader in the intangible matters which were sealed books to the rest at +Troon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> that the discovery of warm, human sentiments in him filled her +with repulsion, and she took to avoiding him as much as she had sought +him before. Poor Charles, whose earthly love, though as reverent, was as +fiery as his heavenly affections, and who was handicapped by the lover's +inability to understand that his devotion can be repellent, suffered +acutely. It was some time before he understood that Sophie was so +accustomed to see him burning with a white flame that she could not +forgive him for being alight with a red one as well. A more sensual +love, and coarser in its expression than his could ever be, would have +revolted her less coming from a less exalted man—Mr. Le Petyt paid for +the high opinion she held him in. If Lucius Crandon had never come to +Troon, Sophie would in time have grown used to the idea of Charles as a +husband, for there is no combination of circumstances, incredible as it +appears to youth, that time does not soften and make bearable. But +Sophie, destiny-ridden, gave no heed to Charles, save as a friend who +had made her dread him even while she was still fond of him, and Lucius +Crandon stepped in just when her nerves, awakened to the existence of +actual love, were beginning to calm from the shock and even to set +towards curiosity—just when she was most receptive. Pitiful and +ignorant Sophie, whose only protection from gross housemates and a +hot-blooded, cold-hearted lover, was a dreamer as guileless as herself!</p> + +<p>With all his unworldliness, the unfailing instinct of the +spiritual-minded warned Mr. Le Petyt against the Captain, and when the +Squire, strangely friendly, sent word asking his vicar to come and see +him on urgent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> business, Mr. Le Petyt guessed to what matter the +business related. He found the Squire seated in his writing-room, a +glass of rare old smuggled brandy before him and a packet of letters on +his knee. The Squire was a big, pursy man, with a large and oddly +impassive face, where even the hanging folds of flesh seemed rigid; only +his small eyes, of a clear light grey, twinkled like chips of cut steel +from between his wrinkled lids. His bull neck, wide as his head across +the nape, sagged in a thick fold over his cravat, and his thighs swelled +against the close-fitting cloth of his riding-breeches. The only +contradiction to the stolidity of the man was his hands, and they were +never still, but were for ever fiddling with something; with his +waistcoat buttons, his rings, with a paper-knife, or the cutlery at +table, or with any live thing they could get. Charles Le Petyt well +remembered how, as a small boy, he had come on him superintending the +reaping, and fingering a puppy behind his back. Whether the Squire was +aware of what he was doing or whether his fingers did their work +instinctively, without his brain, Charles never could decide, but when +the Squire, turning away from the reapers, unlocked his hands, the puppy +lay limp across his palm—the life choked out of it. The Squire stood +still for a moment, looking at the little body, and then, moving away in +a straight line from the labourers, so that it was concealed from them, +he dropped it into a rabbit-hole and stuffed it down with his cane. Sick +to the heart, little Charles stood at gaze, and glancing up, the Squire +saw he was watched, and for a moment his impassive features were +convulsed with rage—he looked as though he would have liked to treat +Charles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> as he had the puppy. The memory of that day would have been +enough, without the sight of Sophie's dread of her father, to prevent +Mr. Le Petyt from joining in the general praise of Squire Bendigo.</p> + +<p>The two men made a great contrast as they sat opposite to each other in +the little room, the Squire solid and imperturbable, the parson +transparent in mind and physical texture, the quick colour flying up +under his skin with his emotions. The dust lay thickly over the table +and books, for Sophie, the careful housewife, was seldom admitted here, +and however Lylie Ruffiniac spent the hours when she was closeted with +the Squire, it was evidently not in work. The evening light shone into +the low-browed room through an ash-tree by the window, filling the air +with a luminous gloom, gilding the dust films, gleaming on Mr. Le +Petyt's shoe-buckles, and making a bright crescent in the glass of +spirits which the Squire was jerking between his finger and thumb.</p> + +<p>"You want to consult me on something?" began the younger man, going +straight to the point. The Squire, with a gesture of protest for such +methods, nevertheless fell into an agreeing humour.</p> + +<p>"The fact is, Charles," he began, with that disarming air of candour +none assumed better than he, "I have had cause to be uneasy at the +intimacy between my dear but headstrong daughter and this Captain +Crandon, so I wrote to a trustworthy man I know in London to find out +all he could for me. His letter came to-day by Mr. Borlace, who was +riding down in all haste from London to his wife's bedside—thus does +Providence permit the trials of others to be of use to us."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +Here he paused, but Mr. Le Petyt, throwing in no suitable remark, he +continued:</p> + +<p>"I will read you some extracts from the letter, and you shall judge for +yourself whether a parent's anxiety has not been justified. Let me +see—ah, here we are! 'I find' (says my informant) 'that about the year +1744 Crandon became acquainted with a Miss Isabel Thirsk, then at her +uncle's. Miss Thirsk was remarkably genteel, delicate, and of a very +amiable disposition, which gained her a great number of admirers. Her +uncle, observing that Crandon always discovered an inclination of +conversing with his niece alone, desired him to explain himself fully on +a point so very delicate. Crandon declared he counted Miss Thirsk on the +most honourable terms, but the young lady's uncle desired that Crandon's +visits should be less frequent, lest his niece should suffer in her +reputation. Soon after, this gentleman's affairs caused him to be absent +from his home for some time, during which Crandon proposed a private +marriage, which the young lady consented to, and for some time they +lived together without any of their relations being privy to it. The +natural consequence arising, and her uncle, some time after his return, +suspecting it, she readily acknowledged she was with child, and +protested she was married to Crandon four months before, adding, that +her husband, who was soon to set out for London, had not yet publicly +acknowledged her for his wife. Accordingly the uncle dispatched a +messenger to Crandon demanding full acknowledgment of his wife before +his departure for England. Crandon wrote in answer that he never +intended to deny his marriage with Miss Thirsk, and that he would ever +love her with conjugal tenderness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> but that at the moment he had to +hasten to London, which he did. There he every day saw young fellows +making their fortunes by marriage, and he imagined nothing but his being +married could hinder him from being as successful as the rest, thus he +began to neglect a person whose beauty and virtue merited a more worthy +spouse. When he returned to Scotland that country was involved in a +civil war, and rebellion raging in its bowels. He found all the +relations of Miss Thirsk joined in the mad expedition and in all +probability would suffer at the hands of their country for disturbing +its peace. He therefore concluded that it was not in their power to give +him any disturbance, and, consequently, it was a good opportunity for +renouncing his wife. The affair, at last, after various meetings and +expostulations of friends, came to a trial before the Lords of Session +in Scotland, who found the marriage valid and settled fifty pounds a +year on the lady, which she now enjoys by their decree.'"</p> + +<p>The Squire put down the papers.</p> + +<p>"So much for Captain Crandon!" he said, in a glow of rage at the man for +trying to deceive him, mingled with pride in his own acuteness and a +dash of assumed piety: "Who but a person, something worse than a +villain, could ever have indulged a thought of using so innocent, so +lovely a being as Miss Thirsk in such a monstrous manner! Surely Divine +justice will pursue him for this unnatural, this unheard-of piece of +brutality!"</p> + +<p>"Divine justice has at least saved Sophie from the same fate," replied +Mr. Le Petyt. His first feeling was for her, his second, to his own +shame, was the relief of the jealous lover.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +"Ah—Sophie!" said the Squire thoughtfully—"that is where I crave your +help. She is headstrong, poor child, sadly headstrong, but your opinions +have always had weight with her. You have an influence, Charles. Use it +to save my unhappy child from this villain Crandon."</p> + +<p>"I would save her from all villainy if I could," said Mr. Le Petyt.</p> + +<p>The Squire pulled the bell-rope, and on the appearance of Lylie, +splendid in what even the guileless parson could not but see was a new +silk, stiff enough to stand up by itself, the Squire told her curtly to +desire "Miss's" presence. Lylie withdrew with downdropped lids, and a +few minutes later Sophie appeared. She glanced quickly from one man to +the other, and scenting a conspiracy, remained standing, her head up, +and her hands strongly clasped behind her. She was against the window, +so that subtleties of expression were lost to Mr. Le Petyt, and only the +aloofness of her pose struck at him miserably, as confounding him and +her father together. The big white muslin cap she wore showed delicately +dark against the daylight, the outstanding frill of it framing the solid +shadow of face and neck with a semi-transparent halo, and a yoke of +light lay across her shoulders—to Mr. Le Petyt's quick fancy she looked +like some virgin-saint of old at her trial.</p> + +<p>"Sophie," said the Squire gently, "I feel I should not be doing my duty +by my dear daughter if I did not inform her that her lover, Lucius +Crandon, is a married man."</p> + +<p>He watched, smiling. She stood a little tense, but with scorn of him and +not with fear, and he went on:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +"He married a Miss Isabel Thirsk, by whom he had a child——"</p> + +<p>A slight convulsion swept over Sophie, passed, and left her rigid, and +the Squire continued:</p> + +<p>"A lovely child, I believe—a boy, and the image of his father. . . . But +that is not the chief matter of interest. Captain Crandon deserted his +young and trusting wife, and appealed against the validity of the +marriage. The law decided against him, and condemned him to pay fifty +pounds a year for her support. It was a sad scandal, a very sad scandal. +You, my sweet child, do not know the wickedness of the world as I do, +therefore I must shield you from it—in short, I forbid you to have +speech with Captain Crandon again."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" asked Sophie.</p> + +<p>"All—save that I should much regret having to lock you up in your room +to enforce obedience."</p> + +<p>"And you, Charles?" cried Sophie, "are you, too, in this plot to speak +ill of an absent man?"</p> + +<p>"Sophie," cried Mr. Le Petyt, "do not take it so, I beg of you. There +seems only too little doubt that what your father says is true."</p> + +<p>"You are against me, too!" said Sophie cruelly. "Papa, I am going to +meet Captain Crandon now, and I shall ask him for the truth."</p> + +<p>"Sophie! You will not believe him?" exclaimed Mr. Le Petyt, half-rising +in his agitation.</p> + +<p>"Every word he says," cried Sophie, with a little laugh of utter +confidence. Her hand was on the latch, and the Squire, restrained by Mr. +Le Petyt's presence, dared not put out a hand to stop her by force. For +half a moment more the three emotions held—the scorn of the girl, the +distress of the one man and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> the vindictiveness of the other, then the +door had closed behind Sophie as the will to see her lover swept her on; +and the taunt, one-ideaed feeling of the men fell into complexity as +they turned first towards each other, then away, in the gathering dusk.</p> + +<p>Sophie found Crandon awaiting her by the dam above Vellan-Crowse mill. +The daylight was all but gone and a darkly soft glamour seemed to hold +the full-foliaged trees and shadowed water in a hush of expectation. +There was still enough of red reflecting from the West to make the grass +and leaves a vivid though subdued green; but of the hollow in the +bushes, where the lovers met, darkness already seemed to make a nest. +Everything to lull the mind and stir the heart and blood was there, and +Sophie's generous trust, her pride in taking his word against the world, +were not more powerful allies of Crandon's tongue than the time and the +place. It was of little avail later to marvel that his ingenious +reconstruction of events won upon her; his garbled confession of a +<i>liaison</i> with Isabel Thirsk, and denial of the marriage, his statement +of Miss Thirsk's infidelities, and his evident nobility in voluntarily +allowing her an income. As for the sin itself—"It was before I met you. +You could make me what you will."</p> + +<p>Sophie, only too willing to be convinced, sat by him in the little +clearing, and listened almost in silence. Behind them on both sides the +hazel-bushes made a faintly whispering screen of darkness, at their feet +the mill-dam lay silent save for the occasional plop-plop of the tiny +trout rising at late flies, on the further bank the hedge was a network +of tangled black against the deepening sky, while overhead the elms and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +sycamores were pierced by the first faint stars. The two were set in a +hushed sphere of aloofness, and for Sophie it was the world. "Trust me, +my sweet Sophie—only trust me!" was whispered in her ear, and when she +answered that she did, and he told her that if it were really so she +would not draw away from him, she let his arms creep round her and his +mouth come to hers. Weeks of carefully calculated love making had gone +to make her pliable, kisses at which all the chill girlhood of her would +earlier have shuddered, as it had at the same thing in Charles Le Petyt, +she now bore, if not yet with passion, yet with the woman's tolerance of +it in the man she loves. Crandon knew it was the moment to bind her to +him irrevocably, for he guessed that to a woman of her type faithfulness +is a necessity of self-respect, and with him desire was one with +deliberate planning. Whether he threw a spell of words over her, or +whether the mere force of his thought pleaded with her to prove she +trusted him utterly, Sophie could never have told. She only knew that +the still night, the soft air, the rustling leaves and the pricking +stars, his presence, dimly seen but deeply felt, and the beating in her +own frame, all cried to her, "It was for this that I was born! For this, +for this, for this!"</p> + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>IV<br /> +<br /> +THE SPELL</h3> + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Every</span> one, on looking back at the past, even from the near standpoint of +a few months, realizes how it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> falls into separate phases, unnoticed at +the time, but nevertheless distinct. When she had reached her apex, +Sophie saw how that night by the mill-dam had shut down one phase for +ever, and ushered in a new one. Deceptions, and constant evading of her +father's suspicions, secret meetings, to connive at which it became a +bitter necessity to bribe the servants, hard Lylie and slow-tongued +James—while at the same time instinct warned her to keep the thing from +Hester Keast—all these were wearisome and galling, but by the quality +of affairs with Crandon fell into insignificance, merely an added +irritation, flies on a wound.</p> + +<p>What first suggested to Crandon his idea of the love-potion was the +discovery of Sophie's credulousness. Like all West Country folk, +especially in those days, she was a firm believer in witches and spells, +to an extent incredible to a Saxon. As late as the latter half of the +nineteenth century an old woman was accused by a farmer of ill-wishing +his bullocks and was brought to trial; while a "cunning man," or +"white-witch," lived until lately in the northern part of the Duchy. A +century earlier, therefore, when Cornwall was practically cut off from +England, when even the coach came no further than Saltash, and +travellers continued on horseback or in a "kitterine"; when newspapers +were unknown, and books only found in parsonages or the biggest of the +country houses; when animals were burned alive as sacrifices to fortune, +and any man out at night went in fear of ghosts and the devil, then +there was no one, of whatever rank, who did not believe in witchcraft. +That Sophie, lonely, romantic, with the superstitious blood of the Celt +unadulterated in her veins, should give<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> credence to such things, was +inevitable; and when Crandon suggested giving a love-potion to the +Squire, so that he might feel his heart warmed towards his would-be +son-in-law, she seized at what was to her more a certainty than a hope.</p> + +<p>It was an afternoon in late September, and she and Crandon had met in a +wood about a mile away from Troon, when he first mooted his plan; she +sat beside him on one of the great grey boulders with which the sloping +floor of the wood was covered, and listened with growing eagerness. It +was a damp, steamy day, gold and tawny leaves, blown down in one night's +gale, were drifted thickly in the fissures of the rocks and over the +patches of vividly green moss; and livid orange fungi grew on the +tree-boles. Sophie, always affected by externals, shuddered a little and +drew closer to Crandon. Slipping his hand under the heavy knot of her +hair, he laid it against the nape of her neck, and as she closed her +eyes in the pleasure of his touch he looked down at her with a queer +expression on his narrow face.</p> + +<p>"You have the loveliest neck in the world, my Sophie," he said, making +his hands meet round it as he spoke, "see—I make you a living necklace +for it."</p> + +<p>Sophie tucked in her chin, and bending her head, kissed the clasping +fingers. Although he was not of those men to whom the attained woman +gains in attractions, yet there were still things about Sophie—little +flashes and gleams, swift touches, that fired him afresh. She stirred +him now, yet he was cold enough to be glad of the stir because it gave +him added eloquence for his purpose.</p> + +<p>"I will get you a better necklace," he told her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> "Nothing very fine, or +what would the Squire think? I have been collecting choice bits of +serpentine, and had them cut out and polished, and you shall have a +necklace of them—the stones of your own country. Your throat will warm +them, my Sophie, as it would warm my hands if they were cold in death."</p> + +<p>"Death!" murmured Sophie, shuddering again, "we should not speak of it, +lest it hear us."</p> + +<p>"Then we will talk of love instead—of our love, Sophie."</p> + +<p>"Alas, that way too lies sorrow! Lucius, what is the end to be? My +father would kill me if he knew."</p> + +<p>"Does he hate me so?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, with the look of dumb fear in her eyes that thought of the +Squire always brought there.</p> + +<p>"Dear heart, we will change his hate to love. There is a way—if you +will trust me and obey me."</p> + +<p>A tremor of exquisite delight thrilled through her at the words. She had +no arts of allurement, no strength of will to make her play the coquette +with him, and she was unable, for the purpose of leading him on and +tantalizing him to fresh excitement, to deny herself the joy of being +his slave.</p> + +<p>"Obey you!" she said, slipping a little lower on her rock so that her +back-tilted head lay against his knee as she looked up at him, "I am +yours for you to do with as you will."</p> + +<p>Stooping, he kissed the swelling curve of her throat, and privately +marvelled at her for being such a fool.</p> + +<p>"Sweetheart," he began softly, "we will call in the aid of higher powers +than our own. You know my mother was a Scotswoman, and she had the +second sight, like your old Madgy Figgy of the Men-an-tol.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> She was +learned in all kinds of charms, too. Well I remember as a child seeing +her staunch the flow of blood from an old servant by crossing two +charmed sticks from the hearth over him and saying a charm."</p> + +<p>"It was Madgy Figgy who told about my ladder," Sophie said, "she has +many charms, I know. She carries the water from St. +<a name="Annan" id="Annan"></a><ins title="Original has Ann's">Annan's</ins> +spring to the church whenever there's to be a christening. No one +baptized in water from St. Annan's spring can die by hanging, every one +knows that. Was your mother as learned in charms as old Madgy?"</p> + +<p>"She was a wise woman in more than mere charms, yet we will not slight +her knowledge of them, since through that we will win your father's +affection for me."</p> + +<p>"If it could be!" cried Sophie.</p> + +<p>"It can be. Listen, my sweet. My dear mother, in dying, left me, among +books of the craft of healing and suchlike things, an old love-charm she +had had from a Wise Woman in the Highlands. It is nothing but a little +white powder, yet it affects the very heart-strings of him who takes +it."</p> + +<p>"Could it turn my father's heart towards you? Lucius, how happy we +should all be. . . . But surely it might make him love some one else +instead—Mr. Le Petyt, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"You should know better than that, my foolish Sophie. These things all +depend on the intention of he who gives them. You have but to +concentrate on me while you give it him, and all will be well."</p> + +<p>"He would be furious if he guessed," objected Sophie.</p> + +<p>"Neither he nor anyone else must guess, or the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> charm will fail. I will +send it to you in packets with the serpentine beads, and mark it 'Powder +to clean the pebbles.'"</p> + +<p>"Why not give it to me?" asked Sophie.</p> + +<p>"Because I have to go away for a time, my sweet. Not for very long—" as +Sophie made a movement of distress, "but I have business I must see to +in town. I will send you the beads to remember me by in my absence. Will +you wear them for my sake, Sophie."</p> + +<p>"I will wear them night and day, but I need no reminders of you, Lucius. +But you—will you forget me in London? It is so big and far away and +full of great ladies who will put your poor Sophie out of remembrance. +Lucius, Lucius. . . ."</p> + +<p>"My sweet, silly little Sophie," he whispered, soothing her as she clung +to him, "how can you misjudge me so? Is not one black hair from your +head, one glance from your blue eyes, dearer to me than all the women in +the world? What have I done that you should think so ill of me?"</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, dear. I know men are not like women, and I cannot see what +there is in me to hold you—except my love for you. No other women could +love you half so well, Lucius. It is my only gift, but it at least could +not be bettered by anyone."</p> + +<p>"I know it, my sweet," he told her, "and when your father is of a better +mind towards me you shall give me your love before all the world, and +then I need no longer travel alone. Would you like to see London, heart +of mine?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, with you!" breathed Sophie. "Once, before I met you, I thought of +nothing but London, and how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> I meant some day to be a great lady there, +but now I think of nothing but to be with you. Perhaps, after all, this +is what the Wise Woman meant and my golden ladder is my love for you, +and I've climbed on it from loneliness to joy."</p> + +<p>"A Jacob's ladder, for the feet of an angel, then, my Sophie."</p> + +<p>"If it could only reach from here to London! Oh, Lucius, need you go?"</p> + +<p>"I must, my sweet. Don't make it harder for me."</p> + +<p>That checked her plaint at once, as he knew it would.</p> + +<p>"When do you go?" she asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"In a day or two, sweetheart. Ah, Sophie, how shall I live without you?"</p> + +<p>While she comforted him, forgetting self, he made a mental calculation +as to how soon he could get away. He kissed Sophie's hair somewhat +absently.</p> + +<p>"I will write to you, heart of mine," he murmured, "and I will contrive +so that he finds I have gone completely away, and that will lull any +suspicion he may have against us. And while I am gone you will be +working for us, my Sophie. Do not be alarmed if at first the powder +seems to cause an indisposition. It has to expel the evil humours from a +man before it can turn his nature to good. Give it to him in a small +quantity once or twice, and he will vomit and be rid of this +disaffection towards me, and the rest will work beneficially. Your +father will arise and call you blessed, my Sophie, for having sworn him +the evil of his own heart. Do not write me word when anything definite +happens—I am leaving my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> servant at Penzance, and he will post up to me +at once when you give him news."</p> + +<p>"And then—then you will come down again, and we shall all be able to be +happy. Perhaps my father will even dismiss Lylie Ruffiniac when his +heart is turned towards you. That woman frightens me, Lucius. She is +always looking at me as though she wished me away. No one loves me +except yourself—and poor Charles. Hester avoids me, and James never did +speak a word to me that he could avoid. Lucius, sometimes it seems to me +that he and Lylie and Hester have all grown to hate me, that they would +harm me if they could. It frightens me—Lucius, Lucius, what shall I do +when you have left me?"</p> + +<p>Crandon fought down his boredom and gave himself over to consoling her, +with now and again a surreptitious glance at the watch dangling from his +fob. He had another interview to go through—with Lylie Ruffiniac. She +had to be fostered in the belief that he was going to take Sophie away +as soon as possible, leaving the housekeeper free to influence the +Squire—for Lylie's ambition rose to being legitimate mistress of the +Manor, and Sophie once gone, she saw no reason why she should not attain +her end. She knew that the ten thousand pounds was a mere myth, but that +she kept hidden from Crandon, even bringing forward, as women can, +apparently casual little pieces of information that would all tend to +fix him in his belief. Crandon had been wise to impress on Sophie the +necessity for keeping the love-potion hidden from every one—Lylie, who +had a fine nose for a rogue, would have been in possession of his +scheme—a scheme so devastating to her own—at once. As soon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> safety +and decency permitted he would carry Sophie off, go through the ceremony +of marriage with her in a place where he was not known, gain possession +of the money—and clear out of England for good. This was his last throw +of the dice in his own country—let him but win the stake and he would +disappear and enjoy his fortune elsewhere.</p> + +<p>He took a last glance at his watch, a last kiss of Sophie's mouth, and +scrambled to his feet. He walked back with Sophie as near Troon as was +safe, then took an affectionate good-night of her, and started off for +the cove to meet Lylie Ruffiniac.</p> + +<p>"Thank the gods, that hard-headed vixen of a Lylie won't want me to kiss +her!" he reflected as he went. "Ah, there's a woman might have been some +help to me if I'd met her in the shoes of Isabel or of this Sophie. +Lucius, my son, you are playing a very risky game, but the stakes are +worth it. Ten thousand pounds, a fresh country—and entirely new women!"</p> + + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>V<br /> +<br /> +THE LOVE-POTION</h3> + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Two</span> weeks after Crandon's departure the first instalment of serpentine +beads arrived for Sophie. There was no concealing the fact, and Sophie +replied to her father's suave inquiries that the beads were a keepsake +from a friend. Enclosed with them was a tiny packet of white powder, on +which was written "Powder to clean the pebbles," and this Sophie +secreted at once.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +A few days later the Squire was unwell with a violent headache and +bilious attack resulting from too much port and smuggled brandy the +night before—Sophie suggested that she should make him a dish of tea. +In the night he was taken with violent sickness, but by the next day he +had not only recovered from that but apparently actually benefited by +it, as it had cured him of the result of his orgy. Next day, to continue +the cure, Sophie again sent him up some tea, but this time the Squire +thought it tasted odd, and Hester, on bearing away the dish, finding +that the rare beverage was left untouched, hid it in the scullery and +drank it that evening. She was soon taken with violent pains and +sickness and a raging thirst, and it was in this condition that Lylie +found her.</p> + +<p>"My life, Hester, what have 'ee got?" asked Lylie.</p> + +<p>"The pains of death, I do think," gasped Hester. "Oh, oh!"</p> + +<p>Lylie looked at her unsympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Simme you'm whist wi' en," she observed, "scrawlen' like that. Some bad +you do look, though, there's no denyen'."</p> + +<p>"I'm dyen'!" wailed Hester.</p> + +<p>Sophie, who had come into the kitchen, heard the commotion, and went +into the scullery.</p> + +<p>"Why, Hester, what ails you?" she exclaimed. "Lylie, what has happened?"</p> + +<p>"'Tes the pains o' death, she do say," replied Lylie, "but 'tes nawthen +but to be in the bed and somethen' hot that she needs."</p> + +<p>"She must get to bed at once. Here, Lylie, you take her arm that side +and I'll take this. She's getting quieter."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +Indeed, the worst spasms were over: Hester, weak and exhausted, was put +to bed, and Sophie, her dislike of the girl forgotten in compassion, +sent up weak broth and white wine whey. Late that evening as Lylie sat +with the Squire, he asked her what all the noise had been about.</p> + +<p>"'Tes that maid Hester," said Lylie indifferently, "she'd taken +somethen' that went agen her and was vomiten' all evenin'. Some bad she +did vomit, and Miss and I had to get her overstairs to the bed."</p> + +<p>The Squire stirred in his chair and very slowly brought his eyes round +to Lylie.</p> + +<p>"What time did the sickness take her?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Soon after she'd put your tray to the kitchen, measter. Look 'ee, now, +at this lutestring piece I got to Penzance church-town. It do sore need +a ribbon to go wi' en. What do 'ee say to given' I a crown to buy et +with, eh, measter?"</p> + +<p>"Shalt have thy crown, woman," said the Squire shortly, "but leave me be +now. I want no more for the night. And tell Miss I wish to speak with +her to-morrow forenoon."</p> + +<p>Lylie, somewhat offended, but mollified by the unexpectedly easy capture +of the crown, withdrew, and next morning, as Sophie was busier than +usual in household tasks—Hester still being confined to her bed—she +delivered the Squire's message. It was with a heart fluttering with hope +that Sophie went to his room. He was not yet out of bed, and, wrapped in +a dingy dressing-gown, much stained with snuff and wine, his big jowl +unshaven and his bald head innocent of wig (that ornament hung rakishly +askew on a chair-back)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> he looked anything but a pleasant object. Sophie +stopped short on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"You sent for me, sir?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"'Tis nothing of any importance, my dear," said the Squire smoothly, +"merely to tell you how recovered I am. How blooming you look, my +Sophie—more like my own daughter than you have since this shadow fell +between us."</p> + +<p>Indeed, Sophie, in her flutter of hope and excitement, showed a glowing +face. Her heart softened at the kindliness of her father's tone.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir"—she began, "if only this shadow—if you would only let it +lift—if you would only believe in me—in him!"</p> + +<p>"Who knows," said the Squire benignly, "but that I may see cause to +change my opinions. You will understand, my dear daughter, that a father +is in so responsible a position, he must not accept an affair of the +kind lightly, without due inquiry. Perhaps the fellow who sent me that +report was prejudiced, who knows? I might, in justice, inquire further. +But you are not wearing your beads, my child."</p> + +<p>"They—they have not all come yet," she faltered, "but I received some +more yesterday."</p> + +<p>"The roses on thy cheeks are the best adornment in a father's eye," said +the Squire, "and now tell Lylie to bring me some broth with brandy in +it, and bless thee, my child. And," he added to himself as she left the +room, "I do not think I shall be taken with sickness again yet awhile."</p> + +<p>Sophie's easily persuaded reason and her affectionate nature were swayed +to gratitude, and she reproached herself because something in her was +repulsed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> old man's blandness. She ran downstairs and out into +the yard singing under her breath, and saw the postboy coming up the +drive. He had a packet for her which she took up to her room to open. +There were a dozen or so more of the polished pebbles, cut into beads, +and a short note in which Crandon assured her of his undying affection, +and ended by saying, "Do not spare the powder in order to keep the rust +off the pebbles."</p> + +<p>That afternoon Charles Le Petyt came over to Troon and walked with +Sophie in the garden. He was full of joy to see the increased brightness +of her look, and soon detected a softening in her tone when she spoke of +her father—Crandon's name they avoided by silent consent.</p> + +<p>"You may yet be happy with your father, Sophie," said Mr. Le Petyt with +the hopefulness of the born idealist, and Sophie, confident in her +supernatural knowledge, agreed.</p> + +<p>"And I reproach myself that sometimes I have been wicked enough to wish +I might never see him again," she said as they walked slowly towards the +house door, past the open dairy windows, "and indeed, Charles, I think +it must have been the Devil himself who sometimes suggested to me how +much happier I should be if he were dead. I have seemed to hear a +whisper: 'Who would not wish an old father dead for ten thousand +pounds?'—because that meant freedom and—peace."</p> + +<p>"My poor Sophie," replied Charles pressing her hand.</p> + +<p>He stayed and took tea with her and the Squire, and the latter went to +bed soon after he had left. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> weather had turned rainy, autumn seemed +invaded by a tang of winter that evening, and the Squire, who was +subject to fits of shivering, had a huge fire lit, and demanded hot +gruel of Lylie.</p> + +<p>"There's no occasion for you to leave your ironing, Lylie," remarked +Sophie when they were in the kitchen, and the woman acquiescing, Sophie +went into the pantry. She was gone some time, and when she reappeared +Lylie glanced up from the ironing of her turned satin slip. Sophie +caught the glance, and fore-stalling a question, remarked carelessly:</p> + +<p>"I have been stirring the gruel and eating some of the oatmeal out of +it, for I've taken a great fancy to it. I believe I shall often eat from +my father's gruel."</p> + +<p>She stirred it round over the fire as she spoke.</p> + +<p>"I'll take it overstairs," said Lylie, who viewed the friendlier +relations between father and daughter with dislike. Sophie turned the +gruel out into a basin and set the saucepan down on the hob.</p> + +<p>"I will see to it," she retorted hurriedly, but Lylie seized the basin +and bore it out of the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Not a quarter of an hour later the Squire's screams echoed through the +house. He was very sick, hiccuped like a person bitten by a mad dog, and +cried out that he was burnt up with fire. Sophie, terrified, insisted on +James riding at once to St. Annan's for the apothecary, and herself +banished from the Squire's room by the commands he managed to +articulate, she stayed against his door outside, every now and then +pressing her fingers to her ears when a more awful sound than common +came from within.</p> + +<p>He was a trifle easier when the apothecary arrived and applied remedies, +and Lylie took advantage of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> lull to creep swiftly to the kitchen +and pick up the saucepan Sophie had left on the hob. Hester, whom all +the outcry had brought from her bed, watched her movements curiously. +Lylie lit two candles and bore the pan to the light.</p> + +<p>"Come and look here, Hester," said Lylie slowly, feeling some of the +sediment from the pan between her finger and thumb, as she spoke, "Did +you ever see oatmeal so white?"</p> + +<p>"Oatmeal!" said Hester, "why, 'tes as white as flour."</p> + +<p>"'Tes more gritty'n flour. I see et all, Hester. Have 'ee never heard +that poison's white and gritty? Measter's poisoned, and tes Miss that's +done et."</p> + +<p>A slight sound came from the kitchen door and both women looked round, +but Sophie, whose foot had been on the threshold, had turned and fled +upstairs to the door of her father's room again, where she flung herself +on the floor and pressed her forehead against the wooden panel. In that +long drawn moment of listening the truth had rushed in over her +consciousness—and overwhelmed reason and self-control.</p> + +<p>The door opened and the apothecary stumbled over her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Bendigo—" he began in compassion, then some words to which the +Squire had just given vent flashed back at him and he hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Bring her in," ordered the patient hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Sophie scrambled to her feet and went towards the bed. She fell on her +knees beside it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, forgive me, I didn't know, I didn't know," she babbled, "send +me where you will, only forgive me and get well . . . I'll never see or +hear from or write<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> to him more, if you'll but forgive me, I shall be +happy. Papa, papa!"</p> + +<p>Over Sophie's head the Squire beckoned the apothecary into the room. +Then:</p> + +<p>"I do forgive thee," he murmured, speaking with difficulty and veiling +his eyes with his thin wrinkled lids, "but thou should'st have +remembered I am your father. As for the villain Crandon, hadst thou +loved me thou wouldst curse him and the ground he walks on."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir," said Sophie, to whom the words of pardon alone had +penetrated, "your kindness strikes at my soul. Sir, on my knees I pray +you will not curse me."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> curse thee!" gasped the Squire, forcing his distorted mouth into a +semblance of the old bland smile, "no, child, I bless thee and hope God +will bless thee, and I pray thou mayest live to repent and amend. . . . +Leave me, lest thou should'st say something to thy prejudice—" +apparently, thought the apothecary, who was himself trembling with +horror, this martyred father had forgotten the presence of a listener. +"Go to the clergyman, Mr. Le Petyt, he will take care of thee. Alas, +poor man, I am sorry for him. . . ."</p> + +<p>"Papa, I am innocent, I swear to you I am. I never knew. I am innocent +of this. . . ."</p> + +<p>"I fear thou art not quite innocent and that there is some powder in +such hands as will appear against thee. Harvey take away my poor +misguided child."</p> + +<p>Sophie stumbled blindly from the room and went upstairs. Mr. Harvey +hesitated a moment, saw the patient almost comatose, and went down to +the kitchen. There Lylie still pored over the saucepan, which she thrust +out at him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +"See, Mr. Harvey," she demanded, "what's this stuff in wi' the gruel? +Can 'ee tell me that?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Harvey examined the contents of the pan carefully, tried some on his +finger, and shook his cautious head.</p> + +<p>"I cannot be very positive," he replied at length, "but at least it can +have no business in the gruel. Give me white paper and I will take some +home and test it when it is dry."</p> + +<p>Lylie helped him scrape the sediment into a sheet of paper, and he +folded it up and pocketed it. He then gave instructions to the two women +to heat more water for fomentations while he returned to the sick room. +Finding the Squire still comatose, he sat with his fingers on the +intermittent pulse. Meanwhile Sophie, in whom fear, the most sickening +of all emotions had awakened, crept downstairs, holding her breath past +her father's room, down to the kitchen. Lylie happened to be in the +scullery at the moment, Hester, still weak from morbid excitement as +well as illness, was seated in a shadowy corner of the kitchen. Sophie +crept in, looked fearfully round her, listened, and then began to stuff +some papers into the grate. She thrust them into the heart of the flames +and then breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Now I am more easy, thank +God," she murmured, and slipped out of the kitchen as cautiously as she +had come. Lylie, from behind the crack of the scullery door, went +towards the grate, where she was joined by Hester. . . .</p> + +<p>A little later all was noise again, the Squire had been seized with +violent spasms, raving and hiccuping like a madman, unable to swallow as +much as a sip of water. Towards the small hours he grew delirious, then +sank gradually; with the dawn he died.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +Sophie sat rigid in her room, paler than the paling day. She looked back +over the past, recalling little speeches of Crandon's which, had she +been less simple, less adoring, must have warned her of his plan. She +saw the skill with which he had trapped her, she saw what he hoped to +gain, she saw how he would lose nothing. It was she who had to pay. At +the thought fear, natural, human fear, caught at her again and she +sprang to her feet, a thing distraught. Escape—she must escape, get +away from this dread that was closing in on her. She tied on cloak and +hood and feverishly crammed all the money that for months she had been +saving against her marriage into a little bag. On the stairs she ran +into James Ruffiniac, and with her hands on his coat, pressing, begging, +silent suppliants, she made him come into the dining-room.</p> + +<p>"James," she said, "do you want to make your fortune? You do, do you +not? If you will come with me, it is made."</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to do?" asked James.</p> + +<p>"Only to hire a postchaise to go to London, and I'll give you fifteen +guineas now, and more when we come there. Only to do that. And in London +you would make your fortune."</p> + +<p>"Not on my life," he told her. "What you'm done you must see the end of. +'Tes your guilty soul makes you flee. I'll have to tell of this."</p> + +<p>"I—I was merely jesting," faltered Sophie, "to see if you would. +James—" but he had swung on his heel and left her.</p> + +<p>No one molested Sophie, but towards midday Hester put her head in at the +bedroom door to inform her, with a hardly restrained gusto, that Dr. +Polwhele had come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> over from Penzance and was going to open the body. +Sick to the soul, Sophie put on her outdoor things once more and struck +out over the moors, walking blindly to try and get away from the horror +that was in her. As she went all the strength of her nature, inherited +from the father who could keep up a pose and plan a revenge on an +agonized death-bed; the strength, which had concentrated itself during +her girlhood on her ambitions, that had then made her love for Crandon, +now turned to a deep hatred and rage that seemed to settle, cold and +hard, on the very muscles of her body. She knew the hatred, the fierce +resentment, that the trapped thing feels against the trapper, and added +to it was the shame of a woman whose love has been made a mockery. And +if, unacknowledged even to herself, was the pricking feeling that, could +she have been spared discovery, she would not deeply have minded being +the innocent cause of her own release, who is there with heart so +uncomplex as to be in a position to condemn her. . . .</p> + +<p>She tramped on and on, and presently found herself out on the St. Annan +high-road. The thought of Charles came to her as a point where she could +turn for help, for he had been absent all night at a distant part of the +parish, ministering to a dying man, but he would surely be back by now; +if she were not quick he would already have set off for Troon on hearing +the news. Battling against the rain-laden wind, she bent her head and +made her way into the village. There little groups of people were +standing about, intent, arguing. At sight of her a common feeling +animated them, the various little centres of discussion broke, joined +together, swept towards her. She had an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> impression of shaking fists, +angry sounds, rude contacts, and the smell of many rain-wet bodies +pressing in around her. The panic of crowds seized her, she screamed, +and screamed again, not recognizing the voice of Charles Le Petyt +answering her as he made his way through the press. He struck the faces +away from him right and left, and his blazing passage made men fall +back. Putting an arm round Sophie he drew her up the steps of the inn +and through the door, which he shut and barred.</p> + +<p>"Take me away, Charles, take me away," she moaned, and he, his arms +round her dear trembling body, answered:</p> + +<p>"I will take you home. You are quite safe with me, Sophie. When we get +back you must tell me everything and I will think of a way to help you. +Stay here a moment, dear."</p> + +<p>He put her in a chair, sent the frightened host for a glass of wine, and +ordered a chaise to be got ready at the back. Sophie drank the wine +passively, and passively let Charles put her in the chaise. She lay +silent against him all the way back to Troon, but once there, in the +parlour, her brain cleared, and she told him everything. Charles Le +Petyt listened, always keeping his hand tenderly over hers, though when +she let him understand what for months she had been to Crandon, his free +hand gripped hard on the edge of his chair.</p> + +<p>"What am I to do?" she asked when she had made an end.</p> + +<p>"Is there no way by which the guilt can be fastened where it belongs—on +Crandon?" he asked passionately, and in her distress Sophie sprang up +and, walking to the window, hit the shut pane with her hand.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +"I have destroyed everything that could have taken him," she said. "Take +my key—here it is—search my press, my box, see if you can find +anything. I will come with you."</p> + +<p>Alas! Sophie had ravished her room too well, and search fell fruitless. +The two desisted at last and stared at each other with pallid faces.</p> + +<p>"Oh—Sophie!" cried Mr. Le Petyt, and, breaking into tears, she flung +herself into his arms. They were clinging together, wet cheek against +wet cheek, when the town-sergeant came thundering at the door.</p> + + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>VI<br /> +<br /> +ATTAINMENT</h3> + +<p class="center">(<i>Account taken from a contemporary journal</i>)</p> + +<p class="noi">"<span class="smcap">Saturday</span>, April 4. This morning Miss Bendigo was executed at +Launceston, in the same black petelair she was dressed in at her trial, +had on a pair of black gloves, and her hands and arms tied with black +paduasoy ribbons. On the Friday night she sent to the sheriff, who, she +was informed, was come to town to be present at her execution, and +desired that he would give her till eight o'clock the next morning, and +she would be ready as soon after as he pleased. On Friday, at about +twelve o'clock, she took the Sacrament and signed a declaration +concerning the crime for which she was to suffer; in which she denied +knowing that the powders she had administered to her father had any +poisonous quality in them; and also made therein a confession of her +faith. Her behaviour at the gallows was becoming a person in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +unhappy circumstances, and drew not only great compassion, but tears, +from most of the spectators. When she got up about seven steps of the +ladder, she turned herself upon it and had a little trembling, saying: +'I am afraid I shall fall.' After she had turned herself upon the +ladder, the Rev. Mr. Le Petyt, who attended her, asked whether she had +anything to say to the public. She said yes, and made a speech to the +following purport: 'That, as she was then going to appear before a just +God, she did not know that the powders, which were believed to be the +death of her father, would have done him any harm, therefore she was +innocently the cause of his death, but as she hoped for mercy, what she +had done had been in innocence and love.' Then she stooped towards Mr. +Le Petyt and she was seen to be remarkably eager in taking the parting +kiss from him, which she did. The hangman then desired her to pull the +white kerchief, tied over her head for that purpose, over her eyes, +which she failing to do, a person standing by stepped up the ladder and +pulled it down. Then, giving the signal by holding out a little book she +had in her hand, she was turned off. Before she went out of the gaol she +gave the sheriff's man a guinea to drink, and took two guineas in her +hands with her, which she gave to the executioner. Her body was placed +in a coffin of maplewood, lined with white satin, on the lid only +'Sophia Bendigo, aged 18. April 4, 1752.' It is understood that Mr. Le +Petyt carried the coffin to St. Annan and buried it, by Miss Bendigo's +request, in the grave of her mother. At the execution, notwithstanding +the early hour, there was the greatest concourse of people ever seen on +such an occasion."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + + + + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +<a name="iii" id="iii"></a>THE GREATEST GIFT</h2> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +THE GREATEST GIFT</p> + + +<p class="noi"> +<span class="smcap">Edmond Bernardy</span> was in that state of mind when everything joyous is an +insult and everything sorrowful an added stab. When the horror had first +settled on him he fought it wildly; then succeeded a numbed condition of +the nerves, when will and reason lay dormant, and he surrendered himself +to instinct—and instinct had brought him to the lonely passes, the +snow-enfolded peaks, and the dream-ridden little cities of Provence.</p> + +<p>It was in the days before railways were thought of, when gentlemen still +did the "grand tour," and did it by post-chaise. Bernardy, whose +finances were of the uncertain kind usual with even a successful poet, +and whose mood was for the leisurely, preferred, once he had attained +the coast of Provence by ship, to strike up inland on foot. In spite of +himself, his surroundings began to soothe him, justifying the instinct +which led him, and that had its root deeper than he suspected. +Bernardy's mother had been a Provençale, and it was in one of the little +mountain cities that his English father had met her, and she had only +left her birthplace a few weeks before Edmond himself was born. It was +owing to her that he possessed a deep love for little cities; though +this was the first time that he had ever come to his mother's country.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +As a boy he, like all right-minded children, possessed a little city of +the imagination where he sat enthroned, king of the be-pennoned turrets +and circling walls. With Bernardy the idea of the little city had become +an obsession, entering even into his dreams at night, causing him to +lead, even more than most children, that curious inner life of which +waxing adolescence must so surely lose grip. His peculiar and vivid +genius, though technically the joy of his fellow writers, never lost a +quality of uncanny vision that sometimes disconcerted an age given over +to the flamboyance of Byron, and this quality was the natural outcome of +his withdrawal, as a child, into his secret life. That life was a +complicated and delicate thing, no mere floating vagueness of dreams, +but a fabric deliberately planned and reared, with a wealth of cunning +detail to persuade him of reality. He could remember now how convinced +he had been that the town his mind had made was as real as any city he +and his mother visited in their precarious existence—sometimes he could +recall, for a vivid flash, actual streets and houses of his imagination.</p> + +<p>Hill cities share with islands the fascination that only aloofness can +give, and the thought of the huddled towns cresting the Alpes-Maritimes +had tugged at Bernardy's cord of memory, bringing back, not only his +mother's stories of her own country, but also the recollections of his +dream-city, so like these he was seeing now. They are towns of fluted +roofs and mellow walls, of shutters flung wide like wings, of courtyards +that are wells of blue shadow, and towers that stand up, golden-white, +into the sunshine. Here Bernardy would come to a town perched, +eagle-wise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> upon a crag, with a forest of irregular turrets piercing the +sky; there to a little city which fitted over some rounded mountain-top +like a cap, the arching outline of its roofs following faithfully the +curve of the ground with a fruit-like suavity of contour. Everywhere, +away from the cities, lay the olive-slopes, like a great sea, charmed, +at the moment of most tumultuous movement, into stillness, the waves of +it interfolding in vast hollows that never broke; only now and again a +wind tossed the pale undersides of leaves to a semblance of spray.</p> + +<p>These valleys, so mysterious at dawn and dusk, and in the day so oddly +toy-like with their tiny, red-roofed oil-mills and the striped effect of +the olive-terraces; these reticent, though seemingly candid, little +townships above them; these mountains that at sunsetting were stained a +burning copper filmed with amethyst—all seemed to Bernardy to be under +a spell, caught in a web of magic as real, though not as visible, as the +web of dappled shadow each olive-tree flung over the ground beside it. +Bernardy told himself that here he could pass a long life happily, +instead of which he had to prepare for death, for the deliberate +blotting out, for him, of all this beauty.</p> + +<p>He had never been a gross liver or a gross thinker, yet many a +sensualist would now have been in a better case than he—for he had +always used his quality of spiritual vision—in him so strong as to be +almost an added sense—merely to beat back upon and intensify material +things. An unbeliever or a man of happy-go-lucky nature could have +extracted all the savour possible out of what remained to him of life, +and left what was to come on the knees of the gods—Bernardy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> was too +ardent a devotee of life, and life, as he understood it, was a +comprehensive term. It meant the training and enjoyment of every +faculty, the critical appreciation of everything he met, the absorption +of beauty and the production of it. Also he feared the physical act of +death as an animal fears it, with a contraction of the muscles and a +chilling of the blood—feared it so that sometimes the sweat would break +out over his face and he would bite back a cry.</p> + +<p>Looking back on his life Bernardy could say that it had been good, and +he saw for how much more the little things had counted than the big. A +sunny day, congenial companions, good wine and tobacco, and, above all, +the joy of creation—how well worth while they were. Taken as a whole +they outweighed the fondest woman in the world, and that though Bernardy +had been a fine lover. Yet it was because of a woman that he was to kill +himself three weeks from now, and the fantastic nature of the affair +made him feel like a man in a dream. It amused him that it should have +been the one conventional period of his life—a couple of months in an +English rectory, which had hurled him into such an extravagant +situation.</p> + +<p>The Rector, an avowed eccentric, and strongly influenced by the Byronic +wave then at the crest, decided it was his duty to brave society and +take notice of his brother's son—especially as the said son was a +figure in the literary worlds of Paris and London. The Rector's +daughter, Lucy, was sweet and fresh and English, and not in the least +clever, and Bernardy, who had never met anyone like her before, fell +madly in love. The combination of his passion; of a rival<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> deeply bitten +with romanticism and a sense of his own importance and of the high-flown +ideas of the period, resulted in a violent quarrel and what was then a +favoured species of duel. Bernardy and his rival, telling themselves +that they were sparing Lucy the shock of an actual encounter, drew lots +to decide which should take his own life. Bernardy had lost, and, +leaving the bewildered Lucy to her fantastic roll-collared baronet, +retired to spend his two months' grace in his own country of France.</p> + +<p>Behold him, entered on his last three weeks, toiling up a mountain pass, +his shirt open at the chest and his tightly strapped trousers somewhat +the worst for dust—a fine figure of a man in a thin, fiery way, with +singularly child-like eyes set in a network of wrinkles—the result of +having spent his thirty odd years with a lavish though fastidious hand. +Sickened suddenly of the ordered olive slopes, he went on and up till he +had left the sleek country behind him, and entered the region that looks +like a burnt-out landscape of the moon. At last he came to the mouth of +a gorge, one side of it rising up sheer into the sunlight, while the +other seemed to hang to the earth like a dark curtain. Looking up, +Bernardy saw, perched at the rim of the sunlit cliff, a little town. In +some places its sloping flanks were built right over the edge, as though +they had been poured out, while molten, from a giant spoon. It was so +many hundred feet above him that he could only just distinguish it was a +town, and not a mere huddle of pale-hued boulders; so high it gave the +effect of being on the edge of the world. Bernardy knew, beyond a doubt, +that he must attain this town, and he cast about to find a way. +Obviously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> there must be a track on the other side, as the cliff was +bare of so much as a shrub, and yet no path was to be discerned on its +scarred and abrupt surface. Eventually Bernardy made his way round a +fold of gorge and up a steep, winding track to a gently sloping stretch +of country that led up to the town from behind.</p> + +<p>Throwing himself upon the short, thorn-entangled grass, he locked his +hands behind his head and gazed under half-shut lids at the little town +which he now saw dark against the sky. He lay, idly counting the towers +of it, till his lids grew too heavy to stay open, and his fingers fell +apart, and with his head pillowed on his arm, he slept.</p> + +<p>When he awoke the day was at its brief height, and he scrambled to his +feet with an odd feeling that was more than a mere sense of rest. It was +as though a sponge had been deftly passed over his mind, leaving it a +clean, smooth surface, ready to receive new impressions, unbiased by +anything that was past, the confiding, expectant attitude of a young +child. He had forgotten nothing, it was rather that all his old +arrangement of values had been swept aside, leaving him free to assess +things anew. And, although, for all he could remember, his sleep had +been dreamless, yet he was haunted by half-recollections which pricked +at and eluded him. As he went towards the town something in the sweeping +lines of the fortifications seemed vaguely familiar, and again fragments +of a dream, at which he snatched in vain, floated by him.</p> + +<p>Passing under the cool shadow of the gateway he stood wondering which +way to go; then, saying to himself, "I'll go past the Mayor's house, I +always liked it because of the painted walls," he turned to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> right, +and walked several paces before the strangeness of his own words struck +him. "What can I have meant?" he asked himself, "and yet—I seem to +remember a house, a white house, with a painted frieze of fruit and +birds, and the Mayoress was a funny, fat old thing who made <i>échédets</i>. . . ."</p> + +<p>With his heart beating fast, he turned the corner and found himself at +the house he sought. The more he looked at it the more he remembered it, +and details crowded on him. He walked down the alley at the side, and +found a stone stairway he knew quite well, a stairway that led to a +carved door. He stumbled into the street again like a man distraught.</p> + +<p>"Has the horror turned my brain?" he thought. "Well, what matter, if it +makes it easier to die?"</p> + +<p>The whole street struck him as familiar, but not until he turned into +the Square did knowledge flash upon him.</p> + +<p>"It's my town!" he cried aloud, "it's my town!"</p> + +<p>He felt no perplexity at the incredible nature of the thing, a calming +influence, too gracious to be akin to his former stupor, stole over him; +he moved as in a dream, with no responsibility, but full enjoyment. The +naked plane-trees made a silvery network against the cold, pure blue of +the winter sky; into a raised washhouse across the Square the sun shone +obliquely, and the many-hued skirts of the stooping women made vivid +blotches of colour that harmonized with the rhythmic splash of the water +as only music of sight can with music of sound. Dark against the +cream-washed wall of the church, that seemed almost lambent in the glare +of the sun, sat a row of burnt-out old men with shrivelled throats, and +on the steps of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> fountain were two old women in black, one wearing a +white cap of folded wings, the other the wide-brimmed black straw hat +common to the peasantry. The lady of the hat plunged her brown old +fingers into the thin arc of water, and Bernardy saw how the drops that +clung to her hand glittered like diamonds before she shook them off to +pit the dust with pock-marks. With that intense sympathy which had done +much to make him an artist, Bernardy tried for a moment to think himself +into the mind of the black-hatted old woman, and to imagine the Square +and his own figure from her mental and physical point of view. It was a +favourite trick of his, but one of which latterly the strain had been +too much for him. Sometimes he would succeed so well for a flash that it +only made the impalpable but stern barrier of personality more definite +even while almost seeming to overleap it. "If I could only achieve the +thing properly," thought Bernardy, "I suppose I should attain exchange +of identity, or at least be absorbed into that of the old lady. And +then—no more of this black horror, and the shell of me would, I +suppose, disfigure the gravel."</p> + +<p>He lifted the heavy, leathern curtain over the church door and entered. +Within the air struck cool, though heavy with stale incense; gradually +the gleam of gilding, then separate colours and degrees of dusk and +pallor detached themselves from the darkness, and he saw he was in the +typical little church of the neighbourhood—a rococo affair decked with +rows of plaster saints on painted brackets, each with its little bunch +of flowers in a china mug in front of it. Beneath all the superfluous +decoration there was a pleasing austerity and sturdiness of line; solid +pillars and a low-groined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> roof made a square-set, beetle-browed little +building, at once tawdry and stark. To Bernardy's receptive mind there +was something peculiarly charming about these churches where everything +spoke of religion being taken in the right way—as a mere matter of +course. A lighted wick, floating in a jam-jar of oil, caught his eye +and, moving forward, he saw it burned before a crèche.</p> + +<p>For a few minutes he stood before it in silence, then he laughed aloud +in sheer enjoyment. All the other crèches he had seen boasted figures of +plaster or china; here, apparently, the expense had been too great, and +the characters were represented by dolls, ordinary wooden dolls with +shiny, painted, black hair and stuff clothes. The Mother herself was +dressed in stiff, spangled muslin, with a veil like a <i>première +communiante</i>, and a wreath of orange blossom—a confusion of ideas that +had its humour. St. Joseph, in good broadcloth coat and the tightest of +trousers, held the other post of honour, and nearer the spectators, +though facing away from them to the little Christ-Child, were ranged the +shepherds, with—surely an innovation—their wives. The shepherds +themselves supplied the crowning touch, for they wore real knitted +stockings of worsted, and shoes with stitched leather soles, a fact +admirably displayed by the kneeling position of their wearers. The wives +held little baskets full of beads, meant to represent eggs; and woolly +lambs with red-cotton tongues stood about at regular intervals. All the +dolls looked old, and as though they had seen a less gentle service, and +Bernardy wondered what child in that remote place was of sufficient +wealth to own dolls. He was charmed into mirth, and as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> thought how +tenderly and kindly the real personages represented must laugh as they +looked down at the little set-piece, he tried to trace, in some trick of +light and shadow, a fleeting smile on the doll-faces. Without warning, +his horror closed on him again, and turning he went heavily down the +church.</p> + +<p>As he neared the door the two old women of the market square came in; +still laughing and chattering, they went past him, slowly and stiffly, +with the uneven clumping of old feet. Some curious premonition—a +feeling that something was about to happen—made Bernardy watch them.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the old woman in the hat caught sight of the crèche, and with +the swift transition of the South, she stopped short in her chatter and +clutched her companion's arm:</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she said, "<i>c'est le bon Jésus, qui donne courage!</i>"</p> + +<p>Every note of her harsh old voice thrilled Bernardy's nerves like a +sudden clarion. It seemed to him the most luminous moment of his life. +There are brief seconds when a rent in the outer film of this world +comes against a rent in what we are pleased to call the "next," though +it is really co-existent with our own. Then it is that we can catch a +glimpse of something that is at another angle, a differently tilted +spiritual plane, so to speak, from our own, and for which our minds +would, ordinarily, need a different focus. The old woman had torn a +peephole for Edmond—perhaps, for all he knew, in that moment of +sympathetic concentration in the Square, their personalities had +mingled, and so made him sensitive to the premonition that gripped him +as she passed. He only knew that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> her phrase—and being a phrase-monger +himself he had a passion for them—struck him as magnificent. He would +have thought less of it had she said it of the Christ on the Cross, but +she spoke of the Christ-Child. Or if she had spoken of peace, but her +words were "qui donne courage."</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est le bon Jésus, qui donne courage!</i>"</p> + +<p>Bernardy stood quite still, wondering what her life had been that +"courage" should be the word that instinctively sprang to her lips. The +two women were still peering in at the crèche, but while White Cap was +recognizing all her acquaintances, so to speak, and hailing them by +name, the other old woman stared straight in front of her, repeating her +phrase very fast, over and over again. Suddenly she turned, and coming +down the church to where Bernardy stood, peered up into his face. For +the last time she repeated it, but with a slight difference, her hand on +his wrist:</p> + +<p>"Tu sais, mon brave," she said, "tu sais, c'est l'Enfant qui donne +courage!"</p> + +<p>Bernardy went out into the sunlight feeling at once calmed and +exhilarated, yet still with that odd sense of waiting, as of something +holding its breath. All the afternoon he haunted the little wind-swept +town, and towards evening he leant upon the parapet that hung over the +sheer mountain-side. Hundreds of feet below him the valley was lapped in +darkness and he watched the shadow thrown by the opposite range creep up +towards him, the edge of it in deeply curved waves, like a purple tide. +The chill of sunset was in the air when he made his way to the inn, and +he noted that, although the sight of a stranger must be of the utmost +rarity, he excited no comment. Could it be,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> he wondered, that they +instinctively knew him for one of themselves, these people of his +dream-city, or were they dreams too? In how leisurely a manner they +passed along the streets—the Faun-like youths, brown-necked and +bold-eyed; the firm-set women with their black hair so sleekly and +heavily massed about their heads that it seemed carved out of ebony, and +the quiet-eyed old people with indrawn mouths!</p> + +<p>When he reached the inn, a grey pile of round-flanked towers that was +built on the eastern edge, his memories awoke again, and in the +courtyard they surged over him—memories of sitting enthroned in just +such a castle as this. He remembered, too, that there had always been +something he was not allowed to know—was it a door that had been kept +locked, or a forbidden book, or some hidden person whom he had +perpetually tried to meet and never succeeded? Whatever it was, he felt +he would soon discover it.</p> + +<p>Nothing occurred to stimulate his memory during supper. The stout +patronne chatted to him of her inn, which had been the Seigneur's +chateau till thirty years before, when the last owner died in great +poverty. Had Monsieur seen and admired the beautiful crèche in the +church? The little figures were the dolls which once belonged to +Mademoiselle de Clerissac. The patronne was not old enough to remember +it very distinctly, but she believed Mademoiselle had met with trouble, +which was why she went away. After all, it was natural, she had red +blood in her, both the old Seigneur and his father having married +peasant girls. If Monsieur was interested in such things old Marie, who +had been Mademoiselle de Clerissac's nurse, still lived in a room in the +chateau. She was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> fabulously old, and had to be tended like a baby by +her granddaughter, and it was true she had long wandered in her wits, +but undoubtedly she could see visions, both of the past and future. No, +Bernardy not only felt no interest in the actual history of the place, +but even shrank from knowledge. It seemed to make his dream-city less +dream-like and less his.</p> + +<p>Once in the +<a name="dim" id="dim"></a><ins title="Original has din">dim</ins> passage leading to his room, he found he had +forgotten which was his door. Carrying his lighted candle head-high, he +explored the far end of the passage, and came on a rather smaller door +than the rest, studded with nail-heads set in a peculiar pattern. It +flashed on Bernardy that it led to the room he had never been allowed to +enter—he even remembered the scar where one nail was missing. Pushing +up the latch, he opened the door and passed through, the light of the +candle he carried shining full on his face, so that he was plainly +visible to anyone in the room, while he himself was too dazzled to see. +There was a table at his left hand, and he put the candle down on it +before advancing into the room.</p> + +<p>There was a fire of smouldering logs on the hearth, and beside it sat an +old, old woman. Her hands, with their knotted and discoloured veins, +hung over the arms of her chair, under her chin a hollow cut up sharply. +She stared at Bernardy from red-rimmed, rheumy eye-sockets, mumbling her +mouth with a sucking movement grotesquely suggestive of a baby. Behind +her, wrapped in the soft shadow, with fugitive gleams of firelight +bringing out now a cheekbone, now the curve of chin, or of breast, stood +a much younger woman—she seemed about thirty or perhaps a little more. +They gazed at Bernardy in a calm silence for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> several seconds, while he +stared at them. Then the younger woman stepped forward into the light, +and Bernardy saw how big and strong she was, deep-chested and +long-flanked, with a wide forehead and heavily folded lids. Against the +white of her apron her hands and wrists showed coarse and reddened, but +the big neck, where it disappeared into the kerchief, was white as milk.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur mistakes the room," she said, in a deep voice whose Provençal +twang was blurred into softness. "My grandmother is very old, and +Monsieur will excuse her not wishing him good evening."</p> + +<p>Bernardy, confused and bewildered, hesitated a moment, and it was the +old woman who broke the silence. She seemed to be staring not so much at +Bernardy as at some mental vision of him.</p> + +<p>"Candide, he has come at last," she said, slowly and clearly, "you must +give him the letters."</p> + +<p>The woman called Candide dropped her heavy lids for a moment, while, to +Bernardy's wonder a blush mounted to the roots of her pale, smoothly +banded hair. Then she went to a cupboard, unlocked it, and took out a +packet of letters and a small, paper-covered book, which she handed to +him in silence. The old woman had closed her reddish lids, thickly woven +over with small, raised veins, and there was nothing left for Bernardy +but to take the packet and go to his own room. He found it easily, for +the door stood open now, and he sat himself by the fire and began to +read. In spite of the instinct which had led him, he still had not +guessed what he should find. The breath of dawn was stirring the +curtains before he put the papers down.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +The entries in the journal were very brief, and the first bore a date of +some thirty-five years earlier:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"It is now two years since I left school," said the journal, +"and I think I have improved in my hand-writing, also my crewel +stitch. Papa was vexed with me to-day because the soup was too +thin. It was the second straining from the same fowl, but we +could not afford to kill another. I hear there is a stranger, an +Englishman, in the town. He is voyaging for his education. I +wish that was how they educated women."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next entry was written the following night:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Papa found there was an English Milord staying here, and has +brought him to the chateau to dinner. He says even if the de +Clerissacs have lost their wealth that is no reason why they +should lose their manners. I had a fresh fowl killed and wore my +muslin. I hear skirts are getting full and mine are very narrow. +He has nice eyes and is so young—almost as young as I am."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Several months elapsed before the next entry. Bernardy read it with +dimmed eyes.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"I am going away—I am going to try and find him. It is not his +fault that everything has happened; I ought to have known, +because I am the woman. He will be miserable when I find him and +tell him what I have gone through, and I cannot bear to make him +miserable. I would protect him from it if I could. But there +will be the baby, and I must protect that too. Papa says I am no +daughter of his, but I cannot see what I have done that is +dreadful. I have done<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> right—I am a woman now, and I know. How +could it have been better for me to grow old and thin and never +give to anyone? It is always good to give. I am leaving this +behind me in the secret shelf of my cupboard, with all the +letters I wrote him—the ones he gave me back and the ones I +never sent. . . . I shall never come here again, and I love it +like my soul. I will always pray our child will come here. He +will not be born here, but perhaps he will come here to die, +even if I cannot. The candle is guttering and I must go. Papa +says I may not bear his name any longer, and old Marie is +letting me take hers. I am no longer de Clerissac, but must sign +myself</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Candide Bernardy.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The first few letters were mere formal little notes—inviting the Milord +to dine, at the instance of Monsieur de Clerissac, thanking him for +taking herself and old Marie out driving in his post-chaise, suggesting +an hour when he might care to go wild-cat shooting with old Marie's son. +Then came a letter in a more intimate key.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"You should not have sent to Nice for the books" (it ran), "yet +I should be ungrateful not to thank you. If you care to come and +see the violet-bed I was telling you of I will thank you in +person. Papa says would you like one of Minèrve's next litter, +but I say you will not be here then? Besides, in England, are +not your dogs of the chase of the best? Accept, Milord, my most +grateful thanks and remembrances.</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">C. de C.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>There was only a fragment of the letter next in sequence, that ran as +follows:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<blockquote> +<p>". . . and if you really wish it, I will with pleasure embroider a +collar for the pup. Papa says I am to say he is glad you are +staying on, as he never meets a gentleman here. It is amiable of +you to admire my singing, though I fear it is sadly uncultured +after what you are used to, but I too love the Provençal songs. +You suggest Sunday evening to come and begin translating them +into French, that would suit us admirably. My father is, alas! +in bed with the gout, but perhaps you would be kind enough to go +up and see him? It is true our garden is lovely by +moonlight—you do not see then how neglected it is, but I am not +sure if I ought to show it to you then. Perhaps if . . ."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The rest of the page was missing, and Bernardy picked up the next +letter.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"Bien-aimé" (he read), "how can I write you and what can I say? +What do the women of your world say when they feel as I do? Ah! +I hope you do not know, I hope you have never made any other +woman feel what I do. Every one must adore you, but only I must +love you. There, I have said it! Edmund, I love you. But it is +not so very dreadful to say it, is it, since, you love me? I +cannot play with the truth to you, Edmund. To you I must always +be</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Candide</span>."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>A week later a frightened chord was sounded.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"Edmund," she wrote, "do not again kiss me as you did last +night. I feel wicked creeping out to meet you as it is, and last +night—Edmund, you made me feel ashamed. It was not like +kissing, it was as though you wished to eat me. Do not think me +unkind, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> I am feeling afraid, even of you. That is unkind—forgive +me.</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Candide.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Another week, and the key had shifted again.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>". . . it is true. I love you so that you can kiss me even like +you did that time. It terrifies me and I feel cold and weak, but +it is enough that you say it is the most splendid thing you have +ever known. Edmund, will you be angry if I say that I regret the +days before we knew we loved? Everything was in a golden mist +like you see in the valley at sunrise, and now I keep on feeling +I do not understand you. Why do you say you cannot tell your +father you love me? I am well-born, though it is true I have no +<i>dot</i>, but, indeed, I am a good manager, and you say I am even +prettier than the English ladies. Oh! I am lonely and +frightened, and I want your arms round me. Now that I have said +that, you cannot reproach me with being cold. . . ."</p> + +<p>"Your note has just come" (ran the next letter), "and I am oh! +so miserable for you. You are not to think I am unhappy—I am +happy to have loved you. If thinking about me adds to your +unhappiness, I can even say—do not think about me. I can +understand you cannot marry unless your fiancée has a <i>dot</i>, +because of your estate. It is best that you should go, but you +may see me to say good-bye. My dear one, my poor heart, what can +I do to help you?"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>That was all of the letters to Milord—the letters he had given back. +Next came letters that were never sent.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +"Chéri" (ran the first of them), "at last I can write out all +that is in my heart, since you will never see these pages. I +must write, or I shall go mad. . . . I don't regret, in spite of +my shame and bewilderment, for I gave to you. I cannot even feel +wicked, but I should not care if I did. I love you all the more +now I know you are not what I thought. You are not a god or even +a hero, you are a man, and so you are a child—my child, whose +head I held on my breast. You have told me to write to you if I +need your help. How can that be? All that is left to me is to +live out my life here in dreams. I imagine your presence all +day. If the door opens behind me and some one enters, I pretend +it is you till the last moment possible—until Papa or one of +the servants comes round my chair and speaks to me. I have been +loved, and I love—that is a great deal to live on."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>That night she went on with the same letter.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"Edmund, Edmund, it is not enough—I want you. My heart is +breaking. I can only lie with my eyes shut and my face pressed +down, and something beats out. 'I want you, I want you.' My +heart broke when you wrote me your last note and I had to reply +cheerfully because of you. I am not so cowardly but that I can +still be glad you do not know my heart broke. <i>Edmund, I want +you, I want you.</i>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>The last of the unsent letters to Milord was written several months +later.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"Why did I say hearts broke? They don't break, they go dead. +Edmund, I wonder if, wherever you are, you are thinking of me? +You are certainly not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> thinking that soon you will see me. I +have been trying to decide what to do for the best, and now Papa +says I shall not stay here till what he calls my shame is born. +I will not stay where my hope and my joy is called my shame, and +though I would never ask you anything for myself, I must ask if +for the child. I am coming to England, and I must start now or I +shall not arrive in time. I shall leave all my letters behind +with my journal. I do not even know what I feel when I think of +seeing you again.</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Candide de Clerissac.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>There was still one paper more, an envelope that had come by courier and +was addressed to Marie Bernardy. It had been opened, but inside was an +enclosure of which the seals were still unbroken. Without any shock of +surprise Bernardy saw it was addressed to him.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"My son" (he read), "my little son, who, when you read this, +will be a grown man, I who have not quite lost my birthright of +prevision, know that some day you will go to my town and read +this. Will you be in trouble, my little son? Something tells me +you will be near the end, and so I write this to help you. You +are lying on my lap now, and I think we shall have many years to +wander in together, and you will grow away from me, but when you +read this you will find me again, and something more as well. My +son, I got no further than Paris, bearing you beneath my heart. +There I heard from his priest-brother that he had been killed +hunting, and there you were born. So you are mine, you belong to +no one but me. Listen, my son. Life is good, but a clean death +is good too.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> Never be afraid of one or the other. And when you +read this in the home that was mine, put fear away and be a man. +Find the one with whom you can face whatever comes without +flinching, and when you have found her, never let her go till +your arms must loose for good. My son, I was wrong to say that +hearts went dead, they are merely numbed for a time if only we +are never weak enough to regret. Always remember that it is the +good woman who gives and the good man who creates, and take what +is left to you of life and make with it. I am not merely +imagining you as you read; I am actually with you, I have fused +the present and the future into one, and I can see the +dawn-light barring the floor through the slats of the shutters, +and you are sitting by an empty hearth. Go out, my child, into +the dawn. Edmond, my son, however long it is before you join me, +I am to all eternity</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Your Mother</span>."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Bernardy staggered to his feet and went to the window, and the +steel-cold bars of light from the slats ran up over him as he +approached. Flinging the shutters wide, he leant out, and drew deep +breaths of the chill, sweet air. The yews and overgrown hedges of the +garden were still velvety with shadow, but beyond the ramparts the +delicate pallor of dawn was already tinged with a faint fire. So had his +mother, half-timid child, half peasant, and entirely woman, often +watched with him beneath her heart. Yet as Bernardy saw the rose light +strengthen, his thoughts left his mother for that other Candide who had +reddened so unaccountably the night before—that Candide who must be +called after his mother. He was still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> thinking of her as he went +downstairs and through the open door that led into the garden.</p> + +<p>He crossed to the furthest rampart of it, that hung over the cliff edge, +and sat down to watch the dawn. Away to a line of silver that told of +the sea the country looked as though dappled in grey and gold, for the +valleys were pools of shadow veined by the brightening ranges of the +mountains. There was a transparency about the morning, a clarity of +young green in leaf and grass, a glimmer of fragile dew globes and +gossamer webs on the brambles, that all made for an agreeing lightness +of that bubble the soul, and Bernardy was soothed to the core of him. +Cupping his chin in his hands, he sat there, drenched in the ineffable +light that seemed to make of the air some divine element, enveloping +every edge in brightness, refracting from each leaf and vibrating with a +diamond quality on the mists in the valley below. The pattern of events +was beginning to clear for him as the world was cleared by the +sunrise—it only needed some master event to be complete. He thought of +the sleep into which he had fallen outside the town, and which had wiped +his mind clear of resentment, and freed it for new impressions: he +remembered the shock when he had first recognized the walls, his growing +excitement as thing after thing was familiar to him, the blinding flash +of the moment when he realized he had found his dream-city. On the crest +of receptiveness he had entered the church, and the phrase of the old +peasant woman had caught at his imagination. Looking back, he saw how it +was the extraordinary serenity of the townsfolk that seemed their +dominant characteristic—they were wrapped in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> it as in an atmosphere, +they were clear-eyed, clear-skinned, clear-souled. From the moment when +he recognized the nail-studded door till he put down the last of his +mother's letters, his comprehensions had flowed outward in widening +circles. In his new knowledge of his father and mother he saw himself +more clearly than ever before. He remembered his mother, a silent, +quiet-eyed woman, nearly always bent over her needlework—and he saw her +as the eager, ignorant girl, full of romantic dreams; saw her change +into the half-timid, half-reckless lover; followed her through her +lonely grief to the attainment of quiet. She, too, could say it had been +good—and with how far more reason than he! He saw his father—weak, +hot-headed, swayed by passion and selfishness and regret—his father who +had preferred conventional safety to this hill-hung garden in Provence, +where he could have dreamt the greatest dream of all. He saw himself as +he was, and there followed a twin-vision of how he would be lying cold +and pulseless in a few weeks' time, and of how he might have lived in +this city of dreams had he found it with his life still his own. He +would indeed have dreamt the greatest dream of all—the dream that was +life at its fullest. "It is the good woman who gives and the good man +who creates. Take what is left to you of life and make with it" . . . so +wrote his mother, and like an answer flashed the words of the peasant +woman in the church, "C'est l'enfant qui donne courage!"</p> + +<p><i>The greatest dream of all!</i></p> + +<p>He looked up and saw Candide, large and serene, coming towards him down +the path, her skirts swinging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> from her broad hips. He stood up, and for +a moment they faced each other in silence.</p> + +<p>She was just thirty and in some ways looked more, because of the +solidity of her well-poised figure; and her clear eyes, rimmed with +black round each iris, were not the ignorant eyes of a child, they were +the eyes of a woman who faces knowledge naturally and patiently. +Big-boned, and, but for the whiteness of her skin, with a something +rockhewn about her face, her only beauty was that of health and a +certain assurance which spoke of perfect poise. She was what Bernardy, +in that moment's clarity of vision, knew her for—a woman born to be +mother of men. He took a step towards her with the gesture of a +frightened child, and with her big hands over his she drew him to the +stone bench and sat beside him. He told her everything, simply and +quickly, because he hated explanations, and was impatient that they were +necessary to her. When he had made an end she said:</p> + +<p>"Do you know why I blushed last night when my grandmother recognized +you?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Bernardy, startled out of himself yet pricked to interest.</p> + +<p>"Because my grandmother has always made me wait for you. . . ."</p> + +<p>"Candide! Candide!" cried Bernardy, the child merged in the waxing +possessiveness of the man, "shall we dream my last few weeks together, +you and I?"</p> + +<p>"You do not love me, that is so, is it not?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I am not in love with you, no. That is all spent. If you were any other +woman I would lie to you. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> it seems to me it matters very little +whether I am or not. It is not that I feel I cannot love, but as though +I had got through it and out the other side. . . ."</p> + +<p>"No, it does not matter," said Candide. "What matters is that I can give +to you and you to me. We will make life, you and I."</p> + +<p>"Yes," agreed Bernardy, "we will make life," and as his arms went round +her and his lips found hers everything that had puzzled him fell +naturally into its place. He had always created in his verse, but it was +for this his mother had borne him, it was this that the old woman in the +church had meant, it was for this that the woman at his side had waited. +It mattered very little that he himself would not live to see the life +he made, the chief thing was to create, and he saw life as the greatest +gift man could make to God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +<a name="iv" id="iv"></a>THE MASK</h2> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><br /> +THE MASK +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">When</span> Vashti Bath was "led out" by the two most eligible young men in the +village, the other women spoke their minds pretty freely on the subject; +and when she progressed to that further stage known as "arm-a-crook," +and still refrained from making the fateful choice, comment waxed +bitter. The privilege of proposal belongs in Cornwall to that sex +commonly called "the weaker"—a girl goes through the various stages of +courtship conducted out of doors, and if she decides to marry the young +man, asks him to "step in" one evening when he has seen her home, after +which the engagement is announced. Vashti, in the most brazen way, was +sampling two suitors at a time, and those two the most coveted men in +Perran-an-zenna, and therein lay the sting for the women-folk.</p> + +<p>"What is there to her, I should like to knaw?" the lay-reader's wife +demanded of her friends at a somewhat informal prayer meeting. "She'm an +ontidy kind o' maid who don't knaw one end of needle from t'other. When +her stockin' heels go into holes she just pulls them further under her +foot, till sometimes she do have to garter half way down her leg!"</p> + +<p>"She'm ontidy sure 'nough," agreed a widow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> woman of years and +experience, "but she'm a rare piece o' red and white, and menfolk are +feeble vessels. If a maid's a fine armful they never think on whether +she won't be a fine handful. And Vashti do have a way wi' her."</p> + +<p>That was the whole secret—Vashti had a way with her. She was a splendid +slattern—showing the ancient Celtic strain in her coarse, abundant +black hair, level brows, and narrow, green-blue eyes, with a trace of +Jew in the hawk-like line of nose and the prominent chin curved a little +upwards from her throat. A few years, and she would be lean and haggard, +but now she was a fine, buoyant creature, swift and tumultuous, with a +mouth like a flower. For all the slovenliness of her clothes she had a +trick of putting them on which an Englishwoman never has as a +birthright, and rarely achieves. Vashti could tie a ribbon so that every +man she passed turned to look after her.</p> + +<p>Perran-an-zenna is a mining village, and some of the menfolk work in the +tin mines close at hand, and some in the big silver mine four miles +away. James Glasson, the elder and harsher-featured of Vashti's lovers, +worked in the latter, and there was every prospect of his becoming a +captain, as he had a passion for mechanics and for chemistry, and was +supposed to be experimenting with a new process that would cheapen the +cost of extracting the silver. Willie Strick, the younger, handsomer, +more happy-go-lucky of the two men, went to "bal" in the tin mines, and +was disinclined to save, but then his aged grandmother, with whom he +lived, had been busy saving for twenty years. Strick was an eager lover, +quick to jealousy—Glasson was uncommunicative even to Vashti, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +careless of her opinions. Though the jealousy irked her it flattered her +too, but on the other hand, Glasson's carelessness, even while it piqued +her, made her covet him all the more.</p> + +<p>This was how matters stood one evening in late March when Vashti had +gone up to the moors to fetch in the cows—not her own, no Bath had been +thrifty enough for that, but belonging to the farm where she worked. As +she walked along in the glowing light, the white road winking up at her +through a hole in her swinging skirt, and a heavy coil of hair jerking a +little lower on the nape of her neck with each vigorous stride, Vashti +faced the fact that matters could continue as they were no longer. At +bottom Vashti was as hard as granite, she meant to have what she wanted; +her only trouble was she had not quite settled what it was she did want. +Like all her race, she had a strain of fatalism in her, that prompted +her to choose whichever of the two men she should next chance to +meet—and the woman in her suggested that at least such a declaration on +the part of fate would give her the necessary impetus towards deciding +upon the other.</p> + +<p>Lifting her eyes from the regular, pendulum-like swing of her skirt that +had almost mesmerized her lulled vision, she saw, dark against the +sunset, the figure of a man. She knew it to be either James or Willie +because of the peculiar square set of the shoulders and the small +head—for the two men were, like most people in that intermarrying +district, cousins, with a superficial trick of likeness, and an almost +exact similarity of voice. A prescience of impending fate weighed on +Vashti; the gaunt shaft of the disused Wheal Zenna mine, that stood up +between her and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> the approaching man, seemed like a menacing finger. The +man reached it first and stood leaning up against it, one foot on the +rubble of granite that was scattered around, his arm, with the miner's +bag slung over it, resting across his raised knee. Vashti half thought +of going back, even without the cows, but it was already time the poor +beasts were milked, and curiosity lured her on. She went across the +circle of greener grass surrounding the shaft, and found Glasson +awaiting her.</p> + +<p>To every woman comes a time in life when she is ripe for the decisive +man; and it is often a barren hour when he fails to appear. For Vashti +the hour and the man had come together, and she knew it as she met +Glasson's look. Putting out his hands, ingrained with earth in the +finest seams of them, he laid them heavily on her shoulders, like a +yoke. His bag swung forward and hit her on the chest, but neither of +them noticed it.</p> + +<p>"Vashti, you'm got to make'n end," he said. "One way or t'other. Which +es et to be?"</p> + +<p>She shook under his gaze, her lids drooped, but she tried to pout out +her full underlip with a pretence of petulance. Suddenly his grip +tightened.</p> + +<p>"So 'ee won't tell me? Then by God, I'll do the tellin'! You'm my woman, +do'ee hear? Mine, and neither Will Strick nor any other chap shall come +between us two."</p> + +<p>Wheeling her round, he held her against the rough side of the shaft and +bent his face to hers; she felt his lips crush on her own till she could +have cried out with pain if she had been able to draw breath. When he +let her go her breast heaved, and she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> stood with lowered head holding +her hand across her mouth.</p> + +<p>"Now we'll get the cows, my lass," said Glasson quietly, "and take'n +home, and then you shall ask me to step in."</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>During the short, fierce courtship that followed Vashti saw very little +of Willie Strick, though she heard he talked much of emigrating, vowing +he would disappear in the night and not come home until he had made a +fortune. All of Vashti's nature was in abeyance save for one emotion—a +stunned, yet pleasurable, submission. It was not until several months +after her marriage that she began to feel again the more ordinary and +yet more complex sensations of everyday life. If she had to the full a +primitive woman's joy in being possessed, she had also the instinctive +need for possessing her man utterly, and James Glasson was only partly +hers. It was borne in on her that by far the larger side of him was his +own, never to be given to any woman. Ambition and an uncanny +secretiveness made up the real man; he had set himself to winning his +wife chiefly because the want of her distracted him from his work and +fretted him.</p> + +<p>He bent the whole of life to his purposes, without any parade of power, +but with a laborious care that gradually settled on Vashti like a +blight. When she realized that no matter how rightly she wore her little +bits of finery, he no longer noticed them, realized that she was merely +a necessity to him as his woman—something to be there when she was +wanted, she began to harden. He still had a fascination for her when he +chose to exert it—his very carelessness and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> sureness of her were what +made the fascination, but gradually it wore thinner and slacker, and a +sullen resentment began to burn through her seeming submission.</p> + +<p>The Glasson's cottage was tucked away in a hollow of the moor, only the +chimney of it visible from Perran-an-zenna, and Vashti began to chafe +under the isolation, and to regret she had never been at more pains to +make friends among her own sex.</p> + +<p>As summer drew to its full, Vashti watched the splendid pageant of it in +the sky and moor with unappreciative eyes. If anyone had told her that +her soul had been formed by the country of her birth and upbringing, she +would have thought it sheer lunacy, but her parents were not more +responsible for Vashti than the land itself. The hardness and bleakness, +the inexpressible charm of it, the soft, indolent airs, scented with +flowers, or pungent with salt; above all, that reticence that makes for +lonely thoughts, these things had, generation by generation, moulded her +forbears, and their influence was in her blood. Even the indifference +with which she saw arose from her oneness with her own country, and in +this she was like all true Cornish folk before and since—they belong to +Cornwall body and soul. The quality of reticence had become +secretiveness in James Glasson—he took a childish pleasure in keeping +any little happening from the world in general and Vashti in particular, +and the consequence was that, in her, strength was hardening into +relentlessness.</p> + +<p>One market day she was returning from Penzance—a drive of some eight +miles, accomplished in the cart of their nearest neighbour—with a paper +parcel on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> her knee, which she kept on fingering under the rug as though +to make sure it was still there. At the neighbour's farm she got out, +thanked him, and started to walk the remaining mile over the moor, with +the precious parcel laid carefully on the top of the basket of household +goods. It had been one of those days when the air seems to have a misty +quality that makes it almost visible—a delicate effulgence that +envelops every object far and near, blurring harsh outlines and giving +an effect as though trees and plants stood up into an element too subtle +for water and too insistent for ether. The cloud shadows gave a +plum-like bloom to the miles of interfolding hills, and inset among the +grey-green of the moor the patches of young bracken showed vivid as +slabs of emerald. Lightly as balls of thistledown the larks hopped +swiftly over the heather on their thin legs, the self-heal and +bird's-foot trefoil made a carpet of purple and yellow; from the +heavy-scented gorse came the staccato notes of the crickets, while in a +distant copse a cuckoo called faintly on her changed, June note. As +Vashti rounded the corner of the rutted track and the cottage came into +view, she paused. The deeply sloping slate roof was iridescent as a +pigeon's breast, and the whitewashed walls were burnished with gold by +the late sunlight, while against the faded peacock blue of the fence the +evening primroses seemed luminous. Even to Vashti it all looked +different, transmuted. Her fingers pressed the shiny paper of the parcel +till it crackled and a smile tugged at her lips. After all, it was not +bad to be young and handsome on an evening in June, to be returning to a +home of her own, with, under her arm, a parcel that, to her,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> was an +event. Vashti had bought that thing dear to the heart of the +country-woman, a length of rich black dress silk; she meant to make it +up herself, and though her stitches were clumsy, she knew she could cut +and drape a gown better than many a conscientious sempstress. And +then—then she would take her place as wife to the most discussed man in +all that part of Penwith and hold up her head at Meeting. Even James +himself could not but treat her differently when she had black silk on +her back.</p> + +<p>She went through to the outhouse, which James used as a workshop, and +tried the door. It was locked. "James!" she cried, rattling the latch, +"James!"</p> + +<p>She heard him swear softly, then came the sound of something hastily put +down and a cupboard door being shut. Then Glasson opened the door a few +inches, and stood looking down at her.</p> + +<p>"Get into kitchen," he said briefly, "can't 'ee see I'm busy?"</p> + +<p>Already Vashti's pleasure in her purchase was beginning to fade, but she +stood her ground, though wrathfully.</p> + +<p>"You needn' think you'm the only person with secrets," she flashed: "I'd +a fine thing to show 'ee here, if you'd a mind to see it—now I shall +keep'n to myself."</p> + +<p>"Woman's gear!" gibed Glasson, "you'm been buying foolishness over to +market. Get the supper or I shan't have time for a bite before I go to +see t' captain."</p> + +<p>"That's all you think on," she retorted; "you and your own business."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +"That's all you should think on, either," he said, pulling her towards +him with a hand on the back of her neck, and kissing her on her +unresponsive mouth. She stood sullenly; then, when he dropped his hand, +went into the house. She heard him turn the key in the lock as she went. +That night she cried hot tears of anger on to the new dress length, and +next day she went across the moor and met Willie Strick on his way home +to Perran-an-zenna.</p> + +<p>That was the first of many meetings, for Willie's resentment faded away +before the old charm of Vashti's presence. In spite of his handsome +face, he was oddly like James. The backs of their heads were similar +enough to give Vashti a little shock whenever she passed behind her +husband as he sat at table, or each time that Willie lay beside her on +the moor, his head on her lap. She would pull the curly rings of his +hair out over her fingers, and even while she admired the glint of it, +some little memory of a time when James' hair had glinted in the sun or +candlelight, pricked at her—not with any feeling for him except +resentment, but at first it rather spoiled her lover for her. They had +to meet by stealth, but that was easy enough, as James was now on an +afternoon core, and Willie on a morning one. To do the latter justice, +he had tried, at the beginning, a feeble resistance to the allure that +Vashti had for him, not from any scruple of conscience, but because his +pleasure-loving nature shrank from anything that might lead to +unpleasantness. And, careless as he seemed of his wife, James Glasson +would be an ugly man to deal with if he discovered the truth. So far +there had been nothing except the love-making of a limited though +expressive vocabulary,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> and Vashti curbed him and herself for three +whole weeks. She was set on possessing Willie's very soul—here, at +least, was a man whom she could so work upon that he would always be +hers even to the most reluctant outpost of his being. By the end of +those weeks, her elusiveness, the hint of passion in her, and the steady +force of her will, had enslaved Strick hopelessly: he was maddened, +reckless, and timid all at once.</p> + +<p>"Vashti, it's got to end," he said desperately, as he walked with her +one evening as near to the cottage as he dared, and as he spoke he slid +an arm round her waist. To his surprise, she yielded and swayed towards +him so that her shoulder touched his; in the sunset light her upturned +face glimmered warm and bewilderingly full of colour.</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit, lad," she breathed. "James goes up to London church town +to-morrow to see one of the managers—happen he'll be gone a week or +more. . . ."</p> + +<p>He felt her soft mouth on his cheek for a moment and his arms went round +her—the next moment came a crash that seemed to split the sky, and from +the outhouse leapt a whistling column of flame.</p> + +<p>Stricken with a superstitious terror, Willie screamed—loudly and +thinly, like a woman. Vashti recoiled, flung up her hands, then rushed +towards the burning outhouse.</p> + +<p>"James is in there!" she cried. "Oh, get'en out, get'en out!"</p> + +<p>The flame had been caused by an explosion, but there was not much +inflammatory stuff for it to feed on, and a thick smoke, reeking of +chemicals, hung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> above the outhouse. As Vashti, followed by the shaking +Strick, reached the door, it swung open and a Thing stood swaying a +moment on the step.</p> + +<p>It seemed to the lovers' first horrified glimpse that all of Glasson's +face had been blown away. The whole of one side of it was covered by an +enormous blister, a nightmare thing, which, as the woman gazed at it, +burst and fell into blackness. The same moment Glasson dropped his +length across the threshold.</p> + +<p>"The doctor, go for doctor," whispered Vashti with dry lips, "as quick +as you can—I—I dursn't turn 'en over."</p> + +<p>So Glasson lay with what had been his face against a patch of grass, +while Willie ran, horror-ridden, to Perran-an-zenna for the doctor.</p> + +<p>Dry-eyed, Vashti watched by her husband for three nights, and all +praised her wifely devotion. She sat by the gleam of a flickering +nightlight, her eyes on the bandaged face—the linen was only slit just +as much as was necessary for breathing.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Glasson," said the doctor cheerily, as he finished his +inspection on the third night, "I can give you good news. Your husband +will live, and will keep the sight of one eye. But—though of course +wonders can be done with modern surgery—we can't build up what's gone. +He'll always have to wear a mask, Mrs. Glasson."</p> + +<p>When he had gone Vashti went and stood by the bed, looking down on the +unconscious man, who lay breathing heavily—how easy it would be to lay +a hand over that slit in the linen—a few minutes, and this nightmare +would be over. She half put out her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> hand, then drew it back. She was +not yet capable of cold-blooded crime.</p> + +<p>Lighting a candle, she took from a drawer a paper parcel, which she +unfolded on the little table. As the still untouched folds of the black +dress length, with a few little hard-edged blots on it that meant tears, +came into view, Vashti's self-control broke down. She wept stormily, her +head along her arms. Release had flaunted so near to her, and was +withdrawn, and her horror of the Thing on the bed was mingled with a +pity for it that ate into her mind. She dried her burning eyes, and +picking up the scissors, began to cut a mask out of the tear-stained +breadths; her invincible habit of considering herself forbade her, even +at that moment, to use the good yards for such a purpose.</p> + +<p>The candle-flame was showing wan in the grey of the dawning when Vashti +put the last stitches to the mask—she had made it very deep, so that it +would hang to just below the jawbone, and she had laboriously +buttonhole-stitched round the one eye-hole, and sewn tape-strings firmly +to the sides, top and bottom. The mask was finished.</p> + +<p>James Glasson's figure, a trifle stooped and groping, with that sinister +black curtain from cap to collar, soon ceased to be an object of fearful +curiosity in Perran-an-zenna; even the children became so used to it +that they left off calling out as he passed. He grew more silent and +morose than ever, and his secretiveness showed itself in all sorts of +ingenious petty ways.</p> + +<p>Vashti had the imaginative streak of her race, and life in the lonely +cottage with this masked personality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> took on the quality of nightmare. +She felt his one eye watching her continually, and was tormented by the +thought, "How much does he know?" Who could tell? Had he seen anything +from the outhouse window when she had rashly let Willie come so near, or +did he know who it was who had fetched the doctor? Sometimes a meaning +word seemed to show that he knew everything, sometimes she argued that +he could only guess. The black mask filled the whole of her life, the +thought of it was never out of her mind, not even when she was working +on her old farm, for she had to be breadwinner now. She found herself +dwelling on what lay behind the mask, wondering whether it could be as +bad as that black expanse, and once she woke herself at night, +screaming: "Tear 'en down, Willie! Tear the black mask down!" and then +lay trembling, wondering whether her husband had heard. For days he said +nothing and she felt herself safe; then one night he turned to her. +"There's no air," he complained. "Can't 'ee take down t' curtains? If +'ee can't do anything else, why—tear 'en down, tear 'en down!"</p> + +<p>He had mimicked her very voice, and silent with fear, she took down the +curtain, her fingers shaking so that the rings jingled together along +the rod. One day, when he was working in the garden, he turned to face +the wind. She saw him sideways against the sky, and the black mask, held +taut at brow and chin by the strings, was being blown inward. She never +forgot the horror of that concave line against the sky.</p> + +<p>She came to regard the mask with superstitious awe; it seemed James +Glasson's character materialized—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> outward expression of the inner +man. Nervous and cowed to abjectness as she was, she felt near the end +of her endurance. The perpetual scheming to meet Willie unknown to her +husband—a difficulty now the latter was nearly always about the +house-place, and the wearing uncertainty of "How much does he know?" +were fraying her nerves. Some two months after the accident the crash +came.</p> + +<p>James had gone to Truro to see a surgeon there, and had announced his +intention of spending the night with cousins. The utter bliss of being +alone, and having the cottage free from the masked presence for even one +day acted like a balm on Vashti. She forbade Willie to come near her +till the evening, partly from motives of prudence, but chiefly because +she craved for solitude. By the afternoon she was more her old, +sufficient, well-poised self, and when evening drew on she busied +herself about her little preparations in the kitchen with a colour +burning in her cheeks and a softened light in her eyes. That evening +Vashti Glasson was touched with a grace of womanliness she had never +worn for her husband. Every harmless and tender instinct of the lover +was at work in her, making her choose her nicest tablecloth, arrange a +cluster of chrysanthemums in an ornate glass vase, put a long-discarded +ribbon of gaudy pink in her hair. Then she took off her working frock of +dirty, ill-mended serge, and shook out in triumph the folds of the black +silk, now made up in all its glory, and hideous with cheap jet. It +converted her from a goddess of the plough to a red-wristed, clumsy girl +of the people; and when her hair was dressed in the fashionable lumps, +with a fringe-net hardening the outlines, she looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> like a shop-girl, +but she herself admired the effect intensely.</p> + +<p>When three taps at the window told that Strick was outside, the colour +flew to her face, making her so beautiful that she triumphed even over +her costume; she had become a high priestess of Love, and was not to be +cheated of any of the ritual. She was decked out as for a bridal; no +more rough-and-ready wooing and winning for her. But Strick's passion +was somewhat daunted by all the preparations for his welcome; the +kitchen looked unusual, and so did she, and he hung back for a moment on +the threshold.</p> + +<p>"What's come to 'ee?" he asked, foolishly agape.</p> + +<p>"'Tes a weddin' gown made for you," said Vashti simply.</p> + +<p>"But 'tes black!" he stammered. "'Tes ill luck on a black bridal, +Vassie."</p> + +<p>"Ours is no white bridal, lad," she told him. "Come in and set +down—yes, take that chair," and she pushed Glasson's accustomed seat +forward for her lover.</p> + +<p>Conversation languished during the meal—Willie Strick was bewildered by +the oddness of everything, Vashti included; his was no level head to +plan any details or set a scene—Vashti won by stealth, anywhere and +anyhow, was all he had thought of or wished for. Hers was the +master-mind and he was helpless before it, and while she inflamed him +she frightened him too.</p> + +<p>A full moon swam up over the line of distant sea that showed in a dip of +the moorland, and the lamp began to smell and burn low. They had +finished supper, and Willie was drinking rather freely of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> whisky +she had set before him. Vashti turned out the lamp, and as she did so a +sudden harsh noise sent the heart to her throat, while Willie sprang up +fearfully. It was only the poker, that, caught by the full skirt of the +black silk frock, had been sent clattering to the ground, but it made +them stare at each other in a stricken panic for a speechless minute. +The white light of the moon shone clearly into the room, throwing a +black pattern of window-shadow over the disordered supper table, where +the chrysanthemums, overturned by Willie's movement, lay across an empty +dish, and in the silence the two startled people could hear the rhythmic +sound of the water as it drip-drip-dripped on to the floor.</p> + +<p>Vashti was the first to recover herself. "Us be plum foolish, Willie!" +she said, with an attempt at a laugh. "Do believe us both thought it was +James, and him safe to Truro."</p> + +<p>"If 'tes," said Strick madly, "he shan't take 'ee from me now. I'll have +'ee, I swear it."</p> + +<p>Vashti did not answer—with fascinated eyes she was watching the door +slowly open—she could see the strip of moonlit brightness, barred by +the darkness of an arm, grow wider and wider. She knew, before the +form—so terribly like Willie's, now its masked face was against the +light—appeared, that it was her husband.</p> + +<p>Quite what happened next she could not have told. The little room seemed +full and dark with fear—blind, unreasoning fear, that beat even about +her head. The long-drawn-out crash of the overturned table added to her +confusion—then quite suddenly the sounds of struggling ceased and one +man rose to his feet. In the dimness of the room, seeing only the shape +of him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> she could not tell whether it were James or Willie, until he +turned his face to the moonlight, and she saw, with a throb of relief, +Strick's face.</p> + +<p>"Get a light, Vassie," he whispered. "I fear he's dead."</p> + +<p>She lit a candle and they knelt down by Glasson. In falling his head had +hit the fender, and blood was trickling on to the floor. She ripped open +his shirt and felt for his heart as well as her trembling fingers would +allow. She lifted his arm and let it fall—it dropped a dead weight on +to the tiled floor. It seemed to her excited fancy that already he was +turning cold.</p> + +<p>"Willie, you've killed 'en!" she whispered. They both spoke low, as +though they thought the dead man could overhear.</p> + +<p>"I didn't hit 'en," babbled Willie. "He stumbled and fell and hit his +head—they'll make me swing for this—what shall us do, what shall us +do?"</p> + +<p>"Wait—I must think," commended the woman. She pressed her hands to her +forehead, and sat very still.</p> + +<p>"Have 'ee thought?" whispered Willie anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes—I've thought. Willie, you'm rare and like—he—and that'll save +us."</p> + +<p>"What do 'ee mean?" asked Willie, thinking the shock had turned her +brain.</p> + +<p>"The mask!" replied Vashti, "the mask!"</p> + +<p>Then, kneeling by the still body, they talked in whispers—she unfolding +her plan—he recoiling from it, weakly protesting, and then giving way.</p> + +<p>They were to take the dead man between them to the disused mine shaft +and throw him down, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> Willie was to wear the black mask, and take +Glasson's place, until they could sail for America together. Like all +simple plans, it had a touch of genius. Willie's constant talk of +emigrating, his oft-heard boasts of slipping away in the night and not +coming back till he had made a fortune, would all help to cover up his +disappearance. And who was to connect it with Vashti and her silent, +eccentric, black-masked husband—who would speak to him or her on the +subject? And if they did—she could always invent a plausible answer, +while he was safeguarded by the fact that the strongest point of +likeness between the two men was their voices. The most dissimilar thing +about them had been their faces.</p> + +<p>"I won't wear his mask," said Willie shuddering; "I couldn't put 'en +against me. You must make me another."</p> + +<p>"I'll make 'en now," said Vashti. She rose to her feet, and setting the +candle on the seat of a chair, looked about her.</p> + +<p>"You must put the room to rights," she commanded. "Make 'en look as +though James and I had just had our bit o' supper. Mop up the water and +sweep all the broken cloam together—and—and take him to the +passage-way."</p> + +<p>"You'm not going to lave me alone wi' he?" cried Willie aghast.</p> + +<p>"Edn room for me to work here. I'l be up overstairs making the mask. +Keep t' curtain over the window."</p> + +<p>Upstairs, she seized scissors and hacked a square out of the front of +her gown. Then she sat and sewed as she had sewed once before, when her +husband had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> lain motionless on the bed. Every now and then came small +sounds of things being moved from down below, then a heavy fall and the +sound of something being dragged.</p> + +<p>"How's et goin', Willie?" she called out.</p> + +<p>"'Tes all right," he called back. "I've put 'en in passage."</p> + +<p>The moon was near setting when the mask was finished, and she went to +the top of the stairs with it in her hand.</p> + +<p>"There 'tes," she whispered. "I'll drop it down. Put it in your pocket +and I'll change my gown. 'Tes time we were stirrin'."</p> + +<p>The mask fluttered down in the darkness, and she went back to her room +and changed swiftly into the old serge.</p> + +<p>It was a ghastly journey to the old mine shaft, the heavy form of the +dead man sagging between them. They dared have no light, and went +stumbling over tussocks and ruts; but as both would have known the way +blindfold, they found the shaft without difficulty. They scrambled up +the sloping rubble of stones and tipped the body over the jagged hole in +the side of the shaft, and after what seemed an interminable silence +there came a thud from several hundred feet below them, then another, as +though the body had rebounded, then all was stillness.</p> + +<p>Vashti leant up against the side of the shaft, as she had leant when +James kissed her there, and shut her eyes; the sweat running down her +brow had matted her lashes together into thick points, and the drops +tickled her neck so that she put up her hand to it. Both she and the man +were drawing the deep, hoarse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> breaths of exhaustion, and for a few +minutes they rested in silence—then he spoke. "You must be comin' back +along o' me now," he told her, "the dawn'll be showin' soon."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," cried Vashti, starting up, "us may meet some one going to +bal, sure 'nough."</p> + +<p>"'Tes all right—I've got t'mask on. Come."</p> + +<p>He closed his fingers over her arm so harshly that she winced, and +together they made their way back in the cold, bleak hush that preceded +the autumnal dawn. Gradually, as they went, some glimmerings of what her +life would be henceforth appeared to the woman. The fear of neighbours, +the efforts to appear neutral, the memory of that slowly opening door, +and the still thing by the fender, the consciousness of what lay at the +bottom of the disused shaft; and, above all, the terrible reminder of +her husband in the masked Willie—it would be like living with a ghost. . . .</p> + +<p>Once back at the cottage, he drew her within and let the door swing to +behind them. She moved away to find a light, but he caught her.</p> + +<p>"Won't 'ee give me so much as a kiss, and me with red hands because of +you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She felt the mask brush her cheek, and broke away with a cry. She heard +him laugh as she lit a candle, and turned towards him.</p> + +<p>"A black bridal!" he cried wildly; "did you think 'twas a black bridal? +'Tes a red one, do 'ee hear?"</p> + +<p>"Willie," she begged him, "take off t'mask now we'm alone."</p> + +<p>"Aren't 'ee afeared?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"'Tes safe enough till mornin', and I do hate that mask more'n the +devil. Take 'en off."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> +"I'll take 'en off—to please you, lass."</p> + +<p>He seized the mask violently by the hem and ripped it away—and she saw +it was her husband.</p> + +<p>"You fool!" he said slowly, following her as she backed away from him, +her mouth slack with fear, her eyes staring, her whole being showing her +as almost bereft of her senses. "You fool to think to fool me! You was +quick enough to say I was dead; I'm not so easy killed, Vassie. No so +easy killed as your lover was—just the carven'-knife between his +shoulders when he was stoopin' down, that's all. He was fearful of +lookin' at the dead man; he never knew the dead man was lookin' at he. +You heard him fall, Vassie, and thought it was him movin' me——"</p> + +<p>"Put t'mask on," wailed Vashti, pressing her fingers against her eyes; +"put t'mask on again, for the love o' God!"</p> + +<p>"There's been enough o' masks," he retorted grimly. "You've got to bear +to see me now; me, not your lover that you've helped to tip over Wheal +Zenna shaft. Eh, you fool, did 'ee think I didn' knaw? I've knawed all +these months; I've seen 'ee meet 'en; I told 'ee I was going to stop the +night over to Truro so as to catch 'ee together; I listened outside the +house; I let 'ee think I was dead, and heard t' the plan you thought to +make. Only half a man am I, wi' no mouth left to kiss with? I've an eye +left to see with, and an ear to hear with, and a hand to strike with, +and a tongue to teach 'ee with."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell on 'ee," said Vashti, "I'll tell the police on 'ee. Murderer, +that's what you are."</p> + +<p>"I doan't think 'ee will, my dear. 'Tedn a tale as'll do you any good—a +woman who cheats her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> husband, and tries to kill 'en, and helps to carry +a body two miles over moor and tip 'en down shaft. And what have 'ee to +complain on, I should like to knaw? When I wear t'mask you can pretend +I'm Willie—handsome Willie. Willie who can kiss a maid and make a fine +upstandin' husband. Willie was goin' to be me, why shudn' you think I +was Willie? Do 'ee, my dear, if 'tes any comfort to 'ee."</p> + +<p>He slipped on the mask as he spoke and knotted the strings. The door had +swung open, and the candle flame shook in the draught as though trying, +in fear, to strain away from the wick. The steel-cold light of dawn grew +in the sky and filtered into the room, showing all the sordid litter of +it; the frightened woman, with a pink ribbon awry in her disordered +hair, and the ominous figure of the masked man. He came towards her +round the table.</p> + +<p>"'Tes our bridal night, lass!" he said. "Why do 'ee shrink away? Mind +you that 'tes Willie speakin'! Don't let us think on James Glasson dead +to the bottom 'o the shaft. I'm Willie—brave Willie who loves 'ee. . . ."</p> + +<p>As his arms came out to catch her, she saw his purpose in his eye, and +remembered his words, "A red bridal, lass, a red bridal!"</p> + +<p>At the last moment she woke out of her stupor, turned, and ran, he after +her. Across the little garden, down the moorland road, over heather and +slippery boulders and clinging bracken, startling the larks from their +nests, scattering the globes of dew. Once she tried to make for a +side-track that led to Perran-an-zenna, but he headed her off, and once +again she was running, heavily now, towards Wheal Zenna mineshaft.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> He +was gaining on her, and her breath was nearly spent. Both were going +slowly, hardly above a stumbling walk, as the shaft came in sight; the +drawing of their breath sounded harsh as the rasping of a file through +the still air. As she neared the shaft she turned her head and saw him +almost on her, and saw the gleam of something in his uplifted hand. She +gathered together all her will, concentrated in those few moments all +the strength of her nature, determined to cheat him at the last. Up the +rubble of stones she scrambled, one gave beneath her foot and sent her +down, and abandoning the effort, she lay prone, awaiting the end.</p> + +<p>But Vashti's luck held—it was the man who was to lose. A couple of +miners who had been coming up the path from Perran-an-zenna had seen the +chase and followed hot foot, unnoticed by the two straining, frantic +creatures, who heard nothing but the roaring in their own ears. They +caught Glasson as he ran across the patch of grass to the shaft, and he +doubled up without a struggle in their arms. Physical and mental powers +had failed together, and from that day James Glasson was a hopeless +idiot—harmless and silent. Vashti had won indeed.</p> + +<p>Admirable woman of affairs that she was, she took a good sleep before +confronting the situation; then she made up her story and stuck to it. +Willie's name was never mentioned, and his disappearance, so long +threatened, passed as a minor event, swamped in the greater stir of +Glasson's attempt to murder his wife. His madness had taken the one form +that made Vashti safe—he had gone mad on secretiveness. How much he +remembered not even she knew, but not a word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> could anyone drag from +him. He would lay his finger where his nose should have been against the +mask, and wag his head slyly. "Naw, naw, I was never one for tellin'," +he would say. "James Glasson's no such fool that he can't keep 'enself +to 'enself."</p> + +<p>He lived on for several years in the asylum, and Vashti, after the free +and easy fashion of the remote West, took to herself another husband. +She went much to chapel, and there was no one more religious than she, +and no one harder on the sins and vanities of young women. One thing in +particular she held in what seemed an unreasoning abhorrence—and that +was a black silk gown.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +<a name="v" id="v"></a>A GARDEN ENCLOSED</h2> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +A GARDEN ENCLOSED</p> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Why</span> Sophia Jervis went to Sant' Ambrogio she herself could not have +told; to all outward seeming she merely drifted there, influenced by the +many little urgencies of travel—the name seen casually in a guide-book +and all unnoticed stamping itself on her brain; a chance mention of the +place caught from some fellow-traveller, aided by the fact that the +time-table had happened to open at the words "Sant' Ambrogio"—these +were the trifles by which the power stronger than herself guided Sophia, +with such cunning manipulation, such a fine lack of insistence even on +the trifles, that she was unaware of any power at work. Also she was in +that numbed condition which mercifully follows any great straining of +emotion; even pain lay quiescent, though rather in a swoon than a +sleep—a mere blankness from which it would struggle up more insistent +than before.</p> + +<p>When Sophia alighted from the train at the nearest station for Sant' +Ambrogio, and found the carriage she had ordered awaiting her, she was +not in the mood to take joy in anything she saw; and yet, as the wiry +little Tuscan horse trotted swiftly along she found herself, though not +actually responding, at least offering no blank wall of resistance to +the country around. To say country, as though a landscape consisted of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +mere earth and vegetation, is to make an incomplete statement; the +quality of the light, the harmony or discordance where man's work meets +Nature; and, above all, the intangible atmosphere, rarer and more vital +than the actual enveloping air, that is the soul of a country—all these +are of more potency than the position of a clump of trees or the +existence of a particular crop. And nowhere is this atmosphere more +elusive but more compelling than in Tuscany at spring time. Sophia was +too deadened to respond, but she felt the echo of the thing, as it were, +in much the same way that a stone-deaf person feels vibrations run +through the floor and up his chair to his spine when certain chords are +played on an organ.</p> + +<p>It is a drive of about five miles from the railway station to Sant' +Ambrogio, and the road winds across the plain, sometimes rising and +falling, always leading towards the rim of interfolding hills. In the +vineyards the vines, naked at first glance, were just beginning to +flower, and the rows of pollarded planes from which they were festooned +showed a glory of young leaf. The maize was a couple of feet in height, +and where the sun shone through the blades of it they looked like thin +green flames. The heat was intense, and the air seemed stifled with the +subtle smell of the dust that lay thickly over the road and powdered the +grassy edges. The whole plain of Tuscany, apparently empty of human +life, and consequently filled with a sense of utter peace, seemed a vast +green platter brimming with a divine ether and held up towards the +heavens by the steady hands of genii. Only Sophia's carriage showed like +a black insect winging a course fast enough to itself but slow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> to the +gaze of any being who, looking down on this dish held for the gods, +could see the whole expanse of it at once.</p> + +<p>Everywhere was a sense of light—light steeping the sky, drenching the +earth, and vibrating in the spaces between; light that gave a gracious +blur to edges, that refracted from each subtle difference of plane and +angle; light that permeated the very shadows so that they seemed +semi-transparent. One with this sense of light, as body is one with +soul, was the sense of colour—tender greens, at once pure and delicate; +blues that paled to the merest breath or merged in a soft purple. The +wideness of the view gave full value to the exquisitely fine curves +which composed it—the curves of outline where hills and long sweeping +slopes came against the sky, and the curves of surfaces, which +inter-folded and led into each other like the waters of a vast lake +where Time has stayed his foot and the spellbound water holds for ever +the slopes and gradations blown into being by an arrested wind.</p> + +<p>Something—an emotion impersonal in itself yet arousing the personality +in her—began to stir at Sophia's heart; then, as the carriage rounded a +curve in the road and she received the shock of Sant' Ambrogio against +the distant arch of the sky, sudden tears burned in her eyelids. Leaning +back as well as she could against the uncompromising cushions, she gazed +from between lids half-closed so as to narrow her vision on the one +thing.</p> + +<p>Sant' Ambrogio is a little city of towers, some twenty of them, varying +in height, all clustered together within the circling walls and pricking +the sky like a group of tall-stemmed flowers in a garden. The town<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> +seems to have grown rather than been built on the crest of the only +great hill for miles, but the ripples of the plain all converge towards +it, leading the eye naturally up to this little crown of Tuscany. When +they considered a tower a reminder of God, the ancients were not without +a deeper spiritual foundation than they knew of; there is nothing of +more direct psychological significance than line, and the many +upward-springing lines of Sant' Ambrogio made it seem a thing so lightly +poised as almost to be hanging from the heavens. A sense of something +winged, which, though just resting on the earth, yet had plumes ready +pricked for flight, impressed itself on Sophia's brain as she gazed.</p> + +<p>"This might have been beautiful for me if only I could still feel," was +her swift thought, and she closed her eyes to let the gleam of light +thus evoked sink into her mind. As she lay with her consciousness turned +inwards, the deadened fibres of her began to stir; pain moved in its +swoon, and, waking, took the keenest form of all—remembrance. Quite +suddenly there flashed before her mental vision the loggia at the top of +the old palace in Florence where she and Richard had said good-bye. She, +who was to see the cords of passion grow slack, had there seen them +stretched at their tensest, and the memory of it clutched at her heart +with that pity for him which had kept her calm for his comfort. Now, +mingled with it, was her own pain, which, at the time, her thought for +him had overwhelmed. She saw again his face as she had seen it then—his +thin, hawk-like profile dark and sharply-cut against the evening sky. +With the memory of the pain that had gone through her at that moment, +the power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> to feel stirred again, and it was that moment which struck at +her anew. Her hands fastened suddenly on the hot sides of the carriage.</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh!" she said in the low voice that overwhelming sorrow can wring +from the tongue, a soliloquy terrible in its unself-consciousness: "oh, +oh! I can't bear it; I can't bear it!"</p> + +<p>As the horse slowed down at the beginning of the hill, the first +poignancy of Sophia's reawakened feeling passed off, and she lay back, +her hands laying palm upwards in her lap. With entry into the town came +coolness; the ancient architects of the South knew better than to favour +the broad streets planned by their descendants, and the narrow ways +threaded so cunningly between the tall cliffs of houses were cool as +shadowed streams. The greyness of the paved street fell like a +suggestion of peace on Sophia after the searching sunlight of the plain, +and the acuteness of her mental trouble subsided in response to the +sense of physical ease; she had regained her grip of herself when the +carriage drew up at the door of the Albergo Santo Spirito.</p> + +<p>The Albergo is a whitewashed building set round a courtyard; clean, +unfretted by detail, full of dim, sweet spaces and gay domestic sounds. +Sophia, aware of its charm, yet realized, on looking back afterwards, +that she had also been aware that the inn was for her but the +ante-chamber to some other place or state, as yet unrevealed. At the +time she was only conscious that a sense of waiting held the calm air, +though, if she had thought to ask herself the question, she would have +said that life held nothing for which it could be worth her while to +wait.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> +After she had washed her face and hands in the bare little whitewashed +room assigned to her, she went out to wander about the town till dinner. +Motorists have not yet spoiled the population of Sant' Ambrogio, and, +unmolested by any clamour for alms, Sophia passed along the shady +street, where the black-haired, kerchiefed women, with their fine, +rock-hewn faces and deep-set eyes, were knitting at their house doors. +In the big, cool church, whose walls of banded black and white marble +were quieted by the dim light, which just showed the dark gargoyles +writhing like things of a dream over cornice and capital, Sophia knelt +down, more to wrap herself in the peace of it than to pray. The very +keenness of her cry for peace made her fail, and rising she wandered +round the church till she came to the little chapel on whose walls the +life of the town's saint, Beata, has been painted by some "Ignoto" who +must have had a touch of genius. Sophia stood and gazed at the various +scenes. Santa Beata, a child with corn-coloured hair lying along her +back, running away from her resentful playmates, a set of curly-headed, +sly, pinching, clear-eyed ragamuffins, such as those who quarrel and +play in the streets of Sant' Ambrogio to this day. Santa Beata, wrapped +in a cloud, conversing with the Beloved, while the children search the +field vainly for her—the Beloved Himself being naïvely expressed by +what looked like a small bonfire, but proved, in a strange medley of +legend and Old Testament story, to be a burning bush. Santa Beata vowing +herself to virginity and lying down on the narrow maiden bed she never +left again; Santa Beata being visited by cherubim—little burning heads +with awful eyes and folded wings—blown in at the door,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> while through +the window showed the plain of Tuscany, pale silvery greens and blues, +and in the distance Sant' Ambrogio himself, wafted on a cloud, +approached the town to bear the saint away. By her side crouched her old +mother, a knotted burnt-out woman with long wrists, just a literal +transcript of many a prematurely old peasant mother before and since, +her patient eyes seeing no one but her daughter.</p> + +<p>The more she looked at Santa Beata the more Sophia, who without thinking +much about it had a realization of her own type, was struck by the +resemblance between them. The red-brown hair folded about Sophia's head +was darker than the locks that lay combed out over the saint's pillow, +but the long oval of the faces, the girlish thinness of modelling and +the narrow eyes set in heavily folded lids over rather prominent +cheekbones, were the same; and the same, too, were the pointed chins and +the delicately full lips tucked in at the corners like those of a child. +Santa Beata had only been sixteen at the time of her death and Sophia +was twenty-two, but the earlier ripening of the South made the apparent +years swing level. Suddenly Sophia turned away, fierce envy of this +untroubled girl who had finished long ago with the business of life +surging in her heart. The memory of the past weeks seemed shameful and +she herself not fit to hold intercourse with other girls—girls to whom +things had not happened. In that moment Sophia knew she had lost her +girlhood none the less surely for having saved her virginity, which +three things had helped to guard—a clarity of pre-vision which bade her +not give Richard even what he most desired, because it showed her that +it must inevitably work him misery; the knowledge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> that he did not love +her finely enough for such a gift to be fitting; and thirdly, the +strongest thing of all—that no one who is accustomed, however +imperfectly, to walk in the spiritual world, can lightly forgo the +privilege. "I should have been afraid of losing touch," Sophia said long +after, when she saw how that fear had constrained her. Now, looking at +Santa Beata and realizing more vividly than ever before the power which +virginity, as an idea, has always swayed, she felt she had forfeited, by +her gain in experience, communion with those who were still virginal in +soul as well as in body. On the steps of the church she passed some +children playing—children still at the age when their heads are very +big and round—and she remembered how, in a half-ruined castle Richard +and she had visited together, two little peasant girls, clear-eyed, +freckled young creatures, had taken them for husband and wife; and how +one demanded shyly whether she had a baby at home. "No, I have no baby," +Sophia had said quietly, and the child replied: "What a pity! He would +be sweet, your baby. . . ."</p> + +<p>"He would be sweet . . . my baby," thought Sophia, staring at the big +round heads and little necks with that pang of yearning pity without +which she could never look on children. It is a great truth that no +woman has ever loved a man unless she has wanted to bear him a child, +and the knowledge that she would never make this greatest of all +offerings to Richard pressed on Sophia's heart. She was not one of those +women who desire children as an end in themselves, to whom they would +mean more than the husband; she was of those who long to bear them to +the loved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> man because for him the utmost must be suffered and given; +but for any other man it would be a thing unspeakable. Therefore she saw +the best put out of life for her, and she hurried away from the children +on the steps. Turning down a narrow lane she came to a door in the wall, +and pushing it open she looked into what seemed a lake of green light, +flecked with swaying rounds of sun and chequered with deeper green +shadows—a garden run luxuriantly wild. Sophia stepped inside, and on +her right, built half against and half on the wall, she saw a little +ochre-washed house with faded blue shutters. Wandering on, she came to +some lilacs in hard, red bud that hung over a well, and passing under +the arch they made she found the further end of the garden. There a +flight of uneven old steps led to the top of the wall, and she went up +them. At the head of the steps, the wall—which was the outer +fortification of the town—widened into a circle some twenty feet +across, with a stone seat inset in the parapet that ran round it, and a +sundial without a hand in the middle. Sophia stood still and drew a long +breath—the place, in its look of eld and aloofness, was so exactly like +some enchanted spot in a fairy-story. Crossing the flagstones she looked +out over the miles of plain lying below her; here and there were patches +of olive-trees, not growing in masses like a grey-green sea as they did +further north where he and she had seen them, but planted far apart; +from where Sophia stood they looked like nothing so much as clouds of +dust puffing up from the ground.</p> + +<p>Sophia stretched herself long and slowly; then throwing off her hat, she +laid her arms along the parapet and her sleek head down upon them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> +"Oh, I wish I hadn't come," she moaned. "I'm going to feel again. . . ."</p> + +<p>Her hand went out to the little hanging bag she carried and drew back +again, then setting her mouth, she made herself unfasten the clasp and +take out a bundle of letters which she laid on the seat beside her. As +her eyes lit on the familiar writing a deadly nausea took hold of her, +she felt physically sick and put her hand up to her throat to check its +contraction. A letter from him always affected her in that way, so that +she sat, sick and faint, unable to open it, and now these oft-read +letters were as potent as ever. She noted with a vague, impersonal +surprise that her hands were shaking, and folding them in her lap she +sat still, forcing her thoughts, in spite of the pain it stirred in her, +to go back over the past two weeks.</p> + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>On looking back the whole time seemed set in a clear, sunlit atmosphere +of its own as in a magic sphere where the present had always taken a +more than normal clearness of edge and the past and future ceased to be. +It struck her as curious that the prevailing note of those weeks should +have been a sense of utter peace; not realizing that, peace being the +thing his frayed nerves craved, she therefore supplied it, wrapping him +round with it, living so in him and for him that while with him she +received the impression of peace herself, only having sensations of her +own when they were apart. His need—that was the great thing, and though +she had not stopped to analyse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> what his need was, she had felt it was +for soothing and rest.</p> + +<p>She was a writer, and on the money made by her first book she came to +Italy, and in Florence she met him, a painter of some note, of whom she +had vaguely heard in London. Although he was twenty years older than +she, their minds chimed from the first; one of them had only to half say +a thing for the other to understand it. At the beginning there was +nothing between them but friendship, tinged—though for her quite +unconsciously—with the element of sex. For him, he had since told her, +things were very different from the moment he met her; to the average +woman the term "physical attraction" is so meaningless that she stared +in uncomprehension when he told her how profoundly she had troubled him +from the first. For this girl, whose pulses had never been fluttered to +quickness, and who, though in imagination she could project herself into +passion, always shrank from any sign of it in actuality, was reserved +the doubtful compliment of stirring the passionate side of the man's +nature more violently than it had ever been before. He kept the ugly +thing well hidden, and she never guessed at it until her own pity and +trust and affection made her unwittingly tempt him beyond endurance. +Pity, allied to the intellectual pleasure they took in each other, moved +her first, for he was unhappy, and she, too, had the habit of pain. She +remembered the first whole day they had taken together; how they climbed +up to San Miniato and found a field in which they lay and talked, and +how he came back with her to the thirteenth-century palace beside the +Arno where she lodged. She had a little room with a painted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> ceiling, +and the infant Bacchus and adoring nymphs disporting themselves in +bas-relief on the mantelpiece, a room looking over the brown fluted +roofs of Florence; but the great loggia where he and she sat faced the +Arno, and they had coffee and cigarettes and watched the swift blue +night fall over Florence while the swarm of lights waked broken +reflections in the swirling water. On the loggia they exchanged a brief +mention of their troubles, both commonplace enough; hers a childhood +with parents who perpetually quarrelled, the mother a hard worldly woman +who eventually took to drugs, and a father who had at last left for +another woman the home which was so unbearable; while Sophia herself had +only shaken off the horrors of it and earned her own living, barely +enough at that, a few months earlier.</p> + +<p>Richard's trouble was his wife, who seemed not unlike Sophia's mother. +He was both too kindly and too weak—for his was one of those +temperaments that shrink from any display of unpleasantness—to have +mastered her brutally and for good—and strong enough to go on living in +the same house with her because, although she made his life a weariness, +she was an intensely conventional woman to whom the position of a wife +separated from her husband before all the world would have been +intolerable. Between him and Sophia the fact that they both knew the +terror of not being able to slip out even to post a letter without +dreading what they might find on going back, made a bond of sympathy.</p> + +<p>Sophia, ignorant as she was, could not be a young, and, for some people, +a beautiful woman, without having learned a few stray scraps of wisdom, +and one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> was that when a man began to confide his troubles to her it was +as well to see less of him. But Sophia let herself drift, because she +liked being with the man so much; and also the fact that he was from her +own place, that the relentless gods had brought him to Florence to meet +her, and would, in due course, send them both back to where, henceforth, +they would know each other, gave her a curious feeling of being +entrapped in some web too powerful to break. She never blamed him or let +him blame himself for what inevitably happened.</p> + +<p>"Sophia, my sweet," he wrote her in one of the letters she now picked up +at random. "I didn't deliberately set to work to make love to you. I +knew your beauty inflamed me and your wit delighted me. But when we +first met I thought we should just see each other a few times and +quarrel and laugh, and I should revel in your looks and no harm done. +And now little Miss Jervis has turned into Sophia, and either I must +have Sophia for ever and ever mine, or I ought to have stuck to an +elderly uncle line and come away with no tears for her and no +self-loathing for me, and no need to lie and shuffle and make her share +in the lies and shuffles for the future."</p> + +<p>"You'll never do that, dear," thought Sophia, laying the letter down. +"When I have to come back to London we'll meet honestly, or not at all. +For there's nothing on earth that's worth living in a sea of lies for. . . ." +She remembered how he had asked her if she would come and see his +wife, so that he and she might meet on an accepted footing, and how the +doubtful taste of the proposition had jarred her. He argued that because +they would be honestly "playing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> the game" by his wife, Sophia need not +mind the meeting; his knowledge of women was curiously insensitive and +blunt, and he had no conception of how impossible it would be for Sophia +to sit quietly and see another woman doing the honours of his house. In +this he was not entirely to blame, for Sophia so contrived to hoodwink +him that he never quite knew she loved him, certainly never knew the +force of her love. He thought of her as a reckless, innocent child stung +to lavish giving out of affection and pity, and so, to begin with, she +had been. The woman Sophia kept up what had become a pose, not only from +the pride of a maiden, but also because some instinct told her that +sooner or later he would rather be able to think she had not given more.</p> + +<p>For the first few days either of them would have declared that all was +well and there was no danger, yet each day marked a distinct step +further on, a definite phase passed through. Sometimes they wandered +about Florence, in the Boboli and the Cascine gardens, or upon the windy +heights of Fiesole; sometimes he hired a queer little carriage with +swift, bedecked horses, and they drove far out into the country, not +getting home till night. The day before the revelation came was one of +the most exquisite they spent together, one of which Sophia could still +hardly bear to think. Leaving the carriage at a little village, they +wandered on foot into a lovely valley, and laughed because he called it +"old mastery," pointing out the Turneresque effect of a ruined castle +set high amidst a mass of olives which were being blown pale against it. +Presently they came to a stream that stormed down the valley and fell +into seven successive pools;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> deep, still pools, as green as ice, with +sunlit bubbles sent driving through them by the impetus of the clear +arch of descending water. Beside the largest pool, on a smooth grey slab +of rock screened by the over-hanging cliff, they sat and ate their lunch +of bread and hard-boiled eggs and wine, and the sun shone on the glossy +red-brown hair so cunningly folded about Sophia's head, and shone in the +depths of her grey eyes and on her tanned skin. When they had finished +she lay a little below him, closing her eyes to feel the blown spray +drift against her lids, and she never knew till he told her that his +hand had been on her hair the whole time, and never knew till later +still that she had been loving him even then. The day passed in a +perfect harmony of speech and silences, and all the time Sophia was +giving—giving peace and mothering and delight, giving the sky and the +earth and the very air they breathed. Only some one who has ever made a +gift of a day knows the joy that it is—how each golden moment, +conscious of its own beauty, hangs poised like a held breath; how the +sun and wind and flowers and the upward curves of the supporting earth +are all parts of the gift, making the giver a god who pours out creation +for his friend.</p> + +<p>The next day they took train to Pisa on a more +<a name="sophisticated" id="sophisticated"></a><ins title="Original has sophiscated">sophisticated</ins> errand, since he had undertaken to make a +sketch of the tower for a friend who was "sheeking" some Italian +backgrounds. Sophia wandered happily about the town while he did so, and +then they met for lunch in the garden of an old inn.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid of to-day," he told her, "because it can't be as perfect as +yesterday. Nothing could—that's the worst of a day like that."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +"I'll <i>make</i> it as perfect," Sophia replied, and she kept her word. She +still had no idea she loved him, she only knew that she wanted to shield +and protect him, that she was happy with him and felt the power to make +him happy, and that she trusted him utterly. Without realizing it, she +tempted him cruelly by her very trust, and that day her calm +recklessness of speech, her gaze that meeting his so straight and +untroubled, disturbed him so profoundly, were too much for him.</p> + +<p>"Take off your glove," he said suddenly.</p> + +<p>Sophia's notions of love had been culled from books, and she considered +it inseparable from what she termed "thrills." How was she to know that +a woman, especially what is called a "nice" woman, can love without the +promptings of the pulses? Because she felt no sensuous "thrill" as the +tone of command, it never occurred to her to think she could be in love, +wherein she was making another common literary mistake—that of thinking +that every woman enjoys being mastered. Sophia found her joy in ready +compliance with the demands of the beloved, not in arranging set scenes +of clashing wills and conciliations. Taking off her glove, she gave him +her hand.</p> + +<p>"When I say that I want to kiss you now," he said, "it doesn't mean in +the way it would have, even a day or two ago. I told you then you +affected me . . . but now it would be because I love you."</p> + +<p>Sophia's hand moved slightly in his.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "in a way—of course. I know you're very +fond of me—and all that."</p> + +<p>"In <i>the</i> way," he returned, "and I'm not fit to hold your hand. D'you +know what the life of an average man is like—especially of a man in my +circumstances?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +"You mean—women?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—bought women," he said brutally. "Does it make a lot of difference +to you?"</p> + +<p>Sophia, refusing to let her mind so much as dwell with any effort of +realization on his confession, closed her hand firmly over his.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't make any difference. Nothing does. If I could look after +you—if you were free to be looked after—you wouldn't have to go to +other women any more. I care about you more than about any man I've ever +met."</p> + +<p>"And I don't care about you more than any woman I've ever met. You're +unique and you're you, but I've been in love a good many times. And +there's always the big one I've told you about. I feel I've so little +left to give, and yet—by God, Sophia! I <i>could</i> give to you, even +battered old I!"</p> + +<p>"I'd be such a wife to you," said Sophia proudly, clenching her free +hand, "that I should fear no other woman on earth."</p> + +<p>"And you wouldn't need to . . . Sophia!" he cried. "How you would give!"</p> + +<p>"And we mustn't, either of us," said Sophia, and to soften the speech +she bent her head swiftly and kissed the hand she held.</p> + +<p>"My dear . . . !" he said huskily, and Sophia led the way out of the +garden.</p> + +<p>That night, after he had left her at her shabby old palace, he went back +to his hotel and sat up, smoking heavily, most of the night. Towards +morning, he wrote her a letter—the first in order of those beside her +on the seat. She took it up now and read it once again:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +"Sophia, Sophia," it ran, "I'm in the depths of misery. What have I done +to you and what is going to come of it all? When this time is over? When +we're back in London and out of lotus land? You know—stolen interviews +and weeks without meeting, and that old and awful struggle between the +'game' at home and my inclinations abroad. And I've hardly written so +far when I'm feeling better. Dear, what does all that matter? I feel the +shadow of that coming gloom on me already, but how glorious the +sunshine's been for me! I'm not going to think or worry—yet. What will +happen when I'm back in London must happen, but if I had you by me now I +shouldn't care a damn for that. I feel stupid and stockish. There are +such millions of things I want to say to you, Sophia—and they're mostly +middle-aged things. That's the worst of it. Warnings I feel I ought to +give you about myself and my temper and my terrible ease in giving way +to adverse circumstances. I've told you I'm not big enough or strong +enough for you to care for me except as a useful old pal. You'll find me +out and hate me. All sorts of ghastly bogies are waiting to jump out at +me. They'll get me. But you, dear, you gracious, reckless woman-child, +whatever you think of me in the future you can't rob me of to-day and +yesterday and all those days, and especially to-day. Things like that +are too sacred to write about, almost to think of. And we're deadly +honest with each other, that's a great thing. The more I dream of you +the more I want you here, now. I simply can't write, I've been nearly as +high this afternoon as I shall ever get, perhaps quite—and one has to +pay for that. Oh, my dear; please God, you'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> never pay for me! Sophia, +you're very dear to me. Richard. You poor child—you glorious woman!"</p> + +<p>The next day both fell from their high altitude. They had driven to a +little half-deserted town, a white, dead, staring, crumbling place—a +place of blind windows and glaring silences. Both felt a sense of +tension, and leaving the carriage they wandered round the walls, and +climbing over a broken gap sat down on a grassy spur of the hillside, +with their backs to the terrible little town. As usual, by now, they +talked about themselves, chiefly of him, and he told her that though +several women had been fond of him as a friend and liked to "mother" him +even as she did, no one of them had cared for him in another way or +kissed him as a lover kisses. He slipped an arm round her shoulders as +he spoke. Sophia was as ignorant as an infant of what kissing like a +lover might be, and in a rush of pity and affection she turned her face +up towards him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it isn't as if we were going on afterwards like this," she said; +"this is just a bit cut out of life for me to give you. It's taking +nothing from her, she doesn't want to give you anything. And I want to +make this bit as splendid as I can for you."</p> + +<p>He felt her shoulder touch his as she leant her warm young body towards +him, he saw the glory of her eager eyes and mouth, and he caught her to +him, crushing her fiercely. . . . Sophia wondered if this awful kiss were +ever going to stop; she had never known there was such a way of +kissing—a hard pressure, a sucking of her very soul—and she was filled +with horror under it. When he loosed her she turned and buried her face +against the wall. For a while they sat in silence, then she saw him +kissing her coat, her sleeve, then her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> head was pressed back against +the wall and his mouth came to hers again. She stayed passive, dazed. In +silence they went to the carriage and drove away, and almost silently +they parted. Sophia spent the night in a misery of shame, he spent it in +mingled excitement and remorse: fearful lest he had aroused in her a +passion which would need to be satisfied at the cost of social disaster.</p> + +<p>Next day they talked of nothing in particular in a desultory way and did +not refer to what had happened until, wandering through one of the +wooded mountain slopes beyond Florence, they came on a tiny sportsman's +hut with a roof of red-fluted tiles and a huge chimney. Sophia peeped +and went in; he followed. Within, the hut was only about five feet +square; flame-coloured leaves had drifted in through the open doorway +and lay piled on the hearth; on the wall were some names rudely scrawled +in charcoal.</p> + +<p>"How did you sleep?" he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>"I didn't. I was thinking what I should say to you to-day."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"Never, never again be like you were yesterday. I didn't know it was +like that. It was dreadful. I can't bear it."</p> + +<p>He took her hands and held them.</p> + +<p>"Never, I promise you. I had an awful night. I didn't know what to think +or wish or do. Let's get out of this hut. It's too small."</p> + +<p>The rest of the day they spent happily under the trees, and it seemed to +her that the sense of rest and peace was stronger than if it had never +been broken. Very soon came their last day together. They drove<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> to a +deserted castle on a hill, called Castello di Luna, and as they went +Sophia turned to him.</p> + +<p>"To-day's the last," she said, "and I'm going to make it the most +beautiful present of all to you. We'll pretend, like children. We'll +pretend there's only to-day in the world, that there are no obligations +beyond here and now, that we are happy people—we'll pretend."</p> + +<p>He gathered her in his arms and kissed her again and again fiercely, but +not with the abandonment which had frightened her before, and her heart +turned heavy within her and she knew she loved him. They stayed till +evening in the neglected garden of the old castle, left discreetly alone +by Lucia and Amadea, the little peasant custodians who lived with a +beetle-browed mother and a score of younger children in the tower over +the gate. It was Lucia who ventured an opinion as to Sophia's baby, and +Sophia emptied her pocket-bottle of lavender water over the little +girls' blue-check handkerchiefs and told Richard to give them five +<i>lire</i> apiece against the day when they should have babies of their own.</p> + +<p>Then, in the quiet old garden, he and she sat and talked and were +silent, and, with her arms round him, she drew his head on to her +breast, and they played the dangerous game of saying what they would do +when they were married.</p> + +<p>"Your baby would be sweet!" he quoted to her. "Would you dare even that +for me, Sophia?"</p> + +<p>"Would I not?" she breathed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can't give up hoping it may all become possible!" he cried at +last, but she shuddered a little. "Don't," she said, "it's building on a +grave."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +But her heart ached at the sweetness of the vision. She never felt any +temptation to fling her cap over the windmill for him, partly because it +is very true that "<i>Les bonnes femmes n'ont pas ces tentations-là</i>," +partly because of the much greater things she wanted to give—a hearth +that would always warm him, a pillow that would always rest him, and on +the hearth a cradle—and these were things that he could not come at +through a back door.</p> + +<p>They said good-bye on the loggia in Florence, and that night he left for +Leghorn. He wrote to her in the train; and bringing her thoughts back to +the present by an effort, Sophia picked up the letter now.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"Sophia, Sophia," she read, "is it only you who pay? My sweet, I +hope you will never feel what I felt as I went home. The bare +truth is I am a coward and a cad, besides being a fool. I began +it, and if I didn't know where it was going to lead to I was a +fool to play with fire, and I was a cad to go on. Dear, I'd +rather go through years of anything you feel than ten minutes of +what I'm feeling. But I've got to stick it henceforth when I'm +not buoyed up with your presence. It's been so gorgeous, you've +been so heavenly, that I'd do it all again. But now besides the +awful want of you there's the clear vision of what I am, and +it's hideous. I haven't the pluck or the passion to carry you +right off before all the world whether you would or no, nor the +sense and the honesty and the decency to be just friends with +you. Oh, Sophia, I hate myself for it, and hate myself most for +being glad, deep down, that I <i>did</i> get what you gave me. I +can't find anything solid or honest in me anywhere, except my +feeling for you and my joy in our time together, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> I've no +right to that. This is cruelly unlike what I've preached to you +about possessing for ever past joys. I suppose I shall forget my +own wickedness and even come to regret that I didn't take +more—take <i>all</i> by force or guile—for perhaps, after all, it's +better to be a downright brute than a half-and-halfer. If so, +shan't I be even more unworthy of all you've given me, you +sweet, foolish, lavish child? If you were here now, Sophia, I +shouldn't be feeling all this. You'd only have to smile at me +and I should get back my pride in having won what I have won. +But without you I seem to see more clearly what I am. My sweet, +wouldn't you be happier if you saw me so, too? All I feel now is +a desperate need of you, your hands and your hair and your eyes +and your mouth and your voice and your wit and your dear +mothering. And next month? Secret meetings and concerted lies, +and all the rest of the filthy game? And I drag you into it all +because I want you and because my affairs make it necessary to +do it or part for good. I'm trying to look at it clearly and see +all the worst—misunderstandings, preoccupation, work, moods, +fears, all the things that are going to prevent a wretched thing +like me from being where he wants to be and doing what he could +for you. I wish from the bottom of my soul the train would smash +up and kill me to-night. Oh, if there were only the past few +weeks to consider it would be simple enough. I've had such a +time as I've never had before, and you made it. You said you +would and you did. You've given me such a time as a woman never +gave a man in our circumstances before. But there's you and the +world and the future to consider. It's very small moral +satisfaction to me that I didn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> deliberately set to work to +make love to you. It grew, as you showed me more and more how +adorable you were, how gracious and desirable and generous and +trusting, you dear nymph of the woods, virgin-mother, friend and +lover and comforter. It's no good going on like this, man's a +self-deceiving kind of brute, and perhaps before long all the +glory of the days of you, you, you, will fit in quite +comfortably and the poison of self-hatred cease to hurt. I stop +to-morrow night at the Grand Hotel, Livorno. Will you write to +me there, sweet? If I could really be sorry for it all I should +like myself better. But I can't. I can only hate myself for +glorying in what I got by such means. Write to me—I'm +frightened and alone.</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Richard.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>"My sweet," the next letter began, "your letter has come. It's +what I knew it would be, so brave and sweet and good that I can +only wonder at you all the more. It soothes and heals and cheers +me, and once more I am drinking your life-blood and using your +youth and splendour to live on. Is there anything you wouldn't +do for my comfort? When I fell asleep this morning about dawn I +dreamt of you and woke all hot and frightened, because I thought +I heard you moaning, a horrible, strangled moan. Did I? Oh, my +dear, I hope not. I can't get at the truth all these miles away. +You see, that brave, wise letter of yours might have meant a +huge effort of the will and brain, and not be a direct outflow +from the you that gave me those days. Shall I ever see that you +again, I wonder? Your letter's like the touch of your lips on my +forehead—cooling, healing, bracing and most sweet. Dear, you're +not only all I've told you before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> that you are, but you're wise +as well. Oh! child, girl, most wonderfully woman-wise. My sweet, +what you could do for me if only we could belong to each other. +Sophia, I'm trying hard to knock it into my head that we can't, +but I can see now that the trouble's going to be, not remorse or +anxiety, but just the big, aching lack of you, and not of your +beauty so much as of your tenderness and wit and your weak, +clinging strength. Oh, Sophia, I'm writing a lot of rot, but it +isn't rot really. I mean, you understand. D'you remember the day +when you said you'd exactly fitted that long body of yours into +the ground? That's how I feel when I rest my mind on yours, only +it's the ground and not me that does the shaping."</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next letter was from Marseilles. The last page, which Sophia read +through twice, ran thus:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"So good-bye to it all, but not good-bye to Sophia. Dear, I +believe very strongly in spiritual converse (I can't find the +word I want for it). But don't you feel that my arms <i>are</i> round +you? I can feel your head on my shoulder and your hair against +my cheek. I mean that it isn't just cheating oneself with vain +imaginations to meet like that. I mean to go on thinking of you +hard and the vision soothes, not aggravates, the longing, and I +will meet you like that at our Castello di Luna. But oh, my +dear, I wish it were really true <i>now</i>! There is so much I want +from you and must go on wanting. Come to me in thought, my +sweet, until we can see and touch and hear each other again. We +will always say to each other whatever is in our hearts and +minds. And so I'm just starting to go back—Sophia, I can't say +'home.' Home means what you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> are. Oh, I thought I should go back +gaily and take it all up, but it makes me sick with dread. I +ought never to have got out of harness. It's better to go on +till one drops than to taste freedom and have to give it up. +Sweet, your eyes and your mouth and your hair are with me +always. Don't call me a materialist, and say it's only your +body's beauty that I value. You're sweet to me through and +through. Oh, Sophia, come often to meet me in Monte Luna. And +there is Lucia to say sweet, impossible things to make us dream. +<i>Ti bacio gl'occhi.</i></p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Richard.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Sophia opened the last sheet of paper. It enfolded three primroses, and +on it was written "<i>Primavere per la Primavera</i>." She looked at them a +moment, then wrapped them up again and put letters and flowers back in +the bag. Behind her the sun was near to setting, and the blaze of it lay +full on the towers, making them a bright tawny-grey against the sky of +deep steel-colour, and turning to tongues of flame the tufts of yellow +gillyflowers—Santa Beata's own plant—that sprang out here and there +from the sheer masonry. Some jackdaws flew out of the nearest belfry, +and circled round it, black amid the brightness. Sophia sprang up and +walked to and fro.</p> + +<p>"I shall feel again, if I stay here. Unbearably. I wish I hadn't come. +I'll go away to-morrow. <i>Richard, Richard, Richard!</i>"</p> + +<p>But on the morrow, instead of leaving Sant' Ambrogio, Sophia moved from +the inn to the little house in the walled garden. Not until she was +installed there did she discover that though the house was comparatively +modern, the garden was the very one where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> Santa Beata had seen her +visions and dreamed her dreams.</p> + + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The first morning she spent in the place in the wall, writing him a +letter.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="nb">"My dear boy," she wrote, "by the time you get this you will be +back in the thick of things. If I have given you anything that +will help you to go on it's all I want. You must just look on +this past month as a holiday snatched from the lap of the gods, +and realize, what you're always telling me, that what one's once +had one has for always. For there can't be any more, and I'm not +even going to write to you. Oh, I feel as though I were failing +you in not writing, but I always meant not to, even when you +were making plans about it. Letters keep up an atmosphere, and +that's better not. Yes, I know what you mean about spiritual +meeting. I'm sort of fused with you as I write. I'm not here—or +even in the future with you—as you read, for I've pulled the +future to me and made it now, now, now, and I'm with you, in the +present, as you read this, and I'm drawing your tired head to +me, and I feel the very way the thick stuff of your coat arches +up under the pressure of my arm. I am you in every bit of me as +I write; not yours, but you. But, for the future, in that way +only. I felt nothing wrong in all I gave you here, because you +needed what I had to give and we were hurting nobody. I'm sure +that's the great thing, to hurt nobody, and that includes you +and even me. It would be hurting both of us if we were to go on +writing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> because it would keep it all up and we shouldn't be +able to meet again just as friends, and if we make the break we +shall; we are strong—or weak—enough for that. Richard, let +your answer to this be a long one, won't you? Try and tell me +everything I shall want to hear in it because it will be all I +shall have to live on. Dear child, take care of yourself, don't +overwork and don't forget that open windows are the best thing +for that throat of yours. Don't let things at home worry you +more than you can help, and always remember there's no need to +worry about me at all.</p> + +<p class="nt right">"<span class="smcap">Sophia.</span>"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>During the time that she was waiting for the answer to her letter Sophia +lived at tension, finding relief in the making of her last gift to +him—for she wrote him a poem, and in spite of the deliberate placidity +of the thing it eased the fierce pressure of her thoughts in the way +that only creation can. Sophia was soon to enter on her greatest +strength of feeling. Richard felt more intensely at the time than at +looking back, when his emotions were stale to him, and he marvelled at +the strength they had had; Sophia never knew till the actual hour was +past what the depth of her emotion was. Partly this was that in their +weeks together the need for calm and clarity on her side was so great, +that when with him her being was absorbed in his and so her own feelings +had no room for conscious movement until afterwards. There are times, +when affairs are at the crest, when, by its intensity, sensation seems +numb, but all the while each little thing seen by both inward and +outward vision is registered on the mind with peculiar sharpness of +edge; only to be realized when the wave of incident has passed, and even +then a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> period of numbness may intervene before realization enters the +soul, deep-driven by the intolerance of memory. Sophia was living in +that tense numbness now, but through it external things made their +potency felt. She grew to know every corner of the little town, and +during the day she would wander several times into the cool dim church, +to breathe the silence and the peace of it. And "Richard . . ." she +prayed, "Richard . . ." She knew of no definite thing to ask for him, she +could not pray he might be free, and happiness was an illusion she had +learned to dread; she could only turn his name over and over in her +mind, lift it up, hold it up and out with all the strength of her will. +Still, in spite of this focusing of her life—a focusing that was to +grow even more passionate in long, hot London months to come—there was +no unity about it, little sights and impulses fraught with value, yet +failed to show any coherent reason; some great cord that could bind +everything together was still not gathered up.</p> + +<p>One afternoon she wandered out of the town by the big gates, and turning +to look back at the sweeping wall she saw a narrow path that girdled its +base, rising and falling over the rippling flanks of the hill. As she +looked at it some dim memory stirred in her—she remembered having read +in her childhood that in olden days a man might own as much land as he +could encompass in one walk, returning to his starting-point. The +root-instinct of enclosure was in the idea, and Sophia had a sudden +fancy to make the unconscious town her own by the old method. Without +thinking of much beyond the physical act, she started along the little +track noting idly yet definitely the look of the stones along the +spreading base of the fortifications<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> and the sickles of light made by +the sky's reflection on the curving-over grass blades on the other side +of the path. She went slowly and when she had half-girdled the town she +lay down on a smooth slope, and, locking her hands behind her head, +gazed over the fertile plain. On an almond-tree near a nightingale began +to sing; against the first pink of sunset she saw his little body as a +slightly ruffled blot. She let her mind fill with the song so that it +became the accompaniment to her thought, and slowly the first glimpse of +comprehension began for her.</p> + +<p>First she fell to wondering what the plain would look like seen from +above—from the point of view of God. "The human mind, looking from such +a standpoint, would have to concentrate on one thing at a time if it +wanted to attain any idea but a general vagueness," thought Sophia. "One +would have to focus on mountain-ranges, or rivers, or railway-lines. . . ."</p> + +<p>She lay imagining it, seeing how the shining network of railroads formed +a web over the roundness of the world; thinking how it would seem to +this poised mind a mere web and nothing more. A meaningless web; instead +of thousands of roads each leading to a different destination and intent +on its own business. But if the mind, as well as the point of vision, +were that of a god, then each line would be fraught with its +individuality—and not merely because each led somewhere; there was more +to it than that—Sophia struggled towards it. . . . A different time had +seen the making of each railroad, different men worked at the making of +them, men with souls which had thought and felt as they laid the steel +ribbons on which other souls would be rushed along without guessing +anything of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> the thoughts and feelings. And yet, surely those emotions +could not die. . . . Perhaps, one evening, a workman, straightening his +back and drawing his hand over his wet forehead, had looked towards the +sunset, and in the vague irrational way some scenes are registered on +the mind for always, that aspect of sky and darkening hedge against it +would stay in his memory, oddly mixed with the feel of the wet drops on +his hand and the easing of the muscles across his back, to be recalled +by any similar moment for the rest of his life. If so, how steeped with +humanity those few yards of steel would be! And, apart from the emotions +connected with it by the sense of sight, what an important part the +railroad must play to the men and their wives and children to whom it +meant food and fire! And then, the lines finished, each train going over +them would pile the human associations thicker yet, heaping up all the +feelings, according to their intensity, of the people in the trains. A +god, looking down, instead of merely seeing the network of steel, would +see as well all the human emotions still clinging to the places where +they were lived—a mystical web woven over tangible things, growing +deeper with the years. "Which," said Sophia, the first gleam of personal +light flashing through her, "is why walking round a place makes it yours +if you do it for that. My seeing of this path will be here always, I'm +making a belt of consciousness round the town. It's my city! My city set +upon a hill!"</p> + +<p>She scrambled to her feet and for a moment leant her cheek against the +rough stone of the wall, then she went on round the town and in at the +great gate.</p> + +<p>That evening she sat in Beata's garden, finishing her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> poem to Richard. +Elate as she was, she still had no hint of what her discovery meant, or +of how the garden would bring the final revelation to her, but even then +she felt the soothing influence that held it and her as she wrote out +her poem. It went to him without a title, but for herself she headed it:</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">To the Forbidden Lover</span></p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That time I gave you half-a-moon of days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the dear Southern land of many moods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She lured us up among her hill-ringed ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far from the ordered gardens, far from where,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sacring the sky, the Christs hang on their roods.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We saw the sea-grey slopes of olive-trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blown foamy-pale, from the cloud-ridden air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell the swift shadows on those leafy seas.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To lakes of hardened lava we would come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarred, as by whirlpools, with cold crater-rings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or packed in furrows, like mammoth slugs grown numb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At some disaster of creation's dawn—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A burnt-out lunar landscape of dead things.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there some kindlier whim of path would show<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rocks that might echo to a piping Faun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or hide a huntress nymph with spear and bow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Pan-haunted is that valley where we lay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Lay, till lulled senses slid into a dream)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watching sun-wrought reflections of ripples play<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And break in shining scales through that green pool,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deepest of seven strung on a ribbon of stream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seven times wings the air in curving flight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from the gleaming arc blew spray to cool<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lids that were rosy films against the light.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A hut with fluted roof we found one morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fairy-story hut; an empty shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haply once dear to comrades less forlorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For on the walls were names of lover-folk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there we ate our bread and drank our wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Sacrament of Fellowship; only dregs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We poured to envious gods, and laughing broke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrush-like, against a stone, our brown-shelled eggs.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dearest that castle set in sun and winds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remote as though upon Olympus hung,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet with a human tang that drew our minds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To gentle restful things; an open door,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warm hearths, silk-curtained beds, and shutters flung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wing-wide to let us watch the stars pulsating.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now through closed slats their light must bar the floor<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the hearth the ash be grey with waiting.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And when for daily troubles you make dole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Now that the miles have set you far away)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then to our little castle come in soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, where the two girl-children thought us wed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, surely, I need never say you nay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, where the hollow curves between the breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rounded shoulder, draw your weary head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, when the day's lid droops, there give you rest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The weakness of you I can hold to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For since at the world's door the babes unborn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must vainly beat for us; oh, I will be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Virgin-Mother to the child in you. . . .<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And comradeship is good when sweetly sworn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being no less tender for its commonplace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for its lack of fetters no less true—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take what you may, my dear, and with good grace.<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>It was Sophia's first and only love-letter, and she sent it when she got +back to England, as a summons to that friendship in which she could have +given as richly as in love; and for which, although he had planned it so +eagerly, he had too much knack of passion and too little depth of +feeling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The following evening his letter came, and Sophia, noting the thinness +of it compared with those others she had had, knew how his need of her +had slackened. She took the letter to her refuge on the wall and sat for +a while unable to read it, the old nausea upon her. Then she took a firm +grip of herself and opened the envelope. As she read it seemed as though +a great blow were struck at her heart. She knew she had expected this, +yet the actuality was worse to bear than she had thought.</p> + +<p>Richard laughed at her intention of not writing, and himself wrote her +little over a page. He began, as usual, "Sophia, my sweet," and made a +brief reference to his wife—"She has not had a bad phase yet—and +things are quiet, but what is that when one wants sympathy and passion? +I feel I am caught up in the old life again and something seems to have +gone snap in me. Write to me—for you will write—to my club." The +assurance of his tone jarred Sophia, but what hurt her cruelly was his +brevity. The fact that she had wanted this letter to be a long one had +honestly seemed to him of no importance when set against the fact that +he was not in the mood to write it; for he was the creature of his moods +and consequently unheeding of those which other folk might wish to have +indulged.</p> + +<p>Sophia read the letter over and over, and then quite suddenly felt she +could not look at it again, and for the first time since the whole +affair began, she cried. Crouched on the seat she hid her face while the +sobs tore at her and the tears ran over her crossed wrists,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> and she +heard the sound of her own sobs coming to her from a great distance. +After a while she sat up, dried her wet face and made herself confront +the new aspect of things. She saw that up till now she had not been +wholly unhappy, for she had had the past. If he were going to prove +unworthy the past would no longer be hers to glory in but would become a +time of shame. If—as prevision showed her—she was to know him as unfit +for what she had given, the giving would cease to be her happiness. For +Sophia was still so ignorant she thought mere companionship and the +spiritual force of her feeling had been a continuous giving. The +knowledge that from a man's point of view she had given nothing at all +was spared her. Since the parting she had repeated over and over to +herself two sentences from his letters—"<i>Virgin Mother, friend and +lover and comforter</i>" and "<i>Home means where you are</i>." If he could +still mean those things she would be perfectly content that he should +never again express them; if he were to mean them less as the old life +and the old allegiance gripped him, then they would cease to be true and +she could not live on them in memory. Few men are strong enough to leave +the past alone, many are so afraid of its re-appearance that they try to +bury it alive—was he going to deal this last and most cruel blow, a +future that would destroy the past? The pitiful part of it all was that +Sophia would never have seen him again sooner than try to revive what +had happened; had he continued to make love to her she would have +refused to let him—all she asked was that the past might be unprofaned. +Reading his letter she began for the first time to realize the +selfishness of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> brilliant, lovable drifting nature, and in that +moment her love of him took its firmest hold of her. The merciful phase +of numbness was over, and she entered the deep waters at last. She had +no strength left to struggle, she could only let them go over her head +and await their passing. For her month of joy she was to pay in a year's +pain, and she entered on the payment now.</p> + +<p>It was the payment for what she had gone without that hit Sophia +hardest. In what she had given was the supreme comfort—"It was for +him"; and this upheld her even when her want of him was worst, when she +lay the whole night through on the floor of the wall-refuge, thoughts +and pulses knocking out "I want you . . . I want you . . ." against the +stones. It upheld her when, towards dawn, she paced the garden, pausing +every now and then to lean her cheek against the dew-wet lilac leaves; +or when she tangled her hands in the grass till the damp blades +whimpered as she pulled her fingers up them. Sound was a help to her, +and when she roused the grass to cries or stirred the bushes to quick +whispering the voice in herself was quieter. She was never violent to +anything in the garden, and when action became hurried she turned it +upon herself, beating her hands against her thighs. And always "It was +for him" upheld her through the darkest times of paying for what she had +given.</p> + +<p>For what she had gone without that help was lacking. It was not passion, +which, when with him, she had never felt, that plucked at her +unbearably, it was the thwarted fruit of passion that haunted and +reproached her. Before his letter came, dream-babies had clustered round +her, wringing their little hands behind a closed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> transparent door, but +these were visions of what might have been had circumstances been +different—them she could bear. Now thought narrowed and gained in +meaning: one baby surged towards her, cried to her, smiled at her, lay +in air always just away from her breast—one baby that was what might +have been even as things were. How would it matter what other women he +loved better if she had only given him what no other woman had? She saw +herself his slayer in that she had not made life for him in the way a +woman can make it for her lover, by taking it of his and creating afresh +with it. Her own life would be such a small price to pay. For Sophia was +a born creator, and the seeming futility of all she was undergoing, and +the barrenness it bound her to, filled her with a sense of waste.</p> + +<p>It was not until the compulsion which bread-winners know was making it +clear to Sophia that her last days at Sant' Ambrogio were come, that the +influences at work upon her ever since her arrival, that had first +revealed themselves to her in her walk round the town, fused and +concentrated.</p> + +<p>The day had been unbearably hot, and Sophia lay behind closed +<i>persiani</i>, the green of the leaves without reflecting on to the +whitewashed walls so that the room seemed a pool of green dusk. Sophia +read a little old Latin <i>Vita Sanctæ Beatæ</i>, which she pondered over +when, in the cool of the evening, she sought the place in the wall.</p> + +<p>"She found something," thought Sophia; "I wonder what it was? Peace, of +course, but what got her to it? For outwardly her life was as bare as +mine—and she had never known even what I know of—things.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> And yet, +they say that in religion there is every experience. . . . I wonder if the +babies she might have borne if she'd married some fellow-peasant ever +beat at her reproachfully? And if so, what it was she found? She lived +here, I suppose, walked in the garden and sat in my place in the wall—I +wonder what she felt here. . . ."</p> + +<p>All was very quiet and still on the wall, and for the first time since +Richard's letter had come Sophia's aching was a little soothed, the taut +fibres of her relaxed and her mind slid into receptivity. Then a more +positive change began to make itself felt to her, though she could not +have traced its birth or growth if she had tried.</p> + +<p>The first note of difference was a physical one. Sophia was +short-sighted and saw the world in a blur; now her sight began to take +precision of outline and then the things at which she was looking +changed too. The towers were more numerous, and from some of them flags +fluttered out, and not till long after did Sophia remember that there +had been no breeze that evening. Looking for the house over the +tree-tops of the garden she saw that it had shrunk oddly, and an outer +stairway crawled up its wall. On the sundial lay a rosary of dark +beads—Sophia could see its steel cross glitter in the evening light.</p> + +<p>These were outward changes, on their heels came the inward change that +made them seem natural to her. It was as though she were in one of those +dreams when the dreamer knows who he is and that he will soon wake up, +and yet does and says the most incongruous things; with this +difference—Sophia had a curious feeling that it was some one else's +dream which had taken hold of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> her. She struggled against it at first as +against an anæsthetic, but the thing crept over her like a tide.</p> + +<p>A child's cry came from the town, and Sophia felt a sudden contraction +at the heart, and with a thrill realized that this new Person in her +felt it also—that they were at one. With that shock of mutual sensation +the fusion became more nearly complete; of Sophia's own consciousness +was left only enough to know that she was still herself, hearing, +seeing, and feeling what some one else had heard and seen and felt +before her in that place. She knew, too, that the drama played in her +soul ever since she came to Sant' Ambrogio, a wordless drama in which no +human being had taken part, was drawing to a climax, and that the human +element had invaded it at last. She was about to learn what it was for +which those weeks, especially that hour outside the wall, had prepared +her.</p> + +<p>The air was very clear, and to the long sight with which Sophia was +seeing, seemed preternaturally so, as though everything were set in a +vast crystal which made visible each pebble and grass-blade. A numbness +stole over her body, her hands ached with cold before they, too, lost +sensation, and in this numbed frame her consciousness gathered +intensity. Then with a shock, as sudden as a plunge into cold water, her +mind slid on to what seemed another though not an alien plane. Her +mind's eye saw all the old points of view, the accepted angles of +vision, as though torn up and scattered like flung wreckage over the +shining shore of the world that swung below her; things which had seemed +big were small, all relative sizes were altered, perspective itself +seemed run mad, except that after the first breath the knowledge that +this was the true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> angle swept over her—that she, or rather, the Person +whose vision she was receiving, was looking at the spiritual world from +the point at which she herself had vaguely imagined gazing at the +physical.</p> + +<p>Round this spiritual globe she saw the Breath of God hang as the air +hangs round the earth, and she saw it full of ebbing and flowing like a +current-whorled river. She saw how no wind left emptiness where it had +been, but how the elastic tissue thinned out, spread, gathered together, +ran here and there so that no outflow was without its inevitable +influence of contraction: the whole sphere of air was a medley of +pattern, always rhythmic and interchanging. She felt how this elasticity +was brought into play over the surface of the spiritual world, how +actions, sins, pains of mind and body, rack this way and that as they +would, were always enveloped by the divine Breath, even as on the +material globe not a wave can break or a leaf stir but the river of air +holds true. Always the movements of the Breath made a pattern, as +invisible to the soul in the midst of it as the wind-pattern is to those +on earth, a pattern inevitable in the sense that achieved beauty always +strikes the eye, as being inevitable in its rightness.</p> + +<p>Then, this measure of universal comfort given, sensation narrowed and +concentrated, not on her soul, but on the soul which had felt long ago, +probably far more intensely, what she was seeing by it and through it +now.</p> + +<p>As Sophia felt the anguish of the Person who had absorbed her, she +realized it was the same as hers—the fear and pain of barrenness. +Whether she had known all along that it was the repeat, the echo, of a +vision of Beata's that was on her, or whether she only knew it then, she +could never have told. No actual child that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> might have been cried to +the Beata consciousness, only natural longings apart from any one +person, yet the anguish bit keenly, for with it went fear—the deadly +fear lest barrenness should be deliberate sin against life. Powerless to +help, Sophia saw the thought turn in the other's mind, and with that +they both entered into the last phase of the vision. Here Sophia, who +had not trained herself, like Beata, to prolonged sustaining of the +will, flagged and began to fail. A brightness that was too strong for +her, a sense as of great Shapes, a looming Presence, swept on to her, +wrapped her round, overweighted her. She struggled to keep up with the +Beata consciousness, for she knew if only she could succeed in that she +would find the answer to her own sorrow and Beata's fear. The outer +world had begun to come back, the towers of the town showed as through a +mist, some growing more and more definite; some, those of Beata's day, +wavering uncertainly. . . . She strained her flagging nerves, caught at +her subsiding energies in one last effort. . . . A divine warmth suffused +her breast; sky and air were filled with the gleam of a fiery Child that +flashed towards her, filled her arms; and sank, not away, but into her +very soul and, like quick stars, she saw the wounds on His hands and +feet.</p> + +<p>With that she knew, as Beata had known, that this was the reward of +virginity, that each virgin could mother the Christ-child afresh. She +knew that to those to whom the joy of making a living body with its +corresponding soul is denied, creation is not stilled, that there need +be no barrenness in a garden enclosed. For she saw that there is no +sterility save that of the wilful mind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +With a shock the present reeled into its place; spiritual vision was +past and physical vision lost keenness as her own blurred sight swam +back to her; and, worn out, hardly conscious of her own life, but filled +with peace, Sophia lay along the seat in the kindly dusk.</p> + +<p>She was still to know month upon month of pain; sometimes acute as when +she stayed out of doors all night and made sounds and hurt herself +physically to distract her mind's distress; but mostly an ache that bore +on her like a weight, sometimes invading dreams and always by her +bedside when she awakened. She was to find that for the friendship she +could have made so exquisite he had no gift; she was to feel the many +hurts his lack of thoughtfulness inflicted; she was to bear the +unhappiness of seeing him unworthy of all that might have been so good +in him as he let himself drift into flirtations where not one of his +finer senses was touched. She was to feel one sharpest hour of any, when +the time came, which, if she had given herself would have seen his child +in her arms. . . .</p> + +<p>And through everything, through the dreadful London months of loneliness +and the cruder physical hardships of extreme poverty; through her weary +clear-eyed knowledge of him she was to come back perpetually to the +refrain—that surprised herself after a few weeks of comparative calm +when she hoped she was "getting over it"—of "How I love him." She had +no high-flown theories of love; she knew he was not what is tritely +called "the right man," he was more—he was the one she loved well +enough to forgive for not being the "right one," and in those moments +there was no evading the simple fact that she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> have given all the +rest of her life to have been his wife for one year and have borne him a +child.</p> + +<p>But, through and above and around all that, went the memory of Beata's +vision which she too had seen. The vision itself was often dark and +meaningless to her in the actuality of her love and pain, but of the +knowledge that she had had it she was never bereft. Also, it was hers to +create those pleasant fruits and chief spices of which the greatest +love-song in the world tells as growing only in a garden enclosed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<hr /> + + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +<a name="vi" id="vi"></a>THE MAN WITH TWO MOUTHS</h2> + + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> +THE MAN WITH TWO MOUTHS</p> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">On</span> a grey day a girl was walking along a crescent of sand that curved at +the cliff's base. As she went the water welled up in the slanting +hollows left by her feet, and the fat, evil-looking leaves of the cliff +plants glistened with spray moisture; even the swollen fingers of the +marsh samphire, that all seemed to point at the girl as she passed, each +bore a tremulous drop at the tip. At the end of the little beach the +girl paused, and then turned to look out to sea, balancing herself on a +slab of wet shiny granite, where the cone-shaped shellfish clustered and +from which the long green weed floated out and in on the heave of the +tide. The girl held back the red hair that whipped about her forehead +and stared from under an arched palm.</p> + +<p>"'Tes naught but a plaguey dolphin, d'believe," she muttered, yet still +stayed for one more glimpse of the dark thing that was bobbing up +through the curdling foam-pattern. A stinging scatter of spray blew into +her eyes, blinding her, and when she looked again the dark thing had +come nearer, and she saw it to be the body of a man caught in the +ratlines of some shrouds that the sea's action had lapped around the +mast they had once guarded. Were it not that his chin was hitched over +the ratlines, so that he was borne along with his face—a pale blot +among the paler<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> blots of the foam—upturned, he would doubtless have +sunk, for he was not lashed to the mast in any way. A huge foam patch +had formed in the web made by the tangled shrouds, so that his head and +shoulders showed clearly against the creaming halo, on which his long +hair, dark with wet and released from its queue, lay streaked away from +his tilted face. The girl called to him twice in her strong, rough +voice; then, since even if he still lived he was past any consciousness +of doing so, she kept her energies for the saving of him. Wading in as +deep as she dared—not more than up to her hips, for even then the heave +and suction of the water threatened to knock her off her feet—she clung +on to a ridge of rock with one hand, and, leaning forward, made snatches +at the spar whenever it surged towards her. To her dismay she saw that +with every heave his legs must be catching against some rocks, for his +head began to sink away from the supporting ratlines, and when at last +she caught one end of the spar she only succeeded in drawing it away +from him. His head disappeared; for a moment the dark hole in the midst +of the foam-circle held, then broke, and was overrun as the whiteness +closed upon it. The next minute a surge of undercurrent brought him +knocking against her legs; she just managed to hold on with one hand +while with the other she plunged down at him. Her fingers met the cold +sleekness of his face, then caught in his tangled hair, and, drawing +herself up backwards against the rock-ledges, she pulled him with her, +step by step. A few moments more and she had staggered up the narrow +strip of beach with her burden dragging from her arms. Tumbling him +along the drier sand at the cliff's foot, she knelt beside him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> and +with hands trembling from the strain that had been put upon the muscles, +she pulled apart the clinging shirt that was so sodden it seemed to peel +from off him. She felt at his heart, then laid her ear to the pale +glistening chest where the dark hair was matted to a point between the +breasts; she beat that pale chest with her hand, and at last saw the +faint red respond to the blows of her fingers. On that much of hope she +desisted, seemed to hesitate, then half-hauling him up by a hand beneath +each shoulder, she began dragging him towards where the cliff curved +outwards again to the sea. At a point some three or four feet from the +ground the cliff overhung so that it was possible to imagine creeping +beneath it at low tide, though a curtain of glossy spleen-wort hung down +so thickly it was difficult to tell. Going upon her knees, the girl +crawled backwards under the dripping dark green fringe, and pulled the +man in after her. Within, a tunnel, in which it was soon possible to +walk upright, led at a gradual incline up to what was apparently the +heart of the cliff, which here was honeycombed into those smugglers' +caves of the West of which even now all the secrets are not known. Up +this incline she got herself and him, and at last dragged him +triumphantly into the big cave where she and her father, Bendigo Keast, +stored the smuggled goods in which they traded so successfully. It was +very dark, but with accustomed hands she felt for the small iron box in +which the flint and tinder were kept; soon a tiny flame sprang to life, +and she passed it on to a wick that floated limply in a little cup of +stinking fish-oil on the floor. In the mere breath of light thus given +the rows of stacked barrels loomed dimly, the outermost curve of each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> +gleaming faintly, while between them the shadow lay banded.</p> + +<p>Thomasin Keast ran some brandy from a little keg near into her palm and +tilted it between the man's teeth, then slopped the raw spirit over his +shirt, drenching it again. Then—not stripping him, for the modesty of a +Cornish woman, who thinks shame to show even her feet, prevented +that—she filled her hands with brandy and ran them in under his +clothes, rubbing tirelessly up and down till the flesh began to dry and +tingle. Around his reddened neck, where the soft young beard merged into +wet curls, she rubbed; over his shoulders, where the big pectoral +muscles came swelling past his armpits like a cape, then down the +serried ribs that she could knead the supple flesh around, past the +curve-in of the whole body beneath them, to the gracious slimness of the +flanks and the nervous indentation of the groins between the trunk and +the springing arches of the thighs. So Thomasin knelt in the gloom of +the cave, and all the time that his life was coming painfully and +reluctantly back to him under her strong, glowing hands, she felt as +though some presage of new life were flowing into herself. The old saw +has it that the saving of a drowning man brings ill-luck to his rescuer; +but Thomasin, as she watched grow in his features that intangible +something which makes the face human instead of a mere mask, scorned the +superstition; and still more she scorned it as her urgent hands felt the +rising beat of his pulses and arteries. For during that time his hidden +form became so known to her that his every curve and muscle, the very +feel of the strong-growing hair upon him softening into down as his skin +dried, all impressed themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> clearly on her memory for ever, and she +felt him hers—hers by right of discovery as well as right of salvage.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Thomasin Keast and her father lived in a little four-square cottage set +about half a mile from the headland—a half-mile of thorn and bracken, +of tumbled boulders and wedges of furze almost as solid. Here in the +spring the yellow-hammer and the linnet, the stonechat and the whinchat, +shrilled their first notes, and at dawn the greybird thrust a thirsty +beak into the dewy blackthorn blossoms; here the dun-coloured rabbits +darted in and out of their burrows with a gleam of white scuts. Here, +too, Keast and his daughter herded the moorland ponies that, +well-soaped, were loaded with the barrels of spirit and packets of lace +which had been brought from France at dark of the moon. The cottage was +of rough grey granite, with a roof crusted with yellow stonecrop that +looked as though it had been spilled molten over the slates. On either +side of the door a great wind-buttress, reaching to the eaves, swept out +like a sheltering wing.</p> + +<p>This was the place to which Thomasin Keast brought her man on that +stormy evening. Dusk was already making the air deeply, softly blue, and +through it the whitewashed lintel gleamed out almost as clearly as the +phosphorescent fish nailed against the wall. Half-leading, +half-supporting him, Thomasin steered the stranger between the +buttresses and through the narrow doorway into the living-room. A peat +fire glowed on the hearth and against it the figure of a crouching man +showed dark. At the noise in the doorway he thrust an armful of furze on +to the fire, and the quick crackling flare that followed threw a +reflection<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> like the flashing of summer lightning over the whitewashed +walls, sending the shadows scurrying into the corners and revealing the +man whose big hand, ridged with raised veins that ran up to the wrist, +was still upon the furze-stem.</p> + +<p>Bendigo Keast was not long past his prime of strength and could still +have out-wrestled many a younger man. Through his jersey the working of +his enormous shoulders showed as plainly as those of a cat beneath her +close fur, and under his chin the reddish beard could not hide the knots +of his powerful throat. His eyes, blue and extraordinarily alert, were +half-hidden by the purpled lids, and the massive folds of his cheeks +that came down in a furrow on either side of his slightly incurved +mouth, looked hard as iron. Like most seamen when within doors, he was +in his stockings, and as he rose and his bulk swayed forward his feet +broadened a little and gripped at the uneven flagstones like those of a +great ape.</p> + +<p>Thomasin spoke first.</p> + +<p>"'Tes a man I found drownen', da," she said, and in her voice uneasiness +mingled with a readiness for defiance. "He'm most dead wi' salt water, +and cold. Us must get en to the bed to wance. Da . . ."</p> + +<p>"Where did ee find en?" asked Bendigo Keast, without moving.</p> + +<p>"To cove."</p> + +<p>"Did a see aught?"</p> + +<p>"How should a, and him nigh drowned?" evaded Thomasin; then, as the +stranger sank on to the settle and let his wet brown head fall limply +back against it, she went over to a crock of milk that stood in the +window-sill and poured some into a saucepan.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +"Get en to the bed, da," she said more sharply. "I'll see to your +supper. He must have nawthen but milk for the night."</p> + +<p>Bendigo came forward, and, swinging his long arms round the man, carried +him off up the stairs that led from the living-room into the first of +the two tiny bedrooms. He soon came down again.</p> + +<p>"Tell me how tes a smells of brandy?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I rubbed en down wi' et to put life into en." Thomasin spoke quietly, +but the sound of her stirring spoon grew less rhythmical.</p> + +<p>"Then a did see?"</p> + +<p>"Da, listen to me," said Thomasin, turning round. "S'pose a did see, +what then? He'm naught but a foreigner from up-country, and wouldn't +know to give we away. And—s'posen he'm minded to stay by us—well, you +d'knaw we'm needing another hand. We must find one somewhere, and +there's none o' the chaps to the church-town would come in wi' us, +because us have allus stood by oursel' and made our own profits. But now +Dan's dead, you d'knaw as well's I us must get another hand to help in +the <i>Merrymaid</i>. If you wern't so strong and I as good as a man, it +would ha' needed four of us to ha' run her."</p> + +<p>"How can us knaw whether to trust en?" asked Bendigo suspiciously. "Tes +bad luck to save a man from the sea, they do say."</p> + +<p>"Don't decide nawthen tell you've talked wi' en," advised Thomasin. "May +be the poor chap was too mazed to take notice o' what he saw. Us'll knaw +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>And next day the rescued man was sitting by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> hearth, somewhat stiff +from bruises, but otherwise with his wiry frame none the worse. His +looks had strikingly improved, for now that the soft beard, which had +never known a razor, was dry, it peaked forward a little, whereas when +wet it had clung to his too narrow jaw and revealed a lax line of chin.</p> + +<p>His story was soon told—the brig on which he was mate had been +returning from France when a squall overtook her, and she became a total +wreck. He had clung to the floating spar for several hours before losing +consciousness, when the tangled ratlines had borne him up and the tide +had swept him into the shoreward current which set round the headland.</p> + +<p>"And the first thing I knew," he ended, "was your face, mistress, +bending over me in your cave. . . ."</p> + +<p>Keast shot a glance at his daughter. They had exchanged looks before, at +the man's mention of France, and now Bendigo flung a few veiled phrases, +with here and there a cant term common to smugglers, at his guest, who +understood him perfectly, and himself became entirely frank. His name, +he said, was Robin Start, and that there was mixed blood in him he +admitted. A more gracious race showed itself in his quick turns of wrist +and eye, his ease of phrase, in his ready gallantry towards Thomasin. +Yes, said Robin Start, his mother was a Frenchwoman, and had taught him +her tongue—a fact he found useful in his dealings on the other side of +the Channel.</p> + +<p>A bargain is an intricate and subtle thing in Cornwall, a thing of +innuendoes and reservations, and the one Bendigo Keast struck with the +stranger was not without subtleties on both sides. Robin Start had quite +understood all he had seen in the cave, and had made a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> mental note of +the way out, which gave him a hold over Bendigo. On the other hand, +Robin, who suffered paroxysms of craving for safety in the intervals of +delighting in danger, knew it was safer to come in with Bendigo and make +something for himself smuggling than it would be for him to think of +escaping from that muscular father and daughter if he declined. As for +Keast, it was true that since his nephew Dan had been knocked on the +head by a swing of the boom, he needed some one to take the lad's place. +A bottle of smuggled rum sealed the bargain, and then, for the first +time in her life, Thomasin was talked to as a woman. To her father a +partner; a mere fellow-man to the dark, silent Daniel who now lay in the +lap of the tides; shunned by the envious villagers, and looked at +askance by the Government men, Thomasin had never known of the sphere +which began to be revealed to her that evening. For one thing, she was +plain, though in certain lights or effects of wind she looked fine +enough in a high-boned, rock-hewn way. She was what is called in that +part of the world a "red-headed Dane," and her broad, strongly modelled +face was thickly powdered with freckles. Though she was only twenty-two, +hundreds of nights of exposure to wind and wet had roughened her skin, +but at the opening of her bodice, where a hint of collar-bones showed +like a bar beneath the firm flesh, her skin was privet-white. The slim, +brown-haired Robin with his quick eyes was a contrast in looks and +manners to anyone she had ever met, and mingled with her awe and wonder +of him was the fierce sense of possession that had entered into her when +she passed her hands over and over him in the cave. Also she felt +maternal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> towards him because, though he must have been nigh upon +thirty, he was one of those men who have a quality of appeal.</p> + +<p>It was a stormy autumn that year, and little was possible in the way of +business; but for Thomasin, who up till now had lived so whole-heartedly +for her partnership with her father, it became that time of which at +least the mirage appears to every one once in life. For her happiness +she and Robin repainted her other love, the <i>Merrymaid</i>, together; +giving her a new black coat and a white ribbon, and changing the green +of her upright stem to blue. The <i>Merrymaid</i> was constantly adopting +little disguises of the sort, running sometimes under barked sails, +sometimes under white, and alternating between a jib and a gaff-topsail +with a square head. Then in the long winter evenings the Keasts and +Robin would sit by the fire, Bendigo pulling at his clay pipe, and +Thomasin knitting a perpetual grey stocking—surely as innocent and +law-abiding an interior as could have been found!—while Robin told them +tales of all he had seen and done. Bendigo now and then gave a grunt +that might have been of dissent, interest, or merely of incipient sleep, +but Thomasin sat enthralled by the soft tones that to her mind could +have lured a bird from the egg. Robin told of the thick yellow sea +towards the north of China, so distinct from the blue sea around that it +looked more like a vast shoal of sand, stretching for mile upon mile. He +told, too, of the reddish dust, fine as mist, which once fell for days +over his ship when he was far out at sea; it fell until the decks seemed +like a dry soft beach, and lungs and eyes and at last their very souls +seemed filled with it. His captain said it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> blown along the upper +air all the way from the Mongolian plains, but he himself thought it +came from Japan, that country of volcanoes. Thomasin's ideas of +volcanoes were derived from a broadside she had once seen which +represented Vesuvius apparently on fire from the base, but she felt sure +the mysterious sand was of the devil, and must come from somewhere hot.</p> + +<p>So Robin talked and Thomasin listened, and with the coming of spring new +portents woke in her blood and stirred the air. Robin began to slip his +hand up her arm when he stood beside her in the shadow of the +wind-buttresses, and when they went down to the caves he would make +opportunities to press against her in the passages. The sheer animal +magnetism of the girl allured him, and he found her crude and hitherto +fierce aloofness going to his head. Though frequently now he felt a +sudden passion of distaste for the physical strength of this father and +daughter sweep over him, yet would come another passion, waked by the +wonder of it that still lay in Thomasin's eyes—and he would think of +what a pleasure was at his hand in Thomasin's potentialities for passion +and the freshness of her. . . .</p> + +<p>She herself was reluctant yet, for all her hot blood and untrained +nature, partly because of the ingrained suspicion of soft things her +upbringing had engendered, partly because of the eternal instinct which +prompts withdrawal for the purpose of luring on. But in her heart she +knew—she knew when the spring was on the cliffs, and he and she lay on +the thymy grass watching for the fish-shoals; when around Robin's +turf-pillowed head the rose-specked, flesh-hued cups of the sea-milkwort +stood up brimming with the jewelled air as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> with a divine nectar; when +among the cushions of silvery lichen and grey-green moss the scented +gorse flung a riot of yellow, and the mating birds answered each other +on a note like secret laughter. Then Thomasin would sometimes close her +eyes for the happiness she dared not yet acknowledge; yet those days of +soft joy and beauty were as nothing to the night of hard work and danger +that finally brought her surging blood to acknowledge him as lord—that +night when all the dominant male in him was of necessity stung to the +surface by danger.</p> + +<p>They were running a cargo of thirty barrels over from France—he, she, +and her father. The <i>Merrymaid</i>, which was sloop-rigged and of about +twenty tons burden, was quite enough for the three to handle, laden as +she was with the corded tubs slung together with the stones already +attached; for it was proposed to sink the cargo and then run on to +harbour openly, a thing frequently done when the Preventive men were +known to be on the watch. Robin was suffering from one of his +nerve-revulsions; he dared show no sign of it, but as he sat in the +bows, keeping a look-out through the darkness, he told himself that if +this trip were brought off in safety it would be the last as far as he +was concerned. He could stand the portentous figure of Bendigo looming +at him through the little cottage no more, and he knew what to do. . . . +As for Thomasin, he would not lose her—a woman surely sticks by her +man. And if not, she would never harm him; and there were other women in +the world—for the appeal Thomasin had for him was of sex, and not of +personality.</p> + +<p>Thomasin sat with her arm along the tiller, keeping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> the <i>Merrymaid</i> on +a nor'-nor'-west course so as to make the Lizard light. They were +running under their foresail and close-reefed mainsail only, for the +south-west wind for which they had waited was swelling to storm-fury. +The <i>Merrymaid</i> lay right over, the water scolding past her dipping +gunwale and the clots of spindrift that whirled over the side gleaming +like snowflakes in the darkness, which was of that intense quality which +becomes vibrant to long staring. Robin, straining his eyes, was only +aware of the danger when they were almost on it, but his voice shrieked +out on the instant to Thomasin: "Hard-a-port!" and again, in a desperate +hurry of sound, "Hard-a-port!"</p> + +<p>Thomasin jambed the helm up as Bendigo, with the agility of long use to +sudden danger, eased off the sheets; and then Thomasin could see what +menaced them. A Preventive boat, like themselves with no light save the +wretched glimmer over the compass, had been lying to under her mizzen, +and already her men were making sail. Thomasin sat gripping the tiller +while the voices of her menfolk came to her ears.</p> + +<p>"The topsail!" shouted Robin; but Bendigo's voice made answer: "Not till +us has to—it might rip mast off in this gale. Try the jib. . . ."</p> + +<p>They set the jib and shook out the reefs in the mainsail, and the +<i>Merrymaid</i> answered to it like a racehorse to the whip. She quivered +all her length, the tiller pushed like a sentient thing against +Thomasin's palm and they went reeling on.</p> + +<p>For nearly an hour they ran before the wind, helped by the flood-tide, +and all the time the Preventive boat was slowly gaining on them, for she +was carrying a larger stretch of canvas. She was nearly upon them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> when +the sound of breaking surf told that they were nearing the Manacles, and +the tide was still fairly low. Suddenly Robin's voice came again, this +time with a thrill in it: "Now's our chance!" he called. "We'll hoist +the topsail and make a run for it inside of the Manacles."</p> + +<p>He was at the mast as he spoke, and Thomasin heard the thin scream of +the unoiled sheave as the topsail halliards ran through it. The next +moment the mast creaked and bent; the almost useless jib slackened as +the other sails took all of the wind, and the <i>Merrymaid</i> shook her nose +and plunged into the broken water that gleamed between the blackness of +the mainland and the Manacles.</p> + +<p>"They'll never dare follow!" cried Bendigo; and even as he did so, the +Preventive boat, trusting to her superior speed to make good, began to +come round to the wind so as to pass the Manacles on the outer side. The +added strain proved too much, and her mast snapped with a report like a +gunshot—the one clean, sharp sound through all that flurry of rushing, +edgeless noise, and it told its own tale to the eager ears on the +<i>Merrymaid</i>. She, under the influence of the topsail, was burying her +bows at every plunge, and Thomasin knew, by the sudden cessation of the +tiller's tug, that the rudder had lifted clear of the racing water, only +to drive into it again with a blow that sent her reeling. Thomasin's +fight with the boat she loved began in real earnest. Yawing stubbornly, +the <i>Merrymaid</i> pulled against the tiller so that the rough wood seemed +to burn into Thomasin's flesh, so hard had she to grip it to keep the +boat's head from going up into the wind.</p> + +<p>With the breath failing in her throat, she had none<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> left to cry for +help; she could only wrestle with the tiller, which, all the weight of +the yawing <i>Merrymaid</i> against it, seemed about to crush her.</p> + +<p>Then hands came over hers in the darkness, and even at that moment her +flesh knew Robin's.</p> + +<p>"Tell me if I make a mistake; you know this hell-pool better than me," +he called to her through the noise of the surf; and, with an easing of +the muscles so exquisite as to be almost a pain in itself, she felt him +absorb the weight of the boat into his grip. With the lifting of that +strain from her shoulders and arms came the realization of how +mercilessly his hands were grinding hers against the tiller, yet that +pain sent the first tremor of unadulterated passion through her that she +had ever felt, because it was the first time he had hurt her. There was +no need for her to call directions to him—he and she were so welded in +one at the tiller that the unconscious pull of her arm beneath his told +him, in his state of receptive tension, what to do more surely than any +words. That was their true mating—not what followed after—but there in +the stern of the reeling <i>Merrymaid</i>; for all that was least calculated +and finest in Robin had leapt to the need of it, and their consciousness +was fused as completely in the fight for life as the pain in their hands +was at the tiller.</p> + +<p>They were through—through and safe, and five minutes more saw them +round the point and in the calmer water, where they slipped the cargo, +and soon after they had made the harbour under easy sail, innocent of +contraband from stem to stern.</p> + +<p>All danger over, Thomasin felt oddly faint, and let her father go on +ahead across the moor while she hung heavily on Robin's arm, her numbed +hands slowly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> tingling back to life as they went. Arrived at the +cottage, a faint light, that went out even as they looked, told of +Bendigo's entry, and Robin set the lantern he carried on the flagstones +between the buttresses. Thomasin leant back against one of them, and the +dim light, flickering upwards, softened her marked bones and brightened +her eyes. Every defect of skin was hidden; it showed pale, and her mouth +velvet dark upon it. Robin's lips fastened on her throat below her ear +and stayed there till she stirred and gave a little cry, then his mouth +moved on and up till it found hers. The kiss deepened between them; his +head bent, hers upstretched. Time stayed still for one moment, during +which she wanted nothing further—she was not conscious of the ground +beneath her or the pain in her back-tilted neck, not even of his +supporting arms or the throbbing of him against her—all her being was +fused at the lips, and she felt as though hanging in space from his +mouth alone.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Robin Start waited till the cargo had been safely run and sold, and then +he went across the moor to the village and made a compact with the +Preventive men. The excitement of that night had had its usual way with +him, and he wished never to meet danger again as long as he lived. He +was suffering from a somewhat similar revulsion as regarded Thomasin, +though there he knew the old allure would raise its head again for him. +Bendigo's suspicious guard of him had relaxed, partly because the elder +man admitted that it was Robin's nerve which had planned the dash that +saved them, partly because he guessed how it was with his daughter, and +thought Robin safely theirs. . . . And Robin had at last done that which +had been in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> mind ever since the beginning, and had sold the secret +of the caves to his Majesty's Government. Nervous of being overheard in +the village inn, Robin took the two head men with him over the moor to +the headland, safe in the knowledge that Bendigo was drinking heavily in +the cottage—the way in which he always rewarded himself for a +successful run. Robin showed the men the cunningly hidden entrances to +the passages, and then for a few minutes they all three stood making +their final arrangements. Robin found it wonderfully simple, the step +once taken. It was agreed that the officers of the law were to surround +the cottage that night after its inmates were abed, all save Robin, who +was to be sitting in the kitchen ready to open the door. No harm was to +be done to the girl—and, indeed, the Preventive men knew enough of +Cornish juries to know that Bendigo Keast himself would get an +acquittal; but his claws would be drawn, which was all they wanted. +Robin, unaware of this peculiarity of a Cornish jury, would have been +considerably alarmed had he known of it. Bendigo free to revenge himself +had not entered into the scheme of the man from up-country, where the +law was a less individual matter.</p> + +<p>"At ten o'clock then, my man," were the last words of the Preventive +officer; but he added to his companion as they walked away: "The dirty +double-mouth!" and the distaste of the official for the necessary +informer was in his voice. "At ten o'clock," echoed Robin, and then was +aware of a quick rustling behind him—much the noise that a big adder +makes as it leaves its way through a dry tuft of grass. The sun was +already setting, and the glamorous light made vision uncertain, yet +Robin thought he saw a movement of the gorse more than the breeze +warranted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> The bush in question was one of those which concealed an +opening to the caves, and Robin pulled it aside and peered into the +darkness. Silence and stillness rewarded him, and he swung his legs over +and descended a little way. All was quiet and empty in that passage; he +turned into another—that, too, was innocent of any presence save his. +He went through up that exit, and, still uneasy, stared across the moor. +If anyone—if by chance Thomasin had been in the passage, she could have +slipped out that way while he was entering by the other, and be out of +sight by now. . . . The sweat sprang on to Robin's brow. Then he took +counsel with himself. There was no reason why Thomasin should be at the +caves; nothing was doing there. It would be the most unlikely thing on +earth, because neither she nor her father ever ran the unnecessary risk +of going there between the cargoes. Robin knew this, and felt +reassured—how, after all, could he imagine that Thomasin, sick at the +reaction she felt in him, might have gone to re-gather force at the +place where she had first felt him hers? . . . He thought over what he had +said, and took still more heart when he remembered he had not let fall a +word that showed a light holding of Thomasin; and that, he told himself, +was the only thing a woman could not forgive. He felt it safe to count +on passion as against the habit of a mere business partnership, which +was all her relationship with her father had ever been. Dimly Robin was +aware that all her spiritual life had gone into that partnership, into +the feeling of her family against the world that had become an obsession +with her until he had brought another interest into her life; but Robin +Start would not have believed an angel from heaven who had told him that +the habit of years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> could be stronger with a woman than a new passion. +And, as regarded most women, Robin would probably have been right. +Besides, it was impossible that any one could have been there, and +Thomasin was his. . . . He gave himself a little shake and set off to the +cottage, and such was the force of his revulsion against a life of +dangers and the sinister suggestiveness of the Keasts' muscular +superiority, that he felt his heart lighter than it had been for months +past. He was even pleasurably, though subconsciously, aware of the +poignant beauty of the evening, and noted the rich shrilling of a thrush +from the alders by the stream. It was one of those evenings when, for a +few minutes, the light holds a peculiarly rosy quality that refracts +from each sharply angled surface of leaf or curved grass-blade; steeps +even the shadows with wine-colour, and imparts a reddish purple to every +woody shoot, from the trunks of trees to the stray twigs of thorn +piercing the turf. Wine-coloured showed the stems of the alders, the +lines of blackthorn hedges, the distant drifts of elms whose branches +were still only faintly misted with buds. Beneath Robin's feet the +yellow red-tipped blossoms of the bird's-foot trefoil borrowed of the +flushed radiance till they seemed as though burning up through the +ardent grass, and on the alders the catkins gleamed like still thin +flakes of fire. The whole world for a few magic moments was lapped in an +unharmful flame that had glow without heat, and through the gentle glory +of it Robin went home.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock that night, with no lanterns to betray them, half a dozen +Preventive men, followed by several of the leading men in the village, +who had got wind of the affair and were eager to see the self-sufficient +Keasts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> brought to book, all came up over the moor through the darkness. +No light showed in the cottage as they neared it, but that was merely +because the buttress, sweeping at right angles to the window, obscured +it from the approach. The buttress once rounded, the men saw the light +shining as Robin Start had promised. The officer motioned the others to +stay quiet, and then—he was a mere lad, and eager to be the first in +everything—he tiptoed to the window and peeped through.</p> + +<p>Robin Start was sitting quietly in the armchair, a candle burning on the +stool beside him. There was nothing alarming in that, yet the next +moment the boy at the window stepped back with a great cry.</p> + +<p>"He's got two mouths!" he shrieked. "He's got two mouths!"</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Far out on the dark Channel father and daughter were drawing away in the +<i>Merrymaid</i>, the rising wind and some other urgent thing at their backs, +but the sense of justice done as their solace.</p> + +<p>And in the cottage, his wrists tightly roped to the arms of the chair +and his silky beard shaved away, sat Robin Start. The footlight effect +of the candle eliminated all shadow under his sloping chin, making it +seem one with his throat, and that was cut from ear to ear. For the only +thing on which he had not calculated was that before such treachery as +his passion drops like a shot bird.</p> + +<p>The candle flame flared up as the last of the tallow ran in a pool round +the yielding wick, and for one distorted moment the edges of the slit +throat flickered to the semblance of a smile. Then the flame reeled and +sank, and, spark by spark, the red of the glowing wick died into the +darkness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +<a name="vii" id="vii"></a>WHY SENATH MARRIED</h2> + +<hr class="hr3" /> + + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +WHY SENATH MARRIED</p> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Asenath Lear</span> was neither a pretty woman nor a particularly young one, +but having in the first instance embraced spinsterhood voluntarily, she +was cheerfully resigned to its enforced continuance. All the world knew +she had been "asked" by Samuel Harvey of the Upper Farm, and though all +the world considered her a fool for refusing him, it still could not +throw in her face the taunt that she had never had a chance.</p> + +<p>She had said no to Samuel because at that time she was young +enough—being but twenty—to nurse vague yearnings for something more +romantic than the stolid Sam, but the years fled taking with them the +bloom that had been her only beauty, and romance never showed so much as +the tip of a wing-feather.</p> + +<p>"I'm doubtful but that you were plum foolish to send Sam'l Harvey to +another woman's arms, Senath," her mother told her once, "but there, I +never was one for driving a maid. There's a chance yet; ef you'll look +around you'll see 'tes the plain-featured women as has the husbands."</p> + +<p>"'Tes because the pretty ones wouldn't have en, I fear," said Senath on +a gleam of truth, but with a very contented laugh, "men's a pack of +trouble in the flesh. I would ha' wed sure 'nough ef et hadn' been that +when you get to knaw a man you see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> him as somethen' so different from +your thought of him."</p> + +<p>"Eh, you and your thoughts . . ." cried the petulant old mother, quoting +better than she knew, "they'll have to be your man and your childer, +too."</p> + +<p>Senath, the idealist, was well content that it should be so, and when +her mother's death left her her own mistress, she went to live in a tiny +cottage up on the moors with no companions but those thoughts—the +thoughts at once crude and vague, but strangely penetrating—of an +untaught mind whose natural vigour has been neither guided nor cramped +by education.</p> + +<p>Her cottage, that stood four-square in the eye of the wind, was set +where the moorland began, some few fields away from the high road. At +the back was the tiny garden where Senath coaxed some potatoes and beans +from out the grudging earth; and two apple trees, in an ecstasy of +contortion, supported the clothes-line from which great sheets, +golden-white in the sun, bellied like sails, or enigmatic garments of +faded pinks and blues proclaimed the fact that Senath "took in washing."</p> + +<p>On the moor in front of the cottage stood nineteen stones, breast-high, +set in a huge circle. Within this circle the grass, for some reason, was +of a more vivid green than on the rest of the moor, and against it the +stones on the nearer curve showed a pale grey, while the further ones +stood up dark against the sky, for beyond them the moor sloped slightly +to the cliffs and the sea.</p> + +<p>These stones were known as the "Nineteen Merry Maidens," and legend had +it that once they were living, breathing girls, who had come up to that +deserted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> spot to dance upon a Sunday. As they twirled this way and that +in their sinful gyrations, the doom of petrification descended on them, +as it did on the merry-makers of old when Perseus dangled the Gorgon's +head aloft. So the nineteen maidens stand to this day, a huge fairy-ring +of stone, like those smaller ones of fragile fungi that also enclose a +circle of greener grass in the radius of their stems. Two luckless men, +whom the maidens had beguiled to pipe for them, turned and fled, but +they, too, were overtaken by judgment in a field further on along the +road, and stand there to this day, a warning against the profanation of +the Sabbath.</p> + +<p>When Senath was asked why she had taken such a lonely cottage, she +replied that it was on account of the Merry Maidens—they were such +company for her. Often, of an evening, she would wander round the +circle, talking aloud after the fashion of those who live alone. She had +given each of the stones a name, and every one of them seemed, to her +starved fancy, to have a personality of its own. Senath Lear, what with +the mixed strains of blood that were her Cornish heritage, and the added +influence of isolation, was fast becoming an old maid, and a wisht one +at that, when something happened which set the forces of development +moving in another direction. Senath herself connected it with her first +visit to the Pipers, whom hitherto, on account of their sex, she had +neglected for the Merry Maidens.</p> + +<p>One market day—Thursday—Senath set off to a neighbouring farm to buy +herself a little bit of butter. The way there, along the high road, lay +past the field where the Pipers stood in their perpetual penance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> and +Senath could see them sticking up gaunt against the luminous sky for +some time before she came up with them. For, as was only fitting, the +Pipers were much taller than the Maidens, being, indeed, some twelve +feet high.</p> + +<p>Senath walked briskly along, a sturdy, full-chested figure, making, in +her black clothes (Sunday-best, "come down"), the only dark note in the +pale colours of early spring that held land and air. The young grass +showed tender, the intricate webs made by the twisted twigs of the bare +thorn-trees gleamed silvery. On the pale lopped branches of the elders, +the first crumpled leaves were just beginning to unfold. The long grass +in an orchard shone with the drifted stars of thousands of narcissi, +which a faint breeze woke to a tremulous twinkling. The road was thick +with velvety white dust, for it was some time since rain had fallen, and +the black of Senath's skirt was soon powdered into greyness. As she +went, she wondered what it was that gave the air such a tang of summer, +until she suddenly realized it was the subtle but unmistakable smell of +the dust that brought to her mind long, sunny days, when such a smell +was as much part of the atmosphere as the foliage or the heat. Now there +was still a chill in the air, but she hardly felt it in the force of +that suggestiveness.</p> + +<p>"Sim' me I'm naught but a bit of stone like they Pipers," she said to +herself, as she paused to look up at them, towering above her. Then a +whimsical thought struck her. "I'll lave the Maidens be for a while and +take my walk to the Pipers," she thought, "tes becoming enough in a +woman o' my years, I should think."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> +She smiled at her mild jest and plodded on to the farm.</p> + +<p>It was a fairly large house, with a roof still partly thatch, but mostly +replaced by slate. In front of it, a trampled yard reached to the low +wall of piled boulders and the road. Senath found the mistress of it +leaning on the wall, ready to exchange a word with the occupants of the +various market-carts as they drove homewards, and the business of the +butter was soon transacted. Yet, for some odd reason, Senath was not +anxious to take up her basket and go. Perhaps it was that touch of the +unusual in the false hint of summer; perhaps, too, her decision to vary +the course of her evening walk and the playmates of her imagination; +but, whatever it was, she was vaguely aware of a prompting towards human +contact. The two women sat on the low wall and chatted in a desultory +fashion for a few minutes. Then the farmer's wife, shading her eyes with +her hand, looked along the road.</p> + +<p>"Your eyes are younger'n mine, Senath Lear," she said. "Tell me, edn +that Sam'l Harvey of Upper Farm comen in his trap?"</p> + +<p><a name="Senath" id="Senath"></a><ins title="Original has Seneath">Senath</ins> turned her clear, long-sighted eyes down the road and +nodded.</p> + +<p>"He'll be driving out Manuel Harvey to the Farm," Mrs. Cotton went on. +"You do knaw, or maybe your don't, seein' you live so quiet, that since +Sam's been a widow-man, Upper Farm's too big for he to live in in +comfort. He's comin' to live in church-town and look after his interests +in building. You do knaw that he's putting up a row of cottages to let +to they artisesses. And Upper Farm he's let to Manuel Harvey."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> +"Is he any kin to en?" asked Senath, interested, as any woman would have +been, in this budget of news about her old suitor.</p> + +<p>"No, less they'm so far removed no one remembers et. There's a power of +Harveys in this part of the world. Manuel do come from Truro way."</p> + +<p>The high gig had been coming quickly nearer, and now drew up before the +two women.</p> + +<p>"Evenen, Mis' Cotton. Evenen, Senath," said Sam, with undisturbed +phlegm. "Could'ee blige we weth some stout twine? The off-rein has +broken and us have only put en together for the moment wi' a bit o' +string Mr. Harvey here had in's pocket."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Cotton bustled off into the house, and Sam climbed down, the gig +bounding upwards when relieved from his weight. He was a big, fair man, +his moustache distinctly lighter than his weather-beaten face, and since +the days when he had courted Senath the whites of his eyes had become +yellowish round the muddy hazel of the iris. Senath looked from him to +Manuel, still in the gig, and as she did so, something unknown stirred +at her pulses, very faintly.</p> + +<p>Manuel Harvey was dark, and though his eyes, too, were hazel, it was +that clear green-grey, thickly rimmed with black, that is to be seen in +the people of that part of the world who have a strain of Spanish blood +in them, dating from the wrecks of the Armada. Those eyes, beneath their +straight brows, met Senath's, and in that moment idle curiosity passed +into something else.</p> + +<p>Many women and most men marry for a variety of reasons not unconnected +with externals. There has been much spoken and written on the subject +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> "affinities," a term at the best insecure, and often pernicious, but +very occasionally, when the two people concerned are elemental creatures +with little perception of those half-shades which are the bane of +civilization, there does occur a flashing recognition which defies known +laws of liking, and this it was which came to Manuel and Senath now.</p> + +<p>"Falling in love" is ordinarily a complex, many-sided thing, compact of +doubts and hesitations, fluctuating with the mood and with that powerful +factor, the opinions of others. It is subject to influence by +trivialities, varying affections and criticisms, and the surface of it +is an elastic tissue setting this way and that, as thoughts ebb and flow +from moment to moment, even though far beneath it may remain +unperturbed. Yet every now and then come together two of that vanishing +race who are capable of feeling an emotion in the round—the whole +sphere of it. This sense of a spherical emotion came to Senath as she +would have pictured the onslaught of a thunder-ball, save that this fire +had the quality of warming without scorching utterly.</p> + +<p>Looking up, as she stood there stricken motionless, she saw him +transfigured to a glowing lambency by the blaze of the setting sun full +on his face; and he, staring down, saw her against it. Her linen sun +bonnet, which had slipped back on her shoulders and was only held by the +strings beneath her chin, was brimming with sunlight, like some magic +pilgrim's pack; and her eyes, opened widely in her worn, delicately +seamed face, gained in blueness from the shadow her face and neck made +against the brightness. Even so, to most people she would have appeared +only a wholesome-looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> woman in early middle life, who had kept the +clear and candid gaze of childhood; a woman rather ungainly and +thick-set. Manuel saw her as what, for him, she was—a deep-bosomed +creature, cool of head and warm of heart—a woman worth many times over +the flimsy girls who would pass her with a pitying toss of the head. +Manuel thought none of this consciously; he was only aware of a pricking +feeling of interest and attraction, and had he been asked his opinion +would have said she seemed a fine, upstanding woman enough. Then, when +Mrs. Cotton came out again with the twine and a big packing-needle, he, +too, climbed down and, his fingers being younger and more supple than +Sam's, attended to the stitching of the rein.</p> + +<p>"Must be gwain on, I b'lieve," announced Sam, when this was in progress. +"Can't us giv'ee a lift, Senath? I'm sure us wont mind sitten familiar +if you don't, will us, Manuel, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, thank'ee, Sam," said Senath quickly, "I do rare and like a bit +of a walk before goin' to the bed. Evenen to you, and thank you, Sam. +Evenen, Mr. Harvey."</p> + +<p>He raised a face into which the blood had come with stooping over the +rein.</p> + +<p>"Evenen, Miss Lear," he muttered.</p> + +<p>She started down the road at a good pace so as to have turned off before +they came up with her, but she heard the clip-clop of the horse's hoofs +as she drew alongside with the Pipers, and she turned in towards them +through a gap in the hedge. She pushed a way among bracken and clinging +brambles, and as she reached them the sun slipped behind the S. Just +hills,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> and in the glamorous mingling of the afterglow with the swift +dusk she stood, as the gig, the two men in it apparently borne along +level with the top of the hedge by some mysterious agency, passed by.</p> + +<p>For a while she stood there, the dew gathering on stone and twig and +leaf. She glanced up at the two dark columns reared above, her hand +against the rough surface of the nearer one.</p> + +<p>"Must give en names, too," she said, with a backward thought for her +Merry Maidens. "Why shoulden I call they after Sam and his new tenant? +That one can be Sam,"—looking at the stumpier and wider of the two, +"and the tall one, he can be Manuel."</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>There is little to tell of the love of Senath and Manuel save that it +was swift, unspeakably dear, and put beyond the possibility of +fulfilment by the death of the man. The slight accident of a rusty nail +that ran into his foot, enhanced by the lack of cleanliness of the true +peasant, and Manuel, for such a trifling cause, ceased to be. They were +fated lovers; fated, having met, to love, and, so Senath told herself in +the first hours of her bitterness, fated never to grasp their joy. The +time had been so short, as far as mere weeks went, so infinitely long in +that they had it for ever. After the funeral in the moorland churchyard, +Senath went into her cottage and was seen of no one for many days. Then +she reappeared, and to the scandal of the world it was seen that she had +discarded her black. She went about her work silently as ever, but +seemed to shun meeting her fellow-creatures less than formerly. A bare +year after Manuel's death she had married Samuel Harvey.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +No one wondered more than Sam himself how this had come about. If the +marriage had been a matter of several months earlier, the common and +obvious interpretation as to its necessity would have been current +everywhere, and Sam would have had his meed of half-contemptuous pity. +As it was, no one knew better than Sam that the other Harvey's wooing +had gone no further than that wonderful kiss to which middle-aged +people, who have missed the thing in their youth, can bring more +reverential shyness than any blushing youth or girl.</p> + +<p>Had it been any other than Senath, folk would not have been so +surprised. A woman may get along very well single all her days if she +has never been awakened to another way of life, but give her a taste of +it and it is likely to become a thing that she must have. Yet few made +the mistake of thinking that that was how it was with Senath. A strongly +spiritual nature leaves its impress on even the most clayey of those +with whom it comes in contact, and all knew Senath to be not quite as +they were. Yet she married the red-necked Samuel Harvey, and they went +to live together at the Upper Farm. And, as to any superior delicacy, +Senath showed less than most. A few kind souls there were who thought, +with the instinctive tact of the sensitive Celt, that it might hurt her +to hear the name "Mrs. Harvey" which would have been hers had she +married Manuel. On the contrary, just as though she were some young +bride, elated at her position, she asked that even old friends should +call her by the new title.</p> + +<p>Sam was genuinely fond of Senath, and mingled with his fondness was a +certain pride at having won<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> what he had set out to win so many years +ago; yet, it was so many years that he had been in a fair way to forget +all about it till, one evening, he met Senath as he was driving home +from market, much as when he had been with Manuel a year before. It had +struck him as odd, for Senath was not apt to be upon the highway at that +time, and although she was going in an opposite direction she asked for +a lift back in his gig. When they came to the track that led off to her +cottage, he tied up the mare and went with her to advise her as to her +apple-trees, which were suffering from blight, and by the time he left, +half an hour later, they were promised to each other. How it came about, +Sam never quite understood; the only thing he was sure about was that it +had been entirely his doing. Yet he couldn't help wondering a bit, +though it all seemed to follow on so naturally at the time, that it was +not until he was on his way back to the Upper Farm that he felt puzzled. +He was still wondering about it, and her, when the parson joined their +hands in the bleak, cold church, and Senath stood, beneath her +unbecoming daisied hat, looking as bleak and cold as the granite walls +around her.</p> + +<p>Later, Sam found this to be a misleading impression. Never was bride +more responsive, in the eager passive fashion of shut eyes and quiet, +still mouth, than was Senath. Only now and again, in the first weeks of +their life together, she would give a start, and a look of terror and +blank amazement would leap across her face, as though she were suddenly +awakened out of a trance.</p> + +<p>Men of Sam's condition and habit of mind do not,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> by some merciful law +of nature, make ardent lovers, and life soon settled down comfortably +enough on the farm. Senath was a capable housewife, and, what with the +dairy-work and cooking and superintending the washing, and such extra +work as looking after any sickly lamb or calf, she had plenty to do. And +yet, in the midst of so much activity, every now and then Sam was struck +by a queer little feeling of aloofness in Senath—not any withdrawing +physically, but a feeling as though her mind were elsewhere. He might +find her sitting on the settle with her eyes closed, although she was +obviously awake, and an expression of half-fearful joy on her face, as +on that of a person who is listening to some lovely sound and holding +his breath for fear lest the least noise on his own part should frighten +it into stillness.</p> + +<p>However, Sam was not an imaginative man, and since the house shone with +cleanliness such as it had never known, the shining not of mere +scouring, but of the fine gloss only attained by loving care, he did not +trouble his head. Women were queer at the best of times, and besides, a +few months after the marriage, reason for any additional queerness on +the part of Senath became known to him. After she had told him the news, +Sam, ever inarticulate, but moved to the rarely felt depths of his +nature, went out into a field that was getting its autumn ploughing, and +his heart sang as he guided the horses down the furrow. Even as he was +doing now, and his father had done before him, so should his son do +after him, and the rich earth would turn over in just this lengthening +wave at the blade of the ploughshare for future generations of Harveys +yet to come. Like most men with any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> feeling for the land in them, Sam +was sure his child must be a son.</p> + +<p>And to him, who had not hoped for such a thing in marrying Senath, to +him this glory was coming. Everything seemed to him wonderful that day; +the pearly pallor of the dappled sky; the rooks and screaming gulls that +wheeled and dipped behind his plough; the bare swaying elms, where the +rooks' nests clung like gigantic burrs. Dimly, and yet for him keenly, +he was aware of all these things, as a part of a great phenomenon in +which he held pride of place.</p> + +<p>When he came in, his way led through the yard, where a new farm-cart, +just come home, stood under the shed in all the bravery of its blue body +and vermilion wheels. Senath had crept round in the shed to the back and +was studying the tailboard, one hand against it.</p> + +<p>"Looken to see all's well to the rear as to the front?" called Sam +jovially. "That's a proper farmer's wife."</p> + +<p>Senath started violently and dropped her hand, looking away before she +did so. "It looks fine," was all she said, and went within doors, +passing him. A small portent, so slight Sam did not even know it for +what it was, and yet something in her look and manner seemed to chill +him to the bones of him. Then, and after, he put anything unfathomable +in her ways down to her condition, and so turned what might have been a +source of discomfort to the account of his joy.</p> + +<p>The blossom was thick upon the apple-trees when Senath's boy was born. +He had a long fight of entry, and when the sky was paling and flushing +with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> reluctant dawn, Sam, who had spent the night alternately +snoring on the settle and creeping upstairs in his stockinged-feet, +heard the first wailing of his son. He heard, too, the clank of the +milk-pails in the yard without, the lowing of an impatient cow, and the +crowing—above all sounds the most melancholy to anyone upon a sleepless +pillow—of a triumphant cock. As he heard all these common noises about +his own place, he realized how much more dear they had all become to him +by reason of what was in the room above. He knew that his wife had what +is inadequately called a "bad time," but although the boards over his +head had creaked for hours to the anxious tread of doctor and of nurse, +not a cry had come until this one that heart and ear told him was from +his child. He went upstairs once more, creeping less this time, and +knocked timidly at the door, then coughed to show who it was. The nurse, +a thin, yellow-haired London woman doing parish-nursing for her +health—a woman he hated while he feared her—opened the door a slit and +looked unsympathetically at him.</p> + +<p>"I was wanten to knaw . . ." began Sam.</p> + +<p>"None the better for hearing you," snapped the nurse. "She must have +absolute quiet."</p> + +<p>"I dedn't go for to mane that," explained Sam naively, "but the cheild? +'Tes a boy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's a boy, and doing all right," said the nurse, and shut the door +in his face.</p> + +<p>Sam went downstairs and put his head under the yard-pump, and laved his +bare red arms in its flow, as men might bathe in the waters of perpetual +youth. The great rejuvenation of a new birth had come upon him. For that +is what it resolves itself into—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> advent of a son to a middle-aged +man. Sam felt his term of life taking immortal lease.</p> + +<p>Later in the day, the news that his son was weakly was broken to him, +but made very little impression. The child could not die, because it was +his. To other men, the common lot of humanity, but not so near home.</p> + +<p>The morning was at its height, all around romance and mystery had +dissolved in the broad shining, when they told Sam his wife wished to +see him, but that he must be careful not to excite her as she was not +yet beyond the danger-point.</p> + +<p>When he saw her, the burning colour in her face strong against the white +of her pillows, he thought they must be exaggerating, and he patted her +hand cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"You've done fine, Senath, lass," he assured her. "'Tes a brave an' +handsome chap, is young Samuel."</p> + +<p>"Not Samuel," answered Senath. Her voice, though low, was composed.</p> + +<p>"What then?" asked Sam, remembering his wife was at a time when she must +be humoured as far as speech went, anyway.</p> + +<p>"Manuel," said Senath. Then, at his start of dissent: "Yes, Manuel."</p> + +<p>"You'm my wife, not his," said Sam. "The cheild's my cheild, not his, +and et shall be called for ets father."</p> + +<p>"I'm Manuel's wife," said Senath, "and et's Manuel's cheild."</p> + +<p>Sam calmed down, for he was now sure that his wife was light-headed. It +was a common symptom, he had been told.</p> + +<p>"No," said Senath, answering his thought, "I'm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> not that wisht, Sam. I'm +in my right mind, and I'm only waiten on you to go. I'm waiten to go, +Sam, I'm waiten to go."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, lass?"</p> + +<p>"I'm waiten till I've told 'ee why I wedded you, Sam. It was because of +Manuel."</p> + +<p>She lay still a moment and then went on:</p> + +<p>"Of course I had et in my thoughts to die a maid and go to him as he +left me. A woman allus thinks that to begin with. And then et began to +come clear to me—all the future. How I'd go on getting older and more +withered and wi' nawthen to show for my life. And when I saw Manuel +agan, he'd say: 'Where's the woman I loved? Where's her blue eyes, and +the fine breast of her?' And I'd have to say: 'Wasted, gone, dried-up, +Manuel.' I wanted him. I wanted Manuel as I never thought a woman could +want anything but peace, and he was taken from me. So I determined in my +heart I'd go to Manuel, and go with somethen to take to en. I married +you, Sam, because you had the same name, and was the same height, and +when I shut my eyes, I could fancy my head was on his breast, and that +et was his heart beaten at my ear. That's why I made folk call me 'Mrs. +Harvey': so I could force myself to think et was Manuel Harvey's wife I +was. That's why I used to look at your name painted up, ef et was but on +the tailboard of a cart. I used to hide the front of et, so that I could +pictur' 'Manuel' written under my hand. Sometimes I'd pictur' et so hard +and fierce that when I took my hand away, I expected to see er there, +and the sight of 'Samuel' was like a blow. I got to knaw that, and to +look away before I took my hand off."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> +Again she stopped and lay awhile as though gathering energy; then the +indomitable voice went on:</p> + +<p>"At first, when you took me in your arms, et was near to turning me mad, +and I thought I couldn't go on wi' et; but I got better and better at +imagining et was Manuel, though et was like to kill me every time I woke +up. For et was like waking up every time I had to let the strain of my +imagining go for a moment. And each time et left me feelen weaker and +more kind of wisht than before. But I was glad of that, for et all +brought me nearer. When you wedded me, I swear I'd got so I made et +Manuel, and not you, who was holding me, and for nine months I've borne +his cheild beneath my broken heart. I've made et his."</p> + +<p>She drew the little sentient bundle nearer to her, as though to defend +it from him. He stared at her, then spoke slackly, trying to urge force +into his voice.</p> + +<p>"'Tes all nawthen but in your mind, all that. It's what's real as +matters."</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember, Sam, how the wise woman to church-town had a spite +against Will Jacka's Maggie, and told her her cheild was goin' to be an +idiot; and how et preyed on the mind of her, and the boy has no +mouth-speech in him to this day? That was only in her mind. And how, in +the Book, Jacob put the peeled wands before the eyes of the sheep, and +the lambs came all ring-straked and speckled? I've put the thought of +this before the eye of my mind; I've thought et into bein' Manuel's +cheild, even as I belong to him and him only. And 'tes to him I'm taken +et."</p> + +<p>Sam turned and stumbled from the room, down to the kitchen, and dropped +upon the settle. The next moment, a sudden flash of fear sent him to his +feet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> He tore up the stairs, knocked into the nurse as she came out of +her room, and swept her along with him.</p> + +<p>Senath had her shawl folded thickly over the baby's face, and she had +turned over so that her body lay upon it as she clasped it to her +breast. But the baby still lived, and when they had taken it from her, +she fell into a sullen silence, through which the tide of her life, too, +began to creep back steadily.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>Ten years later, three little boys were playing in the yard at the Upper +Farm. One was a few years older than the other two, who were obviously +twins, fair and round and apple-cheeked, with bright brown eyes like +little animals, and slackly open mouths. The other boy was of nervous +make, with black hair that fell into eyes at once more human and more +forlorn. He was very dirty, but he had stuck a yellow jonquil through a +hole in his jersey. They were playing at moulding little men out of the +mud, and setting them about an inverted flower-pot which did duty for a +house. Suddenly, one of the little boys pushed away the mud-farmer which +the eldest had placed at the arched break in the rim, which was the +house door, and stuck his own much more primitive effort there instead.</p> + +<p>"You'm not to put your man there, Manuel," he screamed. "That's the door +like where father do stand of a Sunday. My man must stand there, because +every one do say you'm a changeling and no proper son at all."</p> + +<p>Manuel scrambled to his feet and ran across the yard; his hard little +boots clattered as he went. He ran into the kitchen, where his mother, +stout and comfortable-looking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> was baking. The dim room was filled with +the good smell of hot bread and pastry.</p> + +<p>"Mother, mother," sobbed Manuel, "Sam's said et again. He says I'm not +like da's son; that I'm naught but a changeling."</p> + +<p>Senath raised a flushed face from her work and kept the rolling-pin +still a moment while her eldest-born spoke, but she did it mechanically.</p> + +<p>"If you'd only try not to be so odd-like and so different to the rest o' +the family," she complained, "the boys would'n say it so often. There, +take this hot split and lave me be."</p> + +<p>At ten years old, neither wounded pride nor the worse hurt of always +feeling a something unexplained about himself that did not fit in with +his surroundings, was proof against hot pastry, and Manuel went away +with it, though slowly, to a spot he knew of beside the mill-leat. There +a robin was building her nest in the alders, and there, too, if he lay +very still, with shut eyes, he could imagine all sorts of wonderful +things that the brook was saying. How he was really not the son of these +people at all, but of some wonderful prince, who would come upon a +coal-black charger, like the one in the old fairy-book, and take him +away, away from this discordant house where he felt such a very lonely +little boy. . . .</p> + +<p>In the kitchen, Senath, about to resume her work, saw that the jonquil +had dropped from his jersey to the floor, where it lay shining, a fallen +star. Senath stood staring at it for a minute. For one flash, +bewildering and disconcerting, like the sudden intrusion of last night's +dream into the affairs of to-day, she saw herself again—that self she +never thought of as being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> the precursor of the present Senath, but as a +totally different person altogether, whom, try as she would, she could +not connect up. She had long ago given up trying, busy with her man and +the boys. The two younger were little trouble enough beyond the ordinary +vexatiousness of childhood, but there was something about Manuel which +was different, and which often annoyed Sam, who liked to brag about his +eldest boy, and tried always to make him out as exactly like himself. +But she was conscious that the Senath of long ago would have understood. +Now, as she stared at the jonquil, it seemed to her that that Senath was +she herself again, though she had grown to despise the dreaming, +fanciful creature of her muffled memory—perhaps there had been +something fierce and great about her, that the present Senath could +never capture again.</p> + +<p>The moment passed, and she let the flower lie where it was, and +presently, when Sam, the successful husband, came in ruddy and clamorous +for his tea, his heavy boot trampled it, all discoloured, into a crack +of the stone flags. The little boys came tumbling in, too, also +clamorous, after the way of men-folk.</p> + +<p>"Where's Manuel?" demanded Sam.</p> + +<p>Both little shrill voices were obsequious with the information that he +had gone towards the leat.</p> + +<p>"Day-dreamen, I'll be bound," said Sam, his mouth full of hot split. +"Eh, well, so were you, missus, at one time of day. Life'll soon knock +et out of him, like et has of you. And you'm all the better wi'out et, +arn't 'ee, lass?"</p> + +<p>She said "Yes," and would have thought so if it had not been for the +memory of that moment, already faded, when she had seen the jonquil. As +it was, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> sent a quick thought out to the boy who lay playing with +imaginings by the alders; a thought of vague regret and a faint hope +that it might not be with him quite as it had been with her. And whether +the thought reached his unknowing self or not, to Manuel's fancy the +leat had a finer tale and brighter hopes to tell him that evening than +usual, and he was at the age when, although he knew the corresponding +fall on entering the house must be the more severe, he never doubted +that the dreams were worth it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="white" /> + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> +<a name="viii" id="viii"></a>THE COFFIN SHIP</h2> + + +<hr class="hr3" /> + +<p class="heading"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span><br /> +THE COFFIN SHIP +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + + +<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Of</span> all the ships that traded from the Islands to the mainland, the +<i>Spirito Santo</i> had the worst reputation. She was known as a "hungry" +vessel; her chief mate was a French Creole from Martinique who had been +trained aboard a Yankee clipper, and her captain was a blue-nose who +behaved as such. Since, on the outward voyage, the crew generally +consisted of men who had made the Islands too hot to hold them, and, on +the return trip, of half-dazed sailors who had been doped by crimps, +there was a certain superficial variety about it—a variety merely of +individuals and not of kind.</p> + +<p>The <i>Spirito Santo</i> had been a good enough ship in her day, and had +weathered a typhoon in the China seas and a hurricane in the Atlantic, +but she was one of the earliest steam vessels built, and had started +life as a side-wheeler; her paddles having been changed for a single +screw and simple engines, of the kind guaranteed to combine the greatest +possible consumption of fuel with a correspondingly large waste of +steam.</p> + +<p>She was a wooden vessel, iron still being looked at askance when her +keel was laid, and her lines were those of the true sailing-ship, with +bows that bulged out almost square from either side of her cutwater, +above which her long bowsprit raked the air. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> result was that she +steamed as a wind-jammer, with her bows delaying her speed by their +large surface of resistance; and went better under canvas, with her +screw running free. She was barque-rigged, that is to say she carried +trysails on her fore and main, below the lovely tower of royals, +topgallant sails and top-sails which even her stumpy sticks and too-wide +yards could not make ungraceful. Her long thin funnel amidships looked +as though it had got there by mistake, and indeed she belonged rather to +the class of auxiliary steam than that of auxiliary sail, in spite of +the motive with which she had conceived. In fact, her trouble was that +in a world where steamships, and iron ones at that, were beginning more +and more to snatch at trade, and where the great racing clippers still +broke records, the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, being neither one thing nor the +other, had become a losing proposition. Her owners grudged tar on her +sides as sorely as kids of meat to the men, and no shabbier trader than +the <i>Spirito Santo</i> nosed her way from Port of Spain to the Golden Gate. +Yet she got there all right, bullied and driven, got there on cheap coal +and rotten rigging, though her engines seemed as though they must beat a +hole in her straining sides and her planks part from sheer exhaustion. +She held together as a coherent and reliable whole partly because, with +all her lack of grace, she was a sweet ship in a seaway if one knew her +idiosyncrasies, partly because her skipper could nurse a ship through +anything while the hull stayed afloat. And the <i>Spirito Santo</i> took some +handling, for in spite of her wide yards and tonnage to the tune of +seven hundred, she only drew fourteen feet and was as tricky as a cat. +Her skipper coaxed her and humoured her, bullied her at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> just the right +moment, in short, treated her as though she had been a woman—only Joab +Elderkin would not have taken the trouble over any she-thing of flesh +and blood.</p> + +<p>Elderkin was the best-feared man in the Caribbean. He had a thin sinewy +frame and a very soft voice which he never raised in ordinary +conversation, and this gave a curious effect of monotony to whatever he +was saying. Never drunk at sea, he was always perfectly sober on land +except for the first twenty-four hours after landing, when he soaked +steadily. Even his movements were gentle, as though to match his voice +and the dark eyes, deep-set in his prematurely wizened face, held the +wistful puzzled sadness of a monkey's. His language was unparalleled for +profanity, and to the most hardened there was something of terror in the +appalling flow of words issuing on such an unruffled softness of +intonation. In those days the master of a vessel had almost unlimited +power within the area of his ship's rails. If, goaded by ill-use, a man +struck his officer, he was quite likely to be shot straightway, and on +reporting the matter the captain would be praised for his promptness in +quelling mutiny at its rising. Floggings with the cat or the yoke-rope, +brutal mishandling with knuckle-dusters and belaying-pins, were the +quick and common resort on the slightest count, and Captain Joab +Elderkin was famous for his technique in all these methods. His ship +literally merited the trite description of a floating hell, and one boy +aboard her had died of a broken heart. The child had failed in an +attempt to get ashore at Frisco, been brought back and flogged at the +mizzen rigging, and afterwards turned his face to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> the dark forecastle +wall, refused food and died. The little incident had added to Elderkin's +unsavoury reputation, but it was this reputation which made him a man +after his owners' hearts. He was not likely to suffer from scruples, and +it is needless to say that the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, a free-lance trading +from what port she chose, carried a good deal now and again on which she +never paid duty. Her skipper's only form of conscience was his +seamanship. The owners might grudge paint, but every bit of brass-work +on board shone like gold, and the decks were holy-stoned till the men +sobbed over their aching knees. At twenty-three he had held command of a +full-rigged ship trading to China. Now, since the <i>Spirito Santo</i> was +becoming more and more of a falling investment, he rarely made the +passage round into the Pacific, and, Atlantic-bound, dodging from the +Islands to Colon and down the coast as far as Rio, Elderkin was wont to +refer to the time when he really had been a sailor. . . .</p> + +<p>It was his conscience as a seaman that the owners were up against when +they called the captain into consultation over the diminishing returns +of the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, and proposed to him the course that is regarded +by sailors the world over as the great betrayal.</p> + +<p>To anyone without a nice sense for spiritual values, everything is +merely a matter of price, and Elderkin's fee for the loss of his ship +and with her his soul was higher than the partners could have wished. +They were greasy men, with the Spanish strain, that too often, in those +latitudes, means a hint of the negro as well, and their office was on +the outskirts of the dirty vulture-ridden Port of Spain of those days. +The room was bare, and upon the blotchy whitewash of the wall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> there +hung nothing but a map and a few advertisements. The mosquitoes sang +through the unscreened windows; outside, in the dusty strip of bleached +earth between the house and the road, a hedge of hibiscus was in bloom. +In the glaring sunshine the flaunting back-curled blossoms seemed afire +as they shot their thin vermeil tongues out into the air made so alive +with light. To Elderkin, as he sat in the dimmed room, full of green +reflections from the vegetation without, came the unpleasant thought +that it was as though he were under seas . . . and the flaming tongues of +the hibiscus were some evil sea-growth, mocking at his plight.</p> + +<p>He leaned forward and helped himself again from the bottle of whisky +that stood upon the bare table. When he lifted it a crescent of gold +fled across the table, slipping back again when he set the bottle down, +as a ripple of reflected light runs through water. Elderkin had often +seen a gleam like it when watching a small bright fish flash through a +pool.</p> + +<p>His reluctant mind responded to the kick of the liquor: the dirty little +room, the watchful eyes of the partners as they sat on either side of +him in their soiled linen suits, no longer seemed so unpleasant to him, +accustomed as he was to the sordidness that, if care is not exercised, +so soon overtakes an interior in the tropics. His caution still remained +to him, and he sounded the scheme at every point, finding the partners +were prepared, full of urgings, advices, rosy forecasts, cunning +details. On the homeward voyage, that would be best . . . he could take +her out in ballast, bring her back loaded to her limit and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> beyond it. . . . Those +were days before the Plimsoll mark, and vessels often left +port—even great English ports—so loaded that their scuppers were all +but awash, and not only left but perhaps attempted the passage round the +Horn itself. There would be no difficulty about that, but Captain +Elderkin must, of course, not sail from a Peruvian harbour as the +authorities there had an unpleasant habit of marking a load-line on +every ship that cleared and seeing that she did not go above it. +Besides, a cargo was awaiting him in Chili, and the partners were +prepared about that too. It was to be a double deal, the actual copper +and nitrates, with a small amount of gold, which she would go out to +take was, by arrangement with a certain official known to the partners, +to be changed for sand and stones. Just a sprinkling of nitrate at the +top, perhaps, since nitrate is loaded in bulk. It was risky, but on the +other hand it was a thing often carried through with success, and +Elderkin, who knew all the tricks and possibilities of both coasts, +could see his way with reasonable clarity. The partners advised Captain +Elderkin not to attempt bringing the <i>Spirito Santo</i> round the Horn, as +he might have more difficulty in saving himself; if the accident +occurred on the Pacific side it would be better for many reasons. If he +were picked up by a passing ship he must, of course, see to it that the +<i>Spirito Santo</i> was too far gone for salvage, or that would indeed make +matters worse with a vengeance. An accident with the steering-gear—they +had reason to know that Olsen, the chief engineer, would come in on +it—when off a weather shore, would probably be the best solution. But, +naturally, there was no need to instruct so clever a sailor as Captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> +Elderkin in his part of the affair . . . more smiles and whisky.</p> + +<p>Joab Elderkin sat and absorbed it all, with little expression on his +sad, gentle face, his thin mouth remained imperturbable under the heavy +dark moustache, only in his high and narrow temples a pulse beat. As he +drank he raised his price, till at last the point was reached above +which the partners refused to go and below which he would not descend. +At that point they came to their agreement, and Joab Elderkin went out +of the office having sold his only form of honour on a gamble which +stood to put him on the way towards attaining a ship of his own. For +that was the desire of his heart, and until now had seemed as impossible +of realization as the phantom vessel of a dream. Probably for no other +inducement under the skies would he have given another ship's salvation.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>The month of August found the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, all sail set, running +down the Pacific coast before a north-westerly wind. Elderkin watched +the weather carefully, for he had no idea of losing his life, or, for +the matter of that, the lives of any of his crew who could be allowed to +retain them with safety to himself and the partners. For there is always +the personal equation to be studied in a matter of this kind, and +Elderkin had given much thought to the members of his crew. He had +hoped, while always fearing the futility of it, that the first mate, +Isidore Lemaire, might be kept in ignorance. For a while it seemed as +though this were so, but since leaving port Elderkin had felt doubtful +of the creole. Lemaire had a furtive way with him at the best of times, +a hint as of something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> that crept and glided rather than walked +normally, but then so had many of his race. He was supposed to be a +white—in the expressive Island phrase, he "passed for white"—but on +the French and Spanish and even the Danish islands the objection to +racial mingling is not nearly so strong as in the colonies that have +always been English. Also, Lemaire came from Martinique, which, after +Haiti, is the headquarters of Obeah, and worse, of voodoo. Even quite +good families in decaying Martinique had dealings with the unclean +thing, and St. Pierre was known, even among sailors, for a hotbed of +strange vices. All this was why Lemaire made such a powerful mate, for +the crew, except for the red-headed Danish engineer from St. Thomas, +were either half-castes from the Islands and the southern continent, or +full-blooded negroes; which was to say that superstition was so part of +them that the last vestige of it would only run out with the last drop +of blood from their bodies. Elderkin knew better than to penetrate the +forecastle, but he was aware of the bottles filled with dead +cockroaches, bits of worsted and the rest of the paraphernalia for the +casting of spells, which hung there. He himself had found that the only +way to keep his steward off his whisky was to decorate his locker with a +similar charm, and since he had done so had suffered no more from +pilfering. All this was obeah, harmless enough, and if now and then, a +white cock was sacrificed in the forecastle and a seaman went somewhat +mad on its blood, Elderkin ignored the matter. But Lemaire was, he knew, +suspected by the crew of darker dealings. There had been a rumour that +the reason Lemaire left Martinique was because the disappearance of a +planter's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> child was like to be laid at his door, and the rumour was +enough to make the niggers cringe before him. This was a master, perhaps +the friend of papalois and mamalois, with the power of life and death. +Elderkin loathed him—there are things from which the most hardened +white man shrinks, and it would have to be one utterly unregenerate who +could dabble his hands in voodooism. Nevertheless, the suspicion made +Lemaire the best nigger-driver in the length and breadth of the +Caribbean, and Elderkin made use of him for that reason. Now, for the +first time, he began to feel the man's peculiarities getting on his own +nerves. A word dropped now and again, odd looks from the protuberant and +opaque brown eyes, were making him wonder if the mate guessed, whether +it would be better to take him into the secret and trust to his never +reaching shore. . . .</p> + +<p>They were nearing the forties when Lemaire spoke. The day was wet, with +a strong wind, all the morning they had been driving through tingling +veils of rain and spray, shipping green water that slopped over the +holds and poured in foaming torrents along the dipping scuppers. All day +the wind—which till then had thrummed through the rigging and held the +sails in their stiffened curves so steadily that the <i>Spirito Santo</i> +kept a fairly even keel—had been falling on fitfulness. Loaded as she +was, the seas that raced past her, almost level with her deck, seemed +higher than they really were. An odd darkness held the air and through +it everything bright—the flashes of foam, a wheeling bird, or rare +shoal of flying fish—showed up with startling pallor. In the second +dog-watch Lemaire came to Elderkin in the chart-room.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> +Most men have a weakness and Elderkin's—probably because he never made +a confidant of a human being—was the dangerous one of pen and paper. He +was making calculations on the fly-leaf of an old Bible which had been +unearthed with a lot of other junk from a locker. Calculations about +ships—the varying costs of handling a four-masted schooner and a +barque, the advantages of chartering a small screw steamer; calculations +of routes and cargoes, of many things, but always calculations. . . .</p> + +<p>The curious darkness had swamped the chart-room, and made the +discoloured clasps of the Bible and the brighter brass of the ship's +fittings gleam out; made the captain's always pale face seem waxen, +showed two sallow flames in the mate's ophidian eyes. For a moment the +two men looked at each other in silence, then Lemaire spoke.</p> + +<p>"I see you figger it all out," he observed. "Don't forget me, dat's all. +I come in on dis, my friend. <i>Sacré nom de Dieu</i>"—on a sudden flash of +menace—"did you think I was going to get not'ing out of it? Or perhaps +you was going to drown me, eh?"</p> + +<p>Elderkin had got to his feet, and was watching the other man steadily. +When he spoke, his voice was as low and tired as ever.</p> + +<p>He asked what the blank the blank mate thought he was talking about. +Lemaire explained that he was talking about the scuttling of the +<i>Spirito Santo</i>, and that the captain knew it as blank well as he did.</p> + +<p>"While the ship remains afloat, kindly remember that I am in command, +Mr. Lemaire, and address me with proper respect. If you do so I'll +discuss business with you. If not, I'll see that you go to hell along +with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> the ship. Savvy, you herring-gutted son of a frog-eater, you?"</p> + +<p>Lemaire savvied. He had grown sickly hued with anger, but he spread his +dark hands in apology, so that the pinkish palms seemed to flash in the +unnatural gloom.</p> + +<p>Then they got to business. What Elderkin had feared had +happened—Lemaire's suspicions were aroused in port over the loading of +the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, over the paucity of the stores taken aboard, over +the many oddnesses that reveal themselves to a cunning mind when +something beyond the normal is in progress. Elderkin remembered the +night when Lemaire and the successfully bribed official had gone +together, as he had then thought, to a rowdy house—it must have been on +that occasion that the stronger man won definite confirmation from the +weaker. Now there was nothing for it but to let Lemaire in on the +deal—for the present.</p> + +<p>"You are not t'inking of a storm, no?" asked the mate, when both men had +laid their cards upon the table. "With our boats we should not stand a +chance. . . . A fire, perhaps? We are car'n some cotton, sah, and it might +have been packed damp."</p> + +<p>"Too risky. I thought of all that. We can only trust our boats to takes +us a little way. I must pile her up near the mainland. There's a reef I +know of——"</p> + +<p>"A reef!" scoffed Lemaire, "and you de best skipper on either side! Who +d'you s'pose believe dat? Not unless we first had an accident to de +engines, anyway. What about Olsen? Does he—know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. It could not be carried through without him."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> +"Ah, I see. . . . Only poor Lemaire was to be kept out. . . . And dis reef?"</p> + +<p>"It's uncharted. I found it years ago. I had reasons for not wanting it +known where I'd been and I never reported. It's a tricky place, the sea +don't break true on it, sets in sideways. Beyond it's flat to the shore. +No risk of salvage; it's out of the course, and a wooden ship goes to +pieces at once, anyway."</p> + +<p>"Where is it, dis reef?"</p> + +<p>Elderkin drew his pencil down the chart to an indented bit of coast not +a couple of degrees below the fortieth parallel. Lemaire sweated to +think how near he had been to risk.</p> + +<p>"If this north-west gale holds, and we are to have an accident which +made her unmanageable," went on Elderkin, "we should be driven ashore, +on to that reef. Or at least we could always say so afterwards."</p> + +<p>"We might arrange so's Olsen was neber able to give us de lie . . ." +suggested Lemaire, glancing sidelong at the other.</p> + +<p>"If needful."</p> + +<p>But when the tussle over terms was ended and Lemaire had gone forth, +Elderkin swore to himself that it was the mate who should never again +see the Islands rise above the rim of the sea. He cursed, and for a few +moments as he sat at the chart-room table, he allowed himself the luxury +of hating the course on which he had embarked. A man cannot give his +soul into the keeping of any one idea, whether that idea be embodied in +another person or in a mode of life, without suffering a profound +disturbance if he violently part from it; and for many years now +Elderkin's soul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> had been one with his ship. She was ugly, cranky, she +bore a name as a hell-ship that he had earned for her, but together they +had won through much; men had died on her, blood run upon her decks, +misery and pride and drunkenness and strange doings permeated her very +frame. She was as the flesh of his flesh, and only that dream-ship of +his own which floated in a mirage before his mind could have made him +unfaithful to her. He was in the position of a man who has lived with a +despised but deeply felt mistress, and who at last thinks he holds the +ideal woman, the bride, the untouched, within his grasp, at the price of +the severance of the old ties. And, like a reproachful ghost, as though +she were dead already, the appeal of the old reprobate of the seas kept +pricking at him, day and night, throughout the ordered watches that drew +her towards her end.</p> + +<p>He had sold his soul to gain his soul, a not altogether uncommon +bargain. "If I can only have this one thing I will Be Good ever after," +is a cry that must have caused amusement above and below as many times +as there are mortals upon the earth. In Elderkin's case the "one thing" +was a ship of his own, and now that she loomed at last over his horizon, +he found that it was this old Hagar of the high seas, the mistress and +not the wife, who, in spite of himself, absorbed his consciousness. All +the ugliness of his betrayal of her was thrown sharply into notice by +the compact with his mate; and, shot by a sharper distaste than ever +before, he covered his eyes for a minute, in an attempt to focus his +will undistracted. It was successful; Elderkin, little as he knew it, +was an idealist, however +<a name="perverted" id="perverted"></a><ins title="Original has preverted">perverted</ins> a one, and +idealism was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> with him in this venture, beckoning to him in the dip and +curtsy of a dream vessel, her bright canvas burning with perpetual +sunlight. . . . He dropped his hands and straightened himself, and his eye +fell on the Bible in which he had made his calculations, and where he +had also noted down his covenant with Lemaire. It had fallen open, by +the chance movement of his arms, at a different place, and he found he +was reading a few lines before he knew what he was about.</p> + +<p>Too imperceptibly for him to have noticed the progress of it, the light +had strengthened in the chart-room, for a stormy sun had penetrated the +gloom, and the heavy black letters stood out distinctly on the yellowed +page. A sudden flash of memory leapt through Elderkin's mind—the memory +of a day long ago in his childhood.</p> + +<p>He had been brought up in New England by a rigid old grandmother until +he ran away to sea, his Nova Scotian blood too strong for him. But his +mother's Puritan strain was with him nevertheless, had held by him if in +nothing else but a certain Biblical flavour in his oaths. Now there +flashed across his mind a dreary Sunday when he was a little boy—one of +many like it, but this particular one had stuck in his memory. And, +probably because of the yellow light flooding the chart-room, the memory +surged up at him, for on that Sunday he had escaped to the barn, +although with no better spoils than a book of Old Testament stories, and +lain there, heels in the air and elbows on the straw, reading the story +of the Flood in just such a stormy yellow glow as this. A gale had +followed, rain-laden, and his childish mind had half-feared, +half-hoped,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> that a flood was coming, down which he could float +triumphantly in some makeshift ark . . . as to his grandmother, he might +rescue her and he might not, but if he did, of course, she would be so +overcome with gratitude and admiration that she would never again abase +his dignity with a certain limber cane. Then, in a lull of the gale, the +gleam had shone out once more, and by its light he read on; read how God +had promised there should never come a flood over all the earth again, +and had made a rainbow as a sign of it. Rather dull of God, he thought +in his disappointment. The storm raged so that he dared not slip back to +the house, not because of any fear of the elements, but because his +grandmother would notice if his clothes got wet; so he had stayed on, +his mind thronged with imaginary adventures, till the storm was over. +Then he had gone back to the house, feeling curiously flat after the +excitement wind always produced in him. A faint yet, pictorially, a +vivid memory of that strained hour of varying emotions swept across him +now in a moment's space, as he gazed at the page before him. The next +moment he understood why—it was not only the light that reproduced that +afternoon of long ago, but also the words at which he was looking—the +two things together had fused a section of time from thirty years +earlier into a section of the present. He read the verses through, but a +few phrases knocked at his mind to the exclusion of the rest. The word +"covenant," especially, so hard upon his pact with Lemaire, seemed to +stare up at him. . . .</p> + +<p>"And I will establish a covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be +cut off any more by the waters of a flood. . . . And God said, This is the +token of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> covenant which I make between me and you, and every living +creature that is with you. . . . I do set my bow in the cloud, and it +shall be the token of a covenant. . . . And it shall come to pass when I +shall bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the +cloud, and I shall remember the covenant which is between me and you. . . ."</p> + +<p>Elderkin sat at gaze like a man in a trance, unable for a few moments to +disassociate that hour in the barn from the present—not sure which was +the present, so vivid was the illusion and so sharp the knock on his +dormant spiritual sense. His hands, which were trembling oddly, went out +to grasp the edge of the table, not for the physical support, but more +that a common sensation should reassure his mind. Then he rose, and +backing away from the Book as though it would spring at him, he went +out.</p> + +<p>The wind had dropped, but the <i>Spirito Santo</i> was rolling her +bulwarks—those solid structures which were traps for all the water +shipped—into the confused sea that the dead wind had left. She was +travelling badly, her heavy load robbed her of the elasticity which +would have enabled her to rise to the onslaught of each successive wave.</p> + +<p>The <i>Spirito Santo</i> boasted no bridge, the roof of the chart-room, which +was situated on the poop, just forward of the mizzen-mast, doing duty +instead. The wheel, which was uncovered, was set at the break of the +poop, between the rail and the chart-house. Elderkin climbed the ladder +to the top of the chart-house, and then stood there, struck to sudden +stillness. He never glanced at the binnacle to see if the man were +keeping the course, or noted the wiry figure of the mate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> as he tramped +back and forth; his whole being was arrested by the portent which held +the sky. And all the long-dormant but never wholly cast-off beliefs of +his childhood awoke in his blood.</p> + +<p>A curtain of luminous, ashen-pink cloud was drawn across the sky from +horizon to zenith, absolutely smooth and unbroken, and against it arched +a rainbow, spanning the horizon and coming down mistily into the sea. So +close the opalescent feet of it looked that it seemed as though the +ship's bows were heading through the phantom portals of some new world, +but high in air the summit of the curve, clear and burnished as +cut-glass, looked infinitely far away. As Elderkin stood at gaze, +particles of sun-bright cloud floated slowly across the right of the +arch, like little morsels of golden wool.</p> + +<p>Elderkin, his fingers clutching a wet stanchion, was aware of a curious +feeling coming over him. He felt he had seen just that effect +before—that curtain of ashen pink, the rainbow against it, the flock of +little golden-bright morsels, floating slowly across it . . . and had seen +it in connexion with something of vital importance. Yet, try as he +would, he could not capture the thought—memory—dream—whatever it was, +of which he was so sure in the back of his mind that he felt it waiting +for him to recognize it every moment. . . . All sorts of bewildering +little half-memories flitted across his mind, and refused to be captured +or placed. Queer, irrational little things they were, incongruous and +wildly senseless; he felt dizzy chasing them, but he knew if he gave up +concentrating even for an instant, the whole thing would be gone. Yet +piece together these half-memories that pricked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> at him he could not, +they were elusive as moths and as unsubstantial. He knew that there was +one key to them and that if he could only find it they would become +sense, though not sense of this world—it was as though they were in a +different focus and on a different plane, but they would become clear if +only he could find the key. . . .</p> + +<p>As he stared the little particles of cloud in front of the rainbow +slowly dissolved and melted into the ashen pink of the cloud-curtain, +from that, too, the glow was fading, and the arch itself began slowly to +die into the air. Elderkin found himself in the chart-room again; he sat +down and shut his eyes, striving to remember. He could not recollect +having dreamt such a thing, and yet the feeling aroused in him was +exactly that provoked when, on the day following a very vivid dream, it +will keep on intruding in fragments, each time to be shaken off as the +mind readjusts itself to the normal after the moment's blurring of edge. +Suddenly it occurred to him that he must have seen that effect only a +few days before and he opened his diary, in which, his vice being pen +and paper, he noted down matters not important enough for the "Remarks" +space in the log. He hunted the pages back and forth, and in the midst +of his futile search his mind seemed to give a click and he was switched +back into the normal again. He sat looking at the book in his hands and +realized that he had never seen that especial effect before, that he had +most certainly never noted it down; the mere idea that he had now seemed +as silly as a dream when the mind has struggled fully awake, though when +he had first thought of it and taken the notebook up, it had seemed as +possible as the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> dream when the sleeper is in the midst of it. He +still felt curiously dizzy, though his head was clearing slowly: things +seemed commonplace around him once more; he could not even remember +distinctly what his sensations had been. He only knew that in that +trance-like state, of a moment—of æons—earlier, he had known he had +seen before that which he then saw, and seen it connected with something +he could not catch. Whether he ever had seen it, perhaps on that +incompletely remembered day of storm which had flashed back to him on +this afternoon; or whether, already worked up by his conscience, by the +interview with Lemaire, and, to his sensitized mind, by the words in the +Bible, the sudden effect on him of seeing that bow set in the flaming +cloud, had produced a brainstorm, he could never know. He would have +thought it blasphemy to wonder whether nothing more spiritual than the +driven blood in his skull was responsible for that queer switching off +the track; but whatever it was, the effect of it, on his awakened moral +sense, was prodigious. He did not doubt that he had received a divine +visitation, that for him the heavens had been decked with pomp, that the +workings of God, in particular and exquisite relation to himself, were +manifest in the ordered sequence of that day. His own stirrings at the +violation of his solitary code had gone deeper with him than he knew, +preparing him for further troubling, then the pact with Lemaire, driving +in all the distasteful side of the business more keenly still, the +coincidence of that word "covenant" coming on the heels of his covenant +with the mate, that word used in the Bible passage to suggest the +eternal pact between man's soul and its creator, the memory it evoked, +and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> to crown all, the finding of the seal of it set in the heavens +themselves—all these things rushed together, fused, and struck into his +being.</p> + +<p>He fell on his knees in the chart-room and praised God; praised Him in +the phraseology of his Puritan forebears, as he had heard Him praised +when a little boy, whose heedless ears had not seemed to take in the +words battering about them.</p> + +<p>Joab Elderkin had got religion. He had been converted.</p> + +<p>When he scrambled to his feet he came to, so to speak, on a different +sphere from any he had ever known. He seized up the Bible again, his +hands shaken by the strongest passion known to civilized man, the only +acquired attribute, besides the making of fire, and of intoxicating +liquor, which marks him off fundamentally from the other mammals. He +read again the passage that had flamed into his ken earlier, he read the +promises of the Almighty, he read of how men were called the Sons of +God. He saw himself and all his fellow humans not merely calling God +Father by a kindly sufferance towards adopted children, but as beings +created of the same substance, their souls as much made of the essence +of God as their bodies of the essence of their earthly fathers, and the +thought mounted to his head like wine. The swift darkness of the tropics +had fallen, but full of his new conception of his +fellow-creatures—"every living creature that was with him" of the +verses—he, when he opened the chart-room door, flared forth into a +night of gods.</p> + +<p>All the next day the glory held, both in the air and in Elderkin's mind. +The Pacific was rainbow-haunted; phantom archways through which the +bowsprits seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> about to soar; pillars of prismatic colour that melted +into air; broken shafts of it that flashed out in every sunlit burst of +spray upon the decks. Even in the two plumes of spray for ever winging +from either side of her cutwater, a curve of burnished colours hung, as +though piercing down into the translucent green, through whose depths +the drowning surf was driven in paler clouds. The wind still held on and +the <i>Spirito Santo</i> made what way she could under steam and canvas, +through the confused seas that slopped aboard her and buffeted her from +all sides at once. It was of supreme significance to Elderkin that the +north-westerly wind on which he had counted for his purpose, should have +died away in the self-same hour that, as he phrased it, the wind of the +spirit blew into his soul. The barometer was falling rapidly, in spite +of the stiller air, and he had had the royals and outer jib and +gaff-topsail stowed. What with her reduced sail, the influence of her +steam, and the lumpy seas, the <i>Spirito Santo</i> was behaving her worst, +riding slugglishly with a heavy reluctant motion as though she hardly +considered it worth the effort of keeping her blunt nose above water at +all. Elderkin felt her sulkiness, and it seemed to him as though, +instead of helping to save her, she was possessed of an evil spirit bent +on thwarting him. He watched her closely, and spent the day on the poop, +and though he said little, every one was aware of something new and +strange about him. The crew commented among themselves on his +abstraction and the poverty of his abuse; Lemaire thought he held the +key to it, but Olsen, the freckled Dane, grew uneasy. He was having +trouble with his engines, which should have been overhauled long ago, +and would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> inevitably have been renovated this trip had it been +undertaken with a normal objective. If the voyage were unduly prolonged +he would be hard put to it for fuel; it would not take very much to send +his boilers crashing from the rusty stays that held them; added to which +every degree further south, now they were in the forties, diminished +their chances of safety. As there was no longer any wind to contend +with, Olsen was all for steaming towards shore at once, for his +sea-sense combined with the barometer to tell him of trouble ahead.</p> + +<p>Olsen was a taciturn creature, who cared for no one in the world but his +half-caste children—bright, large-stomached little creatures, whom he +had left playing in the dust in front of his gaily painted wooden house +in St. Thomas. For their sakes he put up with his fat, slovenly wife and +her swarms of relations of various shades of brown. It was only for the +children's sake that he had stuck to the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, for it suited +him to be able to get home as often as he might, and even when the +<i>Spirito Santo</i> did not touch St. Thomas he could always pick up with a +mail-packet or a sailing ship of some kind. It was his ambition to send +both boy and girl to New York for their education, now that the Civil +War had made it possible for anyone with a touch of colour to make good. +Therefore he nursed his crazy engines as though he loved them, but he +decided that the sooner the accident occurred the better. In the second +dog-watch, he, as Lemaire had done the day before, went to Elderkin in +the chart-room.</p> + +<p>He found the captain with an open book in front of him: he was not +reading, but making calculations on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> the margin. He glanced up at Olsen +and his tired eyes brightened for a moment. Then:</p> + +<p>"Ask Mr. Lemaire to come here," he ordered, "and come back yourself."</p> + +<p>Olsen made his way to the top of the chart-house, where Lemaire was +pacing, full of anxiety, and delivered the order. Lemaire came with a +mixture of civility and an assumption of confederacy in his manner, but +Elderkin took no more notice of it than of Olsen's waiting stolidity. He +closed the Bible and confronted the two men.</p> + +<p>"Well, Olsen," he said, "you were wanting to see me about something?"</p> + +<p>"It is about this affair," answered Olsen, "there is no good to be got +by waiting, sir. I tell you plainly my engines will not stand so very +much. And the way she is loaded, if we come up against anything in the +way of a sea——"</p> + +<p>"And you?" asked Elderkin of the mate.</p> + +<p>"I am sure dat what Olsen say is right. It must be now or never."</p> + +<p>"It is going to be never," replied Elderkin in his usual soft tones.</p> + +<p>The two men stared at him, then the quicker Latin flashed into speech. +He demanded, with a lapse into Island patois now and again, what the +blank blank blank the captain thought he was doing. Elderkin sat through +it unmoved.</p> + +<p>"I will not speak to you as you have just done to me," he began, +"because hairy, forsaken Frenchy as you are, you are still a son of God, +even as I am. Praise the Lord with me, for He has shown me into what an +abyss of sin I had fallen. Do you hear what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> I say? I am captain aboard +this ship, Mr. Lemaire, and I order you to praise God for having +delivered us while there is yet time."</p> + +<p>Lemaire stared at his superior officer in total silence for a moment +instead of complying. Then he turned to +<a name="Olsen" id="Olsen"></a><ins title="Original has Oslen">Olsen</ins>. The freckled +Dane grasped the situation the first. He saw that the skipper was not +trying to do them down as Lemaire, when he found his tongue again, +accused him: that this was not some deep-laid trick to keep them out of +the profits. Olsen had seen many religious revivals in the Islands and +he knew the signs.</p> + +<p>"See here, Mr. Elderkin," he said, stepping forward; "I've my side of it +to think of. I've not suddenly got holy. I'm thinking of my children, +same as I was before. You've never thought for anyone but yourself. I +only shipped this voyage because it meant being able to do what I want +for them. I've only stuck to this hell-ship for them. There's been +things done aboard here that would have sunk the ship if sin could sink +her. You can't clean your bloody ship by talking of God now. We all made +an agreement and let's stand by it like men. Sink the ship, sir, and the +top of the sea'll be the sweeter for it."</p> + +<p>"I've been a sinful man all my days," agreed Elderkin, "but my eyes have +been opened, the Lord be thanked. . . . I have been saved and by the grace +of God I mean to save the ship."</p> + +<p>"It'll take more than the grace of God to keep my engines working," +commented Olsen.</p> + +<p>"And suppose we refuse?" asked Lemaire. "We are two to one, Mr. +Elderkin. Remember, sah—if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> captain is sick it is de mate who take +charge of de ship. . . ."</p> + +<p>"Mutiny? You? Do you imagine, Mossoo, that I couldn't hold my own ship +against any half-breed afloat?"</p> + +<p>"Damn you!" screamed the mate, his skin darkening with his angry blood. +"If you not take care we will say you are mad, yes, mad. De men have +only got to hear religion coming out of your face to believe it. De +ship's not safe, and we must scuttle her now, d'you hear?"</p> + +<p>"The men!" repeated Elderkin. "Let me tell you there never was a dago +crew yet that I couldn't lick. I'll save this ship against the lot of +you, I'll save her against herself—God helping me," he added.</p> + +<p>"But we shall be ruined, all of us," urged Olsen. "What do you suppose +they will say to us at Port of Spain, Mr. Elderkin? They won't be +pleased to see the <i>Spirito Santo</i> come crawling into the roadstead with +a faked cargo and all that good insurance money wasted. . . . We shall all +be ruined men, I tell you. . . . What will become of us?"</p> + +<p>"We shall never get into Port of Spain," spoke Lemaire, "we shall never +round the Horn. It's coming on to blow now. She can't live through it, I +tell you. It's sinking her now and saving ourselves and making a +damn-big pile out of it, or it's all going down togeder."</p> + +<p>"Then we will all go down together," said Elderkin; "if my repentance is +too late the Lord will not let me save the ship nor yet my soul."</p> + +<p>"I don't give a curse in hell for your soul, or anyone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> else's," cried +the mate. "I tell you it's madness. Only a miracle could keep de ship +afloat."</p> + +<p>"There has already been one miracle aboard her," said Elderkin. "Who are +we to set limits to the power of the Almighty? It is a small thing to +keep a senseless structure of wood and iron afloat in comparison with +making the blackest of sinners see the true light, which the Lord has +done between two dog-watches. Yesterday I was profaning the Book with my +calculations of sinful gain made out upon its pages, to-day I have been +calculating how many years I have spent in following my lusts, and were +the years as many as the waves of the sea, I have prayed the Lord that +the weeks of striving in front of us may wipe out the years."</p> + +<p>"He is mad," remarked Olsen, philosophically.</p> + +<p>Lemaire turned swiftly on the engineer. "We must take charge," he urged +in a low voice, his back to the captain, "and then you must do what I +say. We will run her close inshore, and . . ."</p> + +<p>Whether Elderkin heard above the growing clamour of the ship or not—for +the woodwork had begun to crackle like a wheezy concertina and the slap +of green water breaking sounded in a scurrying frequency—he knew what +the mate was planning. A rim of something cold on the back of Lemaire's +neck made his speech fade on his lips, and he and Olsen stood motionless +while Elderkin spoke, Olsen's light eyes looking at the fanatical dark +ones above the gun.</p> + +<p>"I am master of this ship, and what I say goes, or I'll put daylight +through your dirty body," said Elderkin, pressing the muzzle in till the +dark seamed skin on the mate's neck turned greenish in a circle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> around +the iron. "As for you, Olsen, you're white, though you're a Dutchman, +and I look to you to stick. What about the engines?"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry about this," replied Olsen, with seeming inconsequence, "but +what must be will be. I will do the best with my engines. But if ever we +see port again, I have done with you and your ship and your religion. I +have my children to think of. I will go below."</p> + +<p>And he pulled the chart-room door open. As though his doing so were the +signal to some malignancy without, a sudden blow of wind struck the +ship; a crash sounded along her decks and on the moment a surge of water +flooded into the chart-room. A sudden squall from the south-west, such +as sometimes arises like a thunderclap in those latitudes at that time +of year, had caught the <i>Spirito Santo</i> in the confusion of the heavy +cross seas. That first blow heeled her over, over, over . . . it seemed as +though she were dipping swiftly far beyond the angle of safety; further +and further. There was nothing to be done for the moment but clutch on +to whatever was nearest; cries of terror from the dagos sounded thinly +even through the clamour of wind and sea and crashing of gear. Then came +that agonizing moment when a vessel, heeled over as far as possible, +seems to hesitate, remains poised for the fraction of a second that +partakes of the quality of eternity, between recovery and the +hair's-breadth more that means foundering.</p> + +<p>Then, with a groaning of timbers like some mammoth animal in pain, a +thick jarring of machinery, and a clattering of everything movable +aboard her, the <i>Spirito Santo</i> came slowly up again. If that gust of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> +wind had held a minute longer she would have rolled herself, her faked +cargo, and her huddled lives, down towards the bed of the Pacific; sins +and religions, material hopes and spiritual aspirations, alike marked by +one fading trail of air bubbles.</p> + +<p>Elderkin found he was holding Lemaire round the waist, while Olsen was +on his hands and knees in the lather of water streaming off the floor.</p> + +<p>"The Lord has decided," said Elderkin, "we have now no choice. Get +below, Olsen." He was heaving himself into his oilskins as he spoke, +ordered in his movements but speedy, considering the terrible lurching +of the vessel. His fight to save the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, to save her +against herself, had begun.</p> + +<p>He found her topgallant sails thrashing out like blinds from a window, +for the topgallant sheets had carried away, while the foresail and +fore-topmast-staysail were like to flap themselves to rags. He bellowed +his orders above the clamour of the ropes and guys, that were all +shrieking and wailing on different notes as though the ship were +suddenly endowed with the gift of tongues. The men fought their way up +the rigging, and, lying along the slippery yard-arms, wrestled with +clew-lines that whipped about as if possessed, while the wet and +iron-hard canvas beat back and forth with reports like gunshots. But the +men succeeded at length and Elderkin felt that the first tiny stage in +his great battle was won.</p> + +<p>Already the sea was running in great slopes of blackish green, streaked +and scarred with livid whiteness; from the poop the whole of the ship +was filled with a swirling mist of spray that wreathed about the masts, +only parting here and there to show one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> boiling flood of broken water +that poured across the waist from upreared starboard rail to submerged +port scuppers. The forecastle was flooded; from the forecastle head, as +the ship pitched, a torrent poured on to the hatches, and when the next +moment she dived forward, rushing down a long valley that seemed to +slope to the heart of the ocean, two rivers poured out of her +hawse-holes. Elderkin, as she dived, called down the tube—the only +means of communicating with the engine-room except the still more +primitive one of messengers—to stop her. And when it looked as though +she could never recover to meet that oncoming mountain, but must dive +into it and be smothered, her bows rose once more, up and up, till they +raked the swollen clouds, while a wall of whiteness thundered past on +either side. As Elderkin called for "full" again, his face was as calm +as that of a little child. All that night the storm increased, and wove +air and water into one great engine of destruction, and all night +Elderkin stayed lashed to the rail of the chart-house, which was +momentarily in danger of being washed away like a rabbit-hutch. It was +impossible to keep the binnacle alight, and no stars were visible; +steering was a mere groping by the feel of the wind. Dawn seemed hardly +a lightening, so dark hung the massed clouds, of a curious rusty-brown +colour, packed one above the other, overlapping so as to form a solid +roof. Only between their lower rim and the slate-grey sea, an occasional +glimpse of horizon showed where a thin line of molten pallor ran. Brown, +white and steel-grey, with the masts and rigging sharp and black against +it all, and the decks, dark and wet, now refracting what light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> there +was as the ship rolled one way, now falling on deadness again as she +rolled the other.</p> + +<p>With the dawning, Elderkin was unlashed and took the wheel himself, +aided by a seaman, for it took two men to stand its kicking. To him came +Olsen, still phlegmatic, almost as black as one of his dago squad. +Gripping the poop-rail with one hand, with the other he laid hold of the +captain's oilskin, and leant as near as possible to shout his news, but +even so Elderkin could only catch a word here and there.</p> + +<p>"Won't stand . . . stays parting . . ." came to him.</p> + +<p>"Keep her at it," he yelled back.</p> + +<p>But a sudden shout came from Olsen, while the man at the wheel literally +turned colour and closed his eyes. Only Elderkin, with a look that +seemed queerly of exultation on his face, stared ahead to where a vast +wall of water, so high it glimmered greenly, was rolling towards them +over the broken, tossing sea. That was exactly what it looked like, as +though it were a body distinct and separate from the rest of the raging +water, some great fold pushed up from the Antarctic region and urged +across the ocean, on and on. . . . It bore down on the infinitesimal ship +and her clinging ants of crew, bore down, blotting out the sky, till +suddenly it was so near it became one with the rest of the sea, as +though the whole surface were curving over into a hollow sphere. It +thundered upon them; then, its glassy concavity reared to an incredible +height, it toppled over and broke in one roaring cataract of foam.</p> + +<p>What happened next no one remaining in the <i>Spirito Santo</i> could ever +have told. Three men were washed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> overboard; one had his legs so broken +that the splintered bones drove into the deck where he was hurled down. +There were a few long-drawn seconds when all thought she had gone under, +for the rushing sea had climbed level with the chart-house roof, while +the air was so thick with spume and spray it would have been difficult +to say where the sea left off being solid and became fused with the +wind. Then, with a roaring and a sucking like that when a wave, +shattered, streams off a cliff, the water poured off decks and hatches +in long lacings of dazzling white. The <i>Spirito Santo</i> still lived.</p> + +<p>But it seemed she was mortally wounded, for she was jarring all her +length, even the twisted stanchions vibrated as though some malignant +force within her had broken loose; and when Elderkin tried to bring her +head up to the wind, the wheel spun in his hands as easily and uselessly +as a child's toy.</p> + +<p>"The rudder . . ." cried Olsen, "she is gone. . . ."</p> + +<p>Elderkin retained his clarity of aspect and gave his orders collectedly; +only when the dago crew clung miserably to any support and refused to +obey, he pulled out his gun and drove them to their stations. Hove-to, +with only her spanker, close-reefed main-topsail and fore-staysail set, +there was a chance of keeping her off the coast till the sea should +quiet down enough to allow of a jury rudder being rigged. Meanwhile, as +the men were setting the sails she rolled horribly in the trough of the +sea; rolled fit to break her heart. Elderkin, on the poop, shouting at +the men reefing the topsail, saw something that for the first moment of +horror seemed fraught with the supernatural. Years of neglect, of rust, +of corrosion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> from salt, had in reality gone to bring about what he then +saw, with dishonesty and money-grubbing meanness behind the rust and +corrosion. For, with a scream of ripping iron and the sharp snapping of +guys, the <i>Spirito Santo</i> rolled her funnel clean off at the root, the +casing along with it. It crashed upon the deck, and the next moment was +swept overboard, carrying away the port bulwarks. A gust of heat and a +murky torrent of foul smoke blew flatly from the cavity that gaped in +the ship's vitals; then a flood of water, luminously pale in the growing +daylight, filmed across the deck amidships and poured over the ragged +rim of the wound. The <i>Spirito Santo</i> rolled upon the water, little more +than a helpless wreck.</p> + +<p>Lemaire, who was lying on the top of the chart-house, gripping the rail, +screamed out that they were done for; even Olsen, turning his blackened +face to the captain, shouted that the game was up; as to the dagos, each +yelled where he lay. This time Elderkin had to use his gun before he +could get the ship hove-to. At sight of one of their number lying limp +in the scuppers, the crew obeyed once more, while Olsen, sticking by his +caste, and Lemaire, seeing still a faint chance for life, worked with +them to cover the jagged hole with the stoutest timbers they could find. +What was left of the fires was drawn, the planks over the hole shored up +from below with timbers, tarpaulins stretched a-top of all and fastened +down by a great batten bolted through the sodden deck; and, during all +the hours of work amid wind and water, Elderkin watched the ship, saw +that she did not come too much up into the wind nor fall off into the +trough of the sea; kept the men at it when, time and again, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> would +have given up. Gun in one hand and Bible in the other, he read out +threats of the Almighty's, intermingled with his own. And, at last, the +jury-hatch was finished, and a further stage of the battle won.</p> + +<p>Now came the most trying hours of all, when there no longer remained +anything possible to do, when hands fell on inaction and bodies were +free to feel sore and cold, and minds were vacant of everything but an +animal despondency. Olsen lit a fire on the iron floor by the boilers, +and here, for the most part, the miserable men crouched during the rest +of the day and the following night. Elderkin, after he had slept the +sudden and over-powering sleep of the worn-out man, awoke to his first +doubts. As long as there had been continuous need for action, that and +the stern joy of a fight had shut out everything else for him; now that +there was nothing to be done but hoist the inner jib when she came up +too much into the wind and lower it when she paid off again, a need so +recurring it was almost mechanical, he became as much a prey to inner +questionings as his ship was to the winds. What tormented him was the +thought that if the <i>Spirito Santo</i> had foundered in this south-west +gale all hands would have inevitably been lost, whereas had he kept by +his agreement to scuttle her earlier all could probably have been saved. +Was he then become a murderer by having decided as he had, and would it +have been more righteous to keep on his evil course? Elderkin, to whom +for the first time the lives of his men had become of a value other than +commercial, was tormented by the thought of the three washed overboard +by the great wave; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> the curses of the man who had died a few hours +after his legs were shattered re-echoed through his mind. It was not so +much that these men had met death—Elderkin had too often stared it in +the face to think overmuch of that—but that they were cut off in the +midst of their sins, with blasphemies on lip and soul. Elderkin's creed +allowed of no gracious after-chances, he saw the entities he had known +and bullied in the flesh, as having become blind particles of +consciousness burning in undying fires. . . .</p> + +<p>With dawn and a further dropping of the wind, which had been lessening +all night, he searched again the pages of his Bible, and he followed the +instinctive trail of human nature when he thrust the niceties of values +from him and determined to hold by what was right and wrong at the +springs of his action. When he went out on to the poop and met the crisp +but now friendly wind, saw the glitter of sunshine on peacock waves, +that still broke into white crests, but without malignance, he knew that +the Lord was on his side. How was it possible he had ever thought +otherwise? He must indeed be weak in the ways of grace that his first +testing should awake such questionings within him. As the weight of +despondency and sick dread fell off him in the cold sunlight, Elderkin +flung up his arms and shouted for joy. Lemaire, crawling up, found him +on his knees upon the top of the battered chart-house, improvising a +paen of thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>All that day the men worked at rigging a jury rudder and patching up the +port bulwarks. Then Olsen, who kept them as doggedly at it as the +skipper himself, conceived a plan whereby his engines could once again +play a part. He collected sheet-iron and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> stout pieces of wood, and +with these he contrived a jury-funnel, fitting steam-jets at the base to +maintain the draught to the furnaces. The freakish erection held +together well, though it looked oddly stumpy in place of the thin, +raking smoke-stack; Olsen secured it by guys of iron chain. At last all +was complete, and once again a plume of dirty smoke trailed from between +the sticks of the <i>Spirito Santo</i>. The men slept as they fell, but by +then the rudder and smoke-stack had converted her from a blind cripple +into an intelligent whole which could work independently of the +direction of wind and current. A further stage of the battle was won, +and with every victory Elderkin felt greater confidence in the Lord and +in himself.</p> + +<p>By the next day it had grown very cold, and the men began to prepare +shapeless and weather-worn garments against the bitterness of the Horn. +Even Lemaire, who kept on repeating sullenly that they could never round +it, knew that the only chance now was to carry on, and, his face seeming +to pale with the first breath of the cold, hugged himself in a great +padded coat. Food was already beginning to run short, and only by +serving out double quantities of the raw West Indian rum were the men +kept going at all. The ship herself could be heartened with no such +encouragement, and although she was now snoring at a fair pace through +the smother of foam that kept the lee-scuppers covered with a running +river, yet her foul sides and wicked loading absorbed half her speed. +She was a wet ship at the best of times, now she was sodden to her +trucks, and the showers of icy rain that blew down on the westerly gale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +every now and then, wetted in a worse fashion, for rain-water chills to +the bone right through oilskins. One day an exhausted Cape pigeon fell +on board, and the little bird was eaten raw by the first man who got to +it; sometimes a great albatross sailed on level unmoving wings around +the labouring ship, and mollymawks screamed and circled, but none fell a +victim to the hungry crew. There was a certain amount of salt junk left +aboard, but the chief diet was nothing but hard-tack, and that was +mouldy. Elderkin remained unmoved by any consideration save how to get +her round the Horn, and he made Olsen save the dwindling fuel as much as +possible for the attempt, lest they should be kept beating back and +forth for weeks till exhaustion of ship and men sent them under. So the +days went on, and the great Cape Horn greybeards rolled up with +glistening flanks and white crests that broke and poured down them in +thunder. Cold rains, wind squalls, her own condition and that of the men +aboard her, all fought against the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, till it seemed as +though the strongly set will of her captain were the only thing that +kept her alive—alive and obedient however sulky, to the intelligence +that drove her.</p> + +<p>Still she kept going, steaming and sailing into the stormy sunsets till +at last she was off Cape Stiff itself, showing unspeakably bleak and +gaunt through the driving mist; only now and then were the black cliffs +visible, going down into a smoking line of foam.</p> + +<p>If a bad storm had hit her off the promontory nothing could have saved +her, but the wind, though the strong westerly gale of the "roaring +forties," held less of violence than ordinary, and although she rolled +till<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> it seemed she would dip her yards, and the water could hardly be +pumped out of her as fast as it poured in, yet she pulled through, as +she had pulled through the south-westerly gale and the disasters that +followed. Elderkin, who had somehow expected his great tussle off the +Horn, felt an odd sensation that was almost disappointment.</p> + +<p>On looking back afterwards, Elderkin saw that the voyage was, as it +were, divided clearly into two by the passing of the Horn—on the +Pacific side the actual physical blows of material damage and storm, on +the Atlantic the more wearing struggle against spiritual opposition. The +men, headed by Lemaire, began to murmur.</p> + +<p>For one thing, the last possible scrap of fuel had been burned by the +time they were passing the Falklands, and they were left with nothing +but their canvas to carry them home. As far as keeping her steady went, +she was better under sail than steam, and also, like every true sailor, +Elderkin felt more in harmony with the weather when using only canvas. +For a steamer goes independently of the wind, ignores it, shoves her +nose in its face, and the wind pays her back by becoming an enemy, but a +sailing-ship lives by wind, humours it, coaxes the last hair's-breadth +of it, and the wind, flattered, ignores that all the time it is being +managed and made of use.</p> + +<p>But the sails of the <i>Spirito Santo</i> were old and mildewed, she carried +little spare canvas, and, worst of all, if they should come into a calm, +those on board her might starve to death before they sighted help. All +these things the men knew, and knowing, began to rebel. Lemaire, too, no +longer seconded Elderkin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> and he and Olsen bore the burden of +nigger-driving alone—and Olsen, although he was loyal, made his +discontent apparent. A terrible loneliness of mind fell upon Elderkin. +He felt himself accursed of all men, but he still held on; each +successive incident of his fight, instead of wearing his resistance +down, went to strengthen it. The crisis came when after weeks of +crawling and standing still, hurrying on with any advantage of breeze +that presented itself, yet afraid to carry too much canvas, the <i>Spirito +Santo</i> was nearing the fortieth parallel once more.</p> + +<p>It was a grey, squally day, with the south-westerly wind keeping the +sails bellied forward, and the gusts of rain driving so hard that the +water in the brimming scuppers was lashed to paleness; the pumps were in +pretty constant use now, and the fetid bilge-water washed over the decks +in floods of a dark reddish colour, as though the <i>Spirito Santo</i> were +bleeding internally. A sullen moodiness held air and sea and mind of +those who looked; that grinding reluctance of the <i>Spirito Santo</i> had +passed into the men's bones, they moved slowly if ordered to do +anything, their shrunken flesh was a mass of sea-boils and, since the +lime-juice and potatoes were exhausted, scurvy had broken out. Elderkin +himself looked like some mediæval picture of the Baptist: he had grown a +beard that came to a sparse point, and his sombre eyes glowed from +behind the disordered streaks of hair that fell over them, while his +skin, so tightly stretched over the bones, had taken on a waxen texture. +To the men who came crowding on to the after-deck to voice their +resentment, he had the air of a madman, as he stood erect at the break +of the poop, his figure dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> against the grey pallor of the sky. For a +few minutes he stood scanning them quietly, and they stared back at him. +In marshalling them where he had, Lemaire had made an error in +psychology; for the mere fact that they had to look up to Elderkin on +the poop affected both him and them unconsciously.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" asked the skipper quietly. Lemaire stepped forward +as spokesman.</p> + +<p>"We want to get out of dis shop and make for the shore, dat's what we +want, and dat's what we'll do."</p> + +<p>"Ah . . . how?"</p> + +<p>"We'll take de law into our own hands. If we sink her now we can make +for the mout' of de Plate, or we might be picked up sooner. I've told de +men; I've told how we was all goin' to be rich an' safe and would have +been trowin' our money around ashore by now if you hadn't got de +praise-de-Lord bug in your head."</p> + +<p>"What Massa Lemaire say quite true, sah," called out a burly negro, +whose black face was greyed over in patches from disease, "an' we aren't +goin' to stand dis any longer. If you won't sink her we're goin' to, or +we'll all be dead men."</p> + +<p>"We're dead now, dead and rotting," shrieked the bo'sun, on a sudden +note of frenzy that pierced the air like a thrown blade, "who ever saw +live men rot?" And he held up a hand which scurvy, on an open wound, had +literally rotted so that the tendons hung down like weed. He shook the +maimed thing at Elderkin. "Look at this"—"And this . . ."—"And this . . ." +came up to Elderkin in angry shouts. The men, intoxicated by the sudden +venting of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> wrongs, began to swarm up the ladders to the poop +deck.</p> + +<p>Elderkin felt new life urge through his veins, the pressure of the dead +weeks behind sloughed off him, as the thinning veils of sleep drop away +from the waking consciousness in the morning. He did not pull out his +gun, but kept his hands in his pockets and faced the snarling, +tentative, ugly pack of them.</p> + +<p>Then he talked, not raising his voice more than was needful for the +grinding and creaking of the ship's labour and the weary complaining of +the wind-tortured rigging.</p> + +<p>"So you'd mutiny, would you?" he began in his soft voice, "well, first +you'll listen to me. Down off that gang-way, you there . . . that's +better. Well, I guess I know what you men are saying to yourselves—that +I'm one man against the lot of you, and now we're no longer fighting to +keep the ship afloat for our lives, you can easy get the better of me. +That's what you're thinking, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>A murmur of assent, half-threatening, half-shame-faced, came from below. +To Elderkin, looking down, the men appeared as blots of deeper colour +against the pale glimmer of the wet deck; their upturned faces had the +abrupt fore-shortening that imparts a touch of the ludicrous, but those +faces were set in folds which told of hardened determination, behind the +swellings and boils which glistened in the watery light, so that +Elderkin could see each disfigurement as clearly as pebbles in a pool +unshaded from the sky.</p> + +<p>"The mate tells you you'll get a lot of money if you go home and say +you've sunk the ship. You won't. He will, as Judas did for betraying his +Lord, but you'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> just be got rid of, if you don't keep your mouths +shut. You're wrong, as you've been all your lives, as I've been till +now. But I've a stronger man on my side than all of you herring-gutted +sons of a gun would make rolled together. I've the Lord on my side. You +think nothing of that, do you? The Lord's up in heaven and won't notice +what you do, and you ain't feared of the likes of Him anyway. . . . Aren't +you? Why d'you think it is you have bloody sacrifices there in the +fo'c'sle—oh, yes, I know about it all—why d'you suppose you cringe to +that nigger there"—pointing to the mate—"with his black history of +murdered children and flesh eaten in secret when the sacred drum beats +at the full of the moon? Why d'you suppose you're scared sick of a dirty +bug and a bit of wool in an old bottle, or of my Bible that I've set up +on a shelf? It's because you know there's something behind—behind your +ju-jus and behind my ju-ju. . . . You not fear the Lord! Why, you fear Him +with every devilish performance you concoct. You're afraid all the +time—of the something behind. And my ju-ju is greater than your ju-ju, +so you're more afraid of mine, and of me. Could your ju-ju bring you +through the great storm alive? All of you—and that damned baby-eater +there—you was all yelling at your ju-jus and they couldn't wag one of +their accursed fingers to help you. Who saved you and brought you out +alive? White men and the white men's God. You know there's something +behind, and what's behind me is bigger'n what's behind you. . . ."</p> + +<p>He suddenly pulled his hand out of the capacious pocket of his coat, and +the men cowered swiftly, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> instead of a gun he held his Bible out +over the rail, threatening them not with its insignificant fabric but +with its unknown import. A couple of Jamaican negroes fell on their +knees and writhed upon the deck, making uncouth noises, their eyes +turning palely upwards, their limbs convulsed.</p> + +<p>"Praise de Lord!" they yelled. "Praise de Lord wid us, brudders! End of +de world and judgment comin'. Save us, massa, save us. . . ." And a dago +from the southern continent fell to crossing himself and gabbling his +prayers.</p> + +<p>"You fools!" cried Lemaire, thrusting through the heaving knot of men, +"don't you listen to his talk. Talk won't fill our stomachs or cure our +skins. How's he going to feed you? Ask him dat."</p> + +<p>"Yes—what are we to eat? Give us food and we'll keep on!" shouted the +bo'sun. "Can your God make food?"</p> + +<p>"My God provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness and +He'll provide for us now if we trust in Him. He will send us meat for +our bellies and drink for our throats."</p> + +<p>"How . . . ? Where is it, dis food?" taunted Lemaire; and Elderkin, his +hand pointing, answered, "There . . ."</p> + +<p>The men swung round to gaze, and saw a fugitive gleam of sunlight on her +shining tower of cotton canvas, a great four-masted American barque +beating to windward only a few miles away. Elderkin and his ju-ju were +saved, and Lemaire's vision of dollars was routed by the men's vision of +food. The distress signals were run up, and by that night the <i>Spirito +Santo</i> carried enough provisions of a rude kind to last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> her, with care +and luck—meaning a rigid discipline of practically wreck-rations and +fair winds—to see her safely home again. Elderkin thought that at last +the testings of his faith were over, that the weary ship would blow +towards port on a divinely appointed wind, and that his sacrifice and +conversion were accepted on high. For the image he had had in his mind +on that day of revelation in the chart-house had been of one Titanic +struggle, not of this succession of conflicts which sometimes rose to +crisis point but more often meant fighting against the terrible +depression of day after day's inaction, driven half-crazy by the +unceasing moaning of the rigging. Sustained bad weather gets on a +sailor's nerves not because of any danger but simply by dint of the +repetition of noises; there is only one thing more unbearable to mind +and temper, and that is to be becalmed. Thought of any such happening +was far from those on board the <i>Spirito Santo</i>, for the south-westerly +wind urged her on past the Plate, and then a baffling head wind blew her +out of the treacherous skies, and for over a week she beat back and +forth, making hardly any headway. The rations were still further +reduced, and then just as the men were beginning to make trouble again, +the <i>Spirito Santo</i> caught up with the south-west trades. Once again she +made the seas roar past her, for now, regardless of her depth in the +water, Elderkin made all the sail he could. Day after day slipped past +with the slipping foam, and the gaunt creatures aboard felt a stirring +of relief. And then, in the Doldrums, they ran into a dead calm. . . .</p> + +<p>Only anyone who has been becalmed on a tropical sea knows the terror +that it is. Of all feelings of helplessness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> it is probably the most +acute. Without steam or motor a ship is as powerless as though she were +anchored to the sea-bottom with iron cables. Men have gone mad of it, +and men did go mad of it in the starving <i>Spirito Santo</i>. She lay, as +famished for a breeze as they for bread, upon a surface of molten glass, +her sails limp as a dead bird's wing, the pitch soft in her seams, and +the only sound in the circle of the horizon the faint creak-creak of her +yards against the masts. Cabins and forecastle were unbearable, yet on +deck the vertical sun had driven all but the thinnest lines of shadow +out of being. The nights were almost as hot as the days and always the +false cross gleamed from a cloudless sky, and the true Cross swam up +lying on her back and trailing the pointers behind her, slowly righting +herself as she rose and driving the pitiless brilliancy of the Milky Way +before her. The drinking-water, what there was of it, stank; and the +dried mouths of the men could hardly manage the mouldy hard-tack which +captain and crew shared alike. And there was nothing to be done, nothing +that could be done. The men were past revolt now, they could only +shamble dizzily about. There was nothing to be done—except pray, and +Elderkin prayed, though his lips moved almost soundlessly. He thought +much these days, and he remembered—probably because of the dead +stillness around—an old seafaring fable that in the calm heart of a +cyclone life is to be found—that there birds and butterflies of every +size and colour crowd, till the air is hung with brightness. He saw the +individual soul of man as the hollow calm in the midst of life, cut off +by the circling storm from all other air, and told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> himself that it +could be the refuge for beauties of praise . . . he strove to make this +aching solitude of mind wherein he was, rich as the fabled heart of the +cyclone. . . .</p> + +<p>Then, just as the first faint breath made her ripple the water at her +bows, he discovered that, worn out by her successive batterings, the +<i>Spirito Santo</i> was literally falling apart. He looked over her side and +saw that she was spewing oakum from her seams, while she settled lower +and lower in the water.</p> + +<p>The discovery acted like cool wind on Elderkin—it was unthinkable that +they should perish now, not so very far from home, after all he had won +through, and he prepared to meet this disaster also. He had prudently +kept one last cask of rum unbroached, and this fluid life he now served +out to the men. Then he drove them, as before with gun or Bible, but +this time with rum; drove them to the task of frapping the leaking ship. +Four great chain cables were passed under her and hove tight with +Spanish windlasses on deck—a series of giant tourniquets to keep in her +life. And when that too was accomplished, it was as though the power +above at last was satisfied, and the wind strengthened that was to bear +the <i>Spirito Santo</i> home.</p> + +<p>Nearly six months after leaving port with provisions enough for one; +with her rotten ratlines hanging in little tags, her jury smoke-stack +idle between the patched sails that seemed as though one more puff of +wind would tear them from the battered yards, her spewing sides kept +together with cables, and her broken bulwarks level with the water—a +nightmare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> vessel manned by ghosts—she crawled into the roadstead at +Port of Spain.</p> + +<p class="center ws heading">* * * * *</p> + +<p>For a few years after, a ragged white man haunted the drink-shops of the +Islands and hung about the ports—a man without a ship. The owners of +the <i>Spirito Santo</i> were broken by the safe return of that faked cargo, +but they had passed the word round that her skipper was to be broken +too. He who had been so self-controlled in the old unregenerate days now +drank steadily, but it was only when he was very drunk he talked. And +even then it was difficult to make out what he said—it was all such a +jumble of some strange fight between two ships, and of how the ways of +the Lord were so mysterious that it was often impossible for a man to +tell upon which side righteousness might be found.</p> + + + +<hr class ="white2" /> + +<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Here follows in the original a minute description of the +post-mortem.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Pronounced Roughneck.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> At that date Prisoner's Counsel was not allowed to make a +speech for the defence.</p></div> + + + +<hr class="white2" /> + +<p class="center">PRINTED AT<br /> +THE BALLANTYNE PRESS<br /> +LONDON & EDINBURGH</p> + + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<div id="box3"> +<p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> + +<p class="noi">Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the +original publication, except as follows:</p> + +<p class="noi">Page 62<br /> +She carries the water from St. Ann's <i>changed to</i><br /> +She carries the water from St. <a href="#Annan">Annan's</a></p> + +<p class="noi">Page 95<br /> +Once in the din passage leading <i>changed to</i><br /> +Once in the <a href="#dim">dim</a> passage leading</p> + +<p class="noi">Page 151<br /> +Pisa on a more sophiscated errand <i>changed to</i><br /> +Pisa on a more <a href="#sophisticated">sophisticated</a> errand</p> + +<p class="noi">Page 209<br /> +Seneath turned her clear, long-sighted <i>changed to</i><br /> +<a href="#Senath">Senath</a> turned her clear, long-sighted</p> + +<p class="noi">Page 241<br /> +was an idealist, however preverted a one <i>changed to</i><br /> +was an idealist, however <a href="#perverted">perverted</a> a one</p> + +<p class="noi">Page 252<br /> +Then he turned to Oslen <i>changed to</i><br /> +Then he turned to <a href="#Olsen">Olsen</a></p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Beggars on Horseback, by F. 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