My Friend Prospero

by Henry Harland

  IV

  John stepped forth from behind the rhododendrons, with a kind ofdevil-may-care, loose, aimless gait, the brim of his Panama pulledbrigandishly down over one ear, his hands in the pockets of his coat,his head bent, his brow creased, his eyes sombre, every line and fibreof his person advertising him the prey of morose disgust. But when hesaw Maria Dolores, he hastily straightened up, unpocketed his hands,took off his hat (giving it a flap that set the brim at a less truculentangle), and smiled. And when, the instant after, he caught sight of theflying form of Annunziata, his smile turned into a glance of wonder.

  "What is the matter with Annunziata? Why is she running with all herlegs like that?" he asked.

  Maria Dolores had the tiniest catch of laughter. "She is running awayfrom you," she answered.

  "From _me_?" marvelled John. "_Je suis donc un foudre de guerre?_ Whaton earth is she running away from me for?"

  Maria Dolores smiled mysteriously.

  "Ah," she said, "she asked me not to tell you. I am in the delicateposition of confidante."

  "And therefore I hope you'll tell me with the less reluctance," saidJohn, urbanely unprincipled. "A confidante always betrays her confidenceto some one,--that's the part of the game that makes it worth while."

  Maria Dolores' smile deepened.

  "In that pale green frock, on that bank of dark-green moss, with hercomplexion and her hair,--by Jove, how stunning she is!" thought John,in a commotion.

  "Well," she said, "Annunziata ran away because she didn't want you tosee that she'd been crying."

  John raised his eyebrows, the blue eyes under them becoming expressiveof dismay.

  "Crying?" he echoed. "The poor little kiddie! What had she been cryingabout!"

  "That is a long story, and involves some of her peculiar theologicaltenets," said Maria Dolores. "But, in a single word, about yourfriend."

  John's eyebrows descended to their normal level, and drew together.

  "Crying about my friend? What friend?" he puzzled.

  "Your friend the priest--the man who has been passing the day here withyou," explained Maria Dolores.

  John gave a start, threw back his head, and eyed her with astonishment.

  "That is extraordinary," he exclaimed.

  "What?" asked she, lightly glancing up.

  "That you should call him my friend the priest," said John, wagging abewildered head.

  "Why? Isn't he a priest? He has all the air of one," said Maria Dolores.

  "No; he's an American millionaire," said John, succinctly.

  Maria Dolores moved in her place, and laughed.

  "Dear me!" she said, "I did strike wide of the mark. An Americanmillionaire should cultivate a less deceptive appearance. With thatthin, shaven face of his, and that look of an early Christian martyr inhis eyes, and the dark clothes he wears, wherever he goes he's sure tobe mistaken for a priest."

  "Yes," said John, with a kind of grimness; "that's what's extraordinary.He comes of a long line of bigoted Protestants, he's a reincarnation ofsome of his stern old Puritan forebears, and you find that he looks liketheir pet abomination, a Romish priest. Well, you have a prophetic eye."

  Maria Dolores gazed up inquiringly. "A prophetic eye?" she questioned.

  "I merely mean," said John, with thaumaturgic airiness, "that the man ison his way to Rome to study for the priesthood." And he gave athaumaturgic toss to his bearded chin.

  "Oh!" cried Maria Dolores, and leaned back against her eucalyptus tree,and laughed again.

  John, however, dejectedly shook his head, and gloomed.

  "Laugh if you will," he said, "though it seems to me as far as possiblefrom a laughing matter, and I think Annunziata chose the better partwhen she cried."

  "I beg your pardon," said Maria Dolores, perhaps a trifle stiffly. "Iwas only laughing at the coincidence of my having supposed him to be apriest, and then learning that, though he isn't, he is going to becomeone. I was not laughing at the fact itself. Nor was it," she added, herstiffness leaving her, and a little glimmer of amusement taking itsplace, "that fact which made Annunziata cry."

  "I dare say not," responded John, "seeing that she couldn't possiblyhave known it. But it might well have done so. It's enough to bringtears to the eyes of a brazen image." He angrily jerked his shoulders.

  "What?" cried Maria Dolores, surprised, rebukeful. "That a man is tobecome a holy priest?"

  "Oh, no," said John. "That fact alone, detached from specialcircumstances, might be a subject for rejoicing. But the fact that thisparticular man, _in_ his special circumstances, is to become apriest--well, I simply have no words to express my feeling." He threwout his arms, in a gesture of despair. "I'm simply sick with rage andpity. I could gnash my teeth and rend my garments."

  "Mercy!" cried Maria Dolores, stirring. "What are the specialcircumstances?"

  "Oh, it's a grisly history," said John. "It's a tale of the wanton,ruthless, needless, purposeless sacrifice of two lives. It's his oldblack icy Puritan blood. Winthorpe--that's his name--had for years beena freethinker, far too intellectual and enlightened, and that sort ofthing, you know, to believe any such old wives' tale as the ChristianReligion. He and I used to have arguments, tremendous ones, in which, ofcourse, neither in the least shook the other. Darwin and Spencer, with adash of his native Emerson, were religion enough for him. Then thismorning he arrived here, and said, 'Congratulate me. A month ago I wasreceived into the Church.'"

  Maria Dolores looked up, animated, her dark eyes sparkling.

  "How splendid!" she said.

  "Yes," agreed John, "so I thought. 'Congratulate me,' he said. I shouldthink I did congratulate him,--with all my heart and soul. But then,naturally, I asked him how it had happened, what had brought it topass."

  "Yes--?" prompted Maria Dolores, as he paused.

  "Well," said John, his face hardening, "he thereupon proceeded to tellme in his quiet way, with his cool voice (it's like smooth-flowing coldwater), absolutely the most inhuman story I have ever had to keep mypatience and listen to."

  "What was the story?" asked Maria Dolores.

  "If you can credit such inhumanity, it was this," answered John. "Itseems that he fell in love--with a girl in Boston, where he lives. Andwhat's more, and worse, the girl fell in love with him. So there theywere, engaged. But she was a Catholic, and his state of unbelief was acause of great grief to her. So she pleaded with him, and persuaded,till, merely to comfort her, and without the faintest suspicion that hisscepticism could be weakened, he promised to give the Catholic positiona thorough reconsideration, to read certain books, and to put himselfunder instruction with a priest: which he did. Which he did, if youplease, with the result, to his own unutterable surprise, that one fineday he woke up and discovered that he'd been convinced, that he_believed_."

  "Yes?" said Maria Dolores, eagerly. "Yes--? And then? And the girl?"

  "Ah," said John, with a groan, "the girl That's the pity of it. That'swhere his black old Puritan blood comes in. Blood? It isn't blood--it'ssome fluid form of stone--it's flint dissolved in vinegar. The girl!Mind you, she loved him, they were engaged to be married. Well, he wentto her, and said, 'I have been converted. I believe in the Christianreligion--your religion. But I can't believe a thing like that, and goon living as I lived when I didn't believe it,--go on living as if itweren't true, or didn't matter. It does matter--it matterssupremely--it's the only thing in the world that matters. I can'tbelieve it, and _marry_--marry, and live in tranquil indifference to it.No, I must put aside the thought of marriage, the thought of personalhappiness. I must sell all I have and give it to the poor, take up mycross and follow Him. I am going to Rome to study for the priesthood.'Imagine," groaned John, stretching out his hands, "_imagine_ talkinglike that to a woman you are supposed to love, to a woman who lovesyou." And he wrathfully ground his heel into the earth.

  Maria Dolores looked serious.

  "After all, he had to obey his conscience," she said. "After all, he waslogical, he was consistent."


  "Oh, his conscience! Oh, consistency!" cried John, with an intolerantfling of the body. "At bottom it's nothing better than commonself-indulgence, as I took the liberty of telling him to his face. It'sthe ardour of the convert, acting upon that acid solution of flint whichtakes the place of blood in his veins, and causing sour puritanicalimpulses, which (like any other voluptuary) he immediately gives way to.It's nothing better than unbridled passion. Conscience, indeed! Wherewas his conscience when it came to _her_? Think of that poor girl--thatpoor pale girl--who _loved_ him. Oh, Mother of Mercy!"

  He moved impatiently three steps to the left, three steps to the right,beating the palm of one hand with the back of the other.

  "What did she do? How did she take it?" asked Maria Dolores.

  "What she ought to have done," said John, between his teeth, "was toscratch his eyes out. What she did do, as he informed me with a seraphiccountenance, was not merely to approve of everything he said, but todetermine to do likewise. So, while he's on his way to Rome, to gethimself tonsured and becassocked, she's scrubbing the floors of anUrsuline convent, as a novice. And there are two lives spoiled." Heshrugged his shoulders.

  "Oh, no, no," contended Maria Dolores, earnestly, shaking her head, "notspoiled. On the contrary. It is sad, in a way, if you like, but it isvery beautiful, it is heroic. Their love must have been a very beautifullove, that could lead them to such self-sacrifice. Two lives given toGod."

  "Can't people give their lives to God without ceasing to _live_?" criedJohn. "If marriage is a sacrament, how can they better give their livesto God than by living sanely and sweetly in Christian marriage? Butthese people withdraw from life, renounce life, shirk and evade the lifethat God had prepared for them and was demanding of them. It's as bad assuicide. Besides, it implies such a totally perverted view of religion.Religion surely is given to us to help us to _live_, to show us _how_ tolive, to enable us to meet the difficulties, emergencies,responsibilities of life. But these people look upon their religion asa mandate to turn their backs on the responsibilities of life, andscuttle away. And as for _love_! Well, she no doubt did love, poor lady.But Winthorpe! No. When a man loves he doesn't send his love into aconvent, and go to Rome to get himself becassocked." He gave his head anod of finality.

  "That, I fancy, is a question of temperament," said Maria Dolores. "Yourfriend has the ascetic temperament. And it does not by any means followthat he loves less because he resigns his love. What you call an inhumanstory seems to me a wonderfully noble one. I saw your friend thismorning, when he and you were walking together, and I said to myself,'That man looks as if he had listened to the Counsels of Perfection. Hisvocation shines through him.' I think you should reconcile yourself tohis accepting it."

  "Well," said John, on the tone of a man ready to change the subject, "Iowe him at least one good mark. His account of his 'heart-state' led meto examine my own, and I discovered that I am in love myself,--which isa useful thing to know."

  "Oh?" said Maria Dolores, with a little effect of reserve.

  "Yes," said John, nothing daunted, "though unlike his, mine is anunreciprocated flame, and unavowed."

  "Ah?" said Maria Dolores, reserved indeed, but not without an undertoneof sympathy.

  "Yes," said John, playing with fire, and finding therein a heady mixtureof fearfulness and joy. "The woman I love doesn't dream I love her, anddreams still less of loving me,--for which blessed circumstance mayHeaven make me truly thankful."

  The sentiment sounding unlikely, Maria Dolores raised doubtful eyes.They shone into John's; his drank their light; and something violenthappened in his bosom.

  "Oh--?" she said.

  "Yes," said he, thinking what adorable little hands she had, as they layloosely clasped in her lap, thinking how warm they would be, andfragrant; thinking too what fun it was, this playing with fire, howperilous and exciting, and how egotistical he must seem to her, and hownothing on earth should prevent him from continuing the play. "Yes," hesaid, "it's a circumstance to be thankful for, because, like Winthorpehimself, though for different reasons, I'm unable to contemplatemarriage." His voice sank sorrowfully, and he made a sorrowful movement.

  "Oh--?" said Maria Dolores, her sympathy becoming more explicit.

  "Winthorpe's too beastly puritanical--and I'm too beastly poor," saidhe.

  "Oh," she murmured. Her eyes softened; her sympathy deepened tocompassion.

  "She must certainly put me down as the most complacent egotist in twohemispheres, so to regale her with unsolicited information aboutmyself," thought John; "but surely it would need six hemispheres toproduce another pair of eyes as beautiful as hers."--"Yes," he said, "Ishould be 'looking up' if I asked even a beggar-maid to marry me."

  Maria Dolores' beautiful eyes became thoughtful as well ascompassionate.

  "But men who are poor work and earn money," she said, on the tone thatyoung women adopt when the spirit moves them to preach to young men. Andwhen the spirit does move them to that, things may be looked upon ashaving advanced an appreciable distance, the ball may be looked upon asrolling.

  "So I've heard," said John, his head in the clouds. "It must be dullbusiness."

  Maria Dolores dimly smiled. "Do _you_ do no work?" she asked.

  "I've never had time," said John. "I've been too busy enjoying life."

  "Oh," said Maria Dolores, with the intonation of reproach.

  "Yes," said he, "enjoying the Humour, the Romance, the Beauty ofit,--and combine the three together, make a chord of 'em, you get theDivinity. Or, to take a lower plane, the world's a stage, and life's thedrama. I could never leave off watching and listening long enough to doany work."

  "But do you not wish to play a part in the drama, to be one of theactors?" asked his gentle homilist. "Have you no ambition?"

  "Not an atom," he easily confessed. "The part of spectator seems to meby far the pleasantest. To sit in the stalls and watch the incrediblejumble-show, the reason-defying topsy-turvydom of it, the gorgeous,squalid, tearful, and mirthful pageantry, the reckless inconsequences,the flagrant impossibilities; to watch the Devil ramping up and downlike a hungry lion, and to hear the young-eyed cherubim choiring fromthe skies: what better entertainment could the heart of man desire?"

  "But are we here merely to be entertained?" she sweetly preached, whileJohn's blue eyes somewhat mischievously laughed, and he felt it hardthat he couldn't stop her rose-red mouth with kisses. "Aren't we here tobe, as the old-fashioned phrase goes, of use in the world? Besides, nowthat you are in love, surely you will never sit down weakly, and say, 'Iam too poor to marry,' and so give up your love,--like your friendWinthorpe indeed, but for ignoble instead of noble motives. Surely youwill set to work with determination, and earn money, and make itpossible to marry. Or else your love must be a very poor affair." Andher adorable little hands, as they lay ("like white lilies," thoughtJohn) upon the pale-green fabric of her gown, unclasped themselves,opened wide for an instant, showing the faint pink of their palms, thenlightly again interlaced their fingers.

  He laughed. "You are delicious," he said to her fervently, in silence."My love is all right," he said aloud. "I love her as much as it ishumanly possible to love. I love her with passion, with tenderness; withworship, with longing; I love her with wonder; I love her with sighs,with laughter. I love her with all I have and with all I am. And I oweone to Winthorpe for having unwittingly opened my eyes to my condition.But earning money? I've a notion it's difficult. What could I do?"

  "Have you no profession?" she asked.

  "Not the ghost of one," said he, with nonchalance.

  "But is there no profession that appeals to you--for which you feel thatyou might have a taste?" Her dark eyes were very earnest.

  "Not the ghost of one," said he, dissembling his amusement."Professions--don't they all more or less involve sitting shut up instuffy offices, among pigeon-holes full of dusty and futile papers,doing tiresome tasks for the greater glory of other people, like a slavein the hold of a galley? No, if I'm to
work, I must work at somethingthat will keep me above decks--something that will keep me out ofdoors, in touch with the air and the earth. I might become anagricultural labourer,--but that's not very munificently paid; or afarmer,--but that would require perhaps more capital than I couldcommand, and anyhow the profits are uncertain. I've an uncle who's a bitof a farmer, and year in, year out, I believe he makes a loss. 'Well,what's left? ... Ah, a gardener. I don't think I should half mind beinga gardener."

  Maria Dolores looked as if she weren't sure whether or not to take himseriously.

  "A gardener? That's not very munificently paid either, is it?" shesuggested, trying her ground.

  "Alas, I fear not," sighed John. Then he made a grave face. "But wouldyou have me entirely mercenary? Money isn't everything here below."

  Maria Dolores smiled. She saw that for the moment at least he was not tobe taken seriously.

  "True," she agreed, "though it ran in my mind that to earn money, sothat you might marry, was your only motive for going to work at all."

  "I had forgotten that," said the light-minded fellow. "I was thinking ofoccupations that would keep one in touch with the earth. A gardener'soccupation keeps him constantly in the charmingest possible sort oftouch with her, and the most intimate."

  "Do they call the earth _her_ in English?" asked Maria Dolores. "Ithought they said _it_."

  "I'm afraid, for the greater part, they do," answered John. "But it'sbarbarous of them, it's unfilial. Our brown old mother,--fancybegrudging her the credit of her sex! Our brown and green old mother;our kindly, bounteous mother; our radiant, our queenly mother, old, andyet perennially, radiantly young. Look at her now," he cried, circlingthe garden with his arm, and pointing to the farther landscape, "look ather, shining in her robes of pearl and gold, shining and smiling,--onewould say a bride arrayed for the altar. Such is her infinite variety.Her infinite variety, her infinite abundance, the fragrance and thesweetness of her,--oh, I could fall upon my face and worship her, like aPagan of Eld. The earth and all that grows and lives upon her, theblossoming tree, the singing bird,--I could build temples to her."

  "And the crawling snake?" put in Maria Dolores, a gleam at the bottom ofher eyes.

  "The crawling snake," quickly retorted John, "serves a most usefulpurpose. He establishes the _raison d'etre_ of man. Man and his heel arehere to crush the serpent's head."

  Maria Dolores leaned back, softly laughing.

  "Your infatuation for the earth is so great," she said, "mightn't yourlady-love, if she suspected it, be jealous?"

  "No," said John, "it is the earth that might be jealous, for, until Isaw my lady-love, she was the undivided mistress of my heart. For therest, my lady-love enjoys, upon this point, my entire confidence. I havekept nothing from her."

  "That is well," approved Maria Dolores. "And the sky and the sea," stillsoftly laughing, she asked, "have they no place in your affections?

  "The sky is her tiring-maiden, and I love the sky for that," said John."'Tis the sky that clothes her in her many-coloured raiment, and holdsthe light whereby her beauty is made manifest. And the sea is a jewelthat she bears upon her bosom,--a magical jewel, whence, with the sky'said, she draws the soft rain that is her scent and her cosmetic.'Fragrant the fertile earth after soft showers.' Do you know, I couldalmost forgive the dour and detestable Milton everything for the sake ofthose seven words. They show that in the sense of smell he had at leastone attribute of humanity."

  Maria Dolores' dark eyes were quizzical.

  "The dour and detestable Milton?" she exclaimed. "Poor Milton! What hashe done to merit such anathema?

  "It isn't what he has done, but what he was," said John. "That he wasdour nobody will deny, dour and sour and inhuman. Ask those unfortunate,long-suffering daughters of his, if you doubt it. _They_ could tell youstories. But he was worse. He was a scribe and a Pharisee, apragmatical, self-righteous, canting old scribe and Pharisee. And he wasworse still, and still worse yet. He was--what seems to me to-day theworstest thing unhung--he was a Puritan. Like Winthorpe's, his blood wasblack and icy and vinegarish. Like Winthorpe--But there. I mustn'tabuse Winthorpe any more, and I must try to forgive Milton. Milton wroteseven good words, and Winthorpe unwittingly opened a lover's eyes to hiscondition."

  He paused, and smiled down upon her, and his newly opened (and veryblue) blue eyes said much. Her eyes were dreaming on the landscape,where it shone in pearl and gold. However, as she gave no sign offinding his conversation wearisome, he took heart, and continued.

  "For when he told me how he had put his love away, never again to seeher, and how at that moment she would be scrubbing floors (or taking thediscipline, perhaps?) in a convent of Ursulines, suddenly, and withoutany action of the will on my part, there rose before me the vision of acertain woman;--a woman I knew a little, admired immensely, very muchliked, but didn't for an instant suppose I was seriously in love with.And involuntarily, with the vision of her before me, I asked myselfwhether, _mutatis mutandis_, I could have done as he had, and in a flashI saw that I could not,--that not for the wealth of Ormus and of Indcould I or would I give her up, if once I had her. So, by that token,and by the uncommon wrath with which his tale inflamed me," John, with arhetorical flourish, perorated, "I discovered that I loved." And againhis eyes said much.

  Hers were still on the prospect.

  "Yet if you only know her a little, how can you love her?" she asked, ina musing voice.

  "Did I say I only know her a little?" asked John. "I know her a greatdeal. I know her through and through. I know that she is pure gold, purecrystal; that she is made of all music, all light, all sweetness, and ofall shadow and silence and mystery too, as women should be. I know thatearth holds naught above her. I do not care to employ superlatives, so,to put it in the form of an understatement, I know that she is simplyand absolutely perfect. If you could see her! If you could see her eyes,her deep-glowing, witty, humorous, mischievous, innocent eyes, with thesoul that burns in them, the passion that sleeps. If you could see theblack soft masses of her hair, and her white brow, and the pale-rose ofher cheeks, and the red-rose of her lovely smiling mouth. If you couldsee her figure, slender and strong, and the grace and pride of hercarriage,--the carriage of an imperial princess. If you could see herhands,--they lie in her lap like languid lilies. And her voice,--'tisthe colour of her mouth and the glow of her eyes made audible. And ifyou could whisper to yourself her melodious and thrice adorable name. Iknow her a great deal. When I said that I only knew her a little, Imeant it in the sense that she only knows me a little,--which after all,alas, for practical purposes comes to the same thing."

  He had spoken with emphasis, with fervour, his pink face animated andfull of intention. Maria Dolores kept her soft-glowing eyes resolutelyaway from him, but I think the soul that burned in them (if not thepassion that slept) was vaguely troubled. _Qui pane d'amour_--how doesthe French proverb run? Did she vaguely feel perhaps that the seas theywere sailing were perilous? Anyhow, as John saw with sinking heart, shewas at the point of putting an end to their present conjunction,--shewas preparing to rise. He would have given worlds to offer a helpinghand, but (however rich in worlds) he was, for the occasion, poor incourage. When love comes in at the door, assurance as like as not willfly out of the window. So she rose unaided.

  "Let us hope," she said, giving him a glance in which he perceived anunder-gleam as of not unfriendly mockery, "that she will soon come toknow you better."

  "Heaven forbid!" cried he, with a fine simulation of alarm. "It is uponher ignorance of my true character that I base such faint hopes as Ipossess of some day winning her esteem."

  Maria Dolores laughed, nodded, and lightly moved away.

  "My son," said John to himself, "you steered precious close to the wind.You had best be careful."

  And then he was conscious of a sudden change in things. The gardensmiled about him, the valley below laughed in the breeze, the blackcapssang, the many windows of the Castle glistened in the sun; but theirbeauty and
their pleasantness had departed, had retired with her intothe long, low, white-walled, red-roofed pavilion. He was conscious of asudden change in things, and of a sudden acute and bitter depressionwithin himself.

  "These are great larks," he said; "great larks while they last,--butwhat's the good of them in the end? What do they lead to? What's thegood of coquetting with blisses that can't be yours?" And he breathed aprodigious sigh. "When shall I see her again?" he asked, and thereuponwas seized by his old terror--his terror of yesterday, though it seemedto him a terror he had known all his life--lest he should never see heragain. "She's only a visitor. What's to prevent her leaving this verynight?"

  The imagination was intolerable. He entered the Castle court, andclimbed the staircase of honour, and rambled through the long suites ofgreat empty rooms, empty of everything save the memory of the past andthe portraits of the dead, there, if he might, for a time at least, tolose himself and to forget her.