by E. F. Benson
A girl came up the cobbled way from the town just as he turned in. She had on a very simple linen dress that the wind blew close to her body, and a flapping linen sunbonnet, tied below her chin, to prevent the wind capturing it. She was tall and slight, moved easily, as with a boyish carelessness; a very pleasant face, also boyish and quite plain, peered from under her flapping bonnet. Her hands were noticeable: they were large but extremely well shaped, and the fingers showed both perception and efficiency. It may be remarked that Archie had never noticed her hands at all.
“Hullo, Jess,” said he. “I’m just back. Lord, I’ve had such a ripping afternoon. And the cigarettes are quite dry. Where have you been?”
“Just down into Silorno. Cousin Marion wanted a telegram sent about their sleeping-berths tomorrow.”
Archie frowned. He had noticed that Jessie was often sent on errands. People who can absolutely be relied on usually are.
“I should have thought my mother might have sent Pasqualino,” he observed.
The girl laughed.
“Oh, she wanted to, but I said I would go instead. You see, Cousin Marion and Helena were getting in what might be called rather a state about you. I tried to infect them with my own calm, but they wouldn’t catch it. So I thought a little walk would be pleasant.”
“Oh, was Helena frightened?” asked Archie rather greedily.
“Yes. So was Cousin Marion. I wasn’t.”
“Then you were beastly unsympathetic. I had an awful shave getting into the harbour,” remarked Archie.
“But you knew what you were about, and I didn’t, nor did Helena. So I preferred to have confidence in you and go for a walk, rather than observe you in what looked remarkably like danger.”
Archie had walked up from the landing-stage with his shoes and his coat under his arm. The coat was too wet to put on, so he dusted his feet with it, and resumed his shoes.
“Oh, a ripping afternoon,” he said again.
The sound of the clanging gate into the Castello was heard out in the garden, and as they walked up the dim stone-flagged passage that led out into it, another girl came running in. She, like her sister, was tall and slight, but there the resemblance altogether ended. A delicate, small-featured face, entirely feminine, gleamed below yellow hair; her eyes, set rather wide apart, giving her an adorably childish look, opened very widely below their dark eyelashes. Beside her, Jessie looked somewhat like a well-bred plough-boy.
“Oh, Archie!” she cried. “How horribly rash of you! Your mother and I have had a terrible half-hour.”
“I bring you cigarettes to soothe your disordered nerves,” said Archie sententiously. “I am happy to say that they are dry, though I am not.”
Jessie had walked on, with that pleasant expression on her face that might or might not be a smile, and the two were left alone for a moment.
“As if I cared about the cigarettes,” she said.
“You did this morning. But you weren’t really anxious, were you?”
“Indeed I was. You were naughty to sail back in this gale. Do be good now and change your clothes at once. I will bring you some fresh tea into the garden. Cousin Marion and I have had tea. We drank cup after cup to fortify ourselves, and looked over the wall at your boat between each sip. Then we trembled and had another sip. Before you got past that horrid rock, we had drained the teapot and broken our chairs with our tremblings.”
The strict veracity of this entertaining summary did not of course concern Archie; it was sufficient that it had Helena’s light and picturesque touch. It made a tableau that caused him to smile to himself as he changed his shirt, that was now stiffening with salt, and put on a pair of socks over his tanned feet. All this he did hurriedly, for it was the last evening, so he told himself, that they would all be together, by which he really meant that it was the last evening on which Helena would be here, since tomorrow, at break of dawn, she and his mother would start for England, leaving Jessie, Harry Travers, and himself to follow after another fortnight. When, a week before, that scheme had been suggested, it seemed to Archie the most admirable of plans, since, though his mother and Helena would be gone, he would secure another fortnight of intercourse with his beloved sea instead of inhabiting that smoky cave known as London. But since then Helena had begun to dawn on him, though as yet it would be an exaggeration to say that he was in love with her. But she was dawning, her light illuminated the sky above the horizon, and, if the plan was to be suggested again to him in his present attitude of attracted expectancy, it is probable that he would have voted for London and Helena, rather than an extension of his days at the Castello.
The scheme had originally been Helena’s, and, like all her plans, had been exceedingly well thought out, before it was produced in the guise of an impulse, prompted by kindliness and thought for others. It was, when edited as an impulse, of the simplest and most considerate sort. The hot weather did not really suit Cousin Marion, so why should not Cousin Marion go back to England with herself, Helena, as travelling companion? Of course Silorno was the most delicious place, and she would be ever so sorry to go, but certainly Cousin Marion felt the heat, and, though she was far too unselfish to suggest breaking up the party, she would be glad to go northwards earlier than the end of June, when her two months’ tenancy expired.
Helena had produced this plan to Archie one morning as they sat after breakfast under the stone-pine.
“But my mother would not in the least mind going home alone, if she preferred to go before the end of June,” he said.
Helena shook her head.
“Oh, I know she would say she didn’t mind,” she said, “or she would stop on in spite of her headaches sooner than break up the party—”
“Has she been having headaches?” asked Archie.
“Yes, but you mustn’t know that. She told me not to tell any one,” said Helena, with complete self-possession. “Promise, Archie.”
“All right.”
Helena felt quite safe now.
“So she must go back sooner than at the end of June,” she continued, “and clearly I am the right person to go with her, for she hates travelling alone.”
“Oh, we’ll all go then,” said Archie.
“It isn’t the least necessary. Jessie or I must go with her, for she certainly wouldn’t hear of your going, and Jessie is enjoying this so much that I couldn’t bear that she should have her days here cut short. So it’s for me to go.”
“That’s awfully good of you,” said he, only as yet half convinced.
“It isn’t the least. It’s a necessity, though you are so kind as to make a virtue of it. And then there’s this as well. Cousin Marion would never consent to go, if she thought it was for her sake that I was going with her. So you must go to her, and say you think that it’s me whom the heat doesn’t suit, and you will see if she doesn’t say at once that she will go back with me. And the real reason for her going will be our secret, just yours and mine.”
Archie looked at her for a moment in silence, and the silence was one of unspoken admiration. Somehow this kindly thoughtful plan kindled his appreciation of her beauty: her beauty took on a tenderer and more touching look. Before now, it had vaguely occurred to him that, of the two sisters, it was Jessie who most gave up her own way to serve the ways of others; but this secret of Helena’s made him feel that he had done her an injustice.
“But I don’t want you to give up your time here if you enjoy it,” he said.
“Ah, don’t make me tell a fib, and say that I don’t enjoy it,” she said. “I will if you press me. I’ll say it bores me frightfully, sooner than give up my plan.”
“Well, I think it’s wonderfully kind of you,” he said. “Now I’m to tell my mother that you are feeling the heat, and see what she says. Is that it?”
“Yes, just that,” said Helena.
Archie had strolled indoors to put this plan to the test, and before he returned a quarter of an hour later with his mother Helena had approved of her o
wn ingenuity very warmly. She had, if her scheme succeeded, secured for herself an additional fortnight of the London season, for she and Jessie were, for the present, going to make their home with their cousins and she was already satisfied that her unselfishness had made a considerable impression on Archie. This was the most important thing: hitherto she felt she had failed to make her mark, so to speak. He was on excellent friendly terms with her, just as he was with Jessie, but she wanted (or at any rate wished for) something more than that. It was not that she wanted him to flirt with her; she had much more serious ends in view. She wanted (and here was her perspicacity) to dazzle his eyes by means of touching his heart, for she guessed, with clear-sighted vision, that he was the kind of young man who, if he did not mean everything, would mean nothing, and she believed that she could not entangle his affection by mere superficial appeals. And, indeed, she was not a flirt herself; she was poor, and clever, and attractive, and she proposed to use her cleverness and attraction in the legitimate pursuit of securing a husband who was not poor. That Archie was now Lord Davidstow, and at his father’s death would be Lord Tintagel, was in his favour, and to make an impression on him, and then to go self-sacrificingly away, seemed to her a very promising manoeuvre. She was not in the least afraid of leaving Jessie with him, for, with her habitual adroitness, she had conveyed to her sister, by little sighs, glances, and words that seemed to escape from her lips unawares, what her design (yet without making it appear a design) on Archie was. She had but allowed her feelings, all unconsciously, to betray themselves, as when she said “Darling, wouldn’t it be lovely to be Archie’s sister, instead of only cousin?” That put it quite plainly enough, and she felt sure that Jessie understood. And, in addition to this impregnable safeguard of Jessie’s loyalty, she was satisfied that Jessie’s friendliness with Archie was of the most unsentimental character. Indeed, to speak of her sense of security with regard to Jessie would be a labouring of the point: she was so secure that her security scarcely struck her, any more than the security of a house consciously strikes its inhabitant.
* * * *
The week that had passed between the acceptance of her plan and this, the last night of her stay at Silorno, confirmed the soundness of her strategy. Archie’s frank friendliness towards herself had undergone a subtle change, while his relations with her sister remained precisely on the same calm tableland of comradeship. But below his comradeship with herself, like the sun glowing faintly through a mist without heat at present, but with penetration of light, she knew that there was growing an emotional brightness. It was with light and with a nameless quickening that his eye dwelt on her, and now as they sat in the deep dusk of the garden, illumined only by the stars that twinkled like minute golden oranges in the boughs of the stone-pine, she knew that he was looking at the pale wraith of her face, which was all the starlight left her with, in a manner that was not yet a week old. It was so dark, here in the deep shade, that she saw nothing of his sun-tanned face beyond a featureless oval, but when, from time to time, he drew on his cigarette, it leaped into distinctness. There was emotion there, or, at any rate, the stuff from which emotion is made; there was need, not yet wholly conscious of itself, but waiting, like buried treasure, to be released.
And on her side, also, something was astir behind her calculated plan. She felt sorry, until the wisdom of her project laid its calming hand upon her again, that she was being so unselfish as to accompany Cousin Marion back to town. It would have been extraordinarily pleasant to sit here many times more with Archie, and both watch and take part in the growth of the situation of which the seed had been deliberately planted by herself. It was but a weak little spike as yet, but undeniably there was the potentiality of growth in it.
Suddenly his face leapt into light, as he struck a match, and the gain of a fortnight’s London season seemed to her insignificant. And the success of her plan, the wisdom of which she still endorsed, was but a frigid triumph, for she felt to a degree yet unknown to her his personal charm.
“Oh, Archie, I wish I wasn’t going away,” she said. “It has been a nice time. I wish—no, I suppose that’s selfish of me.”
“I want to know what is selfish of you,” said he.
“Do you? Well, as it’s our last evening you shall. I wish I thought you would miss me more.”
He moved just a shade closer to her.
“Oh, I shall miss you quite enough,” he said.
She laughed.
“I don’t think you will,” she said. “You’ll have your bathing and your boating and your writing. I expect you will have a very jolly time.”
He seemed to think over this.
“Yes, I shall have all those things,” he said. “And I like them. Why shouldn’t I? But—no, like you, I won’t say that.”
“But I did,” she remarked.
“Well, I will too. I shall miss you much more than I should have missed you if you had gone away a week ago.”
She, too, hesitated a moment. Then very coolly she replied:
“Thank you very much.”
There was calculation in that: she had thought over her polite, chilly manner swiftly but carefully. And she had calculated rightly. He chucked away the cigarette he had only just lit.
“Helena, have I offended you?” he asked. “Why do you speak like that?”
Again she traversed a second’s swift thought.
“Of course you haven’t offended me,” she said lightly. “You’ll have to try harder than that if you want to offend me. My dear, do try again. Try to make me feel hurt.”
Archie was a little excited. There was some small intimate contest going on, that affected him physically, with secret delight, just as he was affected in his limbs by some cross-current to the direction of his swimming, or in his brain by the tussle for the word he wanted when he was writing. He was sparring with something dear to him.
“Try to hurt me,” she said softly.
“Very well,” said he. “I’m glad you’re going away tomorrow. Will that do?”
She laughed again.
“It would do excellently well if you meant it,” she said. “But you don’t mean it.”
“You’re very hard to please,” said he.
“Not in the least. If you want to please me, say that you’ll be very glad to see me again in a few weeks.”
“I certainly shall, but I shan’t say it. You know it quite well enough without my assurance.”
She leaned forward a little.
“But say it all the same, Archie,” she said. “Say it quite out loud.”
Archie threw back his head and shouted at the stone-pine.
“I shall be very glad to see you again in—what was it?—in a few weeks,” he cried.
“Ah, that is nice of you. No, I’m not sure that it’s nice, because you’ve brought Jessie and Mr. Harry out into the garden.”
That seemed to be the case, for undeniably the two moved out into the bright square of light cast from the lit passage within. Archie got up swiftly and suddenly, with a bubble of laughter.
“Oh, let’s be like the garden scene in Faust,” he whispered. “Don’t you know, when the two couples wander about? Ah, they’ve seen us: they don’t do that in well-conducted opera.”
This was true enough, for immediately Helena’s name was called by her sister. She gave a little sigh.
“Yes, darling,” she said.
“Cousin Marion thinks it’s time you went to bed,” said Jessie. “And is Archie there too? She wants to see him.”
Archie and Helena exchanged a quick glance in the darkness. They knew it, rather than saw it: Helena, at any rate, was quite certain of it.
“I must go in then,” he said. “Your fault for making me shout.”
Helena recollected a revue that she and Archie had seen together.
“The woman pays,” she said in a histrionic falsetto, and without further word ran into the house, feeling very well satisfied with herself. She was sure that she had made hers
elf a little enigmatical to him, had roused his curiosity. Decidedly he wanted to know more…
* * * *
Archie always slept in a hammock slung between the stone-pine and the acacia in the garden, for though that year which he had spent at Grives, with which our history of his childhood closed, seemed to have eradicated the deadly seeds, he was still recommended to pass as much of his time as possible out of doors. The fourteen years that had elapsed since then had given him six feet of robust height, and there seemed now but little danger of the hereditary foe again beleaguering him. He had spent five years at Eton, and now had just finished his course at Cambridge, where he had contrived to combine classics and rowing in a thoroughly satisfactory manner, distinguishing himself in each. Even as he seemed to have outgrown his physical weakness, so too he had outgrown, to all appearance, those strange abnormal experiences which had been his in childhood, his power of automatic writing and the inexplicable communications from his dead brother. Certainly since his fourteenth year there had been no more of them; it was as if they had belonged entirely to the years when he trailed the clouds of glory that hang about childhood. But even now, in the normal vigour of his young manhood, they did not seem to him to be in the least unreal; indeed, they were to him, in spite of their fantastic and unusual nature, the most substantial treasures in his store-house of memory. The difference was that now they were sealed up: some key had been turned on them in his interior life, and they were inaccessible to him. But never for a moment did he doubt that they were there: out of reach they might be, but he still possessed them, and, though he made no effort to unlock the door, he believed that the key to them was neither lost nor broken, but, rusted, maybe, with unuse, still existed within him. Some day, he felt sure, the impulse would come to him, either from without or within, to search for it, and he knew precisely where, with every prospect of finding, he would look for it. For he still had the power of letting himself lapse into that trance-condition in which he sank into a depth of sunlit waters, and in that mysterious abyss he knew he could find the key to the sealed treasures. It was long since he had penetrated there, but he knew his way.