South Wind

by Norman Douglas

  “Don’t you care about our English vegetables?”

  “Can’t say I’m much in love with them, Mr. Heard. Brussels sprouts, for instance—I’m very partial to Brussels sprouts. But the things they give you over there are the size of a bath sponge, and much the same taste, I reckon. And the carrots! A carrot ought to be small and round and yellow, it ought to melt in the mouth like a plum. Those carrots aren’t carrots at all. They’re walking sticks. And the peas! No, I don’t care about English peas. Too large and too lively for me.”

  “Lively?”

  “That’s it. Lively. I shall never forget my first experience of them,” he went on, laughing. “There were two or three in the dish; just two or three; filled it up nicely. Looked like cannon-balls. What do they expect me to do with these things? I wondered. I didn’t like to ask the waiter. One doesn’t care to be taken for an ignorant stranger. Well, I landed one on my plate and began carving at it, to see if there was anything eatable inside the shell, when the durned thing slipped away from my knife and crashed on to the floor. Bounced up like a marble. I called for a nutcracker—‘I shall want the largest you’ve got,’ I said. They couldn’t find one. Now I’m not the sort of man, Mr. Heard, to be beaten by a vegetable, if it really was a vegetable. Because, you see, it behaved more like a blamed mineral. I sent for the head waiter, and took him into my confidence. I tried to talk English, like I’m talking to you. ‘What d’ye call these things?’ I asked. ‘Marrowfats, Sir.’ ‘Ah, I thought they weren’t peas. You’ve got PETITS POIS down on the bill of fare. Better get that put right. And now, how d’ye eat them?’ ‘You bite them!’ That’s what he said. ‘You bite them.’ Of course I didn’t believe him. I thought it was just a bit of English humour, especially as the other waiter was looking the opposite way all the time. Well, like a fool, I said to myself: ‘No harm in trying!’ I’ve got pretty sharp teeth, you know, for a boy of my age. That’s how I managed to do what a lot of you younger fellows couldn’t have done. I got them fixed into the softest of that bunch of marrowfats. But as to pulling them out again! The head waiter, you bet, had disappeared. And the other fellow was standing at the window with his back to me. Looking up the street, I should say, to see if it was going to rain.”

  After this little outburst, the millionaire seemed to have nothing more to say.

  He was thinking….

  Cornelius van Koppen loved a good liar. He knew something about the gentle art. It was an art, he used to say, which no fool should be allowed to cultivate. There were too many amateurs knocking about. These bunglers spoiled the trade. Without doing any good to themselves, they roused distrust; they rubbed the fine bloom off human credulity. His puritan conscience was enraged at petty thefts, petty forgeries, petty larcenies. That was why he despised that otherwise excellent person, the Financial Commissioner for Nicaragua, whose wildest flights of embezzlement never exceeded a few hundred dollars. He respected a man who, like himself, could work in the grand style. To play upon the credulity of a continent—it was Napoleonic, it was like stealing a kingdom; it was not stealing at all. This, he shrewdly suspected, was what his good friend the Count was engaged upon. That delightful old man was working in the grand style.

  Bronzes, ancient or modern, were Greek to Mr. van Koppen. He could not tell the difference between the art of Clodion and of Myron—had, in fact, never heard the names of these good people and did not particularly care to hear them; he paid Sir Herbert Street for that part of the business. But he had picked up, in the course of his long humanitarian career, a good deal of general knowledge. Old Koppen was no fool. He was intelligent; intelligence, as the Count had said, being perfectly compatible with progress. The millionaire could put two and two together as fast as most men; he was celebrated, even among his quick-witted compatriots, for an uncanny faculty of walking round people without getting off his chair. Common sense, he called it.

  Many a time he had listened to Count Caloveglia’s rounded periods anent the Locri Faun. Taking his own personal experience as a guide, he had come to the conclusion that a man does not explain things quite so satisfactorily, unless he has some business in hand. Everything fitted into a hypothesis which had been slowly maturing in his mind, namely, that he was confronted by a fraud, a really noble fraud, a fraud after his own heart, a fraud deserving the fullest support of every sensible man and woman.

  That vineyard, for instance, with those antiquities. A good many friends of his in the States had made their pile out of salted gold mines. Why not salt a vineyard? Oh yes; everything fitted in beautifully. The remoteness of that vineyard … a town like Locri was obviously unsafe, too public a place for such important discoveries. The conscientious Sir Herbert would certainly want to make enquiries on the spot—enquiries which would prove that no Faun had ever been found there. And that would ruin everything. Therefore the statue had been “carried” to the vineyard in ancient times by “some young and ardent lover of art.” Carried, ha, ha! His knowledge of human nature made him doubt whether the Locri Faun had ever in its life made a further journey than to Caloveglia’s shady courtyard from that mysterious, dusty shed at the back of his house. Or the Demeter either. That “sadly mutilated head” was a feeler—a rehearsal. They both came “from the same workshop.” Excellent! That shed was the workshop—the birthplace of these two antiques; the Count himself their old Hellenic creator.

  Andrea, no doubt, was the secret.

  These art experts! Here was Street, one of the best of them, a man of celebrity in his department, solemnly pronouncing for the authenticity of the fake—in the full and innocent conviction that it was really authentic. A sucking babe. This man, he could see by his simple society face, had not even made an arrangement with the Count as to a commission for himself in the event of a purchase being concluded. He was satisfied with his salary. These experts—what a crowd of fools they were! Especially the honest ones.

  None the less, he was delighted with Sir Herbert’s opinion. It was exactly what he wanted. For he meant to help the County who, he was sure, would never accept a cent from him save under a pretext like that of the sale of the Faun. He loved old Caloveglia. There was something clean and purposeful about him. His friendship with such a man filled up what he knew to be a void in his own equipment as citizen of the world. And the count was working—was lying—for a worthy purpose: a daughter’s dowry. For that reason alone he was deserving of assistance.

  Mr. van Koppen was unmarried. Knowing life as he did, from its more seamy or mercenary side, he had never brought himself to accept a single one of several hundred offers of marriage which had been more or less overtly made to him—to his millions. He loved the sex, as a whole; but distrusted them individually. He thought he knew exactly what they were after. Pearl necklaces and things. He was a good American; fond of bestowing pearl necklaces. But he liked to give them when, and to whom, he fancied; he meant to be his own master and to keep his painfully gotten millions under his own control. All of which, far from extinguishing, actually fostered that queer bachelor’s feeling of reverential awe for the married state and its results. Every form of courage and success appealed to van Koppen—none more than the reckless impetuosity of a man who speculates in such a delirious lottery and sometimes actually draws a prize. Such had been Count Caloveglia’s portion. His marriage had plainly been a love-match; a success; its result, this offspring—a daughter of whom any father might be proud. Mr. van Koppen thoroughly understood the Count’s position. These Italians need dowries for their girls. Well, he should have one! What did it signify? One pearl necklace the less, for some operatic charmer. Not worth talking about. Among all h is various benefactions, none was ever projected with a lighter heart, with more sincere pleasure. It made him glad to be a millionaire.

  All the details had been settled. The FLUTTERBY was sailing in a day or two. The relic would be brought on board, at dead of night, by the faithful Andrea, who would return to the Count with a cheque in his pocket. It was a considerable sum; so
considerable that Caloveglia had displayed great hesitation in accepting it. But the millionaire pointed out that the parties must be guided by Sir Herbert’s opinion. What was the good, he asked, of employing a specialist? Sir Herbert Street had declared the bronze to be priceless, unique. His employer, therefore, insisted on paying what the other had called “an adequate amount, if the value of such a work of art can be expressed in monetary figures at all.” There was nothing more to be said. The Count gave way, with graceful reluctance. A sham ancestry having been manufactured for the masterpiece (it was proved to come from Asia Minor) in order to elude the vigilance of the Italian Government, the Locri Faun could thereafter be freely displayed to the American public, and Sir Herbert Street was probably right in foretelling that it would be the show piece of the millionaire’s museum-artists and antiquarians flocking to see it from every part of the world.

  And Mr. van Koppen, as he drove along, was thinking of that cheque; he was converting the dollars into francs. They made rather an awkward sum. He decided to round it off, if only for the sake of appearances; a further reason for not sending the cheque till the last moment, together with a carefully worded letter to allay the Count’s scruples. The old fellow might otherwise return the balance, in a fit of conscientiousness. Like himself, Count Caloveglia was infernally, and very properly, punctilious—in small matters.

  Yes, there was some fun, at times, in being a millionaire. Or a sculptor either, for that matter! For it evidently took some doing—a little thing like that Locri Faun. It took some doing. And it was worth doing: that was the main point. A man who could bamboozle Sir Herbert Street—such a man deserved to be supported. And what if the truth ultimately leaked out? Had he not acted with the best intentions, under the written advice of an expert? Far from feeling uneasy, Mr. van Koppen smiled at the thought of how his millions, backed by the opinion of a connoisseur of international reputation, had enabled him to play yet one more trick upon that great Republic whose fathomless gullibility no one had ever exploited to a better purpose than himself….

  Mr. Eames was waiting for the bishop, according to appointment.

  “How about Mrs. Meadows?” he at once began.

  “She was out, invisible. I waited nearly two hours and then lunched with Count Caloveglia. By the way, have you seen anything of Denis lately?”

  “No. Why?”

  “The old man seemed to be concerned about him. He asked me to make enquiries. Van Koppen thought that he might have got into trouble with some girl. But that strikes me as very unlikely. He may be a little homesick and lonely, so far from his mother.”

  The bibliographer said:

  “I understand Mr. van Koppen is quite an authority on girls. As to Denis, I saw him last—when was it? Oh, not so very long ago. The day all those funny things happened; those portents. We walked up and down together on this very terrace. Perhaps he has left the island, like that wretched mineralogist who promised me—never mind! He seemed all right then. A little depressed, perhaps. Yes; a little depressed, no I come to think of it. But the Count need not be anxious. This island is a great place for scares and rumours.”

  Mr. Heard was not satisfied.

  “Do you believe the influence of Nepenthe can make Northern people irresponsible for their actions? Keith does. Or how about the sirocco? Can it upset their nerves to such an extent?”

  “Not my nerves. I have heard of people making fools of themselves and then blaming the Creator. Often! And of course, if one begins to brood over accidentals like the weather, one is sure to become a lunatic sooner or later. Weather was not made for that purpose. If you come to think of it, how few days there are when a man can honestly say that the weather is quite to his liking! It is nearly always too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry or too windy. I don’t trouble myself about sirocco. Why should Denis? He is not nearly as much of a fool as many people look. And I would not listen to Keith. He moves among hyperbolas.”

  Mr. Heard felt slightly relieved. What a sensible fellow this was; so matter-of-fact and sure of his ground. The ideal scholar. Sirocco did not exist for him. He stood aloof from human passions and infirmities.

  It was plain that the bishop had never heard that story about the BALLON CAPTIF.

  “For my part,” he said, “I am beginning to object to this south wind. I never felt it worse than to-day. Phew! Stifling! One can hardly breathe. My shirt is sticking to my back. Suppose we sit down somewhere?”

  They found a bench, in view of the sea and the volcano. The population moved sedately up and down before their eyes.

  “Is it always like this?” enquired Mr. Heard.

  “Spring is a little warmer than usual. Or perhaps one should say that summer has begun earlier. The sirocco is the same, year after year, although there is a kind of conspiracy among the foreign residents to say that it happens to be worse than usual that particular season. It never varies.”

  “What does your Perrelli say on the subject?”

  Mr. Eames glanced at him distrustfully.

  “You are trying to chaff me,” he said. “Serves me right for talking so much this morning. I am afraid I bored you dreadfully.”

  The bishop wanted to know.

  “Then I may tell you that Monsignor Perrelli does not so much as mention the South wind. He names all the others and has come capital observations on the anchorages of the island as adapted to different winds and seasons. He has also extracted from old chronicles the records of the great storms of 1136, 1342, 1373, 1460, and so on; but never discloses the fact that they all blew from the south. He says the air is pleasant, tempered by gentle breezes from the sea. The word sirocco does not occur in his pages save once, when he laments its prevalence on the mainland.”

  “The old humbug!”

  A little shiver ran through Mr. Eames. Then he observed, in a suave tone of voice:

  “He was an historian of the period, an agreeable gentleman telling others of his kind what he knows will be of interest to them. That is what makes his work attractive to me: the personality of the writer. The facts that he records, taken in conjunction with those he slurs over or omits—they give one such an insight into changing human nature! You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.”

  “Modern historians are not like that,” said Mr. Heard. “They give you the truth to the best of their ability. It is rather dry reading sometimes. I would like to borrow your Perrelli for a day or two, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll send it round, together with some old prints of this island and modern photographs. You will then see what I mean. The prints are not exactly true to nature; these people did not want to be true to nature. And yet they convey a better impression of the place than the modern pictures. Perhaps there are two truths: the truth of fact and that of suggestion. Perrelli is very suggestive; romance grafted upon erudition, and blossoming out of it! So imaginative! He has a dissertation on the fishes of Nepenthe—it reads like a poem and is yet full of practical gastronomic hints. Can you picture Virgil collaborating with Apicius?”

  The bishop said:

  “Horace might have got on better with that old BON-VIVANT.”

  “Horace could never have had a hand in this chapter. He lacks the idealistic tinge. He could never have written about red mullets as Perrelli writes when he compares their skin to the fiery waves of Phelgethon, to the mantle of rosy-fingered dawn, to the blush of a maiden surprised in her bath, and then goes on to tell you how to cook the b east in thirty different ways and how to spit out the bones in the most noiseless, genteel fashion. That is Perrelli—so original, so leisurely. Always himself! He smiled as he wrote; there is not a shadow of doubt about it. In another section, on the fountains of the island, he deliberately indulges in the humour of some old mediaeval schoolman. Then there is a chapter on the ecclesiastical conditions of the place under Florizel the Fat—it is full of veiled attacks on the religious orders of his own
day; I suspect it got him into trouble, that chapter. I am sorry to say there is a good deal of loose talk scattered about his pages. I fear he was not altogether a pure-minded man. But I cannot bring myself to despise him. What do you think? Certain problems are always cropping up, aren’t they?”

  Mr. Eames suddenly looked quite troubled.

  “They are,” replied the bishop, who was not in a mood to discuss ethics just then. “What are you going to do about it?” he added.

  “About what?”

  “This poetic omission on the part of Perrelli to mention the sirocco?”

  “It has given me a deal of extra work, I can assure you. I have had to go into the whole question. I have tabulated no less than fifty-seven varieties of sirocco. Sailors’ words, most of them; together with a handful of antiquated terms. Fifty-seven varieties. Twenty-three thousand words, up to the present, dealing the with south wind.”

  “That is a fair-sized foot-note,” laughed the bishop. “A good slice of a book, I should call it.”

  “My foot-notes are to be printed in small type. In fact, I am thinking of casting the whole of this sirocco—material into an appendix. Too much, you think? Surely the number of words is not disproportionate to the subject? The south wind is a good slice of Nepenthe, is it not?… Look! That cloud has made up its mind to come our way after all. There will be another shower of ashes. Sirocco, you observe….”

  The terrace, meanwhile, had become crowded. Already the evening sun was slightly obscured behind a brown haze. Ashes were traveling fast. They began to fall, softly.

  What was to be done? Everybody, mindful of the previous experience, was in favour of a second procession to take place immediately. The PARROCO held the same opinion. For form’s sake, however, he dispatched a confidential messenger to learn the views of Mr. Parker, who was sitting dejectedly in his study with the incomplete Financial Report still staring him in the face. The Commissioner pulled himself together with praiseworthy alacrity and gave his whole mind to the question.