The Spy Paramount
Page 20
It was seldom that they spoke of the immediate past. Both seemed equally convinced that it belonged to two utterly different people who would some day slowly awaken into life rubbing their eyes. Patches of those colourful days, however, would sometimes present themselves. One morning Elida discovered her husband with a powerful telescope watching the distant land. She paused by his side—a silent questioner.
“Somewhere amongst that nest of mountains,” he pointed out with a grim smile of reminiscence, “is a French General—a fine little chap and I should think a thorough soldier—the desire of whose life it was to see me with a bandage over my eyes, against his white-washed barrack walls, facing a squad of his picked rifle-shots! Nearly came off, too!”
She shivered and half closed her eyes. He understood that she was shutting out Europe from the field of her vision. He closed the telescope with a little snap.
“We both had our escapes,” he remarked. “Berati was out for your blood once…. It is my watch,” he added, listening to the bell. “Come with me on the bridge for an hour.”
She passed her arm through his and they mounted the steps together. The third officer made his report, saluted and withdrew. For several minutes afterwards no words passed. Fawley, leaning a little forward over the canvas-screened rail, scanned the horizon with seaman’s vision. At such times a sort of graven calm came to his features, a new intensity to his keenly searching eyes. The blood of his sea-faring ancestors revealed itself. Deliberately, it seemed as though of natural habit, he examined with meticulous care every yard of the grey tossing waters. Only when he felt himself master of the situation did his features relax. He smiled down at Elida, drew her hand through his arm and commenced their nightly promenade.
Silence on the bridge. Sometimes he wondered whether they were not both grateful for that stern commandment of the sea. At ordinary times they were overwhelmed with the happiness which was always seeking to express itself. The silences of night were wonderful. The forced silences of the day were like an aching relief. A few paragraphs in a modern novel which she had passed to him with a smile contained sentences which struck home to them both.
***
“‘The self-consciousness of the lover has increased enormously since the decay of Victorian sentimentalism. Allegorically speaking, it is only amongst the brainless and the lower orders of to-day that the man walks unashamed with his arm around his sweetheart’s waist and both scorn to wait till the darkness for the mingling of lips. The affection of Edwin and Angelina of the modern world may be of the same order as that which inspired their great-grandmother and great-grandfather, but they seem to have lost the idea of how to set about it. In town this seems to be a fair idea of what goes on. Edwin and Angelina find themselves by accident alone.
“‘What about a spot of love-making, old dear?’ Edwin suggested apprehensively.
“‘All right, old bean, but for heaven’s sake don’t let’s moon about alone! We’ll ring up Morris’s Bar and see if any of the crowd are over there.’
“‘Or if the amorous couple happen to be in the country, the reply to the same question is a feverish suggestion that they try if the old bus will do over sixty, or rival bags of golf clubs are produced, or Edwin is invited to search for his gun and come along and see if there’s an odd rabbit sitting outside the woods….’’’
***
Fawley closed the volume with a laugh.
“Let us be content to belong to the old-fashioned crowd,” he suggested. “You come, anyhow, of a race which expresses itself far more naturally than we Anglo-Saxons can, and whether I am self-conscious about it or not I am not in the least ashamed of owning that I am absolutely and entirely in love with you.”
She stretched out her arms.
“Come and tell me so again, darling,” she invited. “Tell me so many times during the day. Do not let us care what any of these moderns are doing. Keep on telling me so.”
Which invitation and his prompt acceptance of it seemed to form the textbook of their wonderful cruise.
***
And then at last their voyage came to an end. In the pearly grey stillness before the dawn they found themselves one morning on deck, leaning over the rail watching a dark mass ahead gradually take to itself definite shape. A lighthouse gave pale warning of a nearby harbour. The stars faded and a faint green light in the east broke into the coming day. They heard the ringing down of the engine behind. They were passing through the placid waters now at half-speed. The shape and colour of that dark mass gradually resolved themselves. The glimmering light sunk into obscurity. There were rolling woods and pine-topped hills surrounding the old-fashioned town of quaintly shaped buildings which they were slowly approaching. Behind there was a great sweep of meadowland—a broad ribbon of deep green turf—cut so many ages ago that it seemed as though it must have been a lordly avenue from all time. At the head was a dim vista of flower gardens surrounding the castle, from the turrets of which the streaming flag had already caught the morning breeze. One other building towered over the little town—the cathedral, half in ruins, half still massive and important. As they drew nearer they could hear the chimes, the sound of bells floating over the water. He pressed her arm.
“No salute,” he warned her. “Someone told me there was not a gun upon the island.”
“Is that not rather wonderful?” she whispered. “We have had all two people need of strife. The bells are better.”
They were near enough now to hear the birds in the woods which hung over the low cliffs. A flight of duck surprised them. The chiming of the bells grew more melodious. There was a little catch in her voice as her arms reached out for him.
“The people on the quay may see us, but I do not care,” she whispered. “This is Paradise which we have found.”
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