She had passed through the darkest part of the descent, carefully picking her way, when she suddenly found herself opposite to one of these windows. She was startled to see two persons there, for she had been certain that she would be alone. They were Leonora and Batiscombe, sitting side by side under the arched opening. Hearing her tread they both looked round, and Julius seemed to pick up from the floor something which had probably fallen while they were talking. Then he remained standing, and Diana, seeing she was discovered, advanced boldly toward the pair. There was nothing so extraordinary in the situation after all, but she had always supposed that Leonora slept in the afternoon while Batiscombe and Marcantonio smoked and talked politics up-stairs. They had certainly been sitting very near together, she thought, but the sudden glare of the light and the distance which separated her from them had prevented her from noticing their faces. As she came near, Leonora rose also and spoke first. She held her back to the light, for she was blushing deeply; but Batiscombe, who never blushed and rarely turned pale, stood calmly pulling his moustache, as though it were all the most natural thing in the world.
“I had always meant to tell you how delightful it is here,” said Leonora. “I am so glad you have found it out for yourself.”
“En effet,” answered Madame de Charleroi calmly smiling, “it is ideal.” She came under the arch and looked out, enjoying the sight of the sea after the dark passages.
“And then,” said Leonora, “it is strictly true that one is ‘not at home’ when one is here, — if people call, it is very convenient. Nobody can find one.”
“Excepting Madame de Charleroi,” said Batiscombe, who was very angry at the interruption.
But he said it so pleasantly and with such an air of paying a compliment, that Diana could not be offended; she only smiled a little bitterly in her lofty way, remembering other times when he would have given his right hand for a meeting of any kind with her.
In that moment a suspicion crossed Diana’s mind. She understood the meaning of his remark perfectly, in spite of the bow and the smile, knowing, as she did, every intonation of his voice and every expression of his face. She saw that he was angry, and she argued that Julius preferred being with Leonora to being with herself. That was clearly the reason why he kept out of her way; he spent his time with Leonora. If Leonora attracted him, he was certainly at liberty to talk to her if he pleased, but Diana thought it must be a strong attraction indeed that kept him away from herself. It was long since he had missed an opportunity of spending an hour with his old love.
Diana sat down beside Leonora, and Batiscombe leaned against the rock and looked out over the sea, the fire dancing in his blue eyes, but his face as calm as ever. Diana began to talk to Leonora.
“You are very fortunate in getting such a place,” she said. “It is by far the most beautiful on the whole shore.”
“I wish it belonged to us,” said Leonora. “I am sure I could come here every year and never grow tired of it.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Diana, “do you like it so very much then?”
“J’en raffole!” answered Leonora enthusiastically, “I am crazy about it. And then, it is always so charming to have absolutely the best. As you say, there is nothing like this place on the whole bay. I should like always to have the best.”
“But, madame,” remarked Batiscombe, “it appears to me that you always do. You have the talent of supremacy.”
“What an idea! The talent of supremacy!”
“But that is precisely it,” continued Julius. “It is a talent. Some people are born with it — generally women.”
“That is Monsieur Batiscombe’s favourite theory,” remarked Madame de Charleroi, just glancing at him, “but he does not believe it the least in the world.”
“Is it true?” asked Leonora, innocently, looking up with an expression that did not escape Diana. It was a sort of frightened look, as though it really mattered to her what Batiscombe thought about women in general.
“It pleases madame to be witty,” answered Julius, glancing in his turn at Diana. “I have not many theories, but I believe in them as a man who is about to be guillotined believes in death.”
“One cannot say more than that,” laughed Leonora. “But how about the supremacy of men? There have been more men in the world who have ruled it than there have ever been women.”
“Mon Dieu! Men give themselves much more trouble,” he replied. “Women, having the divine right given to them straight from Heaven, exercise it without difficulty. A word, a cup of tea, a glance, — and the supremacy of a woman is established. What could a man do with a cup of tea? Or, if he looked at people by the hour together, could he rule them with a glance? When a woman has the gift she finds little difficulty in using it, — whereas the more of it a man has, the more trouble it is to him. Men are so stupid!” And with this sweeping condemnation of his own sex, Julius lit a cigarette, having obtained permission of the two ladies.
“You ought not to have many friends, with such ideas about men,” said Leonora.
“En effet,” said Diana, “he has none.”
“Not among men, at all events,” said Julius. “I do not remember ever having any. I do not sleep any the worse on that account, I assure you. It is much more agreeable to have a number of pleasant acquaintances, who expect nothing from you and from whom you expect nothing. Friendship implies mutual obligations; I detest that.”
Leonora laughed a little. He had such a vicious way of saying such things, as though he thoroughly meant them. But then he was courteous and gentle to every one, though she suspected he might be different if he were angry. Diana knew very well that what he said was true, and that he had led an isolated life among other men, fighting his way through with his own hand and owing no man anything. She herself had for years been his best friend and his only confidant, though he saw her rarely enough. And now she felt as though even that one bond of his were to be broken, — and whether she would or not, the thought gave her pain, and she wished it could be otherwise.
“It is always far more amusing to detest things,” said Leonora, “unless you happen to want them.” She was forgetting some of her indifferentism.
“It is certainly more blessed to abuse than to be abused,” returned Julius, “and, if one has the choice, it is as well to be the hammer and not the anvil. I am an excessively good-natured person, and if I had friends, they would make an anvil of me and beat my brains out, — and then I should starve.”
“Good-natured people are always made to suffer,” said Leonora thoughtfully. “I am not in the least good-natured.”
“I remember,” said Diana, “that Mr. Batiscombe used to say good-nature was a mixture of laziness and vulgarity.”
“Yes,” answered Julius. “You have a good memory, madame. Good-nature is a compound of the laziness that cannot say ‘no,’ and of the vulgarity which desires to please every one indiscriminately. I suppose I possess both those faults very finely developed.”
“Fortunately,” remarked Leonora, “goodness and good-nature are not the same.”
“Fortunately for you, Marchesa, — unfortunately for me,” said Julius.
“It is too complicated — please explain,” she answered.
“As you are so fortunate as to possess goodness without good-nature,” said he, “you should be glad that the two are not one and the same, since good-nature is not a desirable quality. I am good-natured, but not good — I wish I were!”
“Ah, I see!” exclaimed Diana. “It was a compliment.”
“Of course,” said Julius.
“Of course; but your compliments are often complicated, as the Marchesa says.”
Diana smiled as she spoke. Batiscombe knew that she was repaying him for the remark he had made when she had unexpectedly appeared twenty minutes earlier.
“I can only repeat,” he retorted, “that Madame de Charleroi has a good memory.”
Leonora was puzzled. She saw well enough that Diana and Julius were, or
had been, much more intimate than she had supposed. They understood each other at a glance, by a word, and they seemed on the verge of quarrelling politely over nothing. She devoutly wished that Diana would go away, instead of spoiling her afternoon. But Diana leaned back against the rock and crossed her feet and prepared to be comfortable. She was evidently not going. Batiscombe stood motionless, with the easy stolidity of a very strong man who does not wish to move, and Leonora could see his bold profile against the grey haze of the sky. There was a short silence after his last remark, during which Leonora felt uneasy: something was in the atmosphere that made her anxious, and she did not like the way Diana looked at Batiscombe, with an air of absolute superiority, as though she could do anything she pleased with him.
“How dreadfully solemn we are,” said Leonora, rather awkwardly. Julius turned quickly with a laugh.
“Let us be gay,” he said. “I hate solemnity, unless there is enough of it to make me laugh. I remember being at a ball once that produced that effect.”
“Allons!” said Diana, “give us some of your reminiscences, Monsieur Batiscombe. They ought to be interesting.”
“Not so much as you think. But the ball was very funny. It was in Guatemala, three years ago. I was invited to a huge thing by the president — an entirely new president, too, who had just cut the throats of the old president and of all his relations. I believe there was some sort of revolution at the time, and when it was over the victorious individual gave a ball. The refreshments were simple — brandy for the men and rosolio for the ladies; there was no compromise in the shape of a biscuit or a glass of water.”
Leonora laughed, being willing to laugh at anything so as to encourage Julius to talk.
“En vérité, that was very amusing,” remarked Diana coldly. Batiscombe took no notice.
“The women sat round the room in a double row,” he continued, “like a court ball, excepting that they all smoked large cigars, and industriously passed the liqueur. The men stood behind and gave their undivided attention to the brandy. Not a soul spoke, and they all scowled fiercely at the brandy, the rosolio, and each other. A ghastly and tuneless quartette of instruments doled out a melancholy dirge, slower than anything you ever heard at a funeral; and now and then some enterprising and funereal man led out a less enterprising but equally melancholy female in a strange step, like the tormented ghost of a waltz in chains. It was so hideous that I went out and laughed till I almost had a fit. I have never thought anything seemed very solemn since then — it destroyed the proportion in my brain. A pauper’s burial on a rainy day in London is a wildly gay entertainment compared with that ball.”
Leonora laughed, and even Diana smiled; whereupon Julius was satisfied, and relapsed into silence. But Leonora wanted conversation.
“What in the world took you to Guatemala, Mr. Batiscombe?” she asked.
“That is a question which I cannot answer, Marchesa,” he replied. “I believe I went there for some reason or other — chiefly because I could go for nothing, and wanted to see something new.”
“Can you always go to Guatemala for nothing?” asked Leonora. “It must be very amusing.”
“A steamer company offered me a free passage to any port in their service,” said Batiscombe; “and as the next ship went to Guatemala, I sailed with her. It happened to be first on the list.”
“What a queer idea!” exclaimed Leonora.
“You are too modest, Mr. Batiscombe,” said Diana. “You ought to tell the whole story — it is very interesting.” Her voice was less cold than when she had spoken last.
“Oh, do tell the story!” cried Leonora. “I adore autobiographies!”
“Mon Dieu!” said Julius, “there is very little to tell. I did a service to a ship belonging to the company, and in acknowledgment they presented me with a piece of plate and the free passage in question. Voilà tout! madame is too good when she says it was interesting.”
“If Monsieur Batiscombe will not be so obliging as to relate the experience, I will,” said Diana. “He shall correct me if I make a mistake.”
Batiscombe looked annoyed. He was not fond of telling his own adventures, and he hated to hear them told by other people. He could not imagine why Diana wanted to hear the story. He was irritated already, and her conduct seemed more and more inexplicable. Leonora looked at him expectantly.
Who can understand a woman? It may be that Diana, who was really fond of him in a strange fashion, was sorry for the position she had taken that afternoon, and was willing to atone by giving him the credit before Leonora of some fine action he had done.
“It was three years ago or more, in the winter,” began Diana. “Monsieur Batiscombe was travelling in a ship on the coast of America. There were a hundred passengers on board, or more, and a crew of thirty-five. Is that exact?”
Julius bent his head and turned away.
“Eh bien, there was a great storm — such as there are in the ocean. It is horrible, you may imagine. The ship was driven on the rocks, a long distance from the shore. A reef, you call it, n’est-ce-pas?”
“Yes,” said Batiscombe. “Fifty or sixty yards from the shore.”
“Good. What do they do? Six brave sailors volunteer to throw themselves into the sea in a chaloupe — a miserable boat” —
“And monsieur was one of the volunteers” — exclaimed Leonora, enthusiastically.
“Not at all, my dear friend. The boat overturns; the sailors are immediately drowned; every one is in consternation. Then Monsieur Batiscombe arrives; he says he will save everybody; he ties a thin line — a mere string — to his waist; he throws himself to the sea. The passengers scream as they cling to the ropes and the side, while the vessel is beaten horribly on the reef. He struggles in the waves, swimming; he is thrown down again and again in the breakers; he rises and rushes on to the shore. Then he pulls the string, and after the string a rope. A sailor ventures down and he also reaches the land. They fasten the rope, and every one is saved — passengers, crew, captain, tout le monde. Ah, Batiscombe, why are you not always doing such things, — you, who can do them so well?”
Madame de Charleroi’s grey eyes were wide and bright, and a very faint colour rose to her cheeks as she told the story. The calm, regal woman took a genuine delight in great actions, and as she turned to Julius at the end there was a ring of real sympathy and friendship and regret in her voice that it gave Leonora a strange sensation to hear.
“It was magnificently brave!” exclaimed Leonora in English, and she looked at Julius as though she admired him with all her heart and soul.
She had always had a feeling that he had probably made himself remarkable in such ways, but he always had told her that his life had been uneventful. To think that this calm, smooth, well-dressed, fine gentleman should have saved a whole shipload of lives by sheer strength and courage! Ah, he was a man, indeed!
But Batiscombe never moved. He stood looking seaward, his eyelids half closed, and a thoughtful look on his brown face. Indeed, he was thinking deeply, but not so much of the old story Diana had been telling as of herself. The strange appeal in her last words had touched the good chord in his wayward heart, and he was thinking how fair his life might have been with her, — and how dark it had been without her. And the old true love rose up for one moment, hiding Leonora and the rest, and all the intervening years, and sending hot words to his ready lips. He turned in the act to speak, forgetting where he was, — then checked himself. Both Leonora and Diana had seen that he was going to say something, for they were watching him. He hesitated.
“I ought to thank you, madame,” he said to Diana, “for gilding my adventure so richly. But as for the thing itself, and the doing of such things, the opportunity seldom offers, and the faculty for doing them is the result of an excellent digestion and quiet nerves. Meanwhile it is grown cooler, and the boats are below. Shall we go down, and sail a little before dinner?”
The two ladies consented readily enough, and they all descended to the la
nding and got into one of the boats and pushed away.
“I shall have quite a new sensation in future when I sail with you, Mr. Batiscombe,” said Leonora. “It would be impossible to be drowned with you on board.”
But Diana was pale again, and settled herself among the cushions in silence.
Far up above, Marcantonio was interviewing the coachman on the terrace. He looked down and saw the boat shoot out with the three members of his household. He rubbed his hands smoothly together.
“Ha,” he said to himself, “it is superb! What good friends they are all growing to be! En vérité, Batiscombe is a most amiable man, full of tact.”
CHAPTER XIII.
LATE THAT EVENING Julius was sitting in a corner of the broad terrace over the sea. The clouds had cleared away before the light easterly breeze that springs up at night, and the stars shone brightly. Down in the west the young moon had set, and the air was fresh and cool after the long, hot day. Julius had drawn an arm-chair away from the house and was smoking solemnly, in enjoyment of the night. He found that he had much to think of. The rest of the household had gone to bed, or at all events had retired to their rooms.
It had been a day of emotions with him, and that was unusual, to begin with. His feeling for Leonora was growing to great proportions. He knew that very well; and in spite of the momentary burst of passion, which, if he had been alone with Madame de Charleroi, would have found expression in words which he would have regretted and she would have resented, he now felt that he was irritated against her and could not forgive her inopportune interruption. All his opposition was roused; and as if in despite of his old love he dwelt on the thoughts of the present, and delighted in recalling the details of the fair Marchesa’s conversation, the quickly changing expression of her face, the tones of her voice, the grace of her movements. She was so strong and living that he felt his whole being permeated with the atmosphere and essence of her life.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 68