Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Why ridiculous?”

  “Because you ought to know the answer well enough. Imagine comparing the moon with Chinese lanterns!”

  “Your mother prefers the latter.”

  “Oh, mamma — of course! She is so practical. She would prefer carriage lamps on the trees — gas if possible! When are we going to Tragara? Where is it? Which boat shall we take? Oh, it is too delightful! Can we not go to-night?”

  “We can do anything which Donna Beatrice likes,” answered San Miniato. “But if you will listen to me, I will explain why to-morrow would be better. In the first place, we have dined once this evening, so that we could not dine again.”

  “We could call it supper,” suggested Beatrice.

  “Of course we could, if we could eat it at all. But it is also ten o’clock, and we could not get to Tragara before one or two in the morning. Lastly, your mother would not go.”

  “Will she go to-morrow?” asked Beatrice with sudden anxiety. “Have you asked her?”

  “She will go,” answered San Miniato confidently. “We must make her comfortable. That is the principal thing.”

  “Yes. She shall have her maid and we must take a chair for her to sit in, and another to carry her, and two porters, and a lamp, and a table, and a servant to wait on her. And she will want champagne, well iced, and a carpet for her feet, and a screen to keep the wind from her, if there is any, and several more things which I shall remember. But I know all about it, for we once made a little excursion from Taormina and dined out of doors, and I know exactly what she wants.”

  “Very well, she shall have everything,” said San Miniato smiling at the catalogue of the Marchesa’s wants. “If she will only go, we will do all we can.”

  “When it is time, let the two porters come in here with the chair and take her away,” answered Beatrice. “Dear mamma! She will be much too lazy to resist. What fun it will be!”

  And everything was done as Beatrice had wished. San Miniato made a list of things absolutely indispensable to the Marchesa. The number of articles was about two hundred and their bulk filled a boat which was despatched early in the following afternoon to be rowed over to Tragara and unloaded before the party arrived.

  Ruggiero and his brother worked hard at the preparations, silent, untiring and efficient as usual, but delighted in their hearts at the prospect of something less monotonous than the daily sail or the daily row within sight of Sorrento. To men who have knocked about the sea for years, from Santa Cruz to Sebastopol, the daily life of a sailor on a little pleasure boat lacks interest, and if circumstances had been, different Ruggiero would probably have shipped before now as boatswain on board one of the neat schooners which are yearly built at the Piano di Sorrento, to be sold with their cargoes of salt as soon as they reach Buenos Ayres. But Ruggiero had contracted that malady of the heart which had taken him to the chemist’s for the first time in his life, and which materially hindered the formation of any plan by which he might be obliged to leave his present situation. Moreover the disease showed no signs of yielding; on the contrary, the action of the vital organ concerned became more and more spasmodic and alarming, while its possessor grew daily leaner and more silent.

  The last package had been taken down, the last of the score of articles which the Marchesa was sure to want with her in the sail boat before she reached the spot where the main cargo of comforts would be waiting; the last sandwich, the last box of sweetmeats, the iced lemonade, the wraps and the parasols were all stowed away in their places. Then San Miniato went to fetch the Marchesa, marshalling in his two porters with their chair between them.

  “Dearest Marchesa,” said the Count, “if you will give yourself the trouble to sit in this chair, I will promise that no further exertion shall be required of you.”

  The Marchesa di Mola looked up with a glance of sleepy astonishment.

  “And why in that chair, dearest friend? I am so comfortable here. And why have you brought those two men with you?”

  “Have you forgotten our dinner at Tragara?” asked San Miniato.

  “Tragara!” gasped the Marchesa. “You are not going to take me to Tragara! Good heavens! I am utterly exhausted! I shall die before we get to the boat.”

  “Altro è parlar di morte — altro è morire,” laughed San Miniato, quoting the famous song. “It is one thing to talk of death, it is quite another to die. Only this little favour Marchesa gentilissima — to seat yourself in this chair. We will do the rest.”

  “Without a hat? Just as I am? Impossible! Come in an hour — then I shall be ready. My maid, San Miniato — send for Teresina. Dio mio! I can never go! Go without us, dearest friend — go and dine on your hideous rocks and leave us the little comfort we need so much!”

  But protestations were vain. Teresina appeared and fastened the hat of the period upon her mistress’s head. The hat of the period chanced to be a one-sided monstrosity at that time, something between a cart wheel, an umbrella and a flower garden, depending for its stability upon the proper position of several solid skewers, apparently stuck through the head of the wearer. This headpiece having been adjusted the Marchesa asked for a cigarette, lighted it and looked about her.

  “It is really too much!” she exclaimed. “Button my gloves, Teresina. I shall not go after all, not even to please you, dearest friend. What a place of torture this world is! How right we are to try and get a comfortable stall in the next! Go away, San Miniato. It is quite useless.”

  But San Miniato knew what he was doing. With gentle strength he made her rise from her seat and placed her in the chair. The porters lifted their burden, settled the straps upon their shoulders, the man in front glanced back at the man behind, both nodded and marched away.

  “This is too awful!” sighed the Marchesa, as she was carried out of the door of the sitting room. “How can you have the heart, dearest friend! An invalid like me! And I was supremely comfortable where I was.”

  But at this point Beatrice appeared and joined the procession, radiant, fresh as a fragrant wood-flower, full of life as a young bird. Behind her came Teresina, the maid, necessary at every minute for the Marchesa’s comfort, her pink young cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkling with anticipation, fastening on her hat as she walked.

  “I was never so happy in my life,” laughed Beatrice. “And to think that you have really captured mamma in spite of herself! Oh, mamma, you will enjoy it so much! I promise you shall. There is iced champagne, and the foot warmer and the marrons glacés and the lamp and everything you like — and quails stuffed with truffles, besides. Now do be happy and let us enjoy ourselves!”

  “But where are all these things?” asked the Marchesa. “I shall believe when I see.”

  “Everything is at Tragara already,” answered Beatrice tripping down the stairs beside her mother’s chair. “And we really will enjoy ourselves,” she added, turning her head with a bewitching smile, and looking back at San Miniato. “What a general you are!”

  “If you could convince the Minister of War of that undoubted fact, you would be conferring the greatest possible favour upon me,” said the Count. “He would have no trouble in persuading me to return to the army as commander-in-chief, though I left the service as a captain.”

  So they went down the long winding way cut through the soft tufo rock and found the boat waiting for them by the little landing. The Marchesa actually took the trouble to step on board instead of trusting herself to the strong arms of Ruggiero. Beatrice followed her. As she set her foot on the gunwale Ruggiero held up his hand towards her to help her. It was not the first time this duty had fallen to him, but she was more radiantly fresh to-day than he had ever seen her before, and the spasm that seemed to crush his heart for a moment was more violent than usual. His strong joints trembled at her light touch and his face turned white. She felt that his hand shook and she glanced at him when she stood in the boat.

  “Are you ill, Ruggiero?” she asked, in a kindly tone.

  “No, E
xcellency,” he answered in a low voice that was far from steady, while the shadow of a despairing smile flickered over his features.

  He put up his hand to help Teresina, the maid. She pressed it hard as she jumped down, and smiled with much intention at the handsome sailor. But she got no answer for her look, and he turned away and shoved the boat off the little stone pier. Bastianello was watching them both, and wishing himself in Ruggiero’s place. But Ruggiero, as he believed, had loved the pretty Teresina first, and Ruggiero had the first right to win her if he could.

  So the boat shot out upon the crisping water into the light afternoon breeze, and up went foresail and mainsail and jib, and away she went on the port tack, San Miniato steering and talking to Beatrice — which things are not to be done together with advantage — the Marchesa lying back in a cane rocking-chair and thinking of nothing, while Teresina held the parasol over her mistress’s head and shot bright glances at the sailors forward. And Ruggiero and Bastianello sat side by side amidships looking out at the gleaming sea to windward.

  “What hast thou?” asked Bastianello in a low voice.

  “The pain,” answered his brother.

  “Why let thyself be consumed by it? Ask her in marriage. The Marchesa will give her to thee.”

  “Better to die! Thou dost not know all.”

  “That may be,” said Bastianello with a sigh.

  And he slowly began to fake down the slack of the main halyard on the thwart, twisting the coil slowly and thoughtfully as it grew under his broad hands, till the rope lay in a perfectly smooth disk beside him. But Ruggiero changed his position and gazed steadily at Beatrice’s changing face while San Miniato talked to her.

  So the boat sped on and many of those on board misunderstood each other, and some did not understand themselves. But what was most clear to all before long was that San Miniato could not make love and steer his trick at the same time.

  “Are we going to Castellamare?” asked Bastianello in a low voice as the boat fell off more and more under the Count’s careless steering.

  Ruggiero started. For the first time in his life he had forgotten that he was at sea.

  CHAPTER V.

  SAN MINIATO DID not possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed another flagrant breach of seamanship.

  “You will certainly take us to the bottom of the bay instead of to Tragara,” observed the Marchesa languidly. “But then at least my discomforts will be over for ever. Of course there is no lemonade on board. Teresina, I want lemonade.”

  In an instant Bastianello produced a decanter out of a bucket of snow and brought it aft with a glass. The Marchesa smiled.

  “You do things very well, dearest friend,” she said, and moistened her lips in the cold liquid.

  “Donna Beatrice has had more to do with providing for your comfort than I,” answered the Count.

  The Marchesa smiled lazily, sipped about a teaspoonful from the glass and handed it to her maid.

  “Drink, Teresina,” she said. “It will refresh you.”

  The girl drank eagerly.

  “You see,” said the Marchesa, “I can think of the comfort of others as well as of my own.”

  San Miniato smiled politely and Beatrice laughed. Her laughter hurt the silent sailor perched behind her, as though a glass had been broken in his face. How could she be so gay when his heart was beating so hard for her? He drew his breath sharply and looked out to sea, as many a heart-broken man has looked across that fair water since woman first learned that men’s hearts could break.

  It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was already low, rolling down to his western bath behind Capo Miseno, northernmost of all his daily plunges in the year; and as he sank, the colours he had painted on the hills at dawn returned behind him, richer and deeper and rarer for the heat he had given them all day. There, like a mass of fruit and flowers in a red gold bowl, Sorrento lay in the basin of the surrounding mountains, all gilded above and full of rich shadows below. Over all, the great Santangelo raised his misty head against the pale green eastern sky, gazing down at the life below, at the living land and the living sea, and remembering, perhaps, the silent days before life was, or looking forward to the night to come in which there will be no life left any more. For who shall tell me that the earth herself may not be a living, thinking, feeling being, on whose not unkindly bosom we wear out our little lives, but whose high loves are with the stars, beyond our sight, and her voice too deep and musical for ears used to our shrill human speech? Who shall say surely that she is not conscious of our presence, of some of our doings when we tear her breast and lay burdens upon her neck and plough up her fair skin with our hideous works, or when we touch her kindly and love her, and plant sweet flowers in soft places? Who shall know and teach us that the summer breeze is not her breath, the storm the sobbing of her passion, the rain her woman’s tears — that she is not alive, loving and suffering, as we all have been, are, or would be, but greater than we as the star she loves somewhere is greater and stronger than herself? And we live upon her, and feed on her and all die and are taken back into her whence we came, wondering much of the truth that is hidden, learning perhaps at last the great secret she keeps so well. Her life, too, will end some day, her last blossom will have bloomed alone, her last tears will have fallen upon her own bosom, her last sob will have rent the air, and the beautiful earth will be dead for ever, borne on in the sweep of the race that will never end, borne along yet a few ages, till her sweet body turns to star-dust in the great emptiness of a night without morning.

  But Ruggiero, plain strong man of the people, hard-handed sailor, was not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter’s unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice’s face, now turned towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not understand all the fine words Beatrice and San Miniato used. If he had never been away from the coast, the probability is that he would have understood nothing at all; but in his long voyages he had been thrown with men of other parts of Italy and had picked up a smattering of what Neapolitans call Italian, to distinguish it from their own speech. Even as it was, the most part of what they said escaped him, because they seemed to think so very differently from him about simple matters, and to be so heartily amused at what seemed so dull to him. And he began to feel that the hurt he had was deep and not to be healed, while he reflected that he was undoubtedly mad, since he loved this lady so much while understanding her so little. The mere feeling that she could talk and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness shows itself among men.

  Why, for instance, did the young girl’s cheek flush and her eyes sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero hated Frenchmen with all his heart. Then they talked about the theatre and Beatrice was evidently interested. Ruggiero had once seen a puppet show and had not found it at all funny. The theatre was only a big puppet show, and he could pay for a seat there if he pleased; but he did not please, because he was sure that it would not amuse him to go. Why should Beatrice like the theatre? And she liked the races at Naples, too, and those at Paris much better. Why? Everybody knew that one horse could run faster than another, without trying it, but it could not matter a straw which of two, or twenty, got to the goal first. Horses were not boats. Now there was sense in a boat race, or a yacht race, or a steamer race. But a ho
rse! He might be first to-day, and to-morrow if he had not enough to eat he might be last. Was a horse a Christian? You could not count upon him. And then they began to talk of love and Ruggiero’s heart stood still, for that, at least, he could understand.

  “Love!” laughed Beatrice, repeating the word. “It always makes one laugh. Were you ever in love, mamma?”

  The Marchesa turned her head slowly, and lifted her sleepy eyes to look at her daughter, before she answered.

  “No,” she said lazily. “I was never in love. But you are far too young to talk of such things.”

  “San Miniato says that love is for the young and friendship for the old.”

  “Love,” said San Miniato, “is a necessary evil, but it is also the greatest source of happiness.”

  “What a fine phrase!” exclaimed Beatrice. “You must be a professor in disguise.”

  “A professor of love?” asked the Count with a very well executed look of tenderness which did not escape Ruggiero.

  “Hush, for the love of heaven!” interposed the Marchesa. “This is too dreadful!”

  “We were not talking of the love of heaven,” answered Beatrice mischievously.

  “I was thinking at least of a love that could make any place a heaven,” said San Miniato, again helping his lack of originality with his eyes.

  Ruggiero reflected that it would be but the affair of a second to unship the heavy brass tiller and bring it down once on the top of his master’s skull. Once would be enough.

  “Whose love?” asked Beatrice innocently.

  San Miniato looked at her again, then turned away his eyes and sighed audibly.

  “Well?” asked Beatrice. “Will you answer. I do not understand that language. Whose love would make any place — Timbuctoo, for instance — a heaven for you?”

  “Discretion is the only virtue a man ought to exhibit whenever he has a chance,” said San Miniato.

  “Perhaps. But even that should be shown without ostentation.” Beatrice laughed. “And you are decidedly ostentatious at the present moment. It would interest mamma and me very much to know the object of your affections.”