Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Yes. We shall be dead a long time. Better drink now.” And Griggs drank.

  “‘Fire and sleet and candle-light,

  And Christ receive thy soul;’”

  said Dalrymple, with a far-away look in his pale eyes. “Do you know the Lyke-Wake Dirge, Griggs? It is a grand dirge. Hark to the swing of it.

  “‘This ae night, this ae night,

  Every night and all,

  Fire and sleet and candle-light,

  And Christ receive thy soul.’”

  He repeated the strange words in a dull, matter-of-fact way, with a Scotch accent rarely perceptible in his conversation. Griggs listened. He had heard the dirge before, with all its many stanzas, and it had always had an odd fascination for him. He said nothing.

  “It bodes no good to be singing a dirge at a betrothal,” said the Scotchman, suddenly. “Drink, man, drink! Drink till the blue devils fly away. Drink —

  “‘Till a’ the seas gang dry, my love,

  Till a’ the seas gang dry.’

  Not that it is in the disposition of the Italian inn-keeper to give us time for that,” he added drily. “As I was saying, I am of a melancholic temper. Not that I take you for a gay man yourself, Griggs. Drink a little more. It is my opinion that a little more will produce an agreeable impression upon you, my young friend. Drink a little more. You are too grave for so very young a man. I should not wish to be indiscreet, but I might almost take you for a man in love, if I did not know you better. Were you ever in love, Griggs?”

  “Yes,” answered Griggs, quietly. “And you, Dalrymple? Were you never in love?”

  Dalrymple’s loosely hung shoulders started suddenly, and his pale blue eyes set themselves steadily to look at Griggs. The red brows were shaggy, and there was a bright red spot on each cheek bone. He did not answer his companion’s question, though his lips moved once or twice as though he were about to speak. They seemed unable to form words, and no sound came from them.

  His anger was near, perhaps, and with another man it might have broken out. But the pale and stony face opposite him, and the deep, still eyes, exercised a quieting influence, and whatever words rose to his lips were never spoken. Griggs understood that he had touched the dead body of a great passion, sacred in its death as it must have been overwhelming in its life. He struck another subject immediately, and pretended not to have noticed Dalrymple’s expression.

  “I like your queer old Scotch ballads,” he said, humouring the man’s previous tendency to quote poetry.

  “There’s a lot of life in them still,” answered Dalrymple, absently twisting his empty glass.

  Griggs filled it for him, and they both drank. Little by little the Italians had begun to go away. Giulio, the fat, white-jacketed drawer, sat nodding in a corner, and the light from the high lamp gleamed on his smooth black hair as his head fell forward.

  “There is a sincere vitality in our Scotch poets,” said Dalrymple, as though not satisfied with the short answer he had given. “There is a very notable power of active living exhibited in their somewhat irregular versification, and in the concatenation of their ratiocinations regarding the three principal actions of the early Scottish life, which I take to have been birth, stealing, and a violent death.”

  “‘But of these three charity is the greatest,’” observed Griggs, with something like a laugh, for he saw that Dalrymple was beginning to make long sentences, which is a bad sign for a Scotchman’s sobriety.

  “No,” answered Dalrymple, with much gravity. “There I venture — indeed, I claim the right — to differ with you. For the Scotchman is hospitable, but not charitable. The process of the Scotch mind is unitary, if you will allow me to coin a word for which I will pay with my glass.”

  And he forthwith fulfilled the obligation in a deep draught. Setting down the tumbler, he leaned back in his chair and looked slowly round the room. His lips moved. Griggs could just distinguish the last lines of another old ballad.

  “‘Night and day on me she cries,

  And I am weary of the skies

  Since—’”

  He broke off and shook himself nervously, and looked at Griggs, as though wondering whether the latter had heard.

  “This wine is good,” he said, rousing himself. “Let us have some more. Giulio!”

  The fat waiter awoke instantly at the call, looked, nodded, went out, and returned immediately with another bottle.

  “Is this the sixth or the seventh?” asked Dalrymple, slowly.

  “Eight with Signor Reanda’s,” answered the man. “But Signor Reanda paid for his as he went out. You have therefore seven. It might be enough.” Giulio smiled.

  “Bring seven more, Giulio,” said the Scotchman, gravely. “It will save you six journeys.”

  “Does the Signore speak in earnest?” asked the servant, and he glanced at Griggs, who was impassive as marble.

  “You flatter yourself,” said Dalrymple, impressively, to the man, “if you imagine that I would make even a bad joke to amuse you. Bring seven bottles.” Giulio departed.

  “That is a Homeric order,” observed Griggs.

  “I think — in fact, I am almost sure — that seven bottles more will produce an impression upon one of us. But I have a decidedly melancholic disposition, and I accustomed myself to Italian wine when I was very young. Melancholy people can drink more than others. Besides, what does such a bottle hold? I will show you. A tumbler to you, and one to me. Drink; you shall see.”

  He emptied his glass and poured the remainder of the bottle into it.

  “Do you see? Half a tumbler. Two and a half are a bottle. Seven bottles are seventeen and a half glasses. What is that for you or me in a long evening? My blue devils are large. It would take an ocean to float them all. I insist upon going to bed in a good humour to-night, for once, in honour of my daughter’s engagement. By the bye, Griggs, what do you think of Reanda?”

  “He is a first-rate artist. I like him very well.”

  “A good man, eh? Well, well — from the point of view of discretion, Griggs, I am doing right. But then, as you may very wisely object, discretion is only a point of view. The important thing is the view, and not the point. Here comes Ganymede with the seven vials of wrath! Put them on the table, Giulio,” he said, as the fat waiter came noiselessly up, carrying the bottles by the necks between his fingers, three in one hand and four in the other. “They make a fine show, all together,” he observed thoughtfully, with his bony head a little on one side.

  “And may God bless you!” said Giulio, solemnly. “If you do not die to-night, you will never die again.”

  “I regard it as improbable that we shall die more than once,” answered Dalrymple. “I believe,” he said, turning to Griggs, “that when men are drunk they make mistakes about money. We will pay now, while we are sober.”

  Griggs insisted on paying his share. They settled, and Giulio went away happy.

  The two strong men sat opposite to each other, under the high lamp in the small room, drinking on and on. There was something terrifying in the Scotchman’s determination to lose his senses — something grimly horrible in the younger man’s marble impassiveness, as he swallowed glass for glass in time with his companion. His face grew paler still, and colder, but there was a far-off gleaming in the shadowy eyes, like the glimmer of a light over a lonely plain through the dark. Dalrymple’s spirits did not rise, but he talked more and more, and his sentences became long and involved, and sometimes had no conclusion. The wine was telling on him at last. He had never been so strong as Griggs, at his best, and he was no match for him now. The younger man’s strangely dual nature seemed to place his head beyond anything which could affect his senses.

  Dalrymple talked on and on, rambling from one subject to another, and not waiting for any answer when he asked a question. He quoted long ballads and long passages from Shakespeare, and then turned suddenly off upon a scientific subject, until some word of his own suggested another quotation.

  Griggs
sat quietly in his seat, drinking as steadily, but paying little attention now to what the Scotchman said. Something had got hold of his heart, and was grinding it like grain between the millstones, grinding it to dust and ashes. He knew that he could not sleep that night. He might as well drink, for it could not hurt him. Nothing material had power to hurt him, it seemed. He felt the pain of longing for the utterly unattainable, knowing that it was beyond him forever. The widowhood of the unsatisfied is hell, compared with the bereavement of complete possession. He had not so much as told Gloria that he had loved her. How could he, being but one degree above a beggar? The unspoken words burned furrows in his heart, as molten metal scores smoking channels in living flesh. Gloria would laugh, if she knew. The torture made his face white. There was the scorn of himself with it, because a mere child could hurt him almost to death, and that made it worse. A mere child, barely out of the schoolroom, petulant, spoiled, selfish!

  But she had the glory of heaven in her voice, and in her face the fatal beauty of her dead mother’s deadly sin. He need not have despised himself for loving her. Her whole being appealed to that in man to which no woman ever appealed in vain since the first Adam sold heaven to Satan for woman’s love.

  Dalrymple, leaning on his elbow, one hand in his streaked beard, the other grasping his glass, talked on and quoted more and more.

  “‘The flame took fast upon her cheek,

  Took fast upon her chin,

  Took fast upon her fair body

  Because of her deadly sin.’”

  His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper at the last words, and suddenly, regardless of his companion, his hand covered his eyes, and his long fingers strained desperately on his bony forehead. Griggs watched him, thinking that he was drunk at last.

  “Because of her deadly sin,” he repeated slowly, and the tone changed. “There is no sin in it!” he cried suddenly, in a low voice, that had a distant, ghostly ring in it.

  He looked up, and his eyes were changed, and Griggs knew that they no longer saw him.

  “Stiff,” he said softly. “Quite stiff. Dead two or three hours, I daresay. It stands up on its feet beside me — certainly dead two or three hours.”

  He nodded wisely to himself twice, and then spoke again in the same far-off tone, gazing past Griggs, at the wall.

  “The clothes-basket is a silly idea. Besides, I should lose the night. Rather carry it myself — wrap it up in the plaid. She’ll never know, when she has it on her head. Who cares?”

  A long silence followed. One hand grasped the empty glass. The other lay motionless on the table. The blue eyes, with widely dilated pupils, stared at the wall, never blinking nor turning. But in the face there was the drawn expression of a bodily effort. Presently Griggs saw the fine beads of perspiration on the great forehead. Then the voice spoke again, but in Italian this time.

  “You had better look away while I go by. It is not a pretty sight. No,” he continued, changing to English, “not at all a pretty sight. Stiff as a board still.”

  The unwinking eyes dilated. The bright colour was gone from the cheek bones.

  “It burns very well,” he said again in Italian. The whole face quivered and the hard lips softened and kissed the air. “It is golden — I can see it in the dark — but I must cover it, darling. Quick — this way. At last! No — you cannot see the fire, but it is burning well, I am sure. Hold on! Hold the pommel of the saddle with both hands — so!”

  The voice ceased. Griggs began to understand. He touched Dalrymple’s sleeve, leaning across the table.

  “I say!” he called softly. “Dalrymple!”

  The Scotchman started violently, and the pupils of his eyes contracted. The empty glass in his right hand rattled on the hard wood. Then he smiled vaguely at Griggs.

  “By Jove!” he exclaimed in his natural voice. “I think I must have been napping— ‘Sleep’ry Sim of the Lamb-hill, and snoring Jock of Suport-mill!’ By Jove, Griggs, we have got near the point at last. One bottle left, eh? The seventh.

  “‘Then up and gat the seventh o’ them,

  And never a word spake he;

  But he has striped his bright brown brand—’

  The rest has no bearing upon the subject,” he concluded, filling both glasses. “Griggs,” he said, before he drank, “I am afraid this settles the matter.”

  “I am afraid it does,” said Griggs.

  “Yes. I had hopes a little while ago, which appeared well founded. But that unfortunate little nap has sent me back to the starting-point. I should have to begin all over again. It is very late, I fancy. Let us drink this last glass to our own two selves, and then give it up.”

  Something had certainly sobered the Scotchman again, or at least cleared his head, for he had not been drunk in the ordinary sense of the word.

  “It cannot be said that we have not given the thing a fair trial,” said Griggs, gloomily. “I shall certainly not take the trouble to try it again.”

  Nevertheless he looked at his companion curiously, as they both rose to their feet together. Dalrymple doubled his long arms as he stood up and stretched them out.

  “It is curious,” he said. “I feel as though I had been carrying a heavy weight in my arms. I did once, for some distance,” he added thoughtfully, “and I remember the sensation.”

  “Very odd,” said Griggs, lighting a cigar.

  Giulio, sitting outside, half asleep, woke up as he heard the steady tread of the two strong men go by.

  “If you do not die to-night, you will never die again!” he said, half aloud, as he rose to go in and clear the room where the guests had been sitting.

  “As he stood there repeating the name.” — Vol. II., .

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  DURING THE FIRST few months of their marriage Reanda and Gloria believed themselves happy, and really were, since there is no true criterion of man’s happiness but his own belief in it. They took a small furnished apartment at the corner of the Macel de’ Corvi, with an iron balcony overlooking the Forum of Trajan. They would have had no difficulty in obtaining other rooms adjoining the two Reanda had so long occupied in the Palazzetto Borgia, but Gloria was opposed to the arrangement, and Reanda did not insist upon it. The Forum of Trajan was within a convenient distance of the palace, and he went daily to his work.

  “Besides,” said Gloria, “you will not always be painting frescoes for Donna Francesca. I want you to paint a great picture, and send it to Paris and get a medal.”

  She was ambitious for him, and dreamed of his winning world-wide fame. She loved him, and she felt that Francesca had caged him, as Francesca herself had once felt. She wished to remove him altogether from the latter’s influence, both because she was frankly jealous of his friendship for the older woman, and wished to have him quite to herself, and also in the belief that he could do greater things if he were altogether freed from the task of decorating the palace, which had kept him far too long in one limited sequence of production. There was, moreover, a selfish consideration of vanity in her view, closely linked with her unbounded admiration for her husband. She knew that she was beautiful, and she wished his greatest work to be a painting of herself.

  Gloria, however, wished also to take a position in Roman society, and the only person who could help her and her husband to cross the line was Francesca Campodonico. It was therefore impossible for Gloria to break up the intimacy altogether, however much she might wish to do so. Meanwhile, too, Reanda had not finished his frescoes.

  Soon after the marriage, which took place in the summer, Dalrymple left Rome, intending to be absent but a few months in Scotland, where his presence was necessary on account of certain family affairs and arrangements consequent upon the death of Lord Redin, the head of his branch of the Dalrymples, and of Lord Redin’s son only a few weeks later, whereby the title went to an aged great-uncle of Angus Dalrymple’s, who was unmarried, so that Dalrymple’s only brother became the next heir.

  Gloria was therefore quite alone with her hu
sband. Paul Griggs had also left Rome for a time on business connected with his journalistic career. He had in reality been unwilling to expose himself to the unnecessary suffering of witnessing Gloria’s happiness, and had taken the earliest opportunity of going away. Gloria herself was at first pleased by his departure. Later, however, she wished that he would come back. She had no one to whom she could turn when she was in need of any advice on matters which Reanda could not or would not decide.

  Reanda himself was at first as absolutely happy as he had expected to be, and Francesca Campodonico congratulated herself on having brought about a perfectly successful match. While he continued to work at the Palazzetto Borgia, the two were often together for hours, as in former times. Gloria had at first come regularly in the course of the morning and sat in the hall while her husband was painting, but she had found it a monotonous affair after a while. Reanda could not talk perpetually. More than once, indeed, he introduced his wife’s face amongst the many he painted, and she was pleased, though not satisfied. He could not make her one of the central figures which appeared throughout the series, because the greater part of the work was done already, and it was necessary to preserve the continuity of each resemblance. Gloria wished to be the first everywhere, though she did not say so.

  Little by little, she came less regularly in the mornings. She either stayed at home and studied seriously the soprano parts of the great operas then fashionable, or invented small errands which kept her out of doors. She sometimes met Reanda when he left the palace, and they walked home together to their midday breakfast.

  Little by little, also, Francesca fell into the habit of visiting Reanda in the great hall at hours when she was sure that Gloria would not be there. It was not that she disliked to see them together, but rather because she felt that Gloria was secretly antagonistic. There was a small, perpetual, unexpressed hostility in Gloria’s manner which could not escape so sensitive a woman as Francesca. Reanda felt it, too, but said nothing. He was almost foolishly in love with his wife, and he was devotedly attached to Francesca herself. For the present he was very simple in his dealings with himself, and he quietly shut his eyes to the possibility of a disagreement between the two women, though he felt that it was in the air.