_Chapter 3_
In the miles of morning sunshine, Siegmund's shadows, his children,Beatrice, his sorrow, dissipated like mist, and he was elated as a youngman setting forth to travel. When he had passed Portsmouth Towneverything had vanished but the old gay world of romance. He laughed ashe looked out of the carriage window.
Below, in the street, a military band passed glittering. A brave soundfloated up, and again he laughed, loving the tune, the clash and glitterof the band, the movement of scarlet, blithe soldiers beyond the park.People were drifting brightly from church. How could it be Sunday! Itwas no time; it was Romance, going back to Tristan.
Women, like crocus flowers, in white and blue and lavender, moved gaily.Everywhere fluttered the small flags of holiday. Every form dancedlightly in the sunshine.
And beyond it all were the silent hillsides of the island, with Helena.It was so wonderful, he could bear to be patient. She would be all inwhite, with her cool, thick throat left bare to the breeze, her faceshining, smiling as she dipped her head because of the sun, whichglistened on her uncovered hair.
He breathed deeply, stirring at the thought. But he would not growimpatient. The train had halted over the town, where scarlet soldiers,and ludicrous blue sailors, and all the brilliant women from churchshook like a kaleidoscope down the street. The train crawled on, drawingnear to the sea, for which Siegmund waited breathless. It was so likeHelena, blue, beautiful, strong in its reserve.
Another moment they were in the dirty station. Then the day flashed out,and Siegmund mated with joy. He felt the sea heaving below him. Helooked round, and the sea was blue as a periwinkle flower, while goldand white and blood-red sails lit here and there upon the blueness.Standing on the deck, he gave himself to the breeze and to the sea,feeling like one of the ruddy sails--as if he were part of it all. Allhis body radiated amid the large, magnificent sea-moon like a pieceof colour.
The little ship began to pulse, to tremble. White with the softness of abosom, the water rose up frothing and swaying gently. Ships drew nearthe inquisitive birds; the old _Victory_ shook her myriad pointed flagsof yellow and scarlet; the straight old houses of the quay passed by.
Outside the harbour, like fierce creatures of the sea come wildly up tolook, the battleships laid their black snouts on the water. Siegmundlaughed at them. He felt the foam on his face like a sparkling, felt theblue sea gathering round.
On the left stood the round fortress, quaintly chequered, and solidlyalone in the walk of water, amid the silent flight of the golden-andcrimson-winged boats.
Siegmund watched the bluish bulk of the island. Like the beautiful womenin the myths, his love hid in its blue haze. It seemed impossible.Behind him, the white wake trailed myriads of daisies. On either handthe grim and wicked battleships watched along their sharp noses. Beneathhim the clear green water swung and puckered as if it were laughing. Infront, Sieglinde's island drew near and nearer, creeping towards him,bringing him Helena.
Meadows and woods appeared, houses crowded down to the shore to meethim; he was in the quay, and the ride was over. Siegmund regretted it.But Helena was on the island, which rode like an anchored ship under thefleets of cloud that had launched whilst Siegmund was on water. As hewatched the end of the pier loom higher, large ponderous trains of cloudcast over him the shadows of their bulk, and he shivered in thechill wind.
His travelling was very slow. The sky's dark shipping pressed closer andcloser, as if all the clouds had come to harbour. Over the flat landsnear Newport the wind moaned like the calling of many violoncellos. Allthe sky was grey. Siegmund waited drearily on Newport station, where thewind swept coldly. It was Sunday, and the station and the island weredesolate, having lost their purposes.
Siegmund put on his overcoat and sat down. All his morning's blaze ofelation was gone, though there still glowed a great hope. He had sleptonly two hours of the night. An empty man, he had drunk joy, and now theintoxication was dying out.
At three o'clock of the afternoon he sat alone in the second-classcarriage, looking out. A few raindrops struck the pane, then the blurreddazzle of a shower came in a burst of wind, and hid the downs and thereeds that shivered in the marshy places. Siegmund sat in a chillytorpor. He counted the stations. Beneath his stupor his heart wasthudding heavily with excitement, surprising him, for his brainfelt dead.
The train slowed down: Yarmouth! One more station, then. Siegmundwatched the platform, shiny with rain, slide past. On the dry grey underthe shelter, one white passenger was waiting. Suddenly Siegmund's heartleaped up, wrenching wildly. He burst open the door, and caught hold ofHelena. She dilated, gave a palpitating cry as he dragged her intothe carriage.
'You _here_!' he exclaimed, in a strange tone. She was shivering withcold. Her almost naked arms were blue. She could not answer Siegmund'squestion, but lay clasped against him, shivering away her last chill ashis warmth invaded her. He laughed in his heart as she nestled into him.
'Is it a dream now, dear?' he whispered. Helena clasped him tightly,shuddering because of the delicious suffusing of his warmth through her.
Almost immediately they heard the grinding of the brakes.
'Here we are, then!' exclaimed Helena, dropping into her conventional,cheerful manner at once. She put straight her hat, while he gatheredhis luggage.
Until tea-time there was a pause in their progress. Siegmund wastingling with an exquisite vividness, as if he had taken some rarestimulant. He wondered at himself. It seemed that every fibre in hisbody was surprised with joy, as each tree in a forest at dawn uttersastonished cries of delight.
When Helena came back, she sat opposite to him to see him. His naivelook of joy was very sweet to her. His eyes were dark blue, showing thefibrils, like a purple-veined flower at twilight, and somehow,mysteriously, joy seemed to quiver in the iris. Helena appreciated him,feature by feature. She liked his clear forehead, with its thick blackhair, and his full mouth, and his chin. She loved his hands, that weresmall, but strong and nervous, and very white. She liked his breast,that breathed so strong and quietly, and his arms, and his thighs, andhis knees.
For him, Helena was a presence. She was ambushed, fused in an aura ofhis love. He only saw she was white, and strong, and full fruited, heonly knew her blue eyes were rather awful to him.
Outside, the sea-mist was travelling thicker and thicker inland. Theirlodging was not far from the bay. As they sat together at tea,Siegmund's eyes dilated, and he looked frowning at Helena.
'What is it?' he asked, listening uneasily.
Helena looked up at him, from pouring out the tea. His little anxiouslook of distress amused her.
'The noise, you mean? Merely the fog-horn, dear--not Wotan's wrath, norSiegfried's dragon....'
The fog was white at the window. They sat waiting. After a few secondsthe sound came low, swelling, like the mooing of some great sea animal,alone, the last of the monsters. The whole fog gave off the sound for asecond or two, then it died down into an intense silence. Siegmund andHelena looked at each other. His eyes were full of trouble. To see abig, strong man anxious-eyed as a child because of a strange soundamused her. But he was tired.
'I assure you, it _is_ only a fog-horn,' she laughed.
'Of course. But it is a depressing sort of sound.'
'Is it?' she said curiously. 'Why? Well--yes--I think I can understandits being so to some people. It's something like the call of the hornacross the sea to Tristan.'
She hummed softly, then three times she sang the horn-call. Siegmund,with his face expressionless as a mask, sat staring out at the mist. Theboom of the siren broke in upon them. To him, the sound was full offatality. Helena waited till the noise died down, then she repeated herhorn-call.
'Yet it is very much like the fog-horn,' she said, curiously interested.
'This time next week, Helena!' he said.
She suddenly went heavy, and stretched across to clasp his hand as itlay upon the table.
'I shall be calling to you from Cornwall,' she sa
id.
He did not reply. So often she did not take his meaning, but left himalone with his sense of tragedy. She had no idea how his life waswrenched from its roots, and when he tried to tell her, she balked him,leaving him inwardly quite lonely.
'There is _no_ next week,' she declared, with great cheerfulness. 'Thereis only the present.'
At the same moment she rose and slipped across to him. Putting her armsround his neck, she stood holding his head to her bosom, pressing itclose, with her hand among his hair. His nostrils and mouth were crushedagainst her breast. He smelled the silk of her dress and the faint,intoxicating odour of her person. With shut eyes he owned heavily tohimself again that she was blind to him. But some other self urged withgladness, no matter how blind she was, so that she pressed his faceupon her.
She stroked and caressed his hair, tremblingly clasped his head againsther breast, as if she would never release him; then she bent to kiss hisforehead. He took her in his arms, and they were still for awhile.
Now he wanted to blind himself with her, to blaze up all his past andfuture in a passion worth years of living.
After tea they rested by the fire, while she told him all the delightfulthings she had found. She had a woman's curious passion for details, awoman's peculiar attachment to certain dear trifles. He listened,smiling, revived by her delight, and forgetful of himself. She soothedhim like sunshine, and filled him with pleasure; but he hardly attendedto her words.
'Shall we go out, or are you too tired? No, you are tired--you are verytired,' said Helena.
She stood by his chair, looking down on him tenderly.
'No,' he replied, smiling brilliantly at her, and stretching hishandsome limbs in relief--'no, not at all tired now.'
Helena continued to look down on him in quiet, covering tenderness. Butshe quailed before the brilliant, questioning gaze of his eyes.
'You must go to bed early tonight,' she said, turning aside her face,ruffling his soft black hair. He stretched slightly, stiffening hisarms, and smiled without answering. It was a very keen pleasure to bethus alone with her and in her charge. He rose, bidding her wrap herselfup against the fog.
'You are sure you're not too tired?' she reiterated.
He laughed.
Outside, the sea-mist was white and woolly. They went hand in hand. Itwas cold, so she thrust her hand with his into the pocket of hisovercoat, while they walked together.
'I like the mist,' he said, pressing her hand in his pocket.
'I don't dislike it,' she replied, shrinking nearer to him.
'It puts us together by ourselves,' he said. She plodded alongside,bowing her head, not replying. He did not mind her silence.
'It couldn't have happened better for us than this mist,' he said.
She laughed curiously, almost with a sound of tears.
'Why?' she asked, half tenderly, half bitterly.
'There is nothing else but you, and for you there is nothing else butme--look!'
He stood still. They were on the downs, so that Helena found herselfquite alone with the man in a world of mist. Suddenly she flung herselfsobbing against his breast. He held her closely, tenderly, not knowingwhat it was all about, but happy and unafraid.
In one hollow place the siren from the Needles seemed to bellow full intheir ears. Both Siegmund and Helena felt their emotion too intense.They turned from it.
'What is the pitch?' asked Helena.
'Where it is horizontal? It slides up a chromatic scale,' said Siegmund.
'Yes, but the settled pitch--is it about E?'
'E!' exclaimed Siegmund. 'More like F.'
'Nay, listen!' said Helena.
They stood still and waited till there came the long booing of thefog-horn.
'There!' exclaimed Siegmund, imitating the sound. 'That is not E.' Herepeated the sound. 'It is F.'
'Surely it is E,' persisted Helena.
'Even F sharp,' he rejoined, humming the note.
She laughed, and told him to climb the chromatic scale.
'But you agree?' he said.
'I do not,' she replied.
The fog was cold. It seemed to rob them of their courage to talk.
'What is the note in _Tristan_?' Helena made an effort to ask.
'That is not the same,' he replied.
'No, dear, that is not the same,' she said in low, comforting tones. Hequivered at the caress. She put her arms round him reached up her faceyearningly for a kiss. He forgot they were standing in the publicfootpath, in daylight, till she drew hastily away. She heard footstepsdown the fog.
As they climbed the path the mist grew thinner, till it was only a greyhaze at the top. There they were on the turfy lip of the land. The skywas fairly clear overhead. Below them the sea was singing hoarselyto itself.
Helena drew him to the edge of the cliff. He crushed her hand, drawingslightly back. But it pleased her to feel the grip on her hand becomingunbearable. They stood right on the edge, to see the smooth cliff slopeinto the mist, under which the sea stirred noisily.
'Shall we walk over, then?' said Siegmund, glancing downwards. Helena'sheart stood still a moment at the idea, then beat heavily. How could heplay with the idea of death, and the five great days in front? She wasafraid of him just then.
'Come away, dear,' she pleaded.
He would, then, forgo the few consummate days! It was bitterness to herto think so.
'Come away, dear!' she repeated, drawing him slowly to the path.
'You are not afraid?' he asked.
'Not afraid, no....' Her voice had that peculiar, reedy, harsh qualitythat made him shiver.
'It is too easy a way,' he said satirically.
She did not take in his meaning.
'And five days of our own before us, Siegmund!' she scolded. 'The mistis Lethe. It is enough for us if its spell lasts five days.'
He laughed, and took her in his arms, kissing her very closely.
They walked on joyfully, locking behind them the doors of forgetfulness.
As the sun set, the fog dispersed a little. Breaking masses of mist wentflying from cliff to cliff, and far away beyond the cliffs the westernsky stood dimmed with gold. The lovers wandered aimlessly over thegolf-links to where green mounds and turfed banks suggested to Helenathat she was tired, and would sit down. They faced the lighted chamberof the west, whence, behind the torn, dull-gold curtains of fog, the sunwas departing with pomp.
Siegmund sat very still, watching the sunset. It was a splendid, flamingbridal chamber where he had come to Helena. He wondered how to expressit; how other men had borne this same glory.
'What is the music of it?' he asked.
She glanced at him. His eyelids were half lowered, his mouth slightlyopen, as if in ironic rhapsody.
'Of what, dear?'
'What music do you think holds the best interpretation of sunset?'
His skin was gold, his real mood was intense. She revered him for amoment.
'I do not know,' she said quietly; and she rested her head against hisshoulder, looking out west.
There was a space of silence, while Siegmund dreamed on.
'A Beethoven symphony--the one--' and he explained to her.
She was not satisfied, but leaned against him, making her choice. Thesunset hung steady, she could scarcely perceive a change.
'The Grail music in _Lohengrin_,' she decided.
'Yes,' said Siegmund. He found it quite otherwise, but did not troubleto dispute. He dreamed by himself. This displeased her. She wanted himfor herself. How could he leave her alone while he watched the sky? Shealmost put her two hands over his eyes.