CHAPTER II
Dona Rita was curious to know how I got on with her peasant sister andall I could say in return for that inquiry was that the peasant sisterwas in her own way amiable. At this she clicked her tongue amusingly andrepeated a remark she had made before: "She likes young men. The youngerthe better." The mere thought of those two women being sisters arousedone's wonder. Physically they were altogether of different design. Itwas also the difference between living tissue of glowing loveliness witha divine breath, and a hard hollow figure of baked clay.
Indeed Therese did somehow resemble an achievement, wonderful enough inits way, in unglazed earthenware. The only gleam perhaps that one couldfind on her was that of her teeth, which one used to get between her dulllips unexpectedly, startlingly, and a little inexplicably, because it wasnever associated with a smile. She smiled with compressed mouth. It wasindeed difficult to conceive of those two birds coming from the samenest. And yet . . . Contrary to what generally happens, it was when onesaw those two women together that one lost all belief in the possibilityof their relationship near or far. It extended even to their commonhumanity. One, as it were, doubted it. If one of the two wasrepresentative, then the other was either something more or less thanhuman. One wondered whether these two women belonged to the same schemeof creation. One was secretly amazed to see them standing together,speaking to each other, having words in common, understanding each other.And yet! . . . Our psychological sense is the crudest of all; we don'tknow, we don't perceive how superficial we are. The simplest shadesescape us, the secret of changes, of relations. No, upon the whole, theonly feature (and yet with enormous differences) which Therese had incommon with her sister, as I told Dona Rita, was amiability.
"For, you know, you are a most amiable person yourself," I went on."It's one of your characteristics, of course much more precious than inother people. You transmute the commonest traits into gold of your own;but after all there are no new names. You are amiable. You were mostamiable to me when I first saw you."
"Really. I was not aware. Not specially . . . "
"I had never the presumption to think that it was special. Moreover, myhead was in a whirl. I was lost in astonishment first of all at what Ihad been listening to all night. Your history, you know, a wonderfultale with a flavour of wine in it and wreathed in clouds, with thatamazing decapitated, mutilated dummy of a woman lurking in a corner, andwith Blunt's smile gleaming through a fog, the fog in my eyes, fromMills' pipe, you know. I was feeling quite inanimate as to body andfrightfully stimulated as to mind all the time. I had never heardanything like that talk about you before. Of course I wasn't sleepy, butstill I am not used to do altogether without sleep like Blunt . . ."
"Kept awake all night listening to my story!" She marvelled.
"Yes. You don't think I am complaining, do you? I wouldn't have missedit for the world. Blunt in a ragged old jacket and a white tie and thatincisive polite voice of his seemed strange and weird. It seemed asthough he were inventing it all rather angrily. I had doubts as to yourexistence."
"Mr. Blunt is very much interested in my story."
"Anybody would be," I said. "I was. I didn't sleep a wink. I wasexpecting to see you soon--and even then I had my doubts."
"As to my existence?"
"It wasn't exactly that, though of course I couldn't tell that youweren't a product of Captain Blunt's sleeplessness. He seemed to dreadexceedingly to be left alone and your story might have been a device todetain us . . ."
"He hasn't enough imagination for that," she said.
"It didn't occur to me. But there was Mills, who apparently believed inyour existence. I could trust Mills. My doubts were about thepropriety. I couldn't see any good reason for being taken to see you.Strange that it should be my connection with the sea which brought mehere to the Villa."
"Unexpected perhaps."
"No. I mean particularly strange and significant."
"Why?"
"Because my friends are in the habit of telling me (and each other) thatthe sea is my only love. They were always chaffing me because theycouldn't see or guess in my life at any woman, open or secret. . ."
"And is that really so?" she inquired negligently.
"Why, yes. I don't mean to say that I am like an innocent shepherd inone of those interminable stories of the eighteenth century. But I don'tthrow the word love about indiscriminately. It may be all true about thesea; but some people would say that they love sausages."
"You are horrible."
"I am surprised."
"I mean your choice of words."
"And you have never uttered a word yet that didn't change into a pearl asit dropped from your lips. At least not before me."
She glanced down deliberately and said, "This is better. But I don't seeany of them on the floor."
"It's you who are horrible in the implications of your language. Don'tsee any on the floor! Haven't I caught up and treasured them all in myheart? I am not the animal from which sausages are made."
She looked at me suavely and then with the sweetest possible smilebreathed out the word: "No."
And we both laughed very loud. O! days of innocence! On this occasionwe parted from each other on a light-hearted note. But already I hadacquired the conviction that there was nothing more lovable in the worldthan that woman; nothing more life-giving, inspiring, and illuminatingthan the emanation of her charm. I meant it absolutely--not exceptingthe light of the sun.
From this there was only one step further to take. The step into aconscious surrender; the open perception that this charm, warming like aflame, was also all-revealing like a great light; giving new depth toshades, new brilliance to colours, an amazing vividness to all sensationsand vitality to all thoughts: so that all that had been lived beforeseemed to have been lived in a drab world and with a languid pulse.
A great revelation this. I don't mean to say it was soul-shaking. Thesoul was already a captive before doubt, anguish, or dismay could touchits surrender and its exaltation. But all the same the revelation turnedmany things into dust; and, amongst others, the sense of the carelessfreedom of my life. If that life ever had any purpose or any aim outsideitself I would have said that it threw a shadow across its path. But ithadn't. There had been no path. But there was a shadow, the inseparablecompanion of all light. No illumination can sweep all mystery out of theworld. After the departed darkness the shadows remain, more mysteriousbecause as if more enduring; and one feels a dread of them from which onewas free before. What if they were to be victorious at the last? They,or what perhaps lurks in them: fear, deception, desire, disillusion--allsilent at first before the song of triumphant love vibrating in thelight. Yes. Silent. Even desire itself! All silent. But not forlong!
This was, I think, before the third expedition. Yes, it must have beenthe third, for I remember that it was boldly planned and that it wascarried out without a hitch. The tentative period was over; all ourarrangements had been perfected. There was, so to speak, always anunfailing smoke on the hill and an unfailing lantern on the shore. Ourfriends, mostly bought for hard cash and therefore valuable, had acquiredconfidence in us. This, they seemed to say, is no unfathomable rogueryof penniless adventurers. This is but the reckless enterprise of men ofwealth and sense and needn't be inquired into. The young _caballero_ hasgot real gold pieces in the belt he wears next his skin; and the man withthe heavy moustaches and unbelieving eyes is indeed very much of a man.They gave to Dominic all their respect and to me a great show ofdeference; for I had all the money, while they thought that Dominic hadall the sense. That judgment was not exactly correct. I had my share ofjudgment and audacity which surprises me now that the years have chilledthe blood without dimming the memory. I remember going about thebusiness with light-hearted, clear-headed recklessness which, accordingas its decisions were sudden or considered, made Dominic draw his breaththrough his clenched teeth, or look hard at me before he gave me e
ither aslight nod of assent or a sarcastic "Oh, certainly"--just as the humourof the moment prompted him.
One night as we were lying on a bit of dry sand under the lee of a rock,side by side, watching the light of our little vessel dancing away at seain the windy distance, Dominic spoke suddenly to me.
"I suppose Alphonso and Carlos, Carlos and Alphonso, they are nothing toyou, together or separately?"
I said: "Dominic, if they were both to vanish from the earth together orseparately it would make no difference to my feelings."
He remarked: "Just so. A man mourns only for his friends. I supposethey are no more friends to you than they are to me. Those Carlists makea great consumption of cartridges. That is well. But why should we doall those mad things that you will insist on us doing till my hair," hepursued with grave, mocking exaggeration, "till my hair tries to stand upon my head? and all for that Carlos, let God and the devil each guard hisown, for that Majesty as they call him, but after all a man like anotherand--no friend."
"Yes, why?" I murmured, feeling my body nestled at ease in the sand.
It was very dark under the overhanging rock on that night of clouds andof wind that died and rose and died again. Dominic's voice was heardspeaking low between the short gusts.
"Friend of the Senora, eh?"
"That's what the world says, Dominic."
"Half of what the world says are lies," he pronounced dogmatically. "Forall his majesty he may be a good enough man. Yet he is only a king inthe mountains and to-morrow he may be no more than you. Still a womanlike that--one, somehow, would grudge her to a better king. She ought tobe set up on a high pillar for people that walk on the ground to raisetheir eyes up to. But you are otherwise, you gentlemen. You, forinstance, Monsieur, you wouldn't want to see her set up on a pillar."
"That sort of thing, Dominic," I said, "that sort of thing, youunderstand me, ought to be done early."
He was silent for a time. And then his manly voice was heard in theshadow of the rock.
"I see well enough what you mean. I spoke of the multitude, that onlyraise their eyes. But for kings and suchlike that is not enough. Well,no heart need despair; for there is not a woman that wouldn't at sometime or other get down from her pillar for no bigger bribe perhaps thanjust a flower which is fresh to-day and withered to-morrow. And then,what's the good of asking how long any woman has been up there? There isa true saying that lips that have been kissed do not lose theirfreshness."
I don't know what answer I could have made. I imagine Dominic thoughthimself unanswerable. As a matter of fact, before I could speak, a voicecame to us down the face of the rock crying secretly, "Ola, down there!All is safe ashore."
It was the boy who used to hang about the stable of a muleteer's inn in alittle shallow valley with a shallow little stream in it, and where wehad been hiding most of the day before coming down to the shore. We bothstarted to our feet and Dominic said, "A good boy that. You didn't hearhim either come or go above our heads. Don't reward him with more thanone peseta, Senor, whatever he does. If you were to give him two hewould go mad at the sight of so much wealth and throw up his job at theFonda, where he is so useful to run errands, in that way he has ofskimming along the paths without displacing a stone."
Meantime he was busying himself with striking a fire to set alight asmall heap of dry sticks he had made ready beforehand on that spot whichin all the circuit of the Bay was perfectly screened from observationfrom the land side.
The clear flame shooting up revealed him in the black cloak with a hoodof a Mediterranean sailor. His eyes watched the dancing dim light toseaward. And he talked the while.
"The only fault you have, Senor, is being too generous with your money.In this world you must give sparingly. The only things you may deal outwithout counting, in this life of ours which is but a little fight and alittle love, is blows to your enemy and kisses to a woman. . . . Ah! herethey are coming in."
I noticed the dancing light in the dark west much closer to the shorenow. Its motion had altered. It swayed slowly as it ran towards us,and, suddenly, the darker shadow as of a great pointed wing appearedgliding in the night. Under it a human voice shouted somethingconfidently.
"_Bueno_," muttered Dominic. From some receptacle I didn't see he poureda lot of water on the blaze, like a magician at the end of a successfulincantation that had called out a shadow and a voice from the immensespace of the sea. And his hooded figure vanished from my sight in agreat hiss and the warm feel of ascending steam.
"That's all over," he said, "and now we go back for more work, more toil,more trouble, more exertion with hands and feet, for hours and hours.And all the time the head turned over the shoulder, too."
We were climbing a precipitous path sufficiently dangerous in the dark,Dominic, more familiar with it, going first and I scrambling close behindin order that I might grab at his cloak if I chanced to slip or miss myfooting. I remonstrated against this arrangement as we stopped to rest.I had no doubt I would grab at his cloak if I felt myself falling. Icouldn't help doing that. But I would probably only drag him down withme.
With one hand grasping a shadowy bush above his head he growled that allthis was possible, but that it was all in the bargain, and urged meonwards.
When we got on to the level that man whose even breathing no exertion, nodanger, no fear or anger could disturb, remarked as we strode side byside:
"I will say this for us, that we are carrying out all this deadlyfoolishness as conscientiously as though the eyes of the Senora were onus all the time. And as to risk, I suppose we take more than she wouldapprove of, I fancy, if she ever gave a moment's thought to us out here.Now, for instance, in the next half hour, we may come any moment on threecarabineers who would let off their pieces without asking questions.Even your way of flinging money about cannot make safety for men set ondefying a whole big country for the sake of--what is it exactly?--theblue eyes, or the white arms of the Senora."
He kept his voice equably low. It was a lonely spot and but for a vagueshape of a dwarf tree here and there we had only the flying clouds forcompany. Very far off a tiny light twinkled a little way up the seawardshoulder of an invisible mountain. Dominic moved on.
"Fancy yourself lying here, on this wild spot, with a leg smashed by ashot or perhaps with a bullet in your side. It might happen. A starmight fall. I have watched stars falling in scores on clear nights inthe Atlantic. And it was nothing. The flash of a pinch of gunpowder inyour face may be a bigger matter. Yet somehow it's pleasant as westumble in the dark to think of our Senora in that long room with a shinyfloor and all that lot of glass at the end, sitting on that divan, youcall it, covered with carpets as if expecting a king indeed. And verystill . . ."
He remembered her--whose image could not be dismissed.
I laid my hand on his shoulder.
"That light on the mountain side flickers exceedingly, Dominic. Are wein the path?"
He addressed me then in French, which was between us the language of moreformal moments.
"_Prenez mon bras_, _monsieur_. Take a firm hold, or I will have youstumbling again and falling into one of those beastly holes, with a goodchance to crack your head. And there is no need to take offence. For,speaking with all respect, why should you, and I with you, be here onthis lonely spot, barking our shins in the dark on the way to aconfounded flickering light where there will be no other supper but apiece of a stale sausage and a draught of leathery wine out of a stinkingskin. Pah!"
I had good hold of his arm. Suddenly he dropped the formal French andpronounced in his inflexible voice:
"For a pair of white arms, Senor. _Bueno_."
He could understand.