A Comedy of Masks Part 15

"Good-bye, Philip," said Eve again, when her lover was handing Mrs.

Sylvester into the little brougham. "Mind you take great care of yourself."

Rainham returned the frank pressure of her hand.

"Good-bye," he said.

CHAPTER XVI

After all, Philip Rainham loitered on his way South. He spent a week in Paris, and pa.s.sing on by way of the Mont Cenis, lingered in Turin, a city with a treacherous climate and ugly rectangular streets, which he detested, out of sheer idleness, for three days.

On the fourth, waking to find winter upon him suddenly, and the ground already dazzling from a night's snow, he was seized with panic--an ancient horror of falling ill in strange places returning to him with fresh force, as he felt already the chill of the bleak plains of Piedmont in his bones. It sent him hurrying to his destination, Bordighera, by the first train; and it was not too soon: the misused lung a.s.serted itself in a haemorrhage, and by the time he reached the fair little town running out so coquettishly, amid its olive yards and palm-trees, into the blue Mediterranean, he was in no proper temper to soliloquize on its charms.

The doctor had a willing slave in him for three weeks; then he revolted, and found himself sufficiently cured to sit when the sun shone--and sometimes when it did not--covered in a gray shawl, smoking innumerable cigarettes on a green, blistered seat in the garden of his hotel. He replied to the remonstrating that he had been ill before this bout, and would surely be ill again, but that temporarily he was a well man. It was only when he was alone that he could afford to admit how savage a reminder of his disabilities he had received. And, indeed, his days of captivity had left their mark on him--the increased gauntness of his figure apart--in a certain irritation and nerve distress, which inclined him for once to regret the mult.i.tude of acquaintance that his long habit of sojourning there had obtained. The clatter of English tongues at _table d'hote_ began to weary him; the heated controversy which waged over the gambling-tables of the little princ.i.p.ality across the bay left him arid and tired; and the gossip of the place struck him as even more tedious and unprofitable than of old. He could no longer feign a decent interest in the flirtations of the three Miss Smiths, as they were recounted to him nightly by Mrs. Engel, the sympathetic widow who sat next to him, and whose sympathy he began, in the enlightenment of his indisposition, to distrust.

The relief with which he hailed the arrival of the post and a budget of letters from England surprised himself. It struck him that there was something feverish and strange in this waiting for news. Even to himself he did not dare to define his interest, confessing how greatly he cared.

Lightmark's epistles just then were frequent and brief. The marriage was definitely fixed; the Colonel, his uncle, had been liberal beyond his hopes: a house in Grove Road of some splendour had been taken for the young couple, who were to install themselves there when the honeymoon, involving a sojourn in Paris and a descent into Italy, was done. Hints of a visit to Rainham followed, which at first he ignored; repeated in subsequent epistles with a greater directness, their prospect filled him with a pleasure so strangely mixed with pain that his pride took alarm. He thought it necessary to disparage the scheme in a letter to Lightmark, of a coldness which disgusted himself. Remorse seized him when it had been despatched, and he cherished a hope that it might fail of its aim.

This, however, seemed improbable, when a fortnight had elapsed and it had elicited no reply. From Lady Garnett, at the tail of one of those long, witty, railing letters, in which the old lady excelled, he heard that the marriage was an accomplished fact, and the birds had flown. Mrs. Lightmark! the phrase tripped easily from his tongue when he mentioned it at dinner to his neighbour, Mrs. Engel, to whom the persons were known. Later in his room, face to face with the facts which it signified, he had an intolerable hour. He had extinguished his candle, and sat, partially undressed, in a mood of singular blankness by the fire of gnarled olive logs, which had smouldered down into one dull, red ma.s.s; and Eve's face was imaged there to his sick fancy as he had seen it last in d.i.c.k's studio in the vague light of an October evening, and yet with a certain new shadow, half sad and half reproachful, in the beautiful eyes. After all, had he done his best for the child? Now that this thing was irrevocable and complete, a host of old misgivings and doubts, which he had believed long ago banished, broke in upon him. He had only asked that she should be happy--at least, he said, it had never been a question of himself. He certainly knew nothing to Lightmark's discredit, nothing which could have justified him in interfering, even if interference could have prevailed. The two had fallen in love with one another, and, the man not being visibly bad, the marriage had come about; was there more to say? And yet Rainham's ill-defined uneasiness still questioned and explored. A hundred little episodes in his friendship with the brilliant young painter, dismissed as of no import at the time, returned to him--instances, as it seemed now to his morbid imagination, in which that character, so frank and so enigmatic, rang scarcely true. And suddenly the tragical story of Kitty Crichton intruded itself before him, with all its shameful possibilities. Could Lightmark have lied to him?

Had not his sudden acquiescence in the painter's rendering of the thing implied a lack of courage--been one of those undue indolences, to which he was so p.r.o.ne, rather than any real testimony of his esteem? Would not a more rigorous inquiry, a little patient investigation into so curious a coincidence, have been the more seemly part, as much for his friend's sake as for Eve's, so that this haunting, intolerable doubt might have been for ever put away--as surely it would have been? The contrary issue was too horrible for supposition. And he ended by mocking at himself with a half-sigh for carrying fastidiousness so far, recognising the mundane fitness of the match, and that heroic lovers, such as his tenderness for the damsel would have had, are, after all, rare, perhaps hardly existing out of visions in a somewhat gross world, where the finest ore is not without its considerable alloy.

Two days later, as he sat upon his wonted seat, in lazy enjoyment of the midday sun, a _vetturino_, heralded far down the road by the jingle of his horse's bells, deposited a couple at the door whose faces were familiar. At _table d'hote_, though he was separated from the new-comers by half a dozen covers, he had leisure to identify them as the Dollonds; and by-and-by the roving, impartial gaze of the Academician's wife encountering him, he could a.s.sure himself that the recognition was mutual. They came together at the end of _dejeuner_, and presently, at Mrs. Dollond's instigation, started for a stroll through the olives towards the old town.

"Are you wintering here?" he asked after a moment, feeling that an affirmative answer would hardly be to his taste.

But Mrs. Dollond, with an upward inclination of her vivacious shoulders, repudiated the notion. A whim of her own, she explained to Rainham confidentially, as they came abreast in the narrowing path, while Mr. Dollond strolled a little behind, cutting down vagrant weeds absently with his heavy oak stick.

"Hugh wanted a month's holiday; and I wanted"--she dropped her voice, glancing over her shoulder with an air of mock mystery--"yes, Mr. Rainham, you must not be shocked, but I wanted a fortnight at Monte Carlo; and so I may as well tell you that our destination is there. We came from San Remo this morning, meaning to drive over right away; but this place was so pretty that Hugh insisted on staying."

Rainham helped her up a difficult terrace, and remarked urbanely that he was in fortune's way.

She threw him a brilliant smile.

"Ah, Mr. Rainham, if we had only known that you were here! then we might have arranged differently; we could have stayed here pastorally, and driven up to that delightful little place on the hill. Tell me, how is it called?"

She pointed with her scarlet parasol--they had emerged now on to the main road--at a little, turreted town perched far above them on the brow of an olive-crested hill.

"It is Sa.s.so," said Rainham. "I should have been delighted to come with you, but I am afraid it is out of the reach of carriages, and of invalids. You might go there on a mule."

"Oh no!" she laughed; "I think on the whole we shall be more comfortable at the Hotel de Paris. Can't we induce you to come with us now?"

Rainham lifted his eyebrows, smiling a little and groping vaguely for an excuse, while Mrs. Dollond turned to her husband with a look which demanded corroboration of her speech.

"Yes, Mr. Rainham, do come, if you possibly can," supplemented Mr.

Dollond, coming forward in burlesque obedience. "We are boring each other horribly--I can answer for myself--and it would be an act of real charity."

"Well, Hugh, I am ashamed of you! You really ought not to say such things. If you can't behave better than that, you may go on maltreating those thistles. I declare we have left a regular trail of heads in our wake,--like the Revolution, or Judge Jeffreys."

"b.l.o.o.d.y Jeffreys!" suggested Mr. Dollond mildly.

His wife turned to Rainham with the little despairing gesture which she reckoned one of her most effective mannerisms.

"Is not he dreadful? But you _will_ come, Mr. Rainham? I am sure you know all about systems, and--and things. You know I insist on winning; so I must have a system, mustn't I?"

"Ah, Mrs. Dollond," said her companion humorously, "you remind me that the only system I have is a very bad one. I am afraid my doctor would not trust me with it at Monaco."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Dollond reflectively; "but you need not gamble, you know! You can help me, and see that I don't get cheated. Hugh and I will see your doctor, and promise to take care of you. Hugh shall carry your shawl--he likes carrying shawls."

"He is getting used to it," interposed her husband dryly.

"Ah, well, that is settled," continued the lady gaily, leaving her victim no time to formulate more than the lamest of protests.

By this time they had reached the middle of the cape, and they stood for a moment by the lazy fountain looking down at the Marina straggling below the palms; and beyond, at the outline of the French coast, with white Mentone set in it, precisely, like a jewel.

"The dear little place!" cried Mrs. Dollond in a rapture; "I suppose Monaco is behind that cape. I wish we could see it. And it would not look a bit wicked from here. I declare, I should like to live there!"

"I've no doubt you would, my dear!" said her husband; "but you sha'n't, so long as I have any voice in the matter. I don't get so much for my pictures that I can afford to contribute to M. Blanc's support."

Rainham followed the direction of her eyes absently. "I have half a mind to go with you after all," he said.

"Of course," said Mrs. Dollond; "it will do you worlds of good; we will drive you over with us to-morrow. And now, Mr. Rainham, if you don't mind, I think we will sit down. I can see that Hugh is getting out his sketch-book."

She sank down as she spoke upon one of the rough stone seats which are scattered about the cape. Mr. Dollond had ensconced himself behind them, and was phlegmatically starting on a rough study of the old town, which rose in a ragged, compact ma.s.s a hundred yards away, with its background of sad olives and sapphire sky.

Rainham followed the lady's example, tired himself by their scramble under the hot sun, and contented himself for a while by turning a deaf ear and polite, little mechanical gestures to her perennial flow of inconsequent chatter, which seemed quite impervious to fatigue, while he rested his eyes on the charming prospect at their feet; the ragged descent of red rocks, broken here and there by patches of burnt gra.s.s and pink mallows, the little sea-girt chapel of St. Ampelio, and the waste of violet sea. His inattentive ear was caught at last by the name of Lightmark occurring, recurring, in the light eddy of his companion's speech, and he turned to her with an air of apologetic inquiry.

"Yes," Mrs. Dollond was observing, "it was quite a grand wedding; rather pretentious, you know, we thought it, for the Sylvesters--but, oh, a great affair! We stayed in London for it, although Hugh wanted to take a holiday. I could tell you all about the bridesmaids' dresses, and Mrs. Lightmark's, but I suppose you would not care. She looked very charming!"

"Yes?" said Rainham, with a curious light in his averted eyes. Then he added, somewhat abruptly, "Brides always do, I suppose?"

"Of course, if they have a good dressmaker. And the presents--there was quite a show. Your pearl necklace--how I envied her that! But, after all, weddings are so much alike."

"I have never been to one," said the other absently.

"Ah, then you ought, if only to get a little experience before your own time comes, you know. Yes, you really ought to have been there.

It was quite a foregone conclusion that you would be best man. It was so funny to see Colonel Lightmark in that _role_, with that young Mr. Sylvester giving away the bride. It would have been so much better if they could have changed parts."

"I am sorry to interrupt you," said Mr. Dollond, getting up and putting away his sketch-book; "I can't sketch; the place is full of locusts, and they are getting into my boots."

Mrs. Dollond started up, shaking her skirts apprehensively, with an affectation of horror.

"How I do hate jumping things! And, anyhow, I suppose we ought to be getting back to our hotel, or we shall be late for dinner. You don't know what Hugh can be like when one is late for dinner. He is capable of beginning without me."

Rainham had risen with a ready response to her words, bordering almost on the ludicrous; and half an hour later he was congratulating himself that at least six seats intervened between his place and that of Mrs. Dollond at the dinner-table.

And yet on the morrow he found himself, and not without a certain relief, sitting beside the mundane, little lady, and turning to her incessant ripple of speech something of the philosophic indifference to which her husband had attained, while a st.u.r.dy pair of gaily-caparisoned horses, whose bells made a constant accompaniment, not unpleasing in its preciseness, to the vagueness of Rainham's thought, hurried them over the dusty surface of the Cornice.