Antony Gray-Gardener Part 6

She gave him a little nod, which might have been considered dismissal or a hint of emphasis. Antony, being of course aware that she could not possibly find it the same pleasure to talk to him as he found it to talk to her, took it as dismissal. With a word of thanks he moved off down the deck, the blue book in his hands.

He found a retired spot forward on the boat. A curious shyness prevented him from returning to his own deck-chair, and reading the book within sight of her. In spite of his little remark against reading in the open, he was longing to make himself acquainted with the contents immediately.

Had it not been her recommendation? Death letters! He laughed softly and joyously. He had never even given the things a thought before, and here, twice within ten days, they had been brought to his notice in a fashion that, to his mind, fell little short of the miraculous. And it is not at all certain that he did not consider their second queer little entry on the scene the more miraculous of the two.

He opened the book, and there, facing him from the fly-leaf, was the answer to the question he had erstwhile sought to fathom,--Pia di Donatello. His lips formed the syllables, dwelling with pleasure on the first three little letters--Pia. Oh, it was right, it was utterly and entirely right. Every other possibility vanished before it into the remotest background, unthinkable in the face of what was. Pia di Donatello! Again he repeated the musical syllables. And yet--and yet--he'd have sworn she was English. There wasn't the faintest trace of a foreign accent in her speech. If anything, there was a hint of Irish,--the soft intonation of the Emerald Isle. Her colouring, too, was Irish, the blue-black hair, the dark violet eyes--he had discovered that they were violet; looking, for all the world, as if they had been put in with a s.m.u.tty finger, as the saying goes. He revolved the problem in his mind, and a moment later came upon the solution, so he told himself. An Irish mother, and an Italian father, so he decreed, metaphorically patting himself on the back the while for his perspicacity.

The problem settled, he turned himself to the contents of the book as set forth by the author thereof, rather than the three words inscribed on the fly-leaf by the owner. They were not hard of digestion. The print was large, the matter light. Anon he came to Mutabile Semper and the death letters, and, having read them, and laughed in concord with the erstwhile laugh of the book's owner, he closed the pages, and gazed out upon the sunshine and the water.

CHAPTER V

A FRIENDSHIP

Emerson has written a discourse on friendship. It is beautifully worded, truly; it is full of a n.o.ble and high-minded philosophy. Doubtless it will appeal quite distinctly to those souls who, although yet on this earth-plane, have already partly cast off the mantle of flesh, and have found their paths to lie in the realm of spirit. Even to those, and it is by far the greater majority, who yet walk humdrumly along the world's great highway, the kingdom of the spirit perceived by them as in a gla.s.s darkly rather than by actual light shed upon them from its realm, it may bring some consolation during the absence of a friend. But for the general run of mankind it is set on too lofty a level. It lacks the warmth for which they crave, the personality and intercourse.

"I do then, with my friends as I do with my books," he says. "I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them."

Now, it is very certain that, for the majority of human beings, the friendliest books are worn with much handling. If we picture for a moment the bookshelves belonging to our childish days, we shall at once mentally discover our old favourites. They have been used so often. They have been worn in our service. No matter how well we know the contents, we turn to them again and again; there is a very joy in knowing what to expect. Time does not age nor custom stale the infinite variety.

Thus it is in our childish days. And are not the majority of us still children? Should our favourite books be placed out of our reach, should it be impossible for us to turn their pages, it is certain that we would feel a loss, a gap. Were we old enough to comprehend Emerson's philosophy, we might endeavour to buoy ourselves up with the thought that thus we were at one with him in his n.o.bility and loftiness of sentiment.

And yet there would be something childish and pathetic in the endeavour, by reason of its very unreality. Certainly if Providence should, either directly or indirectly, separate us from our friends, by all means let us accept the separation bravely. It cannot destroy our friendship. But seldom to use our friends, from the apparently epicurean point of view of Emerson, would be a forced and unnatural doctrine to the majority, as unnatural as if a child should bury Hans Andersen's fairy tales for fear of tiring of them. It would savour more of present and actual distaste, than the love which fears its approach. There is the familiarity which breeds contempt, truly; but there is also the familiarity which daily ties closer bonds, draws to closer union.

Antony had established a friendship with the lady of the blue book. The book had been responsible for its beginning. With Emerson's definition of friendship he would probably have been largely in harmony; not so in his treatment of it. With the following, he would have been at one, with the exception of a word or so:--"I must feel pride in my friend's accomplishments as if they were mine,--wild, delicate, throbbing property in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Everything that is his, his name, his form, his dress, books, and instruments, fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth."

Most true, Antony would have declared, if you will eliminate "over-estimate," and subst.i.tute "is" for "seems."

Unlike Emerson, he made no attempt to a.n.a.lyse his friendship. He accepted it as a gift from the G.o.ds. Maybe somewhere in his inner consciousness, barely articulate even to his own heart, he dreamt of it as a foundation to something further. Yet for the present, the foundation sufficed.

Death-letters--he laughed joyously at the coincidence--had laid the first stone, and each day placed others in firm and secure position round it.

The building was largely unconscious. It is the way with true friendship.

The life, also, conduced to it. There are fewer barriers of convention on board ship than in any other mode of living. Mrs. Grundy, it is to be supposed, suffers from sea-sickness, and does not care for this method of travelling. In fact, it would appear that she seldom does travel, but chooses by preference small country towns, mainly English ones, for her place of residence.

The days were days of sunshine and colour, the changing colour of sea and sky; the nights were nights of mystery, veiled in purple, star-embroidered.

One day Pia made clear to him the explanation of her Irish colouring and her Italian surname. Her mother, she told him, was Irish; her father, English. Her baptismal name had been chosen by an Italian G.o.dmother. She was eighteen when she married the Duc di Donatello. On their wedding day, when driving from the church, the horses had bolted. She had been uninjured; he had received serious injuries to his head and spine. He had lived for seven years as a complete invalid, totally paralysed, but fully conscious. During those seven years, she had never left him. Two years previously he had died, and she had gone to live at her old home in England,--the Manor House, Woodleigh, which had been in the hands of caretakers since her parents' death. Her husband's property had pa.s.sed to his brother. The last six months she had been staying with a friend at Wynberg.

She told the little tale extremely simply. It never occurred to her to expect sympathy on account of the tragedy which had marred her youth, and by reason of which she had spent seven years of her life in almost utter seclusion. The fact was merely mentioned in necessary explanation of her story. Antony, too, had held silence. Sympathy on his part would have been somehow an intrusion, an impertinence. But he understood now, in part at least, the steady gravity, the hint of sadness in her eyes.

The name of Woodleigh awoke vague memories in his mind, but they were too vague to be noteworthy. Possibly, most probably, he told himself, he had merely read of the place at some time. She mentioned that it was in Devonshire, but curiously enough, and this was an omission which he noted later with some surprise, he never questioned her as to its exact locality.

On his side, he told her of his life on the veldt, and mentioned that he was returning to England on business. On the outcome of that same business would depend the question whether he remained in England, or whether he returned to the veldt. Having the solicitor's injunction in view, he naturally did not volunteer further information. Such details, too, sank into insignificance before the more absorbing interest of personality. They are, after all, in a sense, mere accidents, and have no more to do with the real man than the clothes he wears. True, the manner in which one dons one's clothes, as the manner in which one deals with the accidental facts of life, affords a certain index to the true man; but the clothes themselves, and the accidental facts, appear, at all events, to be matters of fate. And if you can obtain knowledge of a man through actual contact with his personality, you do not trouble to draw conclusions from his method of donning his clothes. You may speculate in this fashion with regard to strangers, or mere acquaintances. You have a surer, and infinitely more interesting, fashion with your friends.

Life around them moved on in the leisurely, almost indolent manner in which it does move on board a pa.s.senger ship. The younger members played quoits, cricket on the lower deck, and inaugurated concerts, supported by a gramaphone, the property of the chief officer, and banjo solos by the captain. The older members read magazines, played bridge, or knitted woollen articles, according to the promptings of their s.e.x and their various natures, and formed audiences at the aforementioned concerts.

Antony and the d.u.c.h.essa di Donatello alone seemed somewhat aloof from them. They formed part of the concert audiences, it is true; but they neither played bridge, quoits, nor cricket, nor knitted woollen articles, nor read magazines. The d.u.c.h.essa employed her time with a piece of fine lace work, when she was not merely luxuriating in the sunshine, or conversing with Antony. Antony either conversed with the d.u.c.h.essa, or sat in his deck chair, smoking and thinking about her. There was certainly a distinct sameness about the young man's occupation, which, however, he found not in the smallest degree boring. On the contrary, it was all-absorbing and fascinating. The very hours of the day were timed by the d.u.c.h.essa's movements, rather than by the mere minute portions of steel attached to the face of a commonplace watch. Thus:--

Dawn. He realizes the d.u.c.h.essa's existence when he wakes. (His dreams had been coloured by her, but that's beside the mark.)

Daybreak. The d.u.c.h.essa ascends on deck and smiles at him.

Breakfast time. The d.u.c.h.essa sits opposite to him.

The sunny morning hours. The d.u.c.h.essa sews fine lace; she talks, she smiles,--the smile that radiates through the sadness of her eyes.

And so on, throughout the day, till the evening gloaming brings a hint of further intimacy into their conversation, and night falls as she wishes him pleasant dreams before descending to her cabin.

He dwelt then, for the moment, solely in her friendship, but vaguely the half articulate thought of the future began to stir within him, pulsing with a secret possibility of joy he barely dared to contemplate.

CHAPTER VI

AT TENERIFFE

It was about ten o'clock of a sunny morning that the _Fort Salisbury_ cast anchor off Teneriffe, preparatory to undergoing the process known as coaling.

Antony, from her decks, gazed towards the sh.o.r.e and the buildings lying in the sunlight. Minute doll-like figures were busy on the land; mules, with various burdens, were ascending the steep street. Boats were already putting out to the ship, to carry ash.o.r.e such pa.s.sengers as desired to spend a few hours on land.

The whole scene was one of movement, light, and colour. The sea, sky, and earth were singing the Benedicite, and Antony's heart echoed the blessings. It was all so astonishingly good and pleasant,--the clean, fresh morning, the blue blue of the sky, the green blue of the water, and the possibilities of the unknown mountain land lying before him.

There is an extraordinary fascination in exploring an unknown land, even if the exploration is to be of somewhat limited duration. The ship by which Antony had travelled to the Cape, had sailed straight out; it had pa.s.sed the peak of Teneriffe at a distance. Antony had looked at it as it rose from the sea, like a great purple amethyst half veiled in cloud. He had wondered then, idly enough, whether it would ever be his lot to set foot upon its sh.o.r.es. Never, in his wildest dreams, had he imagined under what actual circ.u.mstances that lot would be his. How could he have guessed at what the fates were holding in store for him? They had held their secret close, giving him no smallest inkling of it. If we dream of paradise, our dream is modelled on the greatest happiness we have known; therefore, since our happiness is, doubtless, but a rushlight as compared to the sunshine of paradise, our dreams must necessarily fall exceedingly far short of the reality. Hitherto Antony's happiness had been largely monochrome, flecked with tiny specks of radiance. He might indeed have dreamed of something a trifle brighter, but how was it possible for him to have formed from them the smallest conception of the happiness that was awaiting him?

"It is really perfect," said a voice behind him, echoing his thoughts.

Antony turned.

The d.u.c.h.essa had come on deck, spurred and gauntleted for their adventure,--in other words, attired in a soft, black dress, a shady black hat on her head, crinkly black gloves, which reached to the elbow, on her hands, and carrying a blue sunshade.

"It is really perfect," she repeated, gazing towards the mountainous land before them, the doll-like figures on the sh.o.r.e, the boats cleaving the sparkling waters.

"Absolutely," declared Antony, his eyes wrinkling at the corners in sheer delight. "The G.o.ds have favoured us."

"Is there a boat ready?" she demanded, eager as a child to start on the adventure.

"A boat," said Antony, looking over the ship's side, "will be with us in a couple of moments I should say, to judge by the strength of the rower's arms. He has been racing the other fellows, and will be first at his goal."

"Then come," she said. "Let us be first too. I don't want to lose a minute."

Antony followed in her wake. Her sentiments most a.s.suredly were his. It was not a day of which to squander one iota.

Ten minutes later they were on their way to the sh.o.r.e. Behind them the _Fort Salisbury_ loomed up large and black from the limpid water; before them lay the land of possibilities.

The other pa.s.sengers in the boat kept up a running fire of comments. A stout gentleman in a sun-helmet, which he considered _de rigeur_ as long as he was anywhere at all near the regions of Africa, gazed towards the sh.o.r.e through a pair of field-gla.s.ses. At intervals he made known such objects of interest as he observed, in loud husky asides to his wife, a small meek woman, who clung to him, metaphorically speaking, as the ivy to the oak. Her vision being unaided by field-gla.s.ses, she was unable to follow his observations with the degree of intelligence he demanded.

"I don't think I quite--" she remarked anxiously now and again, blinking in the same direction as her spouse.