Antony Gray-Gardener Part 7

"To the left, my dear, among the trees," he would reply. Or, "Half-way up the street. _Now_ don't you see?" Or, removing the field-gla.s.ses for a moment to observe the direction of her anxious blinking, "Why, bless my soul, you aren't looking the right way _at all_. Get it in a line with that chimney over there, and the yellow house. The _yellow_ house. You're looking straight at the pink one. Bless my soul, tut, tut." And so forth.

A small boy, leaning far over the side of the boat, gazed rapturously into the water, announcing in shrill tones that he could see to the very bottom, an anxious elder sister grasping the back of his jersey meanwhile. A girl with a pigtail jumped about in a manner calculated to bring an abrupt and watery conclusion to the pa.s.sage, till forcibly restrained by her melancholy-looking father. A young man announced that it was going to be, "Deuced hot on sh.o.r.e, what?" And a gushing young thing of some forty summers appealed to everyone at intervals to know the hour to the very second it would be necessary to return, since it really would be a sin to keep the ship waiting. While the remarks from an elderly and cynical gentleman, that, in the event of unpunctuality on her part, it would be more probable that she would find herself waiting indefinitely at Teneriffe, caused her to giggle hysterically, and label him a naughty man.

"It is a matter for devout thankfulness," said the d.u.c.h.essa some ten minutes later, as she and Antony were walking across the square, "that the _Fort Salisbury_ is large enough to permit of a certain separation from one's fellow humans. I do not wish to be uncharitable, but their proximity does not always appeal to me."

Antony laughed, and tossed some coppers to a small brown-faced girl, who, clasping an infant nearly as large as herself, jabbered at him in an unknown but wholly understandable language.

"You'll be besieged and bankrupt before you see the ship again, if you begin that," warned the d.u.c.h.essa.

"Quite possible," returned Antony smiling.

The d.u.c.h.essa shook her head.

"Oh, if you are in that mood, warnings are waste of breath," she announced.

"Quite," agreed Antony, still smiling.

He was radiantly, idiotically happy. The joy of the morning, the brilliance of the sunshine, and the fact that the d.u.c.h.essa was walking by his side, had gone to his head like wine. If the expenditure of coppers could impart one tenth of his happiness to others, he would fling them broadcast, he would be a very spendthrift with his gladness.

At the church to the left of the square, the d.u.c.h.essa paused.

"In here first," she said. And Antony followed her up the steps.

They made their way through a swarm of grubby children, and entered the porch. It was cool and dark in the church in contrast to the heat and sunshine without. Here and there Antony descried a kneeling figure,--women with handkerchiefs on their heads, and a big basket beside them; an old man or two; a girl telling her beads before the Lady Altar; and a small dark-haired child, who gazed stolidly at the d.u.c.h.essa. Votive candles burned before the various shrines. The ruby lamp made a spot of light in the shadows above the High Altar.

The d.u.c.h.essa dropped on one knee, and then knelt for a few moments at one of the _prie-dieux_. Antony watched her. He was sensible that she was not a mere sight-seer. The church held an element of home for her. Two of the pa.s.sengers--the young man and the cynical elderly gentleman, who had been in the boat with them--strolled in behind him. They gazed curiously about, remarking in loudish whispers on what they saw. Antony felt suddenly, and quite unreasonably, annoyed at their entry. Somehow they detracted from the harmony and peace of the building.

"I didn't know you were a Catholic," he said five minutes later, as he and the d.u.c.h.essa emerged once more into the sunlight.

"You never asked me," she returned smiling.

"No," agreed Antony. And then he added simply, as an afterthought, "it didn't occur to me to ask you."

"It wouldn't," responded the d.u.c.h.essa, a little twinkle in her eyes.

"No," agreed Antony again. "I wish those people hadn't come in," he added somewhat irrelevantly.

"What people?" demanded the d.u.c.h.essa. "Oh, you mean those two men. Why not? Most tourists visit the church."

"I dare say," returned Antony. "But--well, they didn't belong."

"No?" queried the d.u.c.h.essa innocently.

Antony reddened.

"You mean I didn't," he said a little stiffly.

"Ah, forgive me." The d.u.c.h.essa's voice held a note of quick contrition.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. Somehow we Catholics get used to Protestants regarding our churches merely as a sight to be seen, and for the moment I smiled to think that _you_ should be the one whom it irritated. But I do know what you mean, of course. And--I'm _glad_ you felt it."

"Thank you," he returned smiling.

The little cloud, which had momentarily dimmed the brightness of his sun, was dispelled. The merest inflection in the d.u.c.h.essa's voice had the power of casting him down to depths of heart-searching despair, or lifting him to realms of intoxicating joy. And it must be confessed that the past fortnight had been spent almost continuously in these realms.

Also, if he had sunk to the depths of despair, it was rather by reason of an ultra-sensitive imagination on his own part than by any fault of the d.u.c.h.essa's. But then, as Antony would have declared, the position of a subject to his sovereign is a very different matter from the position of the sovereign to the subject. The d.u.c.h.essa could be certain of his loyalty. It was for her to give or withhold favours as it pleased her. It was a different matter for him.

It is not easy for a man, who has lived a very lonely life, to believe in a reciprocal friendship where he himself is concerned. A curious admixture of shyness and diffidence, the outcome of his lonely life, prevented him from imagining that the d.u.c.h.essa could desire his friendship in the smallest degree as he desired hers. To him, the friendship she had accorded him had become the most vital thing in his existence, quite apart from that vague and intoxicating dream, which he scarcely dared to confess in the faintest whisper to his heart. He knew that her friendship appeared essential to his very life. But how could he for one moment imagine that his friendship was essential to her? It could not be, though he would cheerfully have laid down his life for her, have undergone torture for her sake.

Knowing, therefore, that his friendship was not essential to her happiness, yet knowing what her friendship meant to him, he was as ultra-sensitive as a lonely child. His soul sprang forward to receive her gifts, but the merest imagined hint of a rebuff would have sent him back to that loneliness he had learned to look upon as his birthright. Not that he would have gone back to that loneliness with a hurt sense of injury. That must be clearly understood to understand Antony. To have felt injury, would have been tantamount to saying that he had had a right to the friendship, and it was just this very right that Antony could not realize as in the least existent. He would have gone back with an ache, it is true, but with a brave face, and an overwhelming and life-long grat.i.tude for the temporary joy. That is at the present moment; of later, one cannot feel so certain.

To-day, however, loneliness seemed a thing unthinkable, unimaginable, with the d.u.c.h.essa by his side, and the golden day ahead of him. By skilled manoeuvring, and avoiding the recognized hours of meal-time, they managed to escape further contact with their fellow pa.s.sengers.

An exceedingly late luncheon hour found them the sole occupants of a small courtyard at the back of an hotel,--a courtyard set with round tables, and orange trees in green tubs. Over the roofs of the houses, and far below them, they could see the shining water, and the _Fort Salisbury_, lying like a dark blob on its surface. Boats bearing coal were still putting out to her, and men were busy hauling it over her sides.

The d.u.c.h.essa looked down on the ship and the water.

"It is queer to think," said she smiling, "that little more than a week hence, I shall be in Scotland, and, probably, shivering in furs. It can be exceedingly chilly up there, even as late as May."

"I thought you were going to your old home," said Antony.

"So I am," she replied, "but not till nearly the end of June. I am going to stay with friends in Edinburgh first. Where are you going?"

Antony lifted his shoulders in the merest suspicion of a shrug.

"London first," he responded. "After that--well, it's on the knees of the G.o.ds."

"Are you likely to stay in England long?" she asked. And then she added quickly, "You don't think the question an impertinence, I hope."

"Why should I?" he answered smiling. "But I really don't know yet myself.

It will depend on various things."

There was a little silence.

"In any case, I shall see you before I leave England again, if I may," he said. "That is, if I do leave."

The d.u.c.h.essa was still looking at the water.

"I hope you will," she replied. And then she turned towards him. "I don't want our friendship to end completely with the voyage."

Antony's heart gave a little leap.

"It--it really is a friendship?" he asked.

"Hasn't it been?" she asked him.

Antony looked at her.

"For me, yes," he replied steadily.