Long Odds Part 16

Walters laughed. "Is that a custom you mean to adopt invariably after a night of this kind?"

"No," said Lister. "It won't be necessary. You see there will never be another one."

They went on, and Walters sat down on the little mole not far away while his comrade stripped off his thin attire. Then Lister stood a moment, gleaming white in the moonlight, a big, loose-limbed figure, on the head of the mole before he went down with flung-out hands and stiffened body into the cool Atlantic swell. It closed about him glittering, and he was well out in the harbor when he came up again and slid away down the blaze of radiance with left arm swinging. The chill of the deep sea water, at least, cooled his slightly fevered skin, and, perhaps, there was something in his half pagan fancy that it also washed a stain off him. In any case, the desire to escape from the most unusual sense of contamination was a wholesome one.

CHAPTER XIII

HIS BENEFICENT INFLUENCE

There is a certain aldea, a little straggling village of flat-topped houses, among the black volcanic hills of Grand Canary which has like one or two others of its kind a good deal to offer the discerning traveler who will take the trouble to visit it. It is certainly a trifle difficult to reach, which is, perhaps, in one sense not altogether a misfortune, since the Englishmen and Englishwomen who visit that island in the winter seldom leave such places exactly as they find them. One goes up by slippery bridle paths on horse or mule back over hot sand and wastes of dust and ashes into a rift between the hills, and when once the tremendous gateway of fire-rent rock has been pa.s.sed discovers that it costs one an effort to go away again.

In the bottom of the barranco lie maize-fields and vines. Tall green palms fling streaks of shadow over them, and close beneath the black crags stands a little ancient church and odd cubes of lava houses tinted with delicate pink or ochre or whitewashed dazzlingly. They nestle among their fig trees shut in by tall aloes, and oleanders, and a drowsy quietness which is intensified by the murmur of running water pervades the rock-walled hollow. It is the stillness of a land where nothing matters greatly, and there is in it the essence of the resignation which regards haste and effort and protest as futile, that is characteristic of old world Spain, for Spain was never until lately bounded by the confines of the Peninsula.

Las Palmas down beside the smoking beach is no longer Spanish. It is filled with bustle and a rampant commercialism, and English is spoken there; but the quietness of the ages lingers among the hills where the grapes of Moscatel are still trodden in the winepress by barelegged men in unstarched linen who live very much as one fancies the patriarchs did, plowing with oxen and wooden plows, and beating out their corn on wind-swept threshing floors. They also comport themselves, even towards the wandering Briton, who does not always deserve it, with an almost stately courtesy, and seldom trouble themselves about the morrow. All that is essentially Spanish is Eastern, too. The life in the hill pueblos is that portrayed in the Jewish scriptures, and the olive-skinned men whose forefathers once ruled half the world have also like the Hebrew the remembrance of their departed glory to sadden them.

It is, however, scarcely probable that any fancies of this kind occurred to Mrs. Ratcliffe as she lay in a somewhat rickety chair under a vine-draped pergola outside a pink-washed house in that aldea one afternoon. She was essentially modern, and usually practical, in which respects Ada, who sat not far away, was not unlike her. A man, at least, seldom expects to find the commercial instinct and a shrewd capacity for estimating and balancing worldly advantages in a young woman of prepossessing appearance with innocent eyes, which is, perhaps, a pity, since it now and then happens that the fact that she possesses a reasonable share of both of them is made clear to him in due time. Then it is apt to cause him pain, for man being vain prefers to believe that it is personal merit that counts for most where he is concerned.

Ada Ratcliffe was listening to the drowsy splash of falling water, and looking down through the rocky gateway over tall palms and creeping vines, blackened hillslopes, and gleaming sands, on the vast plain of the Atlantic which lay, a sheet of turquoise, very far below. Above her, tremendous fire-rent pinnacles ran up into the upper sweep of ethereal blue, but all this scarcely roused her interest. She had seen it already, and had said it was very pretty. Besides, she was thinking of other things which appealed to her considerably more, a London house, an acknowledged station in smart society, and the command of money. These were things she greatly desired to have, and it was evident that Thomas Ormsgill could only offer her them in a certain measure. It was, in some respects, only natural that her mother should set a high value on them too, and desire them for her daughter. She had made a long and gallant fight against adverse circ.u.mstances since her husband died, and there was in her face the hardness of one who has more than once been almost beaten. There were, she knew, women who would freely give themselves with all that had been given them to the man they loved, but Mrs. Ratcliffe had never had much sympathy with them. It was, she felt, a much more sensible thing to make a bargain, and secure something in return.

Still, n.o.body would have fancied that Ada Ratcliffe had any such ideas just then. Her face was quietly tranquil, and the pose she had fallen into in the big basket chair was, if not quite unstudied, a singularly graceful one. In her hands lay a Spanish fan, a beautiful, costly thing of silk and feathers and fretted ebony which Lister had given her a few days earlier. He sat on a block of lava watching her with a little significant gleam that she was perfectly conscious of in his usually apathetic eyes. Still, though he had a heavy face of the kind one seldom a.s.sociates with self-restraint, there was nothing in his expression which could have jarred upon a woman of the most sensitive temperament. There were not many things which Albert Lister had much reverence for, but during the last few weeks a change had been going on in him, and it was a blind, unreasoning devotion which none of his friends would have believed him capable of that he offered this girl.

His pleasures had been coa.r.s.e ones, and there was much in him that she might have shrunk from, but he had, at least, of late fought with the desires of his lower nature, and, for the time being, trampled on one or two of them. Slow of thought, and of very moderate intelligence, as he was, he had yet endeavored to purge himself of grossness before he ventured into her presence. He had not spoken for awhile when Mrs.

Ratcliffe turned to him.

"You were not in the drawing-room last night," she said, and her manner subtly conveyed the impression that she had expected him. "No doubt you had something more interesting on hand?"

"No," said Lister slowly, "I don't think I had. In fact, I was playing cards!"

Mrs. Ratcliffe was a trifle perplexed, for she had now and then ventured to express her disapproval of one or two of his favorite distractions in a motherly fashion, and she could not quite understand his candor. It was, perhaps, natural that she should not credit him with a simple desire for honesty, since this was a motive which would not have had much weight with her.

"Ah," she said, with an air of playful reproach, "everybody plays cards nowadays, and I suppose one must not be too hard on you. Still, I think you know what my views are upon that subject."

They were scarcely likely to be very charitable ones, since she owed her own long struggle to the fact that there were few forms of gaming her husband had not unsuccessfully experimented with, and she continued feelingly, "If one had no graver objections, it is apt to prove expensive."

Lister laughed a little. "It proved so--to the other people--last night, but I think you are right. In fact, it's scarcely likely I'll touch a card again. In one way,"--and he appeared to reflect laboriously, "it's a waste of life."

His companions were both a trifle astonished. They had scarcely expected a sentiment of this kind from him, and though the elder lady would probably not have admitted it, gaming did not appear to her so objectionable a thing provided that one won and had the sense to leave off when that was the case. Ada Ratcliffe, however, smiled.

"To be candid, one would hardly have fancied you would look at it in that light," she said. "Still, you seem to have been changing your views lately."

"I have," said the man slowly, with a faint flush in his heavy face.

"After all, one comes to look at these things differently, and I dare say those fellows are right who lay it down that one ought to do something for his country or his living. Once I had the opportunity, but I let it go, or rather I flung it away. I often wish I hadn't, but I'm not quite sure it's altogether too late now."

He spoke with an awkward diffidence, for though he was very young, ideas of this kind were quite new to him. The love of the girl he looked at appealingly had stirred his slow coa.r.s.e nature, and something that had sprung up in its depths was growing towards the light. It might have grown to grace and beauty had the light been a benignant one, for, after all, it is not upon the soil alone that growth of any kind depends. Ada Ratcliffe, however, did not recognize in the least that this laid upon her a heavy responsibility.

"No," she said with an encouraging smile, "there is no reason why you shouldn't make a career yet. I almost think you could if you wanted to."

It was a bold a.s.sertion, but she made it unblushingly, and Lister appeared to consider.

"There are not many things I'm good at--that is, useful ones," he said. "You have to be able to talk sensibly, anyway, before you can make your mark at politics, and some of them don't do it under twenty years."

He stopped for a moment with a little sigh. "Still, I suppose there must be something worth while for one to do, even if it's not exactly what one would like."

"One's duty is usually made clear to one," said Mrs. Ratcliffe encouragingly.

"Well," said Lister, "I'm not sure it is, though it's probably his own fault if he doesn't want to recognize it. As I mentioned, you can look at the same thing differently. There was Desmond's friend Ormsgill. A little while ago I thought he was a trifle crazy. Now I begin to see it's a big thing he's doing, something to look back on afterwards even if he never does anything worth while again."

He saw the faint flush of color in Ada Ratcliffe's face, though he did not in the least understand it. There was a good deal this man could give her, and she knew that he would in due time press it upon her, but she was naturally aware that his mental capacity was painfully small. This made the fact that he should look upon Ormsgill's errand as one a man could take pride in a reproach to her. Mrs. Ratcliffe's face was, however, if anything, expressive of anxiety, for she had asked herself frequently if Lister could by any chance have heard that the girl's pledge to Ormsgill had never been retracted. She did not think he had, but this was a point it was well to be sure upon.

"I didn't think you had met him," she said.

"I haven't. You see, I stayed behind in Madeira while the _Palestrina_ came on, and when I got here Ormsgill had gone. Desmond told me about him. I understood he was to marry somebody when he had done his errand, though, if he knew, Desmond never mentioned who she was."

He stopped, and Mrs. Ratcliffe sighed with sheer relief when he turned and looked eastwards towards Africa across the vast stretch of sea with a vague longing in his eyes.

"Well," he said, "when he comes back again he will have done something that should make the girl look up to him."

Again the flicker of color crept into Ada Ratcliffe's cheek, for she was conscious just then of a curious resentment against the man who had gone to Africa for an idea. It was singularly galling that a man of Lister's caliber should make her ashamed. Still, she smiled at him.

"I believe we have all more than one opportunity, and another one will no doubt present itself," she said.

Lister sat still looking at her in a fashion she found almost embarra.s.sing, and for a moment or two none of them spoke. Then there were footsteps on the lava blocks outside the pergola, and a man appeared in an opening between the vines. He was dressed in white duck, and his face was bronzed by wind and spray, while Mrs.

Ratcliffe found it difficult to refrain from starting at the sight of him. He stood where he was for a moment looking at the group with grave inquiry, and Ada Ratcliffe felt that she hated him for the little smile of comprehension that crept into his eyes. Then he moved quietly forward, and Lister rose with a faint flush in his face.

"I'm glad to see you, Desmond. I mean it, in spite of what pa.s.sed the night you packed me off," he said.

It was an awkward meeting, though Lister was the only one whose embarra.s.sment was noticeable. His companions were watching Desmond quietly, though Mrs. Ratcliffe was sensible that this was the last man she would have desired to see. He had come back from Africa and might spoil everything, for at the back of her mind she was not quite sure of her daughter. Still, though it cost her an effort, she asked him a few questions.

"Ormsgill didn't want me for some time and I ran across for coal and other things. That coast isn't one it's judicious to stay on," he said, and looked at Ada steadily. "You will be pleased to hear that he was in excellent health--though he was still bent on carrying out his purpose--when he left me."

The girl's gesture was apparently expressive of relief, and Desmond who sat down on the lava parapet proceeded to relate what he knew of Ormsgill's projects and adventures. He felt the constraint that was upon all of them except Lister, whose embarra.s.sment was rapidly disappearing, and though it afforded him certain grim satisfaction he talked to dissipate it.

"We ran in this morning, and as the folks at the hotel told me you were here I came on," he said at length.

They asked him a few more questions, and it said a good deal for Mrs.

Ratcliffe's courage that she invited him to stay there for comida and then to ride back to their hotel with them. Still it would, as she recognized, be useless to separate the men, since they would come across each other continually in Las Palmas, and she was one who knew that the boldest course is now and then the wisest. Desmond stayed, and it was some little time later when he sat alone with Lister among the tumbled lava by the watercourse. Feathery palm tufts drooped above them, and looking out between the fringed and fretted greenery they could see the blue expanse of sea. Beyond its sharp-cut eastern rim, as both of them were conscious, lay the shadowy land. Desmond turned from its contemplation and regarded his companion with a little smile.

"I heard a good deal about you in the hotel smoking room," he said. "I suppose I ought to compliment you on the possession of a certain amount of sense. Presumably you have now a motive for going steady?"

Lister flushed, but he met his companion's gaze without wavering. "As a matter of fact you are quite correct," he said. "Anyway, the motive is a sufficient one."

"Ah," said Desmond dryly, "it is in that case a lady, Miss Ratcliffe most probably? You no doubt recognize that she is several years older than you, and that it is more than possible her affections have been engaged before?"

His companion resolutely straightened himself. "It isn't as a rule advisable to go too far, but I don't mind informing you that they are not engaged now."