South Wind Part 24

The elements, as is their wont upon such occasions, gave forth no clear reply.

None the less, while the moist south wind, shorn of the sting of midday, relaxed his pores and pa.s.sed over his cheek like a warm caress, there exhaled from those limitless s.p.a.ces a sense of joyous amplitude--of freedom and exhilaration.

CHAPTER XVIII

And now, in the sunlit hour of dawn, he was bathing again. An excellent habit. It did him good, this physical contact with nature. Africa had weakened his const.i.tution. Nepenthe made him feel younger once more--capable of fun and mischief. The muscles were acquiring a fresh tone, that old zest of life was coming back to him. His health, without a shadow of doubt, had greatly improved.

While disporting himself in amphibious joy among the tepid waves he seemed to cast off that sense of unease which had pursued him of late.

It was good to inhale the harsh salty savour--to submit himself to these calming voices--to float, like a careless Leviathan, in the blue immensity; good to be alive, simply alive.

Another hot and clammy day was in store for the island. No matter. This sirocco, of which older inhabitants might well complain, had so far exerted no baleful influence upon him. Quite the reverse. Under its tender moistening touch his frame, desiccated in the tropics, seemed to open out, even as a withered flower uncloses its petals in water. In Africa all this thoughts and energies had been concentrated upon a single point. Here he expanded. New interests, new sensations, seemed to lie in wait for him. Never had he felt so alert, so responsive to spiritual impressions, so appreciative of natural beauty.

Lying in motionless ecstasy on the buoyant element he watched the mists of morning as they soared into the air. Reluctantly, with imperceptible movement, they detached themselves from their watery home; they clambered aloft in spectral companies, drawn skyward, as by some beckoning hand, under the stealthy compulsion of the sun. They crept against the tawny precipices, clinging to their pinnacles like shreds of pallid gauze, and nestling demurely among dank clefts where something of the mystery of night still lingered. It was a procession of dainty shapes wreathing themselves into gracious att.i.tudes; mounting--ever mounting. As he beheld their filmy draperies that swayed phantom-like among the crags overhead, he understood those pagan minds of olden days for whom such wavering exhalations were none other than sea-nymphs, Atlantides, offspring of some mild-eyed G.o.d of Ocean rising to greet their playfellows, the Oreads, on the hills.

The wildest stretch of Nepenthe coast-line lay before him. Its profile suggested not so much the operation of terrestrial forces as a convulses and calcined lunar landscape--the handiwork of some demon in delirium. Gazing landwards, nothing met his eye save jagged precipices of fearful height, tormented rifts and gulleys scorched by fires of old into fantastic shapes, and descending confusedly to where the water slept in monster-haunted caverns.

Not a sign of humanity was visible save one white villa, far away. It was perched on a promontory of heliotrope-tinted trachyte; struck by the morning beams it flashed and glowed like a jewel in the sunshine.

He knew the place: Madame Steynlin's abode. The sight of it reminded him of a promise to attend her picnic next week; all Nepenthe would be invited, after the feast of Saint Eulalia. And hard by the sh.o.r.e, at its foot, he discerned certain minute scarlet specks.

What could they be?

Why, of course! They were recognizable, even at this distance, as the blouses of the Sacred Sixty-three, who frequented this somewhat public spot for bathing purposes, blandly indifferent, or resigned, to the gaze of inquisitive onlookers. Mr. Heard, among others, had witnessed their aquatic diversions.

The Messiah was hindered by age and growing infirmities from taking part in the proceedings; moreover, he had been sickening lately, it was said, for some new Revelation--a Revelation of which the island was to become cognizant that very morning. But others of the Muscovite band were fond of congregating at this spot and hour for their l.u.s.tral summer rites--white-skinned lads and la.s.ses, matrons and reverent elders, all in a state of Adamitic nudity, splashing about the water of this sunny cover, devouring raw fish and crabs after the manner of the fabled Ichthyophagi, laughing, kissing, saying nice things about G.o.d, and combing out each other's long tow-coloured hair. Madame Steynlin, a spectator by necessity if not deliberate choice of these patriarchal frolics, disdained to controvert certain frivolous folk who resorted to the same beach to gratify a morbid curiosity, under the pretext that it was a delectable entertainment and one of the sights of Nepenthe. She disdained, nowadays. It had not ever been thus. Things were different before Peter the Great came upon the scene. In those unregenerate times her Lutheran upbringing condemned, in no measured terms, this frank exhibition of animal nature. A warm friendship with the good-looking apostle had now opened her eyes to the mystic sense of what went on.

Earthly love had given an unearthly tinge to her mind. The veil had fallen; she saw through external appearances into the Symbolic Beyond.

Deeply penetrated of its inner meaning, she would say that the spectacle called up visions of the Age of Innocence, when the world was young....

An elegant rowing-boat suddenly swept into Mr. Heard's field of vision.

It had approached from round the entrance of the small bay and was already within a few yards ere he caught sight of it. He dived skilfully, and on returning to the surface beheld Mr. Keith smiling upon him, with owlish benevolence, through his spectacles.

"How pretty you look," he said. "Just like a mermaid that's lost its tail."

"You flatter me!"

"Not at all. Climb in and I'll take you for a row."

"Hadn't I better get some clothes on?"

"As you please. We can take you off that boulder if you want to dress."

"You're very kind."

Kind indeed. To admit a friend into one of his yachts or rowing-boats was an act of rare self-sacrifice on the part of Mr. Keith, who maintained that no vessel, not even an Atlantic liner, was large enough for more than one pa.s.senger.

"You are comfortable in here," the bishop remarked, as he presently stepped on board and looked around him. "Cleopatra's barge must have been something like this."

"There will be no breeze worth talking about all day. We must row."

An awning of red silk screened off the rays of the sun; the appointments of the small boat--the polished wood of rare texture, morocco leather cushions, and elaborate fittings--bespoke the taste or at least the income of a Sybarite. A grizzly brown sailor and his curly-pated son were the oarsmen; in the stern sat a couple of Keith's attendants, whom Mr. Heard might have mistaken for two Green genii but for the fact that between them lay an enormous and hideously modern receptacle of wicker-work which impaired the illusion. It troubled the bishop, both by reason of its incongruity and because he could not divine what its purpose might be, till Keith solved the mystery by saying:

"I thought I would like to see for myself about this fountain of Saint Elias and, incidentally, enjoy a little al fresco luncheon by the sh.o.r.e. Now I wonder whether there will be enough food for both of us in the basket?"

"That thing? Dear me. I thought it might contain a cottage piano. What fountain?"

"You haven't heard anything? Nothing at all?"

He outlined the events of the preceding day.

"What?" he continued. "They didn't even tell you about Miss Wilberforce? Well, whether she thought it was her birthday, or whether all these omens upset her nerves--Oh, the usual thing, only rather more so. Decidedly more so. It was late at night, you see, and she insisted on singing 'Auld Lang Syne,' and even on translating it, for the benefit of the constable who arrested her, into her own particular brand of Italian. In fact, there was a good deal of trouble, till somebody let down a blanket from a window. It happened to be a new policeman unaccustomed to her ways, and he has had a bad shock. His wife complained to the judge, who set round word to me this morning that she was in the lock-up."

"In prison. An English lady!"

"It is not the first time by any means. But I feel exactly as you do about it. I've bailed her out, and stopped his mouth with a fifty-franc note. Please keep this between ourselves."

Mr. Heard was not pleased to learn this incident. It seemed a discordant note on Nepenthe. He observed:

"Miss Wilberforce apparently can be relied upon to create a diversion of a scandalous nature. I wish I could do something to help such a poor creature."

"The dear lady! I don't know what we should do without her. By the way, have you seen Denis lately? We must be friendly to that young fellow, Heard. I don't think he is altogether happy in this clear pagan light.

He seems to be oppressed about something. What do you make of him?"

"Of Denis? Nothing at all."

"You interest me."

"How so?"

"Because your values appear to be perverted. Your heart remains dead to Denis, but goes out to a worthless and incurable drunkard. The one is supremely happy. The other plainly troubled in mind. It leaves you cold. How do you explain it?"

Mr. Heard began to wonder. Were his values really vitiated? Had he done anything to justify self-reproach? He remembered meeting Denis lately, in a fit of dejection, as it seemed; they had pa.s.sed each other with a few words of greeting. Perhaps he might have been a little more friendly. Well, he would atone for it on the next occasion. He asked:

"Has he no relations?"

"A mother, at present in Florence. There have been misunderstandings, I suspect. He has probably found her out, like he found out our d.u.c.h.ess; like he will find out both you and me, if we give him the chance.

Meanwhile he gropes about in a wistful fashion, trying to carve out a scheme of life for himself and to learn something from al lof us. What can a person of that kind have in common with a mother of any kind?"

"Everything," said Mr. Heard enthusiastically.

"Nothing at all. You are thinking of your own mother. You forget that you never see her. Any son can live with any mother under those conditions. The fact remains: n.o.body can misunderstand a boy like his own mother. Look around you, and see if it is not true! Honour thy father and thy mother. Perhaps. But we must civilize our mothers before we can expect any rational companionship between them and their sons.