The Children of the King Part 8

So the boat shot out upon the crisping water into the light afternoon breeze, and up went foresail and mainsail and jib, and away she went on the port tack, San Miniato steering and talking to Beatrice--which things are not to be done together with advantage--the Marchesa lying back in a cane rocking-chair and thinking of nothing, while Teresina held the parasol over her mistress's head and shot bright glances at the sailors forward. And Ruggiero and Bastianello sat side by side amidships looking out at the gleaming sea to windward.

"What hast thou?" asked Bastianello in a low voice.

"The pain," answered his brother.

"Why let thyself be consumed by it? Ask her in marriage. The Marchesa will give her to thee."

"Better to die! Thou dost not know all."

"That may be," said Bastianello with a sigh.

And he slowly began to fake down the slack of the main halyard on the thwart, twisting the coil slowly and thoughtfully as it grew under his broad hands, till the rope lay in a perfectly smooth disk beside him.

But Ruggiero changed his position and gazed steadily at Beatrice's changing face while San Miniato talked to her.

So the boat sped on and many of those on board misunderstood each other, and some did not understand themselves. But what was most clear to all before long was that San Miniato could not make love and steer his trick at the same time.

"Are we going to Castellamare?" asked Bastianello in a low voice as the boat fell off more and more under the Count's careless steering.

Ruggiero started. For the first time in his life he had forgotten that he was at sea.

CHAPTER V.

San Miniato did not possess that peculiar and common form of vanity which makes a man sensitive about doing badly what he has never learned to do at all. He laughed when Ruggiero advised him to luff a little, and he did as he was told. But Ruggiero came aft and perched himself on the stern in order to be at hand in case his master committed another flagrant breach of seamanship.

"You will certainly take us to the bottom of the bay instead of to Tragara," observed the Marchesa languidly. "But then at least my discomforts will be over for ever. Of course there is no lemonade on board. Teresina, I want lemonade."

In an instant Bastianello produced a decanter out of a bucket of snow and brought it aft with a gla.s.s. The Marchesa smiled.

"You do things very well, dearest friend," she said, and moistened her lips in the cold liquid.

"Donna Beatrice has had more to do with providing for your comfort than I," answered the Count.

The Marchesa smiled lazily, sipped about a teaspoonful from the gla.s.s and handed it to her maid.

"Drink, Teresina," she said. "It will refresh you."

The girl drank eagerly.

"You see," said the Marchesa, "I can think of the comfort of others as well as of my own."

San Miniato smiled politely and Beatrice laughed. Her laughter hurt the silent sailor perched behind her, as though a gla.s.s had been broken in his face. How could she be so gay when his heart was beating so hard for her? He drew his breath sharply and looked out to sea, as many a heart-broken man has looked across that fair water since woman first learned that men's hearts could break.

It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was already low, rolling down to his western bath behind Capo Miseno, northernmost of all his daily plunges in the year; and as he sank, the colours he had painted on the hills at dawn returned behind him, richer and deeper and rarer for the heat he had given them all day. There, like a ma.s.s of fruit and flowers in a red gold bowl, Sorrento lay in the basin of the surrounding mountains, all gilded above and full of rich shadows below. Over all, the great Santangelo raised his misty head against the pale green eastern sky, gazing down at the life below, at the living land and the living sea, and remembering, perhaps, the silent days before life was, or looking forward to the night to come in which there will be no life left any more. For who shall tell me that the earth herself may not be a living, thinking, feeling being, on whose not unkindly bosom we wear out our little lives, but whose high loves are with the stars, beyond our sight, and her voice too deep and musical for ears used to our shrill human speech? Who shall say surely that she is not conscious of our presence, of some of our doings when we tear her breast and lay burdens upon her neck and plough up her fair skin with our hideous works, or when we touch her kindly and love her, and plant sweet flowers in soft places? Who shall know and teach us that the summer breeze is not her breath, the storm the sobbing of her pa.s.sion, the rain her woman's tears--that she is not alive, loving and suffering, as we all have been, are, or would be, but greater than we as the star she loves somewhere is greater and stronger than herself? And we live upon her, and feed on her and all die and are taken back into her whence we came, wondering much of the truth that is hidden, learning perhaps at last the great secret she keeps so well. Her life, too, will end some day, her last blossom will have bloomed alone, her last tears will have fallen upon her own bosom, her last sob will have rent the air, and the beautiful earth will be dead for ever, borne on in the sweep of the race that will never end, borne along yet a few ages, till her sweet body turns to star-dust in the great emptiness of a night without morning.

But Ruggiero, plain strong man of the people, hard-handed sailor, was not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter's unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice's face, now turned towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not understand all the fine words Beatrice and San Miniato used. If he had never been away from the coast, the probability is that he would have understood nothing at all; but in his long voyages he had been thrown with men of other parts of Italy and had picked up a smattering of what Neapolitans call Italian, to distinguish it from their own speech. Even as it was, the most part of what they said escaped him, because they seemed to think so very differently from him about simple matters, and to be so heartily amused at what seemed so dull to him. And he began to feel that the hurt he had was deep and not to be healed, while he reflected that he was undoubtedly mad, since he loved this lady so much while understanding her so little. The mere feeling that she could talk and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness shows itself among men.

Why, for instance, did the young girl's cheek flush and her eyes sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero hated Frenchmen with all his heart. Then they talked about the theatre and Beatrice was evidently interested. Ruggiero had once seen a puppet show and had not found it at all funny. The theatre was only a big puppet show, and he could pay for a seat there if he pleased; but he did not please, because he was sure that it would not amuse him to go. Why should Beatrice like the theatre? And she liked the races at Naples, too, and those at Paris much better. Why? Everybody knew that one horse could run faster than another, without trying it, but it could not matter a straw which of two, or twenty, got to the goal first. Horses were not boats. Now there was sense in a boat race, or a yacht race, or a steamer race. But a horse! He might be first to-day, and to-morrow if he had not enough to eat he might be last. Was a horse a Christian? You could not count upon him. And then they began to talk of love and Ruggiero's heart stood still, for that, at least, he could understand.

"Love!" laughed Beatrice, repeating the word. "It always makes one laugh. Were you ever in love, mamma?"

The Marchesa turned her head slowly, and lifted her sleepy eyes to look at her daughter, before she answered.

"No," she said lazily. "I was never in love. But you are far too young to talk of such things."

"San Miniato says that love is for the young and friendship for the old."

"Love," said San Miniato, "is a necessary evil, but it is also the greatest source of happiness."

"What a fine phrase!" exclaimed Beatrice. "You must be a professor in disguise."

"A professor of love?" asked the Count with a very well executed look of tenderness which did not escape Ruggiero.

"Hush, for the love of heaven!" interposed the Marchesa. "This is too dreadful!"

"We were not talking of the love of heaven," answered Beatrice mischievously.

"I was thinking at least of a love that could make any place a heaven,"

said San Miniato, again helping his lack of originality with his eyes.

Ruggiero reflected that it would be but the affair of a second to unship the heavy bra.s.s tiller and bring it down once on the top of his master's skull. Once would be enough.

"Whose love?" asked Beatrice innocently.

San Miniato looked at her again, then turned away his eyes and sighed audibly.

"Well?" asked Beatrice. "Will you answer. I do not understand that language. Whose love would make any place--Timbuctoo, for instance--a heaven for you?"

"Discretion is the only virtue a man ought to exhibit whenever he has a chance," said San Miniato.

"Perhaps. But even that should be shown without ostentation." Beatrice laughed. "And you are decidedly ostentatious at the present moment. It would interest mamma and me very much to know the object of your affections."

"Beatrice!" exclaimed the Marchesa with affected horror.

"Yes, mamma," answered the young girl. "Here I am. Do you want some more lemonade?"

"She is quite insufferable," said the Marchesa to San Miniato, with a languid smile. "But really, San Miniato carissimo, this conversation--a young girl---"

Ruggiero wondered what she found so obnoxious in the words that had been spoken. He also wondered how long it would take San Miniato to drown if he were dropped overboard in the wake of the boat.

"If that is your opinion of your daughter," said the latter, "we shall hardly agree. Now I maintain that Donna Beatrice is the contrary of insufferable--the most extreme of contraries. In the first place---"

"She is very pretty," said Beatrice demurely.

"I was not going to say that," laughed San Miniato.