The Gorgeous Isle Part 11

"I have given little thought to all this----"

"But you will now! Give me your promise, dear Miss Percy, or I cannot leave this island in peace."

"But do you believe that Byam Warner will be content to settle down for the rest of his mortal life to an existence of mere domestic happiness?"

"By no means. He delights in literature, and although he is well read, there are tomes which not even a Bacon could master in one lifetime.

Moreover, he should buy back his cane fields. That would keep him much out of doors, as overseers are of little more worth than negroes."

Then Lord Hunsdon had an inspiration. "Encourage him to write prose.

There need be no fury of creation in that. The greater part of his mind is capable of accomplishing anything una.s.sisted. Interest him in politics. He is a Tory and he loves me. Remind him constantly of the Whig inferno from which we have just emerged. I am sure he would write political pamphlets of incomparable influence. I have never heard Warner talk politics, but I don't doubt that his mind would illuminate that subject as it does everything else it touches. Fill the house with quarterlies and newspapers."

"He might write a political romance, after the pattern of Disraeli,"

said Anne, who wondered why Lord Hunsdon did not take to romantic composition himself.

"Oh, not fiction, not by any means. Work that requires the exercise of the merely intellectual powers, not that fatal creative-spot. But will you promise, Miss Percy? Will you permit me to make sure that you understand your solemn responsibility?"

He faced her, his eyes flashing with that fanatical fire that would have sent him to the stake three centuries since. They seemed to retreat, become minute, bore through her. Anne, whose mind was in confusion, and not a little angered, stirred uneasily, but she replied in a calm decided tone.

"I fully realise my responsibility. Make no doubt of that. I know what I have done, what I am undertaking, I shall live for him, never for myself. I promise you that, if you think the promise necessary."

"And you will never let him write another line of poetry?"

"Not if I believed it would do him more hurt than good."

"That is not enough," cried Hunsdon pa.s.sionately. "You must be unconditional. One surrender and he is lost. If it were a mere case of brandy while he was writing--but you have not the least idea what it leads to. He is transformed, another man--not a man at all. And when he emerged, did he enter that horror again, he would loathe himself as he never did before. He would be without one shred of self-respect. I shudder to think what would be the final result."

"You will admit that as his wife I may find better opportunities to understand that complicated nature than you have had."

"Will you not make me that promise?"

"I will only promise to be guided by my judgment, not by my feelings.

I hear Byam's voice. After all, it is hardly fair to talk him over like this."

CHAPTER XX

Hunsdon did not give up the siege, and rode out daily, much to the complacency of Miss Ogilvy, to whom Anne contrived to turn him over.

Lady Constance, who found Medora amusing, was still further amused by the subtle currents beneath the surface, blind only to the shrewd young Colonial's court of herself, and was finally inspired to invite her to London for the season. Miss Ogilvy, in her own way, was as happy as Anne. A younger sister was returning from England and could take over her duties at the Grange; Lady Mary, riding dashingly about the island with the spirit of eighteen, was caught in a shower, neglected to change her garments at once, had a fever, and arose as yellow as a lemon; Medora was nineteen and as white as an amaryllis.

The day of the wedding arrived. Never was there such a ringing of bells, so splendid an array of equipages and gowns. Fig Tree Church could hardly hold the planters and their wives, the guests from Bath House, as well as those from St. Kitts, and the Byams and Warners that had sailed over from half a dozen islands. Outside, the churchyard, the road, the fields were crowded with the coloured folk, humble and ambitious. Bonnets and parasols gave this dense throng the effect of a moving tropical garden, and if the women were too mindful of their new manners to shout as the Ogilvy coach rolled past containing the bride hardly visible under clouds of tulle, the men set up a wild roar as they caught sight of Warner hastily approaching the rear of the church by a side path. Mr. Ogilvy gave the bride away, Lord Hunsdon was best man, and Medora the only bridesmaid. Anne had pleaded for a quiet wedding at the Grange, but to this her young hostess would not harken; and the festival was vastly to her credit, from the beautiful decorations of the chancel to the wedding-breakfast at the Grange.

Lord Hunsdon was much interested to learn that the dainty, varied, and appetising repast was ordered and partly cooked by the accomplished creature beside him--whose eyes certainly had a most attractive Oriental slant. It so happened that his lordship was deeply concerned with the Orient, and hoped that the cares of state, now that the Tories were safely planted, would permit him to visit it.

The negroes were dined on a platform in one of the bare cane fields, and danced afterward until the bridal party started for the beach before Charlestown; then all, high and low, followed in the wake of the Grange coach with its four horses decorated with white ribbons and driven by postillions. One of the wedding presents had been a fine little sloop, and in it Warner and his bride set off at four in the afternoon, almost the entire population of Nevis, white and black, crowding the sands and cheering good will.

That honeymoon among the islands was so replete with beauty and bliss and the fulfilment of every romantic and ardent dream, that when it was finished it was almost a relief to Anne to adjust her faculties to the homely details of housekeeping. For two months they wandered amongst that chain of enchanted islands set in a summer sea, the sympathetic trade winds filling their sails and tempering the heat on sh.o.r.e. St. Thomas with its little city on three hills like a painted fairy tale; St. Croix with its old Spanish arcades and palm avenues; the red-roofed Dutch village in the green crater of St. Bartholomew, which shot straight out of the sea without a hand's width of sh.o.r.e; Antigua with its English landscapes and tropical hospitality; St.

Lucia, looking like an exploded mountain chain, that had caught the bright plains and forests of another island while the earth was in its throes, green as a shattered emerald by day, flaming with the long torches of gigantic fireflies by night; St. Vincent with its smoking volcanoes and rich plantations; Martinique, that bit of old France, with its almost perpendicular flights of street-steps cut in the rock, lined with ancient houses; beautiful honey-coloured women always pa.s.sing up and down with tall jars or baskets on their stately heads; Dominica, with its rugged mountains, roaring cataracts, and brilliant verdure; Trinidad, with its terrible cliffs, infinitely coloured valleys, mountain ma.s.ses; its groves of citron, and hedges of scarlet hybiscus and white hydrangea, towns set in the green amphitheatres of gentle hills, impenetrable forests, and lakes of boiling pitch: Warner and Anne lingered on all of them, climbed to the summit of volcanoes hidden in the clouds and gazed into awful craters evil of smell and resounding with the menace of deep, imprisoned, persistent tides; sailed on the quiet lake in the crater of Mt. Pelee; rode on creole ponies for days through scented chromatic forests with serrated heights frowning above them, and companioned by birds as vivid as the flowers and as silent. There were no wild beasts, nothing to mar days and nights so heavy laden with beauty that Anne wondered if the cold North existed on the same planet, and sometimes longed for the scent of English violets. In Trinidad they were entertained in great state by the most distinguished of Warner's relatives, a high official of the island. Anne wore for an evening the famous ring, and was nearly prostrated with excitement and the fear of losing it. If she had not been half drugged with happiness and the ineffable beauty which scarcely for a moment deserted her waking senses, she would have attempted to define the quiver of terror that crossed her nerves now and again; for life at white heat has been embolismal since the death of the G.o.ds. As to Warner, he who had written many poems, now devoted himself to living one, and achieved a perfect success.

CHAPTER XXI

Hamilton House had been repaired during their absence, without and within. It was not necessary to refurnish, for the fine old mansion was set thick with mahogany four-posters, settles, chests, tables and chairs--more stately than comfortable. They arrived without warning, but the servants, under the merciless driving of Mr. Ogilvy, had been on the alert for several days, and as the sloop was becalmed for two hours not three miles from sh.o.r.e, until the lagging evening breeze filled the sails, when Warner and Anne finally landed and were led in triumph to their home by some twenty of their friends, every room of the upper story was flooded with the light of wax candles set in long polished globes, the crystal and silver of the wedding presents was on the great mahogany dining-table laden with the plenty of the tropics, muslin curtains fluttered in the evening wind, the pitch-pine floors shone like gla.s.s, and flowers were on every stand and table.

There was a very long and very gay dinner, and many more guests came during the evening. When the last of them had gone and Anne went to her own pink room, the only luxurious room in the house, she felt happier than even during the past enchanted weeks, for she was at home and the home was her own.

She had never been permitted to interfere with the ancient and admirable housekeeping at Warkworth Manor, but she discovered next morning that the spirit of the housewife was in her, and was far more exultant over her bunch of keys, her consultations with her major-domo, her struggles with the most worthless servants on earth, than she had ever been over her first doll or her first novel. The routine into which the young couple immediately settled was unique to both and had little of monotony in it. After their early walk Warner spent the morning in his library, where he had a large case of books, Hunsdon's wedding present, to consider. He resisted his friend's proposition to write political pamphlets with the seriousness that rises from the deepest humour, but he loved to read and ponder, and his few hours of solitude were easily occupied with the lore of the centuries. After siesta they rode and called at one or other of the Great Houses, and every evening they were dined or dined others. Bath House was closed, but the island was always gay until the dead heat of summer came and hurricanes threatened but rarely thinned the heavy air, when although tropical storms were frequent, the rain was as hot as the earth.

Even then Warner and Anne had a companionship of which they never tired, and there was a new interest in watching the torn Caribbean and the furious driving of the wind among the trees. They could always exercise on the long veranda, or play games within doors.

Then, for a time, this perfect state of bliss was threatened. Anne was thrown from her horse, frightened by a flash of lightning, as, caught in a storm, they were riding full speed for home, and was in agony and peril for several days, confined to her bed for a fortnight longer.

There were the best of doctors on so wealthy an island as Nevis, and she recovered completely, although forced to shroud not the least of her desires. But the wild despair of Warner while she was in danger, and his following devotion, his inspired ingenuity in diverting her during her term of sadness and protest, made her feel that to cherish disappointment even in her inmost soul would be flying in the face of providence; her spirits struggled up to their normal high level, and once more she was the happiest of women. It was another fortnight before she could leave the house, but the languor was a new and pleasant sensation and not unbecoming the weather. Warner read aloud instead of to himself, and they wondered that they had never discovered this firm subtle link in comradeship before. The rainy summer is the winter of the tropics, and they felt the same delight in hiding themselves within their own four walls that others so often experience in a sterner clime when the elements forbid social intercourse.

CHAPTER XXII

Anne could never recall just when it was she discovered, or rather divined, that her husband was once more a dual being. A vague sense of change cohered into fact when she realised that for some time he had been reading aloud and pursuing an undercurrent of independent thought. His devotion increased, were that possible, but the time came when he no longer could conceal that he was often absent in mind and depressed in spirit. He took to long rambles in which she could not accompany him at that season while so far from robust, smilingly excusing himself by reminding her that being so much more vigorous than of old he needed a corresponding amount of exercise. There finally came an entire week when he was forced to remain indoors, so persistent were the torrential rains, and after the first two days he ceased even to pretend to read, but sat staring out of the window with blank eyes and set lips, at the gray deluge beating down the palm trees. He came to the table and consumed his meals mechanically. Nor was he irritable. The gentleness of his nature seemed unaffected, but that his mental part seethed was autoptical. If he was less the lover he clung to Anne as to a rock in mid-ocean, and if he would not talk he was uneasy if she left the room.

There was but one explanation, and he was becoming less the man and more the poet every day. He slept little, and lost the spring from his gait. Anne was as convinced as Lord Hunsdon or Lady Constance that all geniuses were unsound of mind no matter how normal they might be while the creative faculty slept. Sleep it must, and no doubt this familiar of Warner's had been almost moribund owing to the extraordinary and unexpected change that had taken place in his life, and the new interest that had held every faculty. This interest was no less alive, but it was no longer novel, and a ghost had risen in his brain clamouring for form and substance.

Anne wished that he would write the poem and have done with it. She had never for a moment demanded that he should sacrifice his career to her, and during the past months, having admired as much as she loved him, she had dismissed as a mere legend the belief held by his friends that he could not write without stimulant. And she loved the poet as much as she loved the man. Indeed it was the poet she had loved first, to whom she had owed a happiness during many lonely years almost as perfect as the man had given her. That he had no weakness for spirits was indubious. There were always cognac and Madeira on the table in the living room where they received the convivial planters, and she drank Canary herself at table. It was patent to her that he refrained from writing because he had voluntarily given her his word he would write no more, and that he had but to take pen in hand for the flood to burst. She did not broach the subject for some days, waiting for him to make an appeal of some sort, no matter how subtle, but toward the end of this stormy week when he was looking more forlorn and haunted every moment, she suddenly determined to wait no longer.

They were standing at the window watching the moon fight its way amidst torn black clouds and flinging glittering doles upon the black and swollen waters. She put her hand on his shoulder as a man might have done and said in a matter-of-fact tone:

"You want to write. You are quick with a new poem. That must be patent even to the servants. I wish you would write it."

He jerked up his shoulders as if to dislodge her hand, then recollected himself and put his arm about her.

"I never intend to write another poem," he said.

"That is nonsense. A poem must be much like a baby. If it is conceived it must be born. Do you deny it is there?" tapping his forehead.

"When the devil takes possession it is better to stifle him before he grows to his full strength."

"You are unjust to speak in that fashion of the most divine of all gifts. You are not intimating that your poem is too wicked to publish?"

"No!" He flung out his hands, striking the window. His eyes expanded and flashed. "I believe it to be the most beautiful poem ever conceived!" he cried. "I never before knew much about any of my poems until I had pen in hand, but although I could not recite a line of this I can see it all. I can feel it. I can hear it. It calls me in my dreams and whispers when I am closest to you. And you--you--are its inspiration. You have liberated all that was locked from my imagination before. I lived in an unreal world until I knew, lived with you. Knowing that so well, I believed that my deserted muse would either take herself off in disdain, or be smothered dead. Art has always been jealous of mortal happiness. But the emotions I have experienced in the past six months--despair, hope, despair, hope, superlative happiness, mere content, the very madness of terror, and its equally violent reaction when I experienced the profoundest religious emotion--all this has enriched my nature, my mind, that abnormal patch in my brain that creates. Ever since I took pen in hand I have dreamed of a poetic meridian that I have never approached--until now!"

"What must it be?" cried Anne, quivering with excitement and delight.

"You have done more than other men already."