The Grey Lady Part 7

Fitz stayed where he was, standing by the dead man, looking down at the priest's bowed head, while the bell of the little chapel attached to the Casa d'Erraha told the valley that a good man had gone to his rest.

CHAPTER VI. AN ACTOR Pa.s.sES OFF THE STAGE.

We pa.s.s; the path that each man trod Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds.

The priest was the first to speak.

"You are his friend, I also; but we are of different nations."

He paused, drawing the sheet up over the dead man's face.

"He was not of my Church. You have your ways; will you make the arrangements?"

"Yes," replied Fitz simply, "if you like."

"It is better so, my son"--the padre took a pinch of snuff-- "because--he was not of my Church. You will stay here, you and your friend. She, the Senorita Eve, cannot be left alone, with her grief."

He spoke Spanish, knowing that the Englishman understood it.

They drew down the blinds and pa.s.sed out on to the terrace, where they walked slowly backwards and forwards, talking over the future of Eve and of the Casa d'Erraha.

In Spain, as in other southern lands, they speed the parting guest.

Two days later Edward Challoner was laid beside his father and grandfather in the little churchyard in the valley below the Casa d'Erraha. And who are we that we should say that his chance of reaching heaven was diminished by the fact that part of the Roman Catholic burial service was read over him by a Spanish priest?

Fitz had telegraphed to Eve's only living relative, Captain Bontnor, and Fitz it was who stayed on at the Casa d'Erraha until that mariner should arrive; for the doctor was compelled to return to his ship at Port Mahon, and the priest never slept in another but his own little vicarage house.

And in the Casa d'Erraha was enacted at this time one of those strange little comedies that will force themselves upon a tragic stage. Fitz deemed it correct that he should avoid Eve as much as possible, and Eve, on the other hand, feeling lonely and miserable, wanted the society of the simple-minded young sailor.

"Why do you always avoid me?" she asked suddenly on the evening after the funeral. He had gone out on to the terrace, and thither she followed him in innocent anger, without afterthought. She stood before him with her slim white hands clasped together, resting against her black dress, a sombre, slight young figure in the moonlight, looking at him with reproachful eyes.

He hesitated a second before answering her. She was only nineteen; she had been born and brought up in the Valley of Repose amidst the simple islanders. She knew nothing of the world and its ways. And Fitz, with the burden of the unique situation suddenly thrust upon him, was, in his chivalrous youthfulness, intensely anxious to avoid giving her anything to look back to in after years when she should be a woman. He was tenderly solicitous for the feelings which would come later, though they were absent now.

"Because," he answered, "I am not good at saying things. I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am for you."

She turned away and looked across to the hills at the other side of the valley, a rugged outline against the sky.

"But I know all that," she said softly, "without being told."

A queer smile pa.s.sed over his sunburnt face, as if she had unintentionally and innocently made things more difficult for him.

"And," she continued, "it is--oh, so lonely."

She made an almost imperceptible little movement towards him. Like the child that she was, she was yearning for sympathy and comfort.

"I know--I know," he said.

Outward circ.u.mstance was rather against Fitz. A clear, odorous Spanish night, the young moon rising behind the pines, a thousand dreamy tropic scents filling the air. And Eve, half tearful, wholly lovable, standing before him, innocently treading on dangerous ground, guilelessly asking him to love her.

She, having grown almost to womanhood, pure as the flowers of the field, ignorant, a child, knew nothing of what she was doing. She merely gave way to the instinct that was growing within her--the instinct that made her turn to this man, claiming his strength, his tenderness, his capability, as given to him for her use and for her happiness.

"You must not avoid me," she said. "Why do you do it? Have I done anything you dislike? I have no one to speak to, no one who understands, but you. There is the padre, of course--and nurse; but they do not understand. They are--so OLD! Let me stay here with you until it is time to go to bed, will you?"

"Of course," he answered quietly. "If you care to. To-morrow I should think we shall hear from your uncle. He may come by the boat sailing from Barcelona to-morrow night. It will be a good thing if he does; you see, I must get back to my ship."

"You said she would not be ready for sea till next month."

"No, but there is discipline to be thought of."

He looked past her, up to the stars, with a scrutinising maritime eye, recognising them and naming them to himself. He did not meet her eyes--dangerous, tear-laden.

"There is something the matter with you," she said. "You are different. Yes, you want my uncle to come the day after to-morrow-- you want to go away to Mahon as soon as you can. I-- Oh, Fitz, I don't want to be a coward!"

She stood in front of him, clenching her little fists, forcing back the tears that gleamed in the moonlight. He did not dare to cease his astronomical observations.

"I WON'T be a coward--if you will only speak. If you will tell me what it is."

Then Fitz told his first deliberate lie.

"I have had bad news," he said, "about my brother Luke. I am awfully anxious about him."

He did it very well; for his motive was good. And we may take it that such a lie as this is not writ very large in the Book.

The girl paused for a little, and then deliberately wiped the tears from her eyes.

"How horribly selfish I have been!" she said. "Why did you not tell me sooner? I have only been thinking of my own troubles ever since- -ever since poor papa-- I am a selfish wretch! I hate myself!

Tell me about your brother."

And so they walked slowly up and down the moss-grown terrace--alone in this wonderful tropic night--while he told her the little tragedy of his life. He told the story simply, with characteristic gaps in the sequence, which she was left to fill up from her imagination.

"I shall not like Mrs. Harrington," said Eve, when the story was told. "I am glad that she cannot come much into my life. My father wanted me to go and stay with her last summer, but I would not leave him alone, and for some reason he would not accept the invitation for himself. Do you know, Fitz, I sometimes think there is a past-- some mysterious past--which contained my father and Mrs. Harrington and a man--the Count de Lloseta."

"I have seen him," put in Fitz, "at Mrs. Harrington's often."

The girl nodded her head with a quaint little a.s.sumption of shrewdness and deep suspicion.

"My father admired him--I do not know why. And pitied him intensely--I do not know why."

"He was always very nice to me," answered Fitz, "but I never understood him."

Talking thus they forgot the flight of time. It sometimes happens thus in youth. And the huge clock in the stable yard striking ten aroused Eve suddenly to the lateness of the hour.

"I must go," she said. "I am glad you told me about--Luke. I feel as if I knew you better and understood--a little more. Good-night."

She left him on the terrace, and walked sorrowfully away to the house which could never be the same again.

Fitz watched her slight young form disappear through an open doorway, and then he became lost in the contemplation of the distant sea, lying still and gla.s.s-like in the moonlight. He was looking to the north, and it happened that from that same point of the compa.s.s there was coming towards him the good steamer Bellver, on whose deck stood a little shock-headed man--Captain Bontnor.