Three Weeks Part 20

They had coasted round Italy and Sicily, and not among the Ionian Isles, as had been Captain Grigsby's intention.

"I fancy the lady came from some of those Balkan countries," Sir Charles had said. "Don't let us get in touch with even the outside of one of them."

And Mark Grigsby had grunted an a.s.sent.

"The boy is a fine fellow," he said one morning as they looked at Paul hauling ropes. "He'll probably never get quite over this, but he is fighting like a man, Charles--tell me as much as you feel inclined to of the story."

So Sir Charles began in his short, broken sentences:

"Parson's girl to start with--sympathy over a broken collar-bone. The wife behaved unwisely about it, so the boy thought he was in love. We sent him to travel to get rid of that idea. It appears he met this lady in Lucerne--seems to have been an exceptional person--a Russian, Tompson says--a Queen or Princess _incog.,_ the fellow tells me--but I can't spot her as yet. Hubert will know who she was, though--but it does not matter--the woman herself was the thing. Gather she was quite a remarkable woman--ten years older than Paul."

"Always the case," growled Captain Grigsby.

Sir Charles puffed at his pipe--and then: "They were only together three weeks," he said. "And during that time she managed to cram more knowledge of everything into the boy's head than you and I have got in a lifetime. Give you my word, Grig, when he was off his chump in the fever, he raved like a poet, and an orator, and he was only an ordinary sportsman when he left home in the spring! Cleopatra, he called her one day, and I fancy that was the keynote--she must have been one of those exceptional women we read of in the sixth form."

"And fortunately never met!" said Captain Grigsby.

"I don't know," mused Sir Charles. "It might have been good to live as wildly even at the price. We've both been about the world, Grig, since the days we fastened on our cuira.s.ses together for the first time, and each thought himself the devil of a fine fellow--but I rather doubt if we now know as much of what is really worth having as my boy there--just twenty-three years old."

"Nonsense!" snapped Captain Grigsby--but there was a tone of regret in his protest.

"Lucky to have got off without a knife or a bullet through him--dangerous nations to grapple with," he said.

"Yes--I gather some pretty heavy menace was over their heads, and that is what made the lady decamp, so we've much to be thankful for," agreed Sir Charles.

"Had she any children?" the other asked.

"Tompson says no. Rotten fellow the husband, it appears, and no heir to the throne, or princ.i.p.ality, or whatever it is--so when I have had a talk with Hubert--Henrietta's brother, you know--the one in the Diplomatic Service, it will be easy to locate her--gathered Paul doesn't know himself."

"Pretty romance, anyway. And what will you do with the boy now, Charles?"

Paul's father puffed quite a long while at his meerschaum before he answered, and then his voice was gruffer than ever with tenderness suppressed.

"Give him his head, Grig," he said. "He's true blue underneath, and he'll come up to the collar in time, old friend--only I shall have to keep his mother's love from harrying him. Best and greatest lady in the world, my wife, but she's rather apt to jog the bridle now and then."

At this moment Paul joined them. His paleness showed less than usual beneath the sunburn, and his eyes seemed almost bright. A wave of thankful gladness filled his father's heart.

"Thank G.o.d," he said, below his breath. "Thank G.o.d."

The weather had been perfection, hardly a drop of rain, and just the gentlest breezes to waft them slowly along. A suitable soothing idle life for one who had but lately been near death. And each day Paul's strength returned, until his father began to hope they might still be home for his birthday the last day of July. They had crept up the coast of Italy now, when an absolute calm fell upon them, and just opposite the temple of Paestum they decided to anchor for the night.

For the last evenings, as the moon had grown larger, Paul had been strangely restless. It seemed as if he preferred to tire himself out with unnecessary rope-pulling, and then retire to his berth the moment that dinner was over, rather than go on deck. His face, too, which had been controlled as a mask until now, wore a look of haunting anguish which was grievous to see. He ate his dinner--or rather, pretended to play with the food--in absolute silence.

Uneasiness overcame Sir Charles, and he glanced at his old friend. But Paul, after lighting a cigar, and letting it out once or twice, rose, and murmuring something about the heat, went up on deck.

It was the night of the full moon--eight weeks exactly since the joy of life had finished for him.

He felt he could not bear even the two kindly gentlemen whose unspoken sympathy he knew was his. He could not bear anything human. To-night, at least, he must be alone with his grief.

All nature was in a mood divine. They were close enough insh.o.r.e to see the splendid temples clearly with the naked eye. The sky and the sea were of the colour only the Mediterranean knows.

It was hot and still, and the moon in her pure magnificence cast her never-ending spell.

Not a sound of the faintest ripple met his ear. The sailors supped below. All was silence. On one side the vast sea, on the other the sh.o.r.e, with this masterpiece of man's genius, the temple of the great G.o.d Poseidon, in this vanished settlement of the old Greeks. How marvellously beautiful it all was, and how his Queen would have loved it! How she would have told him its history and woven round it the spirit of the past, until his living eyes could almost have seen the priests and the people, and heard their worshipping prayers!

His darling had spoken of it once, he remembered, and had told him it was a place they must see. He recollected her very words:

"We must look at it first in the winter from the sh.o.r.e, my Paul, and see those splendid proportions outlined against the sky--so n.o.ble and so perfectly balanced--and then we must see it from the sea, with the background of the olive hills. It is ever silent and deserted and calm, and death lurks there after the month of March. A cruel malaria, which we must not face, dear love. But if we could, we ought to see it from a yacht in safety in the summer time, and then the spell would fall upon us, and we would know it was true that rose-trees really grew there which gave the world their blossoms twice a year. That was the legend of the Greeks."

Well, he was seeing it from a yacht, but ah, G.o.d! seeing it alone--alone. And where was she?

So intense and vivid was his remembrance of her that he could feel her presence near. If he turned his head, he felt he should see her standing beside him, her strange eyes full of love. The very perfume of her seemed to fill the air--her golden voice to whisper in his ear--her soul to mingle with his soul. Ah yes, in spirit, as she had said, they could never be parted more.

A suppressed moan of anguish escaped his lips, and his father, who had come silently behind him, put his hand on his arm.

"My poor boy," he said, his gruff voice hoa.r.s.e in his throat, "if only to G.o.d I could do something for you!"

"Oh, father!" said Paul.

And the two men looked in each other's eyes, and knew each other as never before.

CHAPTER XXIII

Next day there was a fresh breeze, and they scudded before it on to Naples.

Here Paul seemed well enough to take train, and so arrive in England in time for his birthday. He owed this to his mother, he and his father both felt. She had been looking forward to it for so long, as at the time of his coming of age the festivities had been interrupted by the sudden death of his maternal grandfather, and the people had all been promised a continuance of them on this, his twenty-third birthday. So, taking the journey by sufficiently easy stages, sleeping three nights on the way, they calculated to arrive on the eve of the event.

The Lady Henrietta would have everything in readiness for them, and her darling Paul was not to be over-hurried. Only guests of the most congenial kind had been invited, and such a number of nice girls!

The prospect was perfectly delightful, and ought to cause any young man pure joy.

It was with a heart as heavy as lead Paul mounted the broad steps of his ancestral home that summer evening, and was folded in his mother's arms. (The guests were all fortunately dressing for dinner.)

Captain Grigsby had been persuaded to abandon his yacht and accompany them too.

"Yes, I'll come, Charles," he said. "Getting too confoundedly hot in these seas; besides, the boy will want more than one to see him through among those cackling women."

So the three had travelled together through Italy and France--Switzerland had been strictly avoided.

"Paul! darling!" his mother exclaimed, in a voice of pained surprise as she stood back and looked at him. "But surely you have been very ill. My darling, darling son--"

"I told you he had had a sharp attack of fever, Henrietta," interrupted Sir Charles quickly, "and no one looks their best after travelling in this grilling weather. Let the boy get to his bath, and you will see a different person."

But his mother's loving eyes were not to be deceived. So with infinite fuss, and terms of endearment, she insisted upon accompanying her offspring to his room, where the dignified housekeeper was summoned, and his every imaginable and unimaginable want arranged to be supplied.