To Leeward Part 7

"Dear me, yes!" exclaimed Leonora. "Life is not all roses, you know."

She therewith a.s.sumed a thoughtful expression and looked away.

"I should not have supposed there were many thorns in your path, Marchesa. Would it be indiscreet to inquire of what nature they may be?"

Leonora was silent, and put up her gla.s.s to examine the proceedings on sh.o.r.e.

Batis...o...b.., who had come out that day with the sworn determination not to say or do anything to increase the interest he felt in the Marchesa, found himself wondering whether she were unhappy. The first and most natural conclusion was that she had been married to Marcantonio by designing parents, and that she did not care for him. Society said it had been a love-match, but what will society not say? "Poor thing," he thought, "I suppose she is miserable!"

"Forgive me," he said, in a low voice. "I did not know you were in earnest."

Leonora blushed faintly and glanced quickly at him. He had the faculty of saying little things to women that attracted their attention.

"What lots of poetry one might make about a launch," he said laughing,--for it was necessary to change the subject,--"ship--dip; ocean--motion; keel--feel; the rhymes are perfectly endless."

"Yes," said Leonora; "you might make a sonnet on the spot. Besides, there is a great deal of sentiment about the launching of a great man-of-war. The voyage of life--and that sort of thing--don't you know?

How hot it is!"

"I will have another awning up in a minute," and he directed the sailors, helping to do the work himself. He stood upon the gunwale to do it.

"I am sure you will fall," said Leonora, nervously. "Do sit down!"

"If I had a millstone round my neck there would be some object in falling," said Batis...o...b... "As it is, I should not even have the satisfaction of drowning."

"What an idea! Should you like to be drowned?" she said, looking up to him.

"Sometimes," he answered, still busy with the awning. Then he sat down again.

"You should not say that sort of thing," said Leonora. "Besides, it is rude to say you should like to be drowned when I am your guest."

"Great truths are not always pretty. But how could any man die better than at your feet?" He laughed a little, and yet his voice had an earnest ring to it. He had judged rightly when he foresaw that he must fall in love with Leonora.

Marcantonio, who did not understand English, was watching the proceedings on sh.o.r.e.

"Ah! it is magnificent!" he cried, with great enthusiasm. The royal personage who was to christen the ship had just broken the bottle of wine, and the little crowd of courtiers, officers, and maids of honour clapped their hands and grinned. They all looked hot and miserable and exhausted, but they grinned right n.o.bly, like so many Cheshire cats.

There was a sound of knocking and hammering, a final shout of warning from the dock officers, a slight trembling of the great hull, and then the ship began to move, slowly at first, and ever more quickly, till with a mighty rush and a plunge and a swirl she was out in the water.

The people yelled till they were hoa.r.s.e, the boatmen cursed each other by all the maledictions ever invented to meet the exigencies of a lost humanity, the royal personages stood together on their platform looking like a troupe of marionettes in a toy theatre, and congratulating each other furiously as though they had done it all themselves; everything was noise and sunshine and tepid water; Marcantonio was flourishing his hat, and Leonora waved a little lace handkerchief, while Batis...o...b.. sat looking at her and wondering why he had never thought her beautiful before. Indeed, she was superb in her simple, raw silk gown, with fresh-cut roses at her waist.

"It seems to me, Marchese, that you are very enthusiastic," said Batis...o...b.. to Marcantonio.

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the other, shrugging his shoulders, "one cheers these things as one would cheer fireworks, or a race. It signifies nothing."

"Oh, of course," said Leonora; "and besides, it is so pretty."

"I think it is horrible," said Batis...o...b.., suddenly.

"Why--what?"

"To see a nation squandering money in this way, when the taxes on land are at sixty per cent. and more, and the people emigrating by the shipload because they cannot live in their own homes."

"Oh, for that matter, you are right," said Marcantonio, turning grave in a moment. "I could tell you a story about taxes."

"What is it?" asked Leonora. "Those things are so interesting."

"Last autumn I was in the Sabines; I have a place up there, altogether ancient and dilapidated--a mere ruin. I own some of the land, and the peasants own little vineyards. One day I saw by the roadside a poor old man, a sort of village cretin, whom every one knew quite well. We used to call him Cupido; he was half idiotic and quite old. He was weeping bitterly, poor wretch, and I asked him what was the matter. He pointed to a little plot of land by the road, inclosed by a stone wall, and said the tax-gatherer had taken it from him. And then he cried again, and I could not get anything more out of him."

"Poor creature!" exclaimed Leonora, sympathetically.

"Well," continued Marcantonio, "I made inquiries, and I found that he had owned the little plot, and that the tax-gatherer had first seized the wretched crop of maize--perhaps a bushel basket full--to pay the tax; and then, as that did not cover his demands, he seized the land itself and sold it or offered it for sale."

"Infamous!" cried Leonora, and the tears were in her eyes.

"A cheerful state of things," remarked Batis...o...b.., "when the whole crop does not suffice to pay the taxes on the soil!"

"N'est-ce pas?" said Marcantonio. "Well, I provided for the poor old man, but he died in the winter. It broke his heart."[1]

[Footnote 1: The author witnessed the facts here described in 1880.]

"I love the Italians," said Batis...o...b..; "but their ideas of economy are peculiar. I suppose that without much metaphor or exaggeration one might say that the poor cretin's bushel of corn is gone into that ridiculous ironclad over there."

"But of course it is," said Marcantonio. "The whole thing probably paid for one rivet. You, who write books, Monsieur Batis...o...b.., put that into a book and render it very pathetic."

"It needs little rendering to make it that," said Batis...o...b.., and he looked at Leonora's eyes that were not yet dry.

By this time the royal marionettes had been bundled off to their boats, and the crowd of small craft on the water began to disperse.

Batis...o...b..'s six men fell to their oars and the boat shot out from the breakwater. Presently they hoisted the bright lateen sails to the breeze. Batis...o...b.. perched himself on the weather rail, and took the tiller, as the brave little craft heeled over and began to cut the water. The wind fanned Leonora's cheek, and she said it was delightful.

Batis...o...b.. suggested that they should run into one of the great green caves that honeycomb the cliffs near Sorrento, and make it their dining-room. So away they went, rejoicing to be out of the heat and the noise. It was twelve o'clock, and far up among the orange groves the little church bells rang out their midday chime, laughing together in the white belfries for joy of the sunshine and the fair summer's day.

"I should like to be always sailing," said Leonora, who had now quite forgotten her woes and enjoyed the change.

"Ma chere," said her husband, "there is nothing simpler."

"You always say that," she answered rather reproachfully; "but this is the very first time I have been on the water since we came."

"My boat and my men are always at your disposal, Marchesa," said Batis...o...b.., looking down at her, "and myself, too, if you will condescend to employ me as your skipper."

"Thanks, you are very good," said she. "But I thought you were only pa.s.sing, and were to be off in a few days?" She glanced up at him, as though she meant to be answered.

"Oh, it is very uncertain," said Batis...o...b... "It depends," he added in a lower voice and in English, "upon whether you will use the boat." It was rather a bold stroke, but it told, and he was rewarded.

"I should like very much to go out again some day," she said.

Those little words and sentences, what danger signals they ought to be to people about to fall in love! Batis...o...b.. knew it; he knew well that every such speech, in her native language and in a half voice, was one step nearer to the inevitable end. But he was fast getting to the point when, as far as he himself was concerned, the die would be cast. His manner changed perceptibly during the day, as the influence gained strength. His voice grew lower and he laughed less, while his eyes shone curiously, even in the midday sun.

The boat ran into the cave, which was the largest on the sh.o.r.e, and would admit the mast and the long yards without difficulty. Within the light was green, and the water now and again plashed on the rocks. The men steadied the craft with their oars and the party proceeded to lunch.

Most of "society" has a most excellent appet.i.te, and when one reflects how very hard society works to amuse itself, it is not surprising that it should need generous nourishment. The unlucky cook had done his best, and the result was satisfactory. There were all manner of things, and some bottles of strong Falerno wine. Batis...o...b.. drank water and very little of it.

"Somebody has said," remarked Marcantonio with a laugh, "that one must distrust the man who drinks water when other people drink wine. We shall have to beware of you, Monsieur Batis...o...b..." He had learned the name very well by this time.