Selected Stories (9781440673832) (27 page)

‘“I guess who it is,” I cried, “and I will kill him.”

‘I was almost out of the door, and he tripped me up and, kneeling upon me, took hold of both my hands and sprained my wrists; first my right one, then my left. No one but Giuseppe would have thought of such a thing. It hurt more than you would suppose, and I fainted. When I woke up, he was gone, and I never saw him again.'

But Giuseppe disgusted me.

‘I told you he was wicked,' he said. ‘No one would have expected him to see the Siren.'

‘How do you know he did see her?'

‘Because he did not see her “often and often”, but once.'

‘Why do you love him if he is wicked?'

He laughed for the first time. That was his only reply.

‘Is that the end?' I asked.

‘I never killed her murderer, for by the time my wrists were well he was in America; and one cannot kill a priest. As for Giuseppe, he went all over the world too, looking for someone else who had seen the Siren—either a man, or, better still, a woman, for then the child might still have been born. At last he came to Liverpool—is the district probable?—and there he began to cough, and spat blood until he died.

‘I do not suppose there is anyone living now who has seen her. There has seldom been more than one in a generation, and never in my life will there be both a man and a woman from whom that child can be born, who will fetch up the Siren from the sea, and destroy silence, and save the world!'

‘Save the world?' I cried. ‘Did the prophecy end like that?'

He leaned back against the rock, breathing deep. Through all the blue-green reflections I saw him colour. I heard him say: ‘Silence and loneliness cannot last for ever. It may be a hundred or a thousand years, but the sea lasts longer, and she shall come out of it and sing.' I would have asked him more, but at that moment the whole cave darkened, and there rode in through its narrow entrance the returning boat.

‘DO YOU SEE THAT MOUNTAIN just behind Elizabeth's toque? A young man fell in love with me there so nicely twenty years ago. Bob your head a minute, would you, Elizabeth, kindly.'

‘Yes'm,' said Elizabeth, falling forward on the box like an un-stiffened doll. Colonel Leyland put on his pince-nez, and looked at the mountain where the young man had fallen in love.

‘Was he a nice young man?' he asked, smiling, though he lowered his voice a little on account of the maid.

‘I never knew. But it is a very gratifying incident to remember at my age. Thank you, Elizabeth.'

‘May one ask who he was?'

‘A porter,' answered Miss Raby in her usual tones. ‘Not even a certificated guide. A male person who was hired to carry the luggage, which he dropped.'

‘Well! well! What did you do?'

‘What a young lady should. Screamed and thanked him not to insult me. Ran, which was quite unnecessary, fell, sprained my ankle, screamed again; and he had to carry me half a mile, so penitent that I thought he would fling me over a precipice. In that state we reached a certain Mrs Harbottle, at sight of whom I burst into tears. But she was so much stupider than I was, that I recovered quickly.'

‘Of course you said it was all your own fault?'

‘I trust I did,' she said more seriously. ‘Mrs Harbottle, who, like most people, was always right, had warned me against him; we had had him for expeditions before.'

‘Ah! I see.'

‘I doubt whether you do. Hitherto he had known his place. But he was too cheap: he gave us more than our money's worth. That, as you know, is an ominous sign in a low-born person.'

‘But how was this your fault?'

‘I encouraged him: I greatly preferred him to Mrs Harbottle. He was handsome and what I call agreeable; and he wore beautiful clothes. We lagged behind, and he picked me flowers. I held out my hand for them—Instead of which he seized it and delivered a love oration which he had prepared out of
I Promessi Sposi.'

‘Ah! an Italian.'

They were crossing the frontier at that moment. On a little bridge amid fir trees were two poles, one painted red, white, and green, and the other black and yellow.

‘He lived in Italia Irredenta,' said Miss Raby. ‘But we were to fly to the Kingdom. I wonder what would have happened if we had.'

‘Good Lord!' said Colonel Leyland, in sudden disgust. On the box Elizabeth trembled.

‘But it might have been a most successful match.'

She was in the habit of talking in this mildly unconventional way. Colonel Leyland, who made allowances for her brilliancy, managed to exclaim: ‘Rather! yes, rather!'

She turned on him with: ‘Do you think I'm laughing at him?'

He looked a little bewildered, smiled, and did not reply. Their carriage was now crawling round the base of the notorious mountain. The road was built over the debris which had fallen and which still fell from its sides; and it had scarred the pine woods with devastating rivers of white stone. But farther up, Miss Raby remembered, on its gentler eastern slope, it possessed tranquil hollows, and flower-clad rocks, and a most tremendous view. She had not been quite as facetious as her companion supposed. The incident, certainly, had been ludicrous. But she was somehow able to laugh at it without laughing much at the actors or the stage.

‘I had rather he made me a fool than that I thought he was one,' she said, after a long pause.

‘Here is the Custom house,' said Colonel Leyland, changing the subject.

They had come to the land of
Ach
and
Ja.
Miss Raby sighed; for she loved the Latins, as everyone must who is not pressed for time. But Colonel Leyland, a military man, respected Teutonia.

‘They still talk Italian for seven miles,' she said, comforting herself like a child.

‘German is the coming language,' answered Colonel Leyland. ‘All the important books on any subject are written in it.'

‘But all the books on any important subject are written in Italian. Elizabeth—tell me an important subject.'

‘Human Nature, ma'am,' said the maid, half shy, half impertinent.

‘Elizabeth is a novelist, like her mistress,' said Colonel Leyland. He turned away to look at the scenery, for he did not like being entangled in a mixed conversation. He noted that the farms were more prosperous, that begging had stopped, that the women were uglier and the men more rotund, that more nourishing food was being eaten outside the wayside inns.

‘Colonel Leyland, shall we go to the
Grand Hôtel des Alpes,
to the
Hôtel de Londres,
to the
Pension Liebig,
to the
Pension Atherley-Simon
, to the
Pension Belle Vue,
to the
Pension Old-England,
or to the
Albergo Biscione?'

‘I suppose you would prefer the
Biscione.'

‘I really shouldn't mind the
Grand Hôtel des Alpes.
The
Biscione
people own both, I hear. They have become quite rich.'

‘You should have a splendid reception—if such people know what gratitude is.'

For Miss Raby's novel, ‘The Eternal Moment', which had made her reputation, had also made the reputation of Vorta.

‘Oh, I was properly thanked. Signor Cantù wrote to me about three years after I had published. The letter struck me as a little pathetic, though it was very prosperous: I don't like transfiguring people's lives. I wonder whether they live in their old house or in the new one.'

Colonel Leyland had come to Vorta to be with Miss Raby; but he was very willing that they should be in different hotels. She, indifferent to such subtleties, saw no reason why they should not stop under the same roof, just as she could not see why they should not travel in the same carriage. On the other hand, she hated anything smart. He had decided on the
Grand Hôtel des Alpes,
and she was drifting towards the
Biscione
, when the tiresome Elizabeth said: ‘My friend's lady is staying at the
Alpes.'

‘Oh! if Elizabeth's friend is there that settles it: we'll all go.'

‘Very well'm,' said Elizabeth, studiously avoiding even the appearance of gratitude. Colonel Leyland's face grew severe over the want of discipline.

‘You spoil her,' he murmured, when they had all descended to walk up a hill.

‘There speaks the military man.'

‘Certainly I have had too much to do with Tommies to enter into what you call “human relations”. A little sentimentality and the whole army would go to pieces.'

‘I know; but the whole world isn't an army. So why should I pretend I'm an officer. You remind me of my Anglo-Indian friends, who were so shocked when I would be pleasant to some natives. They proved, quite conclusively, that it would never do for them, and have never seen that the proof didn't apply. The unlucky people here are always trying to lead the lucky; and it must be stopped. You've been unlucky; all your life you've had to command men, and exact prompt obedience and other unprofitable virtues. I'm lucky: I needn't do the same—and I won't.'

‘Don't then,' he said, smiling. ‘But take care that the world isn't an army after all. And take care, besides, that you aren't being unjust to the unlucky people: we're fairly kind to your beloved lower orders, for instance.'

‘Of course,' she said dreamily, as if he had made her no concession. ‘It's becoming usual. But they see through it. They, like ourselves, know that only one thing in the world is worth having.'

‘Ah! yes,' he sighed. ‘It's a commercial age.'

‘No!' exclaimed Miss Raby, so irritably that Elizabeth looked back to see what was wrong. ‘You are stupid. Kindness and money are both quite easy to part with. The only thing worth giving away is yourself. Did you ever give yourself away?'

‘Frequently.'

‘I mean, did you ever, intentionally, make a fool of yourself before your inferiors?'

‘Intentionally, never.' He saw at last what she was driving at. It was her pleasure to pretend that such self-exposure was the only possible basis of true intercourse, the only gate in the spiritual barrier that divided class from class. One of her books had dealt with the subject; and very agreeable reading it made. ‘What about you?' he added playfully.

‘I've never done it properly. Hitherto I've never felt a really big fool; but when I do, I hope I shall show it plainly.'

‘May I be there!'

‘You might not like it,' she replied. ‘I may feel it at any moment and in mixed company. Anything might set me off.'

‘Behold Vorta!' cried the driver, cutting short the sprightly conversation. He and Elizabeth and the carriage had reached the top of the hill. The black woods ceased; and they emerged into a valley whose sides were emerald lawns, rippling and doubling and merging each into each, yet always with an upward trend, so that it was 2000 feet to where the rock burst out of the grass and made great mountains, whose pinnacles were delicate in the purity of evening.

The driver, who had the gift of repetition, said: ‘Vorta! Vorta!'

Far up the valley was a large white village, tossing on undulating meadows like a ship in the sea, and at its prow, breasting a sharp incline, stood a majestic tower of new grey stone. As they looked at the tower it became vocal and spoke magnificently to the mountains, who replied.

They were again informed that this was Vorta, and that that was the new campanile—like the campanile of Venice, only finer—and that the sound was the sound of the campanile's new bell.

‘Thank you; exactly,' said Colonel Leyland while Miss Raby rejoiced that the village had made such use of its prosperity. She had feared to return to the place she had once loved so well, lest she should find something new. It had never occurred to her that the new thing might be beautiful. The architect had indeed gone south for his inspiration, and the tower which stood among the mountains was akin to the tower which had once stood beside the lagoons. But the birthplace of the bell it was impossible to determine, for there is no nationality in sound.

They drove forward into the lovely scene, pleased and silent. Approving tourists took them for a well-matched couple. There was indeed nothing offensively literary in Miss Raby's kind angular face; and Colonel Leyland's profession had made him neat rather than aggressive. They did very well for a cultured and refined husband and wife, who had spent their lives admiring the beautiful things with which the world is filled.

As they approached, other churches, hitherto unnoticed, replied—tiny churches, ugly churches, churches painted pink with towers like pumpkins, churches painted white with shingle spires, churches hidden altogether in the glades of a wood or the folds of a meadow—till the evening air was full of little voices, with the great voice singing in their midst. Only the English church, lately built in the Early English style, kept chaste silence.

The bells ceased, and all the little churches receded into darkness. Instead, there was a sound of dressing-gongs, and a vision of tired tourists hurrying back for dinner. A landau, with
Pen
sion
Atherley-Simon
upon it, was trotting to meet the diligence, which was just due. A lady was talking to her mother about an evening dress. Young men with rackets were talking to young men with alpenstocks. Then, across the darkness, a fiery finger wrote
Grand Hôtel des Alpes.

‘Behold the electric light!' said the driver, hearing his passengers exclaim.

Pension Belle Vue
started out against a pinewood, and from the brink of the river the
Hôtel de Londres
replied.
Pensions Liebig
and
Lorelei
were announced in green and amber respectively. The
Old-England
appeared in scarlet. The illuminations covered a large area, for the best hotels stood outside the village, in elevated or romantic situations. This display took place every evening in the season, but only while the diligence arrived. As soon as the last tourist was suited, the lights went out, and the hotel-keepers, cursing or rejoicing, retired to their cigars.