Читать книгу The Sinner - Eliza Margaret Humphreys - Страница 9

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On the north-west shores of Bantry Bay lies a fairy valley. It is surrounded by wild hills, bare and broken and irregular, and the approach to it is so desolate and dreary that when blue water and fairy islets and leafy woods burst suddenly upon one, it looks as if Nature had been trying her hand at a transformation scene.

The coach from Bantry was dashing along in the sunset of a June evening, laden with passengers and luggage. The horses trotted swiftly down the leafy road, where dusky branches of yew, and arbutus, and holly shut out the westering light. It was very still and very lovely in the heart of those deep woods, and the noise of the tramping hoofs and cracking whip seemed a desecration of their exquisite solitude.

Then, suddenly, the road widened and opened out on either side. On the left, hemmed in by purple mountains, and flooded now by the gold of sunset, spread a wide, blue bay, crowned with tiny islands; on the right, sheltered by tall firs, and bowered in a luxuriant foliage of shrubs and flowering plants, stood a long, white building with a glass porch. It was the first of the three hotels in Glengariff, for that was the name of the fairy valley, with its Alpine scenery and its semi-tropical climate.

The tempered breezes of the Atlantic swept in from the Gulf Stream. The spacious stretching mountains sheltered it from summer heat and winter cold. It looked as if Nature loved it, and had given it for dower her fairest gifts of wood and stream and mountain; of cool, green depths, where waterfalls and torrents fell and foamed, of lovely air and ever-changing skies.

Two of the passengers on the couch were so lost in wonder and delight that they forgot to dismount. It needed a reminder in the polite Irish fashion to bring them down to the commonplace level of the waiting ladder.

'Wasn't it Roche's, you said, miss? Shure, we're waiting for ye these ten minutes, and yer baggage is out on the steps beyant!'

One of the women started.

'Come, Nell,' she said. 'What are we dreaming about? And how many seconds go to an Irish ten minutes?'

'About sixty, I fancy,' said the other passenger, as she proceeded to follow her companion, crab-fashion, down the stepladder.

There were some people in the glass porch, which was open on one side, furnished with basket chairs and a table or two, and bright with tall fuchsias and hydrangeas that stood about in earthenware pots.

The voice of the ubiquitous American was audible 'guessing' and 'considering' and generally making itself noticeable in the person of a tweed-clad woman of ample proportions and wonderful headgear, and a still ampler tweed-clad man whose stature and corpulence were a living contradiction of the national characteristics of his race.

'Our room is ordered,' said Nell, for Nell it was who had arrived, to the hotel proprietor as he advanced. 'Miss Nugent and Miss Gray. We telegraphed from Cork.'

The courteous manager remembered the names. Yes, a room had been reserved. He hoped the ladies would find it comfortable. The hotel was very full, just now. He had scarcely a room free. He touched the bell, and ordered their baggage to be taken upstairs, and told a chambermaid to show them the way.

When they reached their room, at the end of a long corridor, they gave an exclamation of delight. Two windows were open to the mountains and the bay. A flood of amethyst and golden light made radiant all the circling heights; below, the densely purple shadows lost themselves amidst piled masses of rugged rocks and the thickness of shrubs. Everywhere the light glowed and fell—translucent, changeful, wondrous—for never yet was alchemist who could boast of such prodigal skill as the sun at setting time when he lingers behind some favoured mountain crest.

'Oh, isn't it heavenly,' cried Nell, as she gazed and gazed in ever-increasing wonder. 'I never saw anything so beautiful! Oh, Debbie, aren't you glad we came, and you wanted to stay at Bantry? . . . Oh, to fancy we might have missed—this!'

The comprehensive sweep of her hands spoke volumes.

'How many more Ohs, to make up the sum of your rapture, Nell?' said Deborah Gray, in her quiet, deep voice, but her eyes were eloquent and appreciative as Nell's own.

It was her holiday. The promised holiday to which they had both looked forward. The one from the stifling city, and the crowded hospital, the other from the shabby Dublin lodgings where she had been living with her brother, taking a day at Kingstown or Bray as her only change.

But the sacrifices made, the little economies, the carefully saved pocket money, were all forgotten in this glorious moment. Here they were, in an earthly paradise, the treasures of the sea and islet and mountain at their feet; the warm sweet summer days of idleness and repose at last their own.

'Oh, I am so happy! So happy!' cried the girl at last, lifting her radiant eyes to the quiet face beside her. 'One is glad to be alive, to be human in such a scene as this. Debbie, why don't you speak? Can't you get up a little enthusiasm, for once?'

'Perhaps I feel it as strongly as you do, Nell, but I can't express it. One often feels that words have a poverty-stricken effect when one is very deeply moved. So I take refuge in silence.'

'But you are not disappointed? You are glad you came?'

'More glad than I can tell you.'

'And for two long, lovely weeks we shall look at this!' continued Nell. 'Feast our eyes and senses to our hearts' content. I wonder what sort of people are staying here,' she added suddenly. 'I heard the voice of an American cousin in the porch. I hope she won't want to know us. I believe Americans always do want to know everybody, though, when they're travelling.'

'Oh, we can easily avoid them,' said Deborah Gray, as she left the window and went over to the toilet table to remove her hat. She had left her nursing dress behind her, and Nell thought she did not look nearly as well in orthodox travelling gear.

The girl still hung out of the window, unable to tear herself from the lovely view. She did not mind being hot or dusty, or remember that they had had a long day's travelling on no better provisions than a few sandwiches and a glass of lemonade. Food seemed a coarse and commonplace thing beside this changeful splendour of the mountains, this opal light on the stirless waters, this fragrant dusk of woods that held all the breath and beauty of summer in their leafy depths.

'I don't want to disturb you,' said Deborah Gray, at last. 'But may I ask if you intend to dine off a view to-night? The table d'hôte is long over, but I must remind you that a cold chicken and accessories are awaiting us in the dining-room.'

Nell gave a long sigh and left the window.

'Oh, dear, you are quite ready,' she exclaimed, as she noted Deborah's neatly-coiled hair and clean collar, and the fresh tints that cold water and soap had given to her dusky face.

'Of course, I am,' laughed Deborah, 'and you, I see, have got out of all your good habits already.'

'I won't be five minutes, really,' said Nell, 'and I'll make you a present of them. So go to the window, and thank the gods you have eyes to see and a heart to appreciate such a scene.'

'All the same, I am very hungry,' said Deborah, with a smile.

'Goth and Vandal! Why, the very thought of eating is a sacrilege!'

'I am afraid the hotel would fare badly if everyone who came here shared that opinion,' said Deborah Gray.

Yet, for all her jesting, she appreciated the beauty before her as keenly as Nell herself. The first flash and brilliance of the sunset were fading now. The mountains had a warm, violet tint that deepened and changed to brown as the twilight shadows crept down the rocky slopes. The steep pathways were bordered with geraniums and wild fuchsia, and the lovely coral blossoms of the escallonia. A stretch of green lawn fronted the building, on which some cows were grazing. From below came the sound of voices, the bark of a dog, a ripple of girlish laughter. Figures passed to and fro, under the trees, discussing plans for the morrow. It was an idyllic scene. Deborah Gray knew that in her chamber of memories none half so lovely or so full of restful peace had ever found a place.

When Nell had washed the dust of the journey from her face and hands, and smoothed her ruddy chestnut hair, they went down into the dining-room. A considerate waiter had laid a table for two in a window recess that looked out on to the garden. The window stood open, the soft, balmy air blew in, laden with the breath of aromatic shrubs. A shaded lamp threw a rosy tinge on the white cloth and on the flowers in their slender glasses, on the dainty arrangements which made even fowl and salad, and bread and fruit look more poetic than mere food often does.

There was no one else in the dining-room. They ate, and drank, and chatted, and laughed over the incidents of the journey with a sense of perfect freedom and perfect enjoyment.

After all, there are things in a girl's life which a man would only spoil for her. That sense of utter unconcern, of heart-whole enjoyment, of perfect content with the hour, and what it brings. These were Nell's own, at last. She acknowledged to herself they were good and desirable things, and that she was the better for their possession.

When they had finished their meal they went out, and found a path that led them to the water's edge. The fairy islands lay before them, sleeping under the liquid gleam of moonlight. The splash of the ebbing tide on the pebbly strand was the only sound in the perfect stillness.

They seated themselves on the bank, where the great tree roots had made a natural seat. It was not a time to speak. It was just one of those blessed restful pauses that fate vouchsafes sometimes to tired mortals.

These two women had known what it was to be tired—very, very tired. They acknowledged in this moment that it was worth while to have known and suffered for that feeling. How could they so well appreciate the present peace were it not for past toil?

It might have been a long or short time they had sat there, saying nothing, only dreaming and resting as the quiet stars came out in clustering group's, and the moonlight grew slowly brighter above the purple blackness of the mountains. In such a moment one takes no count of passing moments. It is enough just to be and to dream.

A step, crushing the dry twigs and uneven stones on the path behind them, roused them at last. Their solitude was to be disturbed evidently. They sat still; their dark blue linen dresses were not distinguishable from the bracken and undergrowth; their hats lay on their laps. The step came steadily on. There was a sound of soft whistling, and a light cane idly switched the low-stretching boughs on either side. Then a man came suddenly upon those two still figures, so suddenly that his foot trod on Nell's skirt before he even saw there was a woman's dress in his way.

He stopped short with a murmured apology. Nell glanced up, and a gleam of moonlight fell on her uncovered head, and lit up the blue eyes beneath their delicate arched brows.

There was a faint cry of wonder—an exclamation—and then she sprang to her feet.

The stranger was Dick Barrymore.

He recognised her in a moment, though it was the first time he had seen her without the nurse's cap covering her pretty chestnut hair. As they shook hands, and uttered 'wonders' at so strange a meeting, Deborah Gray also rose to meet him. Then came the inevitable and commonplace explanations.

It appeared that Dick and his uncle were staying at Killarney, but had come up to Glengariff for a couple of days, having heard that it was so expected of the tourist. They had been 'doing Ireland' for the last two months, beginning at the Giant's Causeway, and so working on to the south and south-west coast.

After that explanation there was a little embarrassed silence while they mentally studied each other under the clear moon rays and noted the changes that these past months had made.

Dick had certainly altered for the better. His face had recovered colour and flesh; the fair hair curled close about his temples, and the soft, thick moustache set off the somewhat stern mouth and sharply-cut features. The well-moulded chin was no longer disfigured by a beard, as when Nell had last seen it. His figure was well-clad, and he carried himself with the ease and grace of recovered strength. She forgot her embarrassment as she made mental notes of those improvements, and spoke of the change with candid approval.

'And you?' he said. 'Are you still in the hospital?'

'Oh, no, I have left,' said Nell. 'They said I was not strong enough for the work, so I am taking a rest. My friend, Miss Gray, is paying her respects to my country for the first time, and we have come here for our holiday. Isn't it strange that we should all have met again—and in such a manner?'

'It is strange,' he said, 'but very pleasant. I have often hoped to see you again, Miss Nugent. I—I often wondered if you got my letter.'

'Oh, yes,' she said, 'I got it.'

'You never answered it,' he said, reproachfully, and in a slightly lowered voice.

'I was very busy,' she said, 'at the time. The ward was full, and they were all bad cases. Besides, I did not think you would care to hear. There was nothing to interest you in what I could write.'

He was silent, but his eyes took up the reproach of his voice, and Deborah Gray suddenly felt herself reminded of an old proverb, respecting the one too many.

'And so you are staying here,' he went on, presently. 'At Roche's, I suppose. We are at the other one, lower down. My uncle would go there, though I wanted him to come here. It has such a lovely situation. Eccles is on the road. It is supposed to be the crack hotel, and my uncle has a weakness for "crack hotels." In that respect he is quite American. For my part I would always avoid them. They mean high charges, crowds, and inattention.'

He was talking now for the sake of talking, conscious all the time of the slight figure so close to him, of the large soft eyes that rested on his face, of every movement of the small restless hands, swaying the white sailor hat to and fro by its elastic fastening. He had never known how much he had longed to see her again until this sudden meeting. The feeling which swept over him was one that her nearness and her laughing speeches intensified each moment. She looked so small and delicate and fragile in this pale light that his heart seemed to go out and gather her up in a warm protecting embrace, as one would gather a child in one's arms who was lonely and troubled and unloved.

'I think,' he said at last, 'you must have needed a holiday. You are very much changed.'

'I wonder what you would have said if you had seen me when I left the hospital?' laughed Nell. 'My brother thought it was my ghost when he saw me coming off the steamer. But now I am quite strong and well. I don't need any pity, I assure you.'

There was another pause, and Deborah Gray came to the rescue and suggested it was getting late and they ought to be returning.

'It is cruel to shut oneself out from such a lovely night and scene,' pouted Nell; but, all the same, she turned, and he with them, and they walked slowly up the steep path and through the wooded grounds until the lights from the hotel came into view.

Dick Barrymore felt he had no excuse for lingering. He stood—where his own road branched off—half afraid of the question trembling on his lips.

Nell took it off for him quite naturally, with a careless grace that made it seem a very ordinary one indeed.

'I suppose we shall see you again,' she said, 'as we are fellow-travellers, and so near one another. I have a longing to be on the water, to float all day among those islands. I suppose it is to be managed.'

'Certainly,' he said with surprising eagerness. 'It is our programme also for to-morrow. Would you object to sharing our boat with us. We have an excellent man; he knows every place and point of interest about?'

'We pride ourselves on our independence,' said Nell; 'but we may as well waive objections for once. What say you, Debbie?'

And Debbie smiled, and said exactly what was expected of her.