Читать книгу For the Blood Is the Life - Francis Marion Crawford - Страница 20

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The southern shore of the Sorrentine peninsula offers a striking contrast to the northern side. Towards the north the mountain opens into a broad basin, filled to the brim with soft tufo rock, upon which the vegetation of ages has deposited a deep and fertile soil. The hills slope gently to the cliffs which overhang the bay of Naples and they seem to bear in their outstretched arms a rich offering of Nature's fairest gifts for the queen city of the south. The orange and the lemon, the olive and the walnut elbow each other for a footing in the fat dark earth; and where there is not room for them, the holes and crannies of the walls shoot out streamers of roses and thrust forth nosegays of white-flowered myrtle. Westward from the enchanted garden of Sorrento the rocky promontory juts far into the sea, so that only a narrow channel, scarcely three miles wide, separates the mainland from sea-girt Capri, towering up from the blue water and rearing his rocky crest to heaven like some enormous dragon-beast of fable. Far down in the deep mid-channel, lies the watch tower bell stolen by the Saracen corsairs from the little fort upon the shore; on Saint John's Eve the fishermen, casting their nets in the orange-tinted twilight, hear the tones of the long-lost bronze ringing up to them out of the depths, and the rough men tell each other how, on that very night of the year, long ago. Saint Nicholas raised a fierce storm in the "Bocca di Crape" and forced the heathen pirates to lighten their craft by heaving overboard the bell and the rest of the booty they had carried off.

Doubling the point, and running along the southern shore of the little peninsula, the scene changes. The rocks, which on the other side slope gently down, here rise precipitously from the dark water, throwing up great rugged friezes of hacked stone against the sky, casting black shadows under every sharpened peak and seeming to defy the foot of man and beast. Here and there, a little town hangs like the nest of a sea-bird in a cranny of the cliffs, poised on the brink as you may fancy a sea-nymph drawing up her feet out of reach of the waves, facing the fierce, hot south-west, whence the storms sweep in, black and melancholy and wrathfully thundering. A mile away, but seemingly within a stone's throw of the cliffs, lie three tiny islands, green in the short spring months, but parched and brown in summer, dark and dangerous in the stormy winter. They are the isles of the Sirens; past them once sailed the mighty wanderer, bound to the mast of his long black ship, listening with delight and dread to the song of the sea-women, his heart beating fast and his blood on fire with the wild strains of their music. Ligeia and Leucosia and Parthenope are not dead, though they plucked the flowers with Persephone, and though the Muses outrivalled them in harmony and Orpheus vanquished them in song. Still, in calm nights, when the waning moon climbs slowly over the distant hills of the Basilicata, her trembling light falls on the marble limbs and the snowy feathers, the rich wet hair and the passionate dark eyes of the three maidens, and across the lapping waves their voices ring out in a wild, despairing harmony of longdrawn complaint. But when the storm rises and the hot south wind dashes the water into whirlpools and drives clouds of warm spray into the crevices of the islets, the sisters slip from the wet rocks and hide themselves in the cool depths below, where is perpetual calm and a dwelling not fathomed by man. But man visits the shore and the islands too, from time to time, though he rarely stays long. It is too unlike what man is accustomed to, too far removed from the sphere of the modern world's life, to be a sympathetic resting-place for most of our kind. Hither people come in yachts, or upon skinny donkeys from Sorrento, or in little open boats rowed by lazy fishermen; and they gaze and say that it is very classic, and they go away with their cheap impressions and tell their friends that it is hardly worth while after all. That is what everybody does. My tale concerns a little party of persons, not absolutely like every one else, who one day said to each other that it would be possible to live among those wild rocks, and that they believed themselves sufficiently interesting to each other to live a life of temporary exile in an inaccessible region. Such a resolution must'at once brand those who entered upon it with the stamp of eccentricity, with the Cain's mark which society abhors, and it is necessary to say something of the circumstances which led those four persons to determine upon so desperate a course.

Three of the settlers were young. The fourth was older by some years than any of the rest, but possessed that quality of youth which defies time and, especially, that little moiety of time which we call age. The party then, consisted of a man and his wife, of his mother-in-law and his sister. By the silly calculations of social humanity they ought to have quarrelled. As a matter of fact they did not. This was the first step towards eccentricity, and it can only be explained by an honest and dispassionate description of the four persons.

Lady Brenda was five and forty years of age — with extenuating circumstances. A German wag once remarked that money alone does not constitute happiness, but that it is also necessary to possess some of it. So years alone do not make age unless one has some of the ills which age brings. No woman has any right to be old at five and forty, but it may be questioned whether at five and forty any woman has a right to be taken for her daughter's sister. Lady Brenda was in some respects the youngest of the party; for she had been young when youth was regarded as an agreeable period of life, and she had brought her traditions with her. In appearance she was of medium height but of faultless figure, slender and rounded as a girl. Her complexion was of the kind produced by avoiding cosmetics. Her thick brown hair grew low upon her forehead and was not supplemented by any artful arrangement of other women's tresses among her own. Her features were very straight, and her large, bright blue eyes, rather deep-set but wide apart, met everything frankly and surveyed the world with an air of radiant satisfaction which was as contagious as her own humour. She moved quickly, laughed easily and felt sincerely the emotions of the hour. Her voice was so fresh and ringing that people liked to listen to it, and the things she said were generally to the point. The basis of her mind was an intuitive comprehension of what was best to be done and said in the manifold situations in which she might find herself placed. Logic she had none, but she arrived at perfectly just conclusions by methods of thought which seemed absurdly illogical. As a matter of fact she did not really arrive at conclusions at all, but having determined a priori what she intended to believe, she thought any argument good enough to support that of which she was already convinced. On the other hand her experience of people was immense, and she understood human nature marvellously well. She had lived in every capital of Europe and had found herself at home everywhere, received into the intimacy of a society exclusive to all other strangers, and she had gathered a vast mass of anecdote and experience, by turns startling, tragic, dramatic and comic which would have sufficed to fill many deeply interesting volumes. With all this, she was a little tired of the great world and had gladly accepted her son-in law's invitation to pass a year in the south of Italy. Lady Brenda's only daughter had been married to Augustus Chard two years before this time, and had presented her husband with a baby which was universally declared' to be at all points the most extraordinary baby ever born, seen, or heard of. Mrs. Chard's name was Gwendoline. Lady Brenda, in the secrecy of her own heart, knew that the combination of names, "Gwendoline Chard," made her think of a race-horse charging into a brick wall. Otherwise she liked her son-in-law very much. The Chards adored each other when they were married, which is usual; but they continued to adore each other after marriage, which is not. There were many reasons why their lives should be harmonious, however, for they were a pair well assorted to live together. Gwendoline differed from her mother in that she had dark eyes, and that her hair was of a reddish gold colour full of magnificent lights. Her skin was paler than her mother's, and her figure, perfectly proportioned and well designed, was a little slighter.

She was an inch taller than Lady Brenda and carried her beautiful head erect upon her shoulders with an air of dignity beyond her years. Gwendoline was a woman who thought much and who generally decided beforehand exactly what she wanted. When she had decided, she proceeded to obtain her wish, and when she had got it, she was perfectly satisfied. These qualities placed her entirely beyond the pale of ordinary humanity. Her feelings were strong and deep, and her nature was noble and elevated; her wishes were therefore good, and for good things. Though young, she had travelled much and had seen much that was interesting. Gwendoline's principal taste was for music, an art in which she attained to great excellence, for her playing was original, passionate and artistic. As has been said, she worshipped her husband, who in his turn adored her. She could not deny that he held highly original views upon most points, and that his ideas about things in general were a trifle startling, but he had a way of making himself appear to be right which was very convincing to any one who was already disposed to be of his opinion. Lady Brenda was very fond of Augustus Chard, but considered him more than half a visionary; Gwendoline on the other hand was willing to spend her time in helping him to demonstrate that all existing things and conditions of things, with the exception of domestic felicity, were arrant humbug.

Augustus used to say that the taste for the visionary ran in his family. His sister, who had joined the party, illustrated the truth of his statement. Diana Chard had the temperament of a poet with the mind of a lawyer. Philosophy may be defined to mean the poetry of logic, and accordingly Diana's nature had led her to the study of philosophy. She had read enormously, and she argued keenly with a profound knowledge of her subject. But the hypothesis generally belonged to the transcendental region of thought, where, as the problems proposed are beyond the sphere of all possible experience, the discussion also may be prolonged beyond the bounds of all possible time. She enjoyed the pleasure of argument much more than the hope of solution; and life never seemed dull when she could discuss the immortality of the soul with an unbeliever, or the existence of the supernatural with a well-trained and thoroughly prejudiced materialist. She was moreover a musician, and an accomplished one, like her sister-in-law, but her playing differed so entirely from Gwendoline's that no one thought of comparing the two. Each was perfect in her own way; but each raised entirely different trains of thought in her hearers.

Of the three ladies Diana was the tallest. She was very slender and very graceful, slow and even languid in her movements, but animated in her speech. Her skin was very dark and pale, her hair abundant and of a dark brown colour, her eyes, a deep grey with strongly marked eyebrows and black lashes; her mouth large and expressive, smiling, easily and showing very beautiful teeth.

Last of the four to be described is Augustus Chard. Imagine a big, well-knit man of bronzed complexion, with colourless hair, neither fair nor brown, averagesized blue eyes set very deep under an overhanging forehead, possessed of a remarkable constitution and of unusual physical strength. That was all there was to be seen, and from the exterior no one would have been likely to guess at the man's queer mental tendencies. It would not have struck the observer that Augustus Chard's mind was a mixture of revolutionary and of conservative ideas, leavened with an absurd taste for mysticism and magic, tempered by a considerable experience of more serious science, in which his immense wealth has permitted him to make experiments beyond the reach of ordinary men — a man in love with his wife, and to some extent in love with existence; active in mind and body, but seemingly under the influence of some strange planet which causes him to think differently from other people, and sometimes not very wisely either. Augustus either talked not at all, or talked excessively. Habitually a silent man, when roused in discussion his naturally combative temper showed itself, and, though patient in argument, he could not bear to abandon his point and would prolong a discussion for hours rather than own himself vanquished. Lady Brenda knew this and took a fantastic delight in combating his visionary ideas. Nevertheless they were very fond of each other, as people must be if they can discuss without quarreling. Augustus Chard would say lie believed in astrology and declare his intention of having the baby's horoscope cast, without further hesitation. Lady Brenda would reply for the twentieth time that she could not see how the stars could possibly have any influence upon human beings, and thereupon the discussion would begin again. In the course of an hour Augustus would demonstrate that Lady Brenda could not decide upon taking an extra cup of tea without the direct influence of Jupiter and that the appearance of beings from another world was not a whit more remarkable than the production of the electric light, nor more incomprehensible than the causes of attraction. He easily showed that nobody knew anything and that, consequently, no one had the right to deny anything; and he ended by prophesying such dreadful and extraordinary things, which must occur in the world in the course of a few years, that Lady Brenda felt her breath taken away. But a quarter of an hour later, when it was discovered to be twelve o'clock, they all laughed and remarked that they had had a most delightful evening, as they separated and went to bed.

Of Augustus Chard it is only necessary to say that he had considerable powers of organisation, in spite of some eccentricities of mind, and that he generally succeeded in what he undertook. When, therefore, he suggested to his wife, his sister and his mother-in-law, that it would be very amusing to buy a half-ruined castle perched upon the wild rocks and overlooking the isles of the Sirens, to furnish the place luxuriously and to pass the summer in a pleasant round of discussion, music and semi-mystic literary amusement, varied by a few experiments on the electric phenomena of the Mediterranean, it did not strike those amiable ladies that the scheme was wholly mad. They agreed that it would be very novel and interesting and that if they did not like it they could go away — which is the peculiar blessing of the rich. The poor man sometimes finds it necessary to cut his throat in order to go away; the rich man orders his butler to examine the time-tables, and his valet to pack his belongings, dines comfortably and changes his surroundings as he would change his coat.

Augustus proposed his plan in January. Before the end of April the castle was bought, repaired and luxuriously furnished, the beds were made, the French chef had ordered the kitchen fires to be lighted and had established a donkey post over the mountains to the market in Castellamare; the great halls and drawing-rooms looked thoroughly habitable, and everything was ready for the new-comers, who were to arrive in the evening. Augustus Chard congratulated himself with the reflection that his whim had been gratified at a trifling cost of ten thousand pounds, and he subsequently discovered that a ducal title had been thrown into the bargain. He immediately determined to bestow the title upon the captain of his yacht, for the sake of being able to order a real Duke to "go about"; but Lady Brenda, whose mind took a practical turn, suggested that as times and governments change rather quickly nowadays it would be as well to keep the parchment and see what came of it.

The party arrived at the appointed hour and proceeded to survey their new dwelling. Augustus Chard had come over from Naples several times and had personally directed most of the repairs and improvements. The result did not fall short of his intentions. The huge, irregular mass of building had been made perfectly habitable. The tiled roofs shone red above the rugged stones of the towers and walls; great polished doors moved noiselessly in the old marble doorways; plate-glass panes filled the high Moorish windows; pleasantly coloured glazed tiles cunningly arranged in patterns upon the floor had taken the place of the worn-out bricks; soft stuffs and tapestries covered the walls and rich Oriental carpets were spread under the tables and before the deep easy chairs; massive furniture was disposed comfortably in the hall and drawing-room, while each of the ladies found a boudoir fitted up for her especial use, furnished in the colours she loved best; Vienna cane lounges stood upon the tented terraces and hammocks were hung in shady corners overlooking the sea; the newest books lay by vases of roses upon low reading-tables, shades of the latest patterns covered the still unlighted lamps, writing paper marked "Castello del Gaudio, Amalfi" was ready in the boxes in every room, and Lady Brenda remarked with pleasure that there was ink in the inkstands. Bimbam, Chard's butler, a Swiss, watched his mistress's face with anxiety as Gwendoline passed from room to room, examining everything with the critical eye of a practised housekeeper. For Gwendoline believed that the bigger a house was, the more keeping it needed, and Bimbam stood in awe of her rebuke; but if Augustus ventured to make a remark concerning anything outside of his own rooms, Bimbam smiled a soft and pitying smile, as much as to say that amiable lunatics like Augustus should mind their own business.

The great hall of the house opened upon a wide terrace, by a row of tall windows which stood open on the sunny April afternoon when the party arrived. Earthenware pots of flowers were arranged along the parapet, pots of roses and of carnations — not common pinks, but great southern carnations — and long troughs of pansies and heliotrope; while from the garden below the vines grew up, wild and uncultivated, putting out their first spring leaves. Behind the castle, and on both sides of it, and below the garden, the vast grey rocks lay like an angry sea of stone petrified in the very moment when the rough crests would have .broken into a flinty spray. Far below, the isles of the Sirens lay like green leaves floating on the sapphire water.

The whole party came out together upon this terrace, followed at a respectful distance by Bimbam.

"It is too beautiful for anything!" exclaimed Diana, gazing at the sea. Like all imaginative people she loved the water.

"A dream!" cried Lady Brenda, who was not given to dreaming.

Gwendoline laid her hand upon her husband's arm and stood silently surveying the scene, her face pale with pleasure. Augustus stared out into the distance.

"What are you thinking of?" asked Gwendoline at last.

"I was wondering how the experiment would succeed."

"It will succeed admirably," said Lady Brenda. "We are admirable people — this is an admirable place — "

"Then let us fall to admiring each other and our surroundings," answered Augustus. "But I was thinking of the experiment."

"Oh — your spirits and things! " exclaimed his mother-in-law. "Really, Augustus, I can't understand how a man of your intelligence — "

"Had we not better sit down?" suggested Augustus, smiling.

"No," said Lady Brenda; "I am sure we have not seen everything yet. Come along— let us explore."

Bimbam whispered to Augustus that he had taken the liberty of improvising a Swiss dairy, as it was hard to get any milk but that of goats.

"Oh! I want to see my dairy! " exclaimed Gwendoline, and away they went.

Lady Brenda sent for writing materials and began a letter, while Diana entered the great hall and tried the piano. Lady Brenda had a vast correspondence and she wrote well, which was the principal reason why she was able to live in the country. People were so real to her, that to write to them was almost as good as to talk to them. She did not care so much for cows as she did for people. It does not follow that Gwendoline preferred cows to human society; but when she began to see a place, she liked to see it all, whereas her mother contented herself with proposing further explorations and then sat down to describe what she had already seen.

On this occasion Lady Brenda sent for writing materials and established herself upon the wide terrace. She wrote a very interesting epistle in which she explained to her sister that Augustus had come to the Castello del Gaudio to try things with ghosts and mathematical electricity and so forth, but that the place was charming and Gwendoline looked so well in jerseys — and a real medieval castle with a drawbridge somewhere and a Swiss dairy not far off —the great hall was hung with Rhodes tapestry which Augustus had got from a Jew in Asia Minor — so rare, they sold little bits of it in London — and by the bye, where was Lord Mavourneen going to? Augustus meant to ask him during the summer, when he was tired of the ghosts — Diana was certainly a most delightful girl — just Gwendoline's age, but so different — life was a dream of summer flowers — if only Lord Brenda could be with her — but then perhaps he would not enjoy it so much, though of course he would like it immensely, dear fellow. She did not quite know whether Brenda were in St. Petersburg or in India, but of course he would write.

Meanwhile Diana played soft dreamy harmonies upon the wonderful piano, taking delight in the idea that in all the ages before no such sounds had floated out upon the evening air to stir the echoes of the jagged rocks, unless indeed the tale of the Sirens were true, a matter concerning which Diana held opinions of her own. She secretly hoped that her brother's experiments might be successful, and she felt sure that if success were possible at all it must be possible in the wild region where he had at last determined to make his great trial of a new theory. While she played, her mind wandered away to strange regions, and she fancied she heard wonderful sounds answering the ringing chords of the piano. Just then Lady Brenda came in and looked briskly round the great room.

"Really, Augustus has very good taste. Don't you think so?" she said, appealing to Diana.

"Such a piano!" exclaimed Diana, rising. "I wonder where he got it! "

"You can get most things for money, my dear," said Lady Brenda. "Augustus will probably get his ghosts, too!"

"For money?"

"Oh, I don't know! why should not ghosts he bribed, like other people?"

"If money were of any use, where they live."

" It must be awfully funny to be in a place where money is of no use," said Lady Brenda.

"Awfully funny — indeed! " repeated Diana with a laugh. " I hope they see the humorous aspect of their situation, poor dears."

" Do you suppose there is really anything in it, my dear ? For my part I think it is all ridiculous, you know."

"Ghosts? well— "Diana hesitated. "There is no particular reason for thinking them ridiculous, after all."

"Oh, of course they are ridiculous," said Lady Brenda with an air of conviction. " Can anything be more absurd than to suppose that one's greatuncle can get up out of his grave and walk into a room without opening the doors and rap underneath a table without your seeing him? Just think! "

" Yes — if you confine ghosts to spirit rapping and table turning. I quite agree with you. But there are — "

"Oh, I know just what you are going to say about mathematics and electric things — of course I don't know anything about them and so I never pretend to argue, but I am perfectly sure it is all quite nonsensical. Don't you think it would be a good idea to have some tea?"

"Delightful," answered Diana, looking dreamily out of the great window and letting her hands run carelessly over the keys of the piano. She had more than once reflected on the impossibility of ever convincing any one who first stated a firm belief and then refused to argue about it on the ground of ignorance. She also reflected that Lady Brenda was a charming woman and that it made not the smallest difference whether she believed in ghosts or not.

Just then Gwendoline entered the room, followed by Augustus. The latter spoke in a low voice to the solemn Bimbam, who retired. In a few minutes tea and Turkish coffee were brought in.

"Mamma, the cows are too beautiful," said Gwendoline. " It was such a brilliant idea to build the little dairy up there among the rocks. Now tell us what you have been talking about."

"By all means," echoed Augustus, examining the details of the room and walking slowly from one point to another with his hands in his pockets. " By all means, tell us what you have been talking about."

"I have been writing a letter —" began Lady Brenda.

" The novelty of your occupation is only surpassed by —" interrupted Augustus. But Lady Brenda would not let him finish the sentence.

"I know—" please don't make fun of me. It's dreadful, I know I am always writing letters."

"We talked a little about ghosts," said Diana. " Augustus, if you really have any ghosts, do have nice ones."

"Yes," said Gwendoline. "Have people who would be pleasant at dinner — people who can talk. It would be so delightful to be able to ask ever so many questions of historical people. I could make such a beautiful dinner party. Whom would you have, mamma?"

" I, well — I think if I might choose — perhaps I would have Francis the First. Whom would you have, Gwendoline?"

" Dear me! — Oh — I think I would choose a musician — Chopin, for instance. Let us all say. Diana, whom would you like ? "

"Lots of people," answered the young girl. " Heine for one — then Pascal, and Plato and — let me see, I think Pico della Mirandola would be nice and I should be curious to see Giordano Bruno — "

"A conceited, blaspheming fool!" exclaimed Augustus, speaking for the first time. "I would be quite satisfied with Julius Caesar."

"Do you think he would be quite sympathetic? " asked Lady Brenda, entering into the discussion as though the invitation were a reality.

"Oh yes! " exclaimed Gwendoline. "He was a great dandy, and immensely refined. Besides, Augustus would not be happy unless he were asked. Julius Caesar is his ideal."

"Won't you have anybody besides Chopin, Gwendoline ? " asked Augustus. " You might have George Sand, for instance."

"Oh no!" protested Gwendoline. "They would sit in corners and talk to each other all the evening."

" Why is not it possible!" exclaimed Diana regretfully.

"Perhaps it is," answered Augustus, quietly.

"Augustus, I think you are quite mad!" cried Lady Brenda, laughing.

"My dear mother-in-law, you are probably right. It is quite certain that I am mad, if you are sane, but if I am sane you are undoubtedly mad. Happily it is often people of very opposite dispositions who best agree. In either case, mad or sane, you are the most: charming woman I know and I hope you will not change at all."

Lady Brenda blushed faintly, as she always did when anybody made her a compliment, and she kissed the tips of her fingers and waved them towards Augustus across the tea-table with a pretty gesture.

"Oh, Augustus! How can you say mamma is more charming than I am?" said Gwendoline with a laugh.

"Or than I am?" echoed Diana, between two bites of a huge strawberry.

"With such women as you, my dears," answered Augustus, imperturbably, "the most charming woman is always the one who is speaking at the moment."

"We might all speak at once," suggested Lady Brenda, "then we should all be equally charming."

"No man could stand that," answered Augustus.

"You would take refuge in the fourth dimension, then,.! suppose?" asked Diana.

"Like the bishop who said he travelled in the third class because there was no fourth! " suggested Gwendoline. "Let us return to the question of the dinner party. Shall I write invitations to the people we mentioned? Could we not perform an incantation and burn the notes upon the sacrificial altar?"

"We could," said Augustus. "It would be a comparatively cheap form of amusement. But in the course of time, if Julius Caesar and the rest never came, the novelty of asking them would wear off."

"If they only knew what agreeable people we are, I am sure they would come," answered Gwendoline.

"Twill see about it," said Augustus. "It will soon be time to dress for dinner."