Читать книгу The Life Everlasting - Marie Corelli - Страница 14

It was a glorious morning, and so warm that I went up on deck without any hat or cloak, glad to have the sunlight playing on my hair and the soft breeze blowing on my face. The scene was perfectly enchanting; the mountains were bathed in a delicate rose-purple glow reflected from the past pomp of the sun's rising,—the water was still as an inland lake, and every mast and spar of the 'Diana' was reflected in it as in a mirror. A flock of sea-gulls floated round our vessel, like fairy boats—some of them rising every now and then with eager cries to wing their graceful flight high through the calm air, and alight again with a flash of silver pinions on the translucent blue. While I stood gazing in absorbed delight at the beauty which everywhere surrounded me, Captain Derrick called to me from his little bridge, where he stood with folded arms, looking down.

"Good morning! What do you think of the mystery now?"

"Mystery?" And then his meaning flashed upon me. "Oh, the yacht that anchored near us last night! Where is she?"

"Just so!" And the captain's look expressed volumes—"Where is she?"

Oddly enough, I had not thought of the stranger vessel till this moment, though the music sounding from her deck had been the last thing which had haunted my ears before I had slept—and dreamed! And now—she was gone! There was not a sign of her anywhere.

I looked up at the captain on his bridge and smiled. "She must have started very early!" I said.

The captain's fuzzy brows met portentously.

"Ay! Very early! So early that the watch never saw her go. He must have missed an hour and she must have gained one."

"It's rather strange, isn't it?" I said—"May I come on the bridge?"

"Certainly."

I ran up the little steps and stood beside him, looking out to the farthest line of sea and sky.

"What do you think about it?" I asked, laughingly, "Was she a real yacht or a ghost?"

The captain did not smile. His brow was furrowed with perplexed consideration.

"She wasn't a ghost," he said—"but her ways were ghostly. That is, she made no noise,—and she sailed without wind. Mr. Harland may say what he likes,—I stick to that. She had no steam, but she carried full sail, and she came into the Sound with all her canvas bellying out as though she were driven by a stormy sou'wester. There's been no wind all night—yet she's gone, as you see—and not a man on board heard the weighing of her anchor. When she went and how she went beats me altogether!"

At that moment we caught sight of a small rowing boat coming out to us from the shore, pulled by one man, who bent to his oars in a slow, listless way as though disinclined for the labour.

"Boat ahoy!" shouted the captain.

The man looked up and signalled in answer. A couple of our sailors went to throw him a rope as he brought his craft alongside. He had come, so he slowly explained in his soft, slow, almost unintelligible Highland dialect, with fresh eggs and butter, hoping to effect a sale. The steward was summoned, and bargaining began. I listened and looked on, amused and interested, and I presently suggested to the captain that it might be as well to ask this man if he too had seen the yacht whose movements appeared so baffling and inexplicable. The captain at once took the hint.

"Say, Donald," he began, invitingly—"did you see the big yacht that came in last night about ten o'clock?"

"Ou ay!" was the slow answer—"But my name's no Tonald,—it's just

Jamie."

Captain Derrick laughed jovially.

"Beg pardon! Jamie, then! Did you see the yacht?"

"Ou ay! I've seen her mony a day. She's a real shentleman."

I smiled.

"The yacht?"

Jamie looked up at me.

"Ah, my leddy, ye'll pe makin' a fule o' Jamie wi' a glance like a sun-sparkle on the sea! Jamie's no fule wi' the right sort, an' the yacht is a shentleman, an' the shentleman's the yacht, for it's the shentleman that pays whateffer."

Captain Derrick became keenly interested.

"The gentleman? The owner of the yacht, you mean?"

Jamie nodded—"Just that!"—and proceeded to count out his store of new-laid eggs with great care as he placed them in the steward's basket.

"What's his name?"

"Ah, that's ower mickle learnin',"—said Jamie, with a cunning look—"I canna say it rightly."

"Can you say it wrongly?" I suggested.

"I wadna!" he replied, and he lifted his eyes, which were dark and piercing, to my face—"I daurna!"

"Is he such a very terrible gentleman, then?" enquired Captain Derrick, jocosely.

Jamie's countenance was impenetrable.

"Ye'll pe seein' her for yourself whateffer,"—he said—"Ye'll no miss her in the waters 'twixt here an' Skye."

He stooped and fumbled in his basket, presently bringing out of it a small bunch of pink bell-heather,—the delicate waxen type of blossom which is found only in mossy, marshy places.

"The shentleman wanted as much as I could find o' this,"—he said—"An' he had it a' but this wee bittie. Will my leddy wear it for luck?"

I took it from his hand.

"As a gift?" I asked, smiling.

"I wadna tak ony money for't,"—he answered, with a curious expression of something like fear passing over his brown, weather-beaten features—"'Tis fairies' making."

I put the little bunch in my dress. As I did so, he doffed his cap.

"Good day t'ye! I'll be no seein' ye this way again!"

"Why not? How do you know?"

"One way in and another way out!" he said, his voice sinking to a sort of meditative croon—"One road to the West, and the other to the East!—and round about to the meeting-place! Ou ay! Ye'll mak it clear sailin'!"

"Without wind, eh?" interposed Captain Derrick—"Like your friend the 'shentleman'? How does he manage that business?"

Jamie looked round with a frightened air, like an animal scenting danger,—then, shouldering his empty basket, he gave us a hasty nod of farewell, and, scrambling down the companion ladder without another word, was soon in his boat again, rowing away steadily and never once looking back.

"A wild chap!" said the captain—"Many of these fellows get half daft, living so much alone in desolate places like Mull, and seeing nothing all their time but cloud and mountain and sea. He seems to know something about that yacht, though!"

"That yacht is on your brain, Captain!" I said, merrily—"I feel quite sorry for you! And yet I daresay if we meet her again the mystery will turn out to be very simple."

"It will have to be either very simple or very complex!" he answered, with a laugh—"I shall need a good deal of teaching to show me how a sailing yacht can make steam speed without wind. Ah, good morning, sir!"

And we both turned to greet Mr. Harland, who had just come up on deck. He looked ill and careworn, as though he had slept badly, and he showed but faint interest in the tale of the strange yacht's sudden exit.

"It amuses you, doesn't it?"—he said, addressing me with a little cynical smile wrinkling up his forehead and eyes—"Anything that cannot be at once explained is always interesting and delightful to a woman! That is why spiritualistic 'mediums' make money. They do clever tricks which cannot be explained, hence their success with the credulous."

"Quite so"—I replied—"but just allow me to say that I am no believer in 'mediums.'"

"True,—I forgot!" He rubbed his hand wearily over his brows—then asked—"Did you sleep well?"

"Splendidly! And I must really thank you for my lovely rooms,—they are almost too luxurious! They are fit for a princess."

"Why a princess?" he queried, ironically—"Princesses are not always agreeable personages. I know one or two,—fat, ugly and stupid. Some of them are dirty in their persons and in their habits. There are certain 'princesses' in Europe who ought to be washed and disinfected before being given any rooms anywhere!"

I laughed.

"Oh, you are very bitter!" I said.

"Not at all. I like accuracy. 'Princess' to the ingenuous mind suggests a fairy tale. I have not an ingenuous mind. I know that the princesses of the fairy tales do not exist,—unless you are one."

"Me!" I exclaimed, in amazement—"I'm very far from that—"

"Well, you are a dreamer!" he said, and resting his arms on the deck rail he looked away from me down into the sunlit sea—"You do not live here in this world with us—you think you do,—and yet in your own mind you know you do not. You dream—and your life is that of vision simply. I'm not sure that I should like to see you wake. For as long as you can dream you will believe in the fairy tale;—the 'princess' of Hans Andersen and the Brothers Grimm holds good—and that is why you should have pretty things about you,—music, roses and the like trifles,—to keep up the delicate delusion."

I was surprised and just a little vexed at his way of talking. Why, even with the underlying flattery of his words, should he call me a dreamer? I had worked for my own living as practically as himself in the world, and if not with such financially successful results, only because my aims had never been mere money-spinning. He had attained enormous wealth,—I a modest competence,—he was old and I was young,—he was ill and miserable,—I was well and happy,—which of us was the 'dreamer'? My thoughts were busy with this question, and he saw it.

"Don't perplex yourself,"—he said,—"and don't be offended with me for my frankness. My view of life is not yours,—nor are we ever likely to see things from the same standpoint. Yours is the more enviable condition. You are looking well,—you feel well—you are well! Health is the best of all things." He paused, and lifting his eyes from the contemplation of the water, regarded me fixedly. "That's a lovely bit of bell-heather you're wearing! It glows like fiery topaz."

I explained how it had been given to me.

"Why, then, you've already established a connection with the strange yacht!" he said, laughing—"The owner, according to your Highland fellow, has the same blossoms on board,—probably gathered from the same morass!—surely this is quite romantic and exciting!"

And at breakfast, when Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton appeared, they all made conversation on the subject of my bunch of heather, till I got rather tired of it, and was half inclined to take it off and throw it away. Yet somehow I could not do this. Glancing at my own reflection in a mirror, I saw what a brilliant yet dainty touch of colour it gave to the plain white serge of my yachting dress,—it was a pretty contrast, and I left it alone.

Miss Catherine did not get up to breakfast, but she sent for me afterwards and asked if I would mind sitting with her for a while. I did mind in a way,—for the day was fair and fine,—the 'Diana' was preparing to pursue her course,—and it was far pleasanter to be on deck in the fresh air than in Miss Catherine's state-room, which, though quite spacious for a yacht's accommodation, looked rather dreary, having no carpet on the floor, no curtains to the bed, and no little graces of adornment anywhere,—nothing but a few shelves against the wall on which were ranged some blue and black medicine bottles, relieved by a small array of pill-boxes. But I felt sorry for the poor woman who had elected to make her life a martyrdom to nerves, and real or imaginary aches and pains, so I went to her, determined to do what I could to cheer and rouse her from her condition of chronic depression. Directly I entered her cabin she said:

"Where did you get that bright bit of heather?"

I told her the whole story, to which she listened with more patience than she usually showed for any talk in which she had not first share.

"It's really quite interesting!" she said, with a reluctant smile—"I suppose it was the strange yacht that had the music on board last night. It kept me awake. I thought it was some tiresome person out in a boat with a gramophone."

I laughed.

"Oh, Miss Harland!" I exclaimed—"Surely you could not have thought it a gramophone! Such music! It was perfectly exquisite!"

"Was it?" And she drew the ugly grey woollen shawl in which she was wrapped closer about her sallow throat as she sat up in her bed and looked at me—"Well, it may have been, to you,—you seem to find delight in everything,—I'm sure I don't know why! Of course it's very nice to have such a happy disposition—but really that music teased me dreadfully. Such a bore having music when you want to go to sleep."

I was silent, and having a piece of embroidery to occupy my hands I began to work at it.

"I hope you're quite comfortable on board,"—she resumed, presently—"Have you all you want in your rooms?"

I assured her that everything was perfect.

She sighed.

"I wish I could say the same!" she said—"I really hate yachting, but father likes it, so I must sacrifice myself." Here she sighed again. I saw she was really convinced that she was immolating herself on the altar of filial obedience. "You know he is very ill,"—she went on—"and that he cannot live long?"

"He told me something about it,"—I answered—"and I said then, as I say now, that the doctors may be wrong."