Читать книгу Bye-Ways - Robert Hichens - Страница 5

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On the following day they rode across the mountain to Tetuan. They started in the dawn. Claire's eyes were heavy. She came languidly out from the tent door to mount her horse, and when she touched Renfrew he felt that her hand was cold like an icicle. He looked at her anxiously.

“Are you ill?” he asked.

“No, Desmond.”

He lifted her into the saddle.

“You haven't slept,” he said.

She looked down at him as she slowly gathered up her reins.

“Unfortunately, I have,” she replied.

Before Renfrew had time to express surprise at this unexpected rejoinder, she had struck her horse with the whip, and trotted off over the grass in the direction of the white Kasbar that gleamed on the hill under the kiss of the rising sun. He leaped into the saddle, and followed her. The path into which they came was narrow, winding through wild fig-trees and olives, and constantly ascending. Claire did not turn her head, and Renfrew could not ride by her side. He watched her thin and sinuous figure swaying slightly in obedience to the motion of her horse, which scrambled over the rough path with the activity of a wild cat. In front of her their personal attendant, Mohammed, rode on a huge grey mule, and sang to himself incessantly in a deep and murmuring voice. Once or twice Renfrew spoke to Claire, but she did not seem to hear him. He resolved to ask about her sleep when they gained some plateau on which they could rest for a moment. At present it was necessary to concentrate his attention on his horse and on the dangers of the road.

When the sun was high in the heavens, and they were high on the mountain, above a gorge in which the scrub grew densely, and great bushes starred with yellow and white flowers hid the rocks and made a home for birds, Mohammed called a halt. Renfrew lifted Claire to the ground. The men passed on towards Tetuan with their camp, and Claire sank down on a gay rug beneath the shade of a huge white umbrella, which was pitched on a square of level ground and circled with luxuriant vegetation. Renfrew lay at her feet and lit his pipe, while Mohammed, the dragoman, and one of the porters squatted at a little distance, and began to play cards in a cloud of keef. Claire was fanning herself slowly with an enormous Spanish fan in which all gay colours met. She still looked very tired. The shuffle of the descending mules died away down the mountain, and a silence, through which the butterflies flitted, fell round them.

“Is this journey too much for you, Claire?” Renfrew asked.

“No. I can rehearse for six hours in London, surely I can ride for six here.”

“But you look tired.”

“Because, as I told you, I slept too much last night.”

“What does that mean?”

She stretched herself on the rug with the easy grace of a woman who has trained her body to carry to the eyes of others, as a message, all the moods of passion and of peace. Then she leaned her cheek on her hand.

“In the darkness of the tent, Desmond, I slept and did not know it. I believed that I lay awake. I thought I still could hear the jackals, and the stamping of the mules. But, really, I slept.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because of what I am going to tell you. The wind blew about the canvas door, and when it bulged outwards I could see on each side of it a tiny section of the night outside, a bit of a bush, blades of short grass moving, a ray of the moon, the slinking shadow of one of the dogs from the village.”

“Yes.”

“Presently there came, I thought, a stronger gust than usual. It tore the canvas flap from the pegs, and the whole thing blew up, leaving the entrance quite open. Then it blew down again. It was only up for a minute. During that minute I had seen that a very tall man was standing outside the tent.”

“One of the soldiers.”

“If I had been awake it might have been.”

“You mean that all this was a dream?”

“I mean that I slept last night, and that I wish I hadn't.”

She turned her great eyes on Renfrew, holding the red, green, and yellow fan so that it concealed the lower part of her face. And he looked at her, staring at him like some tragic stranger above the rampart of an unknown city, and wondered whether she was acting to him in the sun. On the forefinger of the hand that held up the fan a huge black pearl perched in a circle of gold. Renfrew had often noticed it on the stage, when Claire lifted the silver dagger to kill the man who loved her in the play.

“The door of your tent was securely closed when I got up and came out this morning,” he said.

“Oh, yes.”

She spoke with the utmost indifference. Then she added more sharply:—

“Desmond, has it ever occurred to you that I am serpentine?”

He was startled and made no answer.

“Well—has it?”

“Yes,” he said truthfully.

“Why?”

“Every one thinks so. You are so thin. You move so silently. Your body is so elastic and controlled. You always look as if you could glide into places where other women could never go, and be at home in attitudes they could never assume.”

“But I'm an actress—my body is trained, you know, to lie, to fall, as I choose.”

“Other actresses don't give one the same impression.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “My peculiar physique has a great deal to do with it.”

“Of course, and there's something more than that, something mental.”

Claire's heavy eyes grew more thoughtful. The white lids fluttered lower over them till they looked like the eyes of one half asleep. She lay in silence, plunged in a reverie that was deep and dark. In this reverie she forgot to move her fan, which dropped from her hand and fell softly upon the rug. Renfrew did not interrupt her. His worship had learned to wait upon her moods. A huge dragon-fly passed on its journey towards the far blue range of the Atlas Mountains. It whirred in its haste, and its burnished body shone in the sunshine between its gleaming wings. Claire snatched at it with her hand, but missed it.

“I should like to wear it as a jewel,” she said.

Then she turned slowly again towards Renfrew, and continued her nocturne as if it had never been broken off.

“The canvas flap fell down again over the doorway, Desmond, and it seemed that just then the breeze died away, expiring in that angry gust. I could not see anything but the interior of the tent, and only that very dimly. But this man outside. I wanted to see him.”

“Did you recognise that he was not one of the soldiers, then?”

“Perfectly. He was not dressed as they are. They were entirely muffled up with hoods drawn forward above their faces. And in their hands one could see their guns. This man was bareheaded, and looked half naked. And in his hands—”

She stopped meditatively.

“Was there anything in his hands?”

“Well—yes, there was.”

“What?”

“I wanted to know what it was. But at first I only lay quite still and wished the wind would come again and blow the flap up so that I could see out. But it had quite gone down. The canvas did not even quiver.”

“Was it near dawn?”

“I haven't an idea. Does the breeze sink then?”

“Very often.”

“Ah! Perhaps it was then. Oh, but you'll see in a minute what nonsense it is to think about that. I lay still, as I said, for some time, waiting for the breeze. And when it wouldn't come, I made up my mind that I must arrive at a decision either to turn my face on the pillow and go to sleep, or else to get up, go to the tent door, and look out.”

“To see this man?”

“Exactly.”

“Which did you do?”

“Turned my face on the pillow.”

“And went off to sleep?”

“No, grew most intensely awake—as I supposed. The pillow was like fire against my cheek. It burnt me. With the departure of the breeze the night had become suddenly most intolerably hot. I turned over on my back and lay like that. Then I felt as if there was sand on the sheets.”

“Sand! Impossible! We aren't in the desert.”

“No. But it seemed as if I lay in hot sand. I shifted my position, but it made no difference. I sat up. The tent door was still closed. I listened. All those dogs had ceased to bark. There wasn't a sound. Even the jackals had left off whining. Then I slipped out of bed and threw that rose-coloured Moorish cloak over me. It rustled just like a thing rustles in grass, Desmond.”

She looked at him with a sort of peculiar significance, and as if she expected him to gather something definite from the remark.

“A thing in grass,” he repeated, wondering. “What sort of thing?”

But Claire avoided the question. She had taken up the fan again, and was opening and shutting it with a quiet and careful sort of precision, as she went on in a low and even voice:—

“I disliked this rustling, and held the cloak tightly together with my hands. I felt as if the man outside the tent had been waiting to hear that very little noise.”

“The rustling?”

“Yes. And that when he heard it he smiled to himself. I didn't intend he should hear it again though, and as I glided towards the tent door, I held the cloak very tight and away from my body. And I don't think I can have made any noise. You know how softly I can move when I choose?”

“Yes.”

“When I got to the door, I waited. I couldn't hear the man; but I felt that he was still there, just on the other side of the flap.”

Renfrew leaned forward on the rug. He felt deeply interested, perhaps only because Claire was the narrator. She held him much as she could hold an audience in a theatre, by her pose, her hands, her pale, almost weary face, her heavy sombre eyes, even more than by any words she chanced to be uttering. She could make anything seem vitally important if she chose, simply by her manner. Renfrew's pipe had gone out; but he did not know it, and still kept it between his lips.

“I waited for some time by the flap,” Claire continued calmly. “I was going to lift it presently, I knew; but I could not do it at once. The man and I were standing, I suppose, for full five minutes only divided by that strip of canvas. I tried not to breathe audibly, and I could not hear him breathe. At last I resolved to see him, and considered how I should do so. If I remained standing and looked out, I should have to push the flap quite away and my eyes would be nearly on a level with his. He would certainly see me. I didn't wish that. I didn't intend at all that he should see me. Therefore I resolved to lie down.”

“On the ground?”

“Yes, quite flat, and to raise the bottom of the flap gently an inch or two. This would enable me to see him without being seen, if I did it without noise. I dropped down quite softly. Do you remember my death in ‘Camille’?”

Renfrew nodded.

“Almost like that. But the rose-coloured stuff rustled again. I wished I hadn't put it on. I raised the flap very slightly and peeped out. Do you know what I felt like just then, Desmond?”

“What?”

“Just like a snake in ambush. When my cloak rustled, it was the grass against my body. I lay in cover, and could see my enemy like a creature in a forest, or a reptile in scrub.”

She glanced round at the bushes and the densely growing palms.

“Yes, I lay there like a snake in the grass.”

She stretched herself out on the rug as she spoke, with her head towards Renfrew and her eyes fastened on his.

“I saw first the feet of the man close to my eyes. His feet were almost black and bare. His legs were bare. My glance travelled up him, and I saw that his chest and his arms were bare too. He was clothed in a sort of loose rough garment, the colour of sacking, that fell into a kind of hood behind; and he looked enormously powerful. That struck me very much—his power.”

“Did you see his face?”

“Quite well. It was the face of a man watching and listening with the closest attention. He was smiling slightly, too, as if something that had just happened had satisfied him. I knew he had heard the rustle of my robe as I slipped to the ground.”

“But why should that please him?”

“It told him that I was there, that I was attentive too.”

Renfrew's face slightly darkened.

“As I looked, I saw what he was holding in his hands.”

“What was it—a dagger—a staff?”

“A serpent.”

Renfrew could not repress an exclamation.

“Very large and striped. Its skin was like shot silk in the moonlight. It writhed softly between his hands, and turned its flat head from side to side. It seemed to be trying to bend down towards where I lay. Its tongue shot out like a length of riband out of one of those wooden winders that you buy in cheap shops. I should think its body was quite five feet long, and its colour seemed to change as it turned about. Sometimes it was pink, then it looked dull green and almost black. Once it wriggled down so near to the ground that I could see two fangs in its open mouth like hooks, and the roof of its mouth was flesh colour.”

“How abominable!” said Renfrew, softly.

“I didn't feel it so at all,” Claire said. “I wanted it to come to me,—back into the grass where such things are safe. But the man wouldn't let it go. He thrust it into his breast. He wanted to have his hands free.”

“Good God, Claire—what for? Did he—?”

She smiled at his sudden violence, which showed his interest.

“When the snake was safe, he drew out, still smiling and listening, a little pipe that looked as if it were made of straw, very common and dirty. He held it up to his black lips, and began to play very softly and sleepily. Desmond, the tune he played was charmed. It was a tune composed—for—for—”

She broke off.

“You know the Pied Piper had his tune,” she said; “the rats had to follow it. Well, this tune was for the serpents.”

“To charm them you mean?”

“Wisely—dangerously—almost irresistibly, perhaps in time, Desmond, quite, quite irresistibly. There is a music for all creatures, all reptiles, birds,—everything that lives; this was for the snakes.”

“Well, but, Claire, how did you know that?”

She looked at him with a sort of dull amusement and pity in her half-shut eyes.

“Shall I tell you?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it, because the tune charmed me, Desmond.”

“Ah, you are acting! I half suspected it from the first,” Renfrew exclaimed almost roughly.

He sat up as a man who has been lying under a spell stirs when the spell is broken. Now he knew that his pipe was out, and he felt for his match-box. But Claire still kept her eyes fixed on him, and laid her hand on his arm gently.

“No, I am not acting,” she said. “The tune charmed me. You see I am a woman; and there are many women who feel at moments that what attracts some special creature, thing, of the so-called world without a soul, attracts them too. Some men can whistle a woman as they would a dog, can't they?”

“Perhaps.”

“Yes, and some men can charm a woman as they could charm a serpent.”

“I don't understand you, Claire.”

“You don't choose to. The animal is in us all, hidden deftly by Nature, the artful dodger of the scheme of creation, Desmond; and we know it when the right tune is played to summon it from its slumber in the nest of the human body. Only the right tune can waken it.”

“The animal! But—”

“Or the reptile, perhaps. What does it matter? This was the right tune for me. I lay there like a snake in the grass and it thrilled me! And all the time the black man smiled and listened for the rustling at his feet. You look black, Desmond! How absurd of you to be angry!”

And she closed her fingers over his hand till the frown died out of his face.

“The tune seemed to draw me to the man. I understood just how he had captured the serpent that lay hidden in his bosom. It had once lain in ambush as I lay now, long ago perhaps, in the desert among the rocks, on the sand, Desmond.”

“Ah, the sand!” he said, remembering suddenly the strange feeling Claire had described as coming upon her when she was trying to sleep.

“Yes. And he had drawn it from the sand to the oasis among the palms where he stood playing, till he heard its rustling in the grass about his feet, as it glided nearer to him, and nearer, and nearer, till at last it reared up its body, and wound up him and round him, and laid its flat head between his great hands. Yes, that was how it came.”

“You fancy.”

“I know. But I would not go. I determined that I would not, and I lay perfectly still. But all the time I longed to go. I had an almost irresistible passion for movement towards that tune. It seemed to me a stream of music into which I yearned to plunge, and drown and die. And it flowed up there at the man's lips! The longing increased as he piped the tune, over and over and over again, almost under his breath. I was sick with it, and it hurt me because I resisted it. And at last I knew that resisting it would kill me. I must either go, or not go, and die. There was no alternative. That music simply claimed me. It had the right to. And if I denied that right I should cease. I did deny it.”

She shuddered in the sun, then added, almost harshly:—

“Like a fool.”

“And then, Claire, then—?”

“It seemed to me that I died in most horrible pain. I lived once more when you said, outside my tent, ‘Claire, time to get up.’ You see, I slept too much last night.”

And again she shuddered. A look of relief shot into Renfrew's face.

“All this came from your mad performance to those Moors,” he said. “You impersonate so vividly that even sleep cannot release your genius, and bring it out from the world which you have deliberately forced it to enter.”

“But, Desmond, I impersonated the charmer of the snake, not the snake itself.”

“Oh, in a dream the mind always wanders a little from the event that has caused the dream. It is like a faulty mimic who strives to reproduce with exactitude and slightly fails. Time to go, Absalem?”

The dragoman had come up.

As they rode down the mountain a strange thing occurred, strange at least in connection with Claire's narrative of the night. Mohammed, who was riding just in front of them, pulled up his mule beside a thicket at the wayside, and, turning his head, signed to them to be silent. Then, pursing his lips, he whistled a shrill little tune. In a moment an answer came from the thicket; Claire glanced at Renfrew with a slight smile. Here was a sort of side light of reality thrown upon her dream and upon their conversation. Mohammed whistled again. The echo followed. And then suddenly a bird flew out, almost into his face, and, startled, swerved and darted away across the gorge into the dense woods beyond.

“A charm of birds,” Claire murmured to Renfrew, as they rode on. “The summoning tune—what can resist it?”

“Claire,” he said, almost reproachfully, “you speak like a fatalist.”

“And I believe I am one,” she answered. “Destiny is not only a phantom but also a fact. Mine is marked out for me and known—”

“To whom? Not to yourself?”

“Oh, no!”

“To whom then?”

“To the hidden force that directs all things.”

“I am your destiny.”

“Ah, Desmond—or Morocco. I feel to-day as if I shall never see England again, or a civilised audience such as I have known.”

And then she seemed to fall into a waking dream. Even Renfrew felt drowsy, the air was so intensely hot and the motion of the horses so monotonous. And Mohammed's deep voice was never silent. It buzzed like a bourdon in the glare of the noontide, till, far away on the hill-side, they saw white Tetuan facing the plain, the river moving stagnantly towards the sea, the great fields of corn in which strange flowers grew, and the giant range of shaggy mountains, swimming in a mist of gold that looked like spangled tissue.