IX
The grounds immediately appertaining to Craford New Manor are traversedby a brook. Springing from amidst a thicket of creepers up thehillside, it comes tumbling and winding, a series of miniaturecascades, over brown rocks, between mossy banks shadowed by ferns andeglantine, through the sun-shot dimness of a grove of pine-trees, tofling itself with a final leap and flash (such light-heartedself-immolation) into the ornamental pond at the bottom of the lawn.It is a pretty brook, and pleasing to the ear, with its purl and tinkleof crisp water.
And now, as Anthony, heading for the Wetherleigh-wards exit of thepark, approached the brook, to cross it,--"Sh, sh--please, please,"--awhisper stopped him.
There by the bank, under the tall pines, where sun and shadow chequeredthe russet carpet of pine-needles, there, white-robed, sat Susanna:white-robed, hatless, gloveless. She was waving her hand, softly, in agesture invocative of caution; but her eyes smiled a welcome to him.
Anthony halted, waited,--his heart, I think, high-bearing.
"It is a blue tit," she explained, under her breath, eagerly. "Therarest bird that ever comes. He is bathing--there--see." She pointed.
Sure enough, in a little rock-formed pool a couple of yards up-stream,a tiny blue titmouse was vigorously enjoying his bath--ducking,fluttering, preening his plumage, ducking again, and sending offshooting-stars of spray, prismatic stars where they crossed thesunbeams.
"That is the delight of this bit of water," Susanna said, always withbated breath. "The birds for miles about come here to drink and bathe.All the rarer and timider birds, that one never sees anywhere else."
"Ah, yes. Very jolly, very interesting," said Anthony, not quiteknowing what he said, perhaps, for his faculties, I hope, were singinga _Te Deum_. But--with that high nose of his, that cool grey eye, withthat high collar too, and the general self-assurance of his toilet--noone could have appeared more composed or more collected.
"You speak without conviction," said Susanna. "Don't you care forbirds?"
("Come! You must get yourself in hand," his will admonished his wit.)
"I beg your pardon," he said, "I care for them very much. They 're anindispensable feature of the landscape, and immensely serviceable tothe agriculturist. But one cares for other things as well. And I hadalways fancied that the crowning virtue of this bit of water (since youmention it) was its amenability to the caprice of man."
"Men _have_ caprices?" questioned she, surprise in her upward glance.
"At any rate," he answered, with allowance for her point, "yourScottish gardener has. At his caprice, he turns this torrent on oroff, with a tap. For all its air of naturalness and frank impetuosity,it is an entirely artificial torrent; and your Scottish gardener turnsit on and off with a tap."
"He sways the elements," murmured Susanna, as with awe. "Portentousbeing." Then, changing her note to one of gaiety, "_Ecco_," she cried,"Signor Cinciallegra has completed his ablutions--and _ecco_, he fliesaway. Won't you--won't you sit down?" she asked, as her eyes came backfrom the departing bird; and a motion of her hand made him free of thepine-needles.
"Thank you," responded Anthony, taking a place opposite her. "I 'm notsure," he added, "whether in honesty I ought n't to confess that I havejust been calling upon you."
"Oh," she said, with the politest smile and bow. "I am so sorry tohave missed your visit."
"You are very good." He bowed in his turn. "I wanted to consult youabout a trifling matter of business," he informed her.
"A matter of business--?" she wondered; and her face became allattention.
"Exactly," said he. "I wanted to ask what you meant by stating that itwas your habit always to be abroad in the hours immaculate? I happenedby the merest chance to be abroad in them myself this morning. Iexamined every nook and cranny of them, I turned them inside out; butnot one jot or tittle of you could I discover."
Susanna's eyes were pensive.
"I was speaking of Italy, was I not?" she replied. "I said, I think,that it was the habit of the people in my part of Italy. But, anyhow,one sometimes varies one's habits. And, after all, one sometimes makesstatements that are rash."
"And one is always free to repudiate one's responsibilities,"suggestively supplemented our young man.
"Fortunately," she agreed. "Moreover," she changed her ground, "oneshould not be too exclusive in one's sympathies, one should not beunfair to other hours. This present hour here now--is it notimmaculate also? With its pure sky, and its odour of warm pines, itsdeep cool shadows, its patines of bright gold where the sun penetrates,and then, plashing through it, this curling, dimpling, artificialtorrent? It is not the hour's fault if it happens to arrive somewhatlate in the day--it had to wait its turn. Besides, if one can believewhat one reads in books, it will be the very earliest of earlyhours--down there," (with the tip of a vertical finger she touched theearth), "at the Antipodes."
"To this present hour," said Anthony, with impressive slowness, "Ipersonally owe so great a debt of thankfulness, it would be churlish ofme even to hint a criticism. And yet--and yet--how shall I express it?_Eppur' si muove_. It moves, it hastes away;--while I could wish it toremain forever, fixed as the Northern Star. Do they know, in your partof Italy, any means by which the sparkling minutes can be prevailedupon to stay their flight?"
"That is a sort of knowledge," Susanna answered, with a movement of thehead, "for which, I fear, one would have to go to a meta-physical andthrifty land like Germany. We are not in the least metaphysical orthrifty in my part of Italy. We allow the sparkling minutes to slipbetween our fingers, like gold between the fingers of a spendthrift.But--but we rather enjoy the feeling, as they slip."
"I wonder," Anthony hazarded, "whether you would take it very muchamiss if--if I should make a remark?"
Susanna's eyes lighted, dangerously.
"I wonder," she said, on a key of dubious meditation.
"I am not easily put off," said he, with firmness. "I am moved toremark upon the astonishing facility with which you speak English.Now--do your worst."
Susanna smiled.
"It would take more than that to provoke me to do my worst," she said."English is as natural to me as my mother-tongue. I always had Englishgovernesses. Everyone has English governesses in Italy nowadays, youknow."
"Yes," he said, "I know; and they are generally Irish, are they not?Of course you 've lived a great deal in England?" he surmised.
"On the contrary," she set him right, "this is my first visit here."
"Is it possible?" he marvelled. "I thought the true Oxford accentcould only be acquired on the spot."
"Have I the true Oxford accent?" Susanna brightly doubted, eye-browsraised.
"Thank heaven," he gravely charged her, "thank heaven, kneeling, thatyou have n't the true Oxford manner. Does England," he asked, "seemvery rum?"
"Yes," she answered, with immediate candour, "England seems veryrum--but not so rum as it might, perhaps, if I had n't read so manyEnglish novels. English novels are the only novels you 're allowed toread, in my part of Italy, when you 're young."
"Ah," said Anthony, nodding, "that's because our English novelists aresuch dabs at the art of omission." And after the briefest pause, "Mereidle and impertinent curiosity," he postulated, "is one thing: honestneighbourly interest is another. If I were a bolder man, I should askyou point-blank what part of Italy your part of Italy is."
Susanna (all a soft whiteness, in her white frock, in the mellowpenumbra of the pine-grove) leaned back, and softly laughed.
"My part of Italy? That is not altogether easy to tell," she said,considering. "In one sense, my part of Italy is Rome. I belong to aRoman family, and am politically a subject of the Holy Father,--whatthough, for the moment, his throne be usurped by the Duke of Savoy, andhis prerogatives exercised by the Camorra. But then my part of Italyis also Venice. We are Venetians, if to have had a house in Venice forsome four hundred years is sufficient to constitute folk Venetians.But the part of
Italy where I most often live, the part I like best, isa part you will never have heard of--a little castaway island in theAdriatic, about fifty miles north from Ancona: a little mountainousisland, all fragrant of rosemary and basil, all grey witholive-trees,--all grey, save where the grey is broken by the green ofvineyards, or the white and green of villas with their gardens, or thewhite and red of villages, with their red roofs, and white walls andcampanili,--all grey, and yet all blue and gold, between the blue seaand the blue sky, in the golden light,--the little, unknown, beautifulisland of Sampaolo."
She was actress enough to look unconscious and unconcerned, as shepronounced the name of Sampaolo. Her eyes gazed dreamily far away, asif they could behold an air-vision of her island. At the same time, Isuspect, they kept a vigilant side-watch on Anthony.
Did Anthony give never so slightly perceptible a start? Did _his_ eyesquicken? Did he colour a little? At all events, we need not question,he was aware of a sudden throb of excitement,--on the spur of which,without stopping to reflect, "Really?" he exclaimed. "That is a veryodd coincidence. Sampaolo--I know all about it."
"Indeed?" said Susanna, looking surprise. "You have been there? It israrely visited by travellers--except commercial ones."
"No, I have never been there," he answered, so far truthfully enough."But--but I know--I used to know--a man whose--a man who had," heconcluded lamely. For, when he did stop to reflect, "If you care foran amusing situation," he reflected, "you 'll leave her in the darktouching your personal connection with Sampaolo."
Susanna, being quite in the light touching that connection, could nothelp smiling.
"I must play the game on his conditions, and feign ignorance of allthat he does n't tell," she reminded herself. "But fancy his being sosecretive!"
"I hope the 'man who had' reported favourably of us?" she threw out.
"H'm--yes," said Anthony, with deliberation. "The truth is, hereported nothing. He was one of those inarticulate fellows who traveleverywhere, and can give no better account of their travels than just acatalogue of names. He chanced to let fall that he had visitedSampaolo, and I thus learned that such a place existed. I can't tellwhy, but the fact struck me, and stuck in my mind, and I have eversince been curious to know something about it."
"You said you knew _all_ about it," Susanna complained, her eyesrebukeful, her tone a tone of disappointment.
"Oh, that was a manner of speaking," Anthony quibbled, plausible andunperturbed. "I meant that I knew of its existence--which, after all,is relatively a good deal, being vastly more than most people know."
"It would be worth your while," said Susanna, "the next time you findyourself in its vicinity, to do Sampaolo the honour of an inspection.It is easily reached. The Austrian-Lloyd coasting steamers from Venicecall there once a week, and there is a boat every Monday and Thursdayfrom Ancona. Sampaolo is an extremely interesting spot,--interestingby reason of its natural beauty, its picturesque population, and (tome, at least) by reason of its absurdly romantic, serio-comic,lamentable little history."
"Ah--?" said Anthony, but with a suspension of the voice, with asolicitude of eye and posture, that pressed her to continue.
"He is a poor dissembler," thought Susanna. "As if any mere chanceoutsider would care a fig to hear about Sampaolo. However, so much thebetter."
"Yes," she said, and again she seemed rapt in dreamy contemplation ofan air-vision. "The natural beauty of Sampaolo is to my thinkingunparalleled. At a distance, as your ship approaches it, Sampaolo lieson the horizon like a beautiful soft cloud, all vague rose-colours andpurples, a beautiful soft pinnacle of cloud. Then gradually, as youcome nearer, the cloud changes, crystallises; and Sampaolo is like agreat wonderful carving, a great wonderful carved jewel, a cameo cut onthe sea, with a sort of aureole about it, an opalescence of haze andsunshine. Nearer still, its aspect is almost terrible, a scene ofbreath-taking precipices, spire-like mountains, wild black gorges,ravines; but, to humanise it, you can count at least twenty villages,villages clinging to every hillside, perched on almost every hill-top,each with its group of cypresses, like sentinels, and its campanile.At last you pass between two promontories, the Capo del Turco and theCapo del Papa, from the summits of which two great Crucifixes lookdown, and you enter the Laguna di Vallanza, a land-locked bay, tranquilas a lake. And there, floating on the water as it seems, there is apalace like a palace in Fairyland, a palace of white marble, allstately colonnades and terraces, yet looking, somehow, as light as ifit were built of the sea's foam. This is one of the palaces--thesummer palace--of the Counts of Sampaolo. It seems to float on thewater, but it really occupies a tiny mite of an islet, called IsolaNobile; and connected with Isola Nobile by marble bridges are two othertiny Islets, laid out in gardens, Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella.The Counts of Sampaolo are one of the most ancient and illustriousfamilies in Europe, the Valdeschi della Spina, descendants of San GuidoValdeschi, a famous soldier-saint of the Twelfth Century. They haveanother palace in the town of Vallanza, their winter palace, thePalazzo Rosso; and a splendid old mediaeval castle, Castel San Guido,on the hill behind the town; and two or three delightful villas indifferent parts of the island. A highly enviable family, are they not?Orange-trees are in blossom at Sampaolo the whole year round, inblossom and in fruit at the same time. The olive orchards of Sampaoloare just so many wildernesses of wild flowers: violets, anemones,narcissus; irises, white ones and purple ones; daffodils, which we callasphodels; hyacinths, tulips, arums, orchids--oh, but a perfect riot ofwild flowers. In the spring the valleys of Sampaolo are pink withblossoming peach-trees and almond-trees, where they are not scarletwith pomegranates. Basil, rosemary, white heather, you can pluck whereyou will. And everywhere that they can find a footing, oleanders grow,the big double red ones, great trees of them, such wonder-worlds ofcolour, such fountains of perfume. The birds of Sampaolo never ceasetheir singing--they sing as joyously in December as in June. And thenightingales of Sampaolo sing all day, as well as all night. _Tiu,tiu, tiu--will, will, will--weep, weep, weep_--I can hear them now.But I must stop, or I shall go on for ever. Believe me, the beautiesof Sampaolo are very great."
It was a long speech, but it had had an attentive listener. It was along speech, but it had been diversified by the varying modulations ofSusanna's voice, the varying expressions of her face, by little pauses,hesitations, changes of time and of rhythm, by occasional littlegestures.
It had had an attentive, even an absorbed listener: one who, alreadyinterested in the speaker, happened to have a quite peculiar interestin her theme. As she spoke, I think Anthony beheld his own air-visionof Sampaolo; I fancy the familiar park of Craford, the smooth,well-groomed, well-fed English landscape, melted away; I doubt if hesaw anything of the actual save the white form, the strenuous face, theshining eyes, of his informant.
But now, her voice ceasing, suddenly the actual came back--the brownbrook swirling at their feet, the tall pines whispering above, the warmpine-incense, the tesserae of sun and shadow dancing together on thecarpet of pine-needles, as the tassels overhead swung in the moving air.
"You paint Elysium," he said. "You paint a veritable Island of theBlessed."
Susanna's eyes clouded.
"Once upon a time Sampaolo _was_ a veritable Island of the Blessed,"she answered sadly. "But now no more. Since its union with what theycall the Kingdom of Italy, Sampaolo has been, rather, an Island of theDistressed."
"Ah--?" said Anthony, again on a tone, with a mien, that pressed her tocontinue.
But all at once, as if recalled from an abstraction, Susanna gave alittle laugh,--what seemed a slightly annoyed, half-apologetic littlelaugh,--and lifted her hands in a gesture of deprecation, ofself-reprehension.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I can't think how I have allowedmyself to become so tiresome. One prates of one's parish pump."
"_Tiresome_?" cried out Anthony, in spontaneous protest. "I can't tellyou how much you interest me."
"He is the poores
t of poor dissemblers," thought Susanna.
"You are extremely civil," she said. "But how can the condition of ourparish pump possibly interest a stranger?"
"H'm," thought Anthony, taken aback, "I expect my interest _does_ seemsomewhat improbable."
So, speciously, he sought to justify it.
"For more reasons than a few," he alleged. "To begin with, if I dared,I should say because it is _your_ parish pump." He ventured a littlebow. "But, in the next place, because it is an Italian parish pump,and somehow everything connected with Italy interests one. Then,because it is the parish pump of Sampaolo, and I have always beencurious about Sampaolo. And finally, because it is a _human_ parishpump--_et nihil humanum_ . . . . So please go on. How did Sampaolocome to be an Island of the Distressed?"
"He 's not such a poor dissembler, after all,--when roused to action,"thought Susanna. "But perhaps we have had enough Sampaolo for onesession. I must leave him with an appetite for more."
"Hark," she said, raising a finger, while her face became intent. "Isn't that a skylark?"
Somewhere--just where one could n't tell at first--a bird was singing.Many birds were singing, innumerable birds were chirruping, all about.But this bird's song soared clear above the others, distinct from them,away from them, creating for itself a kind of airy isolation. It wasan exquisitely sweet, liquid song, it was jocund, joyous, and it wassustained for an astonishing length of time. It went on and on and on,never faltering, never pausing, in soft trills and gay roulades, shrillskirls or flute-like warblings, a continuous outpour, for I don't knowhow many minutes. It was a song marvellously apposite to the brightday and the wide countryside. The freshness of the air, the racinessof the earth, the green of grass and trees, the laughing sunlight,--onemight have fancied it was the spirits of all these singing together inunison.
"It's a skylark, sure enough," said Anthony, looking skywards. "Butwhere the mischief is he?"
And they gave eyes and ears to trying to determine, searching theempyrean. Now his voice seemed to come from the west, now from thenorth, the south, the east; it was the most deceptive, the most elusivething.
"Ah--there he is," Anthony cried, of a sudden, and pointed.
"Where? Where?" breathlessly asked Susanna, anxious as if life anddeath hung on the question.
"There--look!" said Anthony, pointing again.
High, high up in the air, directly over their heads, they could discerna tiny speck of black against the blue of the sky. They sat with theirnecks craned back as far as they would go, and gazed at it like peopletransfixed, whilst the sky pulsated to their dazzled sight.
"It is incredible," said Susanna. "A mere pin-point in that immensity,yet he fills it full with his hosannas."
But the pin-point grew bigger, the hosannas louder; the bird wasdescending.
"Literally it is music coming down upon us from heaven," she said.
"Yes--but when it reaches us, it will stop, we shall lose it," saidAnthony. "It is music too ethereal to survive the contact of thisgross planet."
Singing, singing, the bird sank, with folded wings; and sure enough,the very instant he touched the earth, his song stopped short--a bubblepricked, a light extinguished.
"He has come to drink and bathe," said Susanna.
He was hopping towards the water, on the other side of the brook, for apoet the most prosaic-looking fellow, in the soberest brown coat.Evidently he did n't dream that he was not alone. The trees had nodoubt hidden his watchers. But now Susanna's voice startled him. Withone wild glance at them, and a wild twitter of surprise, self-rebuke,consternation, he bounded into the air, and in a second was a merespeck again.
"Oh, how silly of him," Susanna sighed. "Does he think we are dragons?"
"No," said Anthony. "He would n't be half so frightened if he thoughtwe were dragons. He thinks we are much worse."
"Oh--?" guilelessly questioned she. "What is that?"
"He thinks we are human beings," Anthony explained.
Susanna laughed, but it was rather a rueful laugh.
"Anyhow," she said, "he 'll not come back so long as we remain here.Yet he is hot and thirsty--and who knows from what a distance he mayhave flown, just for this disappointment? Don't you think it would begracious on our part if we were to remove the cause of his alarm?"
She rose, and led the way out of the pine-grove, towards her house.When they reached the open, it was to discover, walking together fromthe opposite direction, Adrian and Miss Sandus,--Adrian bending towardshis companion in voluble discourse, which he pointed and underlined bycopious gesticulation.
"Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues," Anthony murmured, more or lessin his sleeve.
But at sight of him, Adrian halted, and struck an attitude.
"Oh, the underhand, the surreptitious villain!" he cried out. Then heturned his pink face towards Susanna. "Lady, beauteous lady, vision ofloveliness," he saluted her, bowing to the ground. "But oh, to thinkof that dark, secret villain! He 's gone and made your acquaintancewithout waiting for me to introduce him, which I was so counting upondoing to-morrow morning. Already he groans and totters under theweight of obligations I 've heaped upon him. I wanted to add onemore--and now he 's gone and circumvented me."
"You will add one more if you 'll be so good as to introduce me to MissSandus," said Anthony.
And when the introduction was accomplished, he proceeded to makehimself as agreeable to that lady as he possibly could. In the firstplace, he liked her appearance, he liked her brisk, frank manner; andthen, is n't it always well to have a friend near the rose?
The result was that when she and Susanna were alone, Miss Sandussuccinctly remarked, "My dear, your cousin is a trump."
The Lady Paramount Page 9
