Romance Island

by Zona Gale

  CHAPTER XXI

  OPEN SECRETS

  "Will you have tea?" asked Olivia.

  St. George brought a deck cushion and tucked it in the willowsteamer chair and said adoringly that he would have tea. Tea. In aworld where the essentials and the inessentials are so deliciouslyconfused, to think that tea, with some one else, can be a kind ofHeaven.

  "Two lumps?" pursued Olivia.

  "Three, please," St. George directed, for the pure joy of watchingher hands. There were no tongs.

  "Aren't the rest going to have some?" Olivia absently shared herattention, tinkling delicately about among the tea things. "Doesn'tevery one want a cup of tea?" she inquired loud enough for nobody tohear. St. George, shifting his shoulder from the rail, lookedvaguely over the deck of _The Aloha_, sighed contentedly, and smiledback at her. No one else, it appeared, would have tea; and there wasnone to regret it.

  St. George's cursory inspection had revealed the others variouslyabsorbed, though they were now all agreed in breathing easily sinceBarnay, interlarding rational speech with Irishisms of thanksgiving,had announced five minutes before that the fires were up and that inhalf an hour _The Aloha_ might weigh anchor. The only thing now leftto desire was to slip clear of the shadow of the black reaches ofYaque, shouldering the blue.

  Meanwhile, Antoinette and Amory sat in the comparative seclusion ofthe bow with their backs to the forward deck, and it was definitelymanifest to every one how it would be with them, but every one wassimply glad and dismissed the matter with that. Mr. Frothingham, inhis steamer chair, looked like a soft collapsible tube of something;Bennietod, at ease upon the uncovered boards of the deck, wascircumspectly having cheese sandwiches and wastefully shooting theship's rockets into the red sunset, in general celebration; andRollo, having taken occasion respectfully to submit to whomsoever itconcerned that fact is ever stranger than fiction, had gone below.Mr. Otho Holland and Little Cawthorne--but their smiles were likedifferent names for the same thing--were toasting each other insomething light and dry and having a bouquet which Mr. Holland, whoought to know, compared favourably with certain vintages of 1000B.C. In a hammock near them reclined Mrs. Medora Hastings, holdingtwo kinds of smelling salts which invariably revived her simply byinducing the mental effort of deciding which was the better. Herhair, which was exceedingly pretty, now rippled becomingly about herflushed face and was guiltless of side-combs--she had lost them bothdown a chasm in that headlong flight from the cliff's summit, andthey irrecoverably reposed in the bed of some brook of the Mioceneperiod. And Mrs. Hastings, her hand in that of her brother, lay inutter silence, smiling up at him in serene content.

  For King Otho of Yaque was turning his back upon his island domainfor ever. In that hurried flight across the Eurychorus among hisdistracted subjects, his resolution had been taken. Jarvo and Akko,the adieux to whom had been every one's sole regret in leaving theisland, had miraculously found their way to the king and his partyin their flight, and were despatched to Mount Khalak for such oftheir belongings as they could collect, and the island sovereign waswell content.

  "Ah well now," he had just observed, languidly surveying thetropical horizon through a cool glass of winking amber bubbles, "onemust learn that to touch is far more delicate than to lift. It ismore wonderful to have been the king of one moment than the ruler ofmany. It is better to have stood for an instant upon a rainbow thanto have taken a morning walk through a field of clouds. Theprinciple has long been understood, but few have had--shall Isay the courage?--to practise it. Yet 'courage' is a termfrom-the-shoulder, and what I require is a word of finger-tips,over-tones, ultra-rays--a word for the few who understand that toleave a thing is more exquisite than to outwear it. It is by itsvery fineness circumscribed--a feminine virtue. Women understand itand keep it secret. I flatter myself that I have possessed the highmoment, vanished against the noon. Ah, my dear fellow--" he added,lifting his glass to St. George's smile.

  But little Cawthorne--all reality in his heliotrope outing and duckand grey curls--raised a characteristic plaint.

  "Oh, but I've done it," he mournfully reviewed. "When'll I ever bein another island, in front of another vacated throne? Why didn't Imove into the palace, and set up a natty, up-to-date littlerepublic? I could have worn a crown as a matter of taste--what's theuse of a democracy if you aren't free to wear a crown? And what kindof American am I, anyway, with this undeveloped taste for acquiringislands? If they ever find this out at the polls my vote'll bechallenged. What?"

  "Aw whee!" said Bennietod, intent upon a Roman candle, "wha' do youcare, Mr. Cawt'orne? You don't hev to go back fer to be achild-slave to Chillingwort'. Me, I've gotta good call to jumpoverboard now an' be de sonny of a sea-horse, dead to rights!"

  St. George looked at them all affectionately, unconscious thatalready the experience of the last three days was slipping back intothe sheathing past, like a blade used. But he was dawningly aware,as he sat there at Olivia's feet in glorious content, that he waslooking at them all with new eyes. It was as if he had found newnames for them all; and until long afterward one does not know thatthese moments of bestowing new names mark the near breathing of thegod.

  The silence of Mrs. Hastings and her quiet devotion to her brothersomehow gave St. George a new respect for her. Over by thewheel-house something made a strange noise of crying, and St. Georgesaw that Mr. Frothingham sat holding a weird little animal, like asquirrel but for its stumpy tail and great human eyes, which he hadunwittingly stepped on among the rocks. The little thing was lickinghis hand, and the old lawyer's face was softened and glowing as henursed it and coaxed it with crumbs. As he looked, St. George warmedto them all in new fellowship and, too, in swift self-reproach; forin what had seemed to him but "broad lines and comic masks" hesuddenly saw the authority and reality of homely hearts. The betterand more intimate names for everything which seemed now within hisgrasp were more important than Yaque itself. He remembered, with athrill, how his mother had been wont to tell him that a man mustwalk through some sort of fairy-land, whether of imagination or ofthe heart, before he can put much in or take much from themarket-place. And lo! this fairy-land of his finding hadproved--must it not always prove?--the essence of all Reality.

  His eyes went to Olivia's face in a flash of understanding andbelief.

  "Don't you see?" he said, quite as if they two had been talking whathe had thought.

  She waited, smiling a little, thrilled by his certainty of hersympathy.

  "None of this happened really," triumphantly explained St. George,"I met you at the Boris, did I not? Therefore, I think that sincethen you have graciously let me see you for the proper length oftime, and at last we've fallen in love just as every one else does.And true lovers always do have trouble, do they not? So then, Yaquehas been the usual trouble and happiness, and here we are--engaged."

  "I'm not engaged," Olivia protested serenely, "but I see what youmean. No, none of it happened," she gravely agreed. "It couldn't,you know. Anybody will tell you that."

  In her eyes was the sparkle of understanding which made St. Georgelove her more every time that it appeared. He noted, the white clothfrock, and the coat of hunting pink thrown across her chair, and heremembered that in the infinitesimal time that he had waited for heroutside the Palace of the Litany, she must have exchanged for thesethe coronation robe and jewels of Queen Mitygen. St. George likedthat swift practicality in the race of faery, though he wascompletely indifferent to Mrs. Hastings' and Antoinette's claims toit; and he wondered if he were to love Olivia more for everythingthat she did, how he could possibly live long enough to tell her.When one has been to Yaque the simplest gifts and graces resolvethemselves into this question.

  _The Aloha_ gently freed herself from the shallow green pocket whereshe had lain through three eventful days, and slipped out toward thewaste of water bound by the flaunting autumn of the west. An islandwind, fragrant of bark and secret berries, blew in puffs from thesteep. A gull swooped to her nest in a cranny of the basalt. Frombelow a
servant came on deck, his broad American face smiling over atray of glasses and decanters and tinkling ice. It was all verytranquil and public and almost commonplace--just the high tropicseas at the moment of their unrestrained sundown, and the odour oftea-cakes about the pleasantly-littered deck. And for the moment,held by a common thought, every one kept silent. Now that _TheAloha_ was really moving toward home, the affair seemed suddenlysuch a gigantic impossibility that every one resented every oneelse's knowing what a trick had been played. It was as if thecurtain had just fallen and the lights of the auditorium had flashedup after the third act, and they had all caught one anotherbreathless or in tears, pretending that the tragedy had reallyhappened.

  "Promise me something," begged St. George softly, in sudden alarm,born of this inevitable aspect; "promise me that when we get to NewYork you are not going to forget all about Yaque--and me--andbelieve that none of us ever happened."

  Olivia looked toward the serene mystery of the distance.

  "New York," she said only, "think of seeing you in New York--now."

  "Was I of more account in Yaque?" demanded St. George anxiously.

  "Sometimes," said Olivia adorably, "I shall tell you that you were.But that will be only because I shall have an idea that in Yaque youloved me more."

  "Ah, very well then. And sometimes," said St. George contentedly,"when we are at dinner I shall look down the table at you sittingbeside some one who is expounding some baneful literary theory, andI shall think: What do I care? He doesn't know that she is reallythe Princess of Far-Away. But I do."

  "And he won't know anything about our motor ride, alone, the nightthat I was kidnapped, either--the literary-theory person," Oliviatranquilly took away his breath by observing.

  St. George looked up at her quickly and, secretly, Olivia thoughtthat if he had been attractive when he was courageous he was doublyso with the present adorably abashed look in his eyes.

  "When--alone?" St. George asked unconvincingly.

  She laughed a little, looking down at him in a reproof that was allapprobation, and to be reproved like that is the divinest praise.

  "How did you know?" protested St. George in fine indignation."Besides," he explained, "I haven't an idea what you mean."

  "I guessed about that ride," she went on, "the night before last,when you were walking up and down outside my window. I don't knowwhat made me--and I think it was very forward of me. Do you want toknow something?" she demanded, looking away.

  "More than anything," declared St. George. "What?"

  "I think--" Olivia said slowly, "that it began--then--just when Ifirst thought how wonderful that ride would have been. Except--thatit had begun a great while before," she ended suddenly.

  And at these enigmatic words St. George sent a quick look over theforward deck. It was of no use. Mr. Frothingham was well withinrange.

  "Heavens, good heavens, how happy I am," said St. George instead.

  "And then," Olivia went on presently, "sometimes when there are alot of people about--literary-theory persons and all--I shall lookacross at you, differently, and that will mean that you are toremember the exact minute when you looked in the window up at thepalace, on the mountain, and I saw you. Won't it?"

  "It will," said St. George fervently. "Don't try to persuade me thatthere wasn't any such mountain," he challenged her. "I suppose," headded in wonder, "that lovers have been having these secret signstime out of mind--and we never knew."

  Olivia drew a little breath of content.

  "Bless everybody," she said.

  So they made invasion of that pure, dim world before them; and theserene mystery of the distance came like a thought, drawn from astate remote and immortal, to clasp the hand of There in the hand ofHere.

  "And then sometimes," St. George went on, his exultation provinggreater than his discretion, "we'll take the yacht and pretendwe're going back--"

  He stopped abruptly with a quick indrawn breath and the hope thatshe had not noticed. He was, by several seconds, too late.

  "Whose yacht is it?" Olivia asked promptly. "I wondered."

  St. George had dreaded the question. Someway, now that it was allover and the prize was his, he was ashamed that he had not won itmore fairly and humiliated that he was not what she believed him, apillar of the _Evening Sentinel_. But Amory had miraculously heardand turned himself about.

  "It's his," he said briefly, "I may as well confess to you, MissHolland," he enlarged somewhat, "he's a great cheat. _The Aloha_ ishis, and so am I, busy body and idle soul, for using up his yachtand his time on a newspaper story. You were the 'story,' you know."

  "But," said Olivia in bewilderment, "I don't understand. Surely--"

  "Nothing whatever is sure, Miss Holland," Amory sadly assured her,but his eyes were smiling behind his pince-nez. "You would think onemight be sure of him. But it isn't so. Me, you may depend upon me,"he impressed it lightly. "I'm what I say I am--a poor beggar of anewspaper man, about to be held to account by one Chillingworth forthis whole millenial occurrence, and sent off to a politicalconvention to steady me, unless I'm fired. But St. George, he's agay dilettante."

  Then Amory resumed a better topic of his own; and Olivia, when sheunderstood, looked down at her lover as miserably as one is ablewhen one is perfectly happy.

  "Oh," she said, "and up there--in the palace to-day--I did think fora minute that perhaps you wanted me to marry the prince sothat--they could--."

  One could smile now at the enormity of that.

  "So that I could put it in the paper?" he said. "But, you see, Inever could put it in any paper, even if I didn't love you. Whowould believe me? A thousand years from now--maybe less--the_Evening Sentinel_, if it is still in existence, can publish thestory, perhaps. Until then I'm afraid they'll have to confinethemselves to the doings of the precincts."

  Olivia waived the whole matter for one of vaster importance.

  "Then why did you come to Yaque?" she demanded.

  Mr. Frothingham had left his place by the wheel-house and wanderedforward. The steamer chair had a back that was both broad and high,and one sitting in its shadow was hermetically veiled from the restof the deck. So St. George bent forward, and told her.

  After that they sat in silence, and together they looked backtoward the island with its black rocks smitten to momentary gold bya last javelin of light. There it lay--the land locking away asrealities all the fairy-land of speculation, the land of themiracles of natural law. They had walked there, and had glimpsed theshadowy threshold of the Morning. Suppose, St. George thought, thatinstead of King Otho, with his delicate sense of the merely visible,a great man had chanced to be made sovereign of Yaque? And insteadof Mr. Frothingham, slave to the contestable, and Little Cawthornein bondage to humour, and Amory and himself swept off their feet bya heavenly romance, suppose a party of savants and economists hadarrived in Yaque, with a poet or two to bring away the fire--whatthen? St. George lost the doubt in the noon of his own certainty.There could be no greater good, he chanted to the god who hadbreathed upon him, than this that he and Amory shared now with thewise and simple world, the world of the resonant new names. He evendoubted that, save in degree, there could be a purer talisman thanthe spirit that inextinguishably shone in the face of the childlikeold lawyer as the strange little animal nestled in his coat andlicked his hand. And these were open secrets. Open secrets of theultimate attainment.

  They watched the land dissolving in the darkness like a pearl inwine of night. But at last, when momentarily they had turned happyeyes to each other's faces, they looked again and found that thedusk, taking ancient citadels with soundless tread, had received theisland. And where on the brow of the mountain had sprung the whitepillars of the king's palace glittered only the early stars.

  "Crown jewels," said Olivia softly, "for everybody's head."

 
-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share