Mr. Smithson came back to the yacht just in time to dress for dinner. Don Gomez excused himself from putting on his dress suit. He was going to sail the yacht himself, and he was dressed for his work, picturesquely, in white duck trousers, white silk shirt, and black velvet shooting jacket. He dined with the permission of the ladies, in this costume, in which he looked so much handsomer than in the livery of polite life. He had a red scarf tied round his waist, and when at his work by-and-by, he wore a little red silk cap, just stuck lightly on his dark hair. The dinner to-day was all animation and even excitement, very different from the languorous calm of yesterday. Lesbia seemed a new creature. She talked and laughed and flashed and sparkled as she had never yet done within Mr. Smithson’s experience. He contemplated the transformation with wonder not unmixed with suspicion. Never for him had she been so brilliant — never in response to his glances had her violet eyes thus kindled, had her smile been so entrancingly sweet. He watched Montesma, but in him he could find no fault. Even jealousy could hardly take objection to the Spaniard’s manner to Lady Lesbia. There was not a look, not a word that hinted at a private understanding between them, or which seemed to convey deeper meanings than the common language of society. No, there was no ground for fault-finding; and yet Smithson was miserable. He knew this man of old, and knew his influence over women.
Mr. Smithson handed over the management of the yacht without a murmer, albeit he pretended to be able to sail her himself, and was in the habit of taking the command for a couple of hours on a sunny afternoon, much to the amusement of skipper and crew. But Montesma was a sailor born and bred — the salt keen breath of the sea had been the first breath in his nostrils — he had managed his light felucca before he was twelve years old, had sailed every inch of the Caribbean Sea, and northward to the furthermost of the Bahamas before he was fifteen. He had lived more on the water than on the land in that wild boyhood of his; a boyhood in which books and professors had played but small part. Montesma’s school had been the world, and beautiful women his only professors. He had learnt arithmetic from the transactions of bubble companies; modern languages from the lips of the women who loved him. He was a crack shot, a perfect swordsman, a reckless horseman, and a dancer in whom dancing almost rose to genius. Beyond these limits he was as ignorant as dirt; but he had a cleverness which served as a substitute for book learning, and he seldom failed in impressing the people he met with the idea that he, Gomez de Montesma, was no ordinary man.
Directly after dinner the preparations for an immediate start began; very much to the disgust of skipper and crew, who were not in the habit of working after dinner; but Montesma cared nothing for the short answers of the captain, or the black look of the men.
Lesbia wanted to learn all about everything — the name of every sail, of every rope. She stood near the helmsman, a slim graceful figure in a white gown of some soft material, with never a jewel or a flower to relieve that statuesque simplicity. She wore no hat, and the rich chesnut hair was rolled in a loose knot at the back of the small Greek-looking head. Montesma came to her every now and then to explain what was being done; and by-and-by, when the canvas was all up, and the yacht was skimming over the water, like a giant swan borne by the current of some vast strong river, he came and stayed by her side, and they two sat making little baby sentences in Spanish, he as teacher and she as pupil, with no one near them but the sailors.
The owner of the Cayman had disappeared mysteriously a quarter of an hour after the sails were unfurled, and Lady Kirkbank had tottered down to the saloon.
‘I am not going — cabin,’ she faltered, when Lesbia remonstrated with her, ‘only — going — saloon — sofa — lie down — little — Smithson take care — you,’ not perceiving that Smithson had vanished, ‘shall be — quite close.’
So Lesbia and Don Gomez were alone under the summer stars, murmuring little bits of Spanish.
‘It is the only true way of learning a language,’ he said; ‘grammars are a delusion.’
It was a very delightful and easy way of learning, at any rate. Lesbia reclined in her bamboo chair, and fanned herself indolently, and watched the shadowy shores of the island, cliff and hill, down and wooded crest, flitting past her like dream-pictures, and her lips slowly shaped the words of that soft lisping language — so simple, so musical — a language made for lovers and for song, one would think. It was wonderful what rapid progress Lesbia made.
She heard a church clock on the island striking, and asked Don Gomez the hour.
‘Ten,’ he said.
‘Ten! Surely it must be later. It was past eight before we began dinner, and we have been sailing for ever so long. Captain, kindly tell me the time,’ she called to the skipper, who was lolling over the gunwale near the foremast smoking a meditative pipe.
‘Twelve o’clock, my lady.’
‘Heavens, can I possibly have been sitting here so long. I should like to stay on deck all night and watch the sailing; but I must really go and take care of poor Lady Kirkbank. I am afraid she is not very well.’
‘She had a somewhat distracted air when she went below, but I daresay she will sleep off her troubles. If I were you I should leave her to herself.’
‘Impossible! What can have become of Mr. Smithson?’
‘I have a shrewd suspicion that it is with Smithson as with poor Lady Kirkbank.’
‘Do you mean that he is ill?’
‘Precisely.’
‘What, on a calm summer night, sailing over a sea of glass. The owner of a yacht!’
‘Rather ignominious for poor Smithson, isn’t it? But men who own yachts are only mortal, and are sometimes wretched sailors. Smithson is feeble on that point, as I know of old.’
‘Then wasn’t it rather cruel of us to sail his yacht?’
‘Yachts are meant for sailing, and again, sea-sickness is supposed to be a wholesome exercise.’
‘Good-night.’
‘Good-night,’ both good nights in Spanish, and with a touch of tenderness which the words could hardly have expressed in English.
‘Must you really go?’ pleaded Montesma, holding her hand just a thought longer than he had ever held it before.
‘Ah, the little more, and how much it is,’ says the poet.
‘Really and truly.’
‘I am so sorry. I wish you could have stayed on deck all night.’
‘So do I, with all my heart. This calm sea under the starlit sky is like a dream of heaven.’
‘It is very nice, but if you stayed I think I could promise you considerable variety. We shall have a tempest before morning.’
‘Of all things in the world I should love to see a thunderstorm at sea.’
‘Be on the alert then, and Captain Parkes and I will try to oblige you.’
‘At any rate you have made it impossible for me to sleep. I shall stay with Lady Kirkbank in the saloon. Good-night, again.’
‘Good-night.’
* * *
CHAPTER XXXIX.
IN STORM AND DARKNESS.
Lesbia found Lady Kirkbank prostrate on a low divan in the saloon, sleepless, and very cross. The atmosphere reeked with red lavender, sal-volatile, eau de Cologne, and brandy, which latter remedy poor Georgie had taken freely in her agonies. Kibble, the faithful Grasmere girl, sat by the divan, fanning the sufferer with a large Japanese fan. Rilboche had naturally, as a Frenchwoman, succumbed utterly to her own feelings, and was moaning in her berth, wailing out every now and then that she would never have taken service with Miladi had she suspected her to be capable of such cruelty as to take her to live for weeks upon the sea.
If this was the state of affairs now while the ocean was only gently stirred, what would it be by-and-by if the tempest should really come?
‘What can you be thinking of, staying on deck all night with those men?’ exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, peevishly. ‘It is hardly respectable.’
She would have been still more inclined to object had she known that Lesbia’s compan
ion had been ‘that man’ rather than ‘those men.’
‘What do you mean by all night?’ Lesbia retorted, contemptuously; ‘it is only just twelve.’
‘Only twelve. I thought we were close upon daylight. I have suffered an eternity of agony.’
‘I am very sorry you should be ill; but really the sea has been so deliciously calm.’
‘I believe I should have suffered less if it had been diabolically rough. Oh, that monotonous flip-flap of the water, that slow heaving of the boat! Nothing could be worse.’
‘I am glad to hear you say that, for Don Gomez says we are likely to have a tempest.’
‘A tempest!’ shrieked Georgie. ‘Then let him stop the boat this instant and put me on shore. Tell him to land me anywhere — on the Needles even. I could stop at the lighthouse till morning. A storm at sea will be simply my death.’
‘Dear Lady Kirkbank, I was only joking,’ said Lesbia, who did not want to be worried by her chaperon’s nervous apprehensions: ‘so far the night is lovely.’
‘Give me a spoonful more brandy, my good creature,’ — to Kibble. ‘Lesbia, you ought never to have brought me into this miserable state. I consented to staying on board the yacht; but I never consented to sailing on her.’
‘You will soon be well, dear Lady Kirkbank; and you will have such an appetite for breakfast to-morrow morning.’
‘Where shall we be at breakfast time?’
‘Off St. Catherine’s Point, I believe — just half way round the island.’
‘If we are not at the bottom of the sea,’ groaned Georgie.
They were now in the open Channel, and the boat dipped and rose to larger billows than had encountered her course before. Lady Kirkbank lay in a state of collapse, in which life seemed only sustainable by occasional teaspoonfuls of cognac gently tilted down her throat by the patient Kibble.
Lesbia went to her cabin, but with no intention of remaining there. She was firmly convinced that the storm would come, and she meant to be on deck while it was raging. What harm could thunder or lightning, hail or rain, do to her while he was by to protect her? He would be busy sailing the boat, perhaps, but still he would have a moment now and then in which to think of her and care for her.
Yes, the storm was coming. There was a livid look upon the waters, and the atmosphere was heavy with heat; the sky to windward black as a funeral pall. Lesbia was almost fearless, yet she felt a thrill of awe as she looked into that dense blackness. To leeward the stars were still visible; but that gigantic mass of cloud came creeping slowly, solemnly over the sky, while the shadow flitted fast across the water, swallowing up that ghastly electric glare.
Lesbia wrapped herself in a white cashmere sortie de bal and stole up the companion. Montesma was working at the ropes with his own hands, calling directions to the sailors to shorten and take in the canvas, urging them to increased efforts by working at the ropes with his own hands, springing up the rigging and on deck, flashing backwards and forwards amidst the rigging like a being of supernatural power. He had taken off his jacket, and was clad from top to toe in white, save for that streak of scarlet which tightly girdled his waist. His tall flexible form, perfect in line as a Greek statue of Hermes, stood out against the background of black night. His voice, with its tones of brief imperious command, the proud carriage of his head, the easy grace of his rapid movements, all proclaimed the man born to rule over his fellow-men. And it is these master spirits, these born rulers, whom women instinctively recognise as their sovereign lords, and for whom women count no sacrifice too costly.
In the midst of his activity Montesma suddenly saw that white-robed figure standing at the top of the companion, and flew to her side. The boat was pitching heavily, dipping into the trough of the sea at an angle of forty-five degrees, as it seemed to Lesbia.
‘You ought not to be here,’ said Montesma; ‘it is much rougher than I expected.’
‘I am not afraid,’ she answered; ‘but I will go back to my cabin if I am in your way.’
‘In my way’ (with deepest tenderness): ‘yes, you are in my way, for I shall think of nothing else now you are here. But I believe we have done all that need be done to the yacht, and I can take care of you till the storm is over.’
He put his arm round her as the stem dipped, and led her towards the stern, guiding her footsteps, supporting her as her light figure swayed against him with the motion of the boat. A vivid flash of lightning showed him her face as they stood for an instant leaning against each other, his arm encircling her. Ah, what deep feeling in that countenance, once so passionless; what a new light in those eyes. It was like the awakening of a long dormant soul.
He took the helm from the captain and stood steering the vessel, and calling out his orders, with Lesbia close beside him, holding her with his disengaged arm, drawing her near him as the vessel pitched violently, drawing her nearer still when they shipped a sea, and a great fountain of spray enfolded them both in a dense cloud of salt water.
The thunder roared and rattled, as if it began and ended close beside them. Forked lightnings zigzagged amidst the rigging. Sheet lightning enwrapped those two in a luminous atmosphere, revealing faces that were pale with passion, lips that trembled with emotion. There were but scant opportunity for speech, and neither of these two felt the need of words. To be together, bound nearer to each other than they had ever been yet, than they might ever be again, in the midst of thunder and lightning and dense clouds of spray. This was enough. Once when the Cayman pitched with exceptional fury, when the thunder crashed and roared loudest, Lesbia found her head lying on Montesma’s breast and his arms round her, his lips upon her face. She did not wrench herself from that forbidden embrace. She let those lips kiss hers as never mortal man had kissed her before. But an instant later, when Montesma’s attention was distracted by his duties as steersman, and he let her go, she slipped away in the darkness, and melted from his sight and touch like a modern Undine. He dared not leave the helm and follow her then. He sent one of the sailors below a little later, to make sure that she was safe in her cabin; but he saw her no more that night.
The storm abated soon after daybreak, and the morning was lovely; but Don Gomez and Lady Lesbia did not meet again till the church bells on the island were ringing for morning service, and then the lady was safe under the wing of her chaperon, with her affianced husband in attendance upon her at the breakfast table in the saloon.
She received Montesma with the faintest inclination of the head, and she carefully avoided all occasion of speech with him during the leisurely, long spun-out meal. She was as white as her muslin gown, and her eyes told of a sleepless night. She talked a little, very little to Lady Kirkbank and Mr. Smithson; to the Spaniard not at all. And yet Montesma was in no manner dashed by this appearance of deep offence. So might Francesca have looked the morning after that little scene over the book; yet she sacrificed her salvation for her lover all the same. It was a familiar stage upon the journey which Montesma knew by heart. Here the inclination of the road was so many degrees more or less; for this hill you are commanded to put on an extra horse; at this stage it is forbidden to go more than eight miles an hour, and so on, and so on. Montesma knew every inch of the ground. He put on a melancholy look, and talked very little. He had been on deck all night, and so there was an excuse for his being quiet.
Lady Kirkbank related her impressions of the storm, and talked enough for four. She had suffered the pangs of purgatory, but her natural cheeriness asserted itself, and she made no moaning about past agonies which had exercised a really delightful influence on her appetite. Mr. Smithson also was cheerful. He had paid his annual tribute to Neptune, and might hope to go scot-free for the rest of the season.
‘If I had stayed on deck I must have had my finger in the pie; so I thought it better to go below and get a good night’s rest in the steward’s cabin,’ he said, not caring to confess his sufferings as frankly as Lady Kirkbank admitted hers.
After breakfast, which was
prolonged till noon, Montesma asked Smithson to smoke a cigarette on deck with him.
‘I want to talk to you on a rather serious matter,’ he said.
Lesbia heard the words, and looked up with a frightened glance. Could he mean to attempt anything desperate? Was he going to confess the fatal truth to Horace Smithson, to tell her affianced lover that she was untrue to her bond, that she loved him, Montesma, as fondly as he loved her, that their two souls had mingled like two flames fanned by the same current, and thence had risen to a conflagration which must end in ruin, if she were not set free to follow where her heart had gone, free to belong to that man whom her spirit chose for lord and master. Her heart leapt at the hope that Montesma was going to do this, that he was strong enough to break her bonds for her, powerful and rich enough to secure her a brilliant future. Yet this last consideration, which hitherto had been paramount, seemed now of but little moment. To be with him, to belong to him, would be enough for bliss. Albeit that in such a choice she forfeited all that she had ever possessed or hoped for of earthly prosperity. Adventurer, beggar, whatever he might be, she chose him, and loved him with all the strength of a weak soul newly awakened to passionate feeling.
Unhappily for Lesbia Haselden, Montesma was not at all the kind of man to take so direct and open a course as that which she imagined possible.
His business with Mr. Smithson was of quite a different kind.
‘Smithson, do you know that you have an utterly incompetent crew?’ he said, gravely, when they two were standing aft, lighting their cigarettes.
‘Indeed I do not. The men are all experienced sailors, and the captain ranks high among yachtsmen.’
‘English yachtsmen are not particularly good judges of sailors. I tell you your skipper is no sailor, and his men are fools. If it had not been for me the Cayman would have gone to pieces on the rocks last night, and if you are to cross to St. Malo, as you talked of doing, for the regatta there, you had better sack these men and let me get you a South American crew. I know of a fellow who is in London just now — the captain of a Rio steamer, who’ll send you a crew of picked men, if you give me authority to telegraph to him.’
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 781
