“The slugs and snails in a market garden might just as well build churches and worship a god as men!” she said, inwardly, with contempt. Once or twice she glanced towards Claude Ferrers, but as he was busy with his steering apparatus, she did not speak. And she continued to watch, with a fascinated interest peculiar to her own temperament, the swiftly diminishing patches of terrestrial color, till in a little less than an hour, with the on-coming of the dusk, they could no more be distinctly discerned, and the lights of London’s hundred-and-fifty square miles alone defined, as with innumerable chains of tiny glistening jewels, the extent and plan of the great Center of civilization, where men and women, like ants in an ant-hill, run and crawl, each in his or her separate little line of toil, and struggle persistently with one another for the right to live and eat and breed and die. No more than this! — no more, if ‘New Theologies’ were all! But thank God that we know these for what they are and for what they have been foretold: ‘Many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many!’ The fires of the sunset slowly paled, and the skies grew pearly gray with flashes of the after-glow casting sudden luminance here and there like frosted silver and topaz and gold against glimpses of turquoise-blue, and still Jacynth peered over the edge of the car, looking at the wondrous sea of cloudy color and untroubled by any sense of vertigo, till all at once, with a sudden velocity of motion, the balloon, which had till then traveled but slowly, careered away to the westward and the little illuminated bird’s-eye view of London vanished completely from her sight. Then she turned her head and addressed her companion:
“Where are you going, Claude?”
He came and sat beside her, taking her hand in his own and kissing it.
“Where am I going?” — he said, in slow, caressing accents— “How should I know! Why should I know! Uncertainty is ineffably delightful! — I would not destroy its charm! I go where Love leads me! — perhaps to a fabled paradise in an unexplored star! — to a land flowing with milk and honey — that bilious Biblical mixture! To the regions of the sun! To the Islands of the Blest! To the Anywhere and the Everywhere! — so long as I am with you!”
She gave him a quick glance. His face was vivid, and his eyes were more than usually protuberant and glassy, but he smiled with a self-conscious expansiveness. She was accustomed to his extravagant language, which he considered poetical and which she did not half understand, — it was always more stilted and high-flown when he had been drinking, and that he had lately used ‘whisky as a perfume’ was evident. She did not, however, consider him drunk, and she had no fear of him, for she knew by experience that he was one of those men whose wits, like the wits of certain actors, are more sharpened than dulled by strong liquor. She left her hand in his, and waited for a minute. Then she said:
“You must take me back to-night.”
“Why?” he demanded, drawlingly— “To what would you return? To a Jew’s embrace! To the kisses of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in one goat-bearded Israel! Ah no, enchantress of my soul! Think of it! A Jew!”
“A Jew who is my husband,” — said Jacynth, with a demure smile— “And from whom you have borrowed a good deal of money!”
Ferrers stroked his fat chin complacently.
“Do I not know it? Is it not the purpose for which Jews are born? — London Jews, at any rate — to lend money at high interest and sell wives? ‘Search the Scriptures’ and therein you will find both professions most eloquently described, set forth and approved by Jehovah! As for ourselves, let us go to Paris!”
She shook her head decisively.
“No — Paris is too far. I will not cross the sea. Besides, I must return home to-night — I have many engagements tomorrow.”
He was silent. The balloon was traveling quickly through skies that were rapidly growing darker and darker. Clouds were forming at a lower level than the car, and they thickened at times and again dispersed, showing glimpses of land between their floating gray.
“Who was that man to whom you called good-by just now?” he presently asked— “That parson—”
She looked at him amusedly.
“A lover of mine!” she answered.
“Another! How many more, O fair Faustina! The cry is ‘Still they come!’ But methinks this mendicant of the Gospel loves you but little to let you venture forth into the clouds with me!”
She laughed.
“He does not know he loves me,” — she said— “I know it! And one day I shall tell him! — I shall show him the secret of himself. Poor devil! If it were not for his Christian Creed he would worship me — even more than you do!”
“Christian Creed!” echoed Ferrers, derisively— “He works at that for his pay, of course! He doesn’t believe in it!”
She broke into a little peal of laughter.
“Oh, but he does believe in it!” she exclaimed— “That’s the odd part of it! He’s quite sincere about it. He is really convinced that it’s good and right to deprive himself of enjoyment and make himself miserable!” And she laughed again. “He does believe in the Christian Creed. And in God!”
“Alas, benighted brain!” murmured Ferrers, drowsily— “Benighted, empty, idiot brain! Sad, sad to think that there should be any such fools left in these days of ours when Man, glorious Man, is the supreme conqueror of the earth and the heavens! — when Man, triumphant Man, is his own maker, his own redeemer, his own instructor, his own spherical splendor!” — here his voice grew rather indistinct— “There is no room for the God of the childish beliefs any more! — M-man! — Noble, stupendous M-man! — he is the only ruler of the universe—”
“Not when he has been drinking,” — said Jacynth, suddenly and sharply— “as you have!”
He turned his glassy eyes upon her with an air of blandly reproachful astonishment.
“Drinking? I? My dear lady! No more than the gifted Persian who so sweetly sings:
‘When I am drunk the sky of life is clear,
And I gaze into it without a fear;
As I grow sober, horribly I dread
The shadows of my vultures drawing near.’
“‘The shadows of my vultures!’ There they are! See!”
He pointed to a wreath of fluffy gray clouds which, flitting lightly below the balloon, drifted now and again into weird shapes like cloven wings that rose upright and caught fugitive gleams of color on their plumy points, and anon, swooping downwards looked liked huge birds of prey.
“My vultures — my vultures!” he hummed as though the words were a tune— “My ‘shafts of love or arrows of death. Or the little snakes that eat my heart!’ And so, dear lady, you would fain return to your useful Jew! You will not soar with a poet to Paradise! Ah, women, women! Give them wings and they straightway desire to crawl! Let us see where we are!”
He rose to make his observations with the aid of the various scientific instruments with which the balloon was provided, and she watched him closely, relieved to think that he was about to prepare for their descent.
“We are at an altitude of four thousand feet,” — he presently announced— “And if almanacs be correct we ought to see a wonderful moonrise. But you prefer your Jew to the moon!”
“I prefer to return home just now, certainly,” — she said; “Do be sensible, Claude! Steer for London.”
He did not answer her at once. The clouds that he had called his vultures suddenly cleared away, and the balloon soared steadily through a dark expanse of dense blue, passing swiftly over tracts of open country, invisible-except where a town or a village, with its lighted streets and houses, glittered briefly like a tiny speck of flame on the smooth haze of distance. Jacynth grew restless. She was not nervous, — her exceptional vanity saved her from that, for she could not imagine anything disastrous occurring to so beautiful and desirable a person as herself, — but she wished she knew how to steer the balloon with her own hands in case of an emergency. Moved by this idea she turned towards her companion, who was fumbling with the ropes and cords and applia
nces of which he boasted that he alone knew the secret action, and said:
“What are you doing? Can I help you?”
He lifted his head and smiled at her. In the deepening darkness his white flabby face looked like a clay mask molded into the expression of a fabulous demon.
“Shall the lily support the oak?” he queried, grandiloquently— “Or the dove lend her wings to the eagle? Which simple metaphors mean, my dear lady, that you cannot help me! Nor for the moment can I help myself! We have drifted into a strong stream of air — a cross current difficult to navigate — and I fear that my lovely enchantress will perhaps have to pass the night, not with her gentle Jew, but at some inadequate hotel in Holyhead or Dublin!”
Jacynth moved from her seat, her fair brows clouding with vexation.
“What do you mean? I thought you could steer anywhere, even in the strongest wind!”
His smile became more fixedly bland.
“So I can — on most occasions,” — he replied— “But there are exceptions to every rule — and to-night — is one of those exceptions! But be not discouraged, dear lady! All is well! We are, or have been, traveling across the Cotswolds—”
She uttered a little involuntary cry.
“The Cotswolds!”
“I think so! I imagine so! Take care!”
For she suddenly leaned her head over the edge of the car and peered down into the dark dome of space.
“I can see nothing!” she said, petulantly, drawing back her head quickly, “It is all whirling darkness!”
“Even so! Mere Chaos!” replied Ferrers, placidly— “The land is there — but to us it might as well not be there, for we see nothing of it! Even so is the earth to higher worlds! A speck — a blur! We make too much of it! What of the Cotswolds? Did my Magic Crystal ever shine upon them?”
“I was there — once!” — she answered, slowly— “and the man who came with me to Hurlingham to-day — he is vicar of a parish there.” —
Ferrers gave an airy gesture of contempt.
“Vicar of a parish! Oh, narrow boundary for the brain of man! A country parish! A community of yokels and ugly rustic wenches!”
She laughed — a little low laugh of amusement.
“True! There is no danger for his peace of mind! He would never see a face among those ‘rustic wenches’ that might possibly haunt his memory!”
She was silent then for a little. Presently she asked:
“What time is it?”
He was a minute or two before replying. Then he said: “Nine o’clock.”
“We have been up an hour and a half then. Make for London now.”
He came and put an arm about her.
“Enchantress, have I not already told you I cannot make for London? Things are against me.” Here he was troubled by a violent hiccough, and the whisky odors of his person immediately created a private atmosphere for his own special environment. She turned her head from him in disgust and pushed his arm away. “You are a-angry with me,” — he went on— “A-angry with your p-poor poet! I c-cannot help it! We will d-descend now if you like — w-wherever you please!”
She stood up in the car. Her heart was beating a little quickly, but she was not afraid.
“Where are we?” she demanded.
“Dear lady, I cannot tell you the exact locality! I know not whether below us lies a town or a village, or the parish where your friend the parson preaches to his bumpkin congregation! We may be soaring over mountains or over lowlands — in this glorious immensity it matters little! But in any case, if compasses are accurate, we are traveling towards the coast.”
“Towards the coast!” she exclaimed, in accents of annoyance rather than alarm— “What coast?”
“Naturally, the Welsh coast, my angel! Did I not mention a possible hotel at Holyhead? Or — if we cross the sea — in Dublin? One moment! — I will kindle a flare.”
He was so long about this business and did it at last with such uncertain hands, that she grew cold with a sudden access of ‘nerves.’ A horrid dread came over her lest by some careless movement he should set fire to the balloon. Apparently, however, he had lost nothing of his physical self-control, and the flare was successfully lowered, creating such a marvelous effect as it burned away in the dark dome of night, that though she had seen the same thing often before, she was more than usually thrilled by the magnificence of the spectacle. The great globe of the balloon appeared to shine with an unearthly splendor and to cover nearly half the heavens, while all around it the violet-black of the sky was strewn with glimmering stars. The shadow of the car, and the ropes by which it was suspended were drawn, as with an inky pencil, against the panels of the balloon, and Jacynth gazed upwards, fascinated by the weird brilliancy of the scene till the flare had burnt out and the darkness seemed to grow darker by contrast.
“That was beautiful!” she said— “And now, do you know where you are going to descend?”
He held up his hand.
“Listen!”
A faint murmuring sound floated through the air like a choir of small voices singing very softly. It rose and fell — then seemed to cease altogether, and anon to begin again.
“Is it a town?” she asked.
He smiled strangely.
“No. It is the sea!”
“The sea!”
He drew her arm within his own and pointed ahead. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the stars seemed to be growing up in clusters all through the infinite space, like summer blossoms in a field. But below the car a long dark stretch of apparent haze could be discerned, marked by parallel dots of light running divergently till they were lost in distance, while other infinitesimal sparks of luminance were scattered about like the droppings of a spent firework.
“The lights of ships!” murmured Ferrers, sleepily— “The signs of Man’s mastery of the ocean!— ‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!’ Dear lady, you should read Byron! He would amuse you! A sadly ignorant versifier, yet with flashes — occasional flashes of intelligence! But his errors are obvious. ‘Man marks the earth with ruin; his control stops with the shore.’ That is wrong, of course. Man’s control does not stop with the shore, — on the contrary, it extends indefinitely. The lights of ships, — the lights of floating buoys! — and, if I mistake not, the lights of the Admiralty pier at Holyhead. Shall we descend?”
She gave an eager gesture of assent. He held her arm more closely, and stooping over her looked amorously into her eyes.
“Or shall we cross to the Emerald Isle?” he murmured. “The land of romance and poverty and Celtic Leagues! — the land of the Dark Rosaleen!
‘I could scale the blue air,
I could plow the high hills,
Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer
To heal your many ills!
And one beamy smile from you
Would float like light between
My toil and me, my own, my true,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My fond Rosaleen!
Would give me life and soul anew,
A second life, a soul anew,
My Dark Rosaleen!’
“Ah!” — and he drew a long breath— “That is poetry! And you, you beautiful enchantress, are the Dark Rosaleen incarnate!”
He kissed her. A tremor ran through her blood, half of pleasure, half of fear. There was something enthralling in this strange love-making in the air, and for the moment she yielded to the animal power which Claude Ferrers possessed over women, — a magnetic force which he boasted of having practiced as an art. The distant singing sound of the sea had changed within the last few minutes to a loud sighing moan, — and presently there was a curious noise as of creaking and straining cordage. This was repeated several times; it did not come from the balloon, which was careering onward with remarkable swiftness and steadiness, but from some contending force in the currents of the air. Ferrers heard it, and an expression of something like alarm flitted over his flabby features. Releasing Jacy
nth from his hold, he went to the other side of the car.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He laughed, somewhat forcedly.
“The best I can, dear lady!” he answered— “A strong wind is rising, and we are nearing the coast. Sit quite still where you are. There is no danger. I am going to light a couple of flares that will show, us to the people below.”
Two or three moments passed, and then the glare of colored fires, blue and crimson, blazed in the sky, and once again, like a mysterious floating world of light, the ‘Shooting Star’ glowed with translucent brilliancy in the thickening air. No answering signal came from earth; — three or four times Ferrers leaned over the edge of the car and shouted, but there was no response. Profound silence reigned, except for the gradually deepening murmur of waters in perpetual commotion, and the increasing rush of the wind.
The balloon was traveling at great speed, and Jacynth almost held her breath, waiting for the next word Ferrers should utter. She hoped and she believed that he was steering their aerial car in a landward direction and that a descent would soon be made. She knew that he was an experienced aeronaut, acquainted with all the possibilities of his own ‘dirigible’ apparatus, and he had taught her to consider that there was no more danger in a balloon than in a motor-car, probably not so much. She had made dozens of successful voyages in the ‘Shooting Star’; she called it her sky-yacht, and was wont to believe it as safe as any yacht that ever sailed the seas, — yet to-night there was a cold sense of dread upon her, — she wished she had never come. She could not control the restlessness of her thoughts; they jumped from one thing to another with provoking rapidity, and yet somehow they all centered round Shadbrook, — Shadbrook continually. What were the people doing in that stupid village? Most of them went to bed at ten. It was not ten yet; it soon would be. Then the lights would be put out in every little cottage, and the only bright spots in the small dull street would be the two public-houses. They would not close till eleven. The wives and children would be all in bed, while the husbands, with women who were not their wives, would be tossing down glass after glass of raw spirit, and singing and dancing and shouting — yes! — that was the way Dan and she had begun! Dan! To think of him now seemed strange, — now, when she was a rich woman of fashion with no end of lovers to pick and choose from —
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 750
