Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  Standing on her feet, she would have seemed rather tall than short, though really but of average height. Seated, she looked tall, and her glance was a little downward to most people’s eyes. Just now she was too thin, and seemed taller than she was. But the fresh light was already in the young white skin, and there was a soft colour in the lobes of the little ears, as the white leaves of daisies sometimes blush all round their tips.

  The nervous white hands held the little bag lightly, and twined it and sewed it deftly, for Clare was clever with her fingers. Possibly they looked even a little whiter than they were, by contrast with the dark stuff of her dress, and illness had made them shrink at the lower part, robbing them of their natural strength, though not of their grace. There is a sort of refinement, not of taste, nor of talent, but of feeling and thought, and it shows itself in the hands of those who have it, more than in any feature of the face, in a sort of very true proportion between the hand and its fingers, between each finger and its joints, each joint and each nail; a something which says that such a hand could not do anything ignoble, could not take meanly, nor strike cowardly, nor press falsely; a quality of skin neither rough and coarse, nor over smooth like satin, but cool and pleasant to the touch as fine silk that is closely woven. The fingers of such hands are very straight and very elastic, but not supple like young snakes, as some fingers are, and the cushion of the hand is not over full nor heavy, nor yet shrunken and undeveloped as in the wasted hands of old Asiatic races.

  In outward appearance there was that sort of inherited likeness between mother and daughter which is apt to strike strangers more than persons of the same family. Mrs. Bowring had been beautiful in her youth — far more beautiful than Clare — but her face had been weaker, in spite of the regularity of the features and their faultless proportion. Life had given them an acquired strength, but not of the lovely kind, and the complexion was faded, and the hair had darkened, and the eyes had paled. Some faces are beautified by suffering. Mrs. Bowring’s face was not of that class. It was as though a thin, hard mask had been formed and closely moulded upon it, as the action of the sea overlays some sorts of soft rock with a surface thin as paper but as hard as granite. In spite of the hardness, the features were not really strong. There was refinement in them, however, of the same kind which the daughter had, and as much, though less pleasing. A fern — a spray of maiden’s-hair — loses much of its beauty but none of its refinement when petrified in limestone or made fossil in coal.

  As they sat there, side by side, mother and daughter, where they had sat every day for a week or more, they had very little to say. They had exhausted the recapitulation of Clare’s illness, during the first days of her convalescence. It was not the first time that they had been in Amalfi, and they had enumerated its beauties to each other, and renewed their acquaintance with it from a distance, looking down from the terrace upon the low-lying town, and the beach and the painted boats, and the little crowd that swarmed out now and then like ants, very busy and very much in a hurry, running hither and thither, disappearing presently as by magic, and leaving the shore to the sun and the sea. The two had spoken of a little excursion to Ravello, and they meant to go thither as soon as they should be strong enough; but that was not yet. And meanwhile they lived through the quiet days, morning, meal times, evening, bed time, and round again, through the little hotel’s programme of possibility; eating what was offered them, but feasting royally on air and sunshine and spring sweetness; moistening their lips in strange southern wines, but drinking deep draughts of the rich southern air-life; watching the people of all sorts and of many conditions, who came and stayed a day and went away again, but social only in each other’s lives, and even that by sympathy rather than in speech. A corner of life’s show was before them, and they kept their places on the vine-sheltered terrace and looked on. But it seemed as though nothing could ever possibly happen there to affect the direction of their own quietly moving existence.

  Seeing that her daughter did not say anything in answer to the remark about the past being written in a foreign language, Mrs. Bowring looked at the distant sky-haze thoughtfully for a few moments, then opened her book again where her thin forefinger had kept the place, and began to read. There was no disappointment in her face at not being understood, for she had spoken almost to herself and had expected no reply. No change of expression softened or accentuated the quiet hardness which overspread her naturally gentle face. But the thought was evidently still present in her mind, for her attention did not fix itself upon her book, and presently she looked at her daughter, as the latter bent her head over the little bag she was making.

  The young girl felt her mother’s eyes upon her, looked up herself, and smiled faintly, almost mechanically, as before. It was a sort of habit they both had — a way of acknowledging one another’s presence in the world. But this time it seemed to Clare that there was a question in the look, and after she had smiled she spoke.

  “No,” she said, “I don’t understand how anybody can forget the past. It seems to me that I shall always remember why I did things, said things, and thought things. I should, if I lived a hundred years, I’m quite sure. “

  “Perhaps you have a better memory than I,” answered Mrs. Bowring. “But I don’t think it is exactly a question of memory either. I can remember what I said, and did, and thought, well — twenty years ago. But it seems to me very strange that I should have thought, and spoken, and acted, just as I did. After all isn’t it natural? They tell us that our bodies are quite changed in less time than that.”

  “Yes — but the soul does not change,” said Clare with conviction.

  “The soul—”

  Mrs. Bowring repeated the word, but said nothing more, and her still, blue eyes wandered from her daughter’s face and again fixed themselves on an imaginary point of the far southern distance.

  “At least,” said Clare, “I was always taught so.”

  She smiled again, rather coldly, as though admitting that such teaching might not be infallible after all.

  “It is best to believe it,” said her mother quietly, but in a colourless voice. “Besides,” she added, with a change of tone, “I do believe it, you know. One is always the same, in the main things. It is the point of view that changes. The best picture in the world does not look the same in every light, does it? “

  “No, I suppose not. You may like it in one light and not in another, and in one place and not in another.”

  “Or at one time of life, and not at another,” added Mrs. Bowring, thoughtfully.

  “I can’t imagine that.” Clare paused a moment. “Of course you are thinking of people,” she continued presently, with a little more animation. “One always means people, when one talks in that way. And that is what I cannot quite understand. It seems to me that if I liked people once I should always like them.”

  Her mother looked at her.

  “Yes — perhaps you would,” she said, and she relapsed into silence.

  Clare’s colour did not change. No particular person was in her thoughts, and she had, as it were, given her own general and inexperienced opinion of her own character, quite honestly and without affectation.

  “I don’t know which are the happier,” said Mrs. Bowring at last, “the people who change, or the people who can’t.”

  “You mean faithful or unfaithful people, I suppose,” observed the young girl with grave innocence.

  A very slight flush rose in Mrs. Bowring’s thin cheeks, and the quiet eyes grew suddenly hard, but Clare was busy with her work again and did not see.

  “Those are big words,” said the older woman in a low voice.

  “Well — yes — of course!” answered Clare. “So they ought to be! It is always the main question, isn’t it? Whether you can trust a person or not, I mean.”

  “That is one question. The other is, whether the person deserves to be trusted.”

  “Oh — it’s the same thing!”

  “Not exactly.”

/>   “You know what I mean, mother. Besides, I don’t believe that any one who can’t trust is really to be trusted. Do you?”

  “My dear Clare!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowring. “You can’t put life into a nutshell, like that!”

  “No. I suppose not, though if a thing is true at all it must be always true.”

  “Saving exceptions.”

  “Are there any exceptions to truth?” asked Clare incredulously. “Truth isn’t grammar — nor the British Constitution.”

  “No. But then, we don’t know everything. What we call truth is what we know. It is only what we know. All that we don’t know, but which is, is true, too — especially, all that we don’t know about people with whom we have to live. “

  “Oh — if people have secrets!” The young girl laughed idly. “But you and I, for instance, mother — we have no secrets from each other, have we? Well? Why should any two people who love each other have secrets? And if they have none, why, then, they know all that there is to be known about one another, and each trusts the other, and has a right to be trusted, because everything is known — and everything is the whole truth. It seems to me that is simple enough, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Bowring laughed in her turn. It was rather a hard little laugh, but Clare was used to the sound of it, and joined in it, feeling that she had vanquished her mother in argument, and settled one of the most important questions of life for ever.

  “What a pretty steamer!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowring suddenly.

  “It’s a yacht,” said Clare after a moment. “The flag is English, too. I can see it distinctly.”

  She laid down her work, and her mother closed her book upon her forefinger again, and they watched the graceful white vessel as she glided slowly in from the Conca, which she had rounded while they had been talking.

  “It’s very big, for a yacht,” observed Mrs. Bowring. “They are coming here. “

  “They have probably come round from Naples to spend a day,” said Clare. “We are sure to have them up here. What a nuisance!”

  “Yes. Everybody comes up here who comes to Amalfi at all. I hope they won’t stay long.”

  “There is no fear of that,” answered Clare. “I heard those people saying the other day that this is not a place where a vessel can lie any length of time. You know how the sea sometimes breaks on the beach.”

  Mrs. Bowring and her daughter desired of all things to be quiet. The visitors who came, stayed a few days at the hotel, and went away again, were as a rule tourists or semi-invalids in search of a climate, and anything but noisy. But people coming in a smart English yacht would probably be society people, and as such Mrs. Bowring wished that they would keep away. They would behave as though the place belonged to them, so long as they remained; they would get all the attention of the proprietor and of the servants for the time being; and they would make everybody feel shabby and poor.

  The Bowrings were poor, indeed, but they were not shabby. It was perhaps because they were well aware that nobody could mistake them for average tourists that they resented the coming of a party which belonged to what is called society. Mrs. Bowring had a strong aversion to making new acquaintances, and even disliked being thrown into the proximity of people who might know friends of hers, who might have heard of her, and who might talk about her and her daughter. Clare said that her mother’s shyness in this respect was almost morbid; but she had unconsciously caught a little of it herself, and, like her mother, she was often quite uselessly on her guard against strangers, of the kind whom she might possibly be called upon to know, though she was perfectly affable and at her ease with those whom she looked upon as undoubtedly her social inferiors.

  They were not mistaken in their prediction that the party from the yacht would come up to the Cappuccini. Half an hour after the yacht had dropped anchor the terrace was invaded. They came up in twos and threes, nearly a dozen of them, men and women, smart-looking people with healthy, sun-burnt faces, voices loud from the sea as voices become on a long voyage — or else very low indeed. By contrast with the frequenters of Amalfi they all seemed to wear overpoweringly good clothes and perfectly new hats and caps, and their russet shoes were resplendent. They moved as though everything belonged to them, from the wild crests of the hills above to the calm blue water below, and the hotel servants did their best to foster the agreeable illusion. They all wanted chairs, and tables, and things to drink, and fruit. One very fair little lady with hard, restless eyes, and clad in white serge, insisted upon having grapes, and no one could convince her that grapes were not ripe in May.

  “It’s quite absurd!” she objected. “Of course they’re ripe! We had the most beautiful grapes at breakfast at Leo Cairngorm’s the other day, so of course they must have them here. Brook! Do tell the man not to be absurd!”

  “Man!” said the member of the party she had last addressed. “Do not be absurd!”

  “Sì, Signore,” replied the black-whiskered Amalfitan servant with alacrity.

  “You see!” cried the little lady triumphantly. “I told you so! You must insist with these people. You can always get what you want. Brook, where’s my fan?”

  She settled upon a straw chair — like a white butterfly. The others walked on towards the end of the terrace, but the young man whom she called Brook stood beside her, slowly lighting a cigarette, not five paces from Mrs. Bowring and Clare.

  “I’m sure I don’t know where your fan is,” he said, with a short laugh, as he threw the end of the match over the wall.

  “Well then, look for it!” she answered, rather sharply. “I’m awfully hot, and I want it.”

  He glanced at her before he spoke again.

  “I don’t know where it is,” he said quietly, but there was a shade of annoyance in his face.

  “I gave it to you just as we were getting into the boat,” answered the lady in white. “Do you mean to say that you left it on board?”

  “I think you must be mistaken,” said the young man. “You must have given it to somebody else.”

  “It isn’t likely that I should mistake you for any one else — especially to-day.”

  “Well — I haven’t got it. I’ll get you one in the hotel, if you’ll have patience for a moment.”

  He turned and strode along the terrace towards the house. Clare Bowring had been watching the two, and she looked after the man as he moved rapidly away. He walked well, for he was a singularly well-made young fellow, who looked as though he were master of every inch of himself. She had liked his brown face and bright blue eyes, too, and somehow she resented the way in which the little lady ordered him about. She looked round and saw that her mother was watching him too. Then, as he disappeared, they both looked at the lady. She too had followed him with her eyes, and as she turned her face sideways to the Bowrings Clare thought that she was biting her lip, as though something annoyed her or hurt her. She kept her eyes on the door. Presently the young man reappeared, bearing a palm-leaf fan in his hand and blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air. Instantly the lady smiled, and the smile brightened as he came near.

  “Thank you — dear,” she said as he gave her the fan.

  The last word was spoken in a lower tone, and could certainly not have been heard by the other members of the party, but it reached Clare’s ears, where she sat.

  “Not at all,” answered the young man quietly.

  But as he spoke he glanced quickly about him, and his eyes met Clare’s. She fancied that she saw a look of startled annoyance in them, and he coloured a little under his tan. He had a very manly face, square and strong. He bent down a little and said something in a low voice. The lady in white half turned her head, impatiently, but did not look quite round. Clare saw, however, that her expression had changed again, and that the smile was gone.

  “If I don’t care, why should you?” were the next words Clare heard, spoken impatiently and petulantly.

  The man who answered to the name of Brook said nothing, but sat down on the parapet of the
terrace, looking out over his shoulder to seaward. A few seconds later he threw away his half-smoked cigarette.

  “I like this place,” said the lady in white, quite audibly. “I think I shall send on board for my things and stay here.”

  The young man started as though he had been struck, and faced her in silence. He could not help seeing Clare Bowring beyond her.

  “I’m going indoors, mother,” said the young girl, rising rather abruptly. “I’m sure it must be time for tea. Won’t you come too?”

  The young man did not answer his companion’s remark, but turned his face away again and looked seaward, listening to the retreating footsteps of the two ladies.

  On the threshold of the hotel Clare felt a strong desire to look back again and see whether he had moved, but she was ashamed of it and went in, holding her head high and looking straight before her.

  CHAPTER II

  THE PEOPLE FROM the yacht belonged to that class of men and women whose uncertainty, or indifference, about the future leads them to take possession of all they can lay hands on in the present, with a view to squeezing the world like a lemon for such enjoyment as it may yield. So long as they tarried at the old hotel, it was their private property. The Bowrings were forgotten; the two English old maids had no existence; the Russian invalid got no more hot water for his tea; the plain but obstinately inquiring German family could get no more information; even the quiet young French couple — a honeymoon couple — sank into insignificance. The only protest came from an American, whose wife was ill and never appeared, and who staggered the landlord by asking what he would sell the whole place for on condition of vacating the premises before dinner.

  “They will be gone before dinner,” the proprietor answered.

  But they did not go. When it was already late somebody saw the moon rise, almost full, and suggested that the moonlight would be very fine, and that it would be amusing to dine at the hotel table and spend the evening on the terrace and go on board late.