CHAPTER III
Clare Bowring went to her room that night feeling as though she had beenat the theatre. She could not get rid of the impression made upon her bythe scene she had witnessed, and over and over again, as she lay awake,with the moonbeams streaming into her room, she went over all she hadseen and heard on the platform. It had, at least, been very like thetheatre. The broad, flat stage, the somewhat conventionally picturesquebuildings, the strip of far-off sea, as flat as a band of paint, theunnaturally bright moonlight, the two chief figures going through a lovequarrel in the foreground, and she herself calmly seated in the shadow,as in the darkened amphitheatre, and looking on unseen and unnoticed.
But the two people had not talked at all as people talked on the stagein any piece Clare had ever seen. What would have been the "points" in aplay had all been left out, and instead there had been abrupt pauses andawkward silences, and then, at what should have been the supreme moment,the lady in white had asked for a cigarette. And the two hasty littlekisses that had a sort of perfunctory air, and the queer, jerky"good-byes," and the last stop near the door of the hotel--it all had anair of being very badly done. It could not have been a success on thestage, Clare thought.
And yet this was a bit of life, of the real, genuine life of two peoplewho had been in love, and perhaps were in love still, though they mightnot know it. She had been present at what must, in her view, have been agreat crisis in two lives. Such things, she thought, could not happenmore than once in a lifetime--twice, perhaps. Her mother had beenmarried twice, so Clare admitted a second possibility. But not more thanthat.
The situation, too, as she reviewed it, was nothing short of romantic.Here was a young man who had evidently been making love to a marriedwoman, and who had made her believe that he loved her, and had made herlove him too. Clare remembered the desperate little sob, and thehandkerchief twice pressed to the pale lips. The woman was married, andyet she actually loved the man enough to think of divorcing her husbandin order to marry him. Then, just when she was ready, he had turned andtold her in the most heartless way that it had been all play, and thathe would not marry her under any circumstances. It seemed monstrous tothe innocent girl that they should even have spoken of marriage, untilthe divorce was accomplished. Then, of course, it would have been allright. Clare had been brought up with modern ideas about divorce ingeneral, as being a fair and just thing in certain circumstances. Shehad learned that it could not be right to let an innocent woman sufferall her life because she had married a brute by mistake. Doubtless thatwas Lady Fan's case. But she should have got her divorce first, and thenshe might have talked of marriage afterwards. It was very wrong of her.
But Lady Fan's thoughtlessness--or wickedness, as Clare thought sheought to call it--sank into insignificance before the cynicalheartlessness of the man. It was impossible ever to forget the cool wayin which he had said she ought not to take it so tragically, because itwas not worth it. Yet he had admitted that he had promised to marry herif she got a divorce. He had made love to her, there on the Acropolis,at sunset, as she had said. He even granted that he might have believedhimself in earnest for a few moments. And now he told her that he wassorry, but that "it would not do." It had evidently been all his fault,for he had found nothing with which to reproach her. If there had beenanything, Clare thought, he would have brought it up in self-defence.She could not suspect that he would almost rather have married Lady Fan,and ruined his life, than have done that. Innocence cannot even guess atsin's code of honour--though sometimes it would be in evil case withoutit. Brook had probably broken Lady Fan's heart that night, thought theyoung girl, though Lady Fan had said with such a bitter, crying laughthat they were not children and that their hearts could not break.
And it all seemed very unreal, as she looked back upon it. The situationwas certainly romantic, but the words had been poor beyond herimagination, and the actors had halted in their parts, as at a firstrehearsal.
Then Clare reflected that of course neither of them had ever been insuch a situation before, and that, if they were not naturally eloquent,it was not surprising that they should have expressed themselves inshort, jerky sentences. But that was only an excuse she made to herselfto account for the apparent unreality of it all. She turned her cheek toa cool end of the pillow and tried to go to sleep.
She tried to bring back the white dreams she had dreamt when she had satalone in the shadow before the other two had come out to quarrel. Shedid her best to bring back that vague, soft joy of yearning forsomething beautiful and unknown. She tried to drop the silver veil offancy-threads woven by the May moon between her and the world. But itwould not come. Instead of it, she saw the flat platform, the man andwoman standing in the unnatural brightness, and the woman's desperatelittle face when he had told her that she had never loved him. The dreamwas not white any more.
So that was life. That was reality. That was the way men treated women.She thought she began to understand what faithlessness andunfaithfulness meant. She had seen an unfaithful man, and had heard himtelling the woman he had made love him that he never could love her anymore. That was real life.
Clare's heart went out to the little lady in white. By this time she wasalone in her cabin, and her pillow was wet with tears. Brook doubtlesswas calmly asleep, unless he were drinking or doing some of thosevaguely wicked things which, in the imagination of very simple younggirls, fill up the hours of fast men, and help sometimes to make thosevery men "interesting." But after what she had seen Clare felt thatBrook could never interest her under imaginable circumstances. He wassimply a "brute," as the lady in white had told him, and Clare wishedthat some woman could make him suffer for his sins and expiate themisdeeds which had made that little face so desperate and that shortlaugh so bitter.
She wished, though she hardly knew it, that she had done anything ratherthan have sat there in the shadow, all through the scene. She had lostsomething that night which it would be hard indeed to find again. Therewas a big jagged rent in the drop-curtain of illusions before herlife-stage, and through it she saw things that troubled her and wouldnot be forgotten.
She had no memory of her own of which the vivid brightness or theintimate sadness could diminish the force of this new impression.Possibly, she was of the kind that do not easily fall in love, for shehad met during the past two years more than one man whom many a girl ofher age and bringing up might have fancied. Some of them might havefallen in love with her, if she had allowed them, or if she had felt theleast spark of interest in them and had shown it. But she had not. Hermanner was cold and over-dignified for her years, and she had verylittle vanity together with much pride--too much of the latter, perhaps,to be ever what is called popular. For "popular" persons are generallythose who wish to be such; and pride and the love of popularity are atopposite poles of the character-world. Proud characters set love highand their own love higher, while a vain woman will risk her heart for acompliment, and her reputation for the sake of having a lion in herleash, if only for a day. Clare Bowring had not yet been near to loving,and she had nothing of her own to contrast with this experience in whichshe had been a mere spectator. It at once took the aspect of agenerality. This man and this woman were probably not unlike most menand women, if the truth were known, she thought. And she had seen thereal truth, as few people could ever have seen it--the supreme crisis ofa love-affair going on before her very eyes, in her hearing, at herfeet, the actors having no suspicion of her presence. It was, perhaps,the certainty that she could not misinterpret it all which mostdisgusted her, and wounded something in her which she had never defined,but which was really a sort of belief that love must always carry withit something beautiful, whether joyous, or tender, or tragic. Of that,there had been nothing in what she had seen. Only the woman's face cameback to her, and hurt her, and she felt her own heart go out to poorLady Fan, while it hardened against Brook with an exaggerated hatred, asthough he had insulted and injured all living women.
It was probable that she was to s
ee this man during several days tocome. The idea struck her when she was almost asleep, and it waked heragain, with a start. It was quite certain that he had stayed behind,when the others had gone down to the yacht, for she had heard the voicescalling out "Good-bye, Brook!" Besides he had said repeatedly to thelady in white that he must stay. He was expecting his people. It wasquite certain that Clare must see him during the next day or two. It wasnot impossible that he might try to make her mother's acquaintance andher own. The idea was intensely disagreeable to her. In the first place,she hated him beforehand for what he had done, and, secondly, she hadonce heard his secret. It was one thing, so long as he was a totalstranger. It would be quite another, if she should come to know him. Shehad a vague thought of pretending to be ill, and staying in her room aslong as he remained in the place. But in that case she should have toexplain matters to her mother. She should not like to do that. Thethought of the difficulty disturbed her a little while longer. Then, atlast, she fell asleep, tired with what she had felt, and seen, andheard.
The yacht sailed before daybreak, and in the morning the little hotelhad returned to its normal state of peace. The early sun blazed upon thewhite walls above, and upon the half-moon, beach below, and shotstraight into the recess in the rocks where Clare had sat by the oldblack cross in the dark. The level beams ran through her room, too, forit faced south-east, looking across the gulf; and when she went to thewindow and stood in the sunshine, her flaxen hair looked almost white,and the good southern warmth brought soft colour to the northern girl'scheeks. She was like a thin, fair angel, standing there on the highbalcony, looking to seaward in the calm air. That, at least, was what afisherman from Praiano thought, as he turned his hawk-eyes upwards,standing to his oars and paddling slowly along, top-heavy in his tinyboat. But no native of Amalfi ever mistook a foreigner for an angel.
Everything was quiet and peaceful again, and there seemed to be neithertrace nor memory of the preceding day's invasion. The English old maidswere early at their window, and saw with disappointment that the yachtwas gone. They were never to know whether the big man with the goldcigarette case had been the Duke of Orkney or not. But order wasrestored, and they got their tea and toast without difficulty. TheRussian invalid was slicing a lemon into his cup on the vine-shelteredterrace, and the German family, having slept on the question of the Popeand Bismarck, were ruddy with morning energy, and were making an earlystart for a place in the hills where the Professor had heard that therewas an inscription of the ninth century.
The young girl stood still on her balcony, happily dazed for a fewmoments by the strong sunshine and the clear air. It is probably thesensation enjoyed for hours together by a dog basking in the sun, butwith most human beings it does not last long--the sun is soon too hotfor the head, or too bright for the eyes, or there is a draught, or theflies disturb one. Man is not capable of as much physical enjoyment asthe other animals, though perhaps his enjoyment is keener during thefirst moments. Then comes thought, restlessness, discontent, change,effort, and progress, and the history of man's superiority is thejournal of his pain.
For a little while, Clare stood blinking in the sunshine, smitten into apleasant semi-consciousness by the strong nature around her. Then shethought of Brook and the lady in white, and of all she had been awitness of in the evening, and the colour of things changed a little,and she turned away and went between the little white and red curtainsinto her room again. Life was certainly not the same since she had heardand seen what a man and a woman could say and be. There were certain newimpressions, where there had been no impression at all, but only amaiden readiness to receive the beautiful. What had come was notbeautiful, by any means, and the thought of it darkened the air alittle, so that the day was not to be what it might have been. Sherealised how she was affected, and grew impatient with herself. Afterall, it would be the easiest thing in the world to avoid the man, evenif he stayed some time. Her mother was not much given to makingacquaintance with strangers.
And it would have been easy enough, if the man himself had taken thesame view. He, however, had watched the Bowrings on the precedingevening, and had made up his mind that they were "human beings," as heput it; that is to say, that they belonged to his own class, whereasnone of the people at the upper end of the table had any claim to becounted with the social blessed. He was young, and though he knew how toamuse himself alone, and had all manner of manly tastes andinclinations, he preferred pleasant society to solitude, and hisexperience told him that the society of the Bowrings would in allprobability be pleasant. He therefore determined that he would try toknow them at once, and the determination had already been formed in hismind when he had run after Clare to give her the shawl she had dropped.
He got up rather late, and promptly marched out upon the terrace underthe vines, smoking a briar-root pipe with that solemn air whereby theEnglishman abroad proclaims to the world that he owns the scenery. Thereis something almost phenomenal about an Englishman's solidself-satisfaction when he is alone with his pipe. Every nation has itsown way of smoking. There is a hasty and vicious manner about theFrenchman's little cigarette of pungent black tobacco; the Italiandreams over his rat-tail cigar; the American either eats half of hisHavana while he smokes the other, or else he takes a frivolous delightin smoking delicately and keeping the white ash whole to the end; theGerman surrounds himself with a cloud, and, god-like, meditates withinit; there is a sacrificial air about the Asiatic's narghileh, as thethin spire rises steadily and spreads above his head; but theEnglishman's short briar-root pipe has a powerful individuality of itsown. Its simplicity is Gothic, its solidity is of the Stone Age, hesmokes it in the face of the higher civilisation, and it is the badge ofthe conqueror. A man who asserts that he has a right to smoke a pipeanywhere, practically asserts that he has a right to everything. And itwill be admitted that Englishmen get a good deal.
Moreover, as soon as the Englishman has finished smoking he generallygoes and does something else. Brook knocked the ashes out of his pipe,and immediately went in search of the head waiter, to whom he explainedwith some difficulty that he wished to be placed next to the two ladieswho sat last on the side away from the staircase at the public table.The waiter tried to explain that the two ladies, though they had beensome time in the hotel, insisted upon being always last on that sidebecause there was more air. But Brook was firm, and he strengthened hisargument with coin, and got what he wanted. He also made the waiterpoint out to him the Bowrings' name on the board which held the names ofthe guests. Then he asked the way to Ravello, turned up his trousersround his ankles, and marched off at a swinging pace down the steepdescent towards the beach, which he had to cross before climbing thehill to the old town. Nothing in his outward manner or appearancebetrayed that he had been through a rather serious crisis on thepreceding evening.
That was what struck Clare Bowring when, to her dismay, he sat downbeside her at the midday meal. She could not help glancing at him as hetook his seat. His eyes were bright, his face, browned by the sun, wasfresh and rested. There was not a line of care or thought on hisforehead. The young girl felt that she was flushing with anger. He sawher colour, and took it for a sign of shyness. He made a sort ofapologetic movement of the head and shoulders towards her which was notexactly a bow--for to an Englishman's mind a bow is almost afamiliarity--but which expressed a kind of vague desire not to cause anyinconvenience.
The colour deepened a little in Clare's face, and then disappeared. Shefound something to say to her mother, on her other side, which it wouldhardly have been worth while to say at all under ordinary circumstances.Mrs. Bowring had glanced at the man while he was taking his seat, andher eyebrows had contracted a little. Later she looked furtively pasther daughter at his profile, and then stared a long time at her plate.As for him, he began to eat with conscious strength, as healthy youngmen do, but he watched his opportunity for doing or saying anythingwhich might lead to a first acquaintance.
To tell the truth, however, he was in no hurry. He knew
how to makehimself comfortable, and it was an important element in his comfort tobe seated next to the only persons in the place with whom he should careto associate. That point being gained, he was willing to wait forwhatever was to come afterwards. He did not expect in any case to gainmore than the chance of a little pleasant conversation, and he was nottroubled by any youthful desire to shine in the eyes of the fair girlbeside whom he found himself, beyond the natural wish to appear wellbefore women in general, which modifies the conduct of all natural andmanly young men when women are present at all.
As the meal proceeded, however, he was surprised to find that noopportunity presented itself for exchanging a word with his neighbour.He had so often found it impossible to avoid speaking with strangers ata public table that he had taken the probability of some little incidentfor granted, and caught himself glancing surreptitiously at Clare'splate to see whether there were nothing wanting which he might offerher. But he could not think of anything. The fried sardines weresucceeded by the regulation braised beef with the gluey brown saucewhich grows in most foreign hotels. That, in its turn, was followed bysome curiously dry slices of spongecake, each bearing a bit of pink andwhite sugar frosting, and accompanied by fresh orange marmalade, whichBrook thought very good, but which Clare refused. And then there wasfruit--beautiful oranges, uncanny apples, and walnuts--and the young manforesaw the near end of the meal, and wished that something wouldhappen. But still nothing happened at all.
He watched Clare's hands as she prepared an orange in the Italianfashion, taking off the peel at one end, then passing the knife twicecompletely round at right angles, and finally stripping the peel away infour neat pieces. The hands were beautiful in their way, too thin,perhaps, and almost too white from recent illness, but straight andelastic, with little blue veins at the sides of the finger-joints andexquisite nails that were naturally polished. The girl was clever withher fingers, she could not help seeing that her neighbour was watchingher, and she peeled the orange with unusual skill and care. It was agood one, too, and the peel separated easily from the deep yellow fruit.
"How awfully jolly!" exclaimed the young man, unconsciously, in genuineadmiration.
He was startled by the sound of his own voice, for he had not meant tospeak, and the blood rushed to his sunburnt face. Clare's eyes flashedupon him in a glance of surprise, and the colour rose in her cheeksalso. She was evidently not pleased, and he felt that he had been guiltyof a breach of English propriety. When an Englishman does a tactlessthing he generally hastens to make it worse, becomes suddenly shy, andflounders.
"I--I beg your pardon," stammered Brook. "I really didn't mean tospeak--that is--you did it so awfully well, you know!"
"It's the Italian way," Clare answered, beginning to quarter the orange.
She felt that she could not exactly be silent after he had apologisedfor admiring her skill. But she remembered that she had felt some vanityin what she had been doing, and had done it with some unnecessaryostentation. She hoped that he would not say anything more, for thesound of his voice reminded her of what she had heard him say to thelady in white, and she hated him with all her heart.
But the young man was encouraged by her sufficiently gracious answer,and was already glad of what he had done.
"Do all Italians do it that way?" he asked boldly.
"Generally," answered the young girl, and she began to eat the orange.
Brook took another from the dish before him.
"Let me see," he said, turning it round and round. "You cut a slice offone end." He began to cut the peel.
"Not too deep," said Clare, "or you will cut into the fruit."
"Oh--thanks, awfully. Yes, I see. This way?"
He took the end off, and looked at her for approval. She noddedgravely, and then turned away her eyes. He made the two cuts round thepeel, crosswise, and looked to her again, but she affected not to seehim.
"Oh--might I ask you--" he began. She looked at his orange again,without a smile. "Please don't think me too dreadfully rude," he said."But it was so pretty, and I'm tremendously anxious to learn. Was itthis way?"
His fingers teased the peel, and it began to come off. He raised hiseyes with another look of inquiry.
"Yes. That's all right," said Clare calmly.
She was going to look away again, when she reflected that since he wasso pertinacious it would be better to see the operation finished oncefor all. Then she and her mother would get up and go away, as they hadfinished. But he wished to push his advantage.
"And now what does one do?" he asked, for the sake of saying something.
"One eats it," answered Clare, half impatiently.
He stared at her a moment and then broke into a laugh, and Clare, verymuch to her own surprise and annoyance, laughed too, in spite ofherself. That broke the ice. When two people have laughed together oversomething one of them has said, there is no denying the acquaintance.
"It was really awfully kind of you!" he exclaimed, his eyes stilllaughing. "It was horridly rude of me to say anything at all, but Ireally couldn't help it. If I could get anybody to introduce me, so thatI could apologise properly, I would, you know, but in this place--"
He looked towards the German family and the English old maids, in ahelpless sort of way, and then laughed again.
"I don't think it's necessary," said Clare rather coldly.
"No--I suppose not," he answered, growing graver at once. "And I thinkit is allowed--isn't it?--to speak to one's neighbour at a table d'hote,you know. Not but what it was awfully rude of me, all the same," headded hastily.
"Oh no. Not at all."
Clare stared at the wall opposite and leaned back in her chair.
"Oh! thanks awfully! I was afraid you might think so, you know."
Mrs. Bowring leaned forward as her daughter leaned back. Seeing that thelatter had fallen into conversation with the stranger, she was too mucha woman of the world not to speak to him at once in order to avoid anyawkwardness when they next met, for he could not possibly have spokenfirst to her across the young girl.
"Is it your first visit to Amalfi?" she inquired, with as muchoriginality as is common in such cases.
Brook leaned forward too, and looked over at the elder woman.
"Yes," he answered, "I was with a party, and they dropped me here lastnight. I was to meet my people here, but they haven't turned up yet, soI'm seeing the sights. I went up to Ravello this morning--you know, thatplace on the hill. There's an awfully good view from there, isn'tthere?"
Clare thought his fluency developed very quickly when he spoke to hermother. As he leaned forward she could not help seeing his face, and shelooked at him closely, for the first time, and with some curiosity. Hewas handsome, and had a wonderfully frank and good-humoured expression.He was not in the least a "beauty" man--she thought he might be asoldier or a sailor, and a very good specimen of either. Furthermore, hewas undoubtedly a gentleman, so far as a man is to be judged by hisoutward manner and appearance. In her heart she had already set him downas little short of a villain. The discrepancy between his looks and whatshe thought of him disturbed her. It was unpleasant to feel that a manwho had acted as he had acted last night could look as fresh, andinnocent, and unconcerned as he looked to-day. It was disagreeable tohave him at her elbow. Either he had never cared a straw for poor LadyFan, and in that case he had almost broken her heart out of sheermischief and love of selfish amusement, or else, if he had cared for herat all, he was a pitiably fickle and faithless creature--something muchmore despicable in the eyes of most women than the most heartless cynic.One or the other he must be, thought Clare. In either case he was bad,because Lady Fan was married, and it was wicked to make love to marriedwomen. There was a directness about Clare's view which would either havemade the man laugh or would have hurt him rather badly. She wonderedwhat sort of expression would come over his handsome face if she weresuddenly to tell him what she knew. The idea took her by surprise, andshe smiled to herself as she thought of it.
r /> Yet she could not help glancing at him again and again, as he talkedacross her with her mother, making very commonplace remarks about thebeauty of the place. Very much in spite of herself, she wished to knowhim better, though she already hated him. His face attracted herstrangely, and his voice was pleasant, close to her ear. He had not inthe least the look of the traditional lady-killer, of whom the traditionseems to survive as a moral scarecrow for the education of the young,though the creature is extinct among Anglo-Saxons. He was, on thecontrary, a manly man, who looked as though he would prefer tennis totea and polo to poetry--and men to women for company, as a rule. Shefelt that if she had not heard him talking with the lady in white sheshould have liked him very much. As it was, she said to herself that shewished she might never see him again--and all the time her eyes returnedagain and again to his sunburnt face and profile, till in a few minutesshe knew his features by heart.