CHAPTER XXII
They did not go north, as Sir Charles intended, an unaccountable reluctanceon Paul's part to return through Switzerland changed their plans. Instead,by a fortunate chance, the large schooner yacht of a rather eccentric oldfriend came in to Venice, and the father eagerly accepted the invitation togo on board and bring his invalid.
The owner, one Captain Grigsby, had been quite alone, so the three menwould be in peace, and nothing could be better for Paul than this warm seaair.
"Typhoid fever?" Mark Grigsby had asked.
"No," Sir Charles had replied, "considerable mental tribulation over awoman."
"D--d kittle cattle!" was Captain Grigsby's polite comment. "A fine boy,too, and promising--"
"Appears to have been almost worth while," Sir Charles added, "from what Igather--and, confound it, Grig, we'd have done the same in our day."
But Captain Grigsby only repeated: "D--d kittle cattle!"
And so they weighed anchor, and sailed along the Italian shores of thesun-lit Adriatic.
These were better days for Paul. Each hour brought him back some health andvigour. Youth and strength were asserting their own again, and the absenceof familiar objects, and the glory of the air and the blue sea helpedsometimes to deaden the poignant agony of his aching heart. But there itwas underneath, an ever-present, dull anguish. And only when he becamesufficiently strong to help the sailors with the ropes, and exert physicalforce, did he get one moment's respite. The two elder men watched him withkind, furtive eyes, but they never questioned him, or made the slightestallusion to his travels.
And the first day they heard him laugh Sir Charles looked down at the whitefoam because a mist was in his eyes.
They had coasted round Italy and Sicily, and not among the Ionian Isles, ashad been Captain Grigsby's intention.
"I fancy the lady came from some of those Balkan countries," Sir Charleshad said. "Don't let us get in touch with even the outside of one of them."
And Mark Grigsby had grunted an assent.
"The boy is a fine fellow," he said one morning as they looked at Paulhauling ropes. "He'll probably never get quite over this, but he isfighting like a man, Charles--tell me as much as you feel inclined to ofthe story."
So Sir Charles began in his short, broken sentences:
"Parson's girl to start with--sympathy over a broken collar-bone. The wifebehaved unwisely about it, so the boy thought he was in love. We sent himto travel to get rid of that idea. It appears he met this lady inLucerne--seems to have been an exceptional person--a Russian, Tompsonsays--a Queen or Princess _incog.,_ the fellow tells me--but I can't spother as yet. Hubert will know who she was, though--but it does notmatter--the woman herself was the thing. Gather she was quite a remarkablewoman--ten years older than Paul."
"Always the case," growled Captain Grigsby.
Sir Charles puffed at his pipe--and then: "They were only together threeweeks," he said. "And during that time she managed to cram more knowledgeof everything into the boy's head than you and I have got in alifetime. Give you my word, Grig, when he was off his chump in the fever,he raved like a poet, and an orator, and he was only an ordinary sportsmanwhen he left home in the spring! Cleopatra, he called her one day, and Ifancy that was the keynote--she must have been one of those exceptionalwomen we read of in the sixth form."
"And fortunately never met!" said Captain Grigsby.
"I don't know," mused Sir Charles. "It might have been good to live aswildly even at the price. We've both been about the world, Grig, since thedays we fastened on our cuirasses together for the first time, and eachthought himself the devil of a fine fellow--but I rather doubt if we nowknow as much of what is really worth having as my boy there--justtwenty-three years old."
"Nonsense!" snapped Captain Grigsby--but there was a tone of regret in hisprotest.
"Lucky to have got off without a knife or a bullet through him--dangerousnations to grapple with," he said.
"Yes--I gather some pretty heavy menace was over their heads, and that iswhat made the lady decamp, so we've much to be thankful for," agreed SirCharles.
"Had she any children?" the other asked.
"Tompson says no. Rotten fellow the husband, it appears, and no heir to thethrone, or principality, or whatever it is--so when I have had a talk withHubert--Henrietta's brother, you know--the one in the Diplomatic Service,it will be easy to locate her--gathered Paul doesn't know himself."
"Pretty romance, anyway. And what will you do with the boy now, Charles?"
Paul's father puffed quite a long while at his meerschaum before heanswered, and then his voice was gruffer than ever with tendernesssuppressed.
"Give him his head, Grig," he said. "He's true blue underneath, and he'llcome up to the collar in time, old friend--only I shall have to keep hismother's love from harrying him. Best and greatest lady in the world, mywife, but she's rather apt to jog the bridle now and then."
At this moment Paul joined them. His paleness showed less than usualbeneath the sunburn, and his eyes seemed almost bright. A wave of thankfulgladness filled his father's heart.
"Thank God," he said, below his breath. "Thank God."
The weather had been perfection, hardly a drop of rain, and just thegentlest breezes to waft them slowly along. A suitable soothing idle lifefor one who had but lately been near death. And each day Paul's strengthreturned, until his father began to hope they might still be home for hisbirthday the last day of July. They had crept up the coast of Italy now,when an absolute calm fell upon them, and just opposite the temple ofPaestum they decided to anchor for the night.
For the last evenings, as the moon had grown larger, Paul had beenstrangely restless. It seemed as if he preferred to tire himself out withunnecessary rope-pulling, and then retire to his berth the moment thatdinner was over, rather than go on deck. His face, too, which had beencontrolled as a mask until now, wore a look of haunting anguish which wasgrievous to see. He ate his dinner--or rather, pretended to play with thefood--in absolute silence.
Uneasiness overcame Sir Charles, and he glanced at his old friend. ButPaul, after lighting a cigar, and letting it out once or twice, rose, andmurmuring something about the heat, went up on deck.
It was the night of the full moon--eight weeks exactly since the joy oflife had finished for him.
He felt he could not bear even the two kindly gentlemen whose unspokensympathy he knew was his. He could not bear anything human. To-night, atleast, he must be alone with his grief.
All nature was in a mood divine. They were close enough inshore to see thesplendid temples clearly with the naked eye. The sky and the sea were ofthe colour only the Mediterranean knows.
It was hot and still, and the moon in her pure magnificence cast hernever-ending spell.
Not a sound of the faintest ripple met his ear. The sailors suppedbelow. All was silence. On one side the vast sea, on the other the shore,with this masterpiece of man's genius, the temple of the great godPoseidon, in this vanished settlement of the old Greeks. How marvellouslybeautiful it all was, and how his Queen would have loved it! How she wouldhave told him its history and woven round it the spirit of the past, untilhis living eyes could almost have seen the priests and the people, andheard their worshipping prayers!
His darling had spoken of it once, he remembered, and had told him it was aplace they must see. He recollected her very words:
"We must look at it first in the winter from the shore, my Paul, and seethose splendid proportions outlined against the sky--so noble and soperfectly balanced--and then we must see it from the sea, with thebackground of the olive hills. It is ever silent and deserted and calm, anddeath lurks there after the month of March. A cruel malaria, which we mustnot face, dear love. But if we could, we ought to see it from a yacht insafety in the summer time, and then the spell would fall upon us, and wewould know it was true that rose-trees really grew there which gave theworld their blossoms twice a year. That was the legend of the Greeks."
Well
, he was seeing it from a yacht, but ah, God! seeing italone--alone. And where was she?
So intense and vivid was his remembrance of her that he could feel herpresence near. If he turned his head, he felt he should see her standingbeside him, her strange eyes full of love. The very perfume of her seemedto fill the air--her golden voice to whisper in his ear--her soul tomingle with his soul. Ah yes, in spirit, as she had said, they could neverbe parted more.
A suppressed moan of anguish escaped his lips, and his father, who had comesilently behind him, put his hand on his arm.
"My poor boy," he said, his gruff voice hoarse in his throat, "if only toGod I could do something for you!"
"Oh, father!" said Paul.
And the two men looked in each other's eyes, and knew each other as neverbefore.