The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The night and morning after Guida's marriage came and went. The day drew
on to the hour fixed for the going of the Narcissus. Guida had worked all
forenoon with a feverish unrest, not trusting herself, though the
temptation was sore, to go where she might see Philip's vessel lying in
the tide-way. She had resolved that only at the moment fixed for sailing
would she go to the shore; yet from her kitchen door she could see a wide
acreage of blue water and a perfect sky; and out there was Noirmont
Point, round which her husband's ship would go, and be lost to her vision
thereafter.

The day wore on. She got her grandfather's dinner, saw him bestowed in
the great arm-chair for his afternoon sleep, and, when her household work
was done, settled herself at the spinning wheel.

The old man loved to have her spin and sing as he drowsed. To-day his
eyes had followed her everywhere. He could not have told why it was, but
somehow all at once he seemed to deeply realise her--her beauty, the joy
of this innocent living intelligence moving through his home. She had
always been necessary to him, but he had taken her presence as a matter
of course. She had always been to him the most wonderful child ever given
to comfort an old man's life, but now as he abstractedly took a pinch of
snuff from the silver box and then forgot to put it to his nose, he
seemed suddenly to get that clearness of sight, that perspective, from
which he could see her as she really was. He took another pinch of snuff,
and again forgot to put it to his nose, but brushed imaginary dust from
his coat, as was his wont, and whispered to himself:

"Why now, why now, I had not thought she was so much a woman. Flowers of
the sea, but what eyes, what carriage, and what an air! I had not
thought--h'm--blind old bat that I am--I had not thought she was grown
such a lady. It was only yesterday, surely but yesterday, since I rocked
her to sleep. Francois de Mauprat"--he shook his head at himself--"you
are growing old. Let me see--why, yes, she was born the day I sold the
blue enamelled timepiece to his Highness the Duc de Mauban. The Duc was
but putting the watch to his ear when a message comes to say the child
there is born. 'Good,' says the Duc de Mauban, when he hears, 'give me
the honour, de Mauprat,' says he, 'for the sake of old days in France, to
offer a name to the brave innocent--for the sake of old associations,'
says de Mauban. 'You knew my wife, de Mauprat,' says he; 'you knew the
Duchesse Guida-Guidabaldine. She's been gone these ten years, alas! You
were with me when we were married, de Mauprat,' says the Duc; 'I should
care to return the compliment if you will allow me to offer a name, eh?'
'Duc,' said I, 'there is no honour I more desire for my grandchild.'
'Then let the name of Guidabaldine be somewhere among others she will
carry, and--and I'll not forget her, de Mauprat, I'll not forget her.'...
Eh, eh, I wonder--I wonder if he has forgotten the little Guidabaldine
there? He sent her a golden cup for the christening, but I wonder--I
wonder--if he has forgotten her since? So quick of tongue, so bright of
eye, so light of foot, so sweet a face--if one could but be always young!
When her grandmother, my wife, my Julie, when she was young--ah, she was
fair, fairer than Guida, but not so tall--not quite so tall. Ah! . . . "

He was slipping away into sleep when he realised that Guida was singing

       "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
         The moon wheels full, and the tide flows high,
        And your wedding-gown you must put it on
         Ere the night hath no moon in the sky--
             Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

"I had never thought she was so much a woman," he said drowsily; "I--I
wonder why--I never noticed it."

He roused himself again, brushed imaginary snuff from his coat, keeping
time with his foot to the wheel as it went round. "I--I suppose she will
wed soon. . . . I had forgotten. But she must marry well, she must marry
well--she is the godchild of the Duc de Mauban. How the wheel goes round!
I used to hear--her mother--sing that song, 'Gigoton, Mergaton
spin-spin-spin.'" He was asleep.

Guida put by the wheel, and left the house. Passing through the Rue des
Sablons, she came to the shore. It was high tide. This was the time that
Philip's ship was to go. She had dressed herself with as much care as to
what might please his eye as though she were going to meet him in person.
Not without reason, for, though she could not see him from the land, she
knew he could see her plainly through his telescope, if he chose.

She reached the shore. The time had come for him to go, but there was his
ship at anchor in the tide-way still. Perhaps the Narcissus was not
going; perhaps, after all, Philip was to remain! She laughed with
pleasure at the thought of that. Her eyes wandered lovingly over the ship
which was her husband's home upon the sea. Just such another vessel
Philip would command. At a word from him those guns, like long, black,
threatening arms thrust out, would strike for England with thunder and
fire.

A bugle call came across the still water, clear, vibrant, and compelling.
It represented power. Power--that was what Philip, with his ship, would
stand for in the name of England. Danger--oh yes, there would be danger,
but Heaven would be good to her; Philip should go safe through storm and
war, and some day great honours would be done him. He should be an
admiral, and more perhaps; he had said so. He was going to do it as much
for her as for himself, and when he had done it, to be proud of it more
for her than for himself; he had said so: she believed in him utterly.
Since that day upon the Ecrehos it had never occurred to her not to
believe him. Where she gave her faith she gave it wholly; where she
withdrew it--

The bugle call sounded again. Perhaps that was the signal to set sail.
No, a boat was putting out from the Narcissus. It was coming landward. As
she watched its approach she heard a chorus of boisterous voices behind
her. She turned and saw nearing the shore from the Rue d'Egypte a
half-dozen sailors, singing cheerily:

       "Get you on, get you on, get you on,
        Get you on to your fo'c'stle'ome;
        Leave your lassies, leave your beer,
        For the bugle what you 'ear
        Pipes you on to your fo'c'stle 'ome--
        'Ome--'ome--'ome,
        Pipes you on to your fo'c'stle 'ome."

Guida drew near.

"The Narcissus is not leaving to-day?" she asked of the foremost sailor.

The man touched his cap. "Not to-day, lady."

"When does she leave?"

"Well, that's more nor I can say, lady, but the cap'n of the main-top,
yander, 'e knows."

She approached the captain of the main-top. "When does the Narcissus
leave?" she asked.

He looked her up and down, at first glance with something like boldness,
but instantly he touched his hat.

"To-morrow, mistress--she leaves at 'igh tide tomorrow."

With an eye for a fee or a bribe, he drew a little away from the others,
and said to her in a low tone: "Is there anything what I could do for
you, mistress? P'r'aps you wanted some word carried aboard, lady?"

She hesitated an instant, then said: "No-no, thank you."

He still waited, however, rubbing his hand on his hip with mock
bashfulness. There was an instant's pause, then she divined his meaning.

She took from her pocket a shilling. She had never given away so much
money in her life before, but she seemed to feel instinctively that now
she must give freely--now that she was the wife of an officer of the
navy. Strange how these sailors to-day seemed so different to her from
ever before--she felt as if they all belonged to her. She offered the
shilling to the captain of the main-top. His eyes gloated, but he said
with an affected surprise:

"No, I couldn't think of it, yer leddyship."

"Ah, but you will take it!" she said. "I--I have a r-relative"--she
hesitated at the word--"in the navy."

"'Ave you now, yer leddyship?" he said. "Well, then, I'm proud to 'ave
the shilling to drink 'is 'ealth, yer leddyship."

He touched his hat, and was about to turn away. "Stay a little," she said
with bashful boldness. The joy of giving was rapidly growing to a vice.
"Here's something for them," she added, nodding towards his fellows, and
a second shilling came from her pocket. "Just as you say, yer leddyship,"
he said with owlish gravity; "but for my part I think they've 'ad enough.
I don't 'old with temptin' the weak passions of man."

A moment afterwards the sailors were in the boat, rowing towards the
Narcissus. Their song came back across the water:

       ". . . O you A.B. sailor-man,
        Wet your whistle while you can,
         For the piping of the bugle calls you 'ome!
        'Ome--'ome--'ome,
         Calls you on to your fo'c'stle 'ome!"

The evening came down, and Guida sat in the kitchen doorway looking out
over the sea, and wondering why Philip had sent her no message. Of course
he would not come himself, he must not: he had promised her. But how much
she would have liked to see him for just one minute, to feel his arms
about her, to hear him say good-bye once more. Yet she loved him the
better for not coming.

By and by she became very restless. She would have been almost happier if
he had gone that day: he was within call of her, still they were not to
see each other.

She walked up and down the garden, Biribi the dog by her side. Sitting
down on the bench beneath the appletree, she recalled every word that
Philip had said to her two days before. Every tone of his voice, every
look he had given her, she went over in her thoughts. There is no
reporting in the world so exact, so perfect, as that in a woman's mind,
of the words, looks, and acts of her lover in the first days of mutual
confession and understanding.

It can come but once, this dream, fantasy, illusion--call it what you
will: it belongs to the birth hour of a new and powerful feeling; it is
the first sunrise of the heart. What comes after may be the calmer joy of
a more truthful, a less ideal emotion, but the transitory glory of the
love and passion of youth shoots higher than all other glories into the
sky of time. The splendour of youth is its madness, and the splendour of
that madness is its unconquerable belief. And great is the strength of
it, because violence alone can destroy it. It does not yield to time nor
to decay, to the long wash of experience that wears away the stone, nor
to disintegration. It is always broken into pieces at a blow. In the
morning all is well, and ere the evening come the radiant temple is in
ruins.

At night when Guida went to bed she could not sleep at first. Then came a
drowsing, a floating between waking and sleeping, in which a hundred
swift images of her short past flashed through her mind:

A butterfly darting in the white haze of a dusty road, and the cap of the
careless lad that struck it down.... Berry-picking along the hedges
beyond the quarries of Mont Mado, and washing her hands in the strange
green pools at the bottom of the quarries. . . . Stooping to a stream and
saying of it to a lad: "Ro, won't it never come back?" . . . From the
front doorway watching a poor criminal shrink beneath the lash with which
he was being flogged from the Vier Marchi to the Vier Prison. . . Seeing
a procession of bride and bridegroom with young men and women gay in
ribbons and pretty cottons, calling from house to house to receive the
good wishes of their friends, and drinking cinnamon wine and mulled
cider--the frolic, the gaiety of it all. Now, in a room full of people,
she was standing on a veille flourished with posies of broom and
wildflowers, and Philip was there beside her, and he was holding her
hand, and they were waiting and waiting for some one who never came.
Nobody took any notice of her and Philip, she thought; they stood there
waiting and waiting--why, there was M. Savary dit Detricand in the
doorway, waving a handkerchief at her, and saying: "I've found it--I've
found it!"--and she awoke with a start.

Her heart was beating hard, and for a moment she was dazed; but presently
she went to sleep again, and dreamed once more.

This time she was on a great warship, in a storm which was driving
towards a rocky shore. The sea was washing over the deck. She recognised
the shore: it was the cliff at Plemont in the north of Jersey, and behind
the ship lay the awful Paternosters. They were drifting, drifting on the
wall of rock. High above on the land there was a solitary stone hut. The
ship came nearer and nearer. The storm increased in strength. In the
midst of the violence she looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway
of the hut. He turned his face towards her: it was Ranulph Delagarde, and
he had a rope in his hand. He saw her and called to her, making ready to
throw the rope, but suddenly some one drew her back. She cried aloud, and
then all grew black. . . .

And then, again, she knew she was in a small, dark cabin of the ship. She
could hear the storm breaking over the deck. Now the ship struck. She
could feel her grinding upon the rocks. She seemed to be sinking,
sinking--There was a knocking, knocking at the door of the cabin, and a
voice calling to her--how far away it seemed! . . . Was she dying, was
she drowning? The words of a nursery rhyme rang in her ears distinctly,
keeping time to the knocking. She wondered who should be singing a
nursery rhyme on a sinking ship:

            "La main morte,
             La main morte,
             Tapp' a la porte,
             Tapp' a la porte."

She shuddered. Why should the dead hand tap at her door? Yet there it was
tapping louder, louder. . . . She struggled, she tried to cry out, then
suddenly she grew quiet, and the tapping got fainter and fainter--her
eyes opened: she was awake.

For an instant she did not know where she was. Was it a dream still? For
there was a tapping, tapping at her door--no, it was at the window. A
shiver ran through her from head to foot. Her heart almost stopped
beating. Some one was calling to her.

"Guida! Guida!"

It was Philip's voice. Her cheek had been cold the moment before; now she
felt the blood tingling in her face. She slid to the floor, threw a shawl
round her, and went to the casement.

The tapping began again. For a moment she could not open the window. She
was trembling from head to foot. Philip's voice reassured her a little.

"Guida, Guida, open the window a moment."

She hesitated. She could not--no--she could not do it. He tapped still
louder.

"Guida, don't you hear me?" he asked.

She undid the catch, but she had hardly the courage even yet. He heard
her now, and pressed the window a little. Then she opened it slowly, and
her white face showed.

"O Philip," she said breathlessly, "why have you frightened me so?"

He caught her hand in his own. "Come out into the garden, sweetheart," he
said, and he kissed the hand. "Put on a dress and your slippers and
come," he urged again.

"Philip," she said, "O Philip, I cannot! It is too late. It is midnight.
Do not ask me. Why, why did you come?"

"Because I wanted to speak with you for one minute. I have only a little
while. Please come outside and say good-bye to me again. We are sailing
to-morrow--there's no doubt about it this time."

"O Philip," she answered, her voice quivering, "how can I? Say good-bye
to me here, now."

"No, no, Guida, you must come. I can't kiss you good-bye where you are."

"Must I come to you?" she said helplessly. "Well, then, Philip," she
added, "go to the bench by the apple-tree, and I shall be there in a
moment."

"Beloved!" he exclaimed ardently. She shut the window slowly.

For a moment he looked about him; then went lightly through the garden,
and sat down on the bench under the apple-tree, near to the summer-house.
At last he heard her footstep. He rose quickly to meet her, and as she
came timidly to him, clasped her in his arms.

"Philip," she said, "this isn't right. You ought not to have come; you
have broken your promise."

"Are you not glad to see me?"

"Oh, you know, you know that I'm glad to see you, but you shouldn't have
come--hark! what's that?" They both held their breath, for there was a
sound outside the garden wall. Clac-clac! clac-clac!--a strange, uncanny
footstep. It seemed to be hurrying away--clac-clac! clac-clac!

"Ah, I know," whispered Guida: "it is Dormy Jamais. How foolish of me to
be afraid!"

"Of course, of course," said Philip--"Dormy Jamais, the man who never
sleeps."

"Philip--if he saw us!"

"Foolish child, the garden wall is too high for that. Besides--"

"Yes, Philip?"

"Besides, you are my wife, Guida!"

"No, no, Philip, no; not really so until all the world is told."

"My beloved Guida, what difference can that make?" She sighed and shook
her head. "To me, Philip, it is only that which makes it right--that the
whole world knows. Philip, I am so afraid of--of secrecy, and cheating."

"Nonsense-nonsense!" he answered. "Poor little wood-bird, you're
frightened at nothing at all. Come and sit by me." He drew her close to
him.

Her trembling presently grew less. Hundreds of glow-worms were shimmering
in the hedge. The grass-hoppers were whirring in the mielles beyond; a
flutter of wings went by overhead. The leaves were rustling gently; a
fresh wind was coming up from the sea upon the soft, fragrant dusk.

They talked a little while in whispers, her hands in his, his voice
soothing her, his low, hurried words giving her no time to think. But
presently she shivered again, though her heart was throbbing hotly.

"Come into the summer-house, Guida; you are cold, you are shivering." He
rose, with his arm round her waist, raising her gently at the same time.

"Oh no, Philip dear," she said, "I'm not really cold--I don't know what
it is--"

"But indeed you are cold," he answered. "There's a stiff south-easter
rising, and your hands are like ice. Come into the arbour for a minute.
It's warm there, and then--then we'll say good-bye, sweetheart."

His arm round her, he drew her with him to the summer-house, talking to
her tenderly all the time. There was reassurance, comfort, loving care in
his very tones.

How brightly the stars shone, how clearly the music of the stream came
over the hedge! With what lazy restfulness the distant All's well floated
across the mielles from a ship at anchor in the tide-way, how like a
slumber-song the wash of the sea rolled drowsily along the wind! How
gracious the smell of the earth, drinking up the dew of the affluent air,
which the sun, on the morrow, should turn into life-blood for the grass
and trees and flowers!

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