“MISS EVE.”
At this point the statement of Dr. Lepsius becoming devoid of interest
for us, we may next take up that of one Jeanne Auvache, where she
writes (in French, with no eye to _us_, but quite for her own behoof):
* * * * *
... The next (Tuesday) morning, near nine, the yacht anew dropped her
anchor within the claws of a creek in an island called Shunter: for the
weather was fine and the sea smooth, so Miss Ruth and Miss Eve, each
wishing to seek for more dolomites, weeds, and other suchlike things of
the sea, and to place their feet on still a new shore, were pleased to
land. I had already massaged, bathed, and coiffured Miss Eve, brought
the two ladies their chocolate, and now had sat to costume yet another
doll for Miss Ruth, when Miss Ruth comes to give me to know that she is
about to go to land, and suggests that that should amuse me to come too
with her: for she is ever good, as befits one who has the reputation
of a saint, and who feels bound, no doubt, to keep it up. As for me, I
little believe in saints, since all beings are as alike as two drops
of water, the one to the other, at bottom—all save one, perhaps; and
though it is a thing hardly to be questioned that, if a true saint
does live, then it is this Ruth Vickery, still, I little believe in
saints, I. Nor is it such a great matter that Miss Ruth should do me
these little graces and goodnesses, inasmuch as I am not really her
maid—I am the maid of Miss Eve—and not bound to be for ever sitting
down dressing dolls for the brats in the hospitals of London; and if
it were merely Miss Eve, I should have very little to do through some
hours of the day: but Miss Ruth finds ever some charitable work to
which to bind me down, and if thou wert now so young as thou once wast,
it is not thou, Jeanne, my cherished one, I think, that would long
endure this demure quietude and existence of a recluse. But patience,
do not yet despair; thou hast been beautiful, thou hast been loved!
Yes, and now, it appears, thou art anew beloved. It was not, then, all
in vain that I have lived, and the world may not be altogether so dirty
a bog of egotism and rotted dogs as I have lately grown to regard it.
Heavens! that is droll—I feel myself anew young! The sky looks bluer,
my feet would be almost dancing, and I am no more morose within myself
at everything: for with a few touches of art there is nought which may
not yet be hidden, and it is as if all the mirrors had of late years
conspired to make me appear to myself plainer than I really am, since,
as a matter of fact, I find the flesh under my jaws yet firmly plump,
my eyes glow as gaudily as a girl’s, their creases have existed chiefly
in my fears, and each day I appear to myself to grow more fit to please.
But how little does one know what is before oneself! The boat had been
already lowered down into the water when, having put aside the dressing
of the dolls, I went up on deck and saw Miss Ruth, Miss Eve, Lord
Astor, Miss Savage, and Monsieur le Comte de Courcy ready to descend
to go to the shore, though Mr. Vickery did not go to the shore, but
abided on the ship’s poop perusing his big Bible through his glasses.
When we had come to the shore, the ladies were taken out of the boat
both by the sailors and by the gentlemen, and Monsieur le Comte de
Courcy, one may be sure, took care to be he who lifted out Miss Eve,
while, as for me, I was left to be taken out by a mariner who, in doing
it, embraced me, I think, with intention. In the boat it had been said
that the island was uninhabited, but, to our surprise, we found a
“coble” or sail-boat, with a brown sail, with the rags of a philibeg,
and with a pair of the sort of shoes which they call “brogues” in it,
lying in some bushes; also a little inland, on some waste land over
which many peewees and moorfowl were chattering their screeches, we
found the ruin of a long shed, built of loose stones, with a roof of
turf; also on the sands a sort of post or flag-staff: all showing that
there were, or had once been, people on this place. On the shore the
party split into two parts, Miss Ruth and Miss Savage marching off one
way, and Monsieur de Courcy and Lord Astor following after Miss Eve as
insects infest a feast of sweetmeat, while I was left to wander as I
would. I therefore walked alone over that claw of the coast which was
to the left as one looked toward the sea, where I paced in shade over a
species of peat between bush and briar, which was deep on either hand,
though little higher than my head, with thousands of gulls and whaups
whistling and crying together in the air around me; and meantime,
whatever seemed rare or strange, such as a weed or a piece of flint,
I picked it up to keep for the ladies’ pleasure. In this manner I
was engaged, waging war on the fog of midges that sang and stung my
face, when, at a place where the glow of the morning’s sun was quite
extinguished under the shade of the bush, I all at once felt within
myself the instinct that two great eyes were regarding me from the
darkness of an ambush. I sprang up from my stooping with affright! And
it proved no fancy, for there, a yard before and to the right of me,
I beheld, yes, two ardent eyes, glowing huge and close to the ground,
it might be those of a tiger crouching, only that they were as dark as
night. No second glance I gave, but with my heart in my mouth ran my
hardest back toward the sands, awaiting at every instant the devouring
teeth of a beast in my rear. Nothing, however, pursued me, and at
length, seeing this, I halted, even ventured back a few feet, peering
forward: for I have never lacked bravery, I, and am not to be terrified
by a mere pair of eyes like that; but I could now see nothing, though,
as I stood peering, my ear seemed to catch through the leafage not
far from me a sharp rush which afresh had the effect of putting me to
flight. However, I was about once more to stop to pry round, when the
whistle of our boatswain sounded to summon me, and I ran down to the
boat, where I found all our party already come back to embark.
When the ladies had been again placed in the boat, and we were all
again on the water making toward the yacht, Miss Ruth, noticing my
looks, remarked to me, “Why are you so pale?” and I then related to
them my adventure in the dark of the bush, how two eyes had glared
strangely at me from the ground, and had scared me. At this all the
talk stopped short, and no small astonishment was shown at my hap:
for all had thought that the island bore on it no form of life except
those of the smaller sea-fauna, as sea-birds and suchlike, so that, in
short, I was the centre of the interest of all the world for a while,
and every eye looked toward me. Miss Savage took the view that it must
have been my “fancy,” but I at once quashed such a notion by a gush of
assurances, whereat Monsieur le Comte de Courcy gave his opinion that
it was the eyes of “the genius of the place” which I had seen, Lord
Astor thought that they were “the eyes of Hermes searching the island
for the nymph Lamia,” and Miss Eve believed that “more of inhabitants
crowd in the village than count in the census; each grove harbours its
ghost, heart-sighs and eyes are about——” in the midst of which argument
the boat reached the yacht, and at once our anchor was tackled, our
canvas thrown to the breeze, and we started out upon the last part of
the voyage, no more to tarry till our craft should be at her buoy on
the coast of Scotland.
Well, now, I come to the event: I am about to write it! During the
hours of the forenoon I had been mainly bound down to the dressing of
Miss Ruth’s dolls; during those of the afternoon I had found my hands
full enough with the making ready of the trunks, and with the thousand
other little last cares that crowd upon one before a disembarking:
and it was now evening, about half-past eight o’clock, when, passing
out of Miss Eve’s apartment, I went in a hurry round into my own to
get and bring out her older brown gown. My wee apartment was quite
in darkness; I was able merely to see the circle of my window, near
under which, it being on the lee-side of the leaning ship, one was
able to hear like a dirging the seething of the sea’s surge sweep by
toward the rear. So now I reached out my hand to switch on the light,
and at that moment it was that it came upon me, while I, in a blue
affright, gave up everything, recommending my soul to the good God,
for it was as if thirty-six[A] tigers flung their weight against me,
and in the very same breath, as it seemed to me, I found myself lying
on the ground, my feet bound together, and my mouth gagged with my
apron; and so instantly were all these different performances done to
me, that I understood, I remember, that I must be under the power of
at least three ruffians. Heavens, that moment! I lay as it were given
over and drowned far down in the gloom of the tomb, and I said within
myself, “Jeanne, thou art finished now,” for one could not catch one’s
breath, nor cry out, nor see anything! However, by a cunning move—for
I was ever astute and deep in an extremity, I, and not to be done for
so easily like that—I managed to jerk myself sharply upward a little,
remembering that the switch was just above, and by a feat of luck my
free arm, reaching wildly up, chanced to touch this switch, upon which
the apartment was flooded with light, and I saw, to my bewilderment,
that my tormentor was not many, but one. At once I had a sigh of escape
and of regained hope, for though his right hand still held the gag, I
could understand at the flash of the light that it was not a butcher,
but a suppliant, who knelt at my side; and at once with that flash of
light his lips were passionately at my ear, panting words so warm and
queer, that I half questioned whether I heard him well when the young
fellow whispered wildly to me that he knew that I am a woman and wanted
me for his wife. Heavens! of the two surprises of my situation here
was the greater! For I could scarce believe that he was jeering at me,
seeing that he gave utterance to his words with so earnest a _naïveté_,
so that I wondered whether I had to do with a lunatic! And even in the
thick of my fears, I was so pierced with a feeling of the queerness
of the young man’s remark, “I know that you are a woman,” that I had
to laugh within myself! for I was suddenly light-hearted and relieved
in that he wanted me to be his wife rather than to be his victim.
Again he made me hear his demand in a pant at my ear, this time with a
glance in his gallant eyes which made me afresh apprehensive, and gave
me to guess that the penalty of hesitation might be grave; so with my
finger I now indicated the stuffing in my mouth, whereat he told me to
nod my yes or no, so, to humour him, I nodded yes, I would wed him!
He now demanded of me a vow that I would not betray him “to Man” (as
he said), till the ship should come to land, and this, too, I vowed
with movements of my head and with my uplifted hand. But little did he
trust me! for, on releasing me, he flew to the door, and had it secured
before I was yet even on my feet. We then stood staring the one at the
other, both bosoms labouring, and during some moments my tongue seemed
to be unable to dare to address this being, till on a sudden I said to
him, “But you are deranged! Who, then, are you?” to which his answer in
the lowest whisper was that he was “Hannibal Lepsius.”
[A] Anglicè: a dozen, a hundred.
“Little that imports to me, your name,” said I: “I wish to know, since
you are not one of the ship’s company, how came you here?”
His answer was a whisper at my ear that I already broke my vow, since
I spoke loudly enough, he said, to be heard by everyone throughout the
vessel; but that since he was now certain that he was more powerful
than I, therefore he would throw me down, and bind me anew, if I
betrayed him “to Man.”
At this I stood scared, half-laughing within myself, for I seemed to
have to do with a quixote or one crazed! but because of the beauty of
his young face and form, and of some _naïveté_, and of some power,
that was all about the young man, I could not be cross with him, for
I declare that in some way he at the same time touched my soul with
compassion, with mockery, and with awe of him, so that I craved at the
same moment to become his mother and his love, his protectress and his
slave. Something odder than anything in the world—in his looks, his
words, his being—widened my eyes with the wondering of a babe, and
made life a new thing to me ... he had sandals on his feet, a belt, no
jacket, no hat ... he seemed to me fleet enough to leap up and fly with
pinions. At this menace of his to bind me anew I said to him, “But you
must have taken leave of your senses, as it seems to me! for I spoke
scarcely above a whisper, which no one could possibly hear.”
As I said this, my young man, without saying more, drops on a sudden
down, with his hands outstretched to me: and when I said to him, “Well,
what now?” his answer was a prayer not to be untrue to him, but to hide
him “from Man” and be his wife!
I laughed anew at this within myself! for he seemed to be blind to my
forty-one foundered summers, and the flowers that withered in them, he
a youth of hardly twenty years. So I said to him, “Get away with you,
for you are crazy; how do you know that I am not already a married
woman with a husband?” on which he told me very secretly that in any
case he believed it to be possible that he should be able to make me
one of “the most sovereign of ladies,” and with that he presents me
with a piece of stone, resembling an ink-bottle, saying to me, “Read
that.”
“What is this now?” said I, turning the thing round in my hands, since
I could see nothing to read, only some holes cut in the stone; upon
which he repeated his demand that I should “read” it, telling me that
it was partly in Coptic and partly in—some long expressions which I did
not comprehend.
“I know nothing of this,” said I to him, handing him back the piece
of stone, whereat he peered piercingly at me a moment, and then all
at once a light seemed to dawn upon his mind, and he rose up from his
knees saying to himself, “I thought so.”
“Thought what?” said I to him, but to this he made no reply, only
smiled upon me.
He gave me an impression of some young god gone mad! “You are hardly
very polite,” I said to him, “and another woman might think you a
little crazed, since at one moment you crave to be my husband, and
at another moment you smile upon me as upon some ninny,” to which he
replied something about being bound to adore me, ninny or no, inasmuch
as I am so adorable!
“Why, get you gone,” I said to him, “you have hardly had time to see me
yet!”
He asked me how much time was necessary, and if he had not gazed at me
through the bushes?
“Those, then, were your eyes that gazed there at Shunter through the
bushes at me?” said I; “and you found me beautiful? What, then, could
you have found so very beautiful about me, my face, or my figure—or
both?” to which he replied, “Both.”
“And do you mean,” said I to him, “that it was merely through love of
me that you concealed yourself in the yacht? What a sudden flame of
passion! But I am at a loss to know how you could come here!” on which
he explained that he had swum under water from the shore.
“But how could you possibly steal down here without being seen?” I
asked him, to which he replied that “that question of itself charged me
with a drowsy consciousness.”
His little smile of a superior man (_petit sourire d’homme supérieur_)!
“Well,” said I fondly to him, “you, for your part, are of a wakeful
consciousness, and I, for mine, am beautiful both in face and form,
is it not so? and it is a pair of us, is it not? But since we are now
about to come to land, tell me this——” but before I could utter another
word I heard the call of “Jeanne,” and was recalled by it to this
world. It was the voice of Miss Eve who called me, and ere I could find
my tongue to reply she called again, “Jeanne, where are you?” but I
could not answer her, my eyes were fixed upon the boy, who now appeared
lost in a joyous attention to the call, and with his finger held up
gave deep into my ear a whisper of “Sweet voice.” Whereat I, being a
little perturbed, turned from him, switched off the light, whispered
him to await my return there, and went out in haste to Miss Eve,
wondering within myself how in Heaven’s name I was now to restrain him
from making the acquaintance of other ladies.