resumed: "What I was about to say when I was interrupted"--this was his
pet joke; he knew well enough that he had been monopolizing the
conversation of the morning--"what I was about to say was this: my novel
shall be full of love, but you won't know that it is love--I mean the
every-day love of the every-day people. In my book everybody is going to
love everybody else--or almost everybody else; if there is any sort of a
misunderstanding it sha'n't matter much. I hate rows; I believe in the
truest and the fondest fellowship. What is true love? It is bosom
friendship; that is the purest passion of love. It is the only love that
lasts."
There was a silence for the space of some minutes; Paul and Miss. Juno
were quietly, dreamily smoking. Without, among the roses, there was the
boom of bees; the carol of birds, the flutter of balancing butterflies.
Nature was very soothing, she was in one of her sweetest moods. The two
friends were growing drowsy. Miss. Juno, if she at times betrayed a
feminine fondness for argument, was certainly in no haste to provoke
Paul to a further discussion of the quality of love or friendship;
presently she began rather languidly:
"You were saying I ought to write, and that you believe I can, if I will
only try. I'm going to try; I've been thinking of something that
happened within my knowledge; perhaps I can make a magazine sketch of
it."
"Oh, please write it, Jack! Write it, and send the manuscript to me,
that I may place it for you; will you? Promise me you will!" The boy was
quite enthusiastic, and his undisguised pleasure in the prospect of
seeing something from the pen of his pal--as he loved to call Miss.
Juno--seemed to awaken a responsive echo in her heart.
"I will, Paul; I promise you!"--and the two struck hands on it.
IV
When Paul returned to the Eyrie, it had been decided that Miss. Juno was
to at once begin her first contribution to periodic literature. She had
found her plot; she had only to tell her story in her own way, just as
if she were recounting it to Paul. Indeed, at his suggestion, she had
promised to sit with pen in hand and address him as if he were actually
present. In this way he hoped she would drop into the narrative style
natural to her, and so attractive to her listeners.
As for Paul Clitheroe, he was to make inquiry among his editorial
friends in the Misty City, and see if he might not effect some
satisfactory arrangement with one or another of them, whereby he would
be placed in a position enabling him to go abroad in the course of a few
weeks, and remain abroad indefinitely. He would make Venice his
headquarters; he would have the constant society of his friends; the
fellowship of Jack; together, after the joint literary labors of the
day, they would stem the sluggish tide of the darksome canals and
exchange sentiment and cigarette smoke in mutual delight. Paul was to
write a weekly or a semi-monthly letter to the journal employing him as
a special correspondent. At intervals, in the company of his friends, or
alone, he would set forth upon one of those charming excursions so
fruitful of picturesque experience, and return to his lodgings on the
Schiavoni, to work them up into magazine articles; these would later, of
course, get into book form; from the book would come increased
reputation, a larger source of revenue, and the contentment of success
which he so longed for, so often thought he had found, and so seldom
enjoyed for any length of time.
All this was to be arranged,--or rather the means to which all this was
the delightful end--was to be settled as soon as possible. Miss. Juno,
having finished her story, was to send word to Paul and he was to hie
him to the Rose Garden; thereafter at an ideal dinner, elaborated in
honor of the occasion, Eugene was to read the maiden effort, while the
author, sustained by the sympathetic presence of her admiring Mama and
her devoted Paul, awaited the verdict.
This was to be the test--a trying one for Miss Juno. As for Paul, he
felt quite patriarchal, and yet, so genuine and so deep was his interest
in the future of his protégée, that he was already showing symptoms of
anxiety.
The article having been sent to the editor of the first magazine in the
land, the family would be ready to fold its æsthetic tent and depart;
Paul, of course, accompanying them.
It was a happy thought; visions of Venice; the moonlit lagoon; the
reflected lamps plunging their tongues of flame into the sea; the humid
air, the almost breathless silence, broken at intervals by the baying of
deep-mouthed bells; the splash of oars; the soft tripping measure of
human voices and the refrain of the gondoliers; Jack by his side--Jack
now in her element, with the maroon fez of the distinguished howadji
tilted upon the back of her handsome head, her shapely finger-nails
stained with henna, her wrists weighed down with their scores of
tinkling bangles! Could anything be jollier?
Paul gave himself up to the full enjoyment of this dream. Already he
seemed to have overcome every obstacle, and to be reveling in the
subdued but sensuous joys of the Adriatic queen. Sometimes he had fled
in spirit to the sweet seclusion of the cloistral life at San Lazaro.
Byron did it before him;--the plump, the soft-voiced, mild-visaged
little Arminians will tell you all about that, and take immense pleasure
in the telling of it. Paul had also known a fellow-writer who had
emulated Byron, and had even distanced the Byron record in one respect
at least--he had outstayed his lordship at San Lazaro!
Sometimes Paul turned hermit, in imagination and dwelt alone upon the
long sands of the melancholy Lido; not seeing Jack, or anybody, save the
waiter at the neighboring restaurant, for days and days together. It was
immensely diverting, this dream-life that Paul led in far distant
Venice. It was just the life he loved, the ideal life, and it wasn't
costing him a cent--no, not a _soldo_, to speak more in the Venetian
manner.
While he was looking forward to the life to come, he had hardly time to
perfect his arrangements for a realization of it. He was to pack
everything and store it in a bonded warehouse, where it should remain
until he had taken root abroad. Then he would send for it and settle in
the spot he loved best of all, and there write and dream and drink the
wine of the country, while the Angelus bells ringing thrice a day awoke
him to a realizing sense of the fairy-like flight of time just as they
have been doing for ages past, and, let us hope, as they will continue
to do forever and forever.
One day he stopped dreaming of Italy, and resolved to secure his
engagement as a correspondent. Miss. Juno had written him that her
sketch was nearly finished; that he must hold himself in readiness to
answer her summons at a moment's notice. The season was advancing; no
time was to be lost, etc. Paul started at once for the office of his
favorite journal; his interview was not entirely satisfactory. Editors,
one and all, as he called upon them in succession, didn't seem
especially anxious to send the young man abroad for an indefinite
period; the salary requested seemed exorbitant. They each made a
proposition; all said: "This is the best I can do at present; go to the
other offices, and if you receive a better offer we advise you to take
it." This seemed reasonable enough, but as their best rate was fifteen
dollars for one letter a week he feared that even the highly respectable
second-class accommodations of all sorts to which he must confine
himself would be beyond his means.
Was he losing interest in the scheme which had afforded him so many
hours of sweet, if not solid, satisfaction? No, not exactly. Poverty was
more picturesque abroad than in his prosaic native land. His song was
not quite so joyous, that was all; he would go to Italy; he would take a
smaller room; he would eat at the Trattoria of the people; he would make
studies of the peasant, the _contadini_. Jack had written, "There is pie
in Venice when we are there; Mama knows how to make pie; pie cannot be
purchased elsewhere. Love is the price thereof!" And pie is very
filling. Yes, he would go to Europe on fifteen dollars per week and find
paradise in the bright particular Venetian Pie!
V
After many days a great change came to pass. Everybody knew that Paul
Clitheroe had disappeared without so much as a "good-by" to his most
intimate friends. Curiosity was excited for a little while, but for a
little while only. Soon he was forgotten, or remembered by no one save
those who had known and loved him and who at intervals regretted him.
And Miss. Juno? Ah, Miss. Juno, the joy of Paul's young dreams! Having
been launched successfully at his hands, and hoping in her brave,
off-hand way to be of service to him, she continued to write as much for
his sake as for her own; she knew it would please him beyond compare
were she to achieve a pronounced literary success. He had urged her to
write a novel. She had lightly laughed him to scorn--and had kept
turning in her mind the possible plot for a tale. One day it suddenly
took shape; the whole thing seemed to her perfectly plain sailing; if
Clitheroe had launched her upon that venturesome sea, she had suddenly
found herself equipped and able to sail without the aid of any one.
She had written to Paul of her joy in this new discovery. Before her
loomed the misty outlines of fair far islands; she was about to set
forth to people these. Oh, the joy of that! The unspeakable joy of it!
She spread all sail on this voyage of discovery--she asked for nothing
more save the prayers of her old comrade. She longed to have him near
her so that together they might discuss the situations in her story, one
after another. If he were only in Venice they would meet daily over
their dinner, and after dinner she would read to him what she had
written since they last met; then they would go in a gondola for a
moonlight cruise; of course it was always moonlight in Venice! Would
this not be delightful and just as an all-wise Providence meant it
should be? Paul had read something like this in the letters which she
used to write him when he was divided against himself; when he began to
feel himself sinking, without a hand to help him. Venice was out of the
question then; it were vain for him to even dream of it.
So time went on; Miss. Juno became a slave of the lamp; her work grew
marvelously under her pen. Her little people led her a merry chase; they
whispered in her ears night and day; she got no rest of them--but rose
again and again to put down the clever things they said, and so, almost
before she knew it, her novel had grown into three fine English volumes
with inch-broad margins, half-inch spacings, large type and heavy paper.
She was amazed to find how important her work had become.
Fortune favored her. She found a publisher who was ready to bring out
her book at once; two sets of proofs were forwarded to her; these she
corrected with deep delight, returning one to her London publisher and
sending one to America, where another publisher was ready to issue the
work simultaneously with the English print.
It made its appearance under a pen-name in England--anonymously in
America. What curiosity it awakened may be judged by the instantaneous
success of the work in both countries: Tauchnitz at once added it to his
fascinating list; the French and German translators negotiated for the
right to run it as a serial in Paris and Berlin journals. Considerable
curiosity was awakened concerning the identity of the authorship, and
the personal paragraphers made a thousand conjectures, all of which
helped the sale of the novel immensely and amused Miss. Juno and her
confidants beyond expression.
All this was known to Clitheroe before he had reached the climax that
forced him to the wall. He had written to Miss. Juno; and he had called
her "Jack" as of old, but he felt and she realized that he felt that the
conditions were changed. The atmosphere of the rose-garden was gone
forever; the hopes and aspirations that were so easy and so airy then,
had folded their wings like bruised butterflies or faded like the
flowers. She resolved to wait until he had recovered his senses and then
perhaps he would come to Venice and to them--which in her estimation
amounted to one and the same thing.
She wrote to him no more; he had not written her for weeks, save only
the few lines of congratulation on the success of her novel, and to
thank her for the author's copy she had sent him: the three-volume
London edition with a fond inscription on the flyleaf--a line in each
volume. This was the end of all that.
Once more she wrote, but not to Clitheroe; she wrote to a friend she had
known when she was in the far West, one who knew Paul well and was
always eager for news of him.
The letter, or a part of it, ran as follows:
"Of course such weather as this is not to be shut out-of-doors; we feed
on it; we drink it in; we bathe in it, body and soul. Ah, my friend,
know a June in Venice before you die! Don't dare to die until you have
become saturated with the aerial-aquatic beauty of this Divine Sea-City!
"Oh, I was about to tell you something when the charms of this Syren
made me half-delirious and of course I forgot all else in life--I always
do so. Well, as we leave in a few days for the delectable Dolonites, we
are making our rounds of P. P. C.'s,--that we are revisiting every nook
and corner in the lagoon so dear to us. We invariably do this; it is the
most delicious leave-taking imaginable. If I were only Niobe I'd water
these shores with tears--I'm sure I would; but you know I never weep; I
never did; I don't know how; there is not a drop of brine in my whole
composition.
"Dear me! how I do rattle on--but you know my moods and will make due
allowance for what might strike the cold, unfeeling world as being
garrulity.
"We had resolved to visit that most enchanting of all Italian shrines,
San Francisco del Deserto. We had not been there for an age; you know it
is rather a long pull over, and one waits for the most perfect hour when
one ventures upon the outskirts of the lagoon.
"Oh, the unspeakable loveliness of that perfect day! The mellowing haze
that veiled the water; the heavenly blue of the sea, a mirror of the
sky, and floating in between the two, so that one could not be quite
sure whether it slumbered in the lap of the sea or hung upon the bosom
of the sky, that ideal summer island--San Francisco del Deserto.
"You know it is only a few acres in extent--not more than six, I fancy,
and four-fifths of it are walled about with walls that stand knee-deep
in sea-grasses. Along, and above it, are thrust the tapering tops of
those highly decorative cypresses without which Italy would not be
herself at all. There is such a monastery there--an ideal one, with
cloister, and sundial, and marble-curbed well, and all that; at least
so I am told; we poor feminine creatures are not permitted to cross the
thresholds of these Holy Houses. This reminds me of a remark I heard
made by a very clever woman who wished to have a glimpse of the interior
of that impossible Monte Casino on the mountain top between Rome and
Naples. Of course she was refused admission; she turned upon the poor
Benedictine, who was only obeying orders--it is a rule of the house, you
know--and said, 'Why do you refuse me admission to this shrine? Is it
because I am of the same sex as the mother of your God?' But she didn't
get in for all that. Neither have I crossed the threshold of San
Francisco del Deserto, but I have wandered upon the green in front of
the little chapel; and sat under the trees in contemplation of the sea
and wished--yes, really and truly wished--that I were a barefooted
Franciscan friar with nothing to do but look picturesque in such a
terrestrial paradise.
"What do you think happened when we were there the other day? Now at
last I am coming to it. We were all upon the Campo in front of the
chapel--Violet, Eugene and I; the Angelus had just rung; it was the hour
of all hours in one's lifetime; the deepening twilight--we had the moon
to light us on our homeward way--the inexpressible loveliness of the
atmosphere, the unutterable peace, the unspeakable serenity--the repose
in nature--I cannot begin to express myself!
"Out of the chapel came the Father Superior. He knows us very well, for
we have often visited the island; he always offers us some refreshment,
a cup of mass wine, or a dish of fruit, and so he did on this occasion.
We were in no hurry to leave the shore and so accepted his invitation to
be seated under the trees while he ordered the repast.
"Presently he returned and was shortly followed by a young friar whom we
had never seen before; there are not many of them there--a dozen
perhaps--and their faces are more or less familiar to us, for even we
poor women may kneel without the gratings in their little chapel, and so
we have learned to know the faces we have seen there in the choir. But
this one was quite new to us and so striking; his eyes were ever raised;
he offered us a dish of bread and olives, while the abbot poured our
wine, and the very moment we had served ourselves he quietly withdrew.
"I could think of but one thing--indeed we all thought of it at the same
moment--'tis Browning's--
"'What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip?'"
"You know the lines well enough. Why did we think of it?--because we
were all startled, so startled that the abbot who usually sees us to our
gondola, made his abrupt adieus, on some slight pretext, and the door of
the monastery was bolted fast.
"Oh, me! How long it takes to tell a little tale--to be sure! We knew
that face, the face of the young friar; we knew the hand--it was
unmistakable; we have all agreed upon it and are ready to swear to it on
our oaths! That novice was none other than Paul Clitheroe!"
A LITTLE SAVAGE GENTLEMAN
BY
ISOBEL STRONG
Reprinted from _Scribner's Magazine_ by permission
"IF YOU want a child as badly as all that," my brother said, "why not
adopt a chief's son, some one who is handsome and well-born, and will be
a credit to you, instead of crying your eyes out over a little common
brat who is an ungrateful cub, and ugly into the bargain?"
I wasn't particularly fond of the "common brat," but I had grown used to
tending him, bandaging his miserable little foot and trying to make his
lot easier to bear; and he had been spirited away. One may live long in
Samoa without understanding the whys and wherefores. His mother may have
been jealous of my care of the child and carried him away in the night;
or the clan to which he belonged may have sent for him, though his
reputed father was our assistant cook. At any rate, he had
gone--departed as completely and entirely as though he had vanished into
thin air, and I, sitting on the steps of the veranda, gave way to tears.
Two days later, as I hastened across the courtyard, I turned the corner
suddenly, nearly falling over a small Samoan boy, who stood erect in a
gallant pose before the house, leaning upon a long stick of sugar-cane,
as though it were a spear.
"Who are you?" I asked, in the native language.
"I am your son," was the surprising reply.
"And what is your name?"
"Pola," he said. "Pola, of Tanugamanono, and my mother is the white
chief lady, Teuila of Vailima."
He was a beautiful creature, of an even tint of light bronze-brown; his
slender body reflected the polish of scented cocoanut oil, the tiny
garment he called his _lava-lava_ fastened at the waist was coquettishly
kilted above one knee. He wore a necklace of scarlet berries across his
shoulders, and a bright red hibiscus flower stuck behind his ear. On his
round, smooth cheek a single rose-leaf hid the dimple. His large black
eyes looked up at me with an expression of terror, overcome by pure
physical courage. From the top of his curly head to the soles of his
high-arched slender foot he looked _tama'alii_--high-bred. To all my
inquiries he answered in purest high-chief Samoan that he was my son.
My brother came to the rescue with explanations. Taking pity on me, he
had gone to our village (as we called Tanugamanono) and adopted the
chief's second son in my name, and here he was come to present himself
in person.
I shook hands with him, a ceremony he performed very gracefully with
great dignity. Then he offered me the six feet of sugar-cane, with the
remark that it was a small, trifling gift, unworthy of my high-chief
notice. I accepted it with a show of great joy and appreciation, though
by a turn of the head one could see acres of sugar-cane growing on the
other side of the river.
There was an element of embarrassment in the possession of this
charming creature. I could not speak the Samoan language very well at
that time, and saw, by his vague but polite smile, that much of my
conversation was incomprehensible to him. His language to me was so
extremely "high-chief" that I couldn't understand more than three words
in a sentence. What made the situation still more poignant was that look
of repressed fear glinting in the depths of his black velvety eyes.
I took him by the hand (that trembled slightly in mine, though he walked
boldly along with me) and led him about the house, thinking the sight of
all the wonders of Vailima might divert his mind. When I threw open the
door of the hall, with its pictures and statues, waxed floor and glitter
of silver on the sideboard, Pola made the regulation quotation from
Scripture, "And behold the half has not been told me."
He went quite close to the tiger-skin, with the glass eyes and big
teeth. "It is not living?" he asked, and when I assured him it was dead
he remarked that it was a large pussy, and then added, gravely, that he
supposed the forests of London were filled with these animals.
He held my hand quite tightly going up the stairs, and I realized then
that he could never have mounted a staircase before. Indeed, everything
in the house, even chairs and tables, books and pictures, were new and
strange to this little savage gentleman.
I took him to my room, where I had a number of letters to write. He sat
on the floor at my feet very obediently while I went on with my work.
Looking down a few minutes later I saw that he had fallen asleep, lying
on a while rug in a childish, graceful attitude, and I realized again
his wild beauty and charm.
Late in the day, as it began to grow dark, I asked Pola if he did not
want to go home.
"No, Teuila," he answered, bravely.
"But you will be my boy just the same," I explained. "Only you see Tumau
(his real mother) will be lonely at first. So you can sleep at the
village and come and see me during the day."
His eyes lit up with that and the first smile of the day overspread his
face, showing the whitest teeth imaginable.
It was not long before he was perfectly at home in Vailima. He would
arrive in the morning early, attended by a serving-man of his family,
who walked meekly in the young chief's footsteps, carrying the usual
gift for me. Sometimes it was sugar-cane, or a wreath woven by the
village girls, or a single fish wrapped in a piece of banana-leaf, or a
few fresh water prawns, or even a bunch of wayside flowers; my little
son seldom came empty-handed.
It was Pola who really taught me the Samoan language. Ordinarily the
natives cannot simplify their remarks for foreigners, but Pola invented
a sort of Samoan baby-talk for me; sometimes, if I could not understand,
he would shake me with his fierce little brown hands, crying, "Stupid,
stupid!" But generally he was extremely patient with me, trying a
sentence in half a dozen different ways, with his bright eyes fixed
eagerly on my face, and when the sense of what he said dawned upon me
and I repeated it to prove that I understood, his own countenance would
light up with an expression of absolute pride and triumph. "Good!" he
would say, approvingly. "Great is your high-chief wisdom!"
Once we spent a happy afternoon together in the forest picking up queer
land-shells, bright berries and curious flowers, while Pola dug up a
number of plants by the roots. I asked him the next day what he had done
with the beautiful red flowers. His reply was beyond me, so I shook my
head. He looked at me anxiously for a moment with that worried
expression that so often crossed his face in conversation with me, and,
patting the floor, scraped up an imaginary hole, "They sit down in the
dusty," he said in baby Samoan. "Where?" I asked. "In front of Tumau."
And then I understood that he had planted them in the ground before his
mother's house.
Another time he came up all laughter and excitement to tell of an
adventure.