A NIGHT ON THE ADRIATIC
The lovers met after Roland had spoken to his sister—not exactly to
advocate the cause of Nevil, though he was under the influence of that
grave night’s walk with him, but to sound her and see whether she at
all shared Nevil’s view of her situation. Roland felt the awfulness of
a French family arrangement of a marriage, and the impertinence of a
foreign Cupid’s intrusion, too keenly to plead for his friend: at the
same time he loved his friend and his sister, and would have been very
ready to smile blessings on them if favourable circumstances had raised
a signal; if, for example, apoplexy or any other cordial ex machina
intervention had removed the middle-aged marquis; and, perhaps, if
Renée had shown the repugnance to her engagement which Nevil declared
she must have in her heart, he would have done more than smile; he
would have laid the case deferentially before his father. His own
opinion was that young unmarried women were incapable of the passion of
love, being, as it were, but half-feathered in that state, and unable
to fly; and Renée confirmed it. The suspicion of an advocacy on Nevil’s
behalf steeled her. His tentative observations were checked at the
outset.
“Can such things be spoken of to me, Roland? I am plighted. You know
it.”
He shrugged, said a word of pity for Nevil, and went forth to let his
friend know that it was as he had predicted: Renée was obedience in
person, like a rightly educated French girl. He strongly advised his
friend to banish all hope of her from his mind. But the mind he
addressed was of a curious order; far-shooting, tough, persistent, and
when acted on by the spell of devotion, indomitable. Nevil put hope
aside, or rather, he clad it in other garments, in which it was hardly
to be recognized by himself, and said to Roland: “You must bear this
from me; you must let me follow you to the end, and if she wavers she
will find me near.”
Roland could not avoid asking the use of it, considering that Renée,
however much she admired and liked, was not in love with him.
Nevil resigned himself to admit that she was not: and therefore, said
he, “you won’t object to my remaining.”
Renée greeted Nevil with as clear a conventional air as a woman could
assume.
She was going, she said, to attend High Mass in the church of S. Moise,
and she waved her devoutest Roman Catholicism to show the breadth of
the division between them. He proposed to go likewise. She was mute.
After some discourse she contrived to say inoffensively that people who
strolled into her churches for the music, or out of curiosity, played
the barbarian.
“Well, I will not go,” said Nevil.
“But I do not wish to number you among them,” she said.
“Then,” said Nevil, “I will go, for it cannot be barbarous to try to be
with you.”
“No, that is wickedness,” said Renée.
She was sensible that conversation betrayed her, and Nevil’s apparently
deliberate pursuit signified to her that he must be aware of his
mastery, and she resented it, and stumbled into pitfalls whenever she
opened her lips. It seemed to be denied to them to utter what she
meant, if indeed she had a meaning in speaking, save to hurt herself
cruelly by wounding the man who had caught her in the toils: and so
long as she could imagine that she was the only one hurt, she was the
braver and the harsher for it; but at the sight of Nevil in pain her
heart relented and shifted, and discovering it to be so weak as to be
almost at his mercy, she defended it with an aggressive unkindness, for
which, in charity to her sweeter nature, she had to ask his pardon, and
then had to fib to give reasons for her conduct, and then to pretend to
herself that her pride was humbled by him; a most humiliating round,
constantly recurring; the worse for the reflection that she created it.
She attempted silence. Nevil spoke, and was like the magical piper: she
was compelled to follow him and dance the round again, with the
wretched thought that it must resemble coquettry. Nevil did not think
so, but a very attentive observer now upon the scene, and possessed of
his half of the secret, did, and warned him. Rosamund Culling added
that the French girl might be only an unconscious coquette, for she was
young. The critic would not undertake to pronounce on her suggestion,
whether the candour apparent in merely coquettish instincts was not
more dangerous than a battery of the arts of the sex. She had heard
Nevil’s frank confession, and seen Renée twice, when she tried in his
service, though not greatly wishing for success, to stir the sensitive
girl for an answer to his attachment. Probably she went to work
transparently, after the insular fashion of opening a spiritual mystery
with the lancet. Renée suffered herself to be probed here and there,
and revealed nothing of the pain of the operation. She said to Nevil,
in Rosamund’s hearing:
“Have you the sense of honour acute in your country?” Nevil inquired
for the apropos.
“None,” said she.
Such pointed insolence disposed Rosamund to an irritable antagonism,
without reminding her that she had given some cause for it.
Renée said to her presently: “He saved my brother’s life”; the àpropos
being as little perceptible as before.
Her voice dropped to her sweetest deep tones, and there was a
supplicating beam in her eyes, unintelligible to the direct
Englishwoman, except under the heading of a power of witchery fearful
to think of in one so young, and loved by Nevil.
The look was turned upon her, not upon her hero, and Rosamund thought,
“Does she want to entangle me as well?”
It was, in truth, a look of entreaty from woman to woman, signifying
need of womanly help. Renée would have made a confidante of her, if she
had not known her to be Nevil’s, and devoted to him. “I would speak to
you, but that I feel you would betray me,” her eyes had said. The
strong sincerity dwelling amid multiform complexities might have made
itself comprehensible to the English lady for a moment or so, had Renée
spoken words to her ears; but belief in it would hardly have survived
the girl’s next convolutions. “She is intensely French,” Rosamund said
to Nevil—a volume of insular criticism in a sentence.
“You do not know her, ma’am,” said Nevil. “You think her older than she
is, and that is the error I fell into. She is a child.”
“A serpent in the egg is none the less a serpent, Nevil. Forgive me;
but when she tells you the case is hopeless!”
“No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is; and I shall
stay.”
“But then again, Nevil, you have not consulted your uncle.”
“Let him see her! let him only see her!”
Rosamund Culling reserved her opinion compassionately. His uncle would
soon be calling to have him home: society panted for him to make much
of him and here he was, cursed by one of his notions of duty, in
attendance on a captious “young French beauty, who was the less to be
excused for not dismissing him peremptorily, if she cared for him at
all. His career, which promised to be so brilliant, was spoiling at the
outset. Rosamund thought of Renée almost with detestation, as a species
of sorceress that had dug a trench in her hero’s road, and unhorsed and
fast fettered him.
The marquis was expected immediately. Renée sent up a little note to
Mrs. Calling’s chamber early in the morning, and it was with an air of
one-day-more-to-ourselves, that, meeting her, she entreated the English
lady to join the expedition mentioned in her note. Roland had hired a
big Chioggian fishing-boat to sail into the gulf at night, and return
at dawn, and have sight of Venice rising from the sea. Her father had
declined; but M. Nevil wished to be one of the party, and in that
case.... Renée threw herself beseechingly into the mute interrogation,
keeping both of Rosamund’s hands. They could slip away only by deciding
to, and this rare Englishwoman had no taste for the petty overt
hostilities. “If I can be of use to you,” she said.
“If you can bear sea-pitching and tossing for the sake of the loveliest
sight in the whole world,” said Renée.
“I know it well,” Rosamund replied.
Renée rippled her eyebrows. She divined a something behind that remark,
and as she was aware of the grief of Rosamund’s life, her quick
intuition whispered that it might be connected with the gallant officer
dead on the battle-field.
“Madame, if you know it too well...” she said.
“No; it is always worth seeing,” said Rosamund, “and I think,
mademoiselle, with your permission, I should accompany you.”
“It is only a whim of mine, madame. I can stay on shore.”
“Not when it is unnecessary to forego a pleasure.”
“Say, my last day of freedom.”
Renée kissed her hand.
She is terribly winning, Rosamund avowed. Renée was in debate whether
the woman devoted to Nevil would hear her and help.
Just then Roland and Nevil returned from their boat, where they had
left carpenters and upholsterers at work, and the delicate chance for
an understanding between the ladies passed by.
The young men were like waves of ocean overwhelming it, they were so
full of their boat, and the scouring and cleaning out of it, and
provisioning, and making it worthy of its freight. Nevil was surprised
that Mrs. Culling should have consented to come, and asked her if she
really wished it—really; and “Really,” said Rosamund; “certainly.”
“Without dubitation,” cried Roland. “And now my little Renée has no
more shore-qualms; she is smoothly chaperoned, and madame will present
us tea on board. All the etcæteras of life are there, and a mariner’s
eye in me spies a breeze at sunset to waft us out of Malamocco.”
The count listened to the recital of their preparations with his usual
absent interest in everything not turning upon Art, politics, or social
intrigue. He said, “Yes, good, good,” at the proper intervals, and
walked down the riva to look at the busy boat, said to Nevil, “You are
a sailor; I confide my family to you,” and prudently counselled Renée
to put on the dresses she could toss to the deep without regrets. Mrs.
Culling he thanked fervently for a wonderful stretch of generosity in
lending her presence to the madcaps.
Altogether the day was a reanimation of external Venice. But there was
a thunderbolt in it; for about an hour before sunset, when the ladies
were superintending and trying not to criticize the ingenious efforts
to produce a make-believe of comfort on board for them, word was
brought down to the boat by the count’s valet that the Marquis de
Rouaillout had arrived. Renée turned her face to her brother
superciliously. Roland shrugged. “Note this, my sister,” he said; “an
anticipation of dates in paying visits precludes the ripeness of the
sentiment of welcome. It is, however, true that the marquis has less
time to spare than others.”
“We have started; we are on the open sea. How can we put back?” said
Renée.
“You hear, François; we are on the open sea,” Roland addressed the
valet.
“Monsieur has cut loose his communications with land,” François
responded, and bowed from the landing.
Nevil hastened to make this a true report; but they had to wait for
tide as well as breeze, and pilot through intricate mud-channels before
they could see the outside of the Lido, and meanwhile the sun lay like
a golden altarplatter on mud-banks made bare by the ebb, and curled in
drowsy yellow links along the currents. All they could do was to push
off and hang loose, bumping to right and left in the midst of volleys
and countervolleys of fishy Venetian, Chioggian, and Dalmatian, quite
as strong as anything ever heard down the Canalaggio. The
representatives of these dialects trotted the decks and hung their
bodies half over the sides of the vessels to deliver fire, flashed eyes
and snapped fingers, not a whit less fierce than hostile crews in the
old wars hurling an interchange of stink-pots, and then resumed the
trot, apparently in search of fresh ammunition. An Austrian sentinel
looked on passively, and a police inspector peeringly. They were used
to it. Happily, the combustible import of the language was unknown to
the ladies, and Nevil’s attempts to keep his crew quiet, contrasting
with Roland’s phlegm, which a Frenchman can assume so philosophically
when his tongue is tied, amused them. During the clamour, Renée saw her
father beckoning from the riva. She signified that she was no longer in
command of circumstances; the vessel was off. But the count stamped his
foot, and nodded imperatively. Thereupon Roland repeated the eloquent
demonstrations of Renée, and the count lost patience, and Roland
shouted, “For the love of heaven, don’t join this babel; we’re nearly
bursting.” The rage of the babel was allayed by degrees, though not
appeased, for the boat was behaving wantonly, as the police officer
pointed out to the count.
Renée stood up to bend her head. It was in reply to a salute from the
Marquis de Rouaillout, and Nevil beheld his rival.
“M. le Marquis, seeing it is out of the question that we can come to
you, will you come to us?” cried Roland.
The marquis gesticulated “With alacrity” in every limb.
“We will bring you back on to-morrow midnight’s tide, safe, we promise
you.”
The marquis advanced a foot, and withdrew it. Could he have heard
correctly? They were to be out a whole night at sea! The count
dejectedly confessed his incapability to restrain them: the young
desperadoes were ready for anything. He had tried the voice of
authority, and was laughed at. As to Renée, an English lady was with
her.
“The English lady must be as mad as the rest,” said the marquis.
“The English are mad,” said the count; “but their women are strict upon
the proprieties.”
“Possibly, my dear count; but what room is there for the proprieties on
board a fishing-boat?”
“It is even as you say, my dear marquis.”
“You allow it?”
“Can I help myself? Look at them. They tell me they have given the boat
the fittings of a yacht.”
“And the young man?”
“That is the M. Beauchamp of whom I have spoken to you, the very pick
of his country, fresh, lively, original; and he can converse. You will
like him.”
“I hope so,” said the marquis, and roused a doleful laugh. “It would
seem that one does not arrive by hastening!”
“Oh! but my dear marquis, you have paid the compliment; you are like
Spring thrusting in a bunch of lilac while the winds of winter blow. If
you were not expected, your expeditiousness is appreciated, be sure.”
Roland fortunately did not hear the marquis compared to Spring. He was
saying: “I wonder what those two elderly gentlemen are talking about”;
and Nevil confused his senses by trying to realize that one of them was
destined to be the husband of his now speechless Renée. The marquis was
clad in a white silken suit, and a dash of red round the neck set off
his black beard; but when he lifted his broad straw hat, a baldness of
sconce shone. There was elegance in his gestures; he looked a
gentleman, though an ultra-Gallican one, that is, too scrupulously
finished for our taste, smelling of the valet. He had the habit of
balancing his body on the hips, as if to emphasize a juvenile vigour,
and his general attitude suggested an idea that he had an oration for
you. Seen from a distance, his baldness and strong nasal projection
were not winning features; the youthful standard he had evidently
prescribed to himself in his dress and his ready jerks of acquiescence
and delivery might lead a forlorn rival to conceive him something of an
ogre straining at an Adonis. It could not be disputed that he bore his
disappointment remarkably well; the more laudably, because his position
was within a step of the ridiculous, for he had shot himself to the
mark, despising sleep, heat, dust, dirt, diet, and lo, that charming
object was deliberately slipping out of reach, proving his headlong
journey an absurdity.
As he stood declining to participate in the lunatic voyage, and bidding
them perforce good speed off the tips of his fingers, Renée turned her
eyes on him, and away. She felt a little smart of pity, arising partly
from her antagonism to Roland’s covert laughter: but it was the colder
kind of feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness.
She sat still, placid outwardly, in fear of herself, so strange she
found it to be borne out to sea by her sailor lover under the eyes of
her betrothed. She was conscious of a tumultuous rush of sensations,
none of them of a very healthy kind, coming as it were from an unlocked
chamber of her bosom, hitherto of unimagined contents; and the marquis
being now on the spot to defend his own, she no longer blamed Nevil: it
was otherwise utterly. All the sweeter side of pity was for him.
He was at first amazed by the sudden exquisite transition. Tenderness
breathed from her, in voice, in look, in touch; for she accepted his
help that he might lead her to the stern of the vessel, to gaze well on
setting Venice, and sent lightnings up his veins; she leaned beside him
over the vessel’s rails, not separated from him by the breadth of a
fluttering riband. Like him, she scarcely heard her brother when for an
instant he intervened, and with Nevil she said adieu to Venice, where
the faint red Doge’s palace was like the fading of another sunset
north-westward of the glory along the hills. Venice dropped lower and
lower, breasting the waters, until it was a thin line in air. The line
was broken, and ran in dots, with here and there a pillar standing on
opal sky. At last the topmost campanile sank.
Renée looked up at the sails, and back for the submerged city.
“It is gone!” she said, as though a marvel had been worked; and
swiftly: “we have one night!”
She breathed it half like a question, like a petition, catching her
breath. The adieu to Venice was her assurance of liberty, but Venice
hidden rolled on her the sense of the return and plucked shrewdly at
her tether of bondage.
They set their eyes toward the dark gulf ahead. The night was growing
starry. The softly ruffled Adriatic tossed no foam.
“One night?” said Nevil; “one? Why only one?”
Renée shuddered. “Oh! do not speak.”
“Then, give me your hand.”
“There, my friend.”
He pressed a hand that was like a quivering chord. She gave it as
though it had been his own to claim. But that it meant no more than a
hand he knew by the very frankness of her compliance, in the manner
natural to her; and this was the charm, it filled him with her peculiar
image and spirit, and while he held it he was subdued.
Lying on the deck at midnight, wrapt in his cloak and a coil of rope
for a pillow, considerably apart from jesting Roland, the recollection
of that little sanguine spot of time when Renée’s life-blood ran with
his, began to heave under him like a swelling sea. For Nevil the
starred black night was Renée. Half his heart was in it: but the
combative division flew to the morning and the deadly iniquity of the
marriage, from which he resolved to save her; in pure devotedness, he
believed. And so he closed his eyes. She, a girl, with a heart
fluttering open and fearing, felt only that she had lost herself
somewhere, and she had neither sleep nor symbols, nothing but a sense
of infinite strangeness, as though she were borne superhumanly through
space.