IN ITALY
During the voyage, which had its own vicissitudes, the joke was kept
up amongst the three women. The stewardess, seeing that the two ladies
only spoke of it in privacy, exemplified that discretion which the
Captain had commended. Only once did she forget herself, but even then
fortune was on her side. It was during a day when Joy was upset by a
spell of heavy weather and had to keep her cabin. In the afternoon her
father paid a visit to her; and Mrs. O’Brien in reporting progress to
him said that “her Ladyship” was now on the road to recovery and would
be on deck very shortly. Colonel Ogilvie made quite a lot of the error
which he read in his own way. He said to his sister-in-law as they
paced the deck together:
“Capital woman that stewardess! There is a natural deference and
respect in her manner which you do not always find in people of her
class. Will you oblige me, Judy, by seeing, when the voyage is over,
that she gets an extra honorarium!” Judy promised, and deftly turned
the conversation; she felt that she was on dangerous ground.
Judith Hayes called herself an old maid, not believing it to be true;
but all the same there was in her make-up a distinctive trait of it:
the manner in which she regarded a romance. Up to lately, romance
however unlikely or improbable, had a personal bearing; it did not
occur to her that it might not drift in her direction. But now she
felt unconsciously that such romance must have other objective than
herself. The possibility, therefore, of a romance for Joy whom she
very sincerely loved was a thing to be cherished. She could see, as
well as feel, that her niece by keeping it a secret from her father
had taken the matter with at least a phase of seriousness. This alone
was sufficient to feed her own imaginings; and in the glow her
sympathies quickened. She had instinctively at the beginning
determined not to spoil sport; now it became a conscious intention.
Mrs. O’Brien, too, in her own way helped to further the matter. She
felt that she had a good audience for her little anecdotes of the
child whose infancy she had fostered, and towards whom in his
completed manhood she had a sort of almost idolatrous devotion. Seeing
the girl so sympathetic and listening so patiently, she too began to
see something like the beginnings of a fact. And so the game went
merrily on.
The telegrams at Queenstown were not very reassuring, and Colonel
Ogilvie and his party pressed on at once to Sorrento whence his wife
had moved on the completion of her series of baths at Ischia.
Naturally the whole of the little party was depressed, until on
arrival they found Mrs. Ogilvie, who was something of a
valetudinarian, much better than they expected. The arrival of her
husband and daughter and sister seemed to complete her cure; she
brightened up at once, and even after a few days began to enjoy
herself.
One day after lunch as she drove along the road to Amalfi with Judith
and Joy--the Colonel was lazy that day and preferred to sit on the
terrace over the sea and smoke--she began to ask all the details of
the journey. Judy who had not had a chance of speaking alone with
safety began to tell the little secret. Her method of commencement was
abrupt, and somewhat startling to the convalescent:
“We’ve got a husband for Joy, at last!”
“Gracious!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “What do you mean, Judy? Is this one of
your pranks?”
“Prank indeed!” she answered back, tossing her head. “A real live
lord! A belted Earl if you please--whatever that may mean.”
“Is this true, Joy?” said her mother beaming anxiously on her--if such
a combination is understandable. Joy took her hand and stroked it
lovingly:
“Do you think, Mother dear, that if there was such a thing I should
leave you all this time in ignorance of it. It is only a jest made up
by the stewardess who attended us on the _Cryptic_. Aunt Judy seems to
have taken it all in; I think dear you had better ask her; she seems
to know all about it--which is certainly more than I do.”
“And how did this common woman dare to jest on such a subject. I don’t
think Judy that this would have happened had I been with her myself!”
“Oh my dear, get off that high horse. There’s nothing to be alarmed
about. The stewardess--who is a most worthy and attentive person----”
“She is a dear!” interrupted Joy.
“--took such a fancy to Joy that she said there was only ‘wan’ in all
the world who was worthy of her--a young nobleman to whom she had been
foster-mother. It was certainly meant as a very true compliment, and I
am bound to say that if the young man merits a hundredth part of all
she said of him there’s certainly no cause of offence in the mere
mentioning his name.”
“What is his name?” There was a shade of anxiety in the mother’s
voice.
“Lord Athlyne!”
“The Earl of Athlyne!” said Joy speaking without thought. Then she
turned quickly away to hide her blushing.
“I--I--I really don’t understand!” said Mrs. Ogilvie, looking around
helplessly. Then with the shadow of a shade of annoyance in her voice
she went on:
“I really think that in a serious matter of this kind I should have
been consulted. But I seem not to count for anything any more. Colonel
Ogilvie has not even mentioned the matter to me. I think I ought to
have some say in anything of importance relating to my little girl.”
“Lord bless the woman!” said Aunt Judy throwing up her hands and
lifting her eyes. “Sally dear don’t you comprehend that this was all a
joke. We never saw this young Lord, never heard of him till the
stewardess mentioned him; and as for him he doesn’t know or care
whether there is such a person in the world as Joy Ogilvie----” The
mother interrupted hotly--it seemed want of respect to her child:
“Then he ought to care. I’d like to know who he is to consider himself
so high and mighty that even my little girl isn’t … Oh! I have no
patience with him.”
There was silence in the carriage. Mrs. Ogilvie had come to the end of
her remonstrance, and both the others were afraid to speak. It was all
so supremely ridiculous. And yet the mother was taking it all so
seriously that respect for her forbade laughter. The road was here
steep and the horses were laboriously climbing their way. Presently
Judy turned to Joy saying:
“Wouldn’t you like to look at the view from the edge of the cliff?” As
she spoke she looked meaningly at her niece who took the hint and got
down.
When she was out of earshot and the driver had stopped the horses Judy
turned to her sister and said with a quiet, incisive directness quite
at variance with all her previous moods:
“Sally dear I want to speak a moment to you quite frankly and, believe
me, very earnestly. I know you don’t usually credit me with much
earnestness; but this is about Joy, and that is always earnest with
me.” All the motherhood in Mrs. Ogilvie answered to the call. She sat
up with eager intensity, receptive to the full and without any
disturbing chagrin. Judy went on:
“You have been thinking of your ‘little girl’--and actually speaking
of her as such. That is the worst of mothers--their one fault. With
them time seems to stand still. The world goes flying by them, but in
their eyes the child remains the same. Gold hair or black turns to
white, wrinkles come, knees totter and steps become unsteady; but the
child goes on--still, in the mother’s eyes, dressing dolls and chasing
butterflies. They don’t even seem to realise facts when the child puts
her own baby into the grandmother’s arms. Look round for a moment
where Joy is standing there outlined against that Moorish tower on the
edge of the cliff. Tell me what do you see?”
“I see my dear, beautiful little girl!” said the mother faintly.
“Hm!” said Judy defiantly. “That’s not exactly what I see. I agree
with the ‘dear’ and ‘beautiful’; she’s all that and a thousand times
more.”
“Tell me what you do see, Judy!” said the mother in a whisper as she
laid a gentle hand imploringly on her sister’s arm. She was trembling
slightly. Judy took her hand and stroked it tenderly. “I know!” she
said gently “I know. I know!” The mother took heart from her
tenderness and said in an imploring whisper:
“Be gentle with me, Judy. She is all I have; and I fear her passing
away from me.”
“Not that--not yet at all events!” she answered quickly. “The time is
coming no doubt. But it is because we should be ready for it that I
want to speak. We at least ought to know the exact truth!”
“The exact truth … Oh Judy …!”
“Don’t be frightened, dear. There is nothing to fear. The truth is all
love and goodness. But my dear we are all but mortal after all, and
the way to keep right is to think truly.”
“Tell me exactly what you see! Tell me everything no matter how small.
I shall perhaps understand better that way!”
Judy paused a while, looking at the young girl lovingly. Then she
spoke in a level absent voice as though unconsciously.
“I don’t see a child--now. I see a young woman of twenty; and a fine
well-grown young woman at that. Look at her figure, straight and clean
as a young pine. Type of figure that is the most alluring of all to
men; what the French call _fausse maigre_. She has great gray eyes as
deep as the sky or the sea; eyes that can drag the soul out of a man’s
body and throw it down beneath her dainty feet. I may be an old maid;
but I know that much anyhow. Her hair is black--that isn’t black, but
with a softness that black cannot give. Her skin is like ivory seen in
the sunset. Her mouth is like a crimson rosebud. Her teeth are like
pearls, and her ears like pink shell. Her head is poised on her
graceful neck like a lily on its stem. Her nose is a fine
aquiline--that means power and determination. Her forehead can
wrinkle--that means thought, and may mean misery. Her hands are long
and fine; patrician hands that can endure--and suffer. Sally, there is
there the making of a splendid woman and of a noble life; she is not
out of her girlhood yet, but she is very near it. Ignorance is no use
to her. She _will_ understand; and then she will take her own course.
She has feeling deep and strong in the very marrow of her bones. Ah!
my dear, and she has passion too. Passion that can make or mar. That
woman will do anything for love. She can believe and trust. And when
she believes and trusts she will hold the man as her master; put him
up on a pedestal and be content to sit at his feet and worship--and
obey … She …”
Here the mother struck in with surprised consternation “How on earth
do you know all this?” Judy turned towards her with a light in her
eyes which her sister had never seen there:
“How do I know it! Because she is of my blood and yours. Have I not
seen a lot of it in you in our babyhood. Have I not gone through it
all myself--the longing part of it--the wishing and hoping and praying
and suffering. Do you think Sally that I have arrived at old maidhood
without knowing what a young maid thinks and feels; without having any
share of the torture that women must bear in some form or another. I
know it all as well as though it was all fresh before me instead of a
lurid memory. Ah, my dear she has all our nature--and her father’s
too. And he never learned the restraint that we had to learn--and
practice. When she is face to face with passion she may find herself
constrained to take it as he has always done: for life or death!” …
She paused a moment, panting with the intensity of her feeling. Then
she went on more quietly:
“Sally, isn’t it wiser to let her, in her youth and ignorance of
herself and the world, break herself in to passion and romance. It
would be hard to get a safer object for sentimental affection than a
man she never saw and is never likely to meet. After all, he is only
an idea; at best a dream. In good time he will pass out of her mind
and give place to something more real. But in the meantime she will
have learned--learned to understand, to find herself.” Then she sat
silent till Joy turned round and began to walk towards them. At this
the mother said quietly:
“Thank you, dear Judy. I think I understand. You are quite right, and
I am glad you told me.”
That journey round the Sorrentine Peninsula became a part of Joy’s
life. It was not merely that every moment was a new pleasure, a fresh
delight to the eye; her heart was in some mysterious way beginning to
be afire. Hitherto her thoughts of that abstract creation, Lord
Athlyne, had been impersonal: an objective of her own unconscious
desires, rather than a definite individuality. Up to now, though he
had been often in her thoughts, he had never taken shape there. The
image was so inchoate, indefinite, vague and nebulous. She had never
tried or even wished to find for him in her imagination features or
form. But now she had begun to picture him in various ways. As she
stood beside the Moorish tower looking down across the rugged slope of
rock and oleander at the wrinkled sea beneath, his image seemed to
flit before the eyes of her soul in kaleidoscopic form. It was an
instance of true feminine receptivity: the form did not matter, she
was content to accept the Man.
The cause--the sudden cause of this change was her mother’s attitude.
She had accepted him as a reality and had not hesitated to condemn him
as though he was a conscious participant in what had passed. Joy had
found herself placed in a position in which she had to hear him
unfairly treated, without being able to make any kind of protest. It
was too ridiculous to argue. What on earth could her mother know about
him that she should take it for granted that he had done wrong? He who
had never seen her or even heard of her! He who was the very last man
in the world to be wanting to a woman in the way of respect--of
tenderness--of love. … Here she started and looked around cautiously
as one does who is suspicious of being watched. For it flashed across
her all at once that she knew no more of him than did her mother. As
yet he was only an abstraction; and her mother’s conception of him
differed from hers. And as she thought, and thought truly for she was
a clever girl, she began to realise that she had all along been
clothing an abstract individuality with her own wishes and dreams--and
hopes. … The last thought brought her up sharply. With a quick shake
of the head she threw aside for the present all thoughts on the
subject, and impulsively went back to the carriage.
There were however a few root thoughts left which _would_ not be
thrown aside. They could not be, for they were fixed in her womanhood.
Another woman had accepted her dream as a reality; and now, as that
reality was her doing, he was her own man. And he was misunderstood
and blamed and unfairly treated! It was her duty to protect him!
Had Aunt Judy been aware of her logical process and its conclusion she
could have expressed it thus:
“Hm! a man in her mind.--_Her_ man. Her duty to protest. … We all
know what that means. He’s only in her mind at present … Hm!”
The whole day was spent on the road, for the beauty was such that the
stoppages were endless. Joy, with the new-arisen soul which took her
out of her own thoughts, found delight in every moment. She could
hardly contain her rapture as fresh vistas of beauty burst upon her.
When the curve of the promontory began to cut off the view of Vesuvius
and the plain seaward of it, she got out of the carriage and ran back
to where she could have a full view. Underneath her lay the wonderful
scene of matchless beauty. To the right rose Vesuvius a mass of warm
colour, with its cinder cone staring boldly into the blue sky, a faint
cloud hanging over it like a flag. Below it was the sloping plain
dotted with trees and villas and villages, articulated in the clear
air like a miniature map. Then the great curve of the bay, the
sapphire sea marked clearly on the outline of the coast from Ischia
which rose like a jewel from a jewel. Past Naples, a clustering mass
with San Martino standing nobly out and the great fortress crowning
grimly the hill above it. Past Portici and the buried Herculaneum;
till getting closer the roofs and trees and gardens seemed to run up
to where she stood. To the left, a silhouette of splendid soft purple,
rose the island of Capri from the sea of sapphire which seemed to
quiver in the sunshine. Long she looked, and then closing her eyes to
prove that the lovely image still held in the darkness, she turned
with a long sigh of ecstasy and walked slowly to the waiting carriage.
Again and again she stooped, till at last she made up her mind to walk
altogether until she should get tired. The driver took his cue from
her movements when to stop and when to go on.
The road round the Peninsula runs high up the mountain side with
mostly a steep precipice to seaward and on the other hand towering
rocks. But such rocks! And so clad with the finest vegetation! Rocks
rich in colour and quaint in shape; with jagged points and deep
crevices in which earth could gather and where trees and shrubs and
flowers could cling. High over-head hung here and there a beautiful
stone-pine with red twisted trunk and spreading branches. Fig and
lemon trees rose in the sheltered angles, the long yellow shoots of
the new branches of the lemon cutting into the air like lances.
Elsewhere beech and chestnut, oak and palm. Trailing over the rock,
both seaward and landward, creepers of soft green and pink. And above
all, high up on the skyline, the semi-transparent, smoke-coloured
foliage of the olives that crowned the slopes.
Then the towns! Maggiore and Amalfi quaint close-drawn irregular
relics of a more turbulent age, climbing up the chasms in the
hillside. Narrow streets, so steep as to look impossible to traffic.
Queer houses of all sorts of irregular design and variety of stone.
Small windows, high doors, steep, rugged irregularly-sloping steps as
though time and some mighty force had shaken the very rock on which
they were built. Joy felt as though she could stay there for ever, and
that each day would be a dream, and each fresh exploration a time of
delight. In her secret heart of hearts she registered a vow that if
ever she should go on a wedding journey it should be to there.
At Amalfi they had tea, and then made up their minds that they would
drive on to Salerno and there take train home; for it would be time to
travel quick when so long a journey had been taken.
When they were at the end of the peninsula a sudden storm came on. For
awhile they had seen far out at sea a dark cloud gathering, but it was
so far away that they did not think it would affect them. The driver
knew and began to make ready, for there was no escaping from it. He
turned his horses’ heads to the rock and wedged up the wheels of the
carriage with heavy stones so that in case the horses should get
frightened their plunging could not be too harmful.
Heavier and heavier grew the cloud out at sea, and as it grew denser
it moved landward. Its grey changed to dark blue and then to a rich
purple, almost black. A keen coldness presaged a coming storm.
There was stillness all round the mountain road; a positive desolation
of silence from which even the wondrous beauty of the scene could not
distract the mind. Joy absolutely refused to sit in the carriage which
was now properly hooded. She threw on the cloak which she had brought
with her and stood out on the open road where she could enjoy the
scene undisturbed by human proximity. As she stood, the velvet black
cloud was rent by a blinding sheet of lightning which seemed for a
moment to be shaped like a fiery tree, roots upward in the sky. Close
following came such a mighty peal of thunder that her heart shook.
Ordinarily Joy was not timorous, and for thunder she had no fear. But
this was simply terrific; it seemed to burst right over her head and
to roll around her in a prolonged titanic roar. She was about to run
to the carriage when she heard the shrieks of fear from the two women;
the driver was on his knees on the road praying. Joy felt that all she
could do to help her mother and aunt would be to keep calm--as calm as
she could. So she moved her hand and called out cheerfully:
“Don’t be afraid! It is all right; the lightning has passed us!” As
she spoke the rain came down in torrents. It was tropical; in a few
seconds the open road was running like a river, ankle deep. By the
exercise of her will the girl’s courage had risen. She could now
actually enjoy what was before her. Far out to sea the black cloud
still hung, but it was broken up in great masses which seemed to dip
into the sea. It was almost as dark as night; so dark that the expanse
became lit by the lightning flashes. In one of these she saw three
separate water-spouts. The sea appeared to have risen as the cloud
sank, and now were far apart three great whirling pillars like
hour-glasses. And then, wonder of wonders, without turning her head
but only her eyes she could see away to the left a whole world of
green expanse backed up by the mountains of Calabria. With each second
the sinking sun brought into view some new hilltop flaming in the
glow. A little way in front of her at the southern side of the
peninsula the copper dome of the church at Vietri glowed like a ball
of fire. Away to the south on the edge of the sea rose the many
columns of the majestic ruins of Pæstum, standing still and solemn as
if untouchable by stress of storm or time.
Joy stood entranced, as though the eyes of her soul had opened on a
new world. She hardly dared to breathe. The pelting of the rainstorm,
the rush of the water round her feet, the crash and roar of the
thunder or the hissing glare of the lightning did not move or disturb
her. It was all a sort of baptism into a new life.
Joy Ogilvie, like all persons of emotional nature, had quick sympathy
with natural forces and the moods of nature. The experience of the
day, based on the superlative beauty around her, had waked all the
emotional nature within her. Naples is always at spring time; and the
young heart finding naturally its place amongst the things that
germinate and develop unconsciously, swayed with and was swayed by the
impulses of her sex. Beauty and manhood had twin position in her
virgin breast.
Aunt Judy’s insight or prophecy was being realised quicker than she
thought. Joy’s sex had found her out!