AT TENERIFFE
It was about ten o'clock of a sunny morning that the _Fort Salisbury_
cast anchor off Teneriffe, preparatory to undergoing the process known as
coaling.
Antony, from her decks, gazed towards the shore and the buildings lying
in the sunlight. Minute doll-like figures were busy on the land; mules,
with various burdens, were ascending the steep street. Boats were already
putting out to the ship, to carry ashore such passengers as desired to
spend a few hours on land.
The whole scene was one of movement, light, and colour. The sea, sky, and
earth were singing the Benedicite, and Antony's heart echoed the
blessings. It was all so astonishingly good and pleasant,--the clean,
fresh morning, the blue blue of the sky, the green blue of the water, and
the possibilities of the unknown mountain land lying before him.
There is an extraordinary fascination in exploring an unknown land, even
if the exploration is to be of somewhat limited duration. The ship by
which Antony had travelled to the Cape, had sailed straight out; it had
passed the peak of Teneriffe at a distance. Antony had looked at it as it
rose from the sea, like a great purple amethyst half veiled in cloud. He
had wondered then, idly enough, whether it would ever be his lot to set
foot upon its shores. Never, in his wildest dreams, had he imagined under
what actual circumstances that lot would be his. How could he have
guessed at what the fates were holding in store for him? They had held
their secret close, giving him no smallest inkling of it. If we dream of
paradise, our dream is modelled on the greatest happiness we have known;
therefore, since our happiness is, doubtless, but a rushlight as compared
to the sunshine of paradise, our dreams must necessarily fall exceedingly
far short of the reality. Hitherto Antony's happiness had been largely
monochrome, flecked with tiny specks of radiance. He might indeed have
dreamed of something a trifle brighter, but how was it possible for him
to have formed from them the smallest conception of the happiness that
was awaiting him?
"It is really perfect," said a voice behind him, echoing his thoughts.
Antony turned.
The Duchessa had come on deck, spurred and gauntleted for their
adventure,--in other words, attired in a soft, black dress, a shady black
hat on her head, crinkly black gloves, which reached to the elbow, on her
hands, and carrying a blue sunshade.
"It is really perfect," she repeated, gazing towards the mountainous land
before them, the doll-like figures on the shore, the boats cleaving the
sparkling waters.
"Absolutely," declared Antony, his eyes wrinkling at the corners in sheer
delight. "The gods have favoured us."
"Is there a boat ready?" she demanded, eager as a child to start on the
adventure.
"A boat," said Antony, looking over the ship's side, "will be with us in
a couple of moments I should say, to judge by the strength of the rower's
arms. He has been racing the other fellows, and will be first at his
goal."
"Then come," she said. "Let us be first too. I don't want to lose a
minute."
Antony followed in her wake. Her sentiments most assuredly were his. It
was not a day of which to squander one iota.
Ten minutes later they were on their way to the shore. Behind them the
_Fort Salisbury_ loomed up large and black from the limpid water; before
them lay the land of possibilities.
The other passengers in the boat kept up a running fire of comments. A
stout gentleman in a sun-helmet, which he considered _de rigeur_ as long
as he was anywhere at all near the regions of Africa, gazed towards the
shore through a pair of field-glasses. At intervals he made known such
objects of interest as he observed, in loud husky asides to his wife, a
small meek woman, who clung to him, metaphorically speaking, as the ivy
to the oak. Her vision being unaided by field-glasses, she was unable to
follow his observations with the degree of intelligence he demanded.
"I don't think I quite--" she remarked anxiously now and again, blinking
in the same direction as her spouse.
"To the left, my dear, among the trees," he would reply. Or, "Half-way up
the street. _Now_ don't you see?" Or, removing the field-glasses for a
moment to observe the direction of her anxious blinking, "Why, bless my
soul, you aren't looking the right way _at all_. Get it in a line with
that chimney over there, and the yellow house. The _yellow_ house. You're
looking straight at the pink one. Bless my soul, tut, tut." And so
forth.
A small boy, leaning far over the side of the boat, gazed rapturously
into the water, announcing in shrill tones that he could see to the very
bottom, an anxious elder sister grasping the back of his jersey
meanwhile. A girl with a pigtail jumped about in a manner calculated to
bring an abrupt and watery conclusion to the passage, till forcibly
restrained by her melancholy-looking father. A young man announced that
it was going to be, "Deuced hot on shore, what?" And a gushing young
thing of some forty summers appealed to everyone at intervals to know the
hour to the very second it would be necessary to return, since it really
would be a sin to keep the ship waiting. While the remarks from an
elderly and cynical gentleman, that, in the event of unpunctuality on her
part, it would be more probable that she would find herself waiting
indefinitely at Teneriffe, caused her to giggle hysterically, and label
him a naughty man.
"It is a matter for devout thankfulness," said the Duchessa some ten
minutes later, as she and Antony were walking across the square, "that
the _Fort Salisbury_ is large enough to permit of a certain separation
from one's fellow humans. I do not wish to be uncharitable, but their
proximity does not always appeal to me."
Antony laughed, and tossed some coppers to a small brown-faced girl, who,
clasping an infant nearly as large as herself, jabbered at him in an
unknown but wholly understandable language.
"You'll be besieged and bankrupt before you see the ship again, if you
begin that," warned the Duchessa.
"Quite possible," returned Antony smiling.
The Duchessa shook her head.
"Oh, if you are in that mood, warnings are waste of breath," she
announced.
"Quite," agreed Antony, still smiling.
He was radiantly, idiotically happy. The joy of the morning, the
brilliance of the sunshine, and the fact that the Duchessa was walking by
his side, had gone to his head like wine. If the expenditure of coppers
could impart one tenth of his happiness to others, he would fling them
broadcast, he would be a very spendthrift with his gladness.
At the church to the left of the square, the Duchessa paused.
"In here first," she said. And Antony followed her up the steps.
They made their way through a swarm of grubby children, and entered the
porch. It was cool and dark in the church in contrast to the heat and
sunshine without. Here and there Antony descried a kneeling
figure,--women with handkerchiefs on their heads, and a big basket beside
them; an old man or two; a girl telling her beads before the Lady Altar;
and a small dark-haired child, who gazed stolidly at the Duchessa. Votive
candles burned before the various shrines. The ruby lamp made a spot of
light in the shadows above the High Altar.
The Duchessa dropped on one knee, and then knelt for a few moments at one
of the _prie-dieux_. Antony watched her. He was sensible that she was not
a mere sight-seer. The church held an element of home for her. Two of the
passengers--the young man and the cynical elderly gentleman, who had been
in the boat with them--strolled in behind him. They gazed curiously
about, remarking in loudish whispers on what they saw. Antony felt
suddenly, and quite unreasonably, annoyed at their entry. Somehow they
detracted from the harmony and peace of the building.
"I didn't know you were a Catholic," he said five minutes later, as he
and the Duchessa emerged once more into the sunlight.
"You never asked me," she returned smiling.
"No," agreed Antony. And then he added simply, as an afterthought, "it
didn't occur to me to ask you."
"It wouldn't," responded the Duchessa, a little twinkle in her eyes.
"No," agreed Antony again. "I wish those people hadn't come in," he added
somewhat irrelevantly.
"What people?" demanded the Duchessa. "Oh, you mean those two men. Why
not? Most tourists visit the church."
"I dare say," returned Antony. "But--well, they didn't belong."
"No?" queried the Duchessa innocently.
Antony reddened.
"You mean I didn't," he said a little stiffly.
"Ah, forgive me." The Duchessa's voice held a note of quick contrition.
"I didn't mean to hurt you. Somehow we Catholics get used to Protestants
regarding our churches merely as a sight to be seen, and for the moment I
smiled to think that _you_ should be the one whom it irritated. But I do
know what you mean, of course. And--I'm _glad_ you felt it."
"Thank you," he returned smiling.
The little cloud, which had momentarily dimmed the brightness of his sun,
was dispelled. The merest inflection in the Duchessa's voice had the
power of casting him down to depths of heart-searching despair, or
lifting him to realms of intoxicating joy. And it must be confessed that
the past fortnight had been spent almost continuously in these realms.
Also, if he had sunk to the depths of despair, it was rather by reason of
an ultra-sensitive imagination on his own part than by any fault of the
Duchessa's. But then, as Antony would have declared, the position of a
subject to his sovereign is a very different matter from the position of
the sovereign to the subject. The Duchessa could be certain of his
loyalty. It was for her to give or withhold favours as it pleased her. It
was a different matter for him.
It is not easy for a man, who has lived a very lonely life, to believe in
a reciprocal friendship where he himself is concerned. A curious
admixture of shyness and diffidence, the outcome of his lonely life,
prevented him from imagining that the Duchessa could desire his
friendship in the smallest degree as he desired hers. To him, the
friendship she had accorded him had become the most vital thing in his
existence, quite apart from that vague and intoxicating dream, which he
scarcely dared to confess in the faintest whisper to his heart. He knew
that her friendship appeared essential to his very life. But how could he
for one moment imagine that his friendship was essential to her? It could
not be, though he would cheerfully have laid down his life for her, have
undergone torture for her sake.
Knowing, therefore, that his friendship was not essential to her
happiness, yet knowing what her friendship meant to him, he was as
ultra-sensitive as a lonely child. His soul sprang forward to receive her
gifts, but the merest imagined hint of a rebuff would have sent him back
to that loneliness he had learned to look upon as his birthright. Not
that he would have gone back to that loneliness with a hurt sense of
injury. That must be clearly understood to understand Antony. To have
felt injury, would have been tantamount to saying that he had had a right
to the friendship, and it was just this very right that Antony could not
realize as in the least existent. He would have gone back with an ache,
it is true, but with a brave face, and an overwhelming and life-long
gratitude for the temporary joy. That is at the present moment; of later,
one cannot feel so certain.
To-day, however, loneliness seemed a thing unthinkable, unimaginable,
with the Duchessa by his side, and the golden day ahead of him. By
skilled manoeuvring, and avoiding the recognized hours of meal-time, they
managed to escape further contact with their fellow passengers.
An exceedingly late luncheon hour found them the sole occupants of a
small courtyard at the back of an hotel,--a courtyard set with round
tables, and orange trees in green tubs. Over the roofs of the houses, and
far below them, they could see the shining water, and the _Fort
Salisbury_, lying like a dark blob on its surface. Boats bearing coal
were still putting out to her, and men were busy hauling it over her
sides.
The Duchessa looked down on the ship and the water.
"It is queer to think," said she smiling, "that little more than a week
hence, I shall be in Scotland, and, probably, shivering in furs. It can
be exceedingly chilly up there, even as late as May."
"I thought you were going to your old home," said Antony.
"So I am," she replied, "but not till nearly the end of June. I am going
to stay with friends in Edinburgh first. Where are you going?"
Antony lifted his shoulders in the merest suspicion of a shrug.
"London first," he responded. "After that--well, it's on the knees of the
gods."
"Are you likely to stay in England long?" she asked. And then she added
quickly, "You don't think the question an impertinence, I hope."
"Why should I?" he answered smiling. "But I really don't know yet myself.
It will depend on various things."
There was a little silence.
"In any case, I shall see you before I leave England again, if I may," he
said. "That is, if I do leave."
The Duchessa was still looking at the water.
"I hope you will," she replied. And then she turned towards him. "I don't
want our friendship to end completely with the voyage."
Antony's heart gave a little leap.
"It--it really is a friendship?" he asked.
"Hasn't it been?" she asked him.
Antony looked at her.
"For me, yes," he replied steadily.
"Can a friendship be one-sided?" she demanded. She emphasised the word a
little.
"I don't know," said Antony whimsically. "I don't know much about them. I
haven't ever wanted one before."
Again there was a little silence. Then:
"Thank you," said the Duchessa.
Antony drew a long breath. They were such simple little words; and yet,
to him, they meant more than the longest and most flowery of speeches.
There was so infinitely more conveyed in them. And he knew that, if they
had not been meant, they would not have been spoken. She did think his
friendship worth while, and she had given him hers. It was all his heart
dared ask at the moment, yet, deep within it, his secret hope stirred to
fuller life. And then, suddenly, prompted by some instinct, quite
unexplainable at the moment, he put a question.
"What is the foundation of friendship?" he asked.
"Trust," she responded quickly, her eyes meeting his for a moment. "And
here," she said, looking towards the hotel, "comes our lunch."
It was sunset before the _Fort Salisbury_ was once more cleaving her way
through the water. Antony, from her decks, looked once more at the
receding land. Again he saw it rising, like a purple amethyst, from the
sea, but this time it was veiled in the rose-coloured light of the
sinking sun. He looked towards that portion of the amethyst where the
little courtyard with the orange trees in green tubs was situated.
Once more he heard his question and the Duchessa's answer. It was a
memory which was to remain with him for many a month.