WAS it an escapade, I wonder? or was it something greater and grander?
There are, I suppose, escapades good and bad; heroic and unheroic.
One evening I was tidying up Ronald’s room at Cambridge. We were both of
us in residence now: I as an M.A., while he had just entered as an
undergraduate. He was as studiously untidy as I was the reverse, and,
but for me, his room, artistic as it was, would always have looked like a
boudoir that had been used over-night for a tap-room. Pipes, tobacco,
and matches met the eye everywhere, scattered among vases of flowers and
ferns; no two sheets of the _Times_ were together in one place; “Esmond”
lay cheek by jowl with “Tom Jones” (the former, I was glad to see, the
better worn), while there was more than a suspicion that his surplice was
in use as a bed for a litter of kittens.
Ronald himself lay at his ease upon the sofa, watching—I cannot say with
interest, but at any rate without prejudice—my improvements for the
worse. But I roused him at last. In replacing a small box of Italian
olive wood I knocked off the lid, and an aggregation of articles
unimaginable were scattered on the floor.
“Hullo! stop that, old man,” he said. “You’ll be losing or breaking some
of my most cherished possessions.”
“What on earth are they, Ronald? Here’s a small crucifix and a missal
(you haven’t turned Roman Catholic, have you?) and any amount of
rings—most of them brass—and, by Jove, a lock of hair! Is the last a
love token? It looks uncommonly like the relic of another escapade. Did
it belong to the girl who played the harmonium on the beach at Bayview?
I didn’t know you’d got so far as that. Besides, her hair was light, if
I remember. Out with it, old man, and clear your conscience by
confession.”
“Have done with your jokes, Fred; you’re the last fellow to chaff like
that if you knew the rights of it. And, if I must tell you, I must. But
I didn’t want you to know of the matter; it looks too much like boasting.
However, you find out everything I do; so I may as well tell you all
about this, before you hunt it up for yourself in some underhand way, or
make a tale out of it that isn’t the true one. You know Richards, Fred;
the man my uncle made me travel with last autumn—to see the world, as he
called it. I never liked the fellow, and always thought him a cad; but I
didn’t know till then that he was a coward as well as a cad.”
“I always thought him both,” was my reply.
“Taormina in Sicily was one of the places we stopped at: the loveliest
spot that you could dream of, if you dreamed your hardest. You’ve never
been there, have you? Well: the town itself is a fair day’s walk up hill
from the sea, and Mola’s another day’s walk above that; by which time
you’ve nearly reached the clouds—only, as it happens, Sicily doesn’t
boast of any. But you needn’t go higher than Taormina for the loveliest
view on earth. They may talk of seeing Madrid, Seville, Naples, and a
hundred other places, and then dying contented—why, there’s none of them
that’s a patch on Taormina. Sit down in the proscenium of the old
theatre, facing Etna, with the Straits of Messina and the foot of Italy
laid out like a map on your left: and you can do without another view for
the rest of your natural life. The only objection we found to it was
that in September of last year it was most awfully hot, and Taormina is
pestiferous enough to be a Turkish settlement. It is worse, I think,
than the old town of Granada, which is perhaps the filthiest place that I
know in Europe. The cholera, too, was about last year, especially in
Italy; and, if it _did_ cross the Straits, Taormina was ripe and handy
for it.
“After we’d been there for a week or so it _did_ come with a vengeance.
First a suspicious case or two, then a case that was not suspicious at
all, and then it fell like a thunderbolt on the town. Richards was off
directly, and with him everyone in the place who could afford to go; so
the poorer people, with their old priest, who stuck to his work like a
man, had it all to themselves.
“Now it looks like boasting, but I didn’t like to run. Besides, I had
come there for a fortnight, and I was fond of the place and the view and
the old theatre—so why go? Anyhow I didn’t budge, and did what I could
to help the old man in his difficulty—it was little enough. However, I
had heaps of money, and they wanted that more than anything. And he
taught me something about medicine—what little he knew of it; though,
after all, nothing but stimulants at one stage and opium at another
seemed to do them the slightest good.
“What a time it was! I pray that I may never stand face to face with
cholera again. Overhead, a sky like brass, and, veiling the town, a
dusky, steel-blue haze, almost as palpable as gauze: the distinctive
colour (I’ve been told) of a cholera atmosphere. They died like flies,
crowded in their close, evil-smelling dwellings, though we lighted fires
in the streets to clear the air; an idea I borrowed, I believe, from ‘Old
St. Paul’s.’
“Late one evening I hurried from a sick room to get a breath of air in
the theatre below. My friend, the old priest, was there before me. This
was an unusual coincidence, as he scarcely ever gave himself a moment’s
rest. Yet he might have done so now, for in ten days’ time the disease
abated as rapidly as it had begun. And besides, he had organised a band
of fairly efficient helpers.
“‘Good evening, signor,’ he said. ‘You see me in my church; for I find
in it the same relief that my brethren in the cities find within the
walls of a cathedral. To me it would seem a poor exchange—for what
cathedral built by man could match this view?’ As he spoke he pointed
through the ruined arches to where Etna towered in the distance. Surely
the noblest drop-scene ever fashioned by the hand of nature, and not
unworthily framed by the artist who had designed the theatre. Between
the ruined columns on the left a steamer, environed by a little group of
feluccas, made a series of dissolving views as it overtook and passed
them on the sea below. But I saw he had some trouble on his mind over
and above his care for his patients.
“‘Take courage, padre mio. The worst is over. That shroud of steel-blue
mist is lifting day by day. I should like to know what causes it. I
believe if we had had the power of gauging it, its changes would have
made no bad register of the death-rate in the town.’
“‘You are right, my son; the worst _is_ past; and, thanks mainly to you,
I have been enabled to do my duty while it lasted. Without you I could
have done little. Take an old man’s thanks, signor, on behalf of those
who are left and those who are gone. Neither the one nor the other will
ever forget you, here or in the world that holds them now. Yet I could
almost wish that you had never come.’
“‘Why so?’ I asked.
“‘I wish, at any rate’ (speaking with more vehemence than his wont),
‘that you had not brought with you that false-hearted friend of yours.’
“‘You mean Richards. Yes, he is a coward to run away like that.’
“‘Worse, far worse. You know little Ninetta well, who lives at your
lodgings up the hill—the prettiest girl in Taormina they call her, and I
fancy they are right. She is down with the cholera—didn’t you know it?
Taken this morning, and, unless I am wrong in my judgment, it is one of
the worst cases we have had—hopeless, I should say, from the very first.’
“‘Poor little Ninetta! It does seem hard; taken, too, just when the
disease was dying out. But what has Richards to do with it?’
“‘The confessional is sacred, my friend. But it may be that, in this one
case, the cholera has struck in kindliness. Though I am sorry he should
be away when he might have made her end more peaceful. Even when I left
her to come and find you, she was perpetually calling for him. Put her
off with excuses; it won’t be for long. Don’t let her think him a coward
as well as a villain. If you weren’t a heretic, I would absolve you
beforehand for any necessary evasion.’
“‘You may be sure I’ll do my best. The evasions won’t lie heavy upon my
conscience. Goodnight.’
“There was no hope for her, as he had said. During the early stage of
her illness she was always asking for him—wondering why he stayed
away—for I obeyed the priest’s injunctions, and never told her he’d been
coward enough to run. As she got worse, she began to wander, and, from
having seen us so often together, she would confuse him with me; and, at
the last, was perfectly happy so long as I was with her; calling me by
his name, and thanking him, as she imagined, for all his care and
kindness to her. The lock of hair that puzzled you is hers. She gave it
to me just before she died (she had nothing else to give, poor girl) in
the belief she was giving it to Richards. And then, quite quietly, still
in the belief that he was with her, and that it was his hand and not mine
that she was holding, she died.
“There you have the story, Fred, such as it is. All the other things
were given me by the villagers—the few of them, that is, who lived—all
except the missal, which came from my old friend the priest. It was his
most cherished possession; given, I believe, in the hope of converting
me. Well, if conversion would make me another such as he was, I wouldn’t
say no to it.
“Shall I ever see him again, I wonder? Some day, Fred, you and I will go
and hunt him up.”