Measure thy life by loss instead of gain,
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth.
"MY DEAR MISS CHALLONER,--I learn that you are in Barcelona, and at the
same time I find with some indignation that my lawyer in Mallorca, with
a deplorable excess of zeal, has been acting without my orders in
respect to the property of the Val d'Erraha. I hasten to place myself
and possessions at your disposition, and take the liberty of writing to
request an interview, instead of calling on you at your hotel, for
reasons which you will readily understand, knowing as you do the
gossiping ways of hotels. As an old friend of your father's, and one
who moved and lived in neighbourly intercourse with him before your
birth, and before the deplorable death of your mother, I now waive
ceremony, and beg that you and your uncle will come and take tea with
me this afternoon at my humble abode in the 'Calle de la Paz.'--Believe
me, dear Miss Challoner, yours very sincerely,
"CIPRIANI DE LLOSETA DE MALLORCA."
Eve read this letter in her room in the Hotel of the Four Nations at
Barcelona. She had only been on the mainland twenty-four hours when it
was delivered to her by a servant of the Count's, who came to her
apartment and delivered it into her own hands, as is the custom of
Spanish servants.
Eve Challoner had grown older during the last few days. She had been
brought face to face with life as it really is, and not as we dream it
in the dreams of youth. She was not surprised to receive this letter,
although she had no idea that the Count de Lloseta was in Spain. But
the varying emotions of the last week had, as it were, undermined the
confident hopefulness with which we look forward when we are young, and
sometimes when we are old, to the management of our own lives here
below. She was beginning to understand certain terms which she had
heard applied to human existence, and to which she had hitherto
attached no special meaning as relating to herself. More especially
did she understand at this time that life may be compared to a stream,
for she was vaguely conscious of drifting she knew not whither.
Fitz had come suddenly into her life; Captain Bontnor had come into it;
and now this man, Cipriani de Lloseta, seemed to be asserting his right
to come into it too. And she did not know quite what to do with them
all. She had never, in the quiet, dreamy days of her youth, pictured a
life with any of these men in it, and the future was suddenly
tremendous, unfathomable. There were vast possibilities in it of
misery, of danger, of difficulty; and behind these a vague, new feeling
of a possible happiness far exceeding the happiness of her peaceful
childhood.
Without consulting her uncle, who had gone out into the street to walk
backwards and forwards before the door, as he had walked backwards and
forwards on his deck for forty years, she sat down and accepted the
Count's informal invitation. She seemed to do it without reflection,
as if impelled thereto by something stronger than pro or con, as if
acknowledging the Spaniard's right to come into her life, bringing to
bear upon it an influence which she never attempted to fathom.
Thus it came about that Eve and Captain Bontnor found themselves
awaiting their host in the massive, gloomy drawing-room of the Palace
in the Calle de la Paz at five o'clock that afternoon.
Captain Bontnor had learnt a great deal during the last few days; among
other things he had learnt to love his niece with a simple, dog-like
devotion, which had a vein of pathos in it for those who see such
things. He placed himself well behind Eve, and looked around him with
a wondering awe.
"I think, my dear," he said, "that it would have been better if you had
come alone. I--you know I am getting too old to learn manners
now--eh--he! he! Yes. Having been so long at sea, you know."
"I think the sea teaches men manners, uncle," said Eve, with a little
smile which he did not understand. "At any rate," she went on,
touching his rough sleeve affectionately, "it teaches them something
that I like."
"Does it, now? What, now? Tell me."
"I do not know," answered the girl, as if speaking to herself, and at
this moment the door was opened. The man who came in was of medium
height, with a long, narrow face, and singularly patient eyes.
"I should have known you," he said, approaching Eve, and holding out
his hand. "You do not remember your mother? I do, however. You are
like her--and she was a good woman. And this is Captain Bontnor--your
uncle."
He shook hands with the old sailor without the faintest flicker of
surprise at his somewhat incongruous appearance.
"I am glad," he said suavely, "to make Captain Bontnor's acquaintance."
He turned to draw forward a chair, and the light from the high, barred
window falling full on his head, betrayed the fact that his hair, close
cut as an English soldier's, was touched and flecked with grey. His
lithe youthfulness of frame rather surprised Eve, who knew him to be a
contemporary of her father's.
"It is very good of you to come," he went on in a low voice. "I took
the privilege of the elder generation, you see! Captain, pray take
that chair."
He did the honours with a British ease of manner, strangely touched by
a Spanish dignity.
"When I heard of your great bereavement," he said, turning to Eve with
a grave bow, "I ought perhaps to have gone to Mallorca at once to offer
you what poor assistance was in my power. But circumstances, over
which I had no control, prevented my doing so. My offer of help is
tardy, I know, but it is none the less sincere."
"Thank you," replied Eve, conscious of a feeling of pleasant reliance
in this new-found ally. "But I have good friends--the Padre Fortis, my
uncle, and--a friend of ours, Mr. FitzHenry."
"Of the Kittiwake--at Mahon?"
"Yes."
"I have the pleasure of knowing Mr. FitzHenry," murmured the Count.
"Now," he said, with a sudden smile which took her by surprise by
reason of the alteration it made in the whole man, "will you do me a
great favour?"
"I should like to," answered Eve, with some hesitation.
"And you?" said the Count, turning to Captain Bontnor.
"Oh yes," replied that sailor bluntly, "if it's possible."
"I want you," continued the Count de Lloseta, "to forget that this is
the first time we meet, and to look upon me as a friend--one of the
most intimate--of your father."
"My father," said the girl, "always spoke of you as such."
"Indeed, I am glad of that. Now, tell me, who have you in the world
besides Captain Bontnor?"
"I have no one. But--"
"We was thinking," put in the Captain, in ungrammatical haste, "that
Eve would come and live with me. It isn't a grand house--just a little
cottage. But such as it is, she'll have a kindly welcome."
"And, I have no doubt, a happy home", added the Count, with one of his
dark smiles. "I was merely wondering whether Miss Challoner intended
to live in the Casa d'Erraha or to let it?"'
Eve looked up in surprise, and Captain Bontnor's blue eyes wandered
from her face to the dark and courteous countenance of Cipriani de
Lloseta.
"Perhaps," continued the Spaniard imperturbably, "you have not yet made
up your mind on the subject."
"But the Casa d'Erraha does not belong to me," said Eve, and Captain
Bontnor wagged his head in confirmation. "Your own lawyer explained to
me that my father only held it on 'rotas.'"
"My own lawyer, my dear young lady, thereby proved himself an ass."
"But," said Eve, somewhat mystified, "the Val d'Erraha belongs to you,
and you must know it. I have no title-deeds--I have nothing."
"Except possession, which is nine points of the law. Will you take
tea, and cream? I do not know how many points the law has, but one
would naturally conclude that nine is a large proportion of the whole."
While he spoke he was pouring out the tea. He handed a cup to her with
a grave smile, as if the matter under discussion were one of a small
and passing importance.
"I suppose," he added, "you have learnt to love the Casa d'Erraha. It
is a place--a place one might easily become attached to. Do you
know"--he turned his back to her, busying himself with the silver
teapot--"Lloseta?" he added jerkily.
"Yes. My father and I used to go there very often."
"Ah--" He waited--handing Captain Bontnor a cup of tea in silence. But
Eve was not thinking of Lloseta; she was thinking of the Casa d'Erraha.
"My father did not speak to me of his affairs," she said. "He was
naturally rather reserved, and--and it was very sudden."
"Yes. So I learnt. That indeed is my excuse for intruding myself upon
your notice at this time. I surmised that my poor friend's affairs had
been left in some confusion. He was too thorough a gentleman to be
competent in affairs. I thought that perhaps my small influence and my
diminutive knowledge of Majorcan law--the Roman law, in point of
fact--might be of some use to you."
"Thank you," she answered; "I think we settled everything before we
left the island, although we did not see Senor Pena, your lawyer.
I--the Casa d'Erraha belongs to you!" she added, suddenly descending to
feminine reiteration.
"Prove it," said the Count quietly.
"I cannot do that."
He shrugged his shoulders with a smile.
"Then," he said, "I am afraid you cannot shift your responsibility to
my shoulders."
The girl looked at him with puzzled young eyes. He stood before her,
dignified, eminently worthy of the great name he bore--a solitary,
dark-eyed, inscrutable man, whose whole being subtly suggested
hopelessness and an empty life. She shook her head.
"But I cannot accept the Casa d'Erraha on those terms."
The Count drew forward a chair and sat down.
"Listen," he said, with an explanatory forefinger upheld. "Three
generations ago two men made a verbal agreement in respect to the
estate of the Val d'Erraha. To-day no one knows what that agreement
was. It may have been the ordinary 'rotas' of Minorca. It may not. In
those days the English held Minorca; my ancestor may therefore have
been indebted to your great-grandfather, for we have some small estates
in Minorca. You know what the islands are to-day. They are two
hundred years behind Northern Europe. What must they have been a
hundred and twenty years ago? We have no means of finding out what
passed between your great-grandfather and my grandfather. We only know
that three generations of Challoners have lived in the Casa d'Erraha,
paying to the Counts of Lloseta a certain proportion of the product of
the estate. I do not mind telling you that the smallness of that
proportion does away with the argument that the agreement was the
ordinary 'rotas' of the Baleares. We know nothing--we can prove
nothing. If you claimed the estate I might possibly wrest it from
you--not by proof, but merely because the insular prejudice against a
foreigner would militate against you in a Majorcan court of law. I
cannot legally force you to hold the estate of the Val d'Erraha. I can
only ask you as the daughter of one of my best friends to accept the
benefit of a very small doubt."
Eve hesitated. What woman would not?
Captain Bontnor set down his cup very gravely on the table.
"I don't rightly understand," he said sturdily, "this 'rotas' business.
But it seems to me pretty plain that the estate never belonged to my
late brother-in-law. Now what I say is, if the place belongs by right
to Miss Challoner she'll take it. If it don't; well, then it don't,
and she can't accept it as a present from anybody. Much obliged to you
all the same."
The Count laughed pleasantly.
"My dear sir, it is not a present."
The Captain stuffed his hands very deeply into his pockets.
"Then it's worse--it's charity. And she has no need of that. Thank ye
all the same," he replied.
He stared straight in front of him with a vague and rather painful
suggestion of incapability that sometimes came over him. He was
wondering whether he was doing right in this matter.
"If," he added, half to himself, as a sort of afterthought on the
crying question of ways and means--"if it comes to that, I can go to
sea again. There's plenty would be ready to give me a ship."
The Count was still smiling.
"There is no question," he said, "of charity. What has Miss Challoner
done that I should offer her that? I am in ignorance as to her
affairs. I do not know the extent of her income."
"As far as we can make out," said Eve gently, "there is nothing. But I
can work. I thought that my knowledge of Spanish might enable me to
make a living."
"No," said Captain Bontnor, "I'm d--- I mean I should not like you to
go governessing, my dear."
The Count was apparently reflecting.
"I have a compromise to propose," he said, addressing himself to Eve.
"If we place the property in the hands of a third person--you know the
value of land in Majorca--to farm and tend; if at the end of each year
the profits be divided between us?"
But Eve's suspicions were aroused, and her woman's instinct took her
further than did Captain Bontnor's sturdy sense of right and wrong.
"I am afraid," she said, rising from her chair, "that I must refuse.
I--I think I understand why papa always spoke of you as he did. I am
very grateful to you. I know now that you have been trying to give me
D'Erraha. It was a generous thing to do--a most generous thing. I
think people would hardly believe me if I told them. I can only thank
you; for I have no possible means of proving to you how deeply I feel
it. Somehow"--she paused, with tears and a sad little smile in her
eyes--"somehow it is not the gift that I appreciate so much as--as your
way of trying to give it."
The Spaniard spread out his two hands in deprecation.
"My child," he murmured gently, "I have not another word to say."