Bobby's attack of jaundice was soon over. After that glimpse of his
father, so gentle and so very kind--kinder than Bobby had ever known
him--the boy began to recover with the quick resilience of childhood. By
the following Monday he was quite fit to travel, Camenis said.
Physically, Chesney was much better also. Camenis had succeeded in
routing the sciatica. A strong tonic had somewhat restored his appetite.
Altogether, he felt more fit than he had believed possible under the
circumstances. At first, Camenis had wanted him to take hot hip-baths
mixed with sea-salt. But here Chesney rebelled. He loathed hot baths. He
demanded either a quick, cold tub in the morning, or else his usual swim
in the lake. Camenis and he tussled for some hours over this question.
Finally, it was agreed by the physician that as this September was such
an unusually warm one, Chesney might have a very short swim during the
hottest hours of the morning; then, after drying himself, lie and bake
in the sun on the scorching pebbles of the shore. Late in the season as
it was, he acquired the most beautifully toned mahogany-brown back and
chest by this method. He was boyishly proud of this splendid tanning.
"The old boy'll think he's got a nigger-chief to monkey with, this time.
Eh--what?" he asked Sophy, turning about before her in his short
bathing-trunks that she might see the full glory of his sunburnt torso.
She smiled approval, saying that to her he looked more like a
well-roasted turkey than a "nigger." And she thought what a boy the big
man was, at heart. It seemed pathetic and strange and very nice to her,
all at the same time, that he could take such pleasure in such a thing,
after all that had passed and was to come.
Sunday evening she spent in having the last things packed away. The
dismantled villa looked the picture of sordid cheerlessness, when
stripped of all the little touches she had given it. They dined by one,
virulent jet of acetylene gas, blazing in an iron loop from the middle
of the ceiling.
"By George, this _is_ funereal!" Chesney could not refrain from
exclaiming. "Two more meals like this--is it? Well, they'll give me
melancholia."
"We needn't have two more," Sophy consoled him. "I've thought it out
already. To-morrow morning we can breakfast on the terrace. Then we can
go to the Hotel Ghiffa for luncheon. Our boat doesn't leave until
three."
He looked at her with cordial appreciation.
"Clever girl--so we can!" he said. "But, I say"--his face fell--"what
about my swim and sun-bath? That would cut me short--lunching at Ghiffa,
I mean."
"But there's a capital bathing-shore at the hotel," she reminded him.
"You can have your swim there while they prepare luncheon."
About eleven o'clock next morning they sauntered together along the
white high-road to Ghiffa.
"You will have a glorious swim...." Sophy said, looking at the lake that
drowsed under the faint breath of a listless Tramontana.
"Those sleek, snaky trails on the water mean rain, they tell me,"
answered Chesney. "I'm in luck to have a sunny day for my last swim."
"Yes," she assented dreamily. "Rain isn't becoming to Italy. She's like
a beautiful woman who doesn't know how to cry."
"Sophy! How feminine! Do _you_ know 'how to cry,' pray?"
"No. I haven't the knack at all." She laughed a little. "I make horrid
faces.... I can feel myself making them."
"Poor lass!" he said in his abrupt way, suddenly gripped by this idea of
her grimacing under sorrow. He had given her such a lot of it--by
George! He grasped her hand with a quick gesture, and frown of pain,
drawing it through his arm.
"It's to be a clean slate, my girl," he said, looking down at her.
He felt the slight fingers pinch into his arm.
"_Yes_," she said. "Yes, Cecil." But she looked in front of her face
gave him another pang. He was glad that gether, as though the dazzle of
the white road and clouds and walls along the way, hurt her eyes.
Chesney fought off a great fog of depression that seemed suddenly to
settle down on him.
"'Cheerly! Cheerly!'" he cried, putting a bluff note into his voice that
he was far from feeling. "What's it the old chap in _The Tempest_
says?--'Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!' That's the
'barbaric yawp' for us, Sophy--eh? Don't you feel it so?"
"Yes.... I do.... I do, Cecil," she responded eagerly. Her grey eyes
looked up at him now. The bright bravery of her face gave him another
pang. He was glad that their next step brought them to the little Hotel
Ghiffa. Sophy ran up to see how Bobby was faring, in the rooms that she
had taken till the hour for leaving. She found him clamouring to go down
and "p'ay ball wiv mens" in the garden. A game of _Boccie_ was going on
there. She sent him down with Rosa to look on. Then she went out again
to find Cecil. He met her at the door of the second bedroom. When he saw
her, he stepped back into the room and signed her to come. He reached
out and shut the door behind her. His face looked strange, all pale
under its heavy coat of tan.
"Sophy," he said, "don't think me a sentimental ass--but you've never
told me ... in so many words that ... well ... that you forgive me?"
He was gazing at her hungrily, with a look half ashamed, half
determined. She went straight to him, and put her arms around him. It
was queer how much he appealed to her as Bobby did.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that I've let you feel the need of words!" she said.
"But if you want them I'll say them over and over----"
"No...." he stopped her; "I don't want them ... now. Will you...?" His
arms held her painfully close. She turned her face to him and he kissed
her--almost shyly. Her eyes stung. She put up her hand and pressed his
cheek to hers....
"Now I'll go order our luncheon," she said gaily. But he knew well that
there was no gaiety in her heart. And as he got out his bathing trunks,
and took his bath-sheet on his arm, lines from Verhaeren began again to
haunt him:
"_Je m'habille des logues de mes jours
Et le baton de mon orgeuil il plie,
Mes pieds dites commie ils sont lourds
De me porter, de me trainer toujours
Au long le siecle de ma vie_...."
Down to the sparkling hem of the lake the sombre voice accompanied him.
He stood in a sort of muse, his bare feet wincing from the hot pebbles;
then, letting the ripples lave them, he went on musing. And in a sort of
dark flare the joyous scene vanished, and he saw smoke-blurred, autumnal
London gape before him. Here, too, Verhaeren whispered with gloomy
sympathy:
"_Gares de suie et de fumee ou du gaz pleure
Ses spleens d'argent lointain vers des chemins d'eclair,
Ou des betes d'ennui baillent a l'heure
Dolente immensement qui tente Westminster._"
He had a flash of grim amusement at the idea of "Westminster" used by
the Belgian poet to rhyme with "eclair" ... then he flung himself
forward into the glittering blue, and began to swim.... After all it was
good to be alive no matter what the odds.... Perhaps the knowledge that
this was his last swim for many months whetted his appreciation, but he
had never felt more jocund a delight in the elastic clasp and purl of
living water upon his naked flesh....
* * * * *
Sophy went out on the little terrace before the hotel to wait for his
return. She had ordered luncheon served there, and a _cameriere_ was
already throwing a fresh tablecloth over one of the iron tables. A late
tea-rose nodded from the terrace railing in the languid wind. She went
and leaned near it, watching her husband's splendid figure against the
flickering, sunlit blue, as he stood those few moments musing, before he
plunged forward for his swim. The late, wistful rose, its petals
slightly shrivelled at the edges, kept tapping softly against her hand.
She stroked it lightly with her finger tips. The Padrone bustled up.
"_Con permesso--con permesso, signora_," he smiled, unctuously affable.
And with a table-knife he detached the rose and presented it, bowing
low.
"_Grazie_," murmured Sophy. She was sorry that the poor, passee rose had
been beheaded for her, but very kindly she fastened it in her belt.
Then, leaning on the low railing, she watched the fine rhythm of Cecil's
arm, as it rose and fell, shearing the blue water. He was only a few
yards from shore. He swam in a big semi-circle. Now he was returning.
She was glad he was coming back. It seemed to her that he had been long
enough in the autumn-chilled water.... But now he seemed to have stopped
swimming. Ah, he was treading water. She felt a little vexed with him
for lingering--but then, she realised that this was to be his last free,
vigorous pleasure for so long. Still, he really should be coming back.
She stood up and called him:
"Cecil!... Do come out!"
She could see his face plainly. All at once she gave a startled
movement. He was answering her with grimaces ... frightful grimaces. She
knew his sardonic ideas of "fun," but this struck her as unnatural ...
cruel.
"Don't ... don't...." she cried to him. "You frighten me.... Come back!"
The Padrone had approached again.
"_Il signore ama scherzare_" (The gentleman likes fun), he observed,
smiling. Sophy did not hear him. Half frightened, half indignant, she
was staring at the grimacing face. All this had passed within a few
seconds. Suddenly Cecil went under---- She held her breath.
"_Che Ercole!_" (What a Hercules!), observed the Padrone admiringly.
But she was holding her breath with the man under water. It seemed to
her as though he would never come up again. Then she saw him. And still
he made those odious grimaces. But now he called something. What was it?
Her heart checked. It seemed to her that he cried "Help!" and as he
cried it, he went under the second time.
All at once the Padrone gave a howl of terror.
"_Ma! s'annega! s'annega!_" (He's drowning! He's drowning!), screamed
the man.
In an instant the terrace swarmed with shouting people. Sophy rushed
blindly for the shore. The crowd, still shouting, pressed after her. The
water for yards out was horribly smooth. No object broke its surface.
"Help! Help!" Sophy cried, strangling. She looked for men to plunge at
once into the Lake. Not one did so. A voice called: "A chair! Throw him
a chair!" She dashed knee-deep into the water. Some one dragged her
back. She was struggling with two cowards who dragged her back from that
smooth, tranquil expanse under which Cecil was suffocating. A woman
threw her arms around her, sobbing, "_Poverina! Poverina! E matta_...."
She fought wildly against the heaving, enveloping breast of this woman.
"Cowards!" she cried. The Italian word came to her, "_Vigliacchi!
Vigliacchi!_" she raged at them, beating the woman's heavy breast with
her hands. The woman let her go, but a man caught her arms from behind.
In her struggles her long hair came loose and blew back into the man's
face, blinding him. Still he grasped her stoutly, though his face was
covered with her thick hair, and her frantic movements dragged him inch
by inch towards the water that he dreaded. Now there was a chair
floating on it ... a little yellow chair that bobbed drolly with the
motion of the bright wavelets. And still people shouted, and ran to and
fro along the edge of the water, like terriers wildly excited over a
flung stick which they are afraid to plunge in and fetch. One or two had
rushed off towards Ghiffa, still shouting and gesticulating. Boats had
put out from the village. The men in the boats shouted and gesticulated
also. When they reached the spot where Chesney had gone down, they
leaned over, gazing into the water. They rowed back and forth, stopping
every now and then to gaze into the water. Suddenly there rose a cry:
"_L'e li! L'e li! Vardel!_" (There he is! See!) But no one went
overboard. It seemed to Sophy that her heart would burst her bosom. She
tried to find some terrible word that would rouse them to manhood. But
even her voice failed her. It was like trying to cry out in a nightmare.
Only a hoarse sound escaped her. Her eyes felt full of blood.
Then suddenly a figure came running, bounding. "_Dove? Dove?_" (Where?
Where?) it called as it pelted down the terrace steps.
It was Peppin, Amaldi's sailor, bare-armed and bare-legged, in blue
singlet and canvas trousers rolled to the knee.
Sophy's haggard blood-shot eyes fixed on the half-naked sailor as though
he had been God.
The little crowd on shore bristled with pointing arms. "Out there! Just
there!" they called in unison.
Sophy tried to cry "Save him!" to Peppin, but her voice only croaked
harshly in her throat.
He did not even hear her. He had thrown his whole seaman's consciousness
ahead into that clear yet impenetrable water. Even as she tried to call
to him, his body, flashing obedience to his thought, shot into the lake
with the curved bound of a dolphin. The water leaped up about him as in
applause. Here at last was a _man_.
"_Bravo, Marinaio! Bravo! Bravo!_" shrieked the craven throng.
Sophy stood still enough now. There was no need to hold her. She stood
as though her soul had gone from her and entered the body of the sailor
who was swimming strong and straight for the point where Cecil had gone
down.
The Padrone, who had seemed paralysed until now, came as suddenly to
life as Sophy had turned to stone.
"_Il dottore!_" he shouted imperiously. "_Vaa cercare il dottore!_"
Now Peppin had reached the spot about which the boats were gathered. He
trod water with head bent low, peering intently into the blue depths.
The boats hung near. The boatmen shouted more than ever. They pointed
downwards. "_L'e lit! L'e lit!_" they cried eagerly. All at once the
sailor dived. It was as if he turned a somersault in the water. His
bare, wet legs flashed up into the sunshine as he plunged.
Long seconds went by ... an eternity of minute-long seconds. Yet through
this horror of blank pause, wherein time seemed suspended ... which
might have been a day or an aeon ... Sophy stood waiting for Peppin to
bring her husband back to her. She was sure that Peppin would not come
back without him. The primordial woman in her had recognised primordial
man in the stout sailor. The feminine at its limit waited on the
completion of virility. What she could not do, Peppin was doing. So she
waited while cycles seemed to pass. She had lost her sense of time.
A sudden roar went up--from the shore, from the waiting boats. The dark
blob of Peppin's head had appeared above water. Then it was submerged
again for an instant. But now the boats were closer--arms reached out.
He was caught--sustained by those eager arms--he and his burden.
Ah!--they were trying to lift what Peppin grasped into a boat--but that
huge, flaccid body dragged the boatedge over--down--down to the very
water. A mass of clutching hands grasped here, there. Now it was half
over the edge--but the boat lay on her side. The great, naked body
glistened white like a monstrous fish in the sunlight. Now ... now ...
all together!
There was another roar. Then the sailor also was hauled aboard.... The
boat pulled for shore....