We four formed (to use a term well understood nowadays in every social
sphere) a “syndicate” owning the _Tremolino_: an international and
astonishing syndicate. And we were all ardent Royalists of the
snow-white Legitimist complexion—Heaven only knows why! In all
associations of men there is generally one who, by the authority of age
and of a more experienced wisdom, imparts a collective character to the
whole set. If I mention that the oldest of us was very old, extremely
old—nearly thirty years old—and that he used to declare with gallant
carelessness, “I live by my sword,” I think I have given enough
information on the score of our collective wisdom. He was a North
Carolinian gentleman, J. M. K. B. were the initials of his name, and he
really did live by the sword, as far as I know. He died by it, too,
later on, in a Balkanian squabble, in the cause of some Serbs or else
Bulgarians, who were neither Catholics nor gentlemen—at least, not in the
exalted but narrow sense he attached to that last word.
Poor J. M. K. B., _Américain_, _Catholique_, _et gentilhomme_, as he was
disposed to describe himself in moments of lofty expansion! Are there
still to be found in Europe gentlemen keen of face and elegantly slight
of body, of distinguished aspect, with a fascinating drawing-room manner
and with a dark, fatal glance, who live by their swords, I wonder? His
family had been ruined in the Civil War, I fancy, and seems for a decade
or so to have led a wandering life in the Old World. As to Henry C—, the
next in age and wisdom of our band, he had broken loose from the
unyielding rigidity of his family, solidly rooted, if I remember rightly,
in a well-to-do London suburb. On their respectable authority he
introduced himself meekly to strangers as a “black sheep.” I have never
seen a more guileless specimen of an outcast. Never.
However, his people had the grace to send him a little money now and
then. Enamoured of the South, of Provence, of its people, its life, its
sunshine and its poetry, narrow-chested, tall and short-sighted, he
strode along the streets and the lanes, his long feet projecting far in
advance of his body, and his white nose and gingery moustache buried in
an open book: for he had the habit of reading as he walked. How he
avoided falling into precipices, off the quays, or down staircases is a
great mystery. The sides of his overcoat bulged out with pocket editions
of various poets. When not engaged in reading Virgil, Homer, or Mistral,
in parks, restaurants, streets, and suchlike public places, he indited
sonnets (in French) to the eyes, ears, chin, hair, and other visible
perfections of a nymph called Thérèse, the daughter, honesty compels me
to state, of a certain Madame Leonore who kept a small café for sailors
in one of the narrowest streets of the old town.
No more charming face, clear-cut like an antique gem, and delicate in
colouring like the petal of a flower, had ever been set on, alas! a
somewhat squat body. He read his verses aloud to her in the very café
with the innocence of a little child and the vanity of a poet. We
followed him there willingly enough, if only to watch the divine Thérèse
laugh, under the vigilant black eyes of Madame Leonore, her mother. She
laughed very prettily, not so much at the sonnets, which she could not
but esteem, as at poor Henry’s French accent, which was unique,
resembling the warbling of birds, if birds ever warbled with a
stuttering, nasal intonation.
Our third partner was Roger P. de la S—, the most Scandinavian-looking of
Provençal squires, fair, and six feet high, as became a descendant of
sea-roving Northmen, authoritative, incisive, wittily scornful, with a
comedy in three acts in his pocket, and in his breast a heart blighted by
a hopeless passion for his beautiful cousin, married to a wealthy hide
and tallow merchant. He used to take us to lunch at their house without
ceremony. I admired the good lady’s sweet patience. The husband was a
conciliatory soul, with a great fund of resignation, which he expended on
“Roger’s friends.” I suspect he was secretly horrified at these
invasions. But it was a Carlist salon, and as such we were made welcome.
The possibility of raising Catalonia in the interest of the _Rey netto_,
who had just then crossed the Pyrenees, was much discussed there.
Don Carlos, no doubt, must have had many queer friends (it is the common
lot of all Pretenders), but amongst them none more extravagantly
fantastic than the _Tremolino_ Syndicate, which used to meet in a tavern
on the quays of the old port. The antique city of Massilia had surely
never, since the days of the earliest Phoenicians, known an odder set of
ship-owners. We met to discuss and settle the plan of operations for
each voyage of the _Tremolino_. In these operations a banking-house,
too, was concerned—a very respectable banking-house. But I am afraid I
shall end by saying too much. Ladies, too, were concerned (I am really
afraid I am saying too much)—all sorts of ladies, some old enough to know
better than to put their trust in princes, others young and full of
illusions.
One of these last was extremely amusing in the imitations, she gave us in
confidence, of various highly-placed personages she was perpetually
rushing off to Paris to interview in the interests of the cause—_Por el
Rey_! For she was a Carlist, and of Basque blood at that, with something
of a lioness in the expression of her courageous face (especially when
she let her hair down), and with the volatile little soul of a sparrow
dressed in fine Parisian feathers, which had the trick of coming off
disconcertingly at unexpected moments.
But her imitations of a Parisian personage, very highly placed indeed, as
she represented him standing in the corner of a room with his face to the
wall, rubbing the back of his head and moaning helplessly, “Rita, you are
the death of me!” were enough to make one (if young and free from cares)
split one’s sides laughing. She had an uncle still living, a very
effective Carlist, too, the priest of a little mountain parish in
Guipuzcoa. As the sea-going member of the syndicate (whose plans
depended greatly on Doña Rita’s information), I used to be charged with
humbly affectionate messages for the old man. These messages I was
supposed to deliver to the Arragonese muleteers (who were sure to await
at certain times the _Tremolino_ in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of
Rosas), for faithful transportation inland, together with the various
unlawful goods landed secretly from under the _Tremolino’s_ hatches.
Well, now, I have really let out too much (as I feared I should in the
end) as to the usual contents of my sea-cradle. But let it stand. And
if anybody remarks cynically that I must have been a promising infant in
those days, let that stand, too. I am concerned but for the good name of
the _Tremolino_, and I affirm that a ship is ever guiltless of the sins,
transgressions, and follies of her men.