somewhere on the south coast, screened from the vulgar by the trap of a huge watering-place, is a long, thin, sandy promontory sticking out to sea, like an innocent rib of wilderness. here there is no fun of the fair, because there is no fair to provide the fun. there are no taverns, no boarding-houses, no lodgings. one exclusive little hotel rules the extreme tip of the tongue of land in consort with the miniature jetty and quay by which, in late exciting times, strange craft were moored, flying the white ensign and hoar with north sea brine and deadly secrets. the rest of the spit is peppered with a score of little shy houses, each trying to hide itself from its neighbours, in the privacy of its own sandpit. if your house is on the more desirable side of it, you can look out over the vastness of the sea with the exhilarating certainty (if your temperament may thereby be exhilarated) that there is nothing but blue water between you and the coast of africa. if your house is, less fortunately, on the other side, your view commands a spacious isle-studded harbour fringed by distant blue and mysterious hills. but it is given to any one to walk out of the back of his little hermitage, and, standing in the dividing road, to enjoy, in half a minute, both aspects at once. it is called esoterically by its frequenters “the point,” so that the profane, map-searching, may not discover its whereabouts.
just high enough to be under the lee of a sand-hill, with its front windows and veranda staring at the african coast, some thousand miles away, stood the tiniest, most fragile and most absurd of the habitations. its name was “quien sabe,” suggestive of an imaginative abandonment of search after nomenclature by the original proprietor.
“a house called ‘quien sabe’——” said alexis.
“is the house for us,” cried olivia, aglow.
they took it at once, without question. it wasn’t as if it were an uncertain sort of place, like “normanhurst,” or “sea view.” the name proclaimed frankly the certainty of venturesomeness. and alexis triona, sitting on the scrubby grass and sand, his back against the little veranda, the infinite sea and all the universe enveloped in still moonlight, laughed the laugh of deep happiness at their childish inspiration. he rolled, licked and lit the final cigarette. tobacco was good. better was this august night of velvet and diamonds. below, the little stone groin shone like onyx. the lazy surf of ebb-tide far away on the sand of a tiny bay glimmered like the foam in fairyland.
only half the man’s consciousness allowed itself to be drenched with the beauty of the night. the other half remained alert to a voice, to a summons, to something more rare and exquisite than the silver air and murmuring sea and the shine of all the stars. a few minutes before, languorous by his side, she had been part and parcel of it all. the retreating ripple of wave had melted into the softness of her voice. her laughing eyes had gleamed importance in the stellar system. the sweet throb of her body, as she had reclined, his arm about her, was rhythmic with the pulsation of the night. and now she had gone; gone just for a few moments; gone just for a few moments until she would divinely break the silence by the little staccato cry of his name; but, nevertheless, her transitory severance had robbed this outer world of half its beauty. he had consciously to incorporate her in order to give meaning to this wonder of amethyst and aquamarine and onyx and diamond and pearl and velvet and the infinite message of the immensities coming through the friendly silence of the moon.
they had been married all of a sudden, both caught up on the wings of adventure. they were young, free as air. why should they wait? they kept it secret, a pair of romantics. only blaise olifant, summoned from medlow, and janet philimore were admitted into the conspiracy, and attended the wedding. at first olivia had twinges of conscience. as a well-conducted young woman she ought to ask her old friend, mr. trivett, to stand in loco parentis and give her away. but then there would be mrs. trivett and the girls to reckon with. mr. fenmarch, left out, might take offence. the news, too, would run through every medlow parlour. old john freke, in his weekly letter to lydia, would be sure to allude to the matter; and it was lydia and the galley that she most desired to keep in ignorance. so they were married, by special licence, at the church in ashley place, one quiet, sunny morning, in the presence of myra and the two witnesses they had convened.
as they emerged into the sunshine after the ceremony, olifant said to her:
“i’ve never been so reluctant to give anything away in my life.”
she asked a laughing “why?”
“dog in the manger, i suppose.” he smiled whimsically. “i shall feel more of a bachelor than ever when i get back.”
“you needn’t, unless you like.” she motioned slightly with her head towards janet, talking to alexis, a few feet away. “i’ve not been too busy to think of matchmaking. she’s the dearest of girls.”
“but not my landlady.”
her happy laughter rippled forth, calling the others near.
“he wants a law forbidding the marriage of landladies. but think of the advantage. now you can have your landlady to stay with you—in strict propriety—if you will ask us.”
“we settled that with alexis last night,” said he.
three taxis were waiting. one for the bride and bridegroom. one, already piled with luggage, for myra who after being fervently kissed in the vestry by olivia, had said by way of congratulation:
“well, dearie, it’s better than being married in a registry office,” and had gone forth unemotionally to see that the trunks were still there. and one for olifant and janet. they drove to the station, to the train which was to take them on their way to the home which in their romanticism they had never troubled to see.
“i’m sure it’s all right,” said janet, who had been responsible for their taking “quien sabe.” “father and i’ll be at the point in a fortnight. if you don’t want to see us, tie a white satin bow on the gate and we won’t mind a bit.”
for general philimore was the happy owner of one of the little hermitages on the point, and like a foolish old soldier lived there in holiday times, instead of letting it for the few summer weeks at the yearly rental of his london flat; so that janet assumed the airs of an authority on the point, and wrote stern uncompromising business letters to agents threatening them with the displeasure of the daughter of a major-general, if a “quien sabe” swept, garnished, and perfectly appointed, with a charwoman, ditto, in attendance, did not receive the bridal pair.
“it’s not a palace, mr. triona,” she said.
“what has it to do with me?” he answered. “a dream nest in a cliff for this bird wife of mine is all i ask for.”
olivia’s eyes smiled on him. why was he so different from the rest of men—even from so fine a type as blaise olifant? she appraised them swiftly. the soldier had not yet been sunk into the scholar. he stood erect, clean built, wearing his perfectly fitting grey suit like uniform, his armless sleeve pinned across his chest, his lip still bearing the smart little military moustache, his soft grey hat at ever so slightly a swaggering angle on his neatly cropped head. a distinguished figure, to which his long straight nose added a curious note of distinction and individuality. but all that he was you saw in a glance: the gentleman, the soldier, the man of intellect. on the other hand, there stood the marvellous man that was her husband, hiding behind the drawn boyish face god knew what memories of pain heroically conquered and god knew what visions of genius. although he had gone to a good tailor for his blue serge suit—she had accompanied him—he had the air of wearing clothes as a concession of convention. the lithe frame beneath seemed to be impatient of their restraint. they fitted in an easy sort of way, but were dominated by his nervous eager personality. one flash of a smile illuminating eyes and thin face, one flashing gesture of hand or arm, and for ought any one knew or cared, he might be dressed in chain armour or dungaree.
the little speech pleased her. she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm in the pride of possession.
“did you ever hear such an undomesticated pronouncement?” she laughed. “we’re going to change all that.”
and the train carried them off to the great wonder and change of their lives.
the train out of sight, blaise olifant stuck in his pocket the handkerchief he had been waving, and turned with a sigh.
“i hope she’ll be happy.”
“why shouldn’t she?” asked janet philimore.
she was a bright-cheeked, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl, with a matter-of-fact manner.
“i know of no reason,” he replied. “i was expressing a hope.”
he saw her to her homeward-bound omnibus and walked, somewhat moodily, on his road. after a day or two, the pleasures of london proving savourless, he returned to medlow. but “the towers” no longer seemed quite the same. he could not tell why. the house had lost fragrance.
meanwhile the pair had gone to the little toy home whose questioning name pointed to mystery. there were just three rooms in it, all opening on to a veranda full in sight (save for the configuration of the globe) of the african coast. on this veranda, sitting back, they lost sight of the whin-grown slope and the miniature sandy cove beneath; and their world was but a welter of sea, and its inhabitants but a few gulls, sweeping and swirling past them with a shy friendliness in their yellow eyes. in a dip of the sand-hill, just behind this elementary dwelling and communicating with it by a short covered way, stretched an old railway carriage divided into kitchen, pantry, bathroom, and bunks.
“it’s the craziest place i’ve ever seen,” said myra. “people will be living in old aeroplanes next.”
but the very craziness of the habitation made for their selfish joy. the universe, just for these twain, had gone joyously mad. a cocky little villa made to the model of a million others would have defeated the universe’s benign intention. nothing could be nearer to triona’s dream nest in a cliff. their first half-hour’s exploring, hand in hand, was that of children let loose in a fairy tale castle.
“there’s only one egg-cup,” croaked myra, surveying an exiguous row of crockery.
“how many more do we want?” cried olivia. “we can only eat one egg at a time.”
they passed out and stood on the edge of their small domain, surveying the sandy beach and the seaweed and shell-encrusted groin and the limitless sea, and breathed in the soft salt wind of all the heavens sweeping through their hair and garments, and he put his arm around her and kissed her—and he laughed and said, looking into her eyes:
“sweetheart, heaven is empty and all the angels are here.”
on sunny days they lived in the sea, drying themselves on their undisturbed half-moon of beach.
“where did you learn to swim?” she asked.
he hesitated for a second, casting at her one of his swift, half furtive glances. then he replied:
“in the volga.”
she laughed. “you’re always romantic. i learned at commonplace llandudno.”
“where’s your sense of relativity, beloved?” said he. “in central russia one regards the coast of wales as fantastic fairyland.”
“still, you can go to llandudno to-morrow, if you like—taking me with you, of course; but i shall never swim in the volga, or the caspian sea, or lake baikal, or any of those places with names that have haunted me since i was a little girl.”
“one of these days we’ll go—it may be some years, but eventually russia must have a settled government—and we’ll still be young.”
the sun and the hot sand on which she lay, adorable in deep red bathing kit and cap, warmed her through and through, flooding her with the sense of physical well-being. it was impossible that she should ever grow old.
“it’s something to look forward to,” she said.
sometimes they hired a boat and sailed and fished. she admired his handiness and knowledge and prescience of the weather. once, as the result of their fishing, they brought in a basket of bass and gar-fish, the latter a strange, dainty silver beast with the body of an eel and the tail of a trout and the beak of a woodcock, and in high spirits they usurped myra’s railway-compartment kitchen, while he fried the catch for lunch. olivia marvelled at his mastery. in spite of her sage and deliberate putting aside of the rose-coloured glasses of infatuation, in whatever aspect she viewed him, he stood supreme. from the weaving of high romance to the cooking of fish—the whole gamut of human activities—there was nothing in which he did not excel. her trust in him was infinite. she lost herself in happiness.
it took some days to arouse her to a sense of the outer world. a letter from lydia reminded her of her friend’s pleasant ignorance. with the malice of the unregenerate feminine, she wrote: “i’m so sorry i can’t be bridesmaid as you had arranged. how can i, seeing that i am married myself? it happened all in a hurry, as the beautiful things in life do. the fuss of publicity would have spoilt it. that’s why we told nobody. this is much better than dinard”—sydney rooke’s selection for the honeymoon. “i haven’t worn a hat since i’ve been here, and my way of dressing for dinner is to put on a pair of stockings; sometimes a mackintosh, for we love to dine on the veranda when it rains. it rained so hard last night that we had to fix up an umbrella to the ceiling like a chandelier to catch the water coming through the roof. so you will see that alexis and i are perfectly happy. by the way, i’ve not told you what my name is. it is mrs. triona. . . .” and so on and so on at the dictate of her dancing gladness, freakishly picturing lydia’s looks of surprise, distaste, and reprobation as she read the letter. yet she finished graciously, acknowledging lydia’s thousand kindnesses, for according to her lights lydia had done her best to put her on the only path that could be trod by comely and well-dressed woman.
she sealed up her letter and, coming out on to the veranda where alexis was correcting the proofs of an article, told him all about it.
“don’t you think we ought to please lydia and go to dinard and wear wonderful clothes, and mix with fashionable folk, and have expensive meals and gamble in the casino, and dance and do our duty as self-respecting people?”
“you have but to change yourself into whatever fairy thing you like, my princess,” said he, “and i will follow you. where you are, the world is. where you are not, there is the blankness of before creation.”
sitting that night, with his back against the veranda, he thought of this speech of the afternoon. formulated a bit self-consciously, it was nevertheless true. the landscape, no matter what it was, existed merely as a setting for her. even in this jewelled wonder of moonlit sea and sky there was the gap of the central gem.
he rolled and lit another cigarette—this time, surely, the very last. why she took so long to disrobe, he never strove to conjecture. her exquisite feminine distance from him was a conception too tremulous to be gripped with a rough hand and brutally examined. that was the lure and the delight of her, mystical, paradoxical—he could define it only vaguely as the nearness of her set in a far-off mystery. at once she was concrete and strong as the sea, and as elusive as the will-o’-the-wisp of his dreams.
thus the imaginative lover; the man who, by imagining fantasies to be real, had made them real; who, grasping realities, had woven round them the poet’s fantasy.
and meanwhile olivia, secure in her happiness, kept him waiting and dreaming because she had made a romantic vow to record, before going to sleep, each day’s precious happenings in a diary which she kept under lock and key in her dressing-case. she wrote sitting up in bed, and now and then she sniffed and smiled as the soft air came through the open window laden with the perfume of the cigarette.
