it had been once the whim, and was now the felicitous habit of the countess of tolga to present count cabinet annually with a bouquet of flowers. it was as if venus-anadyomene herself, standing6 on a shell and wafted by all the piquant whispers of the town and court, would intrude upon the flattered exile (with her well-wired orchids, and malicious, soulless, laughter), to awaken delicate, pagan images, of a trecento, tuscan greece.
but upon this occasion desirous of introducing some new features, the countess decided on presenting the fallen senator with a pannier of well-grown, early pears, a small “heath,” and the erotic poems bound in half calf with tasteful tooling of a schoolboy poet, cherishable chiefly, perhaps, for the vignette frontispiece of the author. moreover, acting on an impulse 156 she was never able afterwards to explain, she had invited mademoiselle olga blumenghast to accompany her.
never had summer shown a day more propitiously clement, than the afternoon in mid-autumn they prepared to set out.
fond of a compliment, when not too frankly racy,7 and knowing how susceptible the exile was to clothes, the countess had arrayed herself in a winter gown of kingfisher-tinted silk turning to turquoise, and stencilled in purple at the arms and neck with a crisp greek-key design; while a voluminous violet veil, depending behind her to a point, half-concealed a tricorne turquoise toque from which arose a shaded lilac aigrette branching several ways.
“i shall probably die with heat, and of course it’s most unsuitable; but poor old man, he likes to recall the capital!” the countess panted, as, nursing heath, poems and pears, she followed mademoiselle olga blumenghast blindly towards the shore.
oars, and swaying drying nets, a skyline 157 lost in sun, a few moored craft beneath the little rickety wooden pier awaiting choice:— “the boatmen, to-day, darling, seem all so ugly; let’s take a sailing-boat and go alone!”
“i suppose there’s no danger, darling?” the countess replied, and scarcely had she time to make any slight objection, than the owner of a steady wide-bottomed boat—the calypso—was helping them to embark.
the island of st helena, situated towards the lake’s bourne, lay distant some two miles or more, and within a short way of the open sea.
with sails distended to a languid breeze the shore eventually was left behind; and the demoiselle cranes, in mid-lake, were able to observe there were two court dames among them.
“although he’s dark, vi,” mademoiselle olga blumenghast presently exclaimed, dropping her cheek to a frail hand upon the tiller, “although he’s dark, it’s odd how he gives one the impression somehow of perfect fairness!”
“who’s that, darling?” the countess 158 murmured, appraising with fine eyes, faintly weary, the orchid-like style of beauty of her friend.
“ann-jules, of course.”
“i begin to wish, do you know, i’d brought pomegranates, and worn something else!”
“what are those big burley-worleys?”
“pears....”
“give me one.”
“catch, then.”
“not that i could bear to be married; especially like you, vi!”
“a marriage like ours, dear, was so utterly unworthwhile....”
“i’m not sure, dear, that i comprehend altogether?”
“seagulls’ wings as they fan one’s face....”
“it’s vile and wrong to shoot them: but oh! how i wish your happiness depended, even ever so little, on me.”
the countess averted her eyes.
waterfowl, like sadness passing, hovered, and soared overhead, casting their dark, fleeting shadows to the white, drowned clouds, in the receptive waters of the lake. 159
“i begin to wish i’d brought grapes,” she breathed.
“heavy stodgy pears. so do i.”
“or a few special peaches,” the countess murmured, taking up the volume of verse beside her, with a little, mirthless, half-hysterical laugh.
to a faithless friend.
to v.o.i. and s.c.p.
for stephen.
when the dormitory lamp burns low.
her gaze travelled over the index.
“read something, dear,” mademoiselle blumenghast begged, toying with the red-shaded flower in her burnished curls.
“gladly; but oh, olga!” the countess crooned.
“what!”
“where’s the wind?”
it had gone.
“we must row.”
there was nothing for it.
to gain the long, white breakwater, with the immemorial willow-tree at its end, that was the most salient feature of the island’s approach, required, nevertheless, resolution. 160
“it’s so far, dear,” the countess kept on saying. “i had no idea how far it was! had you any conception at all it was so far?”
“let us await the wind, then. it’s bound to rally.”
but no air swelled the sun-bleached sails, or disturbed the pearly patine of the paralysed waters.
“i shall never get this peace, i only realise it exists ...” the countess murmured with dream-glazed eyes.
“it’s astonishing ... the stillness,” mademoiselle blumenghast murmured, with a faint tremor, peering round towards the shore.
on the banks young censia-trees raised their boughs like strong white whips towards the mountains, upon whose loftier heights lay, here and there, a little stray patch of snow.
“come hither, ye winds, come hither!” she softly called.
“oh, olga! do we really want it?” the countess in agitation asked, discarding her hat and veil with a long, sighing breath. 161
“i don’t know, dear; no; not, not much.”
“nor i,—at all.”
“let us be patient then.”
“it’s all so beautiful it makes one want to cry.”
“yes; it makes one want to cry,” mademoiselle blumenghast murmured, with a laugh that in brilliance vied with the october sun.
“olga!”
“so,” as the calypso lurched: “lend me your hanky, dearest.”
“olga—? —? thou fragile, and exquisite thing!”
meanwhile count cabinet was seated with rod-and-line at an open window, idly ogling a swan. owing to the reluctance of tradespeople to call for orders, the banished statesman was often obliged to supplement the larder himself. but hardly had he been angling ten minutes to-day, when lo! a distinguished mauvish fish with vivid scarlet spots. pondering on the mysteries of the deep, and of the subtle variety there 162 is in nature, the veteran ex-minister lit a cigar. among the more orthodox types that stocked the lake, such as carp, cod, tench, eels, sprats, shrimps, etc., this exceptional fish must have known its trials and persecutions, its hours of superior difficulty ... and the count, with a stoic smile recalled his own. musing on the advantages and disadvantages of personality, of “party” viewpoints, and of morals in general, the count was soon too self-absorbed to observe the approach of his “useful” secretary and amanuensis, peter passer.
more valet perhaps than secretary, and more errand-boy than either, the former chorister of the blue jesus had followed the fallen statesman into exile at a moment when the authorities of pisuerga were making minute enquiries for sundry missing articles,8 from the trésor of the 163 cathedral, and since the strain of constant choir-practice is apt to be injurious for a youngster suffering from a delicate chest, the adolescent had been willing enough to accept, for a time, at least, a situation in the country.
“o, sir,” he exclaimed, and almost in his excitement forgetting altogether the insidious, lisping tones he preferred as a rule to employ: “o, sir, here comes that old piece of rubbish again with a fresh pack of tracts!”
“collect yourself, peter, pray do: what, lose our heads for a visit?” the count said getting up and going to a glass.
“i’ve noticed, sir, it’s impossible to live on an island long without feeling its effects; you can’t escape being insular!”
“or insolent.”
“insular, sir!”
“no matter much, but if it’s the countess yvorra, you might shew her round the garden this time, perhaps, for a change,” the count replied, adjusting a demure-looking fly, of indeterminate sex, to his line. 164
and brooding on life and baits, and what a will come for while b won’t, the count’s thoughts grew almost humorous as the afternoon wore on.
evening was approaching, when weary of the airs of a common carp, he drew in, at length, his tackle.
like a shawl of turquoise silk the lake seemed to vie, in serenity and radiance, with the bluest day in june, and it was no surprise, on descending presently for a restricted ramble—(the island, in all, amounted to scarcely one acre)—to descry the invaluable peter enjoying a pleasant swim.
when not boating or reading or feeding his swans, to watch peter’s fancy-diving off the terrace end, was perhaps the favourite pastime of the veteran viveur: to behold the lad trip along the riven breakwater, as naked as a statue, shoot out his arms and spring, the flying-head-leap or the backsadilla, was a beautiful sight, looking up now and again—but more often now—from a volume of old greek verse; while to hear him warbling in the water 165 with his clear alto voice—of kyries and anthems he knew no end—would often stir the old man to the point of tears. frequently the swans themselves would paddle up to listen, expressing by the charmed or rapturous motions of their necks (recalling to the exile the ecstasies of certain musical, or “artistic” dames at concert-halls, or the opera house, long ago) their mute appreciation, their touched delight....
“old goody two-shoes never came, sir,” peter archly lisped, admiring his adventurous shadow upon the breakwater wall.
“how is that?”
“becalmed, sir,” peter answered, culling languidly a small, nodding rose, that was clinging to the wall:
“o becalmed is my soul
i rejoice in the lord!”
at one extremity of the garden stood the observatory, and after duly appraising various of peter’s neatest feats, the count strolled away towards it. but before he could reach the observatory, he had first to pass his swans. 166
they lived, with an ancient water-wheel, beneath a cupola of sun-glazed tiles, sheltered, partially, from the lake by a hedge of towering red geraniums, and the count seldom wearied of watching these strangely gorgeous creatures as they sailed out and in through the sanguine-hued flowers. a few, with their heads sunk back beneath their wings, had retired for the night already; nevertheless, the count paused to shake a finger at one somnolent bird, in disfavour for pecking peter: “jealous, doubtless of the lad’s grace,” he mused, fumbling with the key of the observatory door.
the unrivalled instrument that the observatory contained, whose intricate lenses were capable of drawing even the remote summer-palace to within an appreciable range, was, like most instruments of merit, sensitive to the manner of its manipulation; and fearing lest the inexpert tampering of a homesick housekeeper (her native village was visible in clear weather, with the aid of a glass) should break or injure the delicate lenses, the 167 count kept the observatory usually under key.
but the inclination to focus the mundane and embittered features of the fanatic countess, as she lectured her boatmen for forgetting their oars, or, being considerably superstitious, to count the moles on their united faces as an esoteric clue to the autumn lottery, waned a little before the mystery of the descending night.
beneath a changing tide of deepening shadow, the lifeless valleys were mirroring to the lake the sombreness of dusk. across the blue forlornness of the water, a swan, here and there, appeared quite violet, while coiffed in swift clinging, golden clouds, the loftiest hills alone retained the sun.
a faint nocturnal breeze, arising simultaneously with the angelus-bell, seemed likely to relieve, at the moon’s advent, the trials to her patience of the countess yvorra: “who must be cursing,” the count reflected, turning the telescope about with a sigh, to suit her sail.
ah poignant moments when the heart 168 stops still! not since the hour of his exile had the count’s been so arrested.
from the garden peter’s voice rose questingly; but the count was too wonder-struck, far, to heed it.
caught in the scarlet radiance of the afterglow, the becalmed boat, for one brief and most memorable second, was his to gaze on.
in certain lands with what diplomacy falls the night, and how discreetly is the daylight gone: those dimmer-and-dimmer, darker-and-lighter twilights of the north, so disconcerting in their playfulness, were unknown altogether in pisuerga. there, night pursued day, as though she meant it. no lingering, or arctic sentiment! no concertinaishness.... hard on the sun’s heels, pressed night. and the wherefore of her haste; sun-attraction? impatience to inherit? an answer to such riddles as these may doubtless be found by turning to the scientists’ theories on time and relativity.
effaced in the blue air of evening became everything, and with the darkness returned the wind. 169
“sir, sir?... ho, hi, hiiiiiiiiiiii!!” peter’s voice came again.
but transfixed, and loath just then for company, the count made no reply.
a green-lanterned barge passed slowly, coming from the sea, and on the mountain-side a village light winked wanly here and there.
“oh, why was i not sooner?” he murmured distractedly aloud.
“oh olga!”
“oh vi!”
“... i hope you’ve enough money for the boat, dear? ...?”
“...!!?”
“tell me, olga: is my hat all sideways?”
“................”
the long windows of the summer-palace were staring white to the moon, as the countess of tolga, her aigrettes casting heroic shadows and hugging still her heath, re-entered the court’s precincts on the arm of her friend.
