Part 8

Wild the music, wilder the dance; and he sits in his chair on the veranda, the clean, clear air and the fresh breeze blowing in from the sea, stirring the white hairs in the curls at his temples, and listens and looks with no eye or ear for aught of its beauty,--only a ribald jest as their petticoats rise, or their bosoms quiver in the fling of the dance. And she, with a crimson shawl drawn round her spare shoulders and a splash of color in her thin cheeks, holds one hand tightly pressed over her breast--to still what? What does the music rouse inside that frail frame? What parts her lips and causes her eyes to glisten and the thin nostrils to quiver? Is there aught in common between that slight figure, with its jewelled hands and its too heavy silken gown, and those tattered healthy Zingari vagabonds? Who knows?

The whole tribe are gathered round him, begging and screaming with one voice, and he throws silver lavishly to them, and thrusts his hand with a coarse jest into the open bodice of the girl nearest him. A brown hand goes to the knife of a swarthy youth with gold rings in his ears; but at a few strange words from the oldest woman in the group the girl steps back, and with the quickness of lightning the hag takes her place and answers his jest in his own tongue. The girl looks curiously, pityingly, respectfully at the other girl: she is a little more than a girl as she stands dumbly by during all this scene. Eye seeks eye, sympathy meets sympathy. What affinity is between these two creatures?

"Kan de rokra Romany?" she asks, with a smile that visits her face as the ghost of a vanished beauty; and her voice is sweetly soft as she asks it. A flash of eye, a hurried backward word thrown to the old woman who joins them on hearing it. She stands between, with a smile at their wonder, and she holds out her hand, and one slim ivory-tinted hand rests palm upward in a no less slim but browner one. The old woman peers into the lines and crosses, and as she scans them a look of wonder creeps up to her usually inscrutable face. She exchanges words in an undertone with the gypsy girl at her side.

"I speak Romany too, Deya! An evil fate, isn't it, mother?"

"A mole on your cheek, and a free Romany heart in your breast, your spirit fights to be free as the Romany chai. Seven suns rise and seven moons, and the flag is half-mast, and the cage opens and the bird--"

An impatient curse cuts short her words, and they turn to him.

"Here, you old Jezebel! Send these vagabonds of yours down there; there's plenty to eat."

The servants are bearing beer and food to the lawn.

"Shall I go blind? I dare say you know as much as those infernal doctors, eh?"

"No; your eyes, and pretty eyes they are, and many a soul they've lost, they'll last your time, my lord! I see a journey to England; it lies before you, and no return. Seven times the moon will rise, and the Romanies go to the South, but the bird--"

"Get to blazes out of this! Help me in, ducky; oh, damn it, be quick! Get me some brandy, quick, quick! not all brandy, a little milk in it!"

* * * * *

The moon is high in the heavens, and the sea is running into the creek with a silver sheen on its back; the blinds are drawn up in the four windows of the bedroom, and the northern night is like unto day disguised in a domino of silver-gray crape.

He is sleeping. She is standing motionless at the window. The red of her dressing-gown and the moonlight make her face look more ghostlike, as she leans her head wearily against the window-frame. She is gazing sea-ward; a steamer has just passed, and the beacon in the lighthouse on Jomfru-land gleams like a great bright eye. In how many dreary vigils has it not greeted her and seemed to say: "Courage! I too am watching; you are not alone!"

At the end of the wood two tents are pitched, and she can see two figures outlined against the white palings,--the Romany girl and the youth with the gold ear-rings. He is holding her in his arms. The dog-chains rattle now and then; something brown and stealthy creeps about the duck-house; the white mists in the marshy bit of meadow lying next the creek dance like spirits, and beckon to her with shadowy arms, and a faint yellow streak appears in the east. How many more nights must she stand alone, and watch the morning herald a new day of bondage?

She moves noiselessly away, and goes into the dressing-room, and walks over to the mirror. She shakes her dusky elf-locks round her face, and catching up a yellow scarf lying on a chair winds it round her head, and then peers at herself in the glass. A deft twist turns down the white frills of her nightgown; she has a gold chain round her neck, and she laughs a childish, noiseless laugh at her own image. "How strangely my eyes gleam, and what a gypsy I look! No one would know, no one would dream of it. I would soon get brown!" and she looks wistfully out toward the camp again. "In an hour they will go. A heap of fern to lie on, scant fare, and weary feet; but the freedom, ah, the freedom! The woods with their wealth of shy, wild things, and the mountains that make one yearn to soar up over their heights to the worlds above! Free to follow the beck of one's spirit, a-ah to dream of it!" and the red light glows in her eyes again. They have an inward look; what visions do they see? The small thin face is transformed, the lips are softer, one quick emotion chases the other across it, the eyes glisten and darken deeply, and the copper threads shine in her swart hair. What is she going to do, what resolve is she making?

A muttered groan, a stir in the bed rouses her, and throwing aside the scarf she glides swiftly to his side. She stands and looks down. What a magnificent head it is, and how repellent! The tossed black locks with their silver streaks lie scattered on the pillow. The ear suggests vigorous animalism, the nose is powerful, the broad forehead shines whitely, and the long lashes curl upward as those of a child. The sensual-lipped mouth with its cruel lines shows more cruel as the head is thrown back. She looks at it steadily; no line escapes her,--looks from it to the hands, nerveless, white; the long, thin thumbs have a hateful expression, and the backs are short with an ugly joining to the wrists. He stirs, and a lewd word escapes his lips. She shudders! Again her eyes wander out with an appealing look (to whom do they appeal,--to part of herself, to some God of convention?) toward the camp. They are stirring; she can see the Finn dog run to and fro. She steps away; irresolution is expressed in her face; her head is thrust forward, her fingers spread out unconsciously. She glances across the floor; some shelves are to be nailed up, one of them is leant against the wardrobe door. As she hesitates, she notices that the shadow of it and the half-closed door throws a long cross almost to her feet. She folds her hands involuntarily: a whimper from the bed, a frightened call,--

"Come to me! Where are you? Don't leave me a second! oh, God! don't leave me! What's that there? Give me a drop of brandy! quick, oh quick! Kneel down, dearie, close, close to me; lay your little old cheek against mine, and say a little prayer,--no psalm business, just one out of your own little head [sob] to suit a poor devil like me!"

* * * * *

The sun is saying good-morning to the moon; she is wan from watching. The birds are awake, but the man still sleeps; and the little red-gowned figure crouched at the bed-side, her left hand, with its heavy gold band, clasped lightly in his, is sleeping too. A half-dried tear is held in the dark hollow under the closed eyes; the nose looks pinched in the morning light, and a gray-green shadow stains mouth and chin, but a smile plays round the dry lips.

The caravan is winding slowly round the curve of the road, and three plump geese are stowed inside. The Romany lass is humming a song,--a song about love and dance and song,--and the soul of the sleeping girl floats along at her side in a dream of freedom. She of the song looks up: "Six moons will rise, then you will be free!" she mutters to herself as she passes on; and the sun mounts higher, and the shadow of the cross is lightening with the coming dawn--who knows?

III.

AN EBB TIDE.

On right and left with flight of light, How whirled the hills, the trees, the bowers! With light-like flight, on left and right, How spun the hamlets, towns, and towers! Dost quail? The moon is fair to see; Hurrah! the Dead ride recklessly! Beloved! Dost dread the shrouded dead? "Ah, let the dead repose!" she said.

JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN: _Anthology_.

It is a sunshine Sabbath morning. The sea quivers under an armor of silver scales, and laps, laps with a laugh as it runs into the creek. The sails of the ships glisten whiter than any snow. The sun distils the scent from the clove carnations and the sweetbrier leaves, and coaxes the pungent resin through the cracks in the bark, until the air is heavy with a smell that would cease to be perfume, were it not filtered through the salt ooze of the incoming sea-breeze that flutters the flags on the tall white poles, and tempers the ardor of the young year's sun.

The kariol bearing the specialist whose skill is of no avail in the face of a pressing call from the great god Death, has just wound round the pine-wood in a whirl of dust. The dogs, unbound, lie on the back veranda, with their black snouts resting on their forepaws, and they watch him depart without a growl; they have not barked for days past, nor chased the plucky badger, nor yapped impatiently as the cheeky squirrels flirted through the branches. Even beggars have come and gone without a snarling protest; but all last night they howled and bayed and cowered together as if they could see the passage of invisible guests. A peculiar stillness seems to brood over the great place. The maids are sitting in their gowns of Sunday black, with open psalm-books on their laps; they are listening and whispering with the disturbance of expectancy.

The housekeeper is talking to the leech woman, quaint survival of older days, whose business in life is to keep the slimy suckers lively and apply them. She looks as if she fed them between times on herself, so bony and colorless a creature is she. They are negotiating the last ghastly offices that may soon be needed, speculating as to the changes and their effect on the village. The vicar, she tells, is about to make the departing life the text of his sermon; every one in the district is coming to hear it. Why not? A sermon of warning, with a smack of the Pharisee in it; a "Lord, I thank Thee I am not like unto this man" note, especially if you know the publican in question, cannot fail to be attractive; it has an up-to-date interest that the parable of the far-away-time sinner necessarily lacks.

Upstairs the cow-girl is crouching like a faithful dog outside his bedroom door; she is listening to the murmured Latin service of the mass that comes from inside. The windows of the room are wide open, and the sea stretches away and melts into the horizon in an infinity of blue and silver. He is lying still on the ebb of his last tide, and when his eyes open they wander from the little priest before the extemporized altar, to the bowed head of the woman kneeling beside him.

"Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum!" intones the priest.

"Et cum spiritu tuo!" she utters in response, in dead, dull tones; and when she chimes the little silver bell she does it in a mechanical way, and all the time he holds her one hand to his breast. When the mass is read and the extreme unction administered, the little priest reads the prayers for the dying. He listens attentively, and she listens too, with eyes dry as horn, and tightened lips. She scarcely hears what he reads:--

"My feet have gone astray in the paths of vanity and sin, now let me walk in the way of Thy commandments.... Forgive me, O Lord, all the sins which I have committed by my disordered steps--"

"'Steps!' that means feet; 'eyes seen vanities,' that means sight; 'tongue hath in many ways offended,' speech. Why, he is going through all the seven senses, or is it seven, or five?" She must give him the envelope with the check in it before he leaves. She hasn't a black frock, not one; he liked her in colors, light girlish colors, with a silken waist-band to match. Must she wire for a coffin? What a beast she is to think like this! But how can she help it? Her tear-bags--what is their right name, lachrymal glands?--are exhausted, even her lashes have thinned; yet she never shed a tear, at least only inwardly, with a choke.

He sobs, and she looks up; the tears are trickling down his cheeks; she puts up her free hand and wipes them off gently.

"To Thee I resign my heart! Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!" reads the priest in broken English; and when the, from its point of view, beautiful prayer has drawn to a solemn close, the man sobs out in genuine, heartfelt conviction with a force of epithet that is habit not irreverence,--

"That is a damn nice prayer! I was always afraid of death, always [with a sob] a coward; but when it comes to the point, that vanishes too!"

And the boyish priest purses his check and takes it with him, and leaves his blessing instead, and follows in the wake of the town doctor.

"Send Johann to me, dearums; let me get dressed; I'll have a try to die in the sunshine. Get your own little bed carried down to the veranda, and your own little white pillow,--mind, the one you put your head on last,--and lend them to me for this turn."

And so the maids take it down, and she stands at the head of the stairs as they carry it, two at the head, and two at the foot; and as she hears their cautious backward steps and the rest at the turn, she fancies it sounds like the bearing out of a coffin. And then he follows slowly out, leaning on his big stick, and his beard divides into patches and shows the purplish skin, and his breathing is labored, but he steps more firmly than he has done for a long time past. And he leans on her frail shoulders, and when they reach the dining-room he calls in the maids and the men who serve him, and bids them charge their glasses; and he thanks them, and says he is sorry for all the trouble he has given them, and shakes hands with each one, and they courtesy and say "Skaal!" a salutation when drinking, and troop out crying. They are mostly women, and women forgive easily and forget everything--to a man! Only the cow-girl stops behind, crouched near the door, crying, "O-ah, o-ah!" And he fills his own glass with champagne and sips it; but nature sets a limit to the alcohol a man may absorb, and he has passed it. He cannot get it down; so he lays his hand on her head and smooths it gently, and says:--

"Your luck, little one, your very good luck! Oh, my poor little one, I am afraid for you! I ought to have--well, it's no good regretting;" and with a last flame of the old fierce fire he cries, "I have had my last drink, and no man shall drink after me;" and he shivers the glass against the wall, and purple shadows, the "skreigh" of another dawn, chase one another over his swollen face, and he leans heavily on her and says faintly, "Lay me down, I am tired!"

When they reach the veranda, the leaves of the virgin-vine are strewn in dancing shadow-leaves and fluttering tendrils at their feet. He looks at them and mutters, "Shadows--only shadows!"

Suddenly he searches her face intently and asks, "Is there no hope, little one,--none?" He reads the answer in her wistful eyes. "When? Don't you be afraid to tell me,--when did he say?"

"Inside twenty-four hours."

There is a long silence, and the shadow-leaves dance, and the bees whirl buzzing past, and the strong young life of midsummer mocks dissolution in a subtle, arrogant way.

"One good clean year, one clean year, one year's home for a finish! Just as I learnt to know what it meant, to leave it all! It's hard to look on a day like this [sob], and know that to-morrow I rot. A long life as lives go, and nothing to show for it! Well, I always wanted to die in the sunshine, with the birds singing, and, since I knew you, with you near me,--oh, my dear, my poor, dear little one!"

He reels, and she clutches him; but he steadies himself by a supreme effort, and says through his ground teeth: "Now I am going to say good-by to the world, and, by God! I'll say it standing. I have had good days in it,--wild, glad days, drunk with the lust of love and wine; but I never saw good or beauty in it till you showed me how. Oh, oh, oh! Let no man write my epitaph!"

He stands leaning on her shoulders, looking sea-ward, drinking his fill of sun and sea,--sea that was a rapture to him, that he loved as the greatest and strongest and cruelest thing he knew; the only thing that responded to the wild moods in his soul, and struck a rushing strain of song in his stormy heart that made him rejoice with a fierce delight. The tears fall and splash on her hands, and then she helps him to lie down; and she feels his feet, and they bring hot bottles, for they are getting cold, and he lies with his eyes closed. The village doctor comes and goes; but nothing can be done, the sands are running out fast. "If the Lord be merciful [the sermon is working in him] He will take him before morning, otherwise he will suffer much," he whispers to her. She does not answer, only kneels silently at his side, and he holds her hand. There is a strange smell that has a chill uncleanness in its breath about them.

The people pass by on the road above and peer down through the palings. The maids give audience to inquisitive or interested callers at the back. The housekeeper is busy at the linen press, sorting out sheets and things that may be needed; and as she moves about with noiseless tread, and folds and lays aside, she mentally remodels her wardrobe. If she take out the flower in her black summer hat, and put in some curled tips, it will serve nicely. Mistress will surely bring her a dress from England, and the merino they hang the rooms with (she will get it cut the proper lengths) will do for the maids. Uf! that nasty wine gave her a headache; she will get some fresh beans roasted, and have a good cup with fresh cream,--that will do her good. How Gudrun [the cow-girl] takes on! He was a devil to serve, but there were advantages,--ay, many pickings that would not fall to one's share in a better regulated Christian household, not to speak of the distinct comfort of having a mistress whose time is taken up elsewhere. Poor thing! Well, it's best for her; she has money, she'll marry again. But _that_ Gudrun! it is odd. Why should she carry on so? Or could there be a reason? He always took great notice of Gudrun; she used to laugh and grin and go on when he went out in the yard, and never was afraid; and then there was that anonymous letter the mistress got. Uf! Men folk, God save us! Even with a leg in the grave it's hard to trust them! There's no smoke without fire, that's sure. There, that's all ready. "Well! what is it?"

This to the second housemaid. She is a fat girl, with a restless twitch about her mouth and half-closed eye-lids, that curl upward at the outer corners. One gets the impression somehow that her solid physique is but a mask to cover an emotional soul with a dangerous sense of humor.

"The Bible reader, Morten Ring, wants to know if he may read for a while, now that the Popish priest has gone and left the dying sinner without any one to direct his thoughts heavenward."

There is an imitative note in her voice, and a mocking gleam shoots from her eyes.

"Uf! is he here again? That's the third time. Mistress told him no before, and strong enough too; I should think that ought to have been more than enough for him."

"Yes, but he says the whole village thinks it shocking, and he is like sent up, and that you might put it to her!"

"Indeed, then I won't! When I did last time, she told me to tell him to go down to the weighing place on the wharf and ring a bell, and call the population together, and read out to them all the places in the Bible that refer to hypocrisy, lying, and scandal, the sins of adultery, fornication, and the begetting of bastards; that she'd be willing to pay him treble his fee for the charity of it, they need it so much. It might teach them to begin at home and let other folks alone."

"Shall I tell him that?" eagerly.

"Are you mad? No, tell him Mistress is reading herself, and ask him to stay and have a good cup of coffee and sweet rusks. I want to get the truth out of him about the magistrate's girl's illness; he was up there, and I don't believe a sniff in her sprained foot--"

And down below the rose-buds opened into roses, and nodded with the effrontery of assured beauty to the sun-god; and the birds hushed them for their noon siesta; and he lay with shut eyes and held her hand tightly; and sometimes he spoke to her, and sometimes he muttered to himself (she caught the words) a line of his favorite Mangan:--

"Sleep! no more the dupe of hopes and schemes, Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow! Curious anticlimax to thy dreams Twenty golden years ago!"

The odd unpleasant smell seems to hang about them as if too heavy to diffuse itself in the thin, clear air; the smell of cow-sheds that clings to the cow-girl's clothes is perfume to it. It attracted the flies, and they gathered like swarming bees on the window-panes and door-posts, and buzzed and hummed and stung like Bushmen carousing over a find of dead meat; and they crept over the bed and stuck in his hair, and she tried to keep them off his face; and when one of them crawled up her own with tickling, clinging feet, she paled and shuddered. The cow-girl stepped out of her clogs, and went into the drawing-room and brought out a gayly painted palm-leaf fan, and stationing herself at the head of the bed set it in motion. His breathing is getting labored, and at times an ugly flush crosses his face. Once when it is deeper than usual, the girl cries,--

"O Lord God! Lord God!"

He hears her and looks up. "Ah, Gudrun, is that you? Good girl, good girl!"

She sinks on to her knees, and moans and rocks herself; and then she looks at his closed eyes and says to her: "Mistress, may I? It can't harm you!"

She nods her head wearily; she is fanning awkwardly with her left hand, and she says with her tired, tender voice: "Gudrun wants to say good-by, dear!"

He opens his eyes, and for a moment the charm of his rare smile returns. The girl stoops and leaves a kiss upon his forehead, and then rushes away and flings herself down on the long lush grass, that is never cut, under a big chestnut-tree.

He looks at her and lifts her hand to his lips: "Always a big heart, always a great little woman [with a groan]! and now I am to lose you, and it is the best thing could happen to you. Ay, there's the sting,--leave you to some brute, that is my punishment. O little one! don't you think too hardly of me," he talks with effort; "I meant to be better than I was to you. You'll never find another man love you as I did; remember that, and forget all the rest if you can. You _have_ forgotten all, I might have known you would! Where am I drifting to? No man ever came back to say. Do you believe in hell [eagerly], do _you_ believe in it?"

She looks at him pityingly, with a flash of past energy in the lift of her head, and a curl of scorn on her pale lips: "The hell of the priests or parson? No, I do not. Is that worrying you? Don't you let it, old man, don't you let it! Wherever you are going, whatever after existence your poor troubled soul is fighting its way to, it _is not to their hell_!"