CHAPTER VIII

A NIGHT ON THE ADRIATIC

The lovers met after Roland had spoken to his sister--not exactly to

advocate the cause of Nevil, though he was under the influence of that

grave night's walk with him, but to sound her and see whether she at all

shared Nevil's view of her situation. Roland felt the awfulness of a

French family arrangement of a marriage, and the impertinence of a

foreign Cupid's intrusion, too keenly to plead for his friend: at the

same time he loved his friend and his sister, and would have been very

ready to smile blessings on them if favourable circumstances had raised a

signal; if, for example, apoplexy or any other cordial ex machina

intervention had removed the middle-aged marquis; and, perhaps, if Renee

had shown the repugnance to her engagement which Nevil declared she must

have in her heart, he would have done more than smile; he would have laid

the case deferentially before his father. His own opinion was that young

unmarried women were incapable of the passion of love, being, as it were,

but half-feathered in that state, and unable to fly; and Renee confirmed

it. The suspicion of an advocacy on Nevil's behalf steeled her. His

tentative observations were checked at the outset.

'Can such things be spoken of to me, Roland? I am plighted. You know it.'

He shrugged, said a word of pity for Nevil, and went forth to let his

friend know that it was as he had predicted: Renee was obedience in

person, like a rightly educated French girl. He strongly advised his

friend to banish all hope of her from his mind. But the mind he addressed

was of a curious order; far-shooting, tough, persistent, and when acted

on by the spell of devotion, indomitable. Nevil put hope aside, or

rather, he clad it in other garments, in which it was hardly to be

recognized by himself, and said to Roland: 'You must bear this from me;

you must let me follow you to the end, and if she wavers she will find me

near.'

Roland could not avoid asking the use of it, considering that Renee,

however much she admired and liked, was not in love with him.

Nevil resigned himself to admit that she was not: and therefore,' said

he, 'you won't object to my remaining.'

Renee greeted Nevil with as clear a conventional air as a woman could

assume.

She was going, she said, to attend High Mass in the church of S. Moise,

and she waved her devoutest Roman Catholicism to show the breadth of the

division between them. He proposed to go likewise. She was mute. After

some discourse she contrived to say inoffensively that people who

strolled into her churches for the music, or out of curiosity, played the

barbarian.

'Well, I will not go,' said Nevil.

'But I do not wish to number you among them,' she said.

'Then,' said Nevil, 'I will go, for it cannot be barbarous to try to be

with you.'

'No, that is wickedness,' said Renee.

She was sensible that conversation betrayed her, and Nevil's apparently

deliberate pursuit signified to her that he must be aware of his mastery,

and she resented it, and stumbled into pitfalls whenever she opened her

lips. It seemed to be denied to them to utter what she meant, if indeed

she had a meaning in speaking, save to hurt herself cruelly by wounding

the man who had caught her in the toils: and so long as she could imagine

that she was the only one hurt, she was the braver and the harsher for

it; but at the sight of Nevil in pain her heart relented and shifted, and

discovering it to be so weak as to be almost at his mercy, she defended

it with an aggressive unkindness, for which, in charity to her sweeter

nature, she had to ask his pardon, and then had to fib to give reasons

for her conduct, and then to pretend to herself that her pride was

humbled by him; a most humiliating round, constantly recurring; the worse

for the reflection that she created it. She attempted silence. Nevil

spoke, and was like the magical piper: she was compelled to follow him

and dance the round again, with the wretched thought that it must

resemble coquettry. Nevil did not think so, but a very attentive observer

now upon the scene, and possessed of his half of the secret, did, and

warned him. Rosamund Culling added that the French girl might be only an

unconscious coquette, for she was young. The critic would not undertake

to pronounce on her suggestion, whether the candour apparent in merely

coquettish instincts was not more dangerous than a battery of the arts of

the sex. She had heard Nevil's frank confession, and seen Renee twice,

when she tried in his service, though not greatly wishing for success, to

stir the sensitive girl for an answer to his attachment. Probably she

went to work transparently, after the insular fashion of opening a

spiritual mystery with the lancet. Renee suffered herself to be probed

here and there, and revealed nothing of the pain of the operation. She

said to Nevil, in Rosamund's hearing:

'Have you the sense of honour acute in your country?' Nevil inquired for

the apropos.

'None,' said she.

Such pointed insolence disposed Rosamund to an irritable antagonism,

without reminding her that she had given some cause for it.

Renee said to her presently: 'He saved my brother's life'; the apropos

being as little perceptible as before.

Her voice dropped to her sweetest deep tones, and there was a

supplicating beam in her eyes, unintelligible to the direct Englishwoman,

except under the heading of a power of witchery fearful to think of in

one so young, and loved by Nevil.

The look was turned upon her, not upon her hero, and Rosamund thought,

'Does she want to entangle me as well?'

It was, in truth, a look of entreaty from woman to woman, signifying need

of womanly help. Renee would have made a confidante of her, if she had

not known her to be Nevil's, and devoted to him. 'I would speak to you,

but that I feel you would betray me,' her eyes had said. The strong

sincerity dwelling amid multiform complexities might have made itself

comprehensible to the English lady for a moment or so, had Renee spoken

words to her ears; but belief in it would hardly have survived the girl's

next convolutions. 'She is intensely French,' Rosamund said to Nevil--a

volume of insular criticism in a sentence.

'You do not know her, ma'am,' said Nevil. 'You think her older than she

is, and that is the error I fell into. She is a child.'

'A serpent in the egg is none the less a serpent, Nevil. Forgive me; but

when she tells you the case is hopeless!'

'No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is; and I shall

stay.'

'But then again, Nevil, you have not consulted your uncle.'

'Let him see her! let him only see her!'

Rosamund Culling reserved her opinion compassionately. His uncle would

soon be calling to have him home: society panted for him to make much of

him and here he was, cursed by one of his notions of duty, in attendance

on a captious 'young French beauty, who was the less to be excused for

not dismissing him peremptorily, if she cared for him at all. His career,

which promised to be so brilliant, was spoiling at the outset. Rosamund

thought of Renee almost with detestation, as a species of sorceress that

had dug a trench in her hero's road, and unhorsed and fast fettered him.

The marquis was expected immediately. Renee sent up a little note to

Mrs. Calling's chamber early in the morning, and it was with an air of

one-day-more-to-ourselves, that, meeting her, she entreated the English

lady to join the expedition mentioned in her note. Roland had hired a

big Chioggian fishing-boat to sail into the gulf at night, and return at

dawn, and have sight of Venice rising from the sea. Her father had

declined; but M. Nevil wished to be one of the party, and in that

case. . . . Renee threw herself beseechingly into the mute

interrogation, keeping both of Rosamund's hands. They could slip away

only by deciding to, and this rare Englishwoman had no taste for the

petty overt hostilities. 'If I can be of use to you,' she said.

'If you can bear sea-pitching and tossing for the sake of the loveliest

sight in the whole world,' said Renee.

'I know it well,' Rosamund replied.

Renee rippled her eyebrows. She divined a something behind that remark,

and as she was aware of the grief of Rosamund's life, her quick intuition

whispered that it might be connected with the gallant officer dead on the

battle-field.

'Madame, if you know it too well . . .' she said.

'No; it is always worth seeing,' said Rosamund, 'and I think,

mademoiselle, with your permission, I should accompany you.'

'It is only a whim of mine, madame. I can stay on shore.'

'Not when it is unnecessary to forego a pleasure.'

'Say, my last day of freedom.'

Renee kissed her hand.

She is terribly winning, Rosamund avowed. Renee was in debate whether the

woman devoted to Nevil would hear her and help.

Just then Roland and Nevil returned from their boat, where they had left

carpenters and upholsterers at work, and the delicate chance for an

understanding between the ladies passed by.

The young men were like waves of ocean overwhelming it, they were so full

of their boat, and the scouring and cleaning out of it, and provisioning,

and making it worthy of its freight. Nevil was surprised that Mrs.

Culling should have consented to come, and asked her if she really wished

it--really; and 'Really,' said Rosamund; 'certainly.'

'Without dubitation,' cried Roland. 'And now my little Renee has no more

shore-qualms; she is smoothly chaperoned, and madame will present us tea

on board. All the etcaeteras of life are there, and a mariner's eye in me

spies a breeze at sunset to waft us out of Malamocco.'

The count listened to the recital of their preparations with his usual

absent interest in everything not turning upon Art, politics, or social

intrigue. He said, 'Yes, good, good,' at the proper intervals, and walked

down the riva to look at the busy boat, said to Nevil, 'You are a sailor;

I confide my family to you,' and prudently counselled Renee to put on the

dresses she could toss to the deep without regrets. Mrs. Culling he

thanked fervently for a wonderful stretch of generosity in lending her

presence to the madcaps.

Altogether the day was a reanimation of external Venice. But there was a

thunderbolt in it; for about an hour before sunset, when the ladies were

superintending and trying not to criticize the ingenious efforts to

produce a make-believe of comfort on board for them, word was brought

down to the boat by the count's valet that the Marquis de Rouaillout had

arrived. Renee turned her face to her brother superciliously. Roland

shrugged. 'Note this, my sister,' he said; 'an anticipation of dates in

paying visits precludes the ripeness of the sentiment of welcome. It is,

however, true that the marquis has less time to spare than others.'

'We have started; we are on the open sea. How can we put back?' said

Renee.

'You hear, Francois; we are on the open sea,' Roland addressed the valet.

'Monsieur has cut loose his communications with land,' Francois

responded, and bowed from the landing.

Nevil hastened to make this a true report; but they had to wait for tide

as well as breeze, and pilot through intricate mud-channels before they

could see the outside of the Lido, and meanwhile the sun lay like a

golden altarplatter on mud-banks made bare by the ebb, and curled in

drowsy yellow links along the currents. All they could do was to push off

and hang loose, bumping to right and left in the midst of volleys and

countervolleys of fishy Venetian, Chioggian, and Dalmatian, quite as

strong as anything ever heard down the Canalaggio. The representatives of

these dialects trotted the decks and hung their bodies half over the

sides of the vessels to deliver fire, flashed eyes and snapped fingers,

not a whit less fierce than hostile crews in the old wars hurling an

interchange of stink-pots, and then resumed the trot, apparently in

search of fresh ammunition. An Austrian sentinel looked on passively, and

a police inspector peeringly. They were used to it. Happily, the

combustible import of the language was unknown to the ladies, and Nevil's

attempts to keep his crew quiet, contrasting with Roland's phlegm, which

a Frenchman can assume so philosophically when his tongue is tied, amused

them. During the clamour, Renee saw her father beckoning from the riva.

She signified that she was no longer in command of circumstances; the

vessel was off. But the count stamped his foot, and nodded imperatively.

Thereupon Roland repeated the eloquent demonstrations of Renee, and the

count lost patience, and Roland shouted, 'For the love of heaven, don't

join this babel; we're nearly bursting.' The rage of the babel was

allayed by degrees, though not appeased, for the boat was behaving

wantonly, as the police officer pointed out to the count.

Renee stood up to bend her head. It was in reply to a salute from the

Marquis de Rouaillout, and Nevil beheld his rival.

'M. le Marquis, seeing it is out of the question that we can come to you,

will you come to us?' cried Roland.

The marquis gesticulated 'With alacrity' in every limb.

'We will bring you back on to-morrow midnight's tide, safe, we promise

you.'

The marquis advanced a foot, and withdrew it. Could he have heard

correctly? They were to be out a whole night at sea! The count dejectedly

confessed his incapability to restrain them: the young desperadoes were

ready for anything. He had tried the voice of authority, and was laughed

at. As to Renee, an English lady was with her.

'The English lady must be as mad as the rest,' said the marquis.

'The English are mad,' said the count; 'but their women are strict upon

the proprieties.'

'Possibly, my dear count; but what room is there for the proprieties on

board a fishing-boat?'

'It is even as you say, my dear marquis.'

'You allow it?'

'Can I help myself? Look at them. They tell me they have given the boat

the fittings of a yacht.'

'And the young man?'

'That is the M. Beauchamp of whom I have spoken to you, the very pick of

his country, fresh, lively, original; and he can converse. You will like

him.'

'I hope so,' said the marquis, and roused a doleful laugh. 'It would seem

that one does not arrive by hastening!'

'Oh! but my dear marquis, you have paid the compliment; you are like

Spring thrusting in a bunch of lilac while the winds of winter blow. If

you were not expected, your expeditiousness is appreciated, be sure.'

Roland fortunately did not hear the marquis compared to Spring. He was

saying: 'I wonder what those two elderly gentlemen are talking about';

and Nevil confused his senses by trying to realize that one of them was

destined to be the husband of his now speechless Renee. The marquis was

clad in a white silken suit, and a dash of red round the neck set off his

black beard; but when he lifted his broad straw hat, a baldness of sconce

shone. There was elegance in his gestures; he looked a gentleman, though

an ultra-Gallican one, that is, too scrupulously finished for our taste,

smelling of the valet. He had the habit of balancing his body on the

hips, as if to emphasize a juvenile vigour, and his general attitude

suggested an idea that he had an oration for you. Seen from a distance,

his baldness and strong nasal projection were not winning features; the

youthful standard he had evidently prescribed to himself in his dress and

his ready jerks of acquiescence and delivery might lead a forlorn rival

to conceive him something of an ogre straining at an Adonis. It could not

be disputed that he bore his disappointment remarkably well; the more

laudably, because his position was within a step of the ridiculous, for

he had shot himself to the mark, despising sleep, heat, dust, dirt, diet,

and lo, that charming object was deliberately slipping out of reach,

proving his headlong journey an absurdity.

As he stood declining to participate in the lunatic voyage, and bidding

them perforce good speed off the tips of his fingers, Renee turned her

eyes on him, and away. She felt a little smart of pity, arising partly

from her antagonism to Roland's covert laughter: but it was the colder

kind of feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness.

She sat still, placid outwardly, in fear of herself, so strange she found

it to be borne out to sea by her sailor lover under the eyes of her

betrothed. She was conscious of a tumultuous rush of sensations, none of

them of a very healthy kind, coming as it were from an unlocked chamber

of her bosom, hitherto of unimagined contents; and the marquis being now

on the spot to defend his own, she no longer blamed Nevil: it was

otherwise utterly. All the sweeter side of pity was for him.

He was at first amazed by the sudden exquisite transition. Tenderness

breathed from her, in voice, in look, in touch; for she accepted his help

that he might lead her to the stern of the vessel, to gaze well on

setting Venice, and sent lightnings up his veins; she leaned beside him

over the vessel's rails, not separated from him by the breadth of a

fluttering riband. Like him, she scarcely heard her brother when for an

instant he intervened, and with Nevil she said adieu to Venice, where the

faint red Doge's palace was like the fading of another sunset

north-westward of the glory along the hills. Venice dropped lower and

lower, breasting the waters, until it was a thin line in air. The line

was broken, and ran in dots, with here and there a pillar standing on

opal sky. At last the topmost campanile sank.

Renee looked up at the sails, and back for the submerged city.

'It is gone!' she said, as though a marvel had been worked; and swiftly:

'we have one night!'

She breathed it half like a question, like a petition, catching her

breath. The adieu to Venice was her assurance of liberty, but Venice

hidden rolled on her the sense of the return and plucked shrewdly at her

tether of bondage.

They set their eyes toward the dark gulf ahead. The night was growing

starry. The softly ruffled Adriatic tossed no foam.

'One night?' said Nevil; 'one? Why only one?'

Renee shuddered. 'Oh! do not speak.'

'Then, give me your hand.'

'There, my friend.'

He pressed a hand that was like a quivering chord. She gave it as though

it had been his own to claim. But that it meant no more than a hand he

knew by the very frankness of her compliance, in the manner natural to

her; and this was the charm, it filled him with her peculiar image and

spirit, and while he held it he was subdued.

Lying on the deck at midnight, wrapt in his cloak and a coil of rope for

a pillow, considerably apart from jesting Roland, the recollection of

that little sanguine spot of time when Renee's life-blood ran with his,

began to heave under him like a swelling sea. For Nevil the starred black

night was Renee. Half his heart was in it: but the combative division

flew to the morning and the deadly iniquity of the marriage, from which

he resolved to save her; in pure devotedness, he believed. And so he

closed his eyes. She, a girl, with a heart fluttering open and fearing,

felt only that she had lost herself somewhere, and she had neither sleep

nor symbols, nothing but a sense of infinite strangeness, as though she

were borne superhumanly through space.