Merry Go Round (18 page)

M
ISS
L
EY
took care to learn at which hotel Bella meant to stay in Milan, and when the pair arrived, at the beginning of their honeymoon, they found awaiting them in their friend's neat and scholarly writing a little ironical letter, enclosing as wedding-present a cheque for five hundred pounds. This enabled them to travel more sumptuously than at first seemed possible, and meaning to spend the worst of the winter at Naples, without fearing the expense they could linger on their way in one charming town after another. Herbert was full of enthusiasm, and for a while seemed entirely to regain health. He forgot the disease which ate away silently his living tissue, and formed extravagant hopes for the future. His energy was such that Bella had much difficulty in restraining his eagerness to see the sights of which for so many years he had vainly dreamed. His passion for the sunshine, the blue skies and the flowers, was wonderful to see, yet Bella's heart ached often, though with greatest care she trained her countenance to cheerfulness, because this singular capacity for life to her anxious mind seemed to forebode a short continuance. He was gathering into one feverish moment all that others spread over a generation.

In the constant companionship his character unfolded itself, and she learnt how charming was his disposition, how sweet and unselfish his temper. Admiring him each day more ardently, she enjoyed his little airs of masculine superiority, for he would not consent to be treated as an invalid, and somewhat resented her motherly care. On the contrary, he was full of solicitude for her comfort, and took upon himself all necessary arrangements, the ordering of details and so forth, of which she would most willingly have relieved him. He had ingenuous ideas about a husband's authority, to which Bella, not without a sly amusement, delighted to submit. She knew herself
stronger not only in health, but in character, yet it diverted her to fall in with his fancy that she was the weaker vessel. When she feared that Herbert would tire himself, she simulated fatigue, and then his anxiety, his self-reproach, were quite touching. He never forgot how great was his debt to Bella, and sometimes his gratitude brought tears to her eyes, so that she sought to persuade him nothing at all was due. Ignorant of the world, his behaviour formed chiefly on books, Herbert used his wife with the gallant courtesy of some Shakespearian lover, writing sonnets which to her mind rang with the very nobility of marital passion; and under the breath of his romantic devotion the dull years fell away from her heart, so that she felt younger and fairer and more gay. Her sobriety was coloured by a not unpleasing flippancy, and she leavened his strenuous enthusiasm with kindly banter. But as though the sun called out his own youth, dissipating the dark Northern humours, sometimes he was boyish as a lad of sixteen, and then, talking nonsense to one another, they shouted with laughter at their own facetiousness. The world, they say, is a mirror whereon, if you look smiling, joyous smiles are reflected; and thus it seemed to them as if the whole earth approved their felicity. The flowers bloomed to fit their happiness, and the loveliness of Nature was only a frame to their great content.

'D'you know, we began a conversation two months ago,' he said once, 'and we've never come to an end yet. I find you more interesting every day.'

'I am a very good listener, I know,' she answered, laughing. 'Nothing gives one a surer reputation for being a conversationalist.'

'It's no good saying spiteful things to me when you look like that,' he cried, for her eyes rested on him with the most caressing tenderness.

'I think you're growing very vain.'

'How can I help it when you're my wedded wife? And you're so absolutely beautiful.'

'What!' she exclaimed. 'If you talk such rubbish to me, I'll double your dose of cod-liver-oil.'

'But it's true,' he said eagerly, so that Bella, though she knew
her comeliness existed only in his imagination, flushed with delight. 'I love your eyes, and when I look into them I feel I have no will of my own. The other day in Florence you called my attention to someone who was good-looking, and she wasn't a patch on you!'

'Good heavens, I believe the boy's serious!' she cried, but her eyes filled with tears and her voice broke into a sob.

'What
is
the matter?' he asked, astonished.

'It's so good to be loved,' she answered. 'No one has ever said such things to me before, and I'm so ridiculously happy.'

But as though the gods envied their brief joy, when they arrived at Rome, Herbert, exhausted by the journey, fell desperately ill. The weather was cold, rainy, dismal; and each day when he awoke, and the shutters were thrown back, Herbert looked eagerly at the sky, but seeing that it remained grey and cloudy, with a groan of despair turned his face to the wall. Bella, too, watched with aching heart for the sunshine, thinking it might bring him at least some measure of health, for she had given up all hope of permanent recovery. The doctor explained the condition of the lungs. Since Frank's examination the left side, which before was whole, had become affected, and the disease seemed to progress with a most frightful rapidity.

But at length the weather changed, and the warm wind of February, that month of languor, blew softly over the old stones of Rome; the sky once again was blue with a colour more intense by reason of the fleecy clouds that swayed across its dome, whitely, with the grace of dancers. The Piazza di Spagna, upon which looked Herbert's window, was brilliant with many flowers; the models in their dress of the Campagna, lounged about Bernini's easy steps; and the savour of the country and the spring was wafted into the sick man's room.

He grew better quickly; his spirits, of late very despondent, now became extravagantly cheerful, and hating Rome, the scene of his illness, he was convinced that it only needed change of place to complete his recovery. He insisted so vehemently that Bella should take him down to Naples that the doctor agreed it would be better to go, and therefore, as soon as he could be moved, they went further South.

They arrived in Naples no longer a pair of light-hearted children, but a middle-aged woman, haggard with anxiety, and a dying youth. Herbert's condition betrayed itself in an entire loss of his old buoyancy, so that the new scenes among which he found himself aroused no new emotions. The churches of Naples, white and gold like a ballroom of the eighteenth century, fit places of worship to a generation whose faith was a flippant superstition, chilled his heart; the statues in the museum were but lifeless stones; and the view itself, the glorious crown of Italian scenery, left him indifferent. Herbert, whose enthusiasm had once been so facile, now, profoundly bored, remained listless at all he saw, and discovered in Naples only its squalor and its vicious brutality. But on the other hand a restless spirit seized him, so that he could not remain quietly where he was, and he desired passionately to travel still further afield. With an eager longing for the country which above all others – above Italy, even – had fired his imagination, he wished before he died to see Greece. Bella, fearing the exertion, sought to dissuade him, but for once found him resolute.

'It's all very well for you,' he cried. 'You have plenty of time before you. But I have only now. Let me go to Athens, and then I shan't feel that I have left unseen the whole of the beautiful world.'

'But think of the risk.'

'Let us enjoy the day. What does it matter if I die here, in Greece, or elsewhere? Let me see Athens, Bella. You don't know what it means to me. Don't you remember that photograph of the Acropolis I had in my room at Tercanbury? Every morning on waking I looked at it, and at night before blowing out my candle it was the last thing I saw. I know every stone of it already. I want to breathe the Attic air that the Greeks breathed; I want to look at Salamis and Marathon. Sometimes I longed for those places so enormously that it was physical pain. Don't prevent me from carrying out my last wish. After that you can do what you like with me.'

There was such yearning in his voice and such despair that Bella, much as she dreaded the journey, could not resist. The doctor at Naples warned her that at any time the catastrophe
might occur, and she could no longer conceal from herself the frightful ravage of the disease. Herbert, according to the course of his illness, was at times profoundly depressed, and at others, when the day was fine or he had slept well, convinced that soon he would entirely recover. He thought then that if he could only get rid of the cough which racked his chest, he might grow perfectly well; and it was Bella's greatest torture to listen to his confident plans for the future. He wished to spend the summer at Vallombrosa among the green trees, and buying a guide-book to Spain, made out a tour for the following winter. With smiling countenance, with humorous banter, Bella was forced to discuss schemes which she knew Death would utterly frustrate.

'Two years in the South ought to put me quite right again,' he said once; 'and then we'll take a little house in Kent where we can see the meadows and the yellow corn, and we'll work together at all sorts of interesting things. I want to write really good poetry, not for myself any more, but for you. I want you never to think that you threw yourself away on me. Wouldn't it be glorious to have fame! Oh, Bella, I hope some day you'll be proud of me.'

'I shall have to keep a very sharp eye on you,' she answered, with a laugh that to herself sounded like a sob of pain: 'poets are notoriously fickle, and you're sure to philander with pretty milkmaids.'

'Oh, Bella, Bella,' he cried, with sudden feeling, 'I wish I were more worthy of you. Beside you I feel so utterly paltry and insignificant.'

'I dare say,' she replied ironically. 'But that didn't prevent you from writing a sonnet in Pisa about the ankles of a peasant woman.'

He laughed and blushed.

'You didn't really mind, did you? Besides, it was you who called my attention to the way she walked. If you like, I'll destroy it.'

Boylike, he took her mocking seriously, and was indeed half afraid he had annoyed her. She laughed again, more sincerely, but still her laughter rang softly with the tears that filled it.

'My precious child,' she cried, 'when will you grow up!'

'You wait till I'm well, and then you shall put on these airs at your peril, madam.'

Next morning, the spell of health continuing, he proposed that they should start at once for Brindisi, where they could wait one day, and then take the boat directly to Greece. Bella, who counted on making delay after delay till it was too late, was filled with consternation; but Herbert gave her no opportunity to thwart his will, for he said nothing to her till he had looked out the train, called for the bill, and given the hotel-keeper notice of his intention. Once started, his excitement was almost painful to see: his blue eyes shone and his cheeks were flushed: a new energy seemed to fill him, and he not only looked much better, but felt it.

'I tell you I shall get quite well as soon as I set my foot on the soil of Greece,' he cried. 'The immortal gods will work a miracle, and I will build a temple in their honour.'

He looked with beating heart at the country through which they sped, fresh and sunny in the spring, with vast green tracts spread widely on either side on which browsed herds of cattle, shaggy-haired and timid. Now and again they saw a herdsman, a rifle slung across his back, wild and handsome and debonair; and finally – the trembling of the sea.

'At last!' the boy cried. 'At last!'

Next morning he was feverish and ill, and on the day after, notwithstanding his entreaties, Bella absolutely refused to start. He stared at her sullenly, with bitter disappointment.

'Very well,' he said at length. 'But next time you must promise to go whatever happens, even if I'm dying: you must have me carried on the boat.'

'I promise faithfully,' answered Bella.

A certain force of will gave him an imaginary strength, so that in a couple of days he was on his feet again; but the elation, which during a fortnight had upborne him, now was quite gone, and he was so silent that Bella feared he had not forgiven the delay on which she insisted. They were obliged to spend a week in Brindisi, that dull, sordid, populous town, and
together wandered much about its tortuous and narrow streets. It pleased Herbert chiefly to go down to the port, for he loved the crowded ships, loading and unloading, and dreamt of their long voyages over the wild waste of the sea; and he loved the lounging sailormen, the red-sashed, swarthy porters, the urchins who played merrily on the quay. But the life which thrilled through them, one and all, caused him sometimes an angry despair; they seemed to possess such infinite power to enjoy things, and with all his heart he envied the poorest stoker because his muscles were like iron and his breathing free. The week passed, and on the afternoon before their boat sailed Herbert went out alone; but Bella, knowing his habits, was presently able to find him: he sat on a little hill, olive-clad, and overlooked the sea. He did not notice her approach, for his gaze, intent as though he sought to see the longed-for shores of Greece, was fixed upon the blue Ægean distance, and on his wan and wasted face was a pain indescribable.

'I'm glad you've come, Bella: I wanted you.'

She sat beside him, and taking her hand, his eyes wandered again to the far horizon. A fishing-boat, with a white, strange-shaped sail, sped like a fair sea-bird over the water's shining floor. The sky was a hard, hot blue like the lapis-lazuli, and not a cloud broke its serene monotony.

'Bella,' he said at last, 'I don't want to go to Greece. I haven't the courage.'

'What do you mean?' she asked, enormously surprised. All his thoughts had tended to this one object, and it seemed a sign of ill omen that when at length it lay within reach he should draw back.

'You thought I was angry because we didn't start last week. I tried to be, but in my heart I was glad of the respite. I was afraid. I've been trying to screw up my courage, but I can't.'

He did not look at her, but gazed straight out to sea.