CHAPTER VI. AN ACTOR PASSES OFF THE STAGE.
We pass; the path that each man trod
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds.
The priest was the first to speak.
“You are his friend, I also; but we are of different nations.”
He paused, drawing the sheet up over the dead man’s face.
“He was not of my Church. You have your ways; will you make the arrangements?”
“Yes,” replied Fitz simply, “if you like.”
“It is better so, my son”--the padre took a pinch of snuff--“because--he was not of my Church. You will stay here, you and your friend. She, the Señorita Eve, cannot be left alone, with her grief.”
He spoke Spanish, knowing that the Englishman understood it.
They drew down the blinds and passed out on to the terrace, where they walked slowly backwards and forwards, talking over the future of Eve and of the Casa d’Erraha.
In Spain, as in other southern lands, they speed the parting guest. Two days later Edward Challoner was laid beside his father and grandfather in the little churchyard in the valley below the Casa d’Erraha. And who are we that we should say that his chance of reaching heaven was diminished by the fact that part of the Roman Catholic burial service was read over him by a Spanish priest?
Fitz had telegraphed to Eve’s only living relative, Captain Bontnor, and Fitz it was who stayed on at the Casa d’Erraha until that mariner should arrive; for the doctor was compelled to return to his ship at Port Mahon, and the priest never slept in another but his own little vicarage house.
And in the Casa d’Erraha was enacted at this time one of those strange little comedies that will force themselves upon a tragic stage. Fitz deemed it correct that he should avoid Eve as much as possible, and Eve, on the other hand, feeling lonely and miserable, wanted the society of the simple-minded young sailor.
“Why do you always avoid me?” she asked suddenly on the evening after the funeral. He had gone out on to the terrace, and thither she followed him in innocent anger, without afterthought. She stood before him with her slim white hands clasped together, resting against her black dress, a sombre, slight young figure in the moonlight, looking at him with reproachful eyes.
He hesitated a second before answering her. She was only nineteen; she had been born and brought up in the Valley of Repose amidst the simple islanders. She knew nothing of the world and its ways. And Fitz, with the burden of the unique situation suddenly thrust upon him, was, in his chivalrous youthfulness, intensely anxious to avoid giving her anything to look back to in after years when she should be a woman. He was tenderly solicitous for the feelings which would come later, though they were absent now.
“Because,” he answered, “I am not good at saying things. I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am for you.”
She turned away and looked across to the hills at the other side of the valley, a rugged outline against the sky.
“But I know all that,” she said softly, “without being told.”
A queer smile passed over his sunburnt face, as if she had unintentionally and innocently made things more difficult for him.
“And,” she continued, “it is--oh, so lonely.”
She made an almost imperceptible little movement towards him. Like the child that she was, she was yearning for sympathy and comfort.
“I know--I know,” he said.
Outward circumstance was rather against Fitz. A clear, odorous Spanish night, the young moon rising behind the pines, a thousand dreamy tropic scents filling the air. And Eve, half tearful, wholly lovable, standing before him, innocently treading on dangerous ground, guilelessly asking him to love her.
She, having grown almost to womanhood, pure as the flowers of the field, ignorant, a child, knew nothing of what she was doing. She merely gave way to the instinct that was growing within her--the instinct that made her turn to this man, claiming his strength, his tenderness, his capability, as given to him for her use and for her happiness.
“You must not avoid me,” she said. “Why do you do it? Have I done anything you dislike? I have no one to speak to, no one who understands, but you. There is the padre, of course--and nurse; but they do not understand. They are--so old! Let me stay here with you until it is time to go to bed, will you?”
“Of course,” he answered quietly. “If you care to. To-morrow I should think we shall hear from your uncle. He may come by the boat sailing from Barcelona to-morrow night. It will be a good thing if he does; you see, I must get back to my ship.”
“You said she would not be ready for sea till next month.”
“No, but there is discipline to be thought of.”
He looked past her, up to the stars, with a scrutinising maritime eye, recognising them and naming them to himself. He did not meet her eyes--dangerous, tear-laden.
“There is something the matter with you,” she said. “You are different. Yes, you want my uncle to come the day after to-morrow--you want to go away to Mahon as soon as you can. I-- Oh, Fitz, I don’t want to be a coward!”
She stood in front of him, clenching her little fists, forcing back the tears that gleamed in the moonlight. He did not dare to cease his astronomical observations.
“I won’t be a coward--if you will only speak. If you will tell me what it is.”
Then Fitz told his first deliberate lie.
“I have had bad news,” he said, “about my brother Luke. I am awfully anxious about him.”
He did it very well; for his motive was good. And we may take it that such a lie as this is not writ very large in the Book.
The girl paused for a little, and then deliberately wiped the tears from her eyes.
“How horribly selfish I have been!” she said. “Why did you not tell me sooner? I have only been thinking of my own troubles ever since--ever since poor papa-- I am a selfish wretch! I hate myself! Tell me about your brother.”
And so they walked slowly up and down the moss-grown terrace--alone in this wonderful tropic night--while he told her the little tragedy of his life. He told the story simply, with characteristic gaps in the sequence, which she was left to fill up from her imagination.
“I shall not like Mrs. Harrington,” said Eve, when the story was told. “I am glad that she cannot come much into my life. My father wanted me to go and stay with her last summer, but I would not leave him alone, and for some reason he would not accept the invitation for himself. Do you know, Fitz, I sometimes think there is a past--some mysterious past--which contained my father and Mrs. Harrington and a man--the Count de Lloseta.”
“I have seen him,” put in Fitz, “at Mrs. Harrington’s often.”
The girl nodded her head with a quaint little assumption of shrewdness and deep suspicion.
“My father admired him--I do not know why. And pitied him intensely--I do not know why.”
“He was always very nice to me,” answered Fitz, “but I never understood him.”
Talking thus they forgot the flight of time. It sometimes happens thus in youth. And the huge clock in the stable yard striking ten aroused Eve suddenly to the lateness of the hour.
“I must go,” she said. “I am glad you told me about--Luke. I feel as if I knew you better and understood - a little more. Good-night.”
She left him on the terrace, and walked sorrowfully away to the house which could never be the same again.
Fitz watched her slight young form disappear through an open doorway, and then he became lost in the contemplation of the distant sea, lying still and glass-like in the moonlight. He was looking to the north, and it happened that from that same point of the compass there was coming towards him the good steamer Bellver, on whose deck stood a little shock-headed man--Captain Bontnor.
There is a regular service of steamers to and from the Island of Majorca to the mainland, and, in addition, steamers make voyages when pressure of traffic may demand. The Bellver was making one of these supplemental journeys, and her arrival was not looked for at Palma.
Eve and Fitz were having breakfast alone in the gloomy room overshadowed by the trailing wings of the Angel of Death, when the servant announced a gentleman to see the señorita. The señorita requested that the gentleman might approach, and presently there stood in the doorway the quaintest little figure imaginable.
Captain Bontnor, with a certain sense of the fitness of things, had put on his best clothes for this occasion, and it happened that the most superior garment in his wardrobe was a thick pilot-jacket, which stood out from his square person with solid angularity. He had brushed his hair very carefully, applying water to compass a smoothness which had been his life-long and hitherto unattained aim. His shock hair--red turning to grey--stood up four inches from his honest, wrinkled face. It was unfortunate that his best garments should have been purchased for the amenities of a northern climate. His trousers were as stiff as his jacket, and he wore a decorous black silk tie as large as a counterpane.
He stood quaintly bowing in the doorway, his bright blue eyes veiled with shyness and a pathetic dumb self-consciousness.
“Please come in,” said Eve in Spanish, quite at a loss as to who this might be.
Then Fitz had an inspiration. Something of the sea seemed to be wafted from the older to the younger sailor.
“Are you Captain Bontnor?” he asked, rising from the table.
“Yes, sir, yes! That’s my name!”
He stood nervously in the doorway, mistrusting the parquet-floor, mistrusting himself, mistrusting everything.
Fitz went towards him holding out his hand, which the captain took after a manfully repressed desire to wipe his own broad palm on the seam of his trousers.
“Then you are my uncle?” said Eve, coming forward.
“Yes, miss, I’m afraid--that is--yes, I’m your uncle. You see--I’m only a rough sort of fellow.”
He came a little nearer and held his arms apart, looking down at his own person in humble deprecation.
Eve was holding out her hand. He took it with a vague, deep-rooted chivalry, and she, stooping, very deliberately kissed him.
This seemed rather to bewilder the captain, for he shook hands again with Fitz.
“I-- ” he began, nodding into Fitz’s face. “You are--eh? I didn’t expect--to see--I didn’t know--”
At that moment Eve saw. It came to her in a flash, as most things do come to women. She even had time to doubt the story about Luke.
“This,” she said, with crimson cheeks, “is Mr. FitzHenry of the Kittiwake. He kindly came to us in our trouble. You will have to thank him afterwards--uncle.”
“And in the meantime I expect you want breakfast?” put in Fitz, carefully avoiding Eve.
“Yes,” added the girl, “of course. Sit down. No, here!”
“Thankye--thankye, miss--my dear, I mean. Oh, anything’ll do for me. A bit of bread and a cup o’ tea. I had a bit and a sup on board before she sheered alongside the quay.”
He looked round rather helplessly, wondering where he should put his hat--a solid, flat-crowned British affair. Eve took it from him and laid it aside.
Captain Bontnor sat very stiffly down. His square form did not seem to lose any of its height by the change of position, and with a stiff back he looked admiringly round the room, waiting like a child at a school treat.
As the meal progressed he grew more at ease, telling them of the little difficulties of his journey, avoiding with a tact not always found inside a better coat all mention of the sad event which had caused him to take this long journey after his travelling days were done.
That which set him at ease more than all else was the fact, at length fully grasped, that Fitz was, like himself, a sailor. Here at least was a topic upon which he could converse with any man. General subjects only were discussed, as if by tacit consent. No mention was made of the future until this was somewhat rudely brought before their notice by the announcement that a second visitor desired to see the señorita.
With a more assured manner than that of his predecessor, a small, dark man came into the room, throwing off his cloak and handing it to the servant. He bowed ceremoniously and with true Spanish grace to Eve, with less ceremony and more dignity to the two men.
“I beg that your excellency will accept the sympathy of my deepest heart,” he said. “I regret to trouble you so soon after the great loss sustained by your excellency, indeed, by the whole island of Majorca. But it is a matter of business. Such things cannot be delayed. Have I your excellency’s permission to proceed?”
“Certainly, señor.”
The man’s clean-shaven face was like a mask. The expressions seemed to come and go as if worked by machinery. Sympathy was turned off, and in its place Polite-Attention-to-Business appeared. From under his arm he drew a leather portfolio, which he placed upon the table.
“The affairs of the late Cavalier Challoner were perhaps known to your excellency?”
“No; I knew nothing of my father’s affairs.”
Sympathy seemed to be struggling behind “Polite-Attention-to-Business,” while for a moment a real look of distress flitted over the parchment face. He paused for an instant, reflecting while he assorted his papers.
“I am,” he said, “the lawyer of his excellency the Count de Lloseta.”
Eve and Fitz exchanged a glance, and as silence was kept the lawyer went on.
“Three generations ago,” he said, “a Count de Lloseta, the grandfather of this present excellency, made over on ‘rotas’ the estate and house known as the Val d’Erraha to the grandfather of the late Cavalier Challoner--a Captain Challoner, one of Admiral Byng’s men.”
Again he paused, arranging his papers.
“The Majorcan system ‘rotas’ is known to your excellency?”
“No, señor.”
“On this system an estate is made over for one or two or three generations by the proprietor to the lessee who farms or sublets the land, and in lieu of rent hands over to the proprietor a certain proportion of the crops. Does your excellency follow me?”
Eve did not answer at once. Then the lawyer’s meaning seemed to dawn upon her.
“Then,” she said, “the Casa d’Erraha never belonged to my father?”
“Never”--with a grave bow.
“And I have nothing--nothing at all! I am penniless?”
The lawyer looked from her to Fitz, who was standing beside her listening to the conversation, but not offering to take part in it.
“Unless your excellency has private means--in England, perhaps.”
“I do not know--I know nothing. And we must leave the Casa d’Erraha. When, señor? Tell me when.”
The lawyer avoided her distressed eyes.
“Well,” he said slowly, “the law is rather summary. I--your excellency understands I only do my duty. I am not the principal. I have no authority whatever--except the law.”
“You mean that I must go at once?”
The lawyer’s parchment face was generously expressive of grief now.
“Excellency, the lease terminated at the death of the late Caballero Challoner.”
Eve stood for a moment, breathing hard. Fate seemed suddenly to have turned against her at every point. At this moment Captain Bontnor made bold--one could see him doing it--to take her hand.
“My dear,” he said, “I don’t quite understand what this foreign gentleman and you are talkin’ about. But if it’s trouble, dear, if it’s trouble--just let me try.”