The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
the burning of it. His treachery towards de Vallorbes became almost
vulgar and of small moment beside his cruelty to this superbly
magnanimous woman, his mother. For, all these years, determinately and
of set purpose, defiant of every better impulse, he had hardened his
heart against her. To differ from her, to cherish that which was
unsympathetic to her, to put aside every tradition in which she had
nurtured him, to love that which she condemned, to condemn that which
she loved--and this, if silently, yet unswervingly--had been the ruling
purpose of his action. That which had its origin in passionate revolt
against his own unhappy disfigurement, had come to be an interest and
object in itself. In this quarrel with her--a quarrel, intimate,
pre-natal, anterior to consciousness and to volition--he found the
justification of his every lapse, his every crookedness of conduct and
of thought. Since he could not reach Almighty God, and strike at the
eternal First Cause which he held responsible for the inalienable wrong
done to him, he would strike, with cold-blooded persistence, at the
woman whom Almighty God had permitted to be His instrument in the
infliction of that wrong. And to where had that sustained purpose of
striking led him? Even--so he judged just now--to the dishonour and
desolation of to-day, following upon the sacrilegious licence of last
night.
All this Richard saw with the alternately groping, benumbed, mental
vision and the glaring, mental nakedness of breeding fever. Small
wonder that looking for comfort, for promise of restoration, he found
none in things material, in things intellectual, in others, or in
himself! He felt outcasted beyond hope of redemption, but not
repentant, hardly remorseful even, only aware of all that which had
happened, and of his own state. For Lady Calmady's letter was to him
little more, as yet, than a placing of facts. To trade upon her
magnificent generosity of affection, and seek refuge in those
outstretched arms now, with the mark of the branding-iron so sensibly
upon him, appeared to him of all contemptible doings the most radically
contemptible. Obviously it was impossible to go back. He must go on
rather--out of sight, out of mind. Fantastic schemes of disappearing,
of losing himself, far away, in remote and nameless places, among the
coral islands of the Pacific or the chill majesty of the Antarctic
seas, offered themselves to his imagination. The practical difficulties
presented by such schemes, their infeasibility, did not trouble him. He
would sever all connection with that which had been, with that which
had made for good equally with that which had made for evil. By his own
voluntary act and choice he would become as a man dead, the disgrace of
his malformed body, the closer and more hideous disgrace of his defiled
and prostituted soul, surviving in legend merely, as might some ugly,
old-time fable useful for the frightening of unruly babies.
And to that end of self-obliteration he instantly applied himself, with
outward calm, but with the mental hurry and restlessness of increasing
illness. His first duty was to end the whole matter of his relation to
Helen,--Helen shorn of her divinity, convicted liar and wanton, yet
mistress still for him, as he feared, of mighty enchantments. So he
wrote to her very briefly. The note should be given her later in the
day. In it he stated that he should have left the villa before this
announcement reached her, left it finally and without remotest prospect
of return, since he could not doubt that she recognised, as he did, how
impossible it had become that he and she should meet again. He added
that he would communicate with her shortly as to business arrangements.
That done, he summoned Powell, his valet, bidding him pack. He would go
down to the yacht at once. He had received information which made it
imperative that he should quit Naples immediately.
To be out of all this, rid of it, fairly started on the road of
negation of social being, negation of recognised existence, infected
him like a madness. But even the most forceful human will must bend to
stupidities of detail and of material fact. Unexpected delays had
occurred. The yacht was not ready for sea, neither coaled, nor
provisioned, nor sound of certain small damages to her machinery.
Vanstone, the captain, might mislay his temper, and the first mate
expend himself in polysyllabic invective, young Penberthy cease to
dream, stewards, engineers, carpenters, cooks, quartermasters, seamen,
firemen, do their most willing and urgent best, nevertheless the
morning of next day, and even the afternoon of it, still found Richard
Calmady seated at the locker-table of the white-walled deck-cabin, his
voyage towards self-obliteration not yet begun.
Charts were outspread before him, upon which, at weary intervals, he
essayed to trace the course of his coming wanderings. But his brain was
dull, he had no power of consecutive thought. That same madness of
going was upon him with undiminished power, yet he knew not where he
wanted to go, hardly why he wanted to go, only that a blind obsession
of going drove him. He was miserably troubled about other matters
too--about that same brief letter he had written to Helen before
leaving the villa. He was convinced that he had written such a letter,
but struggle as he might to remember the contents of it they remained
to him a blank. He was haunted by the fear that in that letter he had
committed some irremediable folly, had bound himself to some absurdly
unworthy course of action. But what it might be escaped and, in
escaping, tortured him. And then, this surely was Friday, and Morabita
sang at the San Carlo to-night? And surely he had promised to be there,
and to meet the famous _prima donna_ and sup with her after the
performance, as in former days at Vienna? He had not always been quite
kind to her, poor, dear, fat, good-natured, silly soul! He could not
fail her now.--And then he went back to a chart of the South Pacific
again. Only he could not see it plainly, but saw, instead of it, the
great folio of copper-plate engravings lying on the broad window-seat
of the eastern bay of the Long Gallery at home. He was sitting there to
watch for the race-horses coming back from exercise, Tom Chifney
pricking along beside them on his handsome cob. And the long-ago,
boyish desperation of longing for wholeness, for freedom, brought a
moistness to his eyes, and a lump into his throat. And all the while
the coal dust drifted in at each smallest crevice and aperture, and the
air was vibrant with rasping, jarring uproar and nauseous with the
stale, heavy odours of the city and the port. And steadily,
ceaselessly, the descending rain drummed upon the roofing overhead.
At length a stupor took him. His head sunk upon his arms, folded upon
those outspread charts, while the noise of all the rude activities
surrounding him subtly transformed itself into that of a great
orchestra. And above this, superior to, yet nobly supported by it,
Morabita's voice rose in the suave and passionate phrases of the
glorious cavatina--"_Ernani, Ernani, involami, all aborito
ampleso._"--Yes, her voice was as good as ever! Richard drew a long
breath of relief. Here, at least, was something true to itself, and
amid so much of change, so much of spoiling, still unspoilt! He raised
his head and listened. For something must have happened, something of
serious moment. The orchestra, for some unaccountable reason, had
suddenly broken down. Yes, it must be the orchestra which disaster had
overtaken, for a voice very certainly continued. No, not a voice, but
voices--those of Vanstone the captain, and Price the first mate, and
old Billy Tinn the boatswain--loud, imperative, violently remonstrant,
but swept under and swamped at moments by cries and volleys of foulest,
Neapolitan _argot_ from hoarse, Neapolitan throats. And that abruptly
silenced orchestra?--Richard came back to himself, came back to
actualities of environment and prosaic fact. An infinitely weariful
despair seized him. For the sound that had reached so sudden a
termination was not that of cunningly-attuned, musical instruments, but
the long-drawn, chattering rush of the coal, pitched from the baskets
down the echoing, iron shoots.
The cabin door opened discreetly and Powell, incarnation of decorous
punctualities even amid existing tumultuously discomposing
circumstances, entered.
"From the villa, sir," he said, depositing letters and newspapers upon
the table.
Richard put out his hand, turned them over mechanically. For again,
somehow, notwithstanding the babel without, that exquisite
invitation--"_Ernani, Ernani, involami_,"--assailed his ears.
The valet waited a little, quiet and deferential in bearing, yet
observing his master with a certain keenness and anxiety.
"I saw Mr. Bates, as you desired, sir," he said at last.
Richard looked up at him vaguely. And it struck him that while Powell
was on shore to-day he had undoubtedly had his hair cut. This
interested him--though why, he would have found it difficult to say.
"Mr. Bates thought you should be informed that a gentleman called early
yesterday afternoon, as he said by appointment."
Yes--certainly Powell had had his hair cut.--"Did the gentleman give
his name?"
"Yes, sir, M. Paul Destournelle."
Powell spoke slowly, getting his tongue carefully round the foreign
syllables, and, for all the confusion of his hearer's mind, the name
went home. Vagueness passed from Richard's glance.
"He was refused, of course."
"Her ladyship had given orders that should any person of that name call
he was to be admitted."--Powell spoke with evident reluctance.
"Consequently Mr. Bates was uncertain how to act, having received
contrary orders from you, sir, the day before yesterday. He explained
this to her ladyship, but she insisted."
Richard's mind had become perfectly lucid.
"Very well," he said coldly.
"Mr. Bates also thought you should know, sir, that after M.
Destournelle's visit her ladyship announced she should not remain at
the villa. She left about five o'clock, taking her maid. Charles
followed with all the baggage."
The valet paused. Richard's manner was decidedly discouraging, yet,
something further must at least be intimated.
"Her ladyship gave no address to Mr. Bates for the forwarding of her
letters."
But here the cabin door, left slightly ajar by Powell, was opened wide,
and that with none of the calm and discretion displayed by the
functionary in question. A long perspective of grimy deck behind him,
his oilskins shiny from the wet, with trim, black beard, square-made,
bold-eyed, hot-tempered, warm-hearted, alert, humorous--typical West
Countryman as his gentle dreamy cousin, Penberthy, the second mate,
though of a very different type--stood Captain Vanstone. His
easily-ruffled temper suffered from the after effects of what is
commonly known as a "jolly row," and his speech was curt in consequence
thereof.
"Sorry to disturb you, Sir Richard," he said, "and still more sorry to
disappoint you, but it can't be helped."
Dickie turned upon him so strangely drawn and haggard a countenance,
that Vanstone with difficulty repressed an exclamation. He looked in
quick inquiry at the valet, who so far departed from his usual decorum
as to nod his head in assent to the silent questioning.
"What's wrong now?" Richard said.
"Why, these beggarly rascals have knocked off. Price offered them a
higher scale of pay. I had empowered him to do so. But they won't
budge. The rain's washed the heart out of them. We've tried persuasion
and we've tried threats--it's no earthly use. Not a basket more coal
will they put on board before five to-morrow morning."
"Can't we sail with what we have got?"