The Raft
she had wanted to be with him. He had traveled all the way from London
to get a glimpse of her. And yet, knowing that, she sat on in the ruined
castle, while the reluctant day, like a naughty child at bed-time,
saffron skirts held high, stepped lingeringly down the purple hills,
keeping the sun waiting.
She was trying to arrive at a conclusion. To Peter she was
everything--more than ever this past year had taught her that. He made
no plans for the future in which she was not to share. It was just as it
had been when they were girl and boy--he seemed to take it for granted
that they were always to live together. The thought that she should
marry never entered his head. Save for the mouth-organ boy, it would not
have entered hers.
But the mouth-organ boy! Long ago, when she couldn't see him, she had
heard him playing in the tree-tops. It was something like that now.
Since she had left England, his letters had followed her. Sometimes
she hadn't answered them. Sometimes she had answered them casually.
Sometimes she had had fits of contrition and had written him
volumes--compact histories of her thoughts and doings. It made no
difference whether she was punctual or neglectful; like a familiar
friend in unfamiliar places, his handwriting was always ahead of her
travels, waiting to greet her.
“What does he say?” Peter would ask her.
Then she would read him carefully edited extracts--nice polite
information, entirely innocuous. Peter hadn't guessed. He mustn't.
How preposterous it had seemed when Harry had first written her that he
loved her! She hadn't regarded him in the aspect of a lover--didn't want
to. It had seemed almost treachery to Peter. But now----. Now it didn't
seem at all preposterous--only wonderful, and true, and puzzling.
How long ago was it? Eight months since he had told her. She had been a
child then--seventeen, with cornflower eyes and blowy daffodil hair. The
knowledge that she was loved had startled her into womanhood.
She ought to be getting back. But Peter, Peter from whom she had no
secrets, didn't know. She dared not tell him--and Harry was there. Peter
had given her so much--this year of romance; and yet, with all his
giving----.
He might give her his whole life; he couldn't give her this different
thing that Harry offered.
She rose to go. Her attention was arrested. It couldn't be! Gazing
sheer down, she leant out across the broken parapet. In the racing tide,
through its treacherous whirlpools, a man was swimming. She could see
his reddish hair and beard shine as they caught the sunset. As he lunged
forward, they sank beneath the surface. She held her breath.
He was keeping near in to the rocks--so near that, had she dropped a
stone, it would have struck him. With all his fighting, he was making
little progress. It was too far to the town to run for help--moreover,
none of the fishing-boats ever ventured there. She wanted to cry out
encouragement; she feared to distract him from his effort. Now, in
rounding a bend, he was lost to sight. Ah! There he was again. She saw
where he was going--to the weather-beaten steps which wound down the
precipice. He stretched out his hand and pulled himself up, dragging
his body across the rocks like a fly which had been all but drowned. He
stood up, white and magnificent, squeezing the water from his beard
and hair. As he commenced to climb the stair in the cliff-front, he
vanished.
She couldn't go now. Her curiosity was roused. What kind of a man could
be so foolhardy as to do a thing like that? Drawing back into the shadow
of the tower, she waited.
Whistling--faint at first! It was a gay little Neapolitan air. Singing
for a stave or two! It broke off--the whistling took up the air. Gulls
flew up, circling and screaming. Above the moldering ramparts, red and
gold against the red and gold of the sunset, came the valiant head of
a man who might have been the last of the pirates. His eyes shone
like blue fire. The wind was in his beard and hair. When he had lifted
himself on to the wall, he stood there, on the very edge, looking back
perilously. He was of extraordinary height and strength. The teeth,
through which he whistled, were strong and white--everything about him
was powerful, his hands, his shoulders, his courageous face. He seemed
a survival of ancient deity--a sea-god who, thinking himself unobserved,
had landed at the spot where, centuries ago, Venus had been worshiped
by a forgotten world. He looked solitary and irresponsible--a law to
himself. Because of his size and the remoteness of the place, Kay was
filled with lonely terror.
He walked slowly over to the easel in the broken archway. He was
bare-armed and bare-footed; his shirt was collarless and turned back at
the neck. Still whistling, he picked up the palette, pushed his thumb
through it, glanced across his shoulder seaward and commenced touching
in streaks of color. He worked carelessly, yet with rapid intensity.
Sometimes he left ofif whistling, stepped back from the canvas, his
head on one side, and surveyed his handiwork. The light was failings Kay
prayed that he had finished--but no. Driven to desperation, she thought
she could creep by him. Harry and Peter would be getting nervous.
She had drawn level with him. A stone turned beneath her foot. His head
twisted sharply. She commenced to run. Glancing back, she saw his eyes
following--he was laying down his brushes and palette. In her panic, she
had chosen the wrong direction; a wall rose in front, blocking her exit.
He was coming--she could hear his bare feet overtaking her. She climbed
the wall; below lay the sea, now orange, now sullen in patches. There
was no way of escape; she looked down. The space made her dizzy; she
groped with her hands as if to push back the distance. She felt like a
bird with its wings folded, falling, falling. Everything had gone black.
For a moment she was held out above the sea, her flight arrested. Blue
eyes bent over her laughing. She was swung back. She found herself lying
on the sun-scorched turf. The man was kneeling beside her, chafing her
hands and forehead. Her faintness left her. As she gazed up at him,
he smiled and said something in an unintelligible language. She sat up
bewildered, trying to appear brave. “I'm--I'm all right, thank you. I'll
go now.”
“Ah, a little English girl!” His voice was deep and pleasant.
She surveyed him with growing confidence. How concerned and gentle he
was for so large a creature! She scrambled to her feet. He was quick to
take her hand, but she withdrew it from him. “I'm really all right. It
was only dizziness. Good-by, Mr.--Mr. Neptune.”
“Mr. Neptune!” He plucked at his red beard and planted himself in front
of her. His eyes twinkled. “Strange little English girl, why do you call
me that?”
“Because you came out of the sea. And d'you know, before I go I want
to tell you--I was awfully afraid you'd get drowned. Do you always swim
when you come to the castle?”
Mr. Neptune placed his hands on her slight shoulders. They were large
and masterful hands, barbaric with vivid smudges of the colors he had
been using. She was conscious that, in his artist's way, he was looking
not so much at her as at her body.
“Always swim to the castle! No. It was the first time. Your poet, Byron,
was the last to do it. Thought I'd try just for sport, as you English
call it.”
“I wouldn't do it again,” she said wisely; “and now I must really go.”
He didn't budge from her path. She waited. He regarded her with
amusement. “Going! Not till you've promised to let me paint your
portrait.”
Kay was astounded and--yes, and flattered. He might be a great artist;
he had the air of a man who was important. But she was more frightened
than flattered: he looked so huge standing there in the yellow twilight.
“Please, please,” she said, “you must let me go. My brother's waiting
for me and he'll be nervous.”
He made no sign that he had heard, but gazed down at her intently with
his bare arms folded. She hesitated. A sob rose in her throat. “Why--why
should you want to paint me?”
“Because,” he said, “you are beautiful. What is beautiful dies, but I--I
make it last for always.” Then, in a gentler voice, “Because, little
English girl, if I don't paint you, we may never meet again.”
It was the way in which he said it--the thrilling sadness of his
tone. She felt that she was flushing, and laughed to disguise her
embarrassment. “But, Mr. Neptune, I've thanked you and--and it was
your fault that we met--and isn't it rather rude of you to prevent me
from----?”
“No,” he spoke deliberately, “not rude. You're adorable--too good to
die. I want to make you live forever. If I were Mr. Neptune, d'you know
what I'd do? I'd swim off with you, earth-maiden.”
Her words came quickly; she was afraid of what he might say or do. “I
promise. You shall paint me.”
She tried to pass him. He put his arm before her as a barrier. His
eyes flashed down on her, gladly and gravely. “When the English promise
anything, they shake hands on it. Is that not so?”
She slipped her small hand into his great one. She heard a footstep
behind; it was her fisherman who had at last come in search of her. She
nodded to let him know that she was coming. Now that she was not alone,
she lost her fear of the giant. She became interested in him. She almost
liked him.
“Where will you paint me?” she asked.
“Here, against the sky. It's the color of your eyes. We're going to
be friends--is it so?” He stepped aside. “Then, little English girl,
good-night.”
As she passed under the broken archway, she turned and waved. His blue
eyes still followed her through the yellow twilight.
Down through the hunchback town she went. Its streets were deformed,
steeply descending, scarcely more than a yard wide. It was eloquent with
memories of unrecorded fights, in which a handful had held Porto Venere
against armies. Beneath its close-packed roofs it was already night.
Before little shrines in the walls candles glistened. Sailor-men,
with gaudy sashes round their waists, bowed their heads and crossed
themselves reverently as they passed. In crooked doorways mothers sat
suckling their babies--madonnas with the oval faces and kind eyes that
Raphael loved to paint. To them the mystery of love was divulged; many
of them no older than Kay.
After her great fear she was strangely elated. She had seen admiration
in a man's eyes. “Why should you want to paint me?” She could hear his
deep voice replying, “Because you are beautiful.” Then came the wistful
knowledge of life's brevity, “What is beautiful dies.” She had never
thought of that--that she and Harry and Peter, and all this world which
was hers to-day must die. The old town with its defaced magnificence,
its battered heraldry, its generations of lover-adventurers who had
left not even their names behind them--everything reminded her, “What
is beautiful dies.” She was consumed with a desire she had never known
before--to experience the rage of life.
Why was it? What had made her waken? Was it contact with a primitive and
virile personality? She had gained a new understanding of manhood. Would
Harry be like that, if he lived to-day as though it were a thousand
years ago?
She stepped into the boat, curling herself in the prow among nets where
she would be out of the way of the sail. Darkness was stealing across
the sky, a monstrous shadow-bird whose wings roofed in the gulf from
shore to shore. The sail began to bulge; the boat lay over on its side.
Outlines of wooded hills grew vague. To the north Spezia lay, a blazing
jewel. At the mast-heads of anchored men-of-war lanterns twinkled
faintly. She trailed her hand, watching how the water ran phosphorescent
through her fingers. A fisher-boat crept out of the dusk. A guitar was