Shadows of Flames Part 61

"Dada _so_ st'ong...." he pleaded, clinging hard to Sophy's breast. At last, however, he consented to let his father come.

Chesney entered, hesitating--stood near the door. Sophy, who had her arm about Bobby as he lay against the pillows in his crib, beckoned him to come forward.

"Now, now, my little man ... my _brave_ little man...." she murmured in the child's ear, her cheek to his--encouraging, soothing him. Chesney came and got awkwardly on his knees beside the crib. He felt thankful to make himself smaller in the boy's eyes. Timidly he ventured to steal one of his great hands towards the little fist, clutched in Sophy's laces.

"How are you, little man?" he said, "gentling" his voice as to some shy animal. "Won't you say 'how d'ye do' to dada?"

The boy, trying so hard to "be a man," regarded him with wide eyes, and the most touching, wavering smile of courage on the verge of tears. Then he looked with desperate appeal up at his mother. The set, wavering smile grew pale.

"Dada _too_ st'ong...." he said. "Bobby _so_ little...."

Chesney put down his face upon the crib and wept. Sophy knew that he was weeping, though no sound came from him. Then she told Bobby that "poor dada had been very, very ill"--he wasn't "too st'ong" any more.

And taking the little unwilling hand in hers, she "poored" his father's bent head with it. Chesney turned his face presently, kissed the little hand, then got up silently and left the room. Sophy went to him, five minutes later, and found him face down on his bed, sobbing like a child.

His own nerves had gone completely under the dreadful shocks of the past ten days.

XLII

Bobby's attack of jaundice was soon over. After that glimpse of his father, so gentle and so very kind--kinder than Bobby had ever known him--the boy began to recover with the quick resilience of childhood. By the following Monday he was quite fit to travel, Camenis said.

Physically, Chesney was much better also. Camenis had succeeded in routing the sciatica. A strong tonic had somewhat restored his appet.i.te.

Altogether, he felt more fit than he had believed possible under the circ.u.mstances. At first, Camenis had wanted him to take hot hip-baths mixed with sea-salt. But here Chesney rebelled. He loathed hot baths. He demanded either a quick, cold tub in the morning, or else his usual swim in the lake. Camenis and he tussled for some hours over this question.

Finally, it was agreed by the physician that as this September was such an unusually warm one, Chesney might have a very short swim during the hottest hours of the morning; then, after drying himself, lie and bake in the sun on the scorching pebbles of the sh.o.r.e. Late in the season as it was, he acquired the most beautifully toned mahogany-brown back and chest by this method. He was boyishly proud of this splendid tanning.

"The old boy'll think he's got a n.i.g.g.e.r-chief to monkey with, this time.

Eh--what?" he asked Sophy, turning about before her in his short bathing-trunks that she might see the full glory of his sunburnt torso.

She smiled approval, saying that to her he looked more like a well-roasted turkey than a "n.i.g.g.e.r." And she thought what a boy the big man was, at heart. It seemed pathetic and strange and very nice to her, all at the same time, that he could take such pleasure in such a thing, after all that had pa.s.sed and was to come.

Sunday evening she spent in having the last things packed away. The dismantled villa looked the picture of sordid cheerlessness, when stripped of all the little touches she had given it. They dined by one, virulent jet of acetylene gas, blazing in an iron loop from the middle of the ceiling.

"By George, this _is_ funereal!" Chesney could not refrain from exclaiming. "Two more meals like this--is it? Well, they'll give me melancholia."

"We needn't have two more," Sophy consoled him. "I've thought it out already. To-morrow morning we can breakfast on the terrace. Then we can go to the Hotel Ghiffa for luncheon. Our boat doesn't leave until three."

He looked at her with cordial appreciation.

"Clever girl--so we can!" he said. "But, I say"--his face fell--"what about my swim and sun-bath? That would cut me short--lunching at Ghiffa, I mean."

"But there's a capital bathing-sh.o.r.e at the hotel," she reminded him.

"You can have your swim there while they prepare luncheon."

About eleven o'clock next morning they sauntered together along the white high-road to Ghiffa.

"You will have a glorious swim...." Sophy said, looking at the lake that drowsed under the faint breath of a listless Tramontana.

"Those sleek, snaky trails on the water mean rain, they tell me,"

answered Chesney. "I'm in luck to have a sunny day for my last swim."

"Yes," she a.s.sented dreamily. "Rain isn't becoming to Italy. She's like a beautiful woman who doesn't know how to cry."

"Sophy! How feminine! Do _you_ know 'how to cry,' pray?"

"No. I haven't the knack at all." She laughed a little. "I make horrid faces.... I can feel myself making them."

"Poor la.s.s!" he said in his abrupt way, suddenly gripped by this idea of her grimacing under sorrow. He had given her such a lot of it--by George! He grasped her hand with a quick gesture, and frown of pain, drawing it through his arm.

"It's to be a clean slate, my girl," he said, looking down at her.

He felt the slight fingers pinch into his arm.

"_Yes_," she said. "Yes, Cecil." But she looked in front of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that gether, as though the dazzle of the white road and clouds and walls along the way, hurt her eyes.

Chesney fought off a great fog of depression that seemed suddenly to settle down on him.

"'Cheerly! Cheerly!'" he cried, putting a bluff note into his voice that he was far from feeling. "What's it the old chap in _The Tempest_ says?--'Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!' That's the 'barbaric yawp' for us, Sophy--eh? Don't you feel it so?"

"Yes.... I do.... I do, Cecil," she responded eagerly. Her grey eyes looked up at him now. The bright bravery of her face gave him another pang. He was glad that their next step brought them to the little Hotel Ghiffa. Sophy ran up to see how Bobby was faring, in the rooms that she had taken till the hour for leaving. She found him clamouring to go down and "p'ay ball wiv mens" in the garden. A game of _Boccie_ was going on there. She sent him down with Rosa to look on. Then she went out again to find Cecil. He met her at the door of the second bedroom. When he saw her, he stepped back into the room and signed her to come. He reached out and shut the door behind her. His face looked strange, all pale under its heavy coat of tan.

"Sophy," he said, "don't think me a sentimental a.s.s--but you've never told me ... in so many words that ... well ... that you forgive me?"

He was gazing at her hungrily, with a look half ashamed, half determined. She went straight to him, and put her arms around him. It was queer how much he appealed to her as Bobby did.

"Oh, I'm so sorry that I've let you feel the need of words!" she said.

"But if you want them I'll say them over and over----"

"No...." he stopped her; "I don't want them ... now. Will you...?" His arms held her painfully close. She turned her face to him and he kissed her--almost shyly. Her eyes stung. She put up her hand and pressed his cheek to hers....

"Now I'll go order our luncheon," she said gaily. But he knew well that there was no gaiety in her heart. And as he got out his bathing trunks, and took his bath-sheet on his arm, lines from Verhaeren began again to haunt him:

"_Je m'habille des logues de mes jours Et le baton de mon orgeuil il plie, Mes pieds dites commie ils sont lourds De me porter, de me trainer toujours Au long le siecle de ma vie_...."

Down to the sparkling hem of the lake the sombre voice accompanied him.

He stood in a sort of muse, his bare feet wincing from the hot pebbles; then, letting the ripples lave them, he went on musing. And in a sort of dark flare the joyous scene vanished, and he saw smoke-blurred, autumnal London gape before him. Here, too, Verhaeren whispered with gloomy sympathy:

"_Gares de suie et de fumee ou du gaz pleure Ses spleens d'argent lointain vers des chemins d'eclair, Ou des betes d'ennui baillent a l'heure Dolente immens.e.m.e.nt qui tente Westminster._"

He had a flash of grim amus.e.m.e.nt at the idea of "Westminster" used by the Belgian poet to rhyme with "eclair" ... then he flung himself forward into the glittering blue, and began to swim.... After all it was good to be alive no matter what the odds.... Perhaps the knowledge that this was his last swim for many months whetted his appreciation, but he had never felt more jocund a delight in the elastic clasp and purl of living water upon his naked flesh....

Sophy went out on the little terrace before the hotel to wait for his return. She had ordered luncheon served there, and a _cameriere_ was already throwing a fresh tablecloth over one of the iron tables. A late tea-rose nodded from the terrace railing in the languid wind. She went and leaned near it, watching her husband's splendid figure against the flickering, sunlit blue, as he stood those few moments musing, before he plunged forward for his swim. The late, wistful rose, its petals slightly shrivelled at the edges, kept tapping softly against her hand.

She stroked it lightly with her finger tips. The Padrone bustled up.

"_Con permesso--con permesso, signora_," he smiled, unctuously affable.

And with a table-knife he detached the rose and presented it, bowing low.