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CHAPTER XXIII. A STORM

THE boat excursion mentioned in Calvert’s letter was not the only pleasure-project of that day. It was settled that Mr. Stockwell should come out and give Milly a lesson in photography, in which, under Loyd’s former guidance, she had already made some progress. He was also to give Miss Grainger some flower-seeds of a very rare kind, of which he was carrying a store to the Pasha of Egypt, and which required some peculiar skill in the sowing. They were to dine, too, at a little rustic house beside the lake; and, in fact, the day was to be one of festivity and enjoyment.

The morning broke splendidly; and though a few clouds lingered about the Alpine valleys, the sky over the lake was cloudless, and the water was streaked and marbled with those parti-coloured lines which Italian lakes wear in the hot days of midsummer. It was one of those autumnal mornings in which the mellow colouring of the mature season blends with the soft air and gentle breath of spring, and all the features of landscape are displayed in their fullest beauty. Calvert and Florence were to visit the Isola de San Giulio, and bring back great clusters of the flowers of the “San Guiseppe” trees, to deck the dinner-table. They were also to go on as far as Pella for ice or snow to cool their wine, the voyage being, as Calvert said, a blending of the picturesque with the profitable.

Before breakfast was over the sky grew slightly, overcast, and a large mass of dark cloud stood motionless Over the summit of Monterone.

“What will the weather do, Carlo?” asked Calvert of the old boatman of the villa, as he came to say that all was in readiness.

“Who knows, ‘cellenza?” said he, with a native shrug of the shoulders. “Monterone is a big traitor of a mountain, and there’s no believing him. If that cloud scatters, the day will be fine; if the wind brings down fresh clouds from the Alps it will come on a ‘burrasca’.”

“Always a burrasca; how I am sick of your burrasca,” said he, contemptuously. “If you were only once in your life to see a real storm, how you’d despise those petty jobbles, in which rain and sleet play the loudest part.”

“What does he say of the weather?” asked Florence, who saw that Calvert had walked on to a little point with the old man, to take a freer view of the lake.

“He says, that if it neither blows hard nor rains, it will probably be fine. Just what he has told us every day since I came here.”

“What about this fine trout that you spoke of, Carlo?”

“It is at Gozzano, ‘cellenza; we can take it as we go by.”

“But we are going exactly in the opposite direction, my worthy friend; we are going to the island, and to Pella.”

“That is different,” said the old man, with another shrug of the shoulders.

“Didn’t you hear thunder? I’m sure I did,” cried Miss Grainger.

“Up yonder it’s always growling,” said Calvert, pointing towards the Simplon. “It is the first welcome travellers get when they pass the summit.”

“Have you spoken to him, Milly, about Mr. Stockwell? Will he take him up at Orta, and land him here?” asked Miss Grainger, in a whisper.

“No, aunt; he hates Stockwell, he says. Carlo can take the blue boat and fetch him. They don’t want Carlo, it seems.”

“And are you going without a boatman, Flurry?” Asked her aunt

“Of course we are. Two are quite cargo enough in that small skiff, and I trust I am as skilful a pilot as any Ortese fisherman,” broke in Calvert.

“Oh, I never disputed your skill, Mr. Calvert.”

“What, then, do you scruple to confide your niece to me?” said he, with a low whisper, in which the tone was more menace than mere inquiry.

“Is this the first time we have ever gone out in a boat together?”

She muttered some assurance of her trustfulness, but so confusedly, and with such embarrassment, as to be scarcely intelligible. “There! that was certainly thunder!” she cried.

“There are not three days in three months in this place without thunder. It is the Italian privilege, I take it, to make always more noise than mischief.”

“But will you go if it threatens so much?” said Miss Grainger.

“Ask Florry. For my part, I think the day will be a glorious one.”

“I’m certain it will,” said Florence, gaily; “and I quite agree with what Harry said last night Disputing about the weather has the same’ effect as firing great guns: it always brings down the rain.”

Calvert smiled graciously at hearing himself quoted.

It was the one sort of flattery he liked the best, and it rallied him out of his dark humour. “Are you ready?” – he had almost added “dearest,” and only caught himself in time – perhaps, indeed, not completely in time – for she blushed, as she said, “Eccomi.”

The sisters affectionately embraced each other. Emily even ran after Florence to kiss her once again, after parting, and then Florry took Calvert’s arm, and hastened away to the jetty. “I declare,” said she, as she stepped into the boat, “this leave-taking habit, when one is going out to ride, or to row, or to walk for an hour, is about the stupidest thing I know of.”

“I always said so. It’s like making one’s will every day before going down to dinner. It is quite true you may chance to die before the dessert, but the mere possibility should not interfere with your asking for soup. No, no, Florry, you are to steer; the tiller is yours for to-day; my post is here;” and he stretched himself at the bottom of the boat, and took out his cigar. The light breeze was just enough to move the little lateen sail, and gradually it filled out, and the skiff stole quietly away from shore, without even a ripple on the water.

“What’s the line, Florry?’ Hope at the helm, pleasure at the prow,’ or is it love at the helm?”

“A bad steersman, I should say; far too capricious,” cried she, laughing.

“I don’t know. I think he has one wonderful attribute; he has got wings to fly away with whenever the boat is in danger, and I believe it is pretty much what love does always.”

“Can’t say,” said she, carelessly. “Isn’t that a net yonder? Oughtn’t we to steer clear of it?”

“Yes. Let her fall off – so – that’s enough. What a nice light hand you have.”

“On a horse they tell me my hand is very light.”

“How I’d like to see you on my Arab ‘Said.’ Such a creature! so large-eyed, and with such a full nostril, the face so concave in front, the true Arab type, and the jaw a complete semicircle. How proud he’d look under you, with that haughty snort he gives, as he bends his knee. He was the present of a great Rajah to me – one of those native fellows we are graciously pleased to call rebels, because they don’t fancy to be slaves. Two years ago he owned a territory about the size of half Spain, and he is now something like a brigand chief, with a few hundred followers.”

“Dear Harry, do not talk of India – at least not of the mutiny.”

“Mutiny! Why call it mutiny, Florry? Well, love, I have done,” he muttered, for the word escaped him, and he feared how she might resent it.

“Come back to my lightness of hand.”

“Or of heart, for I sorely suspect, Florence, the quality is not merely a manual one.”

“Am I steering well?”

“Perfectly. Would that I could sail on and on for ever thus:

 
Over an ocean just like this,
A life of such untroubled bliss.”
 

Calvert threw in a sentimental glance with this quotation.

“In other words, an existence of nothing to do,” said she, laughing, “with an excellent cigar to beguile it.”

“Well, but ‘ladye faire,’ remember that I have earned some repose. I have not been altogether a carpet knight I have had my share of lance and spear, and amongst fellows who handle their weapons neatly.”

“You are dying to get back to Ghoorkas and Sikhs, but I won’t have it I’d rather hear Metastasio or Petrarch, just now.”

“What if I were to quote something apposite, though it were only prose – something out of the Promessi Sposi?”

She made no answer, and turned away her head.

“Put up your helm a little: let the sails draw freely. This is very enjoyable; it is a right royal luxury. I’m not sure Antony ever had his galley steered by Cleopatra; had he?”

“I don’t know; but I do know that I am not Cleopatra nor you Antony.”

“How readily you take one up for a foolish speech, as if these rambling indiscretions were not the soul of such converse as ours. They are like the squalls, that only serve to increase our speed and never risk our safety, and, somehow, I feel to-day as if my temper was all of that fitful and capricious kind. I suppose it is the over-happiness. Are you happy, Florry?” asked he, after a pause.

“If you mean, do I enjoy this glorious day and our sail, yes, intensely. Now, what am I to do? The sail is flapping in spite of me.”

“Because the wind has chopped round, and is coming from the eastward. Down your helm, and let her find her own way. We have the noble privilege of not caring whither. How she spins through it now.”

“It is immensely exciting,” said she, and her colour heightened as she spoke.

“Have you superstitions about dates?” he asked after another pause.

“No; I don’t think so. My life has been so uneventful. Few days record anything memorable. But why did you ask?”

“I am – I am a devout believer in lucky and unlucky days, and had I only bethought me this was a Friday, I’d have put off our sail till to-morrow.”

“It is strange to see a man like you attach importance to these things.”

“And yet it is exactly men like me who do so. Superstitions belong to hardy, stern, rugged races, like the northmen, even more than the’ natives of southern climes. Too haughty and too self-dependent to ask counsel from others like themselves, they seek advice in the occult signs and faint whispers of the natural world. Would you believe it, that I cast a horoscope last night to know if I should succeed in the next project I undertook?”

“And what was the answer?”

“An enigma to this purpose: that if what I undertook corresponded with the entrance of Orion into the seventh house – Why are you laughing?”

“Is it not too absurd to hear such nonsense from you?”

“Was it not the grotesque homage of the witch made Macbeth a murderer? What are you doing, child? Luff – luff up; the wind is freshening.”

“I begin to think there should be a more skilful hand on the tiller. It blows freshly now.”

“In three days more, Florence,” said he gravely, “it will be exactly two years since we sailed here all alone. Those two years have been to me like a long, long life, so much of danger and trouble and suffering have been compassed in them. Were I to tell you all, you’d own that few men could have borne my burden without being crushed by it. It was not death in any common shape that I confronted; but I must not speak of this. What I would say is, that through all the perils I passed, one image floated before me – one voice was in my ear. It was yours.”

“Dear Harry, let me implore you not to go back to these things.”

“I must, Florence – I must,” said he, still more sadly. “If I pain you, it is only your fair share of suffering.”

“My fair share! And why?”

“For this reason. When I knew you first, I was a worn-out, weary, heart-sick man of the world. Young as I was, I was weary of it all; I thought I had tasted of whatever it had of sweet or bitter. I had no wish to renew my experiences. I felt there was a road to go, and I began my life-journey without interest, or anxiety or hope. You taught me otherwise, Florence; you revived the heart that was all but cold, and brought it back to life and energy; you inspired me with high ambitions and noble desires; you gave confidence where there had been distrust, and hope where there had been indifference.”

“There, there!” cried she, eagerly; “there comes another squall. You must take the helm; I am getting frightened.”

“You are calmer than I am, Florence dearest. Hear me out. Why, I ask you – why call me back to an existence which you intended to make valueless to me? Why ask me to go a road where you refuse to journey?”

“Do come here! I know not what I am doing. And see, it grows darker and darker over yonder!”

“You steered me into stormier waters, and had few compunctions for it. Hear me out, Florence. For you I came back to a life that I ceased to care for; for you I took on me cares, and dangers, and crosses, and conquered them all; for you I won honours, high rewards, and riches, and now I come to lay them at your feet, and say, ‘Weigh all these against the proofs of that other man’s affection. Put into one scale these successes, won alone for you; these trials, these wounds – and into the other some humdrum letters of that good-enough creature, who is no more worthy of you than he has the courage to declare it.’”

As he spoke a clap of thunder, sharp as a cannon-shot broke above their heads, and a squall struck the boat aloft, bending her over till she half filled with water, throwing at the same time the young girl from her place to the lee-side of the boat.

Lifting her up, Calvert placed her on the seat, while he supported her with one arm, and with the other hand grasped the tiller.

“Is there danger?” whispered she faintly.

“No, dearest, none. I’ll bale out the water when the wind lulls a little. Sit close up here, and all will be well.”

The boat, however, deeply laden, no longer rose over the waves, but dipped her bow and took in more water at every plunge.

“Tell me this hand is mine, my own dearest Florence – mine for ever, and see how it will nerve my arm. I am powerless if I am hopeless. Tell me that I have something to live for, and I live.”

“Oh, Harry, is it when my heart is dying with fear that you ask me this? Is it generous – is it fair? There! the sail is gone! the ropes are torn across.”

“It is only the jib, darling, and we shall be better without it. Speak, Florence! say it is my own wife I am saving – not the bride of that man, who, if he were here, would be at your feet in craven terror this instant.”

“There goes the mast!”

At the word the spar snapped close to the thwart and fell over the side, carrying the sail with it. The boat now lay with one gunwale completely under water, helpless and water-logged. A wild shriek burst from the girl, who thought all was lost.

“Courage, dearest – courage! she’ll float still. Hold close to me and fear nothing. It is not Loyd’s arm that you have to trust to, but that of one who never knew terror!”

The waves surged up now with every heaving of the boat, so as to reach their breasts, and, sometimes striking on the weather-side, broke in great sheets of water over them.

“Oh, can you save us, Harry – can you save us?” cried she.

“Yes, if there’s aught worth saving,” said he, sternly. “It is not safety that I am thinking of; it is what is to come after. Have I your promise? Are you mine?”

“Oh! do not ask me this; have pity on me.”

“Where is your pity for me? Be quick, or it will be too late. Answer me – mine or his?”

“His to the last!” cried she, with a wild shriek; and clasping both her hands above her head, she would have fallen had he not held her.

“One chance more. Refuse me, and I leave you to your fate!” cried he, sternly.

She could not speak, but in the agony of her terror she threw her arms around and clasped him wildly. The dark dense cloud that rested on the lake was rent asunder by a flash of lightning at the instant, and a sound like a thousand great guns shook the air. The wind skimming the sea, carried sheets of water along and almost submerged the boat as they passed.

“Yes or no!” shouted Calvert, madly, as he struggled to disengage himself from her grasp.

“No!” she cried, with a wild yell that rung above all the din of the storm, and as she said it he threw her arms wide and flung her from him. Then, tearing off his coat, plunged into the lake.

The thick clouds as they rolled down from the Alps to meet the wind, settled over the lake, making a blackness almost like night, and only broken by the white flashes of the lightning. The thunder rolled out as it alone does in these mountain regions, where the echoes keep on repeating till they fill the very air with their deafening clamour. Scarcely was Calvert a few yards from the boat than he turned to swim back to her, but already was she hid from his view. The waves ran high, and the drift foam blinded him at every instant. He shouted out at the top of his voice; he screamed “Florence! Florence!” but the din around drowned his weak efforts, and he could not even hear his own words. With his brain mad by excitement, he fancied every instant that he heard his name called, and turned, now hither, now thither, in wild confusion. Meanwhile, the storm deepened, and the wind smote the sea with frequent claps, sharp and sudden as the rush of steam from some great steam-pipe. Whether his head reeled with the terrible uproar around, or that his mind gave way between agony and doubt, who can tell? He swam madly on and on, breasting the waves with his strong chest, and lost to almost all consciousness, save of the muscular effort he was making – none saw him more!

The evening was approaching, the storm had subsided, and the tall Alps shone out in all the varied colours of rock, or herbage, or snow-peak; and the blue lake at the foot, in its waveless surface, repeated all their grand outlines and all their glorious tints. The water was covered with row-boats in every direction, sent out to seek for Florence and her companion. They were soon perceived to cluster round one spot, where a dismasted boat lay half-filled with water, and a figure, as of a girl sleeping, lay in the stern, her head resting on the gunwale. It was Florence, still breathing, still living, but terror-stricken, lost to all consciousness, her limbs stiffened with cold. She was lifted into a boat and carried on shore.

Happier for her the long death-like sleep – that lasted for days – than the first vague dawn of consciousness, when her senses returning, brought up the terrible memory of the storm, and the last scene with Calvert. With a heart-rending cry for mercy she would start up in bed, and, before her cry had well subsided, would come the consciousness that the peril was past, and then, with a mournful sigh, would she sink back again to try and regain sufficient self-control to betray nothing; not even of him who had deserted her.

Week after week rolled by, and she made but slow progress towards recovery. There was not, it is true, what the doctors could pronounce to be malady – her heightened pulse alone was feverish – but a great shock had shaken her, and its effects remained in an utter apathy and indifference to everything around her.

She wished to be alone – to be left in complete solitude, and the room darkened. The merest stir or movement in the house jarred on her nerves and irritated her, and with this came back paroxysms of excitement that recalled the storm and the wreck. Sad, therefore, and sorrowful to see as were the long hours of her dreary apathy, they were less painful than these intervals of acute sensibility; and between the two her mind vibrated.

One evening about a month after the wreck, Emily came down to her aunt’s room to say that she had been speaking about Joseph to Florry. “I was telling her how he was detained at Calcutta, and could not be here before the second mail from India; and her reply was, ‘It is quite as well. He will be less shocked when he sees me.’”

“Has she never asked about Calvert?” asked the old lady.

“Never. Not once. I half suspect, however, that she overheard us that evening when we were talking of him, and wondering that he had never been seen again. For she said afterwards, ‘Do not say before me what you desire me not to hear, for I hear frequently when I am unable to speak, or even make a sign in reply.’”

“But it is strange that nothing should ever be known of him.”

“No, aunt Carlo says several have been drowned in this lake whose bodies have never been found. He has some sort of explanation, about deep currents that set in amongst the rocks at the bottom, which I could not understand.”

The days dragged on as before. Miss Grainger, after some struggles about how to accomplish the task, took courage, and wrote to Miss Sophia Calvert, to inform her of the disastrous event which had occurred and the loss of her cousin. The letter was, however, left without any acknowledgment whatever, and save in some chance whisperings between Emily and her aunt, the name of Calvert was never spoken of again.

Only a few days before Christmas a telegram told them that Loyd had reached Trieste, and would be with them in a few days. By this time Florence had recovered much of her strength and some of her looks. She was glad, very glad to hear that Joseph was coming; but her joy was not excessive. Her whole nature seemed to have been toned down by that terrible incident to a state of calm resignation to accept whatever came with little of joy or sorrow; to submit to rather than partake of, the changeful fortunes of life. It was thus Loyd found her when he came, and, to his thinking, she was more charming, more lovable than ever. The sudden caprices, which so often had worried him, were gone, and in their place there was a gentle tranquillity of character which suited every trait of his own nature, and rendered her more than ever companionable to him. Warned by her aunt and sister to avoid the topic of the storm, he never alluded to it in any shape to Florence; but one evening, as, after a long walk together, she lay down to rest before tea-time, he took Milly’s arm and led her into the garden. “She has told me all, Milly,” said he, with some emotion; “at least, all that she can remember of that terrible day.”