Part 36 (1/2)
”Through this week,” he said, ”they have been watching in those churches a supreme renouncement, the ultimate agony of giving up, the last triumph of utter loss. I'm not going to talk about that; it's not my business or my right ... But it surely counts, that giving up whatever we may or may not believe about it. It s.h.i.+nes, a terrible counsel of perfection for those who have, burning and hurting. But for those who have not, it doesn't burn and hurt; it s.h.i.+nes to cheer and comfort; it is the banner of the leader of the losing legion, lifted up that the rest may follow after. Does that help at all?... Perhaps at this moment nothing helps at all.... Have I said enough? Need I go on?”
Peter's voice, flat and dead, spoke out of the shadow of the dim room.
”You have said enough. You need not go on.”
Then Rodney turned and saw him, sitting still on the floor by the half-packed bag, with the yellow dog sleeping against him. In the dim light his face looked pale and pinched like a dead man's.
”You've done your work,” the flat voice said. ”You've taken it away--the new life we so wanted. You've shown that it can't be. You're quite right.
And you're right too that nothing helps at all.... Because of Denis, I can't do this. But I find no good in emptiness; why should I? I want to have things and enjoy them, at this moment, more desperately than you, who praise emptiness and doing without, ever wanted anything.”
”I am aware of that,” said Rodney.
”You've got in the way,” said Peter, looking up at the tall gaunt figure by the window; and anger shook him. ”You've stepped in and spoilt it all.
Yes, you needn't be afraid; you've spoilt it quite irrevocably. You knew that to mention Denis was enough to do that. I was trying to forget him; I could have, till it was too late. You can go home now and feel quite easy; you've done your job. There's to be no new life for me, or Thomas, or Lucy, or Francesco--only the same old emptiness. The same old ... oh, d.a.m.n!”
Peter, who never swore, that ugly violence being repugnant to his nature, swore now, and woke Francesco, who put up his head to lick his friend's face. But Peter pushed him away, surprising him violently, and caught at his half-filled bag and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the contents and flung them on the top of one another on the floor. They lay in a jumbled chaos--Thomas's clothes and Peter's socks and razor and Thomas's rabbit and Peter's books; and Francesco snuffled among them and tossed them about, thinking it a new game.
”Go away now.” Peter flung out the words like another oath. ”Go away to your poverty which you like, and leave us to ours which we hate. There's no more left for you to take away from us; it's all gone. Unless you'd like me to throw Thomas out of the window, since you think breakages are so good.”
Rodney merely said, ”I'm not going away just yet. Could you let me stay here for the night and sleep on the sofa? It's late to go back to-night.”
”Sleep where you like,” said Peter. ”There's the bed. I don't want it.”
But Rodney stretched himself instead on the horse-hair sofa. He said no more, knowing that the time for words was past. He lay tired and quiet, with closed eyes, knowing how Peter and the other disreputable forsaken outcast sat together huddled on the floor through the dim night, till the dawn looked palely in and showed them both fallen asleep, Peter's head resting on Francesco's yellow back.
It was Rodney who got up stiffly from his hard resting-place in the dark unlovely morning, and made tea over Peter's spirit-lamp for both of them.
Peter woke later, and drank it mechanically. Then he looked at Rodney and said, ”I'm horribly stiff. Why did neither of us go to bed?” He was pale and heavy-eyed, and violent no more, but very quiet and tired, as if, accepting, he was sinking deep in grey and cold seas, that numbed resistance and drowned words.
The milk came in, and Peter gave Thomas to drink; and on the heels of the milk came the post, and a letter for Peter.
”I suppose,” said Peter dully, as he opened it, ”she too has found out that it can't be done.”
The letter said: ”Peter, we can't do it. I am horribly, horribly sorry, but I know it now for certain. Perhaps you know it too, by now. Because the reason is in you, not in me. It is that you love Denis too much. So you couldn't be happy. I want you to be happy, more than I want anything in the world, but it can't be this way. Please, dear Peter, be happy sometime; please, please be happy. I love you always--if that helps at all.--Lucy.”
Peter let the note fall on the floor, and stood with bent head by the side of Thomas's crib, while Thomas guggled his milk.
”Two minds with but a single thought,” he remarked, in that new, dreary voice of his. ”As always.... Well, it saves trouble. And we're utterly safe now, you see; doubly safe. You can go home in peace.”
Then Rodney, knowing that he could be no more use, left the three derelicts together.
CHAPTER XXI
ON THE Sh.o.r.e
There is a sh.o.r.e along which the world flowers, one long sweet garden strip, between the olive-grey hills and the very blue sea. Like nosegays in the garden the towns are set, blooming in their many colours, linked by the white road running above blue water. For vagabonds in April the poppies riot scarlet by the white road's edge, and the last of the hawthorn lingers like melting snow, and over the garden walls the purple veils of the wistaria drift like twilight mist. Over the garden walls, too, the sweetness of the orange and lemon blossom floats into the road, and the frangipani sends delicate wafts down, and the red and white roses toss and hang as if they had brimmed over from sheer exuberance. If a door in one of the walls chance to stand ajar, vagabonds on the road may look in and see an Eden, unimaginably sweet, aflame with oleanders and pomegranate blossom, and white like snow with tall lilies.
The road itself is good, bordered on one side by the garden sweetness and the blossoms that foam like wave-crests over the walls, on the other breaking down to a steep hill-slope where all the wild flowers of spring star the gra.s.sy terraces, singing at the twisted feet of the olives that give them grey shadow. So the hillside runs steeply down to where at its rocky base the blue waves murmur. All down the coast the road turns and twists and climbs and dips, above little lovely bays and through little gay towns, caught between mountains and blue water. For those who want a bed, the hush of the moonlit olives that shadow the terraced slopes gives sweeter sleep than the inns of the towns, and the crooning of the quiet sea is a gentler lullaby than the noises of streets, and the sweetness of the myrtle blossom is better to breathe than the warm air of rooms. To wander in spring beneath the sun by day and the moon by night along the sea's edge is a good life, a beautiful life, a cheerful and certainly an amusing life. Social adventures crowd the road. There are pleasant people along this sh.o.r.e of little blue bays. Besides the ordinary natives of the towns and the country-side, and besides the residents in the hotels (whose uses to vagabonds are purely financial) there is on this sh.o.r.e a drifting and incalculable population, heterogeneous, yet with a note of character common to all. A population cosmopolitan and s.h.i.+fting, living from hand to mouth, vagrants of the road or of the street corner, finding life a warm and easy thing in this long garden shut between hills and sea. So warm and lovely and easy a garden is it that it has for that reason become a lee sh.o.r.e; a sh.o.r.e where the sick and the sad and the frail and the unfortunate are driven by the winds of adversity to find a sheltered peace. On the sh.o.r.e all things may be given up; there is no need to hold with effort any possession, even life itself, for all things become gifts, easily bestowed and tranquilly received. You may live on extremely little there, and win that little lightly. You may sell things along the road for some dealer, or for yourself--plaster casts, mosaic brooches, picture postcards, needlework of divers colours. If you have a small cart drawn by a small donkey, you are a lucky man, and can carry your wares about in it and sell them at the hotels, or in the towns at fair-time. If you possess an infant son, you can carry him also about in the cart, and he will enjoy it. Also, if your conversation is like the sun's, with a friendly aspect to good and bad, you will find many friends to beguile the way. You may pick them up at fairs, on _festa_ days, like blackberries.