Part 44 (1/2)

”There never has been anything to be done,” replied Fitz slowly, as was his wont. ”That has been the keynote of his life as long as I have known him. If there had been anything to do, you may be sure that De Lloseta would have done it.”

Eve was bending over the small beginnings of a man lying supine on her knees. She drew Henry Cyprian's wraps closer around him preparatory to taking him indoors.

”Then his is surely the saddest life imaginable,” she said.

CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNT'S STORY.

And yet I know That tears lie deep in all I do.

The pine forests on the mountain-tops were beginning to gather the darkness as the Count de Lloseta rode up the last slope to the Casa d'Erraha. The sun had just set behind the rocky land that hides Miramar from D'Erraha. A stillness seemed to be creeping down from the mountain to the valley. The wind had gone down with the sun.

The Count rode alone beneath the gloom of the maritime pines which grow to their finest European stature on the northern slope of D'Erraha. He had been in the saddle all day; but Cipriani de Lloseta was a Spaniard, and a Spaniard is a different man when he has thrown his leg across a horse. The suave indolence of manner seems to vanish, the courtly indifference, the sloth and contemplativeness which stand as a bar between our northern nature and the peninsular habit. De Lloseta was a fine horseman--even in Spain, the nation of finest hors.e.m.e.n in the world; also he was on Majorcan soil again. He had landed at Palma that morning from the Barcelona steamer, and he had found Fitz awaiting him with a servant and a led horse on the quay.

There was a strangely excited gleam in De Lloseta's dark eyes which Fitz did not fail to notice. The Count looked around over the dark wild faces of his countrymen and met no glance of recognition, for he had been absent forty years. Then he raised his eyes to the old city towering on the hillside above them, the city that has not changed these six hundred years, and he smiled a wan smile.

”I have brought a horse for you,” said Fitz, ”either to ride back to D'Erraha with me now or to take you to Lloseta, should you care to go direct there. Eve has packed up some lunch for you in the saddle-bag if you think of going to Lloseta first.”

The Count nodded.

”Yes,” he said, ”that is like Eve; she would think of such things.”

He went up to the horse, patted it, measured the length of the stirrup-leather, and then turned to Fitz.

”I will go to Lloseta,” he said. ”It is only natural after forty years. I will be with you by seven o'clock to-night at D'Erraha.”

Fitz did not offer to accompany him, and Cipriani de Lloseta rode that strange ride alone; unknown, an outcast in his own land, he rode through the most fertile valley in the world, of which every tree was dear to him; and no man knew his thoughts. The labourers in the fields, men and women, brown, sunburnt, half Moorish, wholly simple and natural, paused in their toil and looked wonderingly at the lonely horseman; the patient mules walking their ceaseless round at the Moorish wells blinked lazily at him; the eagles of Lloseta swept slowly round in a great circle far above the old castle, as they had swept in his childhood, and he looked up at them with his strange patient smile. He pushed the great olive-wood gate open and pa.s.sed into the terraced garden, all overgrown, neglected, mournful.

It was a strange home-coming, with no one near to see.

He spent the whole day at Lloseta engaged in the very practical work of employing men to labour at the garden and in the house. It was, he said, his intention to come back to his ”possession,” as these Majorcan country houses are called, to inhabit it the larger part of the year, and to pa.s.s the remaining winter months at his palace in Palma.

In the afternoon he mounted his horse, and in the evening, as has been said, he reached D'Erraha.

A servant must have been watching his approach, for the large door was thrown open and he rode into the patio. Fitz was here to welcome him; and behind him Eve, with Henry Cyprian in her arms. No one spoke. It was rather singular. The Count dismounted. He took off his hat and held it in the Spanish mode in his hand while he shook hands with Fitz and Eve. He looked round the patio. He noted the old marble well, yellow with stupendous age, the orange trees cl.u.s.tering over it, the palms and the banana trees, then he smiled at Eve.

”After many years,” he said.

There was a little pause.

”I should have wished to see your father,” he said, ”amidst these surroundings.”

Eve gave a little nod. From long a.s.sociation with men she had learnt a manlike reticence. She moved a little towards the open archway leading through to the terrace.

”We have some tea,” she said, ”waiting for you. Will you come to the terrace?”

He followed her, while the servant led the tired horse away.

They sat at the northern end of the terrace, where the garden-chairs always stood, and before, beneath, all around them rose and fell the finest of all the fine Majorcan scenery--scenery which only Sardinia can rival in Europe.

Eve poured out his tea, which he drank, and set the cup aside.

They all knew that the time had come for the Count de Lloseta to tell his story--to redeem the promise made to Eve and Fitz long ago, before they were married.