"Good G.o.d, no! Unless, to be sure, you have a charity entertainment. I have done that in the past and felt that the object compensated for the torture. But I am somewhat surprised to find that you are a lion hunter."

"I don't think I am--that is, I hardly know. You are the first great man I have ever seen. Perhaps after a season in London I shall be quite frivolous and worldly."

"I can imagine nothing of the kind. I am not so surprised to learn that you have not yet spent a season in town."

"Oh, yes, I am a country girl," she said roguishly.

"Not quite that." But he did not pursue the subject, and in a few moments they came to the gates of Bath House. He took the cloak from her shoulders. "It would exceed the bounds of decorum should I escort you further," he said formally. "If you will hasten you will not take cold. Good night."

She thanked him and ran up the steps and, avoiding the saloon, to her own room.

"I have begun well," she thought triumphantly. "No one could say that I have not done my part. And if he does not drink for three months--who knows?"

CHAPTER IX

Anne conceived more respect for Lord Hunsdon as the days went on, for there was no doubt that his stratagem, carefully planned and carried out, was succeeding. Whether Warner suspected his object or not no one could guess, but that he was flattered and encouraged there could be no question. Invitations to Bath House descended in showers. He breakfasted, lunched, dined there, drove with the ladies in the afternoon, and finally summoned up courage to be host at a picnic in the hills. He was still shy and quiet, but he no longer looked abject and listless. His shoulders were less bowed, even his skin grew more normal of hue, the flesh beneath it firmer. It might be a fool's paradise; these spoilt people of the world might have forgotten him before their return next winter, but the mere fact that they overlooked his flagrant insults to society and once more permitted him to become an active member of his own cla.s.s was enough to soothe ugly memories and make the blood run more freely in his veins.

Anne treated him with a uniform courtesy and flattering animation, but made no opportunities for private conversation, and he on his side made no overt attempt at deliberate approach. On the contrary, although she often caught him regarding her steadily, sometimes with a sadness that made her turn aside with a paling colour, he seemed rather to avoid her than otherwise. Not so Lord Hunsdon. He was ever at her side in spite of her manifest indifference, and daily confided to her his delight in Warner's response, and his hopes. He joined her in no more of her walks, but he rarely failed to attend her in the orchard in the afternoon--where the younger guests never tired of watching the little black boys scramble up the tall thin smooth cocoanut trees, and, grinning and singing amidst the thick ma.s.s of leaves at the top, shake down the green delicious fruit--or in the saloon after dinner. Frequently he invited a small party to take grenadilla ices on the terrace of the gay little restaurant in Charlestown, where half the creole world of Nevis was to be met, and upon one occasion he took several of the more venturesome out to spear turtles, that Anne alone might be gratified. So far he had made no declaration, and often stared at her with an apprehension and a diffidence that seemed a travesty on the fettered and tortured soul that looked from Warner's eyes; but his purpose showed no wavering, despite the efforts of Lady Hunsdon and of Anne herself to bring him to the feet of Lady Mary. That his mother was uneasy was manifest. She was too worldly to pin her faith to the apparent indifference of any portionless young woman to a wealthy peer of the realm, and the more she saw of Anne Percy the less she favoured her as a daughter-in-law.

Lady Constance, who understood her perfectly, laughed outright one evening as she intercepted a scowl directed at Hunsdon and Miss Percy, who sat apart in one of the withdrawing-rooms.

"She won't have him. Do not worry."

"I am not at all sure. You forget that Hunsdon would be a great match for any girl."

"She does not care two straws about making a great match."

"Fiddlesticks."

"She is made on the grand scale. Hunsdon is all very well, but he makes no appeal to the imagination. I am almost glad Warner has made such a wreck of himself. A handsome, dashing young poet, with the world at his feet, might be fatal to her. Warner never was dashing, to be sure, but he certainly was handsome ten years ago, and fame is a dazzling halo."

"He improves every day, but he seems to fancy Miss Percy as little as any of the others."

"Poor devil! I suppose he recalls the time when so many girls tried to marry him. I cannot see much improvement myself, although he does not look quite so much like a lost soul roaming about in search of a respectable tenement. But his physical attraction is all gone. Not one of the girls is in love with him, not one of the men jealous."

"Oh, certainly no woman could fall in love with him, any more than any parent would accept him. And as he is quite safe I wish he would command more of Miss Percy's attention, and leave her with the less to bestow on Hunsdon."

"He is too much in love with her."

"What?"

"I seem to be the only person in Bath House with eyes in my head. He is desperately, miserably, in love with her, and too conscious of his own ruin, too respectful of her, to dream of addressing her. He would stay away altogether, I fancy, did he not find a doubtful pleasure in looking at her."

"I am distressed if I have added to his trouble," said Lady Hunsdon, who prided herself upon always experiencing the correct sentiments.

"I hoped he came so often to us because we had restored his lost self-respect, and he was grateful to be among his equals once more."

"Oh, that, doubtless. But the rose leaves crumple more with every visit. I only hope the reaction will not awaken the echoes of Nevis."

"What a raven! Let us hope for the best and continue to do our duty.

If he really is in love with Anne Percy it may prove his redemption."

"Much more likely his d.a.m.nation. It will be the last drop in a cup of bitterness already too full."

"You grow sentimental."

"Always was. But that never prevented me from seeing things as they are. The result is that I am generally called cynical. But don't worry about Hunsdon. He needs a refusal, and this is his only opportunity."

CHAPTER X

Lady Mary Denbigh achieved a signal triumph; she persuaded the poet to accompany her to church. Fig Tree Church, romantically poised on the side of the mountain, was this year the favoured place of worship with the guests of Bath House; and where this select extract of London led all the world of Nevis followed. And not merely the wives and daughters of the English creole planters, but the coloured population, high and low, who could make themselves smart enough. It was long since Warner had entered a church, and the brilliant scene contributed to the humour of his mood. The church looked as gay as an afternoon rout in London at the height of the season, and the aristocracy of Nevis were quite as fine as the guests of Bath House. Their costumes were of delicate fabrics radiant of hue, and they were beflounced and beruffled, and fringed and ribboned. There were floating scarves and sashes of lace and silk; bonnets were covered with plumes and flowers, the little bunch of curls on either side of nearly every face, half-concealed by a ma.s.s of blonde or tulle. Behind the elect sat the respectable coloured creoles, often dignified and n.o.ble of aspect, for the West Indian African had been torn from a superior race; their dress differing little from that of their betters. But who shall describe the ma.s.s of coloured folk ma.s.sed at the back of the church, a caricature of the gentry, in their Sunday abandon to the mightiest of their pa.s.sions. Their colours were primal, their crinolines and bonnets enormous--the latter perched far back; their plumes, if cheaper, were even longer; where flowers and ribbons took the place of feathers heads looked like window boxes; their sleeves were so tight that they could not hold their prayer books at the correct angle, and more than one had stumbled over her train as she dropped her skirts and tripped into the church. They were still further bedecked with a profusion of false jewellery, cotton lace and fringe, ribbons streaming from every curve and angle, and shoes as gaudy as the flowers on their bonnets. Their men, in imitation of the aristocrats, wore, of the best quality they could muster, smart coats, flowered waistcoats, ruffled neck-cloths, tight white trousers, and pointed boots a size too small. They were the tradespeople of the village; in some cases the servants of the estates, although by far the greater number of the young women of humbler Nevis had received a smattering of education and were now too good to work. Their parents might get a living as best they could, huckstering or on the plantations, while the improved offspring, content to herd in one room on the scantiest fare, dreamed of gala days and a sc.r.a.p of new finery.

Nevertheless, many of them were handsomer than the white fragile looking aristocrats, with their olive or cream coloured skins, liquid black eyes, and superb undulating figures.

Warner had more than once written of the tragedy of these people, his poet's imagination tracing the descent of the finer specimens from ancient kings whose dust was mixed with the sands of the desert; and his had been one of the most impa.s.sioned voices lifted in the cause of emanc.i.p.ation. For these reasons he was much beloved by the coloured folk of Nevis of all ranks, and some one of them had never failed to come forward, when he lay ill and neglected, or the bailiffs threatened to sell his house over his head. All obligations were faithfully discharged, for he received handsome sums from his publishers, but his patrimony was long since squandered; nothing remained to him but his home and a bit of land high on the mountain, which he had clung to because he loved its wild beauty and solitude.

Lady Mary Denbigh, with her languishing airs, her "Book of Beauty"

style, bored him more than anyone in Bath House, and he had begun to suspect that her attentions were due not more to vanity than to a desire to find favour with Lord Hunsdon. But she was seldom far from Anne Percy, whose propinquity he could enjoy even if debarred communion. And Lady Mary frequently made Anne the theme of her remarks, in entertaining the poet; whose covert admiration she too detected and encouraged, although not without resentment. Miss Percy was undeniably handsome and high-born, but alas, quite lacking in fashion, in style, in _ton_. Not that Lady Mary despaired of her. If she could be persuaded to pa.s.s three seasons in London, divorced from that stranded corner of England where she had spent twenty-two long years, all her new friends felt quite hopeful that she would yet do them credit and become a young lady of the highest fashion. Her figure was really good, if somewhat Amazonian, and her face, if not quite regular--with those black eyebrows as wide as one's finger, and that square chin, when all the beauties had oval contours and delicate arches above limpid eyes--was, as she had before maintained, singularly striking and handsome, and if perhaps too warmly coloured, this was not held to be a fault by some.

Warner recalled the bitter-sweet of her babble as he heard her sigh gently beside him, her long golden ringlets shading her bent face. His eyes wandered, after their habit, to Anne Percy, who sat across the church, distinguished in that gay throng by bonnet and gloves and gown of immaculate white. He worshipped every irregular line in that n.o.ble, impulsive, pa.s.sionate face and wondered that he had ever thought another woman beautiful; condemned his imagination that it had lacked the wit to conceive a like combination. Her eyes, commonly full of laughter, he had seen darken with anger and melt with tenderness.

There were moments when she looked so strong as momentarily to isolate herself from normal womanhood, and suggest unlimited if unsuspected powers of good or evil; but those were fleeting impressions; as a rule she looked the most completely human woman he had ever known.

He sighed and looked away. A wave of superlative bitterness shook him, but he was too just to curse life, or anyone but himself. He did not even curse the worthless woman who had struck the curb from his inherited weakness and made him a slave instead of a rigid and insolent master. She had been no worse, hardly more captivating, than a thousand other women, but she had appealed powerfully to his poetical imagination, and he had elevated her into the sovereignship of his destiny, endowed her with all the graces of soul, the grandeur of character and pa.s.sion, that he had hitherto shaped from the rich components in his brain. When he was faced with the naked truth his mental disquiet was as great as his anguish. If this woman, one of the most finished works of the most civilised country on the globe, had revealed herself to be but common clay, where should he find another worth loving? Surely the woman was not yet evolved who could fasten herself permanently to his soul and his senses. This may have been a rash conclusion for a man of his years, but a poet is as old in brain at six-and-twenty as he is green in soul at sixty. With all the ardour of his youth and temperament he had longed for his mate, dreamed of a life of exalted companionship on the most poetic of isles; and one woman, cleverer than many he had met, had read his dreams, simulated his ideal, and amused herself until the game ceased to amuse her; and the richest nabob of the moment returned from India with a brown skull like a mummy had offered his rupees in exchange for the social state that only the daughter of a great lord could give him. She had laughed good naturedly as Warner flung himself at her feet in an agony of incredulous despair, and told him that no mood had become him so well, for hitherto he had never expressed himself fully save in verse. And Anne, neither cla.s.sic nor modish, still vaguely resembled her! It was this suggestion of the woman whom at least he must always remember as the perfection of female beauty, that had tempted him to lurk in the darkness of the terrace and watch Anne through the windows of Bath House. In a day when girls cultivated the sylph, minced in their speech, had numberless affectations, his early choice had possessed a n.o.ble, large figure and a lofty dignity. She was not ashamed to walk, was to be seen on her horse in the Row every morning, and cultivated her excellent brain.

But the resemblance, Warner had divined at once, was superficial, and the first interview had justified his instinct. Anne was a child in many ways; the other, although younger in years, had been cool, shrewd, calculating, making no false moves in any game she chose to play. Warner knew that if he had discovered a gold mine in Nevis and won her, he should have hated her long since.

But Anne Percy! He could not make the same mistake twice. And had he met her when he had a decent home and an honoured name to offer her he believed that he could have found happiness in her till the end of his life. Nor, had she loved him, would she have been influenced by worldly considerations. He had seen little of women of the great normal middle cla.s.s. Conditions had thrown him with the very high or the very low, and experience taught him that the former when unmarried were all angling for husbands, and the latter for patrons. Therefore had he created a world of ideal women--one secret of his popularity, for every woman that read his poems looked into the poet's magic mirror and saw herself; and he had found happiness in creating, as poets must. Even since his ostracism there had been many hours of sustained happiness and moments of rapture when he had quite forgotten his position among men. And Anne Percy, in her radiant presence, drove his ideals into the shadows and covered them with cobwebs! And he could never claim her! Even were he not a poor broken creature, with little alive in him but that still flickering soul dwelling in his faded unspeakable body, he would not even offer the commonest attentions to this uncommon girl who was worthy of the best of men.

Nor did he wish to suffer any more deeply than he did at present. To know her better would be to love her more. When she left the island he hoped to relegate her to the plane upon which he dwelt in dreams, and forget that she had not been a created ideal.

But he was sometimes surprised at the strength of his suffering and his longing. He was so unutterably tired, had been for years, so weary in mind and body through excess and misery and remorse, so bitterly old, that he was amazed there should be moments when he experienced the fleeting hopes and deep despair of any other lover of his years.

He left his bed at night and went out and walked about the island, or rowed until he was lost under the stars; he dreamed miserably of her over his books, or hid in the cane fields to watch her swing by in the early morning, divested of that hideous hoop-skirt, and unconsciously mimicking the undulating gait of the coloured women she pa.s.sed. He had replenished his wardrobe and was becoming as dandified as any blood in Bath House, having borrowed from Hunsdon against his next remittance.

And as he was eating regularly for the first time in years--less and less of the concoctions of his own worthless servants--and drinking not at all, there was no doubt that he was improving in appearance as well as in health, in vitality. The last word rose in his brain to-day for the first time. Could it be that this mortal la.s.situde might leave him, neck and heel? That red blood would run in his veins once more?

To what end? He was none the less disgraced, none the less unfit to aspire to the hand of Anne Percy. Not only would the world denounce her if she yielded, but his own self-contempt was too deep to permit him to take so much innocent loveliness to himself. But the thought often maddened him, and to-day, as he looked up and caught her eyes fixed upon him, suddenly to be withdrawn with a deep blush, he had to control himself from abruptly leaving the church. More than once he had suspected an interest, which in happier conditions might have developed very rapidly. There was no doubt that his work meant more to her than to any woman he had ever met, and he was convinced that she avoided him both from a natural shrinking and because her strong common sense compelled her to see him as he was, forbade her imagination to trans.m.u.te his battered husk into the semblance of what was left of his better self. But she could love him. That was the thought that sent the blood to his head and drove him from his pillow.

But it did not drive him to brandy. He had felt no temptation to drink since he met her. It was true that before his final downfall he had only felt the actual necessity of stimulant coincidently with the awakening of his wondrous but strangely heavy muse; but during the past five years he had burnt out tormenting thoughts and remorse with alcohol, drinking but the more deeply when his familiar throbbed dully and demanded release.

He could not look ahead. He had not the least idea what would be the immediate result of the departure of Anne Percy, his return to the loneliness of his home. With a reinvigorated body, and some renewal of his faith in woman, he might resist temptation if he thought it worth while. But the next poem? What then? He had never written a line of serious work except under the influence of brandy. He knew that he never should. And with nothing else to live for, to forswear the muse to whom he was indebted for all the happiness he had ever known was too much for G.o.d or man to ask of him.

He had been sitting tensely, and he suddenly leaned back and endeavoured to invoke into his soul the peace that pervaded the house of worship. The good clergyman was droning, fans and silken skirts were rustling, eyes challenging. But outside the light wind was singing in the palm trees, the warm air entered through the window beside him laden with the sweet perfumes of the tropics. The sky was as blue as heaven. He reflected gratefully that at least he had never grown insensible to the beauty of his island, never even contemplated deserting her for either the superior advantages or the superior dissipations of the great world. To live his life on Nevis and with Anne Percy! Oh G.o.d! He almost groaned aloud, and then came to himself as Lady Mary rose and extended the half of her hymn book.