And to that end of self-obliteration he instantly applied himself, with outward calm, but with the mental hurry and restlessness of increasing illness. His first duty was to end the whole matter of his relation to Helen,--Helen shorn of her divinity, convicted liar and wanton, yet mistress still for him, as he feared, of mighty enchantments. So he wrote to her very briefly. The note should be given her later in the day. In it he stated that he should have left the villa before this announcement reached her, left it finally and without remotest prospect of return, since he could not doubt that she recognised, as he did, how impossible it had become that he and she should meet again. He added that he would communicate with her shortly as to business arrangements.

That done, he summoned Powell, his valet, bidding him pack. He would go down to the yacht at once. He had received information which made it imperative that he should quit Naples immediately.

To be out of all this, rid of it, fairly started on the road of negation of social being, negation of recognised existence, infected him like a madness. But even the most forceful human will must bend to stupidities of detail and of material fact. Unexpected delays had occurred. The yacht was not ready for sea, neither coaled, nor provisioned, nor sound of certain small damages to her machinery.

Vanstone, the captain, might mislay his temper, and the first mate expend himself in polysyllabic invective, young Penberthy cease to dream, stewards, engineers, carpenters, cooks, quartermasters, seamen, firemen, do their most willing and urgent best, nevertheless the morning of next day, and even the afternoon of it, still found Richard Calmady seated at the locker-table of the white-walled deck-cabin, his voyage towards self-obliteration not yet begun.

Charts were outspread before him, upon which, at weary intervals, he essayed to trace the course of his coming wanderings. But his brain was dull, he had no power of consecutive thought. That same madness of going was upon him with undiminished power, yet he knew not where he wanted to go, hardly why he wanted to go, only that a blind obsession of going drove him. He was miserably troubled about other matters too--about that same brief letter he had written to Helen before leaving the villa. He was convinced that he had written such a letter, but struggle as he might to remember the contents of it they remained to him a blank. He was haunted by the fear that in that letter he had committed some irremediable folly, had bound himself to some absurdly unworthy course of action. But what it might be escaped and, in escaping, tortured him. And then, this surely was Friday, and Morabita sang at the San Carlo to-night? And surely he had promised to be there, and to meet the famous _prima donna_ and sup with her after the performance, as in former days at Vienna? He had not always been quite kind to her, poor, dear, fat, good-natured, silly soul! He could not fail her now.--And then he went back to a chart of the South Pacific again. Only he could not see it plainly, but saw, instead of it, the great folio of copper-plate engravings lying on the broad window-seat of the eastern bay of the Long Gallery at home. He was sitting there to watch for the race-horses coming back from exercise, Tom Chifney p.r.i.c.king along beside them on his handsome cob. And the long-ago, boyish desperation of longing for wholeness, for freedom, brought a moistness to his eyes, and a lump into his throat. And all the while the coal dust drifted in at each smallest crevice and aperture, and the air was vibrant with rasping, jarring uproar and nauseous with the stale, heavy odours of the city and the port. And steadily, ceaselessly, the descending rain drummed upon the roofing overhead.

At length a stupor took him. His head sunk upon his arms, folded upon those outspread charts, while the noise of all the rude activities surrounding him subtly transformed itself into that of a great orchestra. And above this, superior to, yet n.o.bly supported by it, Morabita's voice rose in the suave and pa.s.sionate phrases of the glorious cavatina--"_Ernani, Ernani, involami, all aborito ampleso._"--Yes, her voice was as good as ever! Richard drew a long breath of relief. Here, at least, was something true to itself, and amid so much of change, so much of spoiling, still unspoilt! He raised his head and listened. For something must have happened, something of serious moment. The orchestra, for some unaccountable reason, had suddenly broken down. Yes, it must be the orchestra which disaster had overtaken, for a voice very certainly continued. No, not a voice, but voices--those of Vanstone the captain, and Price the first mate, and old Billy Tinn the boatswain--loud, imperative, violently remonstrant, but swept under and swamped at moments by cries and volleys of foulest, Neapolitan _argot_ from hoa.r.s.e, Neapolitan throats. And that abruptly silenced orchestra?--Richard came back to himself, came back to actualities of environment and prosaic fact. An infinitely weariful despair seized him. For the sound that had reached so sudden a termination was not that of cunningly-attuned, musical instruments, but the long-drawn, chattering rush of the coal, pitched from the baskets down the echoing, iron shoots.

The cabin door opened discreetly and Powell, incarnation of decorous punctualities even amid existing tumultuously discomposing circ.u.mstances, entered.

"From the villa, sir," he said, depositing letters and newspapers upon the table.

Richard put out his hand, turned them over mechanically. For again, somehow, notwithstanding the babel without, that exquisite invitation--"_Ernani, Ernani, involami_,"--a.s.sailed his ears.

The valet waited a little, quiet and deferential in bearing, yet observing his master with a certain keenness and anxiety.

"I saw Mr. Bates, as you desired, sir," he said at last.

Richard looked up at him vaguely. And it struck him that while Powell was on sh.o.r.e to-day he had undoubtedly had his hair cut. This interested him--though why, he would have found it difficult to say.

"Mr. Bates thought you should be informed that a gentleman called early yesterday afternoon, as he said by appointment."

Yes--certainly Powell had had his hair cut.--"Did the gentleman give his name?"

"Yes, sir, M. Paul Destournelle."

Powell spoke slowly, getting his tongue carefully round the foreign syllables, and, for all the confusion of his hearer's mind, the name went home. Vagueness pa.s.sed from Richard's glance.

"He was refused, of course."

"Her ladyship had given orders that should any person of that name call he was to be admitted."--Powell spoke with evident reluctance.

"Consequently Mr. Bates was uncertain how to act, having received contrary orders from you, sir, the day before yesterday. He explained this to her ladyship, but she insisted."

Richard's mind had become perfectly lucid.

"Very well," he said coldly.

"Mr. Bates also thought you should know, sir, that after M.

Destournelle's visit her ladyship announced she should not remain at the villa. She left about five o'clock, taking her maid. Charles followed with all the baggage."

The valet paused. Richard's manner was decidedly discouraging, yet, something further must at least be intimated.

"Her ladyship gave no address to Mr. Bates for the forwarding of her letters."

But here the cabin door, left slightly ajar by Powell, was opened wide, and that with none of the calm and discretion displayed by the functionary in question. A long perspective of grimy deck behind him, his oilskins shiny from the wet, with trim, black beard, square-made, bold-eyed, hot-tempered, warm-hearted, alert, humorous--typical West Countryman as his gentle dreamy cousin, Penberthy, the second mate, though of a very different type--stood Captain Vanstone. His easily-ruffled temper suffered from the after effects of what is commonly known as a "jolly row," and his speech was curt in consequence thereof.

"Sorry to disturb you, Sir Richard," he said, "and still more sorry to disappoint you, but it can't be helped."

d.i.c.kie turned upon him so strangely drawn and haggard a countenance, that Vanstone with difficulty repressed an exclamation. He looked in quick inquiry at the valet, who so far departed from his usual decorum as to nod his head in a.s.sent to the silent questioning.

"What's wrong now?" Richard said.

"Why, these beggarly rascals have knocked off. Price offered them a higher scale of pay. I had empowered him to do so. But they won't budge. The rain's washed the heart out of them. We've tried persuasion and we've tried threats--it's no earthly use. Not a basket more coal will they put on board before five to-morrow morning."

"Can't we sail with what we have got?"

"Not enough to carry us to Port Said."

"What will be the extent of the delay this time?" Richard asked. His tone had an edge to it.

Again Captain Vanstone glanced at the valet.

"With luck we may get off to-morrow about midnight."

He stepped back, shook himself like a big dog, scattering the water off his oilskins in a shower upon the slippery deck. Then he came inside the cabin and stood near Richard. His expression was very kindly, tender almost.

"You must excuse me, sir," he said. "I know it doesn't come within my province to give you advice. But you do look pretty ill, Sir Richard.

Every one's remarking that. And you are ill, sir--you know it, and I know it, and Mr. Powell here knows it. You ought to see a doctor, sir--and if you'll pardon plain language, this beastly cess-pit of a harbour is not a fit place for you to sleep in."

And poor d.i.c.kie, after an instant of sharp annoyance, touched by the man's honest humanity smiled upon him--a smile of utter weariness, utter homelessness.

"Perfectly true. Get me out to sea then, Vanstone. I shall be better there than anywhere else," he said.

Whereupon the kindly sailor-man turned away, swearing gently into his trim, black beard.

But the valet remained, impa.s.sive in manner, actively anxious at heart.

"Have you any orders for the carriage, sir?" he asked. "Garcia drove me down. I told him to wait until I had inquired."

Richard was long in replying. His brain was all confused and clouded again, while again he heard the voice of the famous soprano--"_Ernani, Ernani, involami_."

"Yes," he said at last. "Tell Garcia to be here in good time to drive me to the San Carlo. I have an appointment at the opera to-night."

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH d.i.c.kIE GOES TO THE END OF THE WORLD AND LOOKS OVER THE WALL

The opera box, which Richard Calmady had rented along with the Villa Vallorbes, was fifth from the stage on the third tier, to the right of the vast horseshoe. Thus situated, it commanded a very comprehensive view of the interior of the house. The _parterre_--its somewhat comfortless seats, rising as on iron stilts, as they recede, row by row, from the proscenium--was packed. While, since the aristocratic world had not yet left town, the boxes--piled, tier above tier, without break of dress-circle or gallery, right up to the lofty roof--were well-filled. And it was the effect of these last that affected Richard oddly, displeasingly, as, helped by Powell and Andrews,--the first footman, who acted as his table-steward on board the _Reprieve_,--he made his way slowly down to the chair, placed on the left, at the front of the box. For the accepted aspects and relations of things seen were remote to him. He perceived effects, shapes, a.s.sociations of colour, divorced from their habitual significance. It was as though he looked at the written characters of a language unknown to him, observing the form of them, but attaching no intelligible meaning to that form. And so it happened that those many superimposed tiers of boxes were to him as the waxen cells of a gigantic honeycomb, against the angular darknesses of which little figures, seen to the waist, took the light--the blond face, neck and arms of some woman, the fair colours of her dress--and showed up with perplexing insistence. For they were all peopled, these cells of the honeycomb, and--so it seemed to him--with larvae, bright-hued, unworking, indolent, full-fed. Down there upon the _parterre_, in the close-packed ranks of students, of men and women of the middle-cla.s.s, soberly attired in walking costume, he recognised the working bees of this giant hive. By their unremitting labour the dainty waxen cells were actually built up, and those larvae were so amply, so luxuriously, fed. And the working bees--there were so many, so very many of them! What if they became mutinous, rebelled against labour, plundered and destroyed the indolent, succulent larvae of which he--yes, he, Richard Calmady--was unquestionably and conspicuously one?

He leaned back in his chair, pulled forward the velvet drapery so as to shut out the view of the house, and fixed his eyes upon the heads of the musicians in the orchestra. The overture was nearly over. The curtain would very soon go up. Then he observed that Powell still stood near him. The man was strangely officious to-day, he thought. Could that be connected in any way with the fact he had had his hair cut? For a moment the notion appeared to d.i.c.kie quite extravagantly amusing. But he kept his amus.e.m.e.nt, as so much else, to himself. And again the working bees, down in the _parterre_, attracted his attention. They were buzzing, buzzing angrily, displeased with the full-fed larvae in the boxes, because these last were altogether too social, talked too loud and too continuously, drowning the softer pa.s.sages of the overture. Those dull-coloured insects had expended store of hard-earned _lire_ upon the queer seats they occupied, mounted as upon iron stilts.

They meant to have the whole of that which they had paid for, and hear every note. If they swarmed, now, swarmed upward, clung along the edges of those many tiers of boxes, punished inconsiderate insolence with stings?---It would hardly be unjust.--But there was Powell still, clad in sober garments. He belonged to the working bees. And Richard became aware of a singular diffidence and embarra.s.sment in thinking of that.

If they should swarm, those workers, he would rather the valet did not see it, somehow. He was a good fellow, a faithful servant, a man of nice feeling, and such an incident would place him in an awkward position. He ought to be spared that. Carefully d.i.c.kie reasoned it all out.

"You need not stay here any longer, Powell," he said.