The Other Nineteenth Century Read online

  By and by the cries gave way to moans. Amelia pressed a handkerchief to her lovely eyes and turned away her head. Tregareth would have lingered, but Jane drew him gently away. They descended the stairs together. The sea foamed and lapped almost at their feet.

  For a moment they were silent, looking out over the beautiful Gulf of Spezia to the terrace. To one side was the tiny fishing village of Sant’ Ursula; to the other side, a degree nearer, the equally tiny town of Lorenzi.

  At length Jane spoke. “Poor, poor, dearest Amelia!” she said. “She has been far from well. It is not only her body which is weak, you know, Tregareth. She has been sick in spirit, sick at heart. It is the loss of her dear children. To bid farewell to two such sweet babes in so brief a time—no, no, Tregareth, man knows nought of what woman feels. It is too much.” And so she spoke, mantling her own concern for the missing. Even when her husband’s name, it was only in connection with Amelia’s illness.

  “Did you know, Tregareth, that scarcely more than a week ago, when she was in truth barely able to turn on her couch, that we missed her one night? Wilson found her down below, her slippers sodden and her hem drenched, and she seemed like one who walks in a dream. I have not dared to part from her for even a moment since. We had better go back—but no word of this.”

  Amelia smiled at them as they returned, a sad and worn little smile. “I am ready to hear what you have to tell me, now, with more composure,” she said.

  And so Tregareth recounted to her what he thought she might safely hear. How Shadwell and Wilson came sailing the trim little Sea Sprite over the wine-dark sea to greet the poet Fulke Grant and his family. How Grant and Shadwell had fallen into one another’s arms for joy. How they had settled the new arrivals in satisfactory quarters. And how, finally, it was decided that the Sea Sprite and the Liberator—Lord Gryphon’s vessel—would return together, with Tregareth captaining the latter, while Gryphon stayed behind.

  “Oh, why did you not do so, Tregareth?” cried Amelia Shadwell. “With a skilled sea-captain such as you to convey them—”

  It was the fault of the harbormaster, Tregareth explained. At the last minute he had refused clearance to the Liberator on some petty point or other. And so Shadwell and Wilson, by now impatient to see their wives once more, had sailed off alone, with only Antonio, the ship’s boy, for crew. Not for worlds would he have told her of his fears. Of Wilson’s being—for all his wife’s pride—but a gentleman-sailor. Of how awkwardly Shadwell handled the craft. Of what others had said—

  “Crank as an eggshell, and too much sail for those two sticks of masts,” remarked the master of a Yankee ship, spitting tobacco. “She looks like a bundle of chips going to the fire.”

  And the Liberator’s first mate, a Genoa-man: “They should have sailed at this hour of the morning, not the afternoon. They’re standing in too close to shore—catch too much breeze. That gaff topsail is foolish in a boat with no deck and no real sailors aboard.”

  There had been only a slight wind. But in the southwest were dirty rags of clouds. “Smoke on the sea,” said the mate, shaking his head. “A warning …” as the fog closed around the trim little Sprite. The air was sultry, hot and heavy and close. Tregareth had gone below to his cabin and fallen into a doze. He dreamed of Shadwell, his dark-fair hair only touched with grey, ruffled by the breeze, the light of genius in his eye, the look of exaltation on his face—a boy’s face still, for all he was approaching thirty—a boy’s fair skin and light freckles, and a boy’s look of eagerness. The world had never gone stale for Archie Shadwell …

  Tregareth had thought, as he often did, of his own good fortune in being the friend of Shadwell and of Mrs. Shadwell; and somehow he found himself envying Wilson, who not only had a beautiful wife of his own—Tregareth’s wife was dead—but the company of the beautiful Amelia Shadwell … and then he had fallen asleep.

  And then had come the gust of wind—the temporale, the Italians called it—and the squall broke. It thundered and lightninged and he rushed on deck to help make all trim. In twenty minutes the storm’s fury was spent, but Jane Wilson was wrong in thinking that was too brief a time for deadly damage. Twenty seconds could do for so light a boat as the Sea Sprite.

  Thus three days had passed—three days of ceaseless enquiry. From Gryphon, Tregareth had gone directly to the governor, mentioned the name of il milord Gryphon, doucely slid the purse across the desk.

  “A courier? As far as Nice? Of course! And the coast guards to patrol the beaches all about? Certainly!” The purse vanished. Orders were given, messengers scurried. Tregareth had left in a flurry of assurances, and come straight to the Villa Grandi.

  He had intended to leave as quickly, to pursue his own search, to flag (and flog, too, if need be!) the coast guards into vigilance—for who knew if any of Gryphon’s gold would trickle down to them? But Amelia would not hear of it.

  “Tregareth, do not leave us!” she begged. And he, looking at her sweet face, could not refuse to tarry a little while. Jane summoned a servant to make fire for tea. Jane herself was busy pretending the matter was no more than that of, say, a diligence whose lead-mule had delayed the schedule by casting a shoe; she bustled about with needles and thread. But Amelia would not play this game.

  “Oh, Jane, in Heaven’s name, be still,” she pleaded.

  “I am looking for the beeswax, to help thread my needles,” Jane explained, hunting and peering. “I promised dear Shadwell to finish that embroidered shirt for him. Where can it be? Is that not strange? A great lump of unbleached beeswax—”

  Amelia began to weep. “Shall he ever wear a shirt again? And this creature wants to kill me with her talk and her scurrying—”

  But the next moment Tregareth himself was kneeling and holding her hand and vowing that Shadwell would live to wear out a thousand shirts, ten thousand. She smiled, allowed her tiny white hand to become engulfed in his great brown one. But she gave a little cry of pain.

  “Why, what is this, Amelia?” he asked, astonished, opening her fingers, and looking at the scarce-healed marks there.

  “I was sawing wood, kindling, for the fire,” she said in a small voice; Jane and Tregareth exclaimed against such foolishness. There were servants. Amelia pouted. “They care nothing for me,” she said. “Look at that slut, there—do you suppose she cares about me?”

  The servantgirl, perhaps sensing she was being mentioned, turned at that moment. She smiled. Not at all an ill-looking wench, Tregareth observed, almost abstractedly—though of course one could not even consider such coarse charms in the presence of lovely Amelia. The girl smiled, “The signore will soon return,” she said.

  Amelia spat at her, cursed, called her puta, struggled to rise.

  “Madame!” cried Tregareth, shocked.

  “She meant but to reassure you, dearest Amelia,” said Jane, as the girl scuttled away, frightened.

  “She did not mean to! She meant to scorn me! Does she think I am blind? Does everyone think I am blind? Do you, Jane?” But the hysteria passed almost as soon as it had come.

  “Tregareth, forgive me,” she said. “I am not well. Such sickly fancies cloud my mind … Oh, I know that Shadwell must be living! So great a genius cannot die so young! No age ever had such a poet. Does not Gryphon himself agree? Was he not proud to have the little ship named after his own poem? Oh! I little thought, the day he carved his initials in her mainmast, that she would give us so much grief … I have had such presentiments of evil—such a sense of oppression that I have not felt for years, not since poor Henrietta …”

  Tregareth felt the little hairs rise on his neck. Never before had he heard the name of Shadwell’s first wife mentioned in this house. It seemed—he scarcely knew why—it seemed dreadful to hear it now on Amelia’s lips, on Amelia’s smiling lips.

  “Do you believe she drowned herself?” she asked. He could only stammer. “There are those who say—” Amelia paused.

  “No one says—” began Jane.

  But the s
ick woman smiled and shook her head. “Everyone knows of Shadwell and me, how we eloped while he was still a married man,” she said dreamily. “Everyone knows that only Henrietta’s death set us both free to marry. Everyone knows of Shadwell and Clara Claybourne,” she continued. “First she bore Gryphon’s illegitimate child, then she bore Shadwell’s—everyone knows …” Her accusing eyes met those of Jane, who stood by, her face showing her pain. “But only you and I, Jane, know …” And she seemed to fall into a reverie. Then she chuckled.

  So pleased were they to have this sign of her mind passing to anything which had power to please her, whatever it might be, that they beamed. “Do you remember, Jane, your first night here? Were you listening? How Wilson said. ‘To think that my wife and I are privileged to be guests under a roof which shelters two such rare geniuses! Archie, the author of that exquisite poem, Deucalion, and Amelia, the author of the great novel, Koenigsmark—’ Do you remember, Jane, what Shadwell said?”

  “I did not hear, dear Amelia. What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘Koenigsmark! Ha-ha!’”

  For days Tregareth rode the shores, scanning the waves, the scent of the salt sea never out of his nostrils. Some few bits of flotsam from the Sea Sprite had come ashore, but this was not proof positive. However, he no longer had doubts. He drove himself, unrelenting, in his quest. Not only grief for his friend spurred him on now, but guilt as well.

  “You have travelled so far, Tregareth,” Amelia had said to him; “you are, yourself, that ‘traveller from an antique land’ who brought back word of Ozymandias. In the East, of which you are so much enamored, and of which you have made me so much enamored—do they have love there, as we know it? Or—only lust?”

  Tregareth had considered, throwing back his head. After a moment he said, “In the East they have that which is stronger than either love or lust. In the East they have passion.”

  She considered this. She nodded. “Yes,” she had said. “For love may fade, and lust must ever repel. Passion. Do not think that our English blood is too thin and cold for passion, Tregareth.”

  Now he asked himself, again and again, spurring through the sand, was it covetousness to desire a man’s wife for your own—if the man were dead? Would not Shadwell himself have laughed at such squeamishness? Would not Gryphon?

  He almost did not see the coast guard until the man called out to him. When he did see, and reined his horse, he still did not imagine. Then the man gestured, and Tregareth looked.

  And there on the margin of the sea he saw him.

  “There is no doubt of it being Shadwell, I suppose?” Gryphon asked.

  Tregareth shook his head. “None. Shadwell’s clothes and Shadwell’s hair, in one pocket Shadwell’s copy of Hesiod, and in another, his copy of Blake.”

  Gryphon shuddered. He looked at a letter which he held in his hand. “From Amelia,” he said. He began to read.

  “‘You have heard me tell that my grandmother, a Scotswoman, was reputed to have been fey, and to have visualized the Prince’s defeat at Culloden before it happened. I, too, at times, have had presentiments of future misfortunes. I had them at the time of poor Henrietta’s death. But never so strong as during this Springtime did I feel the burden. The landscape and seascape I saw seemed not of this earth. My mind wandered so, as if enchanted, and oftimes I was not sure—and still am not sure—if the things I saw and did were real—or were the products of an ensorcelled mind, musing on ancient wrongs: and all the time, the waves murmuring, Doom, Doom, Doom …”

  They were silent. “What shall be done with the body?” Gryphon asked. “The nearest Protestant cemetery is in Rome.”

  Tregareth said, “Shadwell a Protestant? If ever there lived a man who was a pagan in whole heart, body, and soul—Besides, in this weather, it is out of the question to convey the corpse to Rome.”

  Distressed, almost petulant, Gryphon flung out his fat hands. “But what shall we do?” he cried.

  “He was a pagan,” said Tregareth, “and shall have a pagan funeral. The Greeks knew how. And I have seen it done in India.”

  Gryphon began to quiver. He reached for the silver flask.

  The widow received the tragic news with an agony of tears. Presently she recovered somewhat, and said, “I knew it would be so. I have had no other thought. Now he is young forever. Now,” her voice trembled and fell, “mine forever.”

  They parted with a gentle embrace, she accepting Tregareth’s counsel not to attend the immediate funeral. Later, he said, when a second interment would be held at Rome, if she felt stronger …

  Tregareth’s emotions, as he rode back, were mixed. In great measure his activity on Shadwell’s behalf had absorbed the grief he would otherwise now be experiencing at Shadwell’s death. Moreover, thoughts he had earlier suppressed rose now and had their will. Had there not been, in Shadwell’s friendship for him, some measure of condescension? Had Shadwell not indicated from time to time—though less openly than Gryphon—a lack of complete belief in the stories Tregareth told of his youth in Nelson’s Navy and his adventurous career as the consort of buccaneers in India?

  But—sharpest of all—Shadwell was dead! And he, Tregareth, was alive! It was dreadful about the former, but it was impossible not to feel gratitude and joy in the latter. As he rode between the forest and the sea, Tregareth felt the keenness of delight in the fact that he lived and could experience all the rich pleasures of the living world.

  The body had come ashore near a place called Via Vecchio. A small crowd had gathered, but the dragoons scarcely needed to hold them back. The people looked on, half fascinated, half horrified at the strange scene, and kept crossing themselves.

  Tregareth was in full, undisputed charge.

  “I might have spared myself the trouble of bringing wood,” he said. “See—not only is the forest there full of fallen timber, but here are all these broken spars and planks cast up on the shore.”

  He gave directions in loud and resonant tones. The workmen dared not resist, though they looked as if they would have mightily liked to. A pyre was soon built up, and the body lifted onto it. Tregareth heaped on more wood. One piece he glanced at, put it under his arm.

  Gryphon was pale and ill at ease, but gentle little Fulke Grant did not even trust himself to stand, and remained sitting in the carriage.

  “I think all is ready,” Tregareth said. He cleared his throat. Hats came off in the crowd.

  “Surely Shadwell’s shade is watching us,” he said, “as we prepare to bid farewell to his clay. Behold the verdant islands floating on the azure sea he loved so much, and which he took to his final embrace! Behold the ruined castles of the antiquity whose praises he sang in incomparable numbers, ‘for the numbers came’! Behold the snowy bosoms of the ever-lofty mountain peaks! All these, Shadwell loved. Shadwell! Vale!”

  He poured over the body a quantity of wine and oil, then took the waiting torch and thrust it under the pyre. The wood was tinder-dry and flared up directly. “Vale, Shadwell!” Tregareth cried again. He cast into the fire the copy of Blake which had been in the drowned poet’s pocket. He tossed on a handful of salt, and the yellow flames glistened and quivered as they licked it up.

  “Behold!” he exclaimed, “How peacefully the once-raging sea is now embracing the land as if in humility, as if to crave pardon! O Shadwell, thou—”

  But here Gryphon interrupted him. “Tregareth, cease this mockery of our pride and vainglory,” he said in a stifled, low, voice.

  Tregareth, his long black hair floating on the wind in magnificent disorder, looked at him with some surprise. Then he looked over to Fulke Grant. But little Grant, still in the carriage, now had the silver flask in his hand. The only sound he made was a hiccup.

  Tregareth shrugged. He tossed in a handful of frankincense. The flame mounted higher. The heat grew more intense.

  “I cannot endure to remain much longer in Italy,” Gryphon said. “Every valley, every brook, will cry aloud his name to me … We must go off
together somewhere, Tregareth, you and I. For now I have no one left. America, Greece—somewhere far off.” He sobbed aloud, then turned and walked away. The fire crackled and hissed.

  Tregareth stood all alone by the pyre. Slowly he took from under his arm the piece of driftwood. It seemed a portion of a ship’s mast. On it were carved the initials G. G. He clearly called to mind that happy day, only a short while back, when Gerald, Lord Gryphon, had carved the letters. The top of the piece was all rent raggedly. But on the lower part the breach was only partly so. The rest of it—

  He could envision the scene. The sudden trumpets of the storm, the terribly sudden blast of wind, the foremast crashing down before the frightful pressure of the wind-caught sails, mast and sail falling as dead weight upon the gunwales, and the ship careening and filling and then going over, going down, as the sea rushed in and the lightning served only to make the blackness deeper …

  Tregareth ran his fingers over the smoother surface of the wood. Someone, plainly, had sawn half through the mast and then hidden the cut with unbleached beeswax of the same color.

  He lifted his fingers, bent his head. Despite the wash of the sea and the scouring of the sand, Tregareth could still note the scent of the wax. He thought, for just a moment, that he could even detect the scent of the soft bosom in which the wax must have rested to soften it—but this was only fancy, he knew. It need not, however, remain only fancy.

  Love, he reflected, can fade; and lust must ever repel—but passion is stronger than either.

  He came as close to the pyre as he could, threw in the shattered section of the mast, and watched it burn fiercely.