Grand Canary (23 page)

Her words, spoken with a dreamy earnestness, alarmed him; he wished at once to protest and to obey. As he gazed into the smiling darkness of her eyes, within his mind a warning sounded. Again he was afraid. But the tenderness of her mouth dissolved alike his fear, his faint resistance. He could no longer think. He wanted only to be near her. He followed her through the silent hall.

Outside the portico, the shallow steps, creviced with their scarlet lichen, held her motionless for a moment. Gazing to the west, standing close to him, she drew a long, deep breath in which seemed mingled sadness and delight. There, upon the lava peaks, the sun, a bubble of fire, had burst and splashed the sky with wild, empurpled flame. Cupped by the vaulted heaven the blazing tongues sank downwards and greenish lights appeared, translucent, quivering upwards into the pale yet darkening canopy. Moments passed and then she sighed.

‘When you stand near to me like this I feel the sunset throbbing in my heart.'

He did not answer and again the silence linked them. The words he might have uttered were gross beside the singing sweetness of that silence. Slowly before their eyes the day languished as with love, swooning towards the arms of the dusk.

Then she stirred. With eyes upturned and unveiled she smiled at him, began to walk towards the orange grove. The freesias, outsoaring upon the pathway, brushed gently against her skirt; stooping, she trailed her fingers among their draped whiteness, soft and caressing, caressing as a sea.

‘I've been cheated of this before,' she murmured. ‘Always when I went to clasp the freesias there was nothing. All vanished and cold.'

Suddenly, overflowing the barriers of reason, a haunting illusion grew. It swelled and swelled. There came to him quite vividly an intuition – mad yet splendid. All his faculties resisted. But in vain. He was lost – and went plunging downwards, downwards through space and time. In a low voice he said:

‘This is the place you told me of? You are sure?'

‘Yes,' she answered with perfect naturalness, ‘I'm sure! That is why I feel that I am truly home. Everything the same. The house, the courtyard, the funny twisted tree, the orange grove. Everything the same. And my freesias, my lovely, lovely freesias.' She broke off, a poignant sweetness in her tone. Then with a little gasp she added: ‘And you. I know at last, you see. The dream is nothing, the garden nothing, without you. For we have been here before. Oh, linked by something more than dreams. I know it to be so.'

Her voice was faintly strained as though she willed desperately that he should understand. And again, at her words, dimly, as with recollection through the thick texture of reality, something rose and turned within his soul. It was madness: a mad and shapeless myth. But here on this volcanic isle, erupted from the rim of sea back through primal aeons, the facts of life were myths and every myth a towering actuality. Suddenly, as a star might gleam athwart a shadowed world, the meaning of their meeting grew clear to him and it was as if life had suddenly begun. He could not explain, he could not fully understand. He could only believe.

He drew nearer to her. The beauty of heaven and earth was sublimated in her eyes and flowed towards him in a burning stream. He loved her. It could not be denied. They stood now in the orchard of the orange trees. Darker grew the dusk, and, like a slow-swung thurible, silver and alight, the moon sailed lambent into the sky, touching the trees with radiance. Beneath one tree she paused and raised her hand into the fragile branches.

‘Look,' she whispered. ‘Is it not lovely and strange?'

The tree, laden with heavy, ripened fruit was burdened, too, with blossom and with bud on which the moon made lovely gleamings. Blossoms and fruit; innocence and knowledge; a twofold dignity which she mysteriously possessed.

He thrust up his hand through the drooping foliage and clasped a shining orange. It lay within his fingers, cool and smooth as a virgin breast. He did not pluck it. Nor had she plucked the fruit but merely a tiny sprig of blossom which now distilled a fragrance from its calyces against her cheek.

Suffused by trembling tenderness he looked at her. The thin line of her bosom outlined by her upraised arm offered itself innocently to him and he longed to clasp it as he had clasped the fruit.

‘Mary,' he said; and again her name sounded so exquisite upon his lips that tears came into his eyes. ‘I have never known anything like this, nor anything so beautiful as you. I can't understand. But I know that all my life has been nothing up till now.'

Though through ages she had waited for this moment, her eyes, closed by the perfume of the orange flowers, opened timidly towards him. The strange pulse, which through the day had troubled her, began again, beating, beating behind her brow. She thought: perhaps it is happiness which makes me feel like this.

In his blood the surging eagerness increased, and his face, no longer gaunt, wore that wild arisen joy. Winging to him came the thought that he had never touched her. No, he thought, not even have I touched those fingers that might fall so cool and soft upon my lips. His body trembled. He stretched out his hand towards her.

Surely now she was lighter than the moon-drenched air. But the pulse within her head was beating, beating, beating – confusing her beyond thought. As in a trance she placed the slip of orange-blossom in his hand. With fumbling touch he thrust it amongst the tresses of her hair. She tried to smile. How stiff her lips were suddenly, and how dry! She could not smile the quickening tenderness that enkindled her.

He was close to her, so close the opening sweetness of her body exhaled to him. He held his breath. Together in this deserted house, enwrapped by the scented ardent night, alone. All changeless and predestined. The orange-blossom in her hair gleamed palely. Nothing in heaven or earth could now arrest their love: this love which he had never known before, which now incredibly was his.

‘Are you happy?'

‘I am happy,' she answered breathlessly. ‘That is all I know. I feel light and free. Away from everything.'

Her heart swelled like the throat of a thrush. She felt his body melting towards her; but cruelly her own body had become a cage which stiffly baulked the flowing ardour of her spirit.

With all her soul she longed for him. Not to assuage that longing would mean the bitterness of death. I love him, she thought wildly. At last I have found love which wearily all my life I have awaited. And, fleeing the racing darkness of her mind, she said wanly:

‘I came here because I love you. Oh, my love, do you understand? There is nothing in life but you.' Then piteously she pressed her hand to her brow.

Startled, he gazed at her, torn between joy and fear. The pallor of her brow blinded him; and, beneath, her eyes seemed shadowed, suddenly worn by an inward fever. Instinctively he took her hand. It burned him like fire, burning, burning like the hot beating in her head. The colour ebbed slowly from his face so that his lips were white. Where there had been singing, now there was panic in his blood.

‘Mary, beloved,' he cried. ‘Your hands are burning.'

‘It is that queerness,' she answered thickly, ‘come back again. But it will pass like it did before. What does it matter when I love you?' She tried again to smile but now her face was like a mask mocking her from afar. Not one, but many masks, leering amongst the shadows of the orange-trees. And, through it all, with anguish she hungered to let herself dissolve into the sweetness of his kiss.

Then all at once she felt herself defeated, shrivelled. Forlornly she made to say again: ‘I love you'; but no words came. Instead, those leering masks revolved about her, faster, faster, circling at giddy speed; and then the earth rose up and darkness struck her. Swooning, she fell towards him into his arms.

He gave an incoherent cry, riven by a dreadful thought. Supporting her weightless body, again he took her hand. Her pulse beneath the thin archway of her wrist galloped madly. Against his cheek her cheek lay burning. Her whole body was aflame.

‘Oh, God,' he groaned aloud, ‘why didn't I think before? It's fever.'

Her white lids lifted, and for a second her eyes looked into his all wide and mournful like a wounded bird.

‘At last,' she whispered weakly. ‘But how awfully queer I feel.' And then her head drooped forward upon his arm.

For an instant he gazed fixedly at those shuttered eyes, then with passionate haste he gathered her, and, half running, half stumbling, bore her back through the garden to the house. The door gave to the violent impulse of his shoulder. In the hall he did not pause, but, calling loudly: ‘Manuela! Manuela!' he mounted the stairs swiftly and entered his own room. There upon the old brocaded coverlet of his bed he laid her, and, panting, knelt down beside her. At the sight of her prone body, so helpless upon that bed, a thought came which lacerated him. Tears ran into his eyes, blinding him. Distracted, he pressed her limp hands within his own.

Suddenly, at a scraping sound, he turned quickly. Manuela was behind him peering from the shadows with her sombre startled eyes. Without rising from his knees, he said hurriedly:

‘The English señora is ill, she has fainted. Will you bring some water, please. Quickly.'

She did not move, but, after a pause which seemed to him intolerably long, she said flatly:

‘And what business has this English señora to be here?'

‘No business,' he cried. ‘ But she is ill. Bring water quickly in the ewer.'

There was a silence. The serving woman, staring blankly, seemed to turn strange theories within the dull caverns of her mind. Then all at once she bent forward, peering across his shoulder, her eyes starting beneath her sallow brow.

‘Sea por Dios!' she exclaimed shrilly. ‘She is ill, you say. Dios mio, I know that look upon the face.' Her voice rose. ‘Dios mio, but it is writ upon her. She has the sickness!'

‘Be quiet,' Harvey cried harshly. ‘Get water, I tell you. You must help me. Do you understand?'

Manuela drew back, posied for a violent protest. But she made no protest. She stood with arms crossed, strangely motionless; then her mouth closed like a trap. Without a word she swung round. Darting one last look across her shoulder she passed stealthily from the room.

Immediately Harvey rose from his knees and lit another candle. His hand trembled, so that the liquid wax ran down and splashed in warm gouts upon his fingers, but, shielding the flame, he held it near, gazed deeply into Mary's face. It was flushed now, the eyelids slightly swollen, the lips scarlet as a wound. A low groan broke from his lips. He knew it was as Manuela had said.

Manuela! Would the woman never come? His hands clenched savagely, with sudden determination he shot from the room and raced downstairs, calling aloud her name. ‘Manuela! Manuela!' The cry had a lost sound, rising and falling through the dark emptiness of the hall, the refectory, the kitchen. There was no answer. He called and called, then, suddenly, in the deserted kitchen, he stopped, struck by a knowledge of the truth. Manuela had taken fright. She had run away.

His expression changed slowly. So he was alone – save for the old marquesa, who now must be asleep – alone with Mary in this benighted house. For ten seconds he stood quite still. Some broth simmering in a pan upon the charred wood embers made a gentle hubble-bubble of sound. From outside the faint croaking of frogs stole in like voices raised in mockery. Then his eyes hardened with sudden resolution. He threw off his jacket. Turning, he seized a brimming water-jar that stood upon its low, slate ledge. Clasping the dewed earthenware in his arms he went rapidly upstairs.

She lay as he had left her, her scarlet lips parted, her bosom rising to her quickened breaths. With a set face he began to unfasten her dress. His fingers were stiff and cold as ice yet now they did not tremble. But within him his heart trembled, flooded by a mortal anguish. She wore so little, her body was so light, her clothing slipped from her like gossamer. One by one he placed her garments upon the chair, her dress that seemed fashioned for her fragility, her stockings that drooped to nothing in his hand.

Tiny beads of sweat broke coldly upon his brow, the fine edge of his nostrils seemed cut from stone. But he went on. He knew it was imperative: he must combat the rising fever. Her skin was white like silk, her breasts unguarded, small and firm, pink-tipped with innocence. Soft shadows fell aslant her outstretched body, draping its lower nudity. About her unresistant form there floated a marvellous serenity.

At last, with a convulsive gesture, he threw back the coverlet, and, clasping her gently, lowered her upon the coolness of the sheet. As he moved, her arm fell limply and seemed to seek its place around his neck. For that single instant her heavy eyes opened and consciousness returned.

‘It is so like me,' she muttered brokenly, ‘to be a nuisance to you.'

Before he could answer she was away, falling, falling down darkly into a deep oblivion.

He took water and began rapidly to sponge her naked body. His mind worked desperately. He thought with supreme intensity: I must save her. I will save her. If she dies then I too will die. That does not matter. Nothing matters but that she shall be saved.

Under his moving hands her skin grew cooler, moist with the spring water which lay between her breasts like dew. Deluding himself, he fancied she breathed more peacefully; with fingertips upon the thin column of her throat he tried to feel a slackening of her racing blood. Nothing, he thought blindly, nothing matters if only she will get well. Again those words formed and reformed within him until they suffused his very soul and rose soaring from the tenebrous room – an inarticulate aspiration to the watching sky.

He flung down the towel, covered her lightly with the sheet, stood over her. Then at a thought he went downstairs into the kitchen, poured out a cup of the simmering broth and returned. When the broth had cooled, he supported her tired head gently and gave her to drink. Instinctively, like one half sleeping, she drank deeply with soft and drooping lip. To see her swallow the thin cold soup afforded him an exquisite comfort. Courage came to him. Quietly he put away the empty cup, quietly he sat down beside her. Bending forward he took her hand in his, let her fingers rest upon his palm. Immobile as a rock he let his strength flow out to her.