Claire Ambler (1928, Doubleday)/Part 2/Chapter 3
MR. CHARLES ORBISON might well have been asked if a gentleman wholly mystified by a young lady's mind could be expected to understand her sentimentally; his impulsive diagnosis of what filled the heart of Miss Claire Ambler in Raona was mistaken.
As she sat with Arturo Liana upon the green iron bench looking out upon the classic sea where Greek had fought Greek, and Roman triremes had met Carthaginian galleys, the girl of twenty-one did indeed thrill with romance; but not with a romance particularly concerned with the young gentleman beside her. Neither was the thrill she felt caused by the tremendous history of the spot where she sat, though she knew that in their flesh Plato, the Apostle Paul, Mark Antony, and Cicero had looked upon it; and, in majestic legend, so had Trojan fugitives. Near at hand, upon her right, the groves of the Cyclops climbed the buttresses of the snow-mantled volcano that rose two miles into the air like a god's prodigious tent pitched at the edge of the sea; and, both left and right, from this ledge above the precipice, her eye commanded vast sweeps of surf-edged coast, haunted in every cove and ravine with antique tragedy. Before her, across the straits that led to Scylla and Charybdis, there shimmered in the haze of distance, like a mountain landscape in a dream, the high, blue-cleft shores of old Calabria; and below her—far, far below the garden—the sea was stained to that brilliancy of turquoise colour Claire found unbelievable even when she looked at it.
Overhead, behind the monastery and the town of Raona, there were other incredibilities. Against the sky rose peak and crag and pinnacle of rock, whereon, "like the lead at the point of a pencil," she thought, were ancient little walled towns and the broken towers of stone Saracen and Norman castles. Necromancy must have got them there, it seemed; for human energy, even in medieval passions of fear, would have been too feeble—though, of all the magic about her, what she thought most necromantic in beauty was the Greek theatre that crowned the skyward lift at the end of the long cliff of Raona.
She had been there, the night before, in the moonlight with Arturo Liana; but the thrill of the romantic she felt then, as now, was not caused by Arturo, nor was it primarily the work of the epic beauty surrounding her. Two months earlier, in Rome, she had gone to the Palatine Hill to write a letter beginning, "Seated upon a block of marble in the banquet hall of Cæsar," and necessarily the picture suggested to the mind of her correspondent must have had Claire in the foreground with Cæsar somewhat remote. Thus, as she beheld the august and tragic beauty of Raona, her foremost happy thought was, "Here, surrounded by marvels, am I!"
What romantically thrilled her, then, was her own presence among the marvels; a thrill by no means unpardonable and not unknown to travellers older than Claire; nor need it be held to her discredit that at times she had the pleasantly tingling impression of herself that she was the central marvel of all. She always knew when people were looking at her, although she was pleasantly accustomed to their doing so. Gentlemen in the Louvre had turned from Velasquez portraits to look at her; and here in Raona, when she walked abroad, she was stared at almost violently. When she passed by them, tourists temporarily forgot this most heroically beautiful of all earthly landscapes; and when she came into the hotel refectory for lunch or dinner she well knew that she was politely and covertly watched to her seat by every eye in the place. Demure, thoughtful-looking, and apparently unaware, she made no effort to restrain herself from appearing a little more unconsciously graceful for her observers' benefit—it is true that she did a great many things for her observers' benefit. Indeed, it would not be straining the point to say that most of what she did in the way of gesture and look and talk, when observers were present, was for their benefit. In fact, she sometimes did a little of that for her own benefit when she was alone.
But in particular she had been steadily aware of the observation of a gaunt and crippled Englishman; and he would have been astonished to learn that she had never once failed to know when he was looking at her or listening to her. Even more he would have been amazed by the number of things she had done and said because she knew she had his attention; and probably it would have been the climax of his surprise to learn that her recent conversation with the Bastoni and the Japanese gentleman was intended to reveal to him, in some measure, the variety of the treasures of her mind.
Moreover, as she sat upon the green bench by the garden railing now, with the romantic-looking young Italian beside her, she was really giving a little performance, so to speak, for the Englishman's benefit; though not by the slightest glance in his direction did she seem to take cognizance of him, and she knew that from where he sat he could not hear what she said. But she thought the sound of her voice reached him, and she was careful to keep it musical, just as she kept her posture and gestures graceful, and appeared all the while to be deeply absorbed in the young Liana. Her absorption in him had markedly increased when they came out of the hotel and into the scope of Orbison's view, for Claire had long since discovered her absorbed look was the most becoming expression she knew how to wear.
She wore it now—for its effect upon both gentlemen, of course, but more for its effect upon the one at a distance than for that upon the one at her side; and in this there was an ironical fatality that haunted her. She could never understand it, and often gasped in her hopeless puzzlement over it. No matter what the comparative merits and beauties of any two gentlemen might be, she was forever doomed, so it seemed, to find herself more interested in the one at a distance than in the one at her side.
If they exchanged places her interest perversely changed, too, and her performances helplessly directed themselves at the man who had moved to a distance; he at once became the more attractive to her. "Attractive" was her own word, and may be recorded as the most generously elastic in all her vocabulary; for, although a gentleman at a little distance was more "attractive" to her than one close at hand, it might be said that she was indifferent to no man whom she could possibly contrive to include under that definition. She even sheltered the Bastoni under it, partly because of their monocles, it is true; and her treatment of all "attractive" men seemed to indicate that she felt not only a spontaneous enthusiasm for the least of them but a duty to all of them—the duty, apparently, of offering them a focus for their attention, or, it might be, for their devotion.
Thus, though Arturo Liana, being at her side, was now in her eyes principally a picturesque adjunct of the scene she was playing to the gentleman at a distance, she was far from indifferent to him. On the contrary, she was not only interested in offering him a focus for devotion, but she was honestly interested in something fine and a little mysterious that she perceived in him. "You are mysterious," she told him, remembering how deeply she had often pleased young gentlemen at home by such a charge; and she was laughingly frank enough to mention this now. "I've told boys that before, just to flatter them; but it's really true about you. You're mysterious as thunder."
"I am mysterious?" he repeated; and, although when he spoke English it was usually with an almost undetectable imperfection, he delighted her by adding, "As sunder? How is sunder mysterious?"
She laughed outright and corrected him. "Thunder, not 'sunder.' Can't you say 'thunder'?"
"Is it necessary?"
"Dear me!" she cried. "Isn't anything I ask you to do necessary?"
"Indeed I fear it is," he said seriously, almost ruefully. "Thunder. Is that right? I am as mysterious as sunder—as thunder, I wish to say. How?"
At that she seemed to become serious too. "Well, in the first place you look as if you were keeping some great thought to yourself."
"Am I so bad? You mean an appearance of egotism?"
"No. Not anything like that. What I mean, it's as if you had a high ideal you'd never be willing to talk about. I mean you look as if you were engaged in a great Cause, or something. Are you?"
"Am I?" He smiled, and then replied with a gallantry in which there was obviously enough genuineness to excuse it: "I am engage' in sitting on a bench with Miss Claire Ambler. With that privilege, how could I be engage' in anything else?"
"There you go!" she protested. "Whenever I try to find out what your mystery is, you say something like that. You always do it, too, when I mention Baron Bastoni or his brother; but maybe that's only because you feel a social difference between you and them."
"Social?" The young man's shoulders, rising slightly, disclaimed the imputation. "There is an English word, 'snob.' Modern Italy believes it is bourgeois to be a snob. We will be brother to any man who is brother to us in what he thinks. I do not care anything social, one way or the other, about the Bastoni. I am not a snob."
"Mr. Rennie told me the other day what you do care about," she said. "You care about Fascismo."
"Yes," he said gravely. "Well?"
"Is that why you hate the Bastoni? Because they are against it? The baron told me that almost all the people about here are against it."
"At least," he said a little sadly, "they are agains' me. I am not very popular in Raona, Miss Ambler. In the firs' place, I am forestiere—from the north—the people look upon me as a foreigner as much as they do you; only they would think of you kindly in that way, and of me unkindly. In the secon' place, they think I am here to meddle with them; it would not be too much to say they think I am something quite like an intriguer and a spy. The Bastoni have been successful to assist that impression."
"Do you think so?" she asked doubtfully. "They seem so quiet and nice-mannered I can't imagine it. Why should they do such a thing?"
"We are upon opposite sides. You see, I am one of the men who believe Italy is being save' by a leader and his great ideal; and any of us is ready to make a sacrifice to help bring all the people to serve the ideal. The people in the country and villages here are backward and very independent; they don' like it, and the Bastoni wish to get some power out of that. But probably you can hardly tell what I am talking about, Miss Ambler?"
"Oh, yes, I can," she said promptly. "You mean the Bastoni are trying to keep the Fascisti from getting better organized here, and they think you're doing the organizing; Mr. Rennie told me. But I don't see why anything like that should make a personal feeling, as it does seem to do, between you and the baron and his brother. At home, in America, everybody's either a Republican or a Democrat, and of course they all vote against each other and call each other terrible names. But it doesn't really mean anything—they're just trying to get the farmers excited and fool the public. But even the ones that do the most of it against each other know it's all just a gorgeous bluff and they get together and joke about it. Why couldn't you do that here? It would be so much more comfortable; it seems to me you take things too seriously."
"Perhaps we do," he said; and he smiled, not finding any fault in her complete lack of comprehension. "It would not be easy to explain to a person from a country where everything is so comfortable. I am afraid we are worse than serious; for more than two thousand years we have even been passionate in our politics, and you see that makes it quite a habit."
"Then it seems to me time you got over it."
The young man was not displeased with her for her flippancy. On the contrary, he gave her a look of appreciation from his fine dark eyes and laughed apologetically. "Well, you see, a habit more than two thousand years old—it is a little difficult to change! Would you consent to teach us, Miss Ambler?"
She instantly returned his glance, and then looked out over the sea. "You wouldn't pay much attention, I'm afraid," she said, with just the right proportions of amusement and wistfulness that she had learned to put into her voice when she wished gentlemen to be interested in finding out what she felt about them.
"No?" he said; and he responded perfectly to the sentimental mechanism she had set in motion. "If you will teach I fear I would pay no attention to anything else."
"Wouldn't you?" she asked, suddenly grave and sweet.
"Never! I never would!"
"Wouldn't you?" she said again, in a low voice. And with that she turned her head and gave him a quick, wondering look, a little startled, that seemed to say, "Will it be you—some day?"
This bit of performing was by no means all spurious—it was a mixture, being partly spontaneous and genuine, in spite of herself, as it always was when she did it; and yet, of course, it was essentially a forward movement in her instinctive perpetual campaign to be a focus. But having made it, she felt that she had brought matters to a point a little further advanced than was desirable, at least for the time being; so she rose rather abruptly from the bench and leaned upon the precipice railing to gaze down at the sea.
"I think the Blue Grotto they have here is even more wonderful than the one at Capri," she said briskly. "My mother likes the Capresi one and we have the most fearful arguments about it." She turned about, facing him. "Which do you like best, Arturo?"
Arturo's colour had heightened; but now he looked a little mystified: "You didn't say if you would teach me."
She laughed gayly. "Oh, that! How to make people in this country understand not to take politics passionately? Well, I have an uncle at home that tried to be a senator, and he gave a dinner to the man that beat him—they said it was the funniest dinner ever given. Shall I ask Baron Bastoni to give you a dinner, Arturo? Do let me! We'd get that nice Mr. Rennie to be the toastmaster. He's so benevolent and witty"
She went on chattering while Arturo, who had risen when she did, stood looking at her helplessly and rather plaintively. Within her, she was a little derisive of his dejection. "He's really quite beautiful," she thought; "but he does look almost foolish just now—wanting to go on with it and not knowing how to make me! But that other man" As she stood with her back to the railing, the tail of her eye was taking ardent note of this magnetic other; and suddenly she decided upon a decisive step forward with him. Seeming to perceive for the first time the presence of Mr. Eugene Rennie, she gave him a surprised, sunny little nod; then let her kindled eyes rest for a slow moment upon the man in the long chair. She meant to exchange a first direct look with him—a look permitting him to guess that she hadn't minded his changing his table in the refectory—but Orbison chose this most special of moments to light a cigarette and he was entirely preoccupied in that worthless action.
"Good gracious!" Claire thought emotionally, "Just how slow are you intending to be? I'm not going to stay in Raona all my life! Aren't you ever going to do anything about it?"