A Rent In A Cloud. Lever Charles James
the dates such as only Onofrio knew how to produce.
Loyd laughed his own little quiet laugh when he heard of his friend’s mission, and his amusement was not lessened at seeing the half-awkward and more than half-unwilling preparations Calvert made to fulfil it.
“Confound the woman!” said he, losing all patience; “she wanted to charge me with all the bills and reckonings for the last three weeks, on the pretext that her husband is but ill-skilled in figures, and that it was a rare chance to find one like myself to undertake the office. I have half a mind to throw the whole cargo overboard when I reach the middle of the lake. I suppose a Nap. would clear all the cost.”
“Oh, I’ll not hear of such extravagance,” said Loyd, demurely.
“I conclude I have a right to an act of personal folly, eh?” asked Calvert, pettishly.
“Nothing of the kind. I drew up our contract with great care, and especially on this very head, otherwise it would have been too offensive a bargain for him who should have observed all the rigid injunctions of its economy.”
“It was a stupid arrangement from the first,” said Calvert warmly. “Two men yet never lived, who could say that each could bound his wants by those of another. Not to say that an individual is not himself the same each day of the week. I require this on Tuesday, which I didn’t want on Monday, and so on.”
“You are talking of caprice as though it were necessity, Calvert.”
“I don’t want to discuss the matter like a special pleader, and outside the margin of our conjoint expenses I mean to be as wasteful as I please.”
“As the contract is only during pleasure, it can never be difficult to observe it.”
“Yes, very true. You have arrived at my meaning by another road. When was it we last replenished the bag?”
“A little more than a week ago.”
“So that there is about a fortnight yet to run?”
“About that.”
Calvert stood in thought for a few seconds, and then, as if having changed the purpose he was meditating, turned suddenly away and hastened down to the boat quay.
Like many bashful and diffident men, Loyd had a false air of coldness and resolution, which impressed others greatly, but reacted grievously on his own heart in moments of afterthought; and now, no sooner had his companion gone, than he felt what a mockery it was for him to have assumed a rigid respect for a mere boyish agreement, which lost all its value the moment either felt it burdensome. “I was not of an age to play Mentor to him. It could never become me to assume the part of a guardian. I ought to have said the bargain ceases the instant you repudiate it. A forced companionship is mere slavery. Let us part the good friends we met; and so on.” At last he determined to sit down and write a short note to Calvert, releasing him from his thraldom, and giving him his full and entire liberty.
“As for myself, I will remain here so long as I stay abroad, and if I come to the continent again, I will make for this spot as for a home: and now for the letter.”
CHAPTER IV. THE “LAGO D’ORTA.”
LEAVING Loyd to compose his letter, we will follow Calvert, as, with vigorous stroke, he rushed his light boat through the calm water, leaving a long bright line of bubbles in his wake. Dressed in his blue flannel shirt and white trousers, a gay bunch of roses stuck jauntily in the side of his straw hat, there was an air of health, vigour, and dash about him, to which his full bright eye and upturned moustache well contributed. And, as from time to time he would rest on his oars, while his thin skiff cleaved her way alone, his bronzed and manly face and carelessly waving hair made up a picture of what we are proud to think is eminently British in its character. That is to say, there was about him much of what indicated abundance of courage, no small proportion of personal strength, and a certain sort of recklessness, which in a variety of situations in life is equivalent to power.
To any eye that watched him, as with scarce an effort he sent his boat forward, while the lazy cirri of smoke that rose from his short pipe indicated ease, there would have seemed one who was indulging in the very fullest enjoyment of a scene second to none in Europe. You had but to look along the shore itself to see the most gorgeous picture of wooded islands and headlands glowing in every tint of colour from the pure white of the oleander to the deep scarlet of the San Giuseppe, with, in the distance, the snow-capped Alps of the St. Bernard, while around and close to the very water’s edge peeped forth little villas, half smothered in orange-blossoms. Far over the lake came their floating perfumes, as though to lend enchantment to each sense, and steep the very soul in a delicious luxury.
Now, as Calvert felt the refreshing breath of the gentle air that stirred the water, he was conscious of a glorious morning, and of something generally grand in the scene about him; but that was all. He had little romance – less of the picturesque – in his nature. If his eyes fell on the lake, it was to fancy the enjoyment of cleaving through it as a swimmer; if he turned towards the Alps, it was to imagine how toilsome would prove the ascent; how deeply lay the snow on the wheels of the diligence; how many feet below the surface were buried the poles that once marked out the road. But even these were but fleeting fancies. His thoughts were seriously turned upon his own future, which opened no bright or brilliant prospect before him. To go back again to India, to return to the old regimental drudgery, or the still more wearisome existence of life in a remote detachment; to waste what he felt the best years of life in inglorious indolence, waiting for that routine promotion that comes associated with the sense of growing old; and to trace at last the dim vista of a return to England, when of an age that all places and people and things have grown to be matters of indifference. These were sad reflections. So sad, that not even the bright scene around him could dispel. And then there were others, which needed no speculation to suggest, and which came with the full force of documents to sustain them. He was heavily in debt. He owed money to the army agent, to the paymaster, to the Agra Bank, to the regimental tailor, to the outfitter – to everyone, in short, who would suffer him to be a debtor. Bonds, and I O’s, and promissory notes, renewed till they had nigh doubled, pressed on his memory, and confused his powers of calculation.
An old uncle, a brother of his mother’s, who was his guardian, would once on a time have stood by him, but he had forfeited his good esteem by an act of deception with regard to money, which the old man could not forgive. “Be it so,” said he; “I deemed my friendship for you worth more than three hundred pounds. You, it would seem, are differently minded; keep the money and let us part.” And they did part, not to meet again. Calvert’s affairs were managed by the regimental agent, and he thought little more of an old relative, who ceased to hold a place in his memory when unassociated with crisp inclosures “payable at sight.”
“I wonder what would come of it if I were to write to him; if I were to put it to his humanity to rescue me from a climate where, after all, I might die – scores of fellows die out there. At all events, I detest it. I could say, ‘My leave expires in October, if you would like to see me once more before I quit England for ever, for I am going to a pestilential spot – the home of the ague and jungle fever, and Heaven knows what else – your sister’s son – poor Sophy’s child.’ That ought to touch him.” And then he went on to think of all the tender and moving things he could write, and to picture to himself the agitation of him who read them; and thus speculating, and thus plotting, he swept his light boat along till she came close in to shore, and he saw the little villa peeping through the spray-like branches of a weeping ash that stood beside it “Higher up,” cried a voice, directing him. “Don’t you know the landing-place yet?” And, startled by a voice not altogether strange to him, he looked round and saw the old lady of the Rhine steamer, the same who had snubbed him at Coblentz, the terrible Miss Grainger of the lost writing-case. It was some minutes before he remembered that he was performing the part of boatman, and not appearing in his own character. Resolved to take all the benefit of his incognito, he lifted his hat in what he fancied to be the true Italian style, and taking a basket in each hand, followed the old lady to the house.
“It is three days that we have been expecting you,” said she, tartly, as she walked briskly on, turning at times to point a sarcasm