CHAPTER V.
“MISS EVE.”
At this point the statement of Dr. Lepsius becoming devoid of interest for us, we may next take up that of one Jeanne Auvache, where she writes (in French, with no eye to _us_, but quite for her own behoof):
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... The next (Tuesday) morning, near nine, the yacht anew dropped her anchor within the claws of a creek in an island called Shunter: for the weather was fine and the sea smooth, so Miss Ruth and Miss Eve, each wishing to seek for more dolomites, weeds, and other suchlike things of the sea, and to place their feet on still a new shore, were pleased to land. I had already massaged, bathed, and coiffured Miss Eve, brought the two ladies their chocolate, and now had sat to costume yet another doll for Miss Ruth, when Miss Ruth comes to give me to know that she is about to go to land, and suggests that that should amuse me to come too with her: for she is ever good, as befits one who has the reputation of a saint, and who feels bound, no doubt, to keep it up. As for me, I little believe in saints, since all beings are as alike as two drops of water, the one to the other, at bottom—all save one, perhaps; and though it is a thing hardly to be questioned that, if a true saint does live, then it is this Ruth Vickery, still, I little believe in saints, I. Nor is it such a great matter that Miss Ruth should do me these little graces and goodnesses, inasmuch as I am not really her maid—I am the maid of Miss Eve—and not bound to be for ever sitting down dressing dolls for the brats in the hospitals of London; and if it were merely Miss Eve, I should have very little to do through some hours of the day: but Miss Ruth finds ever some charitable work to which to bind me down, and if thou wert now so young as thou once wast, it is not thou, Jeanne, my cherished one, I think, that would long endure this demure quietude and existence of a recluse. But patience, do not yet despair; thou hast been beautiful, thou hast been loved! Yes, and now, it appears, thou art anew beloved. It was not, then, all in vain that I have lived, and the world may not be altogether so dirty a bog of egotism and rotted dogs as I have lately grown to regard it. Heavens! that is droll—I feel myself anew young! The sky looks bluer, my feet would be almost dancing, and I am no more morose within myself at everything: for with a few touches of art there is nought which may not yet be hidden, and it is as if all the mirrors had of late years conspired to make me appear to myself plainer than I really am, since, as a matter of fact, I find the flesh under my jaws yet firmly plump, my eyes glow as gaudily as a girl’s, their creases have existed chiefly in my fears, and each day I appear to myself to grow more fit to please.
But how little does one know what is before oneself! The boat had been already lowered down into the water when, having put aside the dressing of the dolls, I went up on deck and saw Miss Ruth, Miss Eve, Lord Astor, Miss Savage, and Monsieur le Comte de Courcy ready to descend to go to the shore, though Mr. Vickery did not go to the shore, but abided on the ship’s poop perusing his big Bible through his glasses. When we had come to the shore, the ladies were taken out of the boat both by the sailors and by the gentlemen, and Monsieur le Comte de Courcy, one may be sure, took care to be he who lifted out Miss Eve, while, as for me, I was left to be taken out by a mariner who, in doing it, embraced me, I think, with intention. In the boat it had been said that the island was uninhabited, but, to our surprise, we found a “coble” or sail-boat, with a brown sail, with the rags of a philibeg, and with a pair of the sort of shoes which they call “brogues” in it, lying in some bushes; also a little inland, on some waste land over which many peewees and moorfowl were chattering their screeches, we found the ruin of a long shed, built of loose stones, with a roof of turf; also on the sands a sort of post or flag-staff: all showing that there were, or had once been, people on this place. On the shore the party split into two parts, Miss Ruth and Miss Savage marching off one way, and Monsieur de Courcy and Lord Astor following after Miss Eve as insects infest a feast of sweetmeat, while I was left to wander as I would. I therefore walked alone over that claw of the coast which was to the left as one looked toward the sea, where I paced in shade over a species of peat between bush and briar, which was deep on either hand, though little higher than my head, with thousands of gulls and whaups whistling and crying together in the air around me; and meantime, whatever seemed rare or strange, such as a weed or a piece of flint, I picked it up to keep for the ladies’ pleasure. In this manner I was engaged, waging war on the fog of midges that sang and stung my face, when, at a place where the glow of the morning’s sun was quite extinguished under the shade of the bush, I all at once felt within myself the instinct that two great eyes were regarding me from the darkness of an ambush. I sprang up from my stooping with affright! And it proved no fancy, for there, a yard before and to the right of me, I beheld, yes, two ardent eyes, glowing huge and close to the ground, it might be those of a tiger crouching, only that they were as dark as night. No second glance I gave, but with my heart in my mouth ran my hardest back toward the sands, awaiting at every instant the devouring teeth of a beast in my rear. Nothing, however, pursued me, and at length, seeing this, I halted, even ventured back a few feet, peering forward: for I have never lacked bravery, I, and am not to be terrified by a mere pair of eyes like that; but I could now see nothing, though, as I stood peering, my ear seemed to catch through the leafage not far from me a sharp rush which afresh had the effect of putting me to flight. However, I was about once more to stop to pry round, when the whistle of our boatswain sounded to summon me, and I ran down to the boat, where I found all our party already come back to embark.
When the ladies had been again placed in the boat, and we were all again on the water making toward the yacht, Miss Ruth, noticing my looks, remarked to me, “Why are you so pale?” and I then related to them my adventure in the dark of the bush, how two eyes had glared strangely at me from the ground, and had scared me. At this all the talk stopped short, and no small astonishment was shown at my hap: for all had thought that the island bore on it no form of life except those of the smaller sea-fauna, as sea-birds and suchlike, so that, in short, I was the centre of the interest of all the world for a while, and every eye looked toward me. Miss Savage took the view that it must have been my “fancy,” but I at once quashed such a notion by a gush of assurances, whereat Monsieur le Comte de Courcy gave his opinion that it was the eyes of “the genius of the place” which I had seen, Lord Astor thought that they were “the eyes of Hermes searching the island for the nymph Lamia,” and Miss Eve believed that “more of inhabitants crowd in the village than count in the census; each grove harbours its ghost, heart-sighs and eyes are about——” in the midst of which argument the boat reached the yacht, and at once our anchor was tackled, our canvas thrown to the breeze, and we started out upon the last part of the voyage, no more to tarry till our craft should be at her buoy on the coast of Scotland.
Well, now, I come to the event: I am about to write it! During the hours of the forenoon I had been mainly bound down to the dressing of Miss Ruth’s dolls; during those of the afternoon I had found my hands full enough with the making ready of the trunks, and with the thousand other little last cares that crowd upon one before a disembarking: and it was now evening, about half-past eight o’clock, when, passing out of Miss Eve’s apartment, I went in a hurry round into my own to get and bring out her older brown gown. My wee apartment was quite in darkness; I was able merely to see the circle of my window, near under which, it being on the lee-side of the leaning ship, one was able to hear like a dirging the seething of the sea’s surge sweep by toward the rear. So now I reached out my hand to switch on the light, and at that moment it was that it came upon me, while I, in a blue affright, gave up everything, recommending my soul to the good God, for it was as if thirty-six[A] tigers flung their weight against me, and in the very same breath, as it seemed to me, I found myself lying on the ground, my feet bound together, and my mouth gagged with my apron; and so instantly were all these different performances done to me, that I understood, I remember, that I must be under the power of at least three ruffians. Heavens, that moment! I lay as it were given over and drowned far down in the gloom of the tomb, and I said within myself, “Jeanne, thou art finished now,” for one could not catch one’s breath, nor cry out, nor see anything! However, by a cunning move—for I was ever astute and deep in an extremity, I, and not to be done for so easily like that—I managed to jerk myself sharply upward a little, remembering that the switch was just above, and by a feat of luck my free arm, reaching wildly up, chanced to touch this switch, upon which the apartment was flooded with light, and I saw, to my bewilderment, that my tormentor was not many, but one. At once I had a sigh of escape and of regained hope, for though his right hand still held the gag, I could understand at the flash of the light that it was not a butcher, but a suppliant, who knelt at my side; and at once with that flash of light his lips were passionately at my ear, panting words so warm and queer, that I half questioned whether I heard him well when the young fellow whispered wildly to me that he knew that I am a woman and wanted me for his wife. Heavens! of the two surprises of my situation here was the greater! For I could scarce believe that he was jeering at me, seeing that he gave utterance to his words with so earnest a _naïveté_, so that I wondered whether I had to do with a lunatic! And even in the thick of my fears, I was so pierced with a feeling of the queerness of the young man’s remark, “I know that you are a woman,” that I had to laugh within myself! for I was suddenly light-hearted and relieved in that he wanted me to be his wife rather than to be his victim. Again he made me hear his demand in a pant at my ear, this time with a glance in his gallant eyes which made me afresh apprehensive, and gave me to guess that the penalty of hesitation might be grave; so with my finger I now indicated the stuffing in my mouth, whereat he told me to nod my yes or no, so, to humour him, I nodded yes, I would wed him! He now demanded of me a vow that I would not betray him “to Man” (as he said), till the ship should come to land, and this, too, I vowed with movements of my head and with my uplifted hand. But little did he trust me! for, on releasing me, he flew to the door, and had it secured before I was yet even on my feet. We then stood staring the one at the other, both bosoms labouring, and during some moments my tongue seemed to be unable to dare to address this being, till on a sudden I said to him, “But you are deranged! Who, then, are you?” to which his answer in the lowest whisper was that he was “Hannibal Lepsius.”
[A] Anglicè: a dozen, a hundred.
“Little that imports to me, your name,” said I: “I wish to know, since you are not one of the ship’s company, how came you here?”
His answer was a whisper at my ear that I already broke my vow, since I spoke loudly enough, he said, to be heard by everyone throughout the vessel; but that since he was now certain that he was more powerful than I, therefore he would throw me down, and bind me anew, if I betrayed him “to Man.”
At this I stood scared, half-laughing within myself, for I seemed to have to do with a quixote or one crazed! but because of the beauty of his young face and form, and of some _naïveté_, and of some power, that was all about the young man, I could not be cross with him, for I declare that in some way he at the same time touched my soul with compassion, with mockery, and with awe of him, so that I craved at the same moment to become his mother and his love, his protectress and his slave. Something odder than anything in the world—in his looks, his words, his being—widened my eyes with the wondering of a babe, and made life a new thing to me ... he had sandals on his feet, a belt, no jacket, no hat ... he seemed to me fleet enough to leap up and fly with pinions. At this menace of his to bind me anew I said to him, “But you must have taken leave of your senses, as it seems to me! for I spoke scarcely above a whisper, which no one could possibly hear.”
As I said this, my young man, without saying more, drops on a sudden down, with his hands outstretched to me: and when I said to him, “Well, what now?” his answer was a prayer not to be untrue to him, but to hide him “from Man” and be his wife!
I laughed anew at this within myself! for he seemed to be blind to my forty-one foundered summers, and the flowers that withered in them, he a youth of hardly twenty years. So I said to him, “Get away with you, for you are crazy; how do you know that I am not already a married woman with a husband?” on which he told me very secretly that in any case he believed it to be possible that he should be able to make me one of “the most sovereign of ladies,” and with that he presents me with a piece of stone, resembling an ink-bottle, saying to me, “Read that.”
“What is this now?” said I, turning the thing round in my hands, since I could see nothing to read, only some holes cut in the stone; upon which he repeated his demand that I should “read” it, telling me that it was partly in Coptic and partly in—some long expressions which I did not comprehend.
“I know nothing of this,” said I to him, handing him back the piece of stone, whereat he peered piercingly at me a moment, and then all at once a light seemed to dawn upon his mind, and he rose up from his knees saying to himself, “I thought so.”
“Thought what?” said I to him, but to this he made no reply, only smiled upon me.
He gave me an impression of some young god gone mad! “You are hardly very polite,” I said to him, “and another woman might think you a little crazed, since at one moment you crave to be my husband, and at another moment you smile upon me as upon some ninny,” to which he replied something about being bound to adore me, ninny or no, inasmuch as I am so adorable!
“Why, get you gone,” I said to him, “you have hardly had time to see me yet!”
He asked me how much time was necessary, and if he had not gazed at me through the bushes?
“Those, then, were your eyes that gazed there at Shunter through the bushes at me?” said I; “and you found me beautiful? What, then, could you have found so very beautiful about me, my face, or my figure—or both?” to which he replied, “Both.”
“And do you mean,” said I to him, “that it was merely through love of me that you concealed yourself in the yacht? What a sudden flame of passion! But I am at a loss to know how you could come here!” on which he explained that he had swum under water from the shore.
“But how could you possibly steal down here without being seen?” I asked him, to which he replied that “that question of itself charged me with a drowsy consciousness.”
His little smile of a superior man (_petit sourire d’homme supérieur_)! “Well,” said I fondly to him, “you, for your part, are of a wakeful consciousness, and I, for mine, am beautiful both in face and form, is it not so? and it is a pair of us, is it not? But since we are now about to come to land, tell me this——” but before I could utter another word I heard the call of “Jeanne,” and was recalled by it to this world. It was the voice of Miss Eve who called me, and ere I could find my tongue to reply she called again, “Jeanne, where are you?” but I could not answer her, my eyes were fixed upon the boy, who now appeared lost in a joyous attention to the call, and with his finger held up gave deep into my ear a whisper of “Sweet voice.” Whereat I, being a little perturbed, turned from him, switched off the light, whispered him to await my return there, and went out in haste to Miss Eve, wondering within myself how in Heaven’s name I was now to restrain him from making the acquaintance of other ladies.