XLI.
We four formed (to use a term well understood nowadays in every
social sphere) a "syndicate" owning the Tremolino: an
international and astonishing syndicate. And we were all ardent
Royalists of the snow-white Legitimist complexion--Heaven only
knows why! In all associations of men there is generally one who,
by the authority of age and of a more experienced wisdom, imparts a
collective character to the whole set. If I mention that the
oldest of us was very old, extremely old--nearly thirty years old--
and that he used to declare with gallant carelessness, "I live by
my sword," I think I have given enough information on the score of
our collective wisdom. He was a North Carolinian gentleman, J. M.
K. B. were the initials of his name, and he really did live by the
sword, as far as I know. He died by it, too, later on, in a
Balkanian squabble, in the cause of some Serbs or else Bulgarians,
who were neither Catholics nor gentlemen--at least, not in the
exalted but narrow sense he attached to that last word.
Poor J. M. K. B., Americain, Catholique, et gentilhomme, as he was
disposed to describe himself in moments of lofty expansion! Are
there still to be found in Europe gentlemen keen of face and
elegantly slight of body, of distinguished aspect, with a
fascinating drawing-room manner and with a dark, fatal glance, who
live by their swords, I wonder? His family had been ruined in the
Civil War, I fancy, and seems for a decade or so to have led a
wandering life in the Old World. As to Henry C-, the next in age
and wisdom of our band, he had broken loose from the unyielding
rigidity of his family, solidly rooted, if I remember rightly, in a
well-to-do London suburb. On their respectable authority he
introduced himself meekly to strangers as a "black sheep." I have
never seen a more guileless specimen of an outcast. Never.
However, his people had the grace to send him a little money now
and then. Enamoured of the South, of Provence, of its people, its
life, its sunshine and its poetry, narrow-chested, tall and short-
sighted, he strode along the streets and the lanes, his long feet
projecting far in advance of his body, and his white nose and
gingery moustache buried in an open book: for he had the habit of
reading as he walked. How he avoided falling into precipices, off
the quays, or down staircases is a great mystery. The sides of his
overcoat bulged out with pocket editions of various poets. When
not engaged in reading Virgil, Homer, or Mistral, in parks,
restaurants, streets, and suchlike public places, he indited
sonnets (in French) to the eyes, ears, chin, hair, and other
visible perfections of a nymph called Therese, the daughter,
honesty compels me to state, of a certain Madame Leonore who kept a
small cafe for sailors in one of the narrowest streets of the old
town.
No more charming face, clear-cut like an antique gem, and delicate
in colouring like the petal of a flower, had ever been set on,
alas! a somewhat squat body. He read his verses aloud to her in
the very cafe with the innocence of a little child and the vanity
of a poet. We followed him there willingly enough, if only to
watch the divine Therese laugh, under the vigilant black eyes of
Madame Leonore, her mother. She laughed very prettily, not so much
at the sonnets, which she could not but esteem, as at poor Henry's
French accent, which was unique, resembling the warbling of birds,
if birds ever warbled with a stuttering, nasal intonation.
Our third partner was Roger P. de la S-, the most Scandinavian-
looking of Provencal squires, fair, and six feet high, as became a
descendant of sea-roving Northmen, authoritative, incisive, wittily
scornful, with a comedy in three acts in his pocket, and in his
breast a heart blighted by a hopeless passion for his beautiful
cousin, married to a wealthy hide and tallow merchant. He used to
take us to lunch at their house without ceremony. I admired the
good lady's sweet patience. The husband was a conciliatory soul,
with a great fund of resignation, which he expended on "Roger's
friends." I suspect he was secretly horrified at these invasions.
But it was a Carlist salon, and as such we were made welcome. The
possibility of raising Catalonia in the interest of the Rey netto,
who had just then crossed the Pyrenees, was much discussed there.
Don Carlos, no doubt, must have had many queer friends (it is the
common lot of all Pretenders), but amongst them none more
extravagantly fantastic than the Tremolino Syndicate, which used to
meet in a tavern on the quays of the old port. The antique city of
Massilia had surely never, since the days of the earliest
Phoenicians, known an odder set of ship-owners. We met to discuss
and settle the plan of operations for each voyage of the Tremolino.
In these operations a banking-house, too, was concerned--a very
respectable banking-house. But I am afraid I shall end by saying
too much. Ladies, too, were concerned (I am really afraid I am
saying too much)--all sorts of ladies, some old enough to know
better than to put their trust in princes, others young and full of
illusions.
One of these last was extremely amusing in the imitations, she gave
us in confidence, of various highly-placed personages she was
perpetually rushing off to Paris to interview in the interests of
the cause--Por el Rey! For she was a Carlist, and of Basque blood
at that, with something of a lioness in the expression of her
courageous face (especially when she let her hair down), and with
the volatile little soul of a sparrow dressed in fine Parisian
feathers, which had the trick of coming off disconcertingly at
unexpected moments.
But her imitations of a Parisian personage, very highly placed
indeed, as she represented him standing in the corner of a room
with his face to the wall, rubbing the back of his head and moaning
helplessly, "Rita, you are the death of me!" were enough to make
one (if young and free from cares) split one's sides laughing. She
had an uncle still living, a very effective Carlist, too, the
priest of a little mountain parish in Guipuzcoa. As the sea-going
member of the syndicate (whose plans depended greatly on Dona
Rita's information), I used to be charged with humbly affectionate
messages for the old man. These messages I was supposed to deliver
to the Arragonese muleteers (who were sure to await at certain
times the Tremolino in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Rosas), for
faithful transportation inland, together with the various unlawful
goods landed secretly from under the Tremolino's hatches.
Well, now, I have really let out too much (as I feared I should in
the end) as to the usual contents of my sea-cradle. But let it
stand. And if anybody remarks cynically that I must have been a
promising infant in those days, let that stand, too. I am
concerned but for the good name of the Tremolino, and I affirm that
a ship is ever guiltless of the sins, transgressions, and follies
of her men.
