A Rent In A Cloud

“Always a burrasca; how I am sick of your burrasca,” said he, contemptuously. “If you were only once in your life to see a real storm, how you’d despise those petty jobbles, in which rain and sleet play the loudest part.”

“What does he say of the weather?” asked Florence, who saw that Calvert had walked on to a little point with the old man, to take a freer view of the lake.

“He says, that if it neither blows hard nor rains, it will probably be fine. Just what he has told us every day since I came here.”

“What about this fine trout that you spoke of, Carlo?”

“It is at Gozzano, ‘cellenza; we can take it as we go by.”

“But we are going exactly in the opposite direction, my worthy friend; we are going to the island, and to Pella.”

“That is different,” said the old man, with another shrug of the shoulders.

“Didn’t you hear thunder? I’m sure I did,” cried Miss Grainger.

“Up yonder it’s always growling,” said Calvert, pointing towards the Simplon. “It is the first welcome travellers get when they pass the summit.”

“Have you spoken to him, Milly, about Mr. Stockwell? Will he take him up at Orta, and land him here?” asked Miss Grainger, in a whisper.

“No, aunt; he hates Stockwell, he says. Carlo can take the blue boat and fetch him. They don’t want Carlo, it seems.”

“And are you going without a boatman, Flurry?” Asked her aunt

“Of course we are. Two are quite cargo enough in that small skiff, and I trust I am as skilful a pilot as any Ortese fisherman,” broke in Calvert.

“Oh, I never disputed your skill, Mr. Calvert.”

“What, then, do you scruple to confide your niece to me?” said he, with a low whisper, in which the tone was more menace than mere inquiry.

“Is this the first time we have ever gone out in a boat together?”

She muttered some assurance of her trustfulness, but so confusedly, and with such embarrassment, as to be scarcely intelligible. “There! that was certainly thunder!” she cried.

“There are not three days in three months in this place without thunder. It is the Italian privilege, I take it, to make always more noise than mischief.”

“But will you go if it threatens so much?” said Miss Grainger.

“Ask Florry. For my part, I think the day will be a glorious one.”

“I’m certain it will,” said Florence, gaily; “and I quite agree with what Harry said last night Disputing about the weather has the same’ effect as firing great guns: it always brings down the rain.”

Calvert smiled graciously at hearing himself quoted.

It was the one sort of flattery he liked the best, and it rallied him out of his dark humour. “Are you ready?” – he had almost added “dearest,” and only caught himself in time – perhaps, indeed, not completely in time – for she blushed, as she said, “Eccomi.”

The sisters affectionately embraced each other. Emily even ran after Florence to kiss her once again, after parting, and then Florry took Calvert’s arm, and hastened away to the jetty. “I declare,” said she, as she stepped into the boat, “this leave-taking habit, when one is going out to ride, or to row, or to walk for an hour, is about the stupidest thing I know of.”

“I always said so. It’s like making one’s will every day before going down to dinner. It is quite true you may chance to die before the dessert, but the mere possibility should not interfere with your asking for soup. No, no, Florry, you are to steer; the tiller is yours for to-day; my post is here;” and he stretched himself at the bottom of the boat, and took out his cigar. The light breeze was just enough to move the little lateen sail, and gradually it filled out, and the skiff stole quietly away from shore, without even a ripple on the water.

“What’s the line, Florry?’ Hope at the helm, pleasure at the prow,’ or is it love at the helm?”

“A bad steersman, I should say; far too capricious,” cried she, laughing.

“I don’t know. I think he has one wonderful attribute; he has got wings to fly away with whenever the boat is in danger, and I believe it is pretty much what love does always.”

“Can’t say,” said she, carelessly. “Isn’t that a net yonder? Oughtn’t we to steer clear of it?”

“Yes. Let her fall off – so – that’s enough. What a nice light hand you have.”

“On a horse they tell me my hand is very light.”

“How I’d like to see you on my Arab ‘Said.’ Such a creature! so large-eyed, and with such a full nostril, the face so concave in front, the true Arab type, and the jaw a complete semicircle. How proud he’d look under you, with that haughty snort he gives, as he bends his knee. He was the present of a great Rajah to me – one of those native fellows we are graciously pleased to call rebels, because they don’t fancy to be slaves. Two years ago he owned a territory about the size of half Spain, and he is now something like a brigand chief, with a few hundred followers.”

“Dear Harry, do not talk of India – at least not of the mutiny.”

“Mutiny! Why call it mutiny, Florry? Well, love, I have done,” he muttered, for the word escaped him, and he feared how she might resent it.

“Come back to my lightness of hand.”

“Or of heart, for I sorely suspect, Florence, the quality is not merely a manual one.”

“Am I steering well?”

“Perfectly. Would that I could sail on and on for ever thus:

Over an ocean just like this,
A life of such untroubled bliss.”

Calvert threw in a sentimental glance with this quotation.

“In other words, an existence of nothing to do,” said she, laughing, “with an excellent cigar to beguile it.”

“Well, but ‘ladye faire,’ remember that I have earned some repose. I have not been altogether a carpet knight I have had my share of lance and spear, and amongst fellows who handle their weapons neatly.”

“You are dying to get back to Ghoorkas and Sikhs, but I won’t have it I’d rather hear Metastasio or Petrarch, just now.”

“What if I were to quote something apposite, though it were only prose – something out of the Promessi Sposi?”

She made no answer, and turned away her head.

“Put up your helm a little: let the sails draw freely. This is very enjoyable; it is a right royal luxury. I’m not sure Antony ever had his galley steered by Cleopatra; had he?”

“I don’t know; but I do know that I am not Cleopatra nor you Antony.”

“How readily you take one up for a foolish speech, as if these rambling indiscretions were not the soul of such converse as ours. They are like the squalls, that only serve to increase our speed and never risk our safety, and, somehow, I feel to-day as if my temper was all of that fitful and capricious kind. I suppose it is the over-happiness. Are you happy, Florry?” asked he, after a pause.

“If you mean, do I enjoy this glorious day and our sail, yes, intensely. Now, what am I to do? The sail is flapping in spite of me.”