Chapter Thirteen.A Discovery in Ebury Street.The soft, musical Tuscan tongue, the language which Gemma spoke always with her lover, is full of quaint sayings and wise proverbs. The assertion that “L’amore della donna è come il vino di Champagni; se non si beve subito, ricade in fondo al calice” is a daily maxim of those light-hearted, happy, indolent dwellers north and south of Arno’s Valley, from grey old Lucca, with her crumbling city gates and ponderous walls, across the mountains, and plains to where the high towers of Siena stand out clear-cut like porcelain against the fiery blaze of sunset. Nearly every language has an almost similar proverb—a proverb which is true indeed, but, like many another equally wise, is little heeded.When Armytage and Gemma had arrived in London, he had not been a little surprised at the address where she stated some friends of hers resided. While still in the train, before she reached London, she took from her purse a soiled and carefully treasured piece of paper, whereon was written, “76, Bridge Avenue, Hammersmith”; and to this house they drove, after depositing their heavy baggage in the cloakroom. They found it a poor, wretched thoroughfare off King Street, and in the wet evening it looked grey, depressing, and unutterably miserable after the brightness of Italy. Suddenly the cab pulled up before the house indicated—a small two-storied one—but it was evident that the person they sought no longer lived there, for a board was up announcing that the house was to let. Armytage, after knocking at the door and obtaining no response, rapped at the neighbouring house, and inquired whether they were aware of the address of Mr Nenci, who had left. From the good woman who answered his inquiries he obtained the interesting fact that, owing to non-payment of the weekly rent, the landlord had a month ago seized the goods, and the foreigner, who had resided there some six months, had disappeared, and, being deeply in debt among the neighbouring small shops, had conveniently forgotten to leave his address.“Was Mr Nenci married?” asked Charlie Armytage, determined to obtain all the information he could.“Yes, sir,” the woman answered. “His wife was a black-faced, scowling Italian, who each time she passed me looked as though she’d like to stick a knife into me. And all because I one day complained of ’em throwing a lot of rubbish over into my garden. My husban’, ’e says ’e’d go in and talk to ’em, but I persuaded him not to. Them foreigners don’t have any manners. And you should just have seen the state they left the ’ouse in! Somethin’ awful, the lan’lord says.”“Then you haven’t the slightest idea where they’ve gone?”“No, sir. Back to their own country, I hope, for London’s better off without such rubbish.”Returning to the cab, he told Gemma of the departure of her friends, and suggested that for the present she should stay at the Hotel Victoria, in Northumberland Avenue, while he took up his bachelor quarters in Ebury Street. Therefore they drove back again to Charing Cross; and having seen her comfortably installed in the hotel, he drove to his own rooms.He had written to his housekeeper from Paris, and on entering his cosy little flat, with its curiously decorated rooms with their Moorish lounges and hangings, found a bright fire, a comfortable chair ready placed for him, his spirit-stand and a syphon of soda ready to hand, and Mrs Wright, his housekeeper, welcoming him back cordially, and expressing the hope that his journey had been a pleasant one.Having deposited his bag, he washed, dressed, swallowed a whisky-and-soda, and drove back to the Victoria, where he dined with his well-beloved.At eleven o’clock next morning, according to his promise, he came to the hotel, and they drove out in a taxi to see some of the principal streets of London. She had chosen a dress of dark grey, which fitted her perfectly, and beneath her large black hat her fair face and blue eyes looked the perfect incarnation of innocence and ingenuousness. As he had anticipated, all was strange to her, and in everything she became deeply interested. To her, London was a revelation after the quiet idleness of Tuscany. They drove along the busy Strand, past the Law Courts, down Fleet Street with its crowd of lounging printers, and up Ludgate Hill. At St. Paul’s they alighted and entered the Cathedral. Its exterior was admired, but at its bare interior she was disappointed. She had expected the Duomo of London to be resplendent in gilt and silver altars, with holy pictures, but instead found a great, gaunt building, grey, silent, and depressing.Armytage noticed the blank look upon her beautiful countenance, and asked her her opinion.“It is fine, very fine,” she answered in her pure Tuscan. “But how bare it is!”“This is not a Catholic country, like yours,” he explained. “Here we don’t believe in gaudy altars, or pictures of the Vergine Annunziata.”“Are all your churches the same, Nino?” she inquired. “Are there no altars?”“Only the central one, and that is never golden, as in Italy.”He pointed out to her tombs of great men about whom she had read long ago in her school days at the Convent of San Paolo della Croce, in Florence, and in them she was much interested. But afterwards, when they drove round St. Paul’s churchyard, into Cheapside, where the traffic was congested and progress was slow, she looked upon the mighty, crowded city with eyes wide-open in wonder as a child’s. At every point she indicated something which she had never before seen, and Bennett’s clock striking midday caused her as much delight as if she had been a girl of twelve. Hers was an extraordinary temperament. As he sat beside her, listening to her original remarks anent things which to his world-weary eyes were so familiar as to be unnoticeable, he saw how genuinely ingenuous she was, how utterly unlike the callous adventuress which once, in Livorno, he feared her to be.To show and explain to her all the objects of interest they passed was to him an intense pleasure.They returned by way of Cannon Street, where he pointed out the great warehouses whence emanated those objects so dear to the feminine heart—hats and dresses; past the Post Office, with its lines of red mail-carts ready to start for the various termini; along Newgate Street with its grim prison, across the Holborn Viaduct, and thence along Oxford and Regent Street to the hotel.“How busy and self-absorbed every one seems!” she again remarked. “How gigantic this city seems! Its streets bewilder me.”“Ah, piccina mia,” he answered, “you’ve only seen a very tiny portion of London. There are more people in a single parish here than in the whole of Florence.”“And they all talk English, while I don’t understand a word!” she said, pouting prettily. “I do so wish I could speak English.”“You will learn very soon,” he answered her. “In a couple of months or so you’ll be able to go out alone and make yourself understood.”“Ah no!” she declared with a slight sigh. “Your English is so difficult—oh, so very difficult!—that I shall never, never be able to speak it.”“Wait and see,” he urged. “When we are married, I shall speak English to you always, and then you’ll be compelled to learn,” he laughed.“But, Nino,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon the crowd of persons passing and repassing, “why are all these people in such a dreadful hurry? Surely there’s no reason for it?”“It is business, dearest,” he answered. “Here, in London, men are bent on money-making. Nine-tenths of these men you see are struggling fiercely to live, notwithstanding the creases in their trousers, and the glossiness of their silk hats; the other tenth are still discontented, although good fortune has placed them beyond the necessity of earning their living. In London, no man is contented with his lot, even if he’s a millionaire; whereas in your country, if a man has a paltry ten thousand lire a year, he considers himself very lucky, takes life easily, and enjoys himself.”“Ah,” she said, just as the cab pulled up before the hotel entrance, where half a dozen Americans, men and women, lounging in wicker chairs, began to comment upon her extreme beauty, “in London every one is so rich.”“No, not every one,” he answered, laughing. “Very soon your views of London will become modified;” and he sprang out, while the grey-haired porter, resplendent in gilt livery, assisted her to alight.An incident had, however, occurred during the drive which had passed unnoticed by both Gemma and her companion. While they were crossing Trafalgar Square, a man standing upon the kerb glanced up at her in quick surprise, and, by the expression on his face, it was evident that he recognised her.For a few moments his eyes followed the vehicle, and seeing it enter Northumberland Avenue, he hurried swiftly across the Square, and halted at a respectable distance, watching her ascend the hotel steps with Armytage.Then, with a muttered imprecation, the man turned on his heel and strode quickly away towards St. Martin’s Lane.When, a quarter of an hour later, Armytage was seated with her at luncheon in the great table d’hôte room, with its heavy gilding, its flowers and orchestral music, she, unconscious of the sensation her beauty was causing among those in her vicinity expressed fear of London. It was too enormous, too feverish, too excited for her ever to venture out alone, she declared. But he laughed merrily at her misgivings, and assured her that very soon she would be quite at home among her new surroundings.“Would you think very ill of me, piccina, if I left you alone all day to-morrow?” he asked presently, not without considerable hesitation.“Why?” she inquired, with a quick look of suspicion.“No, no,” he smiled, not failing to notice the expression on her face. “I’m not going to call on any ladies, piccina. The fact is, I’ve had a pressing invitation for a day’s shooting from an uncle in the country, and it is rather necessary, from a financial point of view, that I should keep in with the old boy. You understand?”“I’ll go down by the early train,” he said, “and I’ll be back again here by nine to dine with you.” Then, turning to the waiter standing behind his chair, he inquired whether he spoke Italian.“I am Italian, signore,” the man answered.“Then, if the signorina is in any difficulty to-morrow, you will assist her?”“Certainly, signore; my number is 42,” the man said, whisking off the empty plates and rearranging the knives.“I wouldn’t go, only it is imperative for one or two reasons,” he explained to her. “In the morning you can take a cab, and the waiter will tell the driver that you want to go for an hour or so in the West—remember, the West End—not the East End. Then you will return to lunch, and have a rest in the afternoon. You know well that I’ll hasten back to you, dearest, at the earliest possible moment.”“Yes,” she said, “go, by all means. You’ve often told me you like a day’s shooting, and I certainly do not begrudge my poor Nino any little pleasure.”“Then you are sure you don’t object to being left alone?”“Not in the least,” she laughed, as with that chic which was so charming she raised her wine-glass to her pretty lips.When they had finished luncheon she went to her room, while he smoked a cigarette; then, when she re-appeared, he drove her to his own chambers in Ebury Street.“My place is a bit gloomy, I’m afraid,” he explained on the way. “But we can chat there without interruption. In the hotel it is impossible.”“No place is gloomy with my Nino,” she answered.His arm stole around her slim waist, and he pressed her to him more closely.“And you must not mind my servant,” he exclaimed. “She’s been in our family for twenty years, and will naturally regard you with considerable suspicion, especially as you are a foreigner, and she can’t speak to you.”“Very well,” she laughed. “I quite understand. Woman-servants never like the advent of a wife.”Presently they alighted, and he opened the door of the flat with his latchkey.“Welcome to my quarters, piccina,” he exclaimed as she entered the tiny, dimly lit hall, and glanced round admiringly.“How pretty!” she exclaimed. “Why, it is all Moorish!” looking up at the silk-embroidered texts from the Korân with which the walls were draped.“I’m glad you like it,” he said happily; and together they passed on into his sitting-room, a spacious apartment, the windows of which were filled with wooden lattices, the walls draped with embroidered fabrics, the carpet the thickest and richest from an Eastern loom, the stools, lounges, and cosy-corners low and comfortable, and the ceiling hidden by a kind of dome-shaped canopy of yellow silk.Slowly she gazed around in rapt admiration.“I delight in a Moorish room, and this is the prettiest and most complete I have ever seen,” she declared. “My Nino has excellent taste in everything.”“Even in the choice of a wife—eh?” he exclaimed, laughing, as he bent swiftly and kissed her ere she could draw away.She raised her laughing eyes to his, and shrugged her shoulders.“Don’t you find the place gloomy?” he asked.“My friends generally go in for old oak furniture, or imitation Chippendale. I hate both.”“So do I,” she assured him. “When we are married, Nino, I should like to have a room just like this for myself—only I’d want a piano,” she added, with a smile.“A piano in a Moorish room!” he exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that be somewhat out of place? Long pipes and a darbouka or two, like these, would be more in keeping with Moorish ideas;” and he indicated a couple of drums of earthenware covered with skin, to the monotonous music of which the Arab and Moorish women are in the habit of dancing.“But you have an English table here,” she exclaimed, crossing to it, “and there are photographs on it. Arab never tolerate portraits. It’s entirely against their creed.”“Yes,” he admitted; “that’s true. I’ve never thought of it before.”At that instant she bent quickly over one of the half-dozen photographs in fancy frames.Then, taking it in her hand, she advanced swiftly to the window, and examined it more closely in the light. “Who is this?” she demanded in a fierce, harsh voice.“A friend of mine,” he replied, stepping up to her and glancing over her shoulder at the portrait. “He’s an army officer—Major Gordon Maitland.”“Maitland!” she cried, her face in an instant pale to the lips. “And he is a friend of yours, Nino—you know him?”“Yes, he is a friend of mine,” Armytage replied, sorely puzzled at her sudden change of manner. “But why? Do you also know him?”She held her breath; her face had in that instant become drawn and haggard, her pointed chin sank upon her breast in an attitude of hopeless despair, her clear blue eyes were downcast; but no answer passed her trembling lips.This sudden, unexpected discovery that the Major was acquainted with the man she loved held her dumb in shame, terror, and dismay. It had crushed from her heart all hope of love, of life, of happiness.
The soft, musical Tuscan tongue, the language which Gemma spoke always with her lover, is full of quaint sayings and wise proverbs. The assertion that “L’amore della donna è come il vino di Champagni; se non si beve subito, ricade in fondo al calice” is a daily maxim of those light-hearted, happy, indolent dwellers north and south of Arno’s Valley, from grey old Lucca, with her crumbling city gates and ponderous walls, across the mountains, and plains to where the high towers of Siena stand out clear-cut like porcelain against the fiery blaze of sunset. Nearly every language has an almost similar proverb—a proverb which is true indeed, but, like many another equally wise, is little heeded.
When Armytage and Gemma had arrived in London, he had not been a little surprised at the address where she stated some friends of hers resided. While still in the train, before she reached London, she took from her purse a soiled and carefully treasured piece of paper, whereon was written, “76, Bridge Avenue, Hammersmith”; and to this house they drove, after depositing their heavy baggage in the cloakroom. They found it a poor, wretched thoroughfare off King Street, and in the wet evening it looked grey, depressing, and unutterably miserable after the brightness of Italy. Suddenly the cab pulled up before the house indicated—a small two-storied one—but it was evident that the person they sought no longer lived there, for a board was up announcing that the house was to let. Armytage, after knocking at the door and obtaining no response, rapped at the neighbouring house, and inquired whether they were aware of the address of Mr Nenci, who had left. From the good woman who answered his inquiries he obtained the interesting fact that, owing to non-payment of the weekly rent, the landlord had a month ago seized the goods, and the foreigner, who had resided there some six months, had disappeared, and, being deeply in debt among the neighbouring small shops, had conveniently forgotten to leave his address.
“Was Mr Nenci married?” asked Charlie Armytage, determined to obtain all the information he could.
“Yes, sir,” the woman answered. “His wife was a black-faced, scowling Italian, who each time she passed me looked as though she’d like to stick a knife into me. And all because I one day complained of ’em throwing a lot of rubbish over into my garden. My husban’, ’e says ’e’d go in and talk to ’em, but I persuaded him not to. Them foreigners don’t have any manners. And you should just have seen the state they left the ’ouse in! Somethin’ awful, the lan’lord says.”
“Then you haven’t the slightest idea where they’ve gone?”
“No, sir. Back to their own country, I hope, for London’s better off without such rubbish.”
Returning to the cab, he told Gemma of the departure of her friends, and suggested that for the present she should stay at the Hotel Victoria, in Northumberland Avenue, while he took up his bachelor quarters in Ebury Street. Therefore they drove back again to Charing Cross; and having seen her comfortably installed in the hotel, he drove to his own rooms.
He had written to his housekeeper from Paris, and on entering his cosy little flat, with its curiously decorated rooms with their Moorish lounges and hangings, found a bright fire, a comfortable chair ready placed for him, his spirit-stand and a syphon of soda ready to hand, and Mrs Wright, his housekeeper, welcoming him back cordially, and expressing the hope that his journey had been a pleasant one.
Having deposited his bag, he washed, dressed, swallowed a whisky-and-soda, and drove back to the Victoria, where he dined with his well-beloved.
At eleven o’clock next morning, according to his promise, he came to the hotel, and they drove out in a taxi to see some of the principal streets of London. She had chosen a dress of dark grey, which fitted her perfectly, and beneath her large black hat her fair face and blue eyes looked the perfect incarnation of innocence and ingenuousness. As he had anticipated, all was strange to her, and in everything she became deeply interested. To her, London was a revelation after the quiet idleness of Tuscany. They drove along the busy Strand, past the Law Courts, down Fleet Street with its crowd of lounging printers, and up Ludgate Hill. At St. Paul’s they alighted and entered the Cathedral. Its exterior was admired, but at its bare interior she was disappointed. She had expected the Duomo of London to be resplendent in gilt and silver altars, with holy pictures, but instead found a great, gaunt building, grey, silent, and depressing.
Armytage noticed the blank look upon her beautiful countenance, and asked her her opinion.
“It is fine, very fine,” she answered in her pure Tuscan. “But how bare it is!”
“This is not a Catholic country, like yours,” he explained. “Here we don’t believe in gaudy altars, or pictures of the Vergine Annunziata.”
“Are all your churches the same, Nino?” she inquired. “Are there no altars?”
“Only the central one, and that is never golden, as in Italy.”
He pointed out to her tombs of great men about whom she had read long ago in her school days at the Convent of San Paolo della Croce, in Florence, and in them she was much interested. But afterwards, when they drove round St. Paul’s churchyard, into Cheapside, where the traffic was congested and progress was slow, she looked upon the mighty, crowded city with eyes wide-open in wonder as a child’s. At every point she indicated something which she had never before seen, and Bennett’s clock striking midday caused her as much delight as if she had been a girl of twelve. Hers was an extraordinary temperament. As he sat beside her, listening to her original remarks anent things which to his world-weary eyes were so familiar as to be unnoticeable, he saw how genuinely ingenuous she was, how utterly unlike the callous adventuress which once, in Livorno, he feared her to be.
To show and explain to her all the objects of interest they passed was to him an intense pleasure.
They returned by way of Cannon Street, where he pointed out the great warehouses whence emanated those objects so dear to the feminine heart—hats and dresses; past the Post Office, with its lines of red mail-carts ready to start for the various termini; along Newgate Street with its grim prison, across the Holborn Viaduct, and thence along Oxford and Regent Street to the hotel.
“How busy and self-absorbed every one seems!” she again remarked. “How gigantic this city seems! Its streets bewilder me.”
“Ah, piccina mia,” he answered, “you’ve only seen a very tiny portion of London. There are more people in a single parish here than in the whole of Florence.”
“And they all talk English, while I don’t understand a word!” she said, pouting prettily. “I do so wish I could speak English.”
“You will learn very soon,” he answered her. “In a couple of months or so you’ll be able to go out alone and make yourself understood.”
“Ah no!” she declared with a slight sigh. “Your English is so difficult—oh, so very difficult!—that I shall never, never be able to speak it.”
“Wait and see,” he urged. “When we are married, I shall speak English to you always, and then you’ll be compelled to learn,” he laughed.
“But, Nino,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon the crowd of persons passing and repassing, “why are all these people in such a dreadful hurry? Surely there’s no reason for it?”
“It is business, dearest,” he answered. “Here, in London, men are bent on money-making. Nine-tenths of these men you see are struggling fiercely to live, notwithstanding the creases in their trousers, and the glossiness of their silk hats; the other tenth are still discontented, although good fortune has placed them beyond the necessity of earning their living. In London, no man is contented with his lot, even if he’s a millionaire; whereas in your country, if a man has a paltry ten thousand lire a year, he considers himself very lucky, takes life easily, and enjoys himself.”
“Ah,” she said, just as the cab pulled up before the hotel entrance, where half a dozen Americans, men and women, lounging in wicker chairs, began to comment upon her extreme beauty, “in London every one is so rich.”
“No, not every one,” he answered, laughing. “Very soon your views of London will become modified;” and he sprang out, while the grey-haired porter, resplendent in gilt livery, assisted her to alight.
An incident had, however, occurred during the drive which had passed unnoticed by both Gemma and her companion. While they were crossing Trafalgar Square, a man standing upon the kerb glanced up at her in quick surprise, and, by the expression on his face, it was evident that he recognised her.
For a few moments his eyes followed the vehicle, and seeing it enter Northumberland Avenue, he hurried swiftly across the Square, and halted at a respectable distance, watching her ascend the hotel steps with Armytage.
Then, with a muttered imprecation, the man turned on his heel and strode quickly away towards St. Martin’s Lane.
When, a quarter of an hour later, Armytage was seated with her at luncheon in the great table d’hôte room, with its heavy gilding, its flowers and orchestral music, she, unconscious of the sensation her beauty was causing among those in her vicinity expressed fear of London. It was too enormous, too feverish, too excited for her ever to venture out alone, she declared. But he laughed merrily at her misgivings, and assured her that very soon she would be quite at home among her new surroundings.
“Would you think very ill of me, piccina, if I left you alone all day to-morrow?” he asked presently, not without considerable hesitation.
“Why?” she inquired, with a quick look of suspicion.
“No, no,” he smiled, not failing to notice the expression on her face. “I’m not going to call on any ladies, piccina. The fact is, I’ve had a pressing invitation for a day’s shooting from an uncle in the country, and it is rather necessary, from a financial point of view, that I should keep in with the old boy. You understand?”
“I’ll go down by the early train,” he said, “and I’ll be back again here by nine to dine with you.” Then, turning to the waiter standing behind his chair, he inquired whether he spoke Italian.
“I am Italian, signore,” the man answered.
“Then, if the signorina is in any difficulty to-morrow, you will assist her?”
“Certainly, signore; my number is 42,” the man said, whisking off the empty plates and rearranging the knives.
“I wouldn’t go, only it is imperative for one or two reasons,” he explained to her. “In the morning you can take a cab, and the waiter will tell the driver that you want to go for an hour or so in the West—remember, the West End—not the East End. Then you will return to lunch, and have a rest in the afternoon. You know well that I’ll hasten back to you, dearest, at the earliest possible moment.”
“Yes,” she said, “go, by all means. You’ve often told me you like a day’s shooting, and I certainly do not begrudge my poor Nino any little pleasure.”
“Then you are sure you don’t object to being left alone?”
“Not in the least,” she laughed, as with that chic which was so charming she raised her wine-glass to her pretty lips.
When they had finished luncheon she went to her room, while he smoked a cigarette; then, when she re-appeared, he drove her to his own chambers in Ebury Street.
“My place is a bit gloomy, I’m afraid,” he explained on the way. “But we can chat there without interruption. In the hotel it is impossible.”
“No place is gloomy with my Nino,” she answered.
His arm stole around her slim waist, and he pressed her to him more closely.
“And you must not mind my servant,” he exclaimed. “She’s been in our family for twenty years, and will naturally regard you with considerable suspicion, especially as you are a foreigner, and she can’t speak to you.”
“Very well,” she laughed. “I quite understand. Woman-servants never like the advent of a wife.”
Presently they alighted, and he opened the door of the flat with his latchkey.
“Welcome to my quarters, piccina,” he exclaimed as she entered the tiny, dimly lit hall, and glanced round admiringly.
“How pretty!” she exclaimed. “Why, it is all Moorish!” looking up at the silk-embroidered texts from the Korân with which the walls were draped.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said happily; and together they passed on into his sitting-room, a spacious apartment, the windows of which were filled with wooden lattices, the walls draped with embroidered fabrics, the carpet the thickest and richest from an Eastern loom, the stools, lounges, and cosy-corners low and comfortable, and the ceiling hidden by a kind of dome-shaped canopy of yellow silk.
Slowly she gazed around in rapt admiration.
“I delight in a Moorish room, and this is the prettiest and most complete I have ever seen,” she declared. “My Nino has excellent taste in everything.”
“Even in the choice of a wife—eh?” he exclaimed, laughing, as he bent swiftly and kissed her ere she could draw away.
She raised her laughing eyes to his, and shrugged her shoulders.
“Don’t you find the place gloomy?” he asked.
“My friends generally go in for old oak furniture, or imitation Chippendale. I hate both.”
“So do I,” she assured him. “When we are married, Nino, I should like to have a room just like this for myself—only I’d want a piano,” she added, with a smile.
“A piano in a Moorish room!” he exclaimed. “Wouldn’t that be somewhat out of place? Long pipes and a darbouka or two, like these, would be more in keeping with Moorish ideas;” and he indicated a couple of drums of earthenware covered with skin, to the monotonous music of which the Arab and Moorish women are in the habit of dancing.
“But you have an English table here,” she exclaimed, crossing to it, “and there are photographs on it. Arab never tolerate portraits. It’s entirely against their creed.”
“Yes,” he admitted; “that’s true. I’ve never thought of it before.”
At that instant she bent quickly over one of the half-dozen photographs in fancy frames.
Then, taking it in her hand, she advanced swiftly to the window, and examined it more closely in the light. “Who is this?” she demanded in a fierce, harsh voice.
“A friend of mine,” he replied, stepping up to her and glancing over her shoulder at the portrait. “He’s an army officer—Major Gordon Maitland.”
“Maitland!” she cried, her face in an instant pale to the lips. “And he is a friend of yours, Nino—you know him?”
“Yes, he is a friend of mine,” Armytage replied, sorely puzzled at her sudden change of manner. “But why? Do you also know him?”
She held her breath; her face had in that instant become drawn and haggard, her pointed chin sank upon her breast in an attitude of hopeless despair, her clear blue eyes were downcast; but no answer passed her trembling lips.
This sudden, unexpected discovery that the Major was acquainted with the man she loved held her dumb in shame, terror, and dismay. It had crushed from her heart all hope of love, of life, of happiness.
Chapter Fourteen.The Doctor’s Story.Doctor Malvano, in a stout shooting-suit of dark tweed, his gun over his shoulder, his golf-cap pulled over his eyes to shade them, was tramping jauntily along, across the rich meadow-land, cigar in mouth, chatting merrily with his host, a company promoter of the most pronounced Broad Street type named Mabie, who had taken Aldworth Court, in Berkshire, on a long lease, and who, like many of his class, considered it the best of form to shoot. The ideal of most men who make money and spend it in London city is to have “a place in the country;” and in this case the “place” was a great, old, time-mellowed, red-brick mansion, inartistic as was architecture in the early Georgian days, but nevertheless roomy, comfortable, and picturesque in its ivy mantle, and surrounded by its spacious park.The party with whom he was shooting was a decidedly mixed one. At a country house, Malvano was always a welcome guest on account of his good humour, his easy temperament, and his happy knack of being able to entertain all and sundry. Ladies liked him because of his exquisite Italian courtesy, and perhaps also because he was a merry, careless bachelor; while among the men of a house-party, he was voted good company, and the excellence of his billiard-playing and shooting always excited envy and admiration. In the hours between breakfast and luncheon, few birds had that day escaped his gun. To his credit he had placed a good many brace of partridges and pheasants, half a dozen snipe, a hare or two, and held the honours of the morning by bringing down the single woodcock which the beaters had sent up.They had lunched well at an old farmhouse on his host’s estate, a table being well spread in the great oak-beamed living-room, with its tiny windows and a fire on the wide hearth, and, in the enjoyment of an unusually good cigar, the Doctor felt disinclined to continue his feats of marksmanship. Indeed, he would have much preferred the single hour’s rest in an easy chair, to which he had always been accustomed in Italy, than to be compelled to tramp along those high hedgerows. Yet he was a guest, and could make no complaint.Malvano possessed a very curious personality. Keen-eyed and far-sighted, nothing escaped him. He had a deep, profound knowledge of human nature, and could gauge a man accurately at a glance. His merry, careless manner, thoughtless, humorous, and given to laughing immoderately, caused those about him to consider him rather too frivolous for one of his profession, and too much given to pleasure and enjoyment. The popular mind demands the doctor to be a person who, grave-faced and care-lined, should study theLancetweekly, and carefully note every new-fangled idea therein propounded; should be able to diagnose any disease by looking into a patient’s mouth; and who should take no pleasure outside that morbid one derived from watching the growth or decline of the maladies in persons he attended. Malvano, however, was not of that type. Without doubt he was an exceedingly clever doctor, well acquainted with all the most recent Continental treatments, and whose experience had been a long and varied one. He could chatter upon abstruse pathological subjects as easily as he could relate a story in the smoking-room, and could dance attendance upon the ladies, and amuse them by his light brilliant chatter with that graceful manner which is born in every Italian, be he peasant or prince. Within twenty miles or so of Lyddington, no house-party was complete without the jovial doctor, who delighted the younger men with his marvellous collection of humorous tales, and whom even the elder and grumpy admired on account of his perfect play at Bridge.But Filippo Malvano was not in the best spirits this autumn afternoon, tramping across the meadows from Manstone Farm, at the Pangbourne and Hampstead Norris cross-roads, towards Clack’s Copse, where good sport had been promised by the keeper. He was careful enough not to betray to his host the fact that he was bored, but as he strode along, his heavy boots clogged with mud, he was thinking deeply of a curious incident that had occurred half an hour before, while they had been lunching up at the farm.The remainder of the party, half a dozen guns, were on ahead, piloted by the keeper, the beaters were before them on either side of the tall hazel hedge, but beyond one or two rabbits, the spot seemed utterly destitute of game.“What kind of sport have you this season up in Rutland?” the City merchant was asking with the air of wide experience which the Cockney sportsman is so fond of assuming.“Fair—very fair,” Malvano replied mechanically. “Just now I’m shooting somewhere or other two or three days each week, and everywhere pheasants seem plentiful.”His dark eyes were fixed upon the moving figures before him, and especially upon one—that of a lithe athletic man in a suit of grey homespun, who walked upright notwithstanding the uneven nature of the ground, and who carried his gun with that apparent carelessness which showed him to be a practised sportsman.It was this man who was occupying all the Doctor’s attention. To his host he chatted on merrily, joking and laughing from time to time, but, truth to tell, he was sorely puzzled. While sitting around the farmer’s table, Mabie, turning to him, had made some observation regarding the autumn climate in Tuscany, whereupon, the young man now striding on before him, had looked up quickly, asking—“Do you know Tuscany?”“Quite well,” the Doctor had answered, explaining how for some years he had practised in Florence.“I know Florence well,” his fellow-guest had said. “While there I made many friends.” Then, after a second’s hesitation, he gazed full into the Doctor’s face, and asked, “Do you happen to know any people named Fanetti there?”This unexpected inquiry had caused the Doctor to start; but he had been sufficiently self-possessed to repeat the name and calmly reply that he had never heard of it. He made some blind inquiry as to who and what the family were, and in which quarter they resided; and then, with that tactful ingenuity which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, he turned the conversation into an entirely different channel.This incident, however, caused the jovial, careless Malvano considerable anxiety; for here, in the heart of rural England, across the homely board of the simple, broad-faced farmer, a direct question of the most extraordinary kind had been put to him. He did not fail to recollect the keen, earnest look upon the man’s face as he uttered the name of Fanetti—a name he had cause to well remember—and when he recalled it, he became seized with fear that this man, his fellow-guest, knew the truth. Having for the past half-hour debated within himself what course was the best to pursue, he had at last decided upon acting with discretion, and endeavouring to ascertain how far this stranger’s knowledge extended.Turning to his host as they walked on side by side, he removed his cigar, and said, in his habitual tone of carelessness—“I, unfortunately, didn’t catch the name of the young man to whom you introduced me this morning—the one in the light suit yonder.”“Oh, my nephew, you mean,” Mabie answered. “A good fellow—very good fellow. His name’s Armytage—Charles Armytage.”“Armytage!” gasped the Doctor. In an instant he remembered his conversation with Lady Marshfield. She had said that she knew a certain Charles Armytage. But Malvano betrayed no sign, and remained quite calm. “Yes,” he continued; “he seems a very decent fellow. He’s a good shot, too. Several times this morning I’ve—”At that instant a partridge rose before them, and Malvano raised his gun swift as lightning, and brought it down almost before the others had noticed it.“Several times to-day I’ve admired his shooting,” continued the Doctor, at the same time reloading.“He’s only just back from the Continent,” his host explained, “and I asked him to run down from town to-day, thinking a little English sport would be pleasant after the idleness of a summer in Italy.”“A summer in Italy!” Malvano exclaimed in surprise. “He was rather ill-advised to go there during the hot weather. Every one strives to get away during summer. Where has he been?”“In Florence, and afterwards at Leghorn, I believe. He’s been away all this year.”“He has no profession?”“None,” Mabie answered. “His father died and left him comfortably off. For a couple of years he led a rather wild life in Brussels and Paris, sowed the usual wild oats, and afterwards took to travelling. On the average, he’s in England about a couple of months in the year. He says he only comes home to buy his clothes, as he can’t find a decent tailor on the Continent.”“I well understand that,” Malvano laughed. “Is he making a long stay at home this time?”“I believe so. He told me this morning that he was tired of travelling, and had come back to remain.”Malvano smiled a trifle sarcastically. It was evident that his host did not know the true story of his nephew’s fascination, or he would have mentioned it, and perhaps sought the Doctor’s opinion. Therefore, after tome further ingenious questions regarding his nephew’s past and his present address dropped the subject.An hour later he found himself alone with Armytage. They had passed through Clack’s Copse, and, after some splendid sport, had gained the road which cuts through the wood from Stanford Dingley to Ashampstead, where they were waiting for the remainder of the party, who, from the repeated shots, were in the vicinity finding plenty of birds.“Your uncle tells me you know Italy well,” Malvano observed.“I don’t know it well,” Armytage replied, looking the picture of good health and good humour as he stood astride in his well-worn breeches and gaiters, and his gun across his arm. “I’ve been in Tuscany once or twice at Florence, Pisa, Viareggio, Lucca, Leghorn, and Monte Catini. I’m very fond of it. The country is lovely, the garden of Italy, and the people are extremely interesting, and of such diverse types. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is there such pride among the lower classes as in Tuscany.”“And nowhere in the world are the people more ready to charge the travelling Englishman excessively—if they can,” added Malvano, laughing. “I’m Italian born, you know, but I never hesitate to condemn the shortcomings of my fellow-countrymen. The honest Italian is the most devoted friend in the world; the dishonest one is the brother of the very devil himself. You asked me at lunch whether I knew any one named Fanetti—was Fanetti the name?—in Florence,” said the Doctor, after a pause, watching the younger man’s face narrowly. “At the time I didn’t recollect. Since lunch, I have remembered being called professionally to a family of that name on one occasion.”“You were?” cried Armytage, immediately interested. He felt that, perhaps, from this careless, easy-going doctor, he might obtain some clue which would lead him to the truth regarding Gemma’s past.Malvano recalled Lady Marshfield’s words, and with his keen dark eyes looked gravely into the face of the tall, broad-shouldered young Englishman.“Yes,” he said. “There was a mother and two daughters, if I remember aright, and they lived in a small flat in the Via Ricasoli, a few doors from the Gerini Palace. I was summoned there in the night under somewhat mysterious circumstances, for I found, on arrival, that one of the daughters had a deep-incised wound in the neck, evidently inflicted with a knife. I made inquiry how it occurred, but received no satisfactory reply. One thing was evident, namely that the wound could not have been self-inflicted. There had been an attempt to murder the girl.”“To murder her!” Armytage cried.“No doubt,” the Doctor answered. “The wound had narrowly proved fatal, therefore the girl was in too collapsed a condition to speak herself. I dressed the wound, and advising them to call their own doctor, went away.”“Didn’t you see the girl again?” asked Armytage. “No. There was something exceedingly suspicious about the whole affair, and I had no desire to imperil my professional reputation by being party at hushing up an attempted murder. Besides, from what I heard later, I believe they were decidedly a family to avoid.”“To avoid! What do you mean?” the young man cried, dismayed.Malvano saw that the words were producing the effect he desired, namely, to increase suspicion and mistrust in his companion’s heart, and therefore resolved to go even further.“The family of whom I speak held a very unenviable reputation in Florence. Some mystery was connected with the father, who was said to be undergoing a long term of imprisonment. They were altogether beyond the pale of society. But, of course,” he added carelessly, “they cannot be the same family as those of whom you speak. Where did you say your friends live?”“They no longer live in Florence,” he answered hoarsely, his brow darkened, and his eyes downcast in deep thought. All that he learnt regarding Gemma seemed to be to her detriment. None had ever spoken generously of her. It was, alas! true, as she had told him, she had many enemies who sought her disgrace and ruin. Then, after a pause, he asked, “Do you know the names of the girls?”“Only that of the one I attended,” Malvano answered, his searching eyes on the face of young Armytage. “Her name was Gemma.”“Gemma!” he gasped. His trembling lips moved, but the words he uttered were lost in the two rapid barrels which the Doctor discharged at a couple of pheasants at that instant passing over their heads.
Doctor Malvano, in a stout shooting-suit of dark tweed, his gun over his shoulder, his golf-cap pulled over his eyes to shade them, was tramping jauntily along, across the rich meadow-land, cigar in mouth, chatting merrily with his host, a company promoter of the most pronounced Broad Street type named Mabie, who had taken Aldworth Court, in Berkshire, on a long lease, and who, like many of his class, considered it the best of form to shoot. The ideal of most men who make money and spend it in London city is to have “a place in the country;” and in this case the “place” was a great, old, time-mellowed, red-brick mansion, inartistic as was architecture in the early Georgian days, but nevertheless roomy, comfortable, and picturesque in its ivy mantle, and surrounded by its spacious park.
The party with whom he was shooting was a decidedly mixed one. At a country house, Malvano was always a welcome guest on account of his good humour, his easy temperament, and his happy knack of being able to entertain all and sundry. Ladies liked him because of his exquisite Italian courtesy, and perhaps also because he was a merry, careless bachelor; while among the men of a house-party, he was voted good company, and the excellence of his billiard-playing and shooting always excited envy and admiration. In the hours between breakfast and luncheon, few birds had that day escaped his gun. To his credit he had placed a good many brace of partridges and pheasants, half a dozen snipe, a hare or two, and held the honours of the morning by bringing down the single woodcock which the beaters had sent up.
They had lunched well at an old farmhouse on his host’s estate, a table being well spread in the great oak-beamed living-room, with its tiny windows and a fire on the wide hearth, and, in the enjoyment of an unusually good cigar, the Doctor felt disinclined to continue his feats of marksmanship. Indeed, he would have much preferred the single hour’s rest in an easy chair, to which he had always been accustomed in Italy, than to be compelled to tramp along those high hedgerows. Yet he was a guest, and could make no complaint.
Malvano possessed a very curious personality. Keen-eyed and far-sighted, nothing escaped him. He had a deep, profound knowledge of human nature, and could gauge a man accurately at a glance. His merry, careless manner, thoughtless, humorous, and given to laughing immoderately, caused those about him to consider him rather too frivolous for one of his profession, and too much given to pleasure and enjoyment. The popular mind demands the doctor to be a person who, grave-faced and care-lined, should study theLancetweekly, and carefully note every new-fangled idea therein propounded; should be able to diagnose any disease by looking into a patient’s mouth; and who should take no pleasure outside that morbid one derived from watching the growth or decline of the maladies in persons he attended. Malvano, however, was not of that type. Without doubt he was an exceedingly clever doctor, well acquainted with all the most recent Continental treatments, and whose experience had been a long and varied one. He could chatter upon abstruse pathological subjects as easily as he could relate a story in the smoking-room, and could dance attendance upon the ladies, and amuse them by his light brilliant chatter with that graceful manner which is born in every Italian, be he peasant or prince. Within twenty miles or so of Lyddington, no house-party was complete without the jovial doctor, who delighted the younger men with his marvellous collection of humorous tales, and whom even the elder and grumpy admired on account of his perfect play at Bridge.
But Filippo Malvano was not in the best spirits this autumn afternoon, tramping across the meadows from Manstone Farm, at the Pangbourne and Hampstead Norris cross-roads, towards Clack’s Copse, where good sport had been promised by the keeper. He was careful enough not to betray to his host the fact that he was bored, but as he strode along, his heavy boots clogged with mud, he was thinking deeply of a curious incident that had occurred half an hour before, while they had been lunching up at the farm.
The remainder of the party, half a dozen guns, were on ahead, piloted by the keeper, the beaters were before them on either side of the tall hazel hedge, but beyond one or two rabbits, the spot seemed utterly destitute of game.
“What kind of sport have you this season up in Rutland?” the City merchant was asking with the air of wide experience which the Cockney sportsman is so fond of assuming.
“Fair—very fair,” Malvano replied mechanically. “Just now I’m shooting somewhere or other two or three days each week, and everywhere pheasants seem plentiful.”
His dark eyes were fixed upon the moving figures before him, and especially upon one—that of a lithe athletic man in a suit of grey homespun, who walked upright notwithstanding the uneven nature of the ground, and who carried his gun with that apparent carelessness which showed him to be a practised sportsman.
It was this man who was occupying all the Doctor’s attention. To his host he chatted on merrily, joking and laughing from time to time, but, truth to tell, he was sorely puzzled. While sitting around the farmer’s table, Mabie, turning to him, had made some observation regarding the autumn climate in Tuscany, whereupon, the young man now striding on before him, had looked up quickly, asking—
“Do you know Tuscany?”
“Quite well,” the Doctor had answered, explaining how for some years he had practised in Florence.
“I know Florence well,” his fellow-guest had said. “While there I made many friends.” Then, after a second’s hesitation, he gazed full into the Doctor’s face, and asked, “Do you happen to know any people named Fanetti there?”
This unexpected inquiry had caused the Doctor to start; but he had been sufficiently self-possessed to repeat the name and calmly reply that he had never heard of it. He made some blind inquiry as to who and what the family were, and in which quarter they resided; and then, with that tactful ingenuity which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, he turned the conversation into an entirely different channel.
This incident, however, caused the jovial, careless Malvano considerable anxiety; for here, in the heart of rural England, across the homely board of the simple, broad-faced farmer, a direct question of the most extraordinary kind had been put to him. He did not fail to recollect the keen, earnest look upon the man’s face as he uttered the name of Fanetti—a name he had cause to well remember—and when he recalled it, he became seized with fear that this man, his fellow-guest, knew the truth. Having for the past half-hour debated within himself what course was the best to pursue, he had at last decided upon acting with discretion, and endeavouring to ascertain how far this stranger’s knowledge extended.
Turning to his host as they walked on side by side, he removed his cigar, and said, in his habitual tone of carelessness—
“I, unfortunately, didn’t catch the name of the young man to whom you introduced me this morning—the one in the light suit yonder.”
“Oh, my nephew, you mean,” Mabie answered. “A good fellow—very good fellow. His name’s Armytage—Charles Armytage.”
“Armytage!” gasped the Doctor. In an instant he remembered his conversation with Lady Marshfield. She had said that she knew a certain Charles Armytage. But Malvano betrayed no sign, and remained quite calm. “Yes,” he continued; “he seems a very decent fellow. He’s a good shot, too. Several times this morning I’ve—”
At that instant a partridge rose before them, and Malvano raised his gun swift as lightning, and brought it down almost before the others had noticed it.
“Several times to-day I’ve admired his shooting,” continued the Doctor, at the same time reloading.
“He’s only just back from the Continent,” his host explained, “and I asked him to run down from town to-day, thinking a little English sport would be pleasant after the idleness of a summer in Italy.”
“A summer in Italy!” Malvano exclaimed in surprise. “He was rather ill-advised to go there during the hot weather. Every one strives to get away during summer. Where has he been?”
“In Florence, and afterwards at Leghorn, I believe. He’s been away all this year.”
“He has no profession?”
“None,” Mabie answered. “His father died and left him comfortably off. For a couple of years he led a rather wild life in Brussels and Paris, sowed the usual wild oats, and afterwards took to travelling. On the average, he’s in England about a couple of months in the year. He says he only comes home to buy his clothes, as he can’t find a decent tailor on the Continent.”
“I well understand that,” Malvano laughed. “Is he making a long stay at home this time?”
“I believe so. He told me this morning that he was tired of travelling, and had come back to remain.”
Malvano smiled a trifle sarcastically. It was evident that his host did not know the true story of his nephew’s fascination, or he would have mentioned it, and perhaps sought the Doctor’s opinion. Therefore, after tome further ingenious questions regarding his nephew’s past and his present address dropped the subject.
An hour later he found himself alone with Armytage. They had passed through Clack’s Copse, and, after some splendid sport, had gained the road which cuts through the wood from Stanford Dingley to Ashampstead, where they were waiting for the remainder of the party, who, from the repeated shots, were in the vicinity finding plenty of birds.
“Your uncle tells me you know Italy well,” Malvano observed.
“I don’t know it well,” Armytage replied, looking the picture of good health and good humour as he stood astride in his well-worn breeches and gaiters, and his gun across his arm. “I’ve been in Tuscany once or twice at Florence, Pisa, Viareggio, Lucca, Leghorn, and Monte Catini. I’m very fond of it. The country is lovely, the garden of Italy, and the people are extremely interesting, and of such diverse types. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is there such pride among the lower classes as in Tuscany.”
“And nowhere in the world are the people more ready to charge the travelling Englishman excessively—if they can,” added Malvano, laughing. “I’m Italian born, you know, but I never hesitate to condemn the shortcomings of my fellow-countrymen. The honest Italian is the most devoted friend in the world; the dishonest one is the brother of the very devil himself. You asked me at lunch whether I knew any one named Fanetti—was Fanetti the name?—in Florence,” said the Doctor, after a pause, watching the younger man’s face narrowly. “At the time I didn’t recollect. Since lunch, I have remembered being called professionally to a family of that name on one occasion.”
“You were?” cried Armytage, immediately interested. He felt that, perhaps, from this careless, easy-going doctor, he might obtain some clue which would lead him to the truth regarding Gemma’s past.
Malvano recalled Lady Marshfield’s words, and with his keen dark eyes looked gravely into the face of the tall, broad-shouldered young Englishman.
“Yes,” he said. “There was a mother and two daughters, if I remember aright, and they lived in a small flat in the Via Ricasoli, a few doors from the Gerini Palace. I was summoned there in the night under somewhat mysterious circumstances, for I found, on arrival, that one of the daughters had a deep-incised wound in the neck, evidently inflicted with a knife. I made inquiry how it occurred, but received no satisfactory reply. One thing was evident, namely that the wound could not have been self-inflicted. There had been an attempt to murder the girl.”
“To murder her!” Armytage cried.
“No doubt,” the Doctor answered. “The wound had narrowly proved fatal, therefore the girl was in too collapsed a condition to speak herself. I dressed the wound, and advising them to call their own doctor, went away.”
“Didn’t you see the girl again?” asked Armytage. “No. There was something exceedingly suspicious about the whole affair, and I had no desire to imperil my professional reputation by being party at hushing up an attempted murder. Besides, from what I heard later, I believe they were decidedly a family to avoid.”
“To avoid! What do you mean?” the young man cried, dismayed.
Malvano saw that the words were producing the effect he desired, namely, to increase suspicion and mistrust in his companion’s heart, and therefore resolved to go even further.
“The family of whom I speak held a very unenviable reputation in Florence. Some mystery was connected with the father, who was said to be undergoing a long term of imprisonment. They were altogether beyond the pale of society. But, of course,” he added carelessly, “they cannot be the same family as those of whom you speak. Where did you say your friends live?”
“They no longer live in Florence,” he answered hoarsely, his brow darkened, and his eyes downcast in deep thought. All that he learnt regarding Gemma seemed to be to her detriment. None had ever spoken generously of her. It was, alas! true, as she had told him, she had many enemies who sought her disgrace and ruin. Then, after a pause, he asked, “Do you know the names of the girls?”
“Only that of the one I attended,” Malvano answered, his searching eyes on the face of young Armytage. “Her name was Gemma.”
“Gemma!” he gasped. His trembling lips moved, but the words he uttered were lost in the two rapid barrels which the Doctor discharged at a couple of pheasants at that instant passing over their heads.
Chapter Fifteen.The Shadow.In an old and easy dressing-gown, Gemma was idling over her tea and toast in her room on the morning after her lover had been shooting down in Berkshire, when one of the precocious messenger-lads delivered a note to her.At first she believed it to be from Armytage, but, on opening it, found scribbled in pencil on a piece of paper, the address, “73, St. James’s Street, second floor;” while enclosed were a few words in Italian inviting her to call at that address on the first opportunity she could do so secretly, without the knowledge of her lover. The note was from Tristram.With a cry of anger that he should have already discovered her presence in London, she cast the letter from her and stamped her tiny foot, crying, in her own tongue—“Diavolo! Then ill luck has followed me—even here!” For a long time she sat, stirring her tea thoughtfully, and gazing blankly at her rings.“No,” she murmured aloud in a harsh, broken voice; “I won’t see this man. Let him act as he thinks fit. He cannot wreck my happiness more completely than it is already. Major Maitland is a friend of the man I love. Is not that fact in itself sufficient to show me that happiness can never be mine; that it is sheer madness to anticipate a calm, peaceful life with Charles Armytage, as my husband? But Dio! Was it not always so?” she sighed, as hot tears rose in her clear blue eyes, and slowly coursed down her cheeks. “I have sinned; and this, alas! is my punishment.” Again she was silent. Her breast heaved and fell convulsively, and with hair disordered and unbound she presented an utterly forlorn appearance. Her small white hands were clenched, her lips tightly compressed and in her eyes was an intense expression as if before her had arisen some scene so terrible that it froze her senses.At last the striking of the clock aroused her, and she slowly commenced to dress. She looked at herself long and earnestly in the mirror, and saw how deathly pale she had become, and how red were her eyes.Presently, as she crossed the room, she noticed the letter, and, snatching it up, slipped the paper with the address into her purse, tearing up the note into tiny fragments.It was past eleven when she descended to the great hall, and there found her lover seated on one of the lounges, smoking and patiently awaiting her.They sat together in the hall for a few minutes, then took a taxi and drove about the West End. Armytage did not fail to observe how Gemma’s beauty and foreign chic were everywhere remarked. In the streets men stared at her admiringly, and women scanned her handsome dresses with envious eyes; while in the hotel there were many low whisperings of admiration. Yet he could not conceal from himself the fact that she was as mysterious as she was beautiful.While passing across Grosvenor Square, she had been suddenly seized with excitement, for her quick eyes caught sight of a red, white, and green flag, hanging limp and motionless from a flagstaff upon one of the largest houses.“Look! There’s our Italian flag! Why is it there?” she cried, thrilled at sight of her own national colours.“That’s the Embassy,” he replied. “I suppose to-day is some anniversary or other in Italy.”“The Embassy!” she repeated, turning again to look at it. “Is that where Count Castellani lives?”“Yes. He’s your Ambassador. Do you know him?”“I met him once in Florence. He was at a ball at the Strossi Palace.”“Then you know Prince Strossi?” he exclaimed.“Quite well,” she answered. “The Strossis and my family have long been acquainted.”Her prompt reply made it apparent to him that she had moved in the most exclusive set in Florence. She had never before mentioned that she was acquainted with people of note. But next instant he recollected the strange story which the Florentine Doctor had told him on the previous afternoon. Had not Malvano declared that her family was an undesirable one to know? What, he wondered, was the reason of this curious denunciation?Again she fixed her eyes upon the Embassy, and seemed as though she were taking careful observation of its appearance and position.“Did you go much into society in Florence?” he inquired presently.“Only when I was forced to,” she answered ambiguously. “I do not care for it.”“Then you will not fret even if, after our marriage, you know only a few people?”The word “marriage” caused her to start. It brought back to her the hideous truth that even now, after he had brought her to England, their union was impossible.“No,” she answered, glancing at him with eyes full of love and tenderness. “I should always be happy with you alone, Nino. I should want no other companion.”“You would soon grow dull, I fear,” he said, taking her hand in his.“No, never—never,” she declared. “You know well how I love you, Nino.”“And I adore you, darling,” he answered. Then, after looking at her in hesitation for a moment, he added. “But you speak as though you still fear that we shall not marry. Why is that?” He had not failed to notice her sudden change of manner when he had spoken of marriage.“I really don’t know,” she answered, with a forced laugh. “I suppose it is but a foolish fancy, yet sometimes I think that this happiness is too complete to be lasting.”“What causes you to fear this?” he asked earnestly.“When I reflect upon the unhappiness of the past,” she said with a sigh—“when I remember how bitter was my life, how utterly blank and hopeless was the world prior to our meeting, I cannot rid myself of the apprehension that my plans, like all my others, will be thwarted by the one great secret of my past; that all my castles are merely air-built; that your love for me, Nino, will soon wane, and we shall part.”“No, no, piccina,” he cried, placing his arm tenderly around her waist, beneath the warm cape she wore. “It is foolish—very foolish to speak like that. You surely have no reason to doubt me?”“I do not doubt your love, Nino. I doubt, however, whether you have sufficient confidence in me to await the elucidation of the strange mystery which envelops me—a mystery which even I myself cannot penetrate.”“Have I not already shown myself patient?” he asked with a reproachful look.“Yes, yes, mio adorato,” she hastened to reassure him. “You are good and kind and generous, and I love you. Only—only I fear the future. I fear you—I fear myself.”“Why do you fear me, little one?” he asked. “Surely I’m not so monstrous—eh?”The hand he held trembled.“I distrust the future—because I know the fate cruel and terrible—which, sooner or later, must befall me,” she exclaimed, with heart-sinking.“You steadily decline to tell me anything,” he said. “If you would only confide in me, we might together find some means to combat this mysterious catastrophe.”“I cannot! I dare not!”“But you must!” he cried. “You shall!”“I refuse?” she answered fiercely.“You shall not suffer this constant terror merely because of a foolish determination to preserve your secret. After all, I suppose it is only some curious and unfounded dread which holds you awe-stricken, when you could afford to laugh it all to scorn.”“You will never wring confession from me, Nino—never!”Her eyes met his fixedly, determinedly. On her countenance was an expression as if she were haunted by a shadow of evil, as if even then she saw before her the dire disaster which she had declared must ere long wreck her life, and extinguish all hope of happiness. No further word passed her lips, and a silence fell between them until the cab drew up at the hotel.The afternoon being bright and sunny, they went down to the Crystal Palace.To Gemma, all was fresh and full of interest; she even found in the plaster imitations of well-known statues something to criticise and admire, although she admitted that, living within a stone’s throw of the world-famed Uffizi Gallery, she had never entered the Tribuna there, nor seen the Satyr, the Wrestlers, or the Medici Venus.After spending an hour in the Palace, they emerged into the grounds, and, descending the many flights of steps, passed the great fountains, and strolled down the long, broad walk towards Penge, it being their intention to return to town from that station. The sun was going down, a grey mist was rising, and the chill wind of evening whisked the dead leaves in their path. The spacious grounds were silent, deserted, cheerless.She had taken his arm, and they were walking in silence beneath the fast-baring branches through the half-light of the fading day, when suddenly he turned to her, saying—“I’ve been thinking, Gemma—thinking very deeply upon all you told me this morning. I must tell you the truth—the truth that it is impossible for me to have complete confidence in you if you have none in me. The more I reflect upon this strange secret, the more am I filled with suspicion. I cannot help it. I have struggled against all my doubts and fears—but—”“You do not trust me?” she cried hoarsely. “Did I not express fear only this morning that you would be impatient, and grow tired of the steady refusals I am compelled to give you when you demand the truth?”“Having carefully considered all the facts, I can see no reason—absolutely none—why you should not explain the whole truth,” he said rather brusquely.“The facts you have considered are those only within your own knowledge,” she observed. “There are others which you can never know. If you could only understand the situation aright, you would at once see plainly the reason that I am prepared for any sacrifice—even to lose your love, the most precious gift that Heaven has accorded me—in order to preserve my secret.”“Then you are ready to wish me farewell if I still press for the truth?” he cried, dismayed; for the earnestness of her words impressed him forcibly.“I am,” she answered in a low, intense voice.They had halted in the broad, gravelled walk, and were alone.“Listen!” he cried fiercely, as a sudden resolve seized him. “This cannot go on longer, Gemma. I have brought you here to London because I love you, because I hoped to make you my you wife. But you seem determined to keep all the story of your past from me.” Then, recollecting Malvano’s words when they had been shooting together, he added, “If you still refuse to tell me anything, then, much as it grieves me, we must part.”“Part!” she echoed wildly. “Ah yes, Nino! I knew you would say that. Did I not tell you long, long ago, that it would be impossible for us to marry in the present circumstances? You doubt me? Well, I am scarcely surprised!” and she shuddered pale as death.“I doubt you because you are never frank with me.”“I love you, Nino,” she protested with all the ardour of her hot Italian blood as she caught his hand suddenly and raised it to her fevered lips. “You are my very life, for I have no other friend in the world. Surely you have been convinced that my affection is genuine, but I have not deceived you in this!”“I believe you love me,” he answered coldly, in a half-dubious tone nevertheless.“Ah no, caro!” she lisped softly, reproachfully, in her soft Tuscan. “Do not speak like that. I cannot bear it. If you can trust me no longer, then let us part. I—I will go back to Italy again.” And she burst into a torrent of hot tears.“You’ll go back and face the mysterious charge against you?” he asked, with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice, as he drew his hand firmly from hers.His words caused her to start. She looked him fiercely in the face for an instant, a strange light in her beautiful, tearful eyes, then cried huskily—“Yes, if you cast me from you, Nino, I care no longer to live. I cannot live without your love.”
In an old and easy dressing-gown, Gemma was idling over her tea and toast in her room on the morning after her lover had been shooting down in Berkshire, when one of the precocious messenger-lads delivered a note to her.
At first she believed it to be from Armytage, but, on opening it, found scribbled in pencil on a piece of paper, the address, “73, St. James’s Street, second floor;” while enclosed were a few words in Italian inviting her to call at that address on the first opportunity she could do so secretly, without the knowledge of her lover. The note was from Tristram.
With a cry of anger that he should have already discovered her presence in London, she cast the letter from her and stamped her tiny foot, crying, in her own tongue—
“Diavolo! Then ill luck has followed me—even here!” For a long time she sat, stirring her tea thoughtfully, and gazing blankly at her rings.
“No,” she murmured aloud in a harsh, broken voice; “I won’t see this man. Let him act as he thinks fit. He cannot wreck my happiness more completely than it is already. Major Maitland is a friend of the man I love. Is not that fact in itself sufficient to show me that happiness can never be mine; that it is sheer madness to anticipate a calm, peaceful life with Charles Armytage, as my husband? But Dio! Was it not always so?” she sighed, as hot tears rose in her clear blue eyes, and slowly coursed down her cheeks. “I have sinned; and this, alas! is my punishment.” Again she was silent. Her breast heaved and fell convulsively, and with hair disordered and unbound she presented an utterly forlorn appearance. Her small white hands were clenched, her lips tightly compressed and in her eyes was an intense expression as if before her had arisen some scene so terrible that it froze her senses.
At last the striking of the clock aroused her, and she slowly commenced to dress. She looked at herself long and earnestly in the mirror, and saw how deathly pale she had become, and how red were her eyes.
Presently, as she crossed the room, she noticed the letter, and, snatching it up, slipped the paper with the address into her purse, tearing up the note into tiny fragments.
It was past eleven when she descended to the great hall, and there found her lover seated on one of the lounges, smoking and patiently awaiting her.
They sat together in the hall for a few minutes, then took a taxi and drove about the West End. Armytage did not fail to observe how Gemma’s beauty and foreign chic were everywhere remarked. In the streets men stared at her admiringly, and women scanned her handsome dresses with envious eyes; while in the hotel there were many low whisperings of admiration. Yet he could not conceal from himself the fact that she was as mysterious as she was beautiful.
While passing across Grosvenor Square, she had been suddenly seized with excitement, for her quick eyes caught sight of a red, white, and green flag, hanging limp and motionless from a flagstaff upon one of the largest houses.
“Look! There’s our Italian flag! Why is it there?” she cried, thrilled at sight of her own national colours.
“That’s the Embassy,” he replied. “I suppose to-day is some anniversary or other in Italy.”
“The Embassy!” she repeated, turning again to look at it. “Is that where Count Castellani lives?”
“Yes. He’s your Ambassador. Do you know him?”
“I met him once in Florence. He was at a ball at the Strossi Palace.”
“Then you know Prince Strossi?” he exclaimed.
“Quite well,” she answered. “The Strossis and my family have long been acquainted.”
Her prompt reply made it apparent to him that she had moved in the most exclusive set in Florence. She had never before mentioned that she was acquainted with people of note. But next instant he recollected the strange story which the Florentine Doctor had told him on the previous afternoon. Had not Malvano declared that her family was an undesirable one to know? What, he wondered, was the reason of this curious denunciation?
Again she fixed her eyes upon the Embassy, and seemed as though she were taking careful observation of its appearance and position.
“Did you go much into society in Florence?” he inquired presently.
“Only when I was forced to,” she answered ambiguously. “I do not care for it.”
“Then you will not fret even if, after our marriage, you know only a few people?”
The word “marriage” caused her to start. It brought back to her the hideous truth that even now, after he had brought her to England, their union was impossible.
“No,” she answered, glancing at him with eyes full of love and tenderness. “I should always be happy with you alone, Nino. I should want no other companion.”
“You would soon grow dull, I fear,” he said, taking her hand in his.
“No, never—never,” she declared. “You know well how I love you, Nino.”
“And I adore you, darling,” he answered. Then, after looking at her in hesitation for a moment, he added. “But you speak as though you still fear that we shall not marry. Why is that?” He had not failed to notice her sudden change of manner when he had spoken of marriage.
“I really don’t know,” she answered, with a forced laugh. “I suppose it is but a foolish fancy, yet sometimes I think that this happiness is too complete to be lasting.”
“What causes you to fear this?” he asked earnestly.
“When I reflect upon the unhappiness of the past,” she said with a sigh—“when I remember how bitter was my life, how utterly blank and hopeless was the world prior to our meeting, I cannot rid myself of the apprehension that my plans, like all my others, will be thwarted by the one great secret of my past; that all my castles are merely air-built; that your love for me, Nino, will soon wane, and we shall part.”
“No, no, piccina,” he cried, placing his arm tenderly around her waist, beneath the warm cape she wore. “It is foolish—very foolish to speak like that. You surely have no reason to doubt me?”
“I do not doubt your love, Nino. I doubt, however, whether you have sufficient confidence in me to await the elucidation of the strange mystery which envelops me—a mystery which even I myself cannot penetrate.”
“Have I not already shown myself patient?” he asked with a reproachful look.
“Yes, yes, mio adorato,” she hastened to reassure him. “You are good and kind and generous, and I love you. Only—only I fear the future. I fear you—I fear myself.”
“Why do you fear me, little one?” he asked. “Surely I’m not so monstrous—eh?”
The hand he held trembled.
“I distrust the future—because I know the fate cruel and terrible—which, sooner or later, must befall me,” she exclaimed, with heart-sinking.
“You steadily decline to tell me anything,” he said. “If you would only confide in me, we might together find some means to combat this mysterious catastrophe.”
“I cannot! I dare not!”
“But you must!” he cried. “You shall!”
“I refuse?” she answered fiercely.
“You shall not suffer this constant terror merely because of a foolish determination to preserve your secret. After all, I suppose it is only some curious and unfounded dread which holds you awe-stricken, when you could afford to laugh it all to scorn.”
“You will never wring confession from me, Nino—never!”
Her eyes met his fixedly, determinedly. On her countenance was an expression as if she were haunted by a shadow of evil, as if even then she saw before her the dire disaster which she had declared must ere long wreck her life, and extinguish all hope of happiness. No further word passed her lips, and a silence fell between them until the cab drew up at the hotel.
The afternoon being bright and sunny, they went down to the Crystal Palace.
To Gemma, all was fresh and full of interest; she even found in the plaster imitations of well-known statues something to criticise and admire, although she admitted that, living within a stone’s throw of the world-famed Uffizi Gallery, she had never entered the Tribuna there, nor seen the Satyr, the Wrestlers, or the Medici Venus.
After spending an hour in the Palace, they emerged into the grounds, and, descending the many flights of steps, passed the great fountains, and strolled down the long, broad walk towards Penge, it being their intention to return to town from that station. The sun was going down, a grey mist was rising, and the chill wind of evening whisked the dead leaves in their path. The spacious grounds were silent, deserted, cheerless.
She had taken his arm, and they were walking in silence beneath the fast-baring branches through the half-light of the fading day, when suddenly he turned to her, saying—“I’ve been thinking, Gemma—thinking very deeply upon all you told me this morning. I must tell you the truth—the truth that it is impossible for me to have complete confidence in you if you have none in me. The more I reflect upon this strange secret, the more am I filled with suspicion. I cannot help it. I have struggled against all my doubts and fears—but—”
“You do not trust me?” she cried hoarsely. “Did I not express fear only this morning that you would be impatient, and grow tired of the steady refusals I am compelled to give you when you demand the truth?”
“Having carefully considered all the facts, I can see no reason—absolutely none—why you should not explain the whole truth,” he said rather brusquely.
“The facts you have considered are those only within your own knowledge,” she observed. “There are others which you can never know. If you could only understand the situation aright, you would at once see plainly the reason that I am prepared for any sacrifice—even to lose your love, the most precious gift that Heaven has accorded me—in order to preserve my secret.”
“Then you are ready to wish me farewell if I still press for the truth?” he cried, dismayed; for the earnestness of her words impressed him forcibly.
“I am,” she answered in a low, intense voice.
They had halted in the broad, gravelled walk, and were alone.
“Listen!” he cried fiercely, as a sudden resolve seized him. “This cannot go on longer, Gemma. I have brought you here to London because I love you, because I hoped to make you my you wife. But you seem determined to keep all the story of your past from me.” Then, recollecting Malvano’s words when they had been shooting together, he added, “If you still refuse to tell me anything, then, much as it grieves me, we must part.”
“Part!” she echoed wildly. “Ah yes, Nino! I knew you would say that. Did I not tell you long, long ago, that it would be impossible for us to marry in the present circumstances? You doubt me? Well, I am scarcely surprised!” and she shuddered pale as death.
“I doubt you because you are never frank with me.”
“I love you, Nino,” she protested with all the ardour of her hot Italian blood as she caught his hand suddenly and raised it to her fevered lips. “You are my very life, for I have no other friend in the world. Surely you have been convinced that my affection is genuine, but I have not deceived you in this!”
“I believe you love me,” he answered coldly, in a half-dubious tone nevertheless.
“Ah no, caro!” she lisped softly, reproachfully, in her soft Tuscan. “Do not speak like that. I cannot bear it. If you can trust me no longer, then let us part. I—I will go back to Italy again.” And she burst into a torrent of hot tears.
“You’ll go back and face the mysterious charge against you?” he asked, with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice, as he drew his hand firmly from hers.
His words caused her to start. She looked him fiercely in the face for an instant, a strange light in her beautiful, tearful eyes, then cried huskily—
“Yes, if you cast me from you, Nino, I care no longer to live. I cannot live without your love.”
Chapter Sixteen.“Traitors Die Slowly.”They had returned to the hotel, and Armytage had dined with her, but the meal had been a very dismal one. Gemma, with woman’s instinct, knew that she looked horribly untidy, and that her eyes betrayed unmistakable signs of recent tears, therefore she was glad when the meal concluded, and she could escape from the staring crowd of diners.From her lover’s manner, it was also plain that, notwithstanding his protestations of blind affection in Leghorn, he had suddenly awakened to the fact that some deep mystery lay behind her, and that he was disinclined to carry their acquaintance much further without some explanation. Time after time, as she sat opposite him at the table, she had watched him narrowly, looking into his dark, serious eyes in silence, and trying to divine his thoughts. She wondered whether, if he left her, his love for her would be sufficient to cause him to return to her side. Or had he met, as she once feared he would, some other woman—a woman of his own people; a woman, perhaps, that he had loved long ago? This thought sank deeply into her mind. As she watched him and listened to his low, jerky speech, it seemed plain to her that she had guessed the truth. He had grown tired of her, and was making her enforced silence an excuse for parting. When this thought crossed her mind, her bright, clear eyes grew luminous with unshed tears.He told her that to meet next morning was impossible, as he had business to transact. This she knew to be a shallow excuse, as only that morning he had told her that his time was completely at her disposal. Yes, there was no disguising the truth that he had grown weary of her, and now meant to discard her. Yet she loved him.When an Italian woman loves, it is with a fierce, uncontrollable passion, not with that too often sickly admiration for a man’s good looks which is so characteristic of love among the more northern nations. In no country is love so ardent, so passionate, so enduring, as in the sunny garden of Europe. The Italian woman is slow to develop affection, or even to flirt with the sterner sex; but when she loves, it is with all the strength of her being; she is the devoted slave of her lover, and is his for life, for death. Neither the strength of Italian affection nor the bitterness of Italian jealousy can be understood in England, unless by those who have lived among the hot-blooded Tuscans in that country where the sparkle of dark eyes electrify, and where the knives are cheap, and do their work swiftly and well.They passed out of the table d’hôte room into the hall. Then he stretched forth his hand.“You are not coming to see me to-morrow, Nino?” she asked in a low, despondent voice.“No,” he replied. “I have an appointment.”“But you can surely dine here?”“I am not quite certain,” he answered. “If I can, I will send you a telegram.”“You are impatient—you who promised me to wait until I could give you some satisfactory explanation. It is cruel of you—very cruel, Nino,” she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper.“You are never straightforward,” he replied quickly. “If you confessed to me, all this anxiety would at once cease.”“I cannot.”“No,” he said meaningly; “you will not. You dare not, because your past has not been what it should have been! Buona sera!” and with this parting allegation he lifted his hat and bowed stiffly.“Felicissima notte, Nino,” she answered so low as to be almost inaudible.Then he turned and passed out of the great glass doors which the porters held open for him.Gemma went to her room, and, bursting into tears, sat for a long time alone, despairing, plunged in grief. She knew by her lover’s manner that he had forsaken her, and she felt herself alone in gigantic London, where the language, the people, the streets, all were strange to her. As she sat in her low easy chair, a slim, graceful figure in her pale-blue dinner-dress, she clenched her tiny hands till the nails embedded themselves in the palms, as she uttered with wild abandon the name of the man she so fondly loved.“Ah!” she cried aloud. “You, Nino, who have treated me with this suspicion and contempt—you who have brought me here among your people and deserted me—can never know how much I have sacrificed for your sake. Nor can you ever know how fondly I love you. Why have I acted with all this secrecy must for ever remain a mystery. You have left me,” she added in a hoarse, strained voice, half inaudible on account of her sobs—“you have left me now; but some day when I am free—when I can show you things in their true light—you will regret that to-night you have broken a woman’s heart.” And she bent forward and gave way to a flood of hot, passionate tears.Fully half an hour she sat plunged in a deep melancholy, but at last she rose and crossed the room unsteadily. Her fair brow bore a look of determination, her face was hard set, and in her tear-stained eyes was an expression of strength of will.“Yes,” she murmured, “I’ll risk all. My life cannot be rendered more hopeless, more wretched, than it now is in this atmosphere of doubt and suspicion.” Then she bathed her face in eau-de-Cologne, sniffed her smelling-salts, rubbed her cheeks with a towel to take away their ghastly pallor, and assuming her travelling coat, with its wide fur collar and cuffs, which, being long, hid her dress, she put on her hat and went out.She went up to one of the porters in the hall hastily, and said—“Prendetimi una vettura.”The man looked at her in surprise, unable to understand her. She pointed outside to where several hansoms were passing.“Oh! a cab you want, miss!” he cried, the fact suddenly dawning upon him; and as he touched the electric bell which calls cabs from the rank, she handed him the slip of paper she had that morning received.The porter read it, descended the steps with her, handed her into the cab, and, having shouted the address to the man, she was driven rapidly away to St. James’s Street, where she ascended to the second floor, and found upon a door a brass plate bearing Captain Tristram’s name.She rang the bell, and in response the smart, soldier-servant Smayle appeared, and looked at her in surprise.“The Signor Capitano Tristram?” she inquired.“Yes, miss,” the man answered; and she entered the hall, and glanced around her while he closed the door.At that moment Tristram’s voice, from one of the rooms beyond, cried—“Show the lady in, Smayle.”She followed the servant into the cosy sitting-room redolent of cigars. She was gazing round the apartment, noting how comfortable it was, when suddenly the door reopened and Tristram entered. He had evidently been dining out, or to a theatre, and had now discarded his dress-coat for an easy velvet lounge-jacket. When he had closed the door, he stood for a moment regarding her in silence.“Well,” he said at length in Italian. “So you have come, eh?” His welcome was certainly the reverse of cordial.“Yes,” she faltered; “I have come. How did you know I was in London?”Certain furrows on Tristram’s brow revealed profound thought.“A woman who is wanted by the police always has some difficulty in concealing her whereabouts,” he answered meaningly. His countenance was hard and vengeful; his features expressed so much disdain and cruelty at that moment that one would scarcely believe they could ever be susceptible of any gentle emotion.“Why do you throw that in my face?” she asked angrily.“My dear signorina,” he answered, crossing the room, “come here to this chair and sit down. I want to talk to you very seriously, if you’ll allow me.”She moved slowly across, and, sinking into the armchair near the fire, unbuttoned her long coat.“No,” he said; “it’s hot in this room: take it off, or you won’t find the benefit of it when you leave. See how solicitous I am after your health;” and he laughed.In silence she rose and allowed him to help her divest herself of the heavy garment.“How charming you look!” he said. “I really don’t wonder that you captivate the hearts of men—those who don’t know you.”“It seems that you’ve invited me here for the purpose of raking up all my past,” she cried, darting at him a fierce look. “I have accepted your invitation because you and I are old friends, because our interests are identical.”“How?” he asked, puzzled.“There is a certain episode in my career that must for ever remain a profound secret,” she said in a low but distinct tone. “And there is one in yours which, if revealed, would bring you to disgrace, to ruin—nay, to death.”He started, and his dark face paled beneath its bronze of travel.“What do you mean?” he cried, standing astride before her, his back to the fire, his arms folded resolutely.“What I have said!”“And you are foolish enough to think that I fear you?” he cried with biting sarcasm.“I think nothing, caro,” she answered in a voice of the same intense disdain. “The truth is quite obvious. We fear each other.”“I fear you?” And he laughed, as if the absurdity of the idea were humorous.“Yes,” she said fiercely. “I am no longer powerless in your hands. You know well my character, signore—you know what kind of woman I am.”“Yes, I do, unfortunately,” he answered. “And what, pray, does all this extraordinary exhibition of bitterness imply?” he asked.“You force me to speak plainly,” she said, her eyes flashing angrily. “Well, then, reflect upon the strange death of Vittorina, and bear in mind by whom was her death so ingeniously compassed.”He sprang towards her suddenly in a fierce ebullition of indignation, his hand uplifted as if he intended to strike her.“Enough! Curse you!” he muttered.“Take care,” she said calmly, without stirring from her seat. “If you touch me, it is at your own peril.”“Threats?”“Threats! And to prove to you that they are not in vain,” she said, “learn in the first place, that the police have discovered the identity of the Major, and that a warrant is already issued for his arrest.”“I don’t believe it,” he cried. “You have no proof.”“Inquire of your friends at the Embassy,” she replied ambiguously. “You will there learn the truth.”“Listen!” he cried wildly, grasping her roughly by the wrist. “What allegation do you make against me? Come, speak!”“You have shown yourself at enmity with me, therefore it will remain for you to discover that afterwards,” she answered, shaking him off. “One does not show one’s hand to one’s adversaries.”“You mentioned the death of your friend Vittorina—well?”“Well?” she repeated, still coldly and calmly. “It is of no use to further refer to that tragic circumstance, except to say that I am aware of the truth.”“The truth!” he cried blankly. “Then who killed her?”“You know well enough with what devilish ingenuity her young life was taken; how at the moment when she least expected danger she was cut off by a means so curious and with such swiftness as to baffle even the cleverest doctors in London. You know the truth, Signor Capitano—so do I.”“You would explain how her life was taken; you would tell the world the strange secret by which she was held in bondage. But you shan’t,” he cried, standing before her with clenched fists. “By Heaven, you shan’t!”“Traitors die slowly in London, but they do die,” she said slowly, with deep meaning.“Curse you!” he cried. “What do you intend to do?”“Listen!” she answered, rising slowly from her chair and standing before him resolute, desperate, and defiant. “I came here to-night for one purpose—to make a proposal to you.”“A proposal! To marry me, eh?” he laughed.“This is no time for weak jokes, signore,” she answered angrily. “Silence is best in the interests of us both, is it not?”He paused, his eyes fixed on the hearthrug.“I suppose it is,” he admitted at last.“Think,” she urged, “what would be the result were the whole of those strange facts exposed. Who would suffer?”He nodded, but no word passed his hard lips. She noticed that what she uttered now impressed him.“Our acquaintance,” she went on in a more sympathetic tone, “was formed in curious circumstances, and it has only been fraught with unhappiness, sorrow, and despair. I come to you to-night, Frank,” she added in a low despondent voice, “to ask you to help me to regain my freedom.”He laughed aloud a harsh, cruel laugh, saying—“You have already your freedom. I hope you are enjoying it. No doubt Armytage loves you, and London is a change after Tuscany.”His laugh aroused within her a veritable tumult of hatred.“You speak as if I were not an honest woman,” she cried, her eyes glistening. “Even you shall not brand me as an adventuress.”“Well, I think your adventures in Florence and in Milan were curious enough,” he said, “even if we do not mention that night in Livorno when Vittorina—”“Ah no!” she exclaimed, interrupting him. “Why should you cast that into my face? Now that we are friends no longer, you seek to heap disgrace upon me by recalling all that has gone by. In this conversation I have not sought to bring back to your memory any of the many recollections which must be painful. My object in coming to you is plain enough. I am perfectly straightforward—”“For the first time in your life.”She took no heed of his interruption, but went on saying—“Charles Armytage has promised me marriage.”“He’s a fool!” was the abrupt rejoinder. “When he knows the truth, he’ll hate you just as much as I do.”“You certainly pay me delicate compliments,” she said, drawing herself up haughtily. “Your hatred is reciprocated, I assure you. But surely this is not a matter of either love or hatred between us. It is a mere arrangement for our mutual protection and benefit.”“What do you want me to do?” he asked, leaning back upon the mantelshelf in affected laziness—“you want my silence?”“Yes,” she answered eagerly, looking straight into his dark countenance.“You’re afraid that if you marry Charlie Armytage I may expose you—eh?”She nodded, with downcast eyes.He was silent for a few moments.“Then,” he answered at last in a deep, determined voice, “understand once and for all that Armytage is a friend of mine. He shall never marry you.”She knit her brows, and her pale lips twitched nervously. “Then you are still bent upon wrecking my life?” she said slowly and distinctly as she faced him. “I offer you silence in exchange for my freedom, for it is you alone who can give me that. Yet you refuse.”“Yes,” he said. “I refuse absolutely.”“Then you would debar me from happiness with the man I love?” she said in a low, deep whisper. “You, the man to whose machinations I owe my present wretchedness, refuse to free me from the trammels you yourself have cast about me—you refuse to tell the truth in exchange for my silence.”He looked at her calmly with withering contempt.“I have no desire for the silence of such as you,” he answered quickly. “I fear nothing that you may say. Threats from you are mere empty words, cara.”“Then listen!” she cried, her brilliant eyes again flashing in desperation. “To-morrow I shall call upon Castellani at the Embassy, and tell him the truth.”“You dare not!” he gasped fiercely. His face had blanched instantly as, advancing a couple of steps towards her with clenched hands, he gazed threateningly into her eyes.“I have given you an alternative which you have rejected, Signor Capitano,” she said, taking up her fur-trimmed coat. “You defy me; and I wish you good-night.”“You intend to expose the whole of the facts?” he cried in dismay. “You will incriminate yourself!”“I care nothing for that. My happiness is now at an end. For the future I have no thought, no care, now that you and I are enemies. As I have already said, traitors die slowly in London, but they do die.”“You shall not go to Castellani,” the Captain muttered between his set teeth; and with a cry of uncurbed, uncontrollable rage he sprang upon her before she could defend herself or raise an alarm, and seizing her, he compressed his strong, sinewy fingers upon her slim white throat. “You shan’t go!” he cried. “No further word shall pass your pretty lips—curse you! I’ll—I’ll kill you!”
They had returned to the hotel, and Armytage had dined with her, but the meal had been a very dismal one. Gemma, with woman’s instinct, knew that she looked horribly untidy, and that her eyes betrayed unmistakable signs of recent tears, therefore she was glad when the meal concluded, and she could escape from the staring crowd of diners.
From her lover’s manner, it was also plain that, notwithstanding his protestations of blind affection in Leghorn, he had suddenly awakened to the fact that some deep mystery lay behind her, and that he was disinclined to carry their acquaintance much further without some explanation. Time after time, as she sat opposite him at the table, she had watched him narrowly, looking into his dark, serious eyes in silence, and trying to divine his thoughts. She wondered whether, if he left her, his love for her would be sufficient to cause him to return to her side. Or had he met, as she once feared he would, some other woman—a woman of his own people; a woman, perhaps, that he had loved long ago? This thought sank deeply into her mind. As she watched him and listened to his low, jerky speech, it seemed plain to her that she had guessed the truth. He had grown tired of her, and was making her enforced silence an excuse for parting. When this thought crossed her mind, her bright, clear eyes grew luminous with unshed tears.
He told her that to meet next morning was impossible, as he had business to transact. This she knew to be a shallow excuse, as only that morning he had told her that his time was completely at her disposal. Yes, there was no disguising the truth that he had grown weary of her, and now meant to discard her. Yet she loved him.
When an Italian woman loves, it is with a fierce, uncontrollable passion, not with that too often sickly admiration for a man’s good looks which is so characteristic of love among the more northern nations. In no country is love so ardent, so passionate, so enduring, as in the sunny garden of Europe. The Italian woman is slow to develop affection, or even to flirt with the sterner sex; but when she loves, it is with all the strength of her being; she is the devoted slave of her lover, and is his for life, for death. Neither the strength of Italian affection nor the bitterness of Italian jealousy can be understood in England, unless by those who have lived among the hot-blooded Tuscans in that country where the sparkle of dark eyes electrify, and where the knives are cheap, and do their work swiftly and well.
They passed out of the table d’hôte room into the hall. Then he stretched forth his hand.
“You are not coming to see me to-morrow, Nino?” she asked in a low, despondent voice.
“No,” he replied. “I have an appointment.”
“But you can surely dine here?”
“I am not quite certain,” he answered. “If I can, I will send you a telegram.”
“You are impatient—you who promised me to wait until I could give you some satisfactory explanation. It is cruel of you—very cruel, Nino,” she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
“You are never straightforward,” he replied quickly. “If you confessed to me, all this anxiety would at once cease.”
“I cannot.”
“No,” he said meaningly; “you will not. You dare not, because your past has not been what it should have been! Buona sera!” and with this parting allegation he lifted his hat and bowed stiffly.
“Felicissima notte, Nino,” she answered so low as to be almost inaudible.
Then he turned and passed out of the great glass doors which the porters held open for him.
Gemma went to her room, and, bursting into tears, sat for a long time alone, despairing, plunged in grief. She knew by her lover’s manner that he had forsaken her, and she felt herself alone in gigantic London, where the language, the people, the streets, all were strange to her. As she sat in her low easy chair, a slim, graceful figure in her pale-blue dinner-dress, she clenched her tiny hands till the nails embedded themselves in the palms, as she uttered with wild abandon the name of the man she so fondly loved.
“Ah!” she cried aloud. “You, Nino, who have treated me with this suspicion and contempt—you who have brought me here among your people and deserted me—can never know how much I have sacrificed for your sake. Nor can you ever know how fondly I love you. Why have I acted with all this secrecy must for ever remain a mystery. You have left me,” she added in a hoarse, strained voice, half inaudible on account of her sobs—“you have left me now; but some day when I am free—when I can show you things in their true light—you will regret that to-night you have broken a woman’s heart.” And she bent forward and gave way to a flood of hot, passionate tears.
Fully half an hour she sat plunged in a deep melancholy, but at last she rose and crossed the room unsteadily. Her fair brow bore a look of determination, her face was hard set, and in her tear-stained eyes was an expression of strength of will.
“Yes,” she murmured, “I’ll risk all. My life cannot be rendered more hopeless, more wretched, than it now is in this atmosphere of doubt and suspicion.” Then she bathed her face in eau-de-Cologne, sniffed her smelling-salts, rubbed her cheeks with a towel to take away their ghastly pallor, and assuming her travelling coat, with its wide fur collar and cuffs, which, being long, hid her dress, she put on her hat and went out.
She went up to one of the porters in the hall hastily, and said—
“Prendetimi una vettura.”
The man looked at her in surprise, unable to understand her. She pointed outside to where several hansoms were passing.
“Oh! a cab you want, miss!” he cried, the fact suddenly dawning upon him; and as he touched the electric bell which calls cabs from the rank, she handed him the slip of paper she had that morning received.
The porter read it, descended the steps with her, handed her into the cab, and, having shouted the address to the man, she was driven rapidly away to St. James’s Street, where she ascended to the second floor, and found upon a door a brass plate bearing Captain Tristram’s name.
She rang the bell, and in response the smart, soldier-servant Smayle appeared, and looked at her in surprise.
“The Signor Capitano Tristram?” she inquired.
“Yes, miss,” the man answered; and she entered the hall, and glanced around her while he closed the door.
At that moment Tristram’s voice, from one of the rooms beyond, cried—
“Show the lady in, Smayle.”
She followed the servant into the cosy sitting-room redolent of cigars. She was gazing round the apartment, noting how comfortable it was, when suddenly the door reopened and Tristram entered. He had evidently been dining out, or to a theatre, and had now discarded his dress-coat for an easy velvet lounge-jacket. When he had closed the door, he stood for a moment regarding her in silence.
“Well,” he said at length in Italian. “So you have come, eh?” His welcome was certainly the reverse of cordial.
“Yes,” she faltered; “I have come. How did you know I was in London?”
Certain furrows on Tristram’s brow revealed profound thought.
“A woman who is wanted by the police always has some difficulty in concealing her whereabouts,” he answered meaningly. His countenance was hard and vengeful; his features expressed so much disdain and cruelty at that moment that one would scarcely believe they could ever be susceptible of any gentle emotion.
“Why do you throw that in my face?” she asked angrily.
“My dear signorina,” he answered, crossing the room, “come here to this chair and sit down. I want to talk to you very seriously, if you’ll allow me.”
She moved slowly across, and, sinking into the armchair near the fire, unbuttoned her long coat.
“No,” he said; “it’s hot in this room: take it off, or you won’t find the benefit of it when you leave. See how solicitous I am after your health;” and he laughed.
In silence she rose and allowed him to help her divest herself of the heavy garment.
“How charming you look!” he said. “I really don’t wonder that you captivate the hearts of men—those who don’t know you.”
“It seems that you’ve invited me here for the purpose of raking up all my past,” she cried, darting at him a fierce look. “I have accepted your invitation because you and I are old friends, because our interests are identical.”
“How?” he asked, puzzled.
“There is a certain episode in my career that must for ever remain a profound secret,” she said in a low but distinct tone. “And there is one in yours which, if revealed, would bring you to disgrace, to ruin—nay, to death.”
He started, and his dark face paled beneath its bronze of travel.
“What do you mean?” he cried, standing astride before her, his back to the fire, his arms folded resolutely.
“What I have said!”
“And you are foolish enough to think that I fear you?” he cried with biting sarcasm.
“I think nothing, caro,” she answered in a voice of the same intense disdain. “The truth is quite obvious. We fear each other.”
“I fear you?” And he laughed, as if the absurdity of the idea were humorous.
“Yes,” she said fiercely. “I am no longer powerless in your hands. You know well my character, signore—you know what kind of woman I am.”
“Yes, I do, unfortunately,” he answered. “And what, pray, does all this extraordinary exhibition of bitterness imply?” he asked.
“You force me to speak plainly,” she said, her eyes flashing angrily. “Well, then, reflect upon the strange death of Vittorina, and bear in mind by whom was her death so ingeniously compassed.”
He sprang towards her suddenly in a fierce ebullition of indignation, his hand uplifted as if he intended to strike her.
“Enough! Curse you!” he muttered.
“Take care,” she said calmly, without stirring from her seat. “If you touch me, it is at your own peril.”
“Threats?”
“Threats! And to prove to you that they are not in vain,” she said, “learn in the first place, that the police have discovered the identity of the Major, and that a warrant is already issued for his arrest.”
“I don’t believe it,” he cried. “You have no proof.”
“Inquire of your friends at the Embassy,” she replied ambiguously. “You will there learn the truth.”
“Listen!” he cried wildly, grasping her roughly by the wrist. “What allegation do you make against me? Come, speak!”
“You have shown yourself at enmity with me, therefore it will remain for you to discover that afterwards,” she answered, shaking him off. “One does not show one’s hand to one’s adversaries.”
“You mentioned the death of your friend Vittorina—well?”
“Well?” she repeated, still coldly and calmly. “It is of no use to further refer to that tragic circumstance, except to say that I am aware of the truth.”
“The truth!” he cried blankly. “Then who killed her?”
“You know well enough with what devilish ingenuity her young life was taken; how at the moment when she least expected danger she was cut off by a means so curious and with such swiftness as to baffle even the cleverest doctors in London. You know the truth, Signor Capitano—so do I.”
“You would explain how her life was taken; you would tell the world the strange secret by which she was held in bondage. But you shan’t,” he cried, standing before her with clenched fists. “By Heaven, you shan’t!”
“Traitors die slowly in London, but they do die,” she said slowly, with deep meaning.
“Curse you!” he cried. “What do you intend to do?”
“Listen!” she answered, rising slowly from her chair and standing before him resolute, desperate, and defiant. “I came here to-night for one purpose—to make a proposal to you.”
“A proposal! To marry me, eh?” he laughed.
“This is no time for weak jokes, signore,” she answered angrily. “Silence is best in the interests of us both, is it not?”
He paused, his eyes fixed on the hearthrug.
“I suppose it is,” he admitted at last.
“Think,” she urged, “what would be the result were the whole of those strange facts exposed. Who would suffer?”
He nodded, but no word passed his hard lips. She noticed that what she uttered now impressed him.
“Our acquaintance,” she went on in a more sympathetic tone, “was formed in curious circumstances, and it has only been fraught with unhappiness, sorrow, and despair. I come to you to-night, Frank,” she added in a low despondent voice, “to ask you to help me to regain my freedom.”
He laughed aloud a harsh, cruel laugh, saying—“You have already your freedom. I hope you are enjoying it. No doubt Armytage loves you, and London is a change after Tuscany.”
His laugh aroused within her a veritable tumult of hatred.
“You speak as if I were not an honest woman,” she cried, her eyes glistening. “Even you shall not brand me as an adventuress.”
“Well, I think your adventures in Florence and in Milan were curious enough,” he said, “even if we do not mention that night in Livorno when Vittorina—”
“Ah no!” she exclaimed, interrupting him. “Why should you cast that into my face? Now that we are friends no longer, you seek to heap disgrace upon me by recalling all that has gone by. In this conversation I have not sought to bring back to your memory any of the many recollections which must be painful. My object in coming to you is plain enough. I am perfectly straightforward—”
“For the first time in your life.”
She took no heed of his interruption, but went on saying—
“Charles Armytage has promised me marriage.”
“He’s a fool!” was the abrupt rejoinder. “When he knows the truth, he’ll hate you just as much as I do.”
“You certainly pay me delicate compliments,” she said, drawing herself up haughtily. “Your hatred is reciprocated, I assure you. But surely this is not a matter of either love or hatred between us. It is a mere arrangement for our mutual protection and benefit.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, leaning back upon the mantelshelf in affected laziness—“you want my silence?”
“Yes,” she answered eagerly, looking straight into his dark countenance.
“You’re afraid that if you marry Charlie Armytage I may expose you—eh?”
She nodded, with downcast eyes.
He was silent for a few moments.
“Then,” he answered at last in a deep, determined voice, “understand once and for all that Armytage is a friend of mine. He shall never marry you.”
She knit her brows, and her pale lips twitched nervously. “Then you are still bent upon wrecking my life?” she said slowly and distinctly as she faced him. “I offer you silence in exchange for my freedom, for it is you alone who can give me that. Yet you refuse.”
“Yes,” he said. “I refuse absolutely.”
“Then you would debar me from happiness with the man I love?” she said in a low, deep whisper. “You, the man to whose machinations I owe my present wretchedness, refuse to free me from the trammels you yourself have cast about me—you refuse to tell the truth in exchange for my silence.”
He looked at her calmly with withering contempt.
“I have no desire for the silence of such as you,” he answered quickly. “I fear nothing that you may say. Threats from you are mere empty words, cara.”
“Then listen!” she cried, her brilliant eyes again flashing in desperation. “To-morrow I shall call upon Castellani at the Embassy, and tell him the truth.”
“You dare not!” he gasped fiercely. His face had blanched instantly as, advancing a couple of steps towards her with clenched hands, he gazed threateningly into her eyes.
“I have given you an alternative which you have rejected, Signor Capitano,” she said, taking up her fur-trimmed coat. “You defy me; and I wish you good-night.”
“You intend to expose the whole of the facts?” he cried in dismay. “You will incriminate yourself!”
“I care nothing for that. My happiness is now at an end. For the future I have no thought, no care, now that you and I are enemies. As I have already said, traitors die slowly in London, but they do die.”
“You shall not go to Castellani,” the Captain muttered between his set teeth; and with a cry of uncurbed, uncontrollable rage he sprang upon her before she could defend herself or raise an alarm, and seizing her, he compressed his strong, sinewy fingers upon her slim white throat. “You shan’t go!” he cried. “No further word shall pass your pretty lips—curse you! I’ll—I’ll kill you!”