Chapter Twenty Four.“I am not Fit!”Of a sudden, she turned her head and glanced full in my eyes. Her thoughts were, like mine, of the past—of those glad and gracious days.I stood still for a moment, and catching her hands kissed them; my own were burning.We went on by the curving course outside the wood quite silent, for the gloom of the future had settled upon us.The past! Those days when my Ella was altogether mine! I loved to linger on those blissful days, for they were lighted with the sweetest sunlight of my life. Never since, for me, had flowers blossomed, and fruits ripened, and waters murmured, and grasshoppers sung, and waves beat joyous music as in the spring and summer of that wondrous time.To rise when all the world was flushed with the soft pink of the earliest dawn, and to go hand in hand with her through the breast-high corn with scarlet poppies clasping the gliding feet; to see the purple wraith of rain haunting the silvery fairness of the hills; to watch the shadows chase the sun rays over the wide-open mysterious sea; to feel the living light of the cloudless day beat us with a million pulses amid the hum of life all around; to go out into the lustre of the summer’s night; to breathe the air soft as the first kisses of our own new-found love, and rich as wine with the strong odours of a world of flowers. These had in those never-to-be-forgotten days been her joys and mine, joys at once of the senses and the soul.I loved her so—God knows! and yet almost I hated her. She had, on that night in Bayswater, deceived me! She had deceived me!This was the iron in my soul. It is an error so common. Women lie to men—and men to women for the matter of that—out of mistaken tenderness or ill-judged compassion, or that curious fear of recrimination from which the firmest courage is not exempt. A woman deceives a man with untruth, not because she is base, but because she fears to hurt him with the truth; fears his reproaches; fears a painful scene, and even when he is quite worthless she is reluctant to wound his weakness. It is an error so common in this everyday life of ours: an error that is fatal always.Had she been quite frank with me on that night when we had parted we might not have found ourselves fettered as we now were—she held to a man who was clearly an adventurer and a blackguard to boot.Yet how could I reproach her for what was a great and complete self-sacrifice. No. She had done what was, perhaps, strictly her duty, even though both our lives had been wrecked in consequence.“My love!” I murmured passionately, as with a cry I caught her in my arms, and held her close to me, as a man will hold some dear dead thing. And was she not, alas! now dead to me?Our lips met again, but she was still silent. How many moments went I do not know; as there are years in which a man does not live a moment, so there are moments in which one lives a lifetime.Her soft blue eyes closed beneath my kisses, my sense grew faint, the world became dark, all light and life shut out from me—all dark. But it was the sweet warm darkness, as though of the balmy night in June; and even then I know I prayed, prayed to Him that she might still be mine.The trance of passion passed. How long it lasted I cannot tell.After a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died away. I lifted my head and strained myself backward, still holding her, and yet I shivered as I stood.I remembered.She, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held herself from me.“Why look at me like that?” she cried. “I—I cannot bear it. Let us part now—at once. I must return, or my absence will be known and I shall be questioned.”I do not know what I said in answer. All madness of reproach that ever man’s tongue could frame left my lips in those blind cruel moments. All excuse for her; all goodness in her I forgot! Ah! God forgive me, I forgot! She had deceived me; that was all I knew, or cared to know.In that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. In that sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone.Yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.I do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter reproaches.All I know is that I next became suddenly filled with shame. I knelt then before her, asking forgiveness, kissing her hands, her dress, her feet, pouring out to her in all the eager impetuousness of my nature the rapture, the woe, the sorrow, the shame and the remorse that turn by turn had taken possession of my heart.“I love you, Ella!” I cried. “I love you and as I love am I jealous. Mine is no soulless vagary or mindless folly. You are mine—mine though you may be bound to this blackguard whose victim you have fallen. I am jealous of you, jealous of the wind that touches you, of the sun that shines upon you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you tread, for they are with you while I am not.”Her head was bowed. She shut her ears to the pleading of my heart. She wrenched her hands from me, crying:—“No, no, Godfrey! Enough—enough! Spare me this!”And she struggled from my arms.“My darling!” I cried, “I know! I know! Yet you cannot realise all that I suffer now that we are to part again and for ever. I hate that man. Ah! light of my eyes, when I think that you are to be his I—I would rather a thousand times see you lying cold and dead at my feet, for I would then know that at least you would be spared unhappiness.”It seemed that she dared not trust herself to look on me. She flung back her head and eluded my embrace.“My love!” I cried, “all life in me is yearning for your life; for the softness of silent kisses; for the warmth of clasped hands; for the gladness of summer hours beside the sea. Do you remember them? Do you remember the passion and peace of our mutual love that smiled at the sun, and knew that heaven held no fairer joys than those which were its own, at the mere magic of a single touch?”“Yes, dear,” she sighed, “I remember—I remember everything. And you have a right to reproach me as you will,” she added very gently.She was still unyielding; her burning eyes were now tearless, and she stood motionless.“But you have forgiven me, my love?” I cried humbly. “I was mad to have uttered those words.”“I have forgiven, Godfrey,” she answered. A heavy sigh ran through the words and made them barely audible.“And you still love me?”All the glow and eagerness and fervour or passion had died off her face; it grew cold and colourless and still, with the impenetrable stillness of a desperate woman’s face that masks all pain.“Do you doubt I loved you—I?”That reproach cut me to the quick. I was passionate with man’s passion; I was cruel with children’s cruelty.My face, I felt, flushed crimson, then grew pale again. I shrank a little, as though she had struck me a blow, a blow that I could not return.“Then—then why should we part?” I asked, as all my love for her welled up in my faint heart. “Why should we not defy this man and let him do his worst? At least we should be united in one sweet, sacred and perfect faith—our love.”For a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me very long—very wistfully, with no passion in those dear eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into speechless terror.“No, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of tears. “You do not know all—I pray that you, the man I love so fondly, may never know! If you knew you would hate me and curse my memory. Therefore take back those words, and forget me—yes, forget—for I am not fit to be your wife!”
Of a sudden, she turned her head and glanced full in my eyes. Her thoughts were, like mine, of the past—of those glad and gracious days.
I stood still for a moment, and catching her hands kissed them; my own were burning.
We went on by the curving course outside the wood quite silent, for the gloom of the future had settled upon us.
The past! Those days when my Ella was altogether mine! I loved to linger on those blissful days, for they were lighted with the sweetest sunlight of my life. Never since, for me, had flowers blossomed, and fruits ripened, and waters murmured, and grasshoppers sung, and waves beat joyous music as in the spring and summer of that wondrous time.
To rise when all the world was flushed with the soft pink of the earliest dawn, and to go hand in hand with her through the breast-high corn with scarlet poppies clasping the gliding feet; to see the purple wraith of rain haunting the silvery fairness of the hills; to watch the shadows chase the sun rays over the wide-open mysterious sea; to feel the living light of the cloudless day beat us with a million pulses amid the hum of life all around; to go out into the lustre of the summer’s night; to breathe the air soft as the first kisses of our own new-found love, and rich as wine with the strong odours of a world of flowers. These had in those never-to-be-forgotten days been her joys and mine, joys at once of the senses and the soul.
I loved her so—God knows! and yet almost I hated her. She had, on that night in Bayswater, deceived me! She had deceived me!
This was the iron in my soul. It is an error so common. Women lie to men—and men to women for the matter of that—out of mistaken tenderness or ill-judged compassion, or that curious fear of recrimination from which the firmest courage is not exempt. A woman deceives a man with untruth, not because she is base, but because she fears to hurt him with the truth; fears his reproaches; fears a painful scene, and even when he is quite worthless she is reluctant to wound his weakness. It is an error so common in this everyday life of ours: an error that is fatal always.
Had she been quite frank with me on that night when we had parted we might not have found ourselves fettered as we now were—she held to a man who was clearly an adventurer and a blackguard to boot.
Yet how could I reproach her for what was a great and complete self-sacrifice. No. She had done what was, perhaps, strictly her duty, even though both our lives had been wrecked in consequence.
“My love!” I murmured passionately, as with a cry I caught her in my arms, and held her close to me, as a man will hold some dear dead thing. And was she not, alas! now dead to me?
Our lips met again, but she was still silent. How many moments went I do not know; as there are years in which a man does not live a moment, so there are moments in which one lives a lifetime.
Her soft blue eyes closed beneath my kisses, my sense grew faint, the world became dark, all light and life shut out from me—all dark. But it was the sweet warm darkness, as though of the balmy night in June; and even then I know I prayed, prayed to Him that she might still be mine.
The trance of passion passed. How long it lasted I cannot tell.
After a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died away. I lifted my head and strained myself backward, still holding her, and yet I shivered as I stood.
I remembered.
She, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held herself from me.
“Why look at me like that?” she cried. “I—I cannot bear it. Let us part now—at once. I must return, or my absence will be known and I shall be questioned.”
I do not know what I said in answer. All madness of reproach that ever man’s tongue could frame left my lips in those blind cruel moments. All excuse for her; all goodness in her I forgot! Ah! God forgive me, I forgot! She had deceived me; that was all I knew, or cared to know.
In that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. In that sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone.
Yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.
I do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter reproaches.
All I know is that I next became suddenly filled with shame. I knelt then before her, asking forgiveness, kissing her hands, her dress, her feet, pouring out to her in all the eager impetuousness of my nature the rapture, the woe, the sorrow, the shame and the remorse that turn by turn had taken possession of my heart.
“I love you, Ella!” I cried. “I love you and as I love am I jealous. Mine is no soulless vagary or mindless folly. You are mine—mine though you may be bound to this blackguard whose victim you have fallen. I am jealous of you, jealous of the wind that touches you, of the sun that shines upon you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you tread, for they are with you while I am not.”
Her head was bowed. She shut her ears to the pleading of my heart. She wrenched her hands from me, crying:—
“No, no, Godfrey! Enough—enough! Spare me this!”
And she struggled from my arms.
“My darling!” I cried, “I know! I know! Yet you cannot realise all that I suffer now that we are to part again and for ever. I hate that man. Ah! light of my eyes, when I think that you are to be his I—I would rather a thousand times see you lying cold and dead at my feet, for I would then know that at least you would be spared unhappiness.”
It seemed that she dared not trust herself to look on me. She flung back her head and eluded my embrace.
“My love!” I cried, “all life in me is yearning for your life; for the softness of silent kisses; for the warmth of clasped hands; for the gladness of summer hours beside the sea. Do you remember them? Do you remember the passion and peace of our mutual love that smiled at the sun, and knew that heaven held no fairer joys than those which were its own, at the mere magic of a single touch?”
“Yes, dear,” she sighed, “I remember—I remember everything. And you have a right to reproach me as you will,” she added very gently.
She was still unyielding; her burning eyes were now tearless, and she stood motionless.
“But you have forgiven me, my love?” I cried humbly. “I was mad to have uttered those words.”
“I have forgiven, Godfrey,” she answered. A heavy sigh ran through the words and made them barely audible.
“And you still love me?”
All the glow and eagerness and fervour or passion had died off her face; it grew cold and colourless and still, with the impenetrable stillness of a desperate woman’s face that masks all pain.
“Do you doubt I loved you—I?”
That reproach cut me to the quick. I was passionate with man’s passion; I was cruel with children’s cruelty.
My face, I felt, flushed crimson, then grew pale again. I shrank a little, as though she had struck me a blow, a blow that I could not return.
“Then—then why should we part?” I asked, as all my love for her welled up in my faint heart. “Why should we not defy this man and let him do his worst? At least we should be united in one sweet, sacred and perfect faith—our love.”
For a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me very long—very wistfully, with no passion in those dear eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into speechless terror.
“No, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of tears. “You do not know all—I pray that you, the man I love so fondly, may never know! If you knew you would hate me and curse my memory. Therefore take back those words, and forget me—yes, forget—for I am not fit to be your wife!”
Chapter Twenty Five.By the Tyrrhenian Waters.Ella was all mine—all mine! Mine all the glad fearless freedom of her life; mine all the sweet kisses, the rapturous tenderness, the priceless passion of her love; mine all! And I had lost them.The grave had given her back for those brief hours, but she was, alas! dead to me.I stood there as a man in a dream.I, athirst for the sound of her sweet voice as dying men in deserts for the fountains of lost lands.But all was silence, save the lark trilling his song high above me in the morning air.I turned upon my heel, and went forward a changed man.At the inn I made further inquiries regarding the tenant of the “Glen.”The stout yellow-haired maid-of-all-work who brought me in my breakfast was a native of the village and inclined to be talkative. From her I learned that Mr Gordon-Wright had had the place about four years. He spent only about three months or so each summer there, going abroad each year for the winter. To the poor he was always very good; he was chairman of the Flower Show Committee, chairman of the Parish Council, and one of the school managers as well as a church-warden.I smiled within myself at what the girl told me. He was evidently a popular man in Upper Wooton.He had friends to stay with him sometimes, mostly men. Once or twice he had had foreign gentlemen among his visitors—gentlemen who had been in the post-office and could not speak English.“My sister was ’ousemaid there till last Michaelmas,” she added. “So I’ve often been up to the ‘Glen’. When old Mrs Auker had it she used to ’ave us girls of the Friendly Society there to tea on the lawn.”“I think that a friend of mine comes to visit Mr Gordon-Wright sometimes. His name is Miller. Do you remember him?”“Mr Miller—a tall middle-aged gentleman. Of course, sir. ’E was here in the spring. I remember the name because ’e and Mr Wright gave a treat to the school children.”“Was a lady with him—a young lady?”“Yes, sir. His daughter, Miss Lucie.”The girl knew little else, except, as she declared, Mr Gordon-Wright was a rich man and “a thorough gentleman.”An hour later, while I was out in the yard of the inn watching Gibbs going round the car, we suddenly heard the whirr of an approaching motor, and down the street flashed the blue car which we had pursued so hotly on the previous day. It carried the same occupants, with the addition of one person—Mr Gordon-Wright.The latter, in peaked cap and motor-coat, was driving, while behind were the two strangers, with Mr Murray and Ella.The latter caught sight of me as she flashed past. Our eyes met for an instant, and then she was lost to me in a cloud of dust—lost for ever.“They’re going back again, it seems,” I remarked to Gibbs.“No, sir. I saw their man this morning. They’re going to Bristol. He’s heard from ’is master that it’s all right. The young gentleman and the lady are his master’s friends, after all—even though they’re such a queer pair,” and then he added: “Did you think of startin’ this morning, sir?”“Yes. As soon as you are ready.”“Where to, sir?”“Back to Swanage.”We ran across Devon and Dorset at a somewhat lower speed to what we had travelled when overtaking the 40 “Mercédès.” Gibbs had no desire to put in an appearance before any local bench. Indeed nowadays lit is useless to make an appearance. So prejudiced are magistrates, and such hard swearing is there on the part of the police, that motorists must pay up cheerfully. There is no justice for the pioneers of locomotion.We returned by another road, which proved better than that by which we had come, and just before eleven at night I descended from the car at the “Lion,” and after some supper with the fat genial landlord, who took a deep interest in my journey and hardly credited that I had been into Cornwall and back, I went up to the room I had previously occupied.Tired after the heat and dust of the road I slept well, but was up betimes, and at half-past nine walked out to the Manor House.A maid-servant came to the door in response to my ring. “Mr Miller and the young lady have gone away, sir,” the girl replied to my inquiry. “They went up to London yesterday.”“Are they staying in London?” I asked eagerly. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”“Is Miss Miller at home? If so, I’d like to see her.” And I handed her my card.I was shown into the morning-room, and in a few minutes Miller’s sister appeared.“I’m so sorry, Mr Leaf,” she said, in her thin, weak voice, “but my brother and his daughter left quite suddenly yesterday. He received a telegram recalling him.”“Where?”“To Italy. He left by the mail from Charing Cross last night—direct for Leghorn, I believe.”“Is he likely to be away long?”“He won’t be back, I suppose, before the spring.”“And Miss Lucie has gone with him?”“Of course. She is always with him.”It was upon my tongue to ask her brother’s address in Leghorn, but I hesitated, for I recollected that, being an Englishman, he could be easily found.The receipt of that telegram was suspicious. What new conspiracy was in progress, I wondered? Evidently something had occurred. Either he had been warned that the police were in search of him, and had escaped back to the Continent, or else certain of his plans had been matured earlier than he anticipated.As I sat there in the old-fashioned room, with its punch-bowls full of sweet-smelling roses, I resolved to travel south to the Mediterranean, see Lucie, and endeavour to find some way in which to rescue my love from her father’s accomplice.From that Dorsetshire village to the old sun-blanched port of Leghorn is a far cry—thirty-six hours in the express from Calais on the road to Rome—yet that night I was back in Granville Gardens; and hastily packing up my traps, chatting with Sammy the while, I next morning left London for Italy.I told my friend but little. The circumstances were too complicated and puzzling, and the tragedy of it all was so complete that I preferred to remain silent.I was going south, upon one of those erratic journeys I so very often took. I might return in a fortnight, or in six months. All depended upon the mood in which I found myself.Therefore he accepted my explanation, knowing well as a constant traveller and thoroughgoing cosmopolitan himself, and he saw me off from Charing Cross, wishing mebon voyage.The journey by way of Calais, Paris, Modane and Turin you yourself have done often, so why need I describe it? You have lunched between Calais and Paris, dined at the Gare de Lyon, turned into your narrow sleeping berth between Paris and the frontier, lunched in thewagon-restaurantbetween Modane and Busseleno, scrambled through your dinner in the big buffet at Genoa, and cursed those stifling tunnels between Genoa and Spezia, where between them you get your first glimpses of the moonlit Mediterranean, and you have alighted at old marble-built Pisa, the quaint dead city that contains one of the wonders of the world—the Leaning Tower.From Pisa you have gone on to Rome, or to Florence, but I question if you have ever travelled over that ten-mile branch line down to the ancient seaport of the Medici, Leghorn. The English, save the mercantile marine and a stray traveller or two, never go to Livorno, as it is called in Italian, and yet it is in summer the Brighton of Italy, and one of the gayest places in Europe during the bathing season.It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when I alighted at the “Palace,” that great white hotel on the sea-front, and went to the room allotted to me—one with an inviting balcony overlooking the promenade and the fashionable bathing establishment of Pancaldi.Livorno was full, the night-porter informed me. It was the height of the season, and there was not another vacant bed in any hotel in the town that night.I knew the place well, therefore early next morning I went forth, and took a turn across at Pancaldi’s, which is a kind of stone pier built out upon the rocks into the clear sunlit waters. Though so early there were already quite a number of smartly dressed people; the men in clean white linen suits and the women in white muslins, mostly of the Italian aristocracy from Florence, Bologna, Milan and Rome.It was delightful there, seated in a chair with the waves lapping lazily at one’s feet, and the brown sails of the anchovy and sardine boats showing afar against the dark purple island of Gorgona in the distance. On every hand was the gay chatter of men—for Italians are dreadful chatterboxes—the light laughter of pretty dark-eyed women, or the romping of a few children in the care of their nurses.I was fatigued after my journey, and as I idled there my eyes were open about me to recognise any friends.Suddenly, approaching me, I saw a stout elderly lady in white, accompanied by a slim young girl of seventeen, whom I recognised as the Countess Moltedo and her daughter Gemma. I rose instantly, removed my hat, and drawing my heels together in Italian fashion, bowed.“Ah! my dear Signor Leaf!” cried the Countess in English merrily, for she was American born, and like so many other countesses in Italy had been attracted by a title, and had long ago found her husband to be a worthless fellow who had married her merely in order to replenish his impoverished purse. “Why, this is a surprise! Gemma was speaking of you only the other day, and wondered if you had deserted Italy entirely.”“No, Countess,” I replied. “Once one really knows Italy, she is one’s mistress—and you can never desert her.”And I took the young girl’s hand she offered, and bowed over it.“You are here at your villa at Antigniano, I suppose?” I went on.“Yes. We’ve been here already two months. It is too hot still to return to Rome. The season has been a most gay one, for the new spa, the Acque della Salute, has, they say, attracted nearly twenty thousand persons more than last year.”“Leghorn in summer is always charming,” I said, as I drew chairs for them at the edge of the water, and they seated themselves. “And your villa is so very delightful, out there, beyond the noise and turmoil.”“Yes, we find it very nice. Myself, I prefer the quiet village life of Antigniano to this place. We only come up here at rare intervals, when Gemma gets dull.”The pretty dark-eyed young girl laughing at me said:—“Mother likes all the old fogies, Mr Leaf, while I like to see life. Out yonder at Antigniano they are all old frumps, and the men never remain there. They always take the tram and come into Leghorn.”Like a flash it occurred to me to make an inquiry of them.“By the way,” I said, “you know all the Americans and English here. Do you happen to know a man named Miller?”“Miller? No,” was the American woman’s reply.“Haven’t you mistaken the name? There’s a man named Milner, who has a daughter, a tall, rather smart dark-haired girl.”“Milner,” I repeated, recognising at once that in Leghorn the final “r” was added. “Yes, perhaps that’s the name. He’s a tall elderly man—a gentleman. His daughter’s name is Lucie.”“I know her,” exclaimed Gemma quickly. “We’ve met them lots of times. They live in a flat at the other end of the promenade, towards the town.”“I want to call. Do you know the number?”“Number nine in the Viale,” replied the Countess promptly, with her slight American accent. “Second floor. Where did you meet them?”“In England. I returned from London only last night.”“I don’t think they are here,” she said. “The week we arrived at the villa, nearly two months ago, Lucie called and said that they were going to spend the summer up at Roncegno, in the Trentino, a place that is becoming quite fashionable with the Italians. They left Leghorn, and I haven’t seen them since.”“I believe they are back,” I said. “Anyhow I will leave a card.”“Because the handsome Lucie has attracted you, eh?” asked the Countess, laughing mischievously.“Not at all,” I protested. “I’m a confirmed bachelor, as you’ve known long ago.”“Ah! men always say so,” she remarked. “Why do you take such an intense interest in Milner and his daughter?”“Because they were kind to me in England,” I replied briefly.“Well—he’s a peculiar man,” she said. “They have very few friends, I believe. He’s a gentleman, no doubt, but in very reduced circumstances. My own idea is that when Lucie’s dresses are paid for he has very great difficulty in making both ends meet. He’s a bit of a mystery, they say.”“You surprise me,” I said. “I had no idea he was as poor as that.”It was evident that James Harding Miller feigned poverty in Leghorn, in order to conceal his true calling.“The house is sufficient indication that they are not overburdened by money. In fact, a couple of years ago Lucie used to give English lessons to Baroness Borelli’s two girls. Nowadays, however, Milner himself is away a great deal. I’ve often met him in the Corso in Rome, idling about outside the Aragno, and in Florence, Milan and other places, while Lucie stays at home with their old servant Marietta.”“Why do you say he’s a peculiar man?”“Well—I have heard it whispered among the Italians here that he associates with some queer people sometimes. Of course, he’s an Inglese, and quite in ignorance of what they really are. The better-class Italians have nothing to do with him, and as the English colony here is so very small, poor Lucie’s life can’t be a very gay one. Indeed, I’m often sorry for the girl. Except for visiting us sometimes, and going to the houses of two or three of the English business people here, they go nowhere. Milner, when he’s here, spends each morning alone on the Squarci baths, reading the newspaper, and in the evening takes one turn up and down the promenade.”“Yes,” declared her daughter. “He’s a most lonely, melancholy man.”“There’s some mystery behind him, I suppose,” remarked the Countess. “We have so many queer English and Americans out here nowadays. Italy is really becoming the dumping-ground for all people who, from some reason or other, find their own country too sultry for them. Take Rome, for instance: why, the place is simply full of people one can’t possibly know, while Florence is proverbial for undesirables.”“But you don’t think this man Milner is an undesirable, do you? I mean you’ve never heard anything against him?”“Well, nothing absolutely direct,” was her answer. “Only if I were you I wouldn’t be too friendly with them. It will go very much against you, more especially in Italian society.”“Italian society, Countess, doesn’t interest me really very much,” I exclaimed. “I know you think me a terrible barbarian, but remember I’m only a wanderer and a Bohemian at that.”“Ah!” she sighed, “you men are free. It is unfortunately not so with us women, especially with a woman like myself, who, though I love freedom, am compelled to exist in this narrow-minded little world of the Italian aristocracy. I need not tell you how exclusive we all are—you know us too well. Why, when an English royal prince or princess comes to an Italian city hardly any one ever goes out of his way to call. They actually wait for the royalty to make the first call! And if you hear three school-girls of fourteen talking together, you will most certainly hear them discussing thenobiltà, and sneering at their schoolfellows whose parents are without titles. Yes, Mr Leaf,” she sighed, “ours is a strange complex life here, in modern Italy.”The Countess was, I knew, “hipped” and embittered. Her husband, a good-looking good-for-nothing fellow, who spent his days idling in the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence, and his nights gambling at the Florence club, possessed a large estate with a fine old castle, away in the Cresentino, but every metre of the land was mortgaged, and in order to redeem the place had married Mary Plant, of Boston, Mass., the daughter of a rich coal-owner. Within three years they had been separated, and now only at rare intervals they met, sometimes finding themselves at the same entertainment in one or other of the palaces in Rome or Florence and greeting each other as comparative strangers. Like thousands of other similar cases in Italy, she had bought her title very dearly, and now bitterly regretted that she had ever been attracted by a handsome face and elegant manner, that she had been entrapped by a man who had never entertained one single spark of affection for her, and who had, in his heart, despised her on account of her readiness to sacrifice herself and her money for the sake of becoming a Countess.We continued to chat, for it was delightful there, with the clear blue waves lapping close to our feet. In the course of conversation she and her daughter told me several other interesting facts concerning the Millers. They had lived in Rome for two successive winter seasons, the Countess said, in a little furnished flat in the Via Grottino, one of those narrow streets that lead off the Corso.Was it while there, I wondered, that Lucie had become acquainted with the great politician, Nardini—the man who had died refusing to give her her liberty?I longed to approach the subject, yet there were matters upon which I could not touch while Gemma was present.So I sat there idling, laughing and chatting, and recalling the last occasion we had met, up in the pine woods of Camaldoli in the previous August, when I was staying at their hotel, where we had many mutual friends.I had known the Countess fully ten years, when Gemma was but a child in the nursery, and when she was still a very pretty young woman.Somehow I saw that she was anxious that I should not know the Milners. Why, I could not discern.“If I were you,” she said, in a low, confidential tone, when she had sent her daughter along to the kiosque for a newspaper, “I shouldn’t call upon that man. I haven’t told Gemma, but I’ve dropped the girl. After she called upon me the last time I sent her a letter hinting that I should prefer that she did not call again.”“Why?” I asked, much surprised.“Well, I have a reason,” was her response. “Quite lately I’ve discovered something that requires a good deal of explaining away. To tell you the truth, I believe Milner is sailing under entirely false colours, and besides I have no intention that Gemma should associate with his daughter any further. Take my advice, Godfrey, and don’t go near them.”“Then what have you heard?”“I’ve heard a good deal that surprises me,” replied the Countess. “In fact, the whole affair is a very grave scandal, and I, for one, don’t mean to be dragged into it.”
Ella was all mine—all mine! Mine all the glad fearless freedom of her life; mine all the sweet kisses, the rapturous tenderness, the priceless passion of her love; mine all! And I had lost them.
The grave had given her back for those brief hours, but she was, alas! dead to me.
I stood there as a man in a dream.
I, athirst for the sound of her sweet voice as dying men in deserts for the fountains of lost lands.
But all was silence, save the lark trilling his song high above me in the morning air.
I turned upon my heel, and went forward a changed man.
At the inn I made further inquiries regarding the tenant of the “Glen.”
The stout yellow-haired maid-of-all-work who brought me in my breakfast was a native of the village and inclined to be talkative. From her I learned that Mr Gordon-Wright had had the place about four years. He spent only about three months or so each summer there, going abroad each year for the winter. To the poor he was always very good; he was chairman of the Flower Show Committee, chairman of the Parish Council, and one of the school managers as well as a church-warden.
I smiled within myself at what the girl told me. He was evidently a popular man in Upper Wooton.
He had friends to stay with him sometimes, mostly men. Once or twice he had had foreign gentlemen among his visitors—gentlemen who had been in the post-office and could not speak English.
“My sister was ’ousemaid there till last Michaelmas,” she added. “So I’ve often been up to the ‘Glen’. When old Mrs Auker had it she used to ’ave us girls of the Friendly Society there to tea on the lawn.”
“I think that a friend of mine comes to visit Mr Gordon-Wright sometimes. His name is Miller. Do you remember him?”
“Mr Miller—a tall middle-aged gentleman. Of course, sir. ’E was here in the spring. I remember the name because ’e and Mr Wright gave a treat to the school children.”
“Was a lady with him—a young lady?”
“Yes, sir. His daughter, Miss Lucie.”
The girl knew little else, except, as she declared, Mr Gordon-Wright was a rich man and “a thorough gentleman.”
An hour later, while I was out in the yard of the inn watching Gibbs going round the car, we suddenly heard the whirr of an approaching motor, and down the street flashed the blue car which we had pursued so hotly on the previous day. It carried the same occupants, with the addition of one person—Mr Gordon-Wright.
The latter, in peaked cap and motor-coat, was driving, while behind were the two strangers, with Mr Murray and Ella.
The latter caught sight of me as she flashed past. Our eyes met for an instant, and then she was lost to me in a cloud of dust—lost for ever.
“They’re going back again, it seems,” I remarked to Gibbs.
“No, sir. I saw their man this morning. They’re going to Bristol. He’s heard from ’is master that it’s all right. The young gentleman and the lady are his master’s friends, after all—even though they’re such a queer pair,” and then he added: “Did you think of startin’ this morning, sir?”
“Yes. As soon as you are ready.”
“Where to, sir?”
“Back to Swanage.”
We ran across Devon and Dorset at a somewhat lower speed to what we had travelled when overtaking the 40 “Mercédès.” Gibbs had no desire to put in an appearance before any local bench. Indeed nowadays lit is useless to make an appearance. So prejudiced are magistrates, and such hard swearing is there on the part of the police, that motorists must pay up cheerfully. There is no justice for the pioneers of locomotion.
We returned by another road, which proved better than that by which we had come, and just before eleven at night I descended from the car at the “Lion,” and after some supper with the fat genial landlord, who took a deep interest in my journey and hardly credited that I had been into Cornwall and back, I went up to the room I had previously occupied.
Tired after the heat and dust of the road I slept well, but was up betimes, and at half-past nine walked out to the Manor House.
A maid-servant came to the door in response to my ring. “Mr Miller and the young lady have gone away, sir,” the girl replied to my inquiry. “They went up to London yesterday.”
“Are they staying in London?” I asked eagerly. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”
“Is Miss Miller at home? If so, I’d like to see her.” And I handed her my card.
I was shown into the morning-room, and in a few minutes Miller’s sister appeared.
“I’m so sorry, Mr Leaf,” she said, in her thin, weak voice, “but my brother and his daughter left quite suddenly yesterday. He received a telegram recalling him.”
“Where?”
“To Italy. He left by the mail from Charing Cross last night—direct for Leghorn, I believe.”
“Is he likely to be away long?”
“He won’t be back, I suppose, before the spring.”
“And Miss Lucie has gone with him?”
“Of course. She is always with him.”
It was upon my tongue to ask her brother’s address in Leghorn, but I hesitated, for I recollected that, being an Englishman, he could be easily found.
The receipt of that telegram was suspicious. What new conspiracy was in progress, I wondered? Evidently something had occurred. Either he had been warned that the police were in search of him, and had escaped back to the Continent, or else certain of his plans had been matured earlier than he anticipated.
As I sat there in the old-fashioned room, with its punch-bowls full of sweet-smelling roses, I resolved to travel south to the Mediterranean, see Lucie, and endeavour to find some way in which to rescue my love from her father’s accomplice.
From that Dorsetshire village to the old sun-blanched port of Leghorn is a far cry—thirty-six hours in the express from Calais on the road to Rome—yet that night I was back in Granville Gardens; and hastily packing up my traps, chatting with Sammy the while, I next morning left London for Italy.
I told my friend but little. The circumstances were too complicated and puzzling, and the tragedy of it all was so complete that I preferred to remain silent.
I was going south, upon one of those erratic journeys I so very often took. I might return in a fortnight, or in six months. All depended upon the mood in which I found myself.
Therefore he accepted my explanation, knowing well as a constant traveller and thoroughgoing cosmopolitan himself, and he saw me off from Charing Cross, wishing mebon voyage.
The journey by way of Calais, Paris, Modane and Turin you yourself have done often, so why need I describe it? You have lunched between Calais and Paris, dined at the Gare de Lyon, turned into your narrow sleeping berth between Paris and the frontier, lunched in thewagon-restaurantbetween Modane and Busseleno, scrambled through your dinner in the big buffet at Genoa, and cursed those stifling tunnels between Genoa and Spezia, where between them you get your first glimpses of the moonlit Mediterranean, and you have alighted at old marble-built Pisa, the quaint dead city that contains one of the wonders of the world—the Leaning Tower.
From Pisa you have gone on to Rome, or to Florence, but I question if you have ever travelled over that ten-mile branch line down to the ancient seaport of the Medici, Leghorn. The English, save the mercantile marine and a stray traveller or two, never go to Livorno, as it is called in Italian, and yet it is in summer the Brighton of Italy, and one of the gayest places in Europe during the bathing season.
It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when I alighted at the “Palace,” that great white hotel on the sea-front, and went to the room allotted to me—one with an inviting balcony overlooking the promenade and the fashionable bathing establishment of Pancaldi.
Livorno was full, the night-porter informed me. It was the height of the season, and there was not another vacant bed in any hotel in the town that night.
I knew the place well, therefore early next morning I went forth, and took a turn across at Pancaldi’s, which is a kind of stone pier built out upon the rocks into the clear sunlit waters. Though so early there were already quite a number of smartly dressed people; the men in clean white linen suits and the women in white muslins, mostly of the Italian aristocracy from Florence, Bologna, Milan and Rome.
It was delightful there, seated in a chair with the waves lapping lazily at one’s feet, and the brown sails of the anchovy and sardine boats showing afar against the dark purple island of Gorgona in the distance. On every hand was the gay chatter of men—for Italians are dreadful chatterboxes—the light laughter of pretty dark-eyed women, or the romping of a few children in the care of their nurses.
I was fatigued after my journey, and as I idled there my eyes were open about me to recognise any friends.
Suddenly, approaching me, I saw a stout elderly lady in white, accompanied by a slim young girl of seventeen, whom I recognised as the Countess Moltedo and her daughter Gemma. I rose instantly, removed my hat, and drawing my heels together in Italian fashion, bowed.
“Ah! my dear Signor Leaf!” cried the Countess in English merrily, for she was American born, and like so many other countesses in Italy had been attracted by a title, and had long ago found her husband to be a worthless fellow who had married her merely in order to replenish his impoverished purse. “Why, this is a surprise! Gemma was speaking of you only the other day, and wondered if you had deserted Italy entirely.”
“No, Countess,” I replied. “Once one really knows Italy, she is one’s mistress—and you can never desert her.”
And I took the young girl’s hand she offered, and bowed over it.
“You are here at your villa at Antigniano, I suppose?” I went on.
“Yes. We’ve been here already two months. It is too hot still to return to Rome. The season has been a most gay one, for the new spa, the Acque della Salute, has, they say, attracted nearly twenty thousand persons more than last year.”
“Leghorn in summer is always charming,” I said, as I drew chairs for them at the edge of the water, and they seated themselves. “And your villa is so very delightful, out there, beyond the noise and turmoil.”
“Yes, we find it very nice. Myself, I prefer the quiet village life of Antigniano to this place. We only come up here at rare intervals, when Gemma gets dull.”
The pretty dark-eyed young girl laughing at me said:—
“Mother likes all the old fogies, Mr Leaf, while I like to see life. Out yonder at Antigniano they are all old frumps, and the men never remain there. They always take the tram and come into Leghorn.”
Like a flash it occurred to me to make an inquiry of them.
“By the way,” I said, “you know all the Americans and English here. Do you happen to know a man named Miller?”
“Miller? No,” was the American woman’s reply.
“Haven’t you mistaken the name? There’s a man named Milner, who has a daughter, a tall, rather smart dark-haired girl.”
“Milner,” I repeated, recognising at once that in Leghorn the final “r” was added. “Yes, perhaps that’s the name. He’s a tall elderly man—a gentleman. His daughter’s name is Lucie.”
“I know her,” exclaimed Gemma quickly. “We’ve met them lots of times. They live in a flat at the other end of the promenade, towards the town.”
“I want to call. Do you know the number?”
“Number nine in the Viale,” replied the Countess promptly, with her slight American accent. “Second floor. Where did you meet them?”
“In England. I returned from London only last night.”
“I don’t think they are here,” she said. “The week we arrived at the villa, nearly two months ago, Lucie called and said that they were going to spend the summer up at Roncegno, in the Trentino, a place that is becoming quite fashionable with the Italians. They left Leghorn, and I haven’t seen them since.”
“I believe they are back,” I said. “Anyhow I will leave a card.”
“Because the handsome Lucie has attracted you, eh?” asked the Countess, laughing mischievously.
“Not at all,” I protested. “I’m a confirmed bachelor, as you’ve known long ago.”
“Ah! men always say so,” she remarked. “Why do you take such an intense interest in Milner and his daughter?”
“Because they were kind to me in England,” I replied briefly.
“Well—he’s a peculiar man,” she said. “They have very few friends, I believe. He’s a gentleman, no doubt, but in very reduced circumstances. My own idea is that when Lucie’s dresses are paid for he has very great difficulty in making both ends meet. He’s a bit of a mystery, they say.”
“You surprise me,” I said. “I had no idea he was as poor as that.”
It was evident that James Harding Miller feigned poverty in Leghorn, in order to conceal his true calling.
“The house is sufficient indication that they are not overburdened by money. In fact, a couple of years ago Lucie used to give English lessons to Baroness Borelli’s two girls. Nowadays, however, Milner himself is away a great deal. I’ve often met him in the Corso in Rome, idling about outside the Aragno, and in Florence, Milan and other places, while Lucie stays at home with their old servant Marietta.”
“Why do you say he’s a peculiar man?”
“Well—I have heard it whispered among the Italians here that he associates with some queer people sometimes. Of course, he’s an Inglese, and quite in ignorance of what they really are. The better-class Italians have nothing to do with him, and as the English colony here is so very small, poor Lucie’s life can’t be a very gay one. Indeed, I’m often sorry for the girl. Except for visiting us sometimes, and going to the houses of two or three of the English business people here, they go nowhere. Milner, when he’s here, spends each morning alone on the Squarci baths, reading the newspaper, and in the evening takes one turn up and down the promenade.”
“Yes,” declared her daughter. “He’s a most lonely, melancholy man.”
“There’s some mystery behind him, I suppose,” remarked the Countess. “We have so many queer English and Americans out here nowadays. Italy is really becoming the dumping-ground for all people who, from some reason or other, find their own country too sultry for them. Take Rome, for instance: why, the place is simply full of people one can’t possibly know, while Florence is proverbial for undesirables.”
“But you don’t think this man Milner is an undesirable, do you? I mean you’ve never heard anything against him?”
“Well, nothing absolutely direct,” was her answer. “Only if I were you I wouldn’t be too friendly with them. It will go very much against you, more especially in Italian society.”
“Italian society, Countess, doesn’t interest me really very much,” I exclaimed. “I know you think me a terrible barbarian, but remember I’m only a wanderer and a Bohemian at that.”
“Ah!” she sighed, “you men are free. It is unfortunately not so with us women, especially with a woman like myself, who, though I love freedom, am compelled to exist in this narrow-minded little world of the Italian aristocracy. I need not tell you how exclusive we all are—you know us too well. Why, when an English royal prince or princess comes to an Italian city hardly any one ever goes out of his way to call. They actually wait for the royalty to make the first call! And if you hear three school-girls of fourteen talking together, you will most certainly hear them discussing thenobiltà, and sneering at their schoolfellows whose parents are without titles. Yes, Mr Leaf,” she sighed, “ours is a strange complex life here, in modern Italy.”
The Countess was, I knew, “hipped” and embittered. Her husband, a good-looking good-for-nothing fellow, who spent his days idling in the Via Tornabuoni, in Florence, and his nights gambling at the Florence club, possessed a large estate with a fine old castle, away in the Cresentino, but every metre of the land was mortgaged, and in order to redeem the place had married Mary Plant, of Boston, Mass., the daughter of a rich coal-owner. Within three years they had been separated, and now only at rare intervals they met, sometimes finding themselves at the same entertainment in one or other of the palaces in Rome or Florence and greeting each other as comparative strangers. Like thousands of other similar cases in Italy, she had bought her title very dearly, and now bitterly regretted that she had ever been attracted by a handsome face and elegant manner, that she had been entrapped by a man who had never entertained one single spark of affection for her, and who had, in his heart, despised her on account of her readiness to sacrifice herself and her money for the sake of becoming a Countess.
We continued to chat, for it was delightful there, with the clear blue waves lapping close to our feet. In the course of conversation she and her daughter told me several other interesting facts concerning the Millers. They had lived in Rome for two successive winter seasons, the Countess said, in a little furnished flat in the Via Grottino, one of those narrow streets that lead off the Corso.
Was it while there, I wondered, that Lucie had become acquainted with the great politician, Nardini—the man who had died refusing to give her her liberty?
I longed to approach the subject, yet there were matters upon which I could not touch while Gemma was present.
So I sat there idling, laughing and chatting, and recalling the last occasion we had met, up in the pine woods of Camaldoli in the previous August, when I was staying at their hotel, where we had many mutual friends.
I had known the Countess fully ten years, when Gemma was but a child in the nursery, and when she was still a very pretty young woman.
Somehow I saw that she was anxious that I should not know the Milners. Why, I could not discern.
“If I were you,” she said, in a low, confidential tone, when she had sent her daughter along to the kiosque for a newspaper, “I shouldn’t call upon that man. I haven’t told Gemma, but I’ve dropped the girl. After she called upon me the last time I sent her a letter hinting that I should prefer that she did not call again.”
“Why?” I asked, much surprised.
“Well, I have a reason,” was her response. “Quite lately I’ve discovered something that requires a good deal of explaining away. To tell you the truth, I believe Milner is sailing under entirely false colours, and besides I have no intention that Gemma should associate with his daughter any further. Take my advice, Godfrey, and don’t go near them.”
“Then what have you heard?”
“I’ve heard a good deal that surprises me,” replied the Countess. “In fact, the whole affair is a very grave scandal, and I, for one, don’t mean to be dragged into it.”
Chapter Twenty Six.The Home of the Mysterious Englishman.At half-past five o’clock that same afternoon, heedless of the Countess Moltedo’s mysterious warning, I was standing by Lucie’s side at the long French window that opened upon the balcony. Below, hundreds of visitors, mostly dressed in white, as is the mode of Leghorn, were promenading in the little pine wood that lies between the roadway and the sea, while beyond stretched the broad glassy Mediterranean aglow in the fiery rays of the Tuscan sunset, the mystic islands showing dark purple on the far-off horizon.It was the hour when all Leghorn was agog after thesiesta, that period from two o’clock till five, when allpersiennesare closed, the streets are silent and deserted, and the city dazzlingly white lies palpitating beneath the blazing sun that blanches everything—the hour for the evening bath, and the stroll and gossip before dinner.Perhaps nowhere else in all Europe can be seen such a living panorama of beautiful girls as there, upon the Passeggio at Leghorn on a summer’s evening at six o’clock, those dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome-featured children of the people walking in twos and threes, with figure and gait perfect, and each with hersantuzza, or silken scarf of pale blue, mauve, pink, or black, twisted around her head with the ends thrown carelessly over the shoulders.As the white veil is part of the costume of the Turkish woman so is thesantuzzapart of that of the merry, laughing coral-pickers, milliners and work-girls of Leghorn. It enhances their marvellous beauty and is at the same time the badge of their servitude.Of all the people in the whole of proud old Tuscany assuredly none were so easy-going and vivacious, none so light-hearted and full of poetry as those Livornese people passing to and fro below us. The more I had dwelt among the Tuscan people the more I loved them. There is surely no other people on the face of the earth so entirely lovable, even with their many sad faults, as they; none so gregarious, so neighbourly, so courteous, kindly or poetic, none so content upon the most meagre fare that ever held body and soul together.Yourpopolanoeven in his rags will bring a flower to a woman with the air of a king, and he will resent an insult with a withering scorn to which no regal trappings could lend further dignity. It is the land where Love still reigns just as supreme as it did in the days of La Fiammetta, of Beatrice, of Laura, or of Romeo—the Land ofAmore—the sun-kissed land where even in this prosaic century of ours men and women live and die—often by the knife-thrust, be it said—for “amore,” that king who is greater and more powerful even than good Vittorio Emanuele himself.At Lucie’s side I stood in silence, gazing down upon the gay scene below. In those people’s eyes were always dreams, and in the memories there was always greatness.A writer has asked with deep truth, who, having known fair Tuscany, can forsake her for lesser love? Who, having once abode with her, can turn their faces from the rising sun and set the darkness of the Pisan mountains betwixt herself and them?Yes. I had been back again in Tuscany for those few brief hours only, yet the glamour of Italy had again fallen upon me, that same glamour that holds so many of the English-speaking race—irrevocably compelling them to return again and again to those amethystine hills and mystical depths of seven-chorded light—the land that is grey-green with sloes and rich with trailing vines, the land of art and antiquity, of youth and of loveliness.“And your father went on from Pisa?” I said at last, turning to my neat-waisted little companion. “He did not come home with you?”“No. He has some urgent business down in Rome, and sent me back here to wait for him.”“When does he arrive?”“He does not know. His business is very uncertain always. Sometimes when he goes away he’s absent only three days, and at other times three months. Dear old dad is awfully tiresome. He never writes, and Marietta and I wait and wait, and wonder what’s become of him.”“Is he staying with friends in Rome?”“With Dr Gavazzi, a great friend of ours.”“You left Studland very suddenly,” I said.“Because of a telegram. We left at once, with hardly an hour to pack up. But how did you know we had gone to Italy?”“I called after you had left, and your aunt told me. I wanted to speak to you, Miss Miller,” I added, turning to her seriously. “I came here to Leghorn purposely to see you.”“It’s surely a long way to travel,” she said, turning her soft dark eyes upon mine and regarding me with wonder.“Yes. But the reason I am here is to consult you regarding something which very closely concerns myself—regarding Ella.”“Ah! It was strange that she left us so suddenly,” she remarked, “and stranger still the events of that night. I wonder who attacked her? She recognised her assailant, otherwise she would have said something to me. I’ve thought over it several times. The whole thing is an utter enigma. She evidently left us because she feared that her assailant would either call to see her, or perhaps make another attempt upon her.”“Then she said nothing to you?”“Absolutely not a word, even though when she came in she was half fainting. I naturally concluded that you and she had had some words, and therefore I made no inquiry.”“We had no words, Miss Miller,” I said, in a low, serious voice. “Our hearts were too full of tragedy for that.”“Of tragedy?” she cried. “What do you mean?”“Ella is already engaged to be married.”“Engaged?” she cried. “Why, I thought she was to be yours? I was congratulating you both!”“No,” I answered, my heart sinking. “Though we have come together again after that long blank in both our lives, we are yet held apart by a cruel circumstance. She is already engaged to be married to another man.”“But she will break it, never fear. Ella loves you—you can’t doubt that.”“I know. I know that. But it is an engagement she cannot break. She will be that man’s wife in a month.”“You absolutely amaze me. She told me nothing of this, but on the contrary led me to believe that she was still free, and that you were to be her affianced husband.”“There is some reason—some secret reason why I cannot be,” I said. “It was to discuss this point with you that I have travelled from London. I must ask you to forgive me, Miss Miller, for troubling you with my private affairs, but you are, you know, Ella’s most intimate and most devoted friend.”“You are not troubling me in the least,” my companion declared. “We are friends, you and I, and if I can help you, I will with pleasure do so.”“Then I want to ask you a few questions,” I said eagerly. “First, tell me how long you have known Mr Gordon-Wright?”“Oh! ever since I was quite a little girl. He used to give me francs and buy me bon-bons long ago in the old days in Paris. Why?”“Because I had an idea that he might perhaps be a new acquaintance.”“Oh, dear no. My father and he have been friends for many years. He comes here to stay, sometimes for a couple of months at a time. He has bad health, and his London doctor often orders him abroad.”“Who is he?”“A gentleman. He was in the Navy on the China station, I think. He’s a most amusing companion, full of droll anecdotes, and seems to know everybody. Dad says that he’s one of the most popular men about London. He has a splendid steam yacht and once or twice he has taken us for cruises. It was in port here for a week at the beginning of the year.”“Where does he live?”“In Half Moon Street in London.”“Has he a country place?”“I never heard of it.”Then she was unaware, I saw, that he lived on the Cornish border. Her father, of course, knew the truth, and kept it concealed from her. The fact that he came there to hide for months at a time, and that he travelled about in a steam yacht were sufficient to show that he was one of the clever and ingenious band who had, during the past ten years, effected certaincoupsso gigantic that they had startled Europe.“When I met him how long had he been staying with you at the Manor?”“Only one day. He came on the previous morning, and he left an hour after you did. He wished to consult my father about something—some securities he contemplates purchasing, I think.”“Was Ella acquainted with him?”“No. Ella never saw him. He was upstairs in his room, you remember, when we brought her home, and she left in the morning before he was up.”“You don’t think that it was he who met her in the park after she left me?” I suggested.She looked at me strangely, as though endeavouring to read my innermost thoughts.“No, I hardly think that. Why should he, of all men, attack a woman who was a perfect stranger to him?”“But was Ella a perfect stranger?” I queried. “How do you know that?”“Of course we can’t say so. He might have met her somewhere else before,” the dark-eyed girl was forced to admit.“Do not the circumstances all point to the fact that she fled, fearing to face him?” I said.“Well, it certainly is a theory—but a very strange one,” she answered, her eyes fixed thoughtfully away to the distant horizon. “But what you have told me is so extraordinary. Ella is engaged to be married in a month. To whom? You have not told me that.”I was silent for a moment, wondering whether I should tell her. So complete were the confidences now between us that I saw I need conceal nothing from her. We entertained a mutual sympathy for each other—I broken and despairing, and she a woman with the mark of fate upon her countenance.“She is to marry Gordon-Wright,” I said in a low, hard voice.“Gordon-Wright!” she gasped, drawing back and staring at me open-mouthed. “Ella to marry that man! Impossible!”“The fellow is compelling her to become his wife. He holds her in his power by some mysterious bond which she fears to break. She is in terror of him. Ella—my own Ella—is that man’s victim.”“But—but you mustn’t allow this, Mr Leaf!” she cried quickly, and from the anxious expression in her countenance I saw that my announcement had struck her a-heap in amazement. “Ella must never marry him!” she added. “But are you sure of this—are you quite sure?”“She had admitted it to me with her own lips.”“Then she must be warned—she cannot know.”“Know what?”“Know the facts that are known to me. She is in ignorance, or she would never consent to become that man’s wife!”“She has been entrapped. She admitted as much.” My companion made no answer. Her brows were knit in thought. What I had revealed to her was both unexpected and puzzling. She evidently knew Gordon-Wright’s true character, though it was hardly likely she would admit it to me.Yet I wondered, as I had lately very often wondered, whether she were actually in ignorance of her father’s true profession.“If she has been entrapped, Mr Leaf,” she said slowly, “then she must find a way in which to extricate herself. We must never allow her to become that man’s wife.”“He is your father’s friend, and yet you hold him in little esteem?” I remarked.“What I know is my own affair,” was her hard response. “It is sufficient for us to say that Ella is yours, and must be yours.”“Ah! yes,” I sighed in despair, “if only she could be. Yet I fear that it is impossible. This fellow for some mysterious reason holds her future in his hands. She refuses to reveal anything to me, except that to break away from him is impossible. Indeed, the real reason of her flying visit to you at Studland was to consult him. She knew he was visiting there, and slipped away from her father in order to call upon you.”“But we had no idea that they were acquainted,” Lucie declared.“After she had gone to bed your father and Gordon-Wright remained up, talking, she crept back downstairs, I believe, and overheard their conversation.”“She did!” she gasped, her cheeks going pale. “She heard what they said! Are you quite sure of this?”“Yes.”“Then—then she really came to spy upon Gordon-Wright—to spy upon us indeed!”“Not with any sinister motive,” I hastened to assure her. “She is evidently endeavouring to discover something concerning this man who holds her so utterly powerless in his hands. It is but natural, is it not? It is only what you or I would do in similar circumstances.”My companion’s face had changed. She was pale and anxious, eager to learn all that I had ascertained.“She told you this—how she had overheard my father talking to him?”“No, Gordon-Wright himself charged her with eaves-dropping—and she admitted it.”“Ah! Then if this be true, Mr Leaf, she had better marry him.”“Marry him!” I cried. “Why?”“Because I have a suspicion that she knows something concerning my father. What it is sorely puzzles me.”“I—I don’t quite understand you,” I said.“Well—I thought I had spoken plainly enough,” she answered. “You have told me that she admitted to him that she overheard his conversation with my father.”“Well, and what if she did?” I asked. “Was the consultation between your father and his friend of such a secret nature?”She hesitated a moment, then lifting her eyes to mine, said:—“I believe it was.”“You believe,” I echoed. “You must know, if you are prepared to sacrifice Ella to that man!”“He probably is in possession of some secret of hers,” she remarked slowly.“And she on her part, it appears, is in possession of some secret of his.”“And of my father’s.”“What is it she knows?” I asked. “Come, give me some hint of it,” I urged. “A moment ago you were my friend, prepared to assist poor Ella to escape—yet now you declare that they must marry.”“Yes,” was her hard response. “I did not know that she had acted the spy in my father’s house—that she was in love with Gordon-Wright and had come to see him while he was under our roof.”“She’s not in love with him,” I protested. “She denies it. Unfortunately she is his victim.”“She deceived you once, remember. Why do you still trust her?”“Her deception was one for self-sacrifice—to save her father.”“And my refusal to assist you in saving her from Gordon-Wright is from the same motive.”“To save your father?”“How do I know? I tell you I am puzzled.”“Then the secret is perhaps a guilty one?” I said seriously.“She must marry this man,” was all her response.“And this from you, Miss Miller—you, who have always posed as her friend!” I exclaimed reproachfully, for her change of manner had utterly confounded me. I had relied upon her as my friend.“I am certainly not her enemy,” she hastened to assert. “To see her the wife of Gordon-Wright is my very last desire. Yet it is unfortunately imperative for—” and she stopped short, without concluding her sentence.“For what?”“For—well—for my peace of mind,” she said, though I was sure that she had intended saying something else.“You have already told me that this fellow is unfitted to be her husband,” I exclaimed. “Surely you, her oldest friend, will never allow her to commit this fatal error—to wreck her own happiness and mine, without lifting a finger to save her. Need I repeat to you what I told you at the riverside at Studland, with what a fierce passion I adore her, how that she is mine—my very life?”“I know,” my companion said, in a voice slightly more sympathetic. “I admit that she ought to marry you—that she is yours in heart. Yet in her secret engagement to Gordon-Wright there is a mystery which makes me suspicious.”“Suspicious of what?”She sighed, and moving forward rested her hands upon the balcony, gazing again towards the fiery sunset.“Well—to put it plainly—that she is deceiving both of us.”“Deceiving us! In what way?”“Ah! that is what we have not yet discovered,” replied the girl. “Think of her ingenuity in coming to our house in order to see that man in secret, of how cleverly she made us believe that they were strangers—of her listening to my father’s words when he spoke with Gordon-Wright! All this proves to me that she is working with some mysterious end.”“She has been endeavouring to effect her emancipation from that scoundrel,” I protested hotly. “She has been trying to break away from him, but in vain. Her motive, Miss Miller, is not an evil one as regards either your father or yourself, you may rest assured. She only desires freedom—freedom to live and to love, the freedom that you, if you will, can assist her to obtain.”“I—” she cried. “How can I?”“You know who this fellow Gordon-Wright really is. If you will, you can save her.”“I can’t. That’s just where the difficulty lies.”“Then if you will not, I will!” I cried, angry at her sudden withdrawal after all the sympathy I had shown her, and goaded by thoughts of my love’s martyrdom. “Fortunately I happen to know that Gordon-Wright alias Lieutenant Shacklock is wanted by the police of half a dozen different countries, as well as certain of his associates, and a word from me will effect his arrest.” She started, and her face went ashen pale. She saw that I knew the truth, and in an instant held me in dread.“You—” she gasped. “You would do this—you?”
At half-past five o’clock that same afternoon, heedless of the Countess Moltedo’s mysterious warning, I was standing by Lucie’s side at the long French window that opened upon the balcony. Below, hundreds of visitors, mostly dressed in white, as is the mode of Leghorn, were promenading in the little pine wood that lies between the roadway and the sea, while beyond stretched the broad glassy Mediterranean aglow in the fiery rays of the Tuscan sunset, the mystic islands showing dark purple on the far-off horizon.
It was the hour when all Leghorn was agog after thesiesta, that period from two o’clock till five, when allpersiennesare closed, the streets are silent and deserted, and the city dazzlingly white lies palpitating beneath the blazing sun that blanches everything—the hour for the evening bath, and the stroll and gossip before dinner.
Perhaps nowhere else in all Europe can be seen such a living panorama of beautiful girls as there, upon the Passeggio at Leghorn on a summer’s evening at six o’clock, those dark-haired, dark-eyed, handsome-featured children of the people walking in twos and threes, with figure and gait perfect, and each with hersantuzza, or silken scarf of pale blue, mauve, pink, or black, twisted around her head with the ends thrown carelessly over the shoulders.
As the white veil is part of the costume of the Turkish woman so is thesantuzzapart of that of the merry, laughing coral-pickers, milliners and work-girls of Leghorn. It enhances their marvellous beauty and is at the same time the badge of their servitude.
Of all the people in the whole of proud old Tuscany assuredly none were so easy-going and vivacious, none so light-hearted and full of poetry as those Livornese people passing to and fro below us. The more I had dwelt among the Tuscan people the more I loved them. There is surely no other people on the face of the earth so entirely lovable, even with their many sad faults, as they; none so gregarious, so neighbourly, so courteous, kindly or poetic, none so content upon the most meagre fare that ever held body and soul together.
Yourpopolanoeven in his rags will bring a flower to a woman with the air of a king, and he will resent an insult with a withering scorn to which no regal trappings could lend further dignity. It is the land where Love still reigns just as supreme as it did in the days of La Fiammetta, of Beatrice, of Laura, or of Romeo—the Land ofAmore—the sun-kissed land where even in this prosaic century of ours men and women live and die—often by the knife-thrust, be it said—for “amore,” that king who is greater and more powerful even than good Vittorio Emanuele himself.
At Lucie’s side I stood in silence, gazing down upon the gay scene below. In those people’s eyes were always dreams, and in the memories there was always greatness.
A writer has asked with deep truth, who, having known fair Tuscany, can forsake her for lesser love? Who, having once abode with her, can turn their faces from the rising sun and set the darkness of the Pisan mountains betwixt herself and them?
Yes. I had been back again in Tuscany for those few brief hours only, yet the glamour of Italy had again fallen upon me, that same glamour that holds so many of the English-speaking race—irrevocably compelling them to return again and again to those amethystine hills and mystical depths of seven-chorded light—the land that is grey-green with sloes and rich with trailing vines, the land of art and antiquity, of youth and of loveliness.
“And your father went on from Pisa?” I said at last, turning to my neat-waisted little companion. “He did not come home with you?”
“No. He has some urgent business down in Rome, and sent me back here to wait for him.”
“When does he arrive?”
“He does not know. His business is very uncertain always. Sometimes when he goes away he’s absent only three days, and at other times three months. Dear old dad is awfully tiresome. He never writes, and Marietta and I wait and wait, and wonder what’s become of him.”
“Is he staying with friends in Rome?”
“With Dr Gavazzi, a great friend of ours.”
“You left Studland very suddenly,” I said.
“Because of a telegram. We left at once, with hardly an hour to pack up. But how did you know we had gone to Italy?”
“I called after you had left, and your aunt told me. I wanted to speak to you, Miss Miller,” I added, turning to her seriously. “I came here to Leghorn purposely to see you.”
“It’s surely a long way to travel,” she said, turning her soft dark eyes upon mine and regarding me with wonder.
“Yes. But the reason I am here is to consult you regarding something which very closely concerns myself—regarding Ella.”
“Ah! It was strange that she left us so suddenly,” she remarked, “and stranger still the events of that night. I wonder who attacked her? She recognised her assailant, otherwise she would have said something to me. I’ve thought over it several times. The whole thing is an utter enigma. She evidently left us because she feared that her assailant would either call to see her, or perhaps make another attempt upon her.”
“Then she said nothing to you?”
“Absolutely not a word, even though when she came in she was half fainting. I naturally concluded that you and she had had some words, and therefore I made no inquiry.”
“We had no words, Miss Miller,” I said, in a low, serious voice. “Our hearts were too full of tragedy for that.”
“Of tragedy?” she cried. “What do you mean?”
“Ella is already engaged to be married.”
“Engaged?” she cried. “Why, I thought she was to be yours? I was congratulating you both!”
“No,” I answered, my heart sinking. “Though we have come together again after that long blank in both our lives, we are yet held apart by a cruel circumstance. She is already engaged to be married to another man.”
“But she will break it, never fear. Ella loves you—you can’t doubt that.”
“I know. I know that. But it is an engagement she cannot break. She will be that man’s wife in a month.”
“You absolutely amaze me. She told me nothing of this, but on the contrary led me to believe that she was still free, and that you were to be her affianced husband.”
“There is some reason—some secret reason why I cannot be,” I said. “It was to discuss this point with you that I have travelled from London. I must ask you to forgive me, Miss Miller, for troubling you with my private affairs, but you are, you know, Ella’s most intimate and most devoted friend.”
“You are not troubling me in the least,” my companion declared. “We are friends, you and I, and if I can help you, I will with pleasure do so.”
“Then I want to ask you a few questions,” I said eagerly. “First, tell me how long you have known Mr Gordon-Wright?”
“Oh! ever since I was quite a little girl. He used to give me francs and buy me bon-bons long ago in the old days in Paris. Why?”
“Because I had an idea that he might perhaps be a new acquaintance.”
“Oh, dear no. My father and he have been friends for many years. He comes here to stay, sometimes for a couple of months at a time. He has bad health, and his London doctor often orders him abroad.”
“Who is he?”
“A gentleman. He was in the Navy on the China station, I think. He’s a most amusing companion, full of droll anecdotes, and seems to know everybody. Dad says that he’s one of the most popular men about London. He has a splendid steam yacht and once or twice he has taken us for cruises. It was in port here for a week at the beginning of the year.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Half Moon Street in London.”
“Has he a country place?”
“I never heard of it.”
Then she was unaware, I saw, that he lived on the Cornish border. Her father, of course, knew the truth, and kept it concealed from her. The fact that he came there to hide for months at a time, and that he travelled about in a steam yacht were sufficient to show that he was one of the clever and ingenious band who had, during the past ten years, effected certaincoupsso gigantic that they had startled Europe.
“When I met him how long had he been staying with you at the Manor?”
“Only one day. He came on the previous morning, and he left an hour after you did. He wished to consult my father about something—some securities he contemplates purchasing, I think.”
“Was Ella acquainted with him?”
“No. Ella never saw him. He was upstairs in his room, you remember, when we brought her home, and she left in the morning before he was up.”
“You don’t think that it was he who met her in the park after she left me?” I suggested.
She looked at me strangely, as though endeavouring to read my innermost thoughts.
“No, I hardly think that. Why should he, of all men, attack a woman who was a perfect stranger to him?”
“But was Ella a perfect stranger?” I queried. “How do you know that?”
“Of course we can’t say so. He might have met her somewhere else before,” the dark-eyed girl was forced to admit.
“Do not the circumstances all point to the fact that she fled, fearing to face him?” I said.
“Well, it certainly is a theory—but a very strange one,” she answered, her eyes fixed thoughtfully away to the distant horizon. “But what you have told me is so extraordinary. Ella is engaged to be married in a month. To whom? You have not told me that.”
I was silent for a moment, wondering whether I should tell her. So complete were the confidences now between us that I saw I need conceal nothing from her. We entertained a mutual sympathy for each other—I broken and despairing, and she a woman with the mark of fate upon her countenance.
“She is to marry Gordon-Wright,” I said in a low, hard voice.
“Gordon-Wright!” she gasped, drawing back and staring at me open-mouthed. “Ella to marry that man! Impossible!”
“The fellow is compelling her to become his wife. He holds her in his power by some mysterious bond which she fears to break. She is in terror of him. Ella—my own Ella—is that man’s victim.”
“But—but you mustn’t allow this, Mr Leaf!” she cried quickly, and from the anxious expression in her countenance I saw that my announcement had struck her a-heap in amazement. “Ella must never marry him!” she added. “But are you sure of this—are you quite sure?”
“She had admitted it to me with her own lips.”
“Then she must be warned—she cannot know.”
“Know what?”
“Know the facts that are known to me. She is in ignorance, or she would never consent to become that man’s wife!”
“She has been entrapped. She admitted as much.” My companion made no answer. Her brows were knit in thought. What I had revealed to her was both unexpected and puzzling. She evidently knew Gordon-Wright’s true character, though it was hardly likely she would admit it to me.
Yet I wondered, as I had lately very often wondered, whether she were actually in ignorance of her father’s true profession.
“If she has been entrapped, Mr Leaf,” she said slowly, “then she must find a way in which to extricate herself. We must never allow her to become that man’s wife.”
“He is your father’s friend, and yet you hold him in little esteem?” I remarked.
“What I know is my own affair,” was her hard response. “It is sufficient for us to say that Ella is yours, and must be yours.”
“Ah! yes,” I sighed in despair, “if only she could be. Yet I fear that it is impossible. This fellow for some mysterious reason holds her future in his hands. She refuses to reveal anything to me, except that to break away from him is impossible. Indeed, the real reason of her flying visit to you at Studland was to consult him. She knew he was visiting there, and slipped away from her father in order to call upon you.”
“But we had no idea that they were acquainted,” Lucie declared.
“After she had gone to bed your father and Gordon-Wright remained up, talking, she crept back downstairs, I believe, and overheard their conversation.”
“She did!” she gasped, her cheeks going pale. “She heard what they said! Are you quite sure of this?”
“Yes.”
“Then—then she really came to spy upon Gordon-Wright—to spy upon us indeed!”
“Not with any sinister motive,” I hastened to assure her. “She is evidently endeavouring to discover something concerning this man who holds her so utterly powerless in his hands. It is but natural, is it not? It is only what you or I would do in similar circumstances.”
My companion’s face had changed. She was pale and anxious, eager to learn all that I had ascertained.
“She told you this—how she had overheard my father talking to him?”
“No, Gordon-Wright himself charged her with eaves-dropping—and she admitted it.”
“Ah! Then if this be true, Mr Leaf, she had better marry him.”
“Marry him!” I cried. “Why?”
“Because I have a suspicion that she knows something concerning my father. What it is sorely puzzles me.”
“I—I don’t quite understand you,” I said.
“Well—I thought I had spoken plainly enough,” she answered. “You have told me that she admitted to him that she overheard his conversation with my father.”
“Well, and what if she did?” I asked. “Was the consultation between your father and his friend of such a secret nature?”
She hesitated a moment, then lifting her eyes to mine, said:—
“I believe it was.”
“You believe,” I echoed. “You must know, if you are prepared to sacrifice Ella to that man!”
“He probably is in possession of some secret of hers,” she remarked slowly.
“And she on her part, it appears, is in possession of some secret of his.”
“And of my father’s.”
“What is it she knows?” I asked. “Come, give me some hint of it,” I urged. “A moment ago you were my friend, prepared to assist poor Ella to escape—yet now you declare that they must marry.”
“Yes,” was her hard response. “I did not know that she had acted the spy in my father’s house—that she was in love with Gordon-Wright and had come to see him while he was under our roof.”
“She’s not in love with him,” I protested. “She denies it. Unfortunately she is his victim.”
“She deceived you once, remember. Why do you still trust her?”
“Her deception was one for self-sacrifice—to save her father.”
“And my refusal to assist you in saving her from Gordon-Wright is from the same motive.”
“To save your father?”
“How do I know? I tell you I am puzzled.”
“Then the secret is perhaps a guilty one?” I said seriously.
“She must marry this man,” was all her response.
“And this from you, Miss Miller—you, who have always posed as her friend!” I exclaimed reproachfully, for her change of manner had utterly confounded me. I had relied upon her as my friend.
“I am certainly not her enemy,” she hastened to assert. “To see her the wife of Gordon-Wright is my very last desire. Yet it is unfortunately imperative for—” and she stopped short, without concluding her sentence.
“For what?”
“For—well—for my peace of mind,” she said, though I was sure that she had intended saying something else.
“You have already told me that this fellow is unfitted to be her husband,” I exclaimed. “Surely you, her oldest friend, will never allow her to commit this fatal error—to wreck her own happiness and mine, without lifting a finger to save her. Need I repeat to you what I told you at the riverside at Studland, with what a fierce passion I adore her, how that she is mine—my very life?”
“I know,” my companion said, in a voice slightly more sympathetic. “I admit that she ought to marry you—that she is yours in heart. Yet in her secret engagement to Gordon-Wright there is a mystery which makes me suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what?”
She sighed, and moving forward rested her hands upon the balcony, gazing again towards the fiery sunset.
“Well—to put it plainly—that she is deceiving both of us.”
“Deceiving us! In what way?”
“Ah! that is what we have not yet discovered,” replied the girl. “Think of her ingenuity in coming to our house in order to see that man in secret, of how cleverly she made us believe that they were strangers—of her listening to my father’s words when he spoke with Gordon-Wright! All this proves to me that she is working with some mysterious end.”
“She has been endeavouring to effect her emancipation from that scoundrel,” I protested hotly. “She has been trying to break away from him, but in vain. Her motive, Miss Miller, is not an evil one as regards either your father or yourself, you may rest assured. She only desires freedom—freedom to live and to love, the freedom that you, if you will, can assist her to obtain.”
“I—” she cried. “How can I?”
“You know who this fellow Gordon-Wright really is. If you will, you can save her.”
“I can’t. That’s just where the difficulty lies.”
“Then if you will not, I will!” I cried, angry at her sudden withdrawal after all the sympathy I had shown her, and goaded by thoughts of my love’s martyrdom. “Fortunately I happen to know that Gordon-Wright alias Lieutenant Shacklock is wanted by the police of half a dozen different countries, as well as certain of his associates, and a word from me will effect his arrest.” She started, and her face went ashen pale. She saw that I knew the truth, and in an instant held me in dread.
“You—” she gasped. “You would do this—you?”