THE TIME HAS COME.
Three days later Mildred and her young companion started for Italy.
The doctor declared that the departure was premature—Mrs. Greswold was
not strong enough to undertake such a fatiguing journey. But modern
civilisation has smoothed the roads that lead over the civilised world,
and for a lady who travels with a maid and a courier, journeys are
rendered very easy; besides, Mildred had made up her mind to leave
Brighton at any hazard.
The hour of parting came for Pamela and Castellani, and although the
young lady took care to remind him at least a dozen times a day of that
impending severance, not one word of the future, or of any cherished
hope on his part, fell from his lips. And yet it had seemed to Pamela
that he was devoted to her, that he only waited for the opportunity to
speak. It seemed to her also that he felt the pain of parting, for he
had an air of deepest melancholy daring these farewell days, and talked
only of saddest themes. He was in Lewes Crescent nearly all day long—he
played the mournfullest strains—he behaved like a man oppressed with a
secret sorrow; but never a word of love or marriage did he breathe to
Pamela. He pressed her hand gently, with an almost paternal affection,
as she leant out of the carriage which was to take her to the station,
and bade him a last good-bye.
“Good-bye!” she half sang, half sobbed, in the darkness at the back
of the hired landau, as they drove bumping down St. James’s street.
“Good-bye, summer; good-bye, everything!”
She did not even glance at Hannington’s autumn fashions as they drove
up the hill. She felt that life was no longer worth dressing for.
“He never could have cared for me,” she thought, as she dropped her
silent tears upon Box’s thoroughbred neck, “and yet he seemed—he
seemed! Does he seem like that to every girl, I wonder? Is he all
seeming?”
After this came a leisurely journey, and then long, slow weeks of a
luxurious repose amidst fairest surroundings—a life which to those who
have lived and fought the great battle, and come wounded but yet alive
out of the fray, is the life paradisaic; but for the fresh, strong soul
panting for emotions and excitements, like a young bird that yearns to
try the strength of his wings, this kind of languid existence seems
like a foretaste of death and nothingness. Mountains and lakes were not
enough for Pamela—the azure of an Italian sky, the infinite variety of
sunset splendours, the brightness of a morning heralded by a roseate
flush on snow-capped hills—all these were futile where the heart
was empty. Mildred’s maturer grief found some consolation in these
exquisite surroundings; but Pamela wanted to live, and those encircling
mountains seemed to her as the walls of a gigantic prison.
“It was so nice at Brighton,” she said, looking along the burnished
mirror of the lake with despondent eyes, tired of the mystery of those
reflected mountains, descending into infinite depths, a world inverted:
“so gay, so cheery—always something going on. Don’t you think, aunt,
that the air of this place is very relaxing?”
That word relaxing is the keynote of discontent. It is a word that can
blight the loveliest spots the sun ever shone upon. It is the speck
upon the peach. Be sure that before ever he mentioned the apple, Satan
told Eve that Eden was very relaxing.
“I hope you are not unhappy here, my dear Pamela?” said Mildred,
evading the question.
“Unhappy? O, no, indeed, dear aunt! I could not be otherwise than happy
with you anywhere. There are lots of people who would envy me living on
the shore of Lago Maggiore, and seeing those delightful mountains all
day long; but I did so enjoy Brighton—the theatre, the Pavilion; always
something going on.”
The two ladies had their own suite of apartments in the hotel, and
lived in that genteel seclusion which is the privilege of wealth as
well as of rank all over the world. Pamela envied the tourists of
Cook and Gaze, as she saw them trooping into the _table d’hôte_, or
heard their clatter in the public drawing-room. It was all very well
to sit in one’s own balcony, gazing at the placid lake, while the
rabble amused themselves below. One felt one’s superior status, and
the advantage of being somebody instead of nobody; but when the rabble
danced or acted charades, or played dumb crambo, or squabbled over a
game at nap, they seemed to have the best of it somehow.
“I almost wish I had been born a vulgarian,” sighed Pamela one evening,
when the tourists were revolving to the “Myosotis Waltz” banged out on
a cast-iron grand in the salon below.
Mildred did all she could in the way of excursionising to enliven the
dulness of their solitary life; but the beauties of Nature palled upon
Pamela’s lively mind. However the day might be occupied in drives to
distant scenes of surpassing loveliness, the ever-lengthening evenings
had to be spent in the Louis Quatorze salon, where no visitors dropped
in to disturb the monotony of books and work, piano and pet-dog.
For Mildred, too, those evening hours seemed unutterably long, and as
autumn deepened into winter, her burden seemed heavier to bear. Time
brought no consolation, offered no hope. She had lost all that had
made life worth living. First, the child who represented all that was
brightest and fairest and gayest and most hopeful in her life; next,
the husband who was her life itself, the prop and staff, the column
around which every tendril of her being was entwined. There was nothing
for her in the future but a life of self-abnegation, of working and
living for others. The prospect seemed dark and dreary, and she knew
now how small a margin of her life had been devoted to God. The idea of
devoting herself wholly was too repellent. She knew now that she was
very human, wedded to earthly loves and earthly happiness, needing a
long purgation before she could attain the saintly attitude.
She thought of Enderby every night as she sat in silent melancholy
beside the hearth, where a solitary log crumbled slowly to white
ashes on the marble, and where the faint warmth had a perfume of
distant pine-woods; she thought of Enderby and its widowed master.
Was he living there still, or was he, too, a wanderer? She had heard
but little of his movements since she left England. Pamela had
written to him, and he had replied, but had said very little about
himself. The only news in Rosalind’s letters was of the extraordinary
development—intellectual and otherwise—of the baby, and the magnitude
of Sir Henry’s bag. Beyond the baby and the bag, Lady Mountford’s pen
rarely travelled.
Mildred thought of that absent husband with an aching heart. There
were times when she asked herself if she had done well—when she was
tempted to total surrender—when the pen was in her hand ready to write
a telegram imploring him to come to her—or when she was on the point
of giving her orders for an immediate return to England. But pride and
principle alike restrained her. She had taken her own course, she had
made up her mind deliberately, after long thought and many prayers. She
could not tread the backward way, the primrose path of sin. She could
but pray for greater strength, for loftier purpose, for that grand
power of self-forgetfulness which makes for heaven.
Christmas came and found her in this frame of mind. There were very
few tourists now, and the long corridors had a sepulchral air, the
snowy mountain-tops were blotted out by mist and rain. For Pamela,
Christmastide had been a season of much gaiety hitherto—a season of
new frocks and many dances, hunting and hunt-balls, and the change
was a severe test of that young lady’s temper. She came through the
ordeal admirably, never forgot that she had promised her uncle to be
his wife’s faithful companion, and amused herself as best she could
with Italian music and desultory studies. She read Mr. Sinnett’s books,
studied Bohn’s edition of Plato’s Dialogues, addled her youthful brain
with various theories of a far-reaching kind, and fancied herself
decidedly mediumistic. That word mediumistic possessed a peculiar
fascination for her. She had looked at César Castellani’s eyeballs,
which were markedly globular—seeming, as it were, reflecting surfaces
for the spirit world, a sure indication of the mediumistic temperament.
She had seen other signs; and now in this romantic solitude, sauntering
by the lake in the misty winter air, just before sundown, she fancied
herself almost in communion with that absent genius. Distance could
not separate two people when both were eminently mediumistic.
“I believe he is thinking of me at this very moment,” she said to
herself one afternoon at the end of the year, “and I have a kind of
feeling that I shall see him—bodily—very soon.”
She forgot to reckon with herself that this kind of feeling could count
for very little, since she had experienced it in greater or less degree
ever since she had left Brighton. In almost every excursion she had
beguiled the tedium of the way with some pleasant day-dream. Castellani
would appear in the most unlooked-for manner at the resting-place where
they were to lunch. He would have followed them from England at his
leisure, and would come upon them unannounced, pleased to startle her
by his sudden apparition. In absence she had recalled so many tender
speeches, so many indications of regard; and she had taught herself to
believe that he really cared for her, and had but been withheld from
a declaration by a noble dignity which would not stoop to woo a woman
richer than himself.
“He is poor and proud,” she thought.
Poor and proud. How sweet the alliteration sounded!
She had thought of him so incessantly that it was hardly a coincidence,
and yet it seemed to her a miracle when his voice sounded behind her in
the midst of her reverie.
“You ought not to be out of doors, Miss Ransome, when the sun is so
nearly down.”
She turned and faced him, pale first with infinite pleasure, and then
rosy to the roots of her flaxen hair.
“When did you come?” she asked eagerly. “Have you been long in Italy?”
“I only came through the St. Gothard last night, breakfasted at
Locarno, and came here by road. I have not seen Mrs. Greswold yet. She
is well, I hope?”
“She is not over-well. She frets dreadfully, I am afraid. It is so sad
that she and Uncle George should be living apart for some mysterious
reason which nobody knows. They were the most perfect couple.”
“Mrs. Greswold is a perfect woman.”
“And Uncle George has the finest character. His first marriage was
unhappy, I believe; nobody ever talked about it. I think it was only
just known in the family that he had married in Italy when he was a
young man, and that his wife had died within a year. It was supposed
that she could not have been nice, since nobody knew anything about
her.”
“Rather hard upon the dead lady to be condemned by her husband’s
silence. Will you take me to your aunt?”
“With pleasure. I think she ought to be charmed to see you, for we lead
the most solitary existence here. My aunt has set her face against
knowing anybody, in the hotel or out of it. And there have been some
really charming people staying here; people one would go out of one’s
way to know. Have you come here for your health?”
“For my pleasure only. I was sick to death of England and of cities. I
longed to steep myself in the infinite and the beautiful. Those indigo
clouds above the mountains yonder—with that bold splash of orange
shining through the gorge—are worth the journey, were there no more
than that; and when the wintry stars glass themselves in the lake by
and by, ah! then one knows what it is to be the living, acting element
in a world of passive beauty. And to think that there are men and women
in London groping about in the fog, and fancying themselves alive!”
“O, but there are compensations—theatres, concerts, dances.”
“Miss Ransome, I fear you are a Philistine.”
“O, no, no! I adore Nature. I should like to be above those common
earthly pleasures—to journey from star to star along the planetary
chain, rising at each transition to a higher level, until I came to the
spirit world where— This is the hotel, and we are on the second floor.
Would you like the lift?”
“I never walk when I can be carried.”
“Then we will go up in the lift. I used to think it rather good fun
at first,” said Pamela with a sigh, remembering how soon that trivial
excitement had begun to pall.
Mildred received the unexpected visitor with marked coldness; but it
was not easy to remain persistently cold while Pamela was so warm.
Castellani was one of those provoking people who refuse to see when
they are unwelcome. He was full of talk, gay, bright, and varied. He
had all the social events of the past three months to talk about.
Society had witnessed the most extraordinary changes—marriages—sudden
deaths—everything unlooked for. There had been scandals, too; but these
he touched upon lightly, and with a deprecating air, professing himself
sorry for everybody.
Mildred allowed him to talk, and was, perhaps, a little more cordial
when he took his leave than she had been when he came. He had prevented
her from thinking her own thoughts for the space of an hour, and that
was something for which to be grateful. He had come there in pursuit of
Pamela, no doubt. He could have no other reason. He had been playing
his own game, holding back in order to be the more gladly accepted when
he should declare himself. It was thus Mildred reasoned with herself;
and yet there had been looks and tones which it was difficult for her
to forget.
“He is by profession a lady-killer,” she argued; “no doubt he treats
all women in the same way. He cannot help trying to fascinate them;
and there are women like Cecilia Tomkison who encourage him to make
sentimental speeches.”
She persuaded herself that the looks and tones which had offended meant
very little. For Pamela’s sake she would like to think well of him.
“You have told me about a great many people,” she said, as he was
leaving them, “but you have told me nothing about my husband. Did you
hear if he was still at Enderby—and well?”
“He was still at Enderby up to the end of November, and I believe he
was well. I spent three days at Riverdale, and heard of him from Mrs.
Hillersdon.”
Mildred asked no further question, nor did she invite Mr. Castellani to
repeat his visit. Happily for his own success in life, he was not the
kind of person to wait for invitations.
“I am staying in the hotel,” he said. “I hope I may drop in
sometimes—to-morrow even. Miss Ransome is good enough to say she would
like to sing some duets with me.”
“Miss Ransome knows I have not been receiving any visitors,” Mildred
answered, with a touch of reproachfulness.
“O, but Mr. Castellani is an old friend! The people you avoided were
strangers,” said Pamela eagerly.
Mildred made no further protest. Few men would have accepted a
permission so grudgingly given; but Castellani stopped at no obstacle
when he had a serious purpose to serve: and in this case his purpose
was very serious; for life or death, he told himself.
He came next day, and the day after that, and every day for four or
five weeks, till the first flush of precocious spring lent beauty to
the landscape and softness to the sky. Mildred submitted to his visits
as an inevitable consequence of Pamela’s folly; submitted, and by and
by fell into the habit of being amused by Castellani; interested in his
talk of men and women and of books, of which he seemed to have read
all of any mark that had ever been written. She allowed herself to be
interested; she allowed herself to be soothed by his music; she let
him become an influence in her life, unawares, caught by a subtlety
that had never been surpassed by anybody of lesser gifts than Satan:
but never did this presumptuous wooer beguile her into one single
thought that wronged her absent husband. Her intellect acknowledged the
tempter’s intellectual sway, but her heart knew no wavering.
César Castellani had seen a good deal of life, but as he had
assiduously cultivated the seamy side, it was hardly strange if he
lacked the power of understanding a pure-minded woman. To his mind
every woman was a citadel, better or worse defended, but always
assailable by treason or strategy, force or art, and never impregnable.
Mrs. Greswold was his Troy, his Thebes, his ideal of majesty and
strength in woman. So far as virtue went upon this earth he believed
Mildred Greswold to be virtuous; proud, too; not a woman to lower her
crest to the illicit conqueror, or stain her name with the disgrace of
a runaway wife. But it had been given to him to disturb a union that
had existed happily for fourteen years. It had been given to him to
awaken the baneful passion of jealousy, to sow the seeds of suspicion,
to part husband and wife. He had gone to work carelessly enough in
the first instance, struck with Mildred’s beauty and sweetness—full
of sentimental recollections of the fair child-face and the bright
streaming hair that had passed him like a vision in the sunlight of
Hyde Park. He had envied the husband so fair a wife, so luxurious
a home, with its air of old-world respectability, that deep-rooted
English aristocracy of landed estate, which to the foreign adventurer
seemed of all conditions in life the most enviable. He had been
impelled by sheer malice when he uttered his careless allusion to
George Greswold’s past life, and with a word blighted two hearts.
He saw the effect of the speech in the face of the wife, and in the
manner of the husband saw that he had launched a thunderbolt. It was
with deepest interest he followed up his advantage; watched and waited
for further evidence of the evil he had done. He was a close student
of the faces of women; above all, when the face was lovely. He saw all
the marks of secret care in Mrs. Greswold’s countenance during the
weeks that elapsed between his first visit to Enderby and the charity
concert. He saw the deepening shadows, the growing grief, and on the
day of the concert he saw the traces of a still keener pain in those
pale features and haggard eyes; but for an immediate separation between
husband and wife he was not prepared.
He heard at Riverdale of Mrs. Greswold’s departure from home. The
suddenness and strangeness of her journey had set all the servants
talking. He found out where she had gone, and hastened at once to call
upon his devoted friend Mrs. Tomkison, who told him all she had to tell.
“There is some domestic misery—an intrigue on his part, I fear,” said
the glib Cecilia. “Men are such traitors. It would hardly surprise me
to-morrow if I was told that Adam was maintaining an expensive _ménage_
in St. John’s Wood. She would tell me nothing, poor darling; but she
sent for Mr. Cancellor, and was closeted with him for an hour. No doubt
she told _him_ everything. And then she went off to Brighton.”
Castellani followed to Brighton, and his influence with Miss Fausset
enabled him to learn something, but not all. Not one word said Miss
Fausset about the supposed identity between George Greswold’s first
wife and John Fausset’s _protégée_; but she told Mr. Castellani that
she feared her niece’s separation from her husband would be permanent.
“Why does she not divorce him,” he asked, “if he has wronged her?”
“He has not wronged her—in the way you mean. And if he had, she could
not divorce him, unless he had beaten her. You men made the law, and
framed it in your own favour. It is a very sad case, César, and I
am not at liberty to say any more about it. You must ask me no more
questions.”
Castellani obeyed for the time being; but he did ask further questions
upon other occasions, and he exercised all his subtlety in the
endeavour to extract information from Miss Fausset. That lady, however,
was inflexible; and he had to wait for time to solve the mystery.
“They have parted on account of that first marriage,” he told himself.
“Perhaps she has found out all about the poor lady’s fate, and takes
the worst view of the catastrophe. That would account for their
separation. She would not stay with a husband she suspected; he would
not live with a wife who could so suspect. A very pretty quarrel.”
A quarrel—a life-long severance—but not a divorce. There was the
difficulty. César Castellani believed himself invincible with women.
The weakest, and in some cases the worst, of the sex had educated him
into the belief that no woman lived who could resist him. And here was
a woman whom he intensely admired, and whose married life it had been
his privilege to wreck. She was a rich woman—and it was essential to
his success in life that he should marry wealth. With all his various
gifts he was not a money-earning man, he would never attain even
lasting renown by his talents. For when the good fairies had endowed
him with music and poetry, eloquence and grace, the strong-minded,
hard-featured fairy called Perseverance came to his christening
feast, and seeing no knife and fork laid for her, doomed him to the
curse of idleness. He had all the talents which enable a man to shine
in society but he had also the money-spending talent, the elegant
tastes and inclinations which require some thousands a year for their
sustenance. Hitherto he had lived by his wits—from hand to mouth; but
for some years past he had been on the look-out for a rich wife.
He knew that Mildred Greswold was three times richer than Pamela
Ramsome. The wealth of the Faussets came within the region of his
knowledge; and he knew how large a fortune John Fausset had left his
daughter, and how entirely that fortune was at her own disposal. He
might have had Pamela for the asking; Pamela, with a paltry fifteen
hundred a year; Pamela, who sang false and bored him beyond measure.
The higher prize seemed impossible; but it was his nature to attempt
the impossible. His belief in his own power was boundless.
“She cannot divorce her husband,” he told himself; “but he may divorce
her if she should wrong him, or even seem to wrong him: and the most
innocent woman may be compromised if her lover is daring and will risk
much for a great _coup_, as I would.”
He thought himself very near success in these lengthening afternoons
in the beginning of February, when he was allowed to spend the lovely
hour of sundown in Mrs. Greswold’s _salon_, watching the sunset from
the wide plate-glass window, which commanded a panorama of lake and
mountain, with every exquisite change from concentrated light to
suffused colour, and then to deepening purple that slowly darkened
into night. It was the hour in which it was deemed dangerous to be out
of doors; but it was the loveliest hour of the day or the night, and
Mildred never wearied of that glorious outlook over lake and sky. She
was silent for the most part at such a time, sitting in the shadow of
the window-curtains, her face hidden from the other two, sitting apart
from the world, thinking of the life that had been and could never be
again.
Sometimes in the midst of her sad thoughts Castellani would strike a
chord on the piano at the other end of the room, and then a tender
strain of melody would steal out of the darkness, and that veiled
tenor voice would sing some of the saddest lines of Heine, the poet
of the broken heart, sadder than Byron, sadder than Musset, sad with
the sadness of one who had never known joy. Those words wedded to
tenderest melody always moved Mildred Greswold to tears. Castellani saw
her tears and thought they were given to him; such tears as yielding
virtue gives to the tempter. He knew the power of his voice, the
fascination of music for those in whom the love of music is a part of
their being. He could not foresee the possibility of failure. He was
already admitted to that kind of intimacy which is the first stage of
success. He was an almost daily visitor; he came upon the two ladies
in their walks and drives, and contrived, unbidden, to make himself
their companion; he chose the books that both were to read, and made
himself useful in getting library parcels sent from Milan or Paris. He
contrived to make himself indispensable, or at least thought himself
so. Pamela’s eagerness filled up all the gaps; she was so full of talk
and vivacity that it was not easy to be sure about the sentiments of
her more silent companion; but César Castellani’s vanity was the key
with which he read Mildred’s character and feelings.
“She is a sphinx,” he told himself; “but I think I can solve her
mystery. The magnetic power of such a love as mine must draw her to me
sooner or later.”
Mr. Castellani had a profound belief in his own magnetism. That word
magnetic had a large place in his particular creed. He talked of
certain fascinating women—generally a little _passée_—as “magnetic.” He
prided himself upon being a magnetic man.
While César Castellani flattered himself that he was on the threshold
of success, Mildred Greswold was deliberating how best to escape from
him and his society for ever. Had she been alone there need have been
no difficulty; but she saw Pamela’s happiness involved in his presence,
she saw the fresh young cheek pale at the thought of separation,
and she was perplexed how to act for the best. Had Pamela been her
daughter she could not have considered her feelings more tenderly. She
told herself that Mr. Castellani would be a very bad match for Miss
Ransome; yet when she saw the girl’s face grow radiant at the sound
of his footsteps, when she watched her dullness in his absence, that
everlasting air of waiting for somebody which marks the girl who is
in love, she found herself hoping that the Italian would make a formal
proposal, and she was inclined to meet him half-way.
But the new year was six weeks old, and he had not even hinted at
matrimonial intentions, so Mildred felt constrained to speak plainly.
“My dearest Pamela, we are drifting into a very uncomfortable position
with Mr. Castellani,” she began gently. “He comes here day after day as
if he were your _fiancé_, and yet he has said nothing definite.”
Pamela grew crimson at this attack, and her hands began to tremble over
her crewel-work, though she tried to go on working.
“I respect him all the more for being in no haste to declare himself,
Aunt Mildred,” she said, rather angrily. “If he were the kind of
adventurer you once thought him, he would have made me an offer ages
ago. Why should he not come to see us? I’m sure he’s very amusing and
very useful. Even you seem interested in him and cheered by him. Why
should he not come? We have no one’s opinion to study in a foreign
hotel.”
“I don’t know about that, dear. People always hear about things; and it
might injure you by and by in society to have your name associated with
Mr. Castellani.”
“I am sure I should be very proud of it,” retorted Pamela; “very proud
to have my name associated with genius.”
“And you really, honestly believe you could be happy as his wife,
Pamela?” asked Mildred gravely.
“I know that I can never be happy with any one else. I don’t consider
myself particularly clever, aunt, but I believe I have the artistic
temperament. Life without art would be a howling wilderness for me.”
“Life means a long time, dear. Think what a difference it must make
whether you lead it with a good or a bad man!”
“All the goodness in the world would not make me happy with a husband
who was not musical; not John Howard, nor John Wesley, nor John Bunyan,
nor any of your model Johns. John Milton _was_,” added Pamela rather
vaguely, “and handsome into the bargain; but I’m afraid he was a little
_dry_.”
“Promise me at least this much, Pamela. First, that you will take no
step without your uncle’s knowledge and advice; and next, that if ever
you marry Mr. Castellani, you will have your fortune strictly settled
upon yourself.”
“O, aunt, how sordid! But perhaps it would be best. If I had the money,
I should give it all to him: but if he had the money, with his artistic
temperament he would be sure to lavish it all upon other people. He
would not be able to pass a picturesque beggar without emptying his
pockets. Do you remember how he was impressed by the four old men on
the church steps the other day?”
“Yes, but I don’t think he gave them anything.”
“Not while we were with him; but you may be sure he did afterwards.”
After this conversation Mrs. Greswold made up her mind on two points.
She would arrange for a prompt departure to Venice or Naples, whichever
might be advised for the spring season; and she would sound Mr.
Castellani as to his intentions. It was not fair to Pamela that she
should be kept in the dark any longer, that the gentleman should be
allowed to sing duets with her, and advise her studies, and join her in
her walks, and yet give no definite expression to his regard.
Mildred tried to think the best of him as a suitor for her husband’s
niece. She knew that he was clever; she knew that he was fairly well
born. On his mother’s side he sprang from the respectable commercial
classes; on his father’s side he belonged to the art-world. There
was nothing debasing in such a lineage. From neither her friend Mrs.
Tomkison nor from Miss Fausset had she heard anything to his discredit;
and both those ladies had known him long. There could therefore be no
objection on the score of character. Pamela ought to make a much better
marriage in the way of means and position; but those excellent and
well-chosen alliances dictated by the wisdom of friends are sometimes
known to result in evil; and, in a word, why should not Pamela be happy
in her own way?
Having thus reasoned with herself, Mildred watched for an opportunity
to speak to Castellani. She had not long to wait. He called rather
earlier than usual one afternoon, when Pamela had gone out for
a mountain ramble with her dog and her maid, to search for those
doubly precious flowers which bloom with the first breath of spring.
Castellani had seen the young lady leave the hotel soon after the
midday meal, armed with her alpenstock, and accompanied by her
attendant carrying a basket. She had fondly hoped that he would offer
to join her expedition, to dig out delicate ferns from sheltered
recesses, to hunt for mountain hyacinths and many-hued anemones; but
he observed her departure _perdu_ behind a window-curtain in the
reading-room, and half-an-hour afterwards he was ushered into Mrs.
Greswold’s drawing-room.
“I feared you were ill,” he said, “as I saw Miss Ransome excursionising
without you.”
“I have a slight headache, and felt more inclined for a book than for
a long walk. Why did you not go with Pamela? I daresay she would have
been glad of your company. Peterson is not a lively companion for a
mountain ramble.”
“Poor Miss Ransome! How sad to be a young English Mees, and to have
to be chaperoned by a person like Peterson!” said Castellani, with a
careless shrug. “No, I had no inclination to join in the anemone hunt.
Miss Ransome told me yesterday what she was going to do. I have no
passion for wild flowers or romantic walks.”
“But you seem to have a great liking for Miss Ransome’s society,”
replied Mildred gravely. “You have cultivated it very assiduously since
you came here, and I think I may be excused for fancying that you came
to Pallanza on her account.”
“You may be excused for thinking anything wild and improbable, because
you are a woman and wilfully blind,” he answered, drawing his chair
a little nearer to hers, and lowering his voice with a touch of
tenderness. “But surely—surely you cannot think that I came to Pallanza
on Miss Ransome’s account?”
“I might not have thought so had you been a less frequent visitor in
this room, where you have come—pardon me for saying so—very much of
your own accord. I don’t think it was quite delicate or honourable to
come here so often, to be so continually in the society of a frank,
impressionable girl, unless you had some deeper feeling for her than
casual admiration.”
“Mrs. Greswold, upon my honour I have never in the whole course of my
acquaintance with Miss Ransome by one word or tone implied any warmer
feeling than that which you call casual admiration.”
“And you are not attached to her? you do not cherish the hope of
winning her for your wife?” asked Mildred seriously, looking at him
with earnest eyes.
That calm, grave look chilled him to the core of his heart. His brow
flushed, his eyes grew dark and troubled. He felt as if the crisis of
his life were approaching, and augury was unfavourable.
“I have never cherished any such hope; I never shall.”
“Then why have you come here so continually?”
“For God’s sake, do not ask me that question! The time has not come.”
“Yes, Mr. Castellani, the time has come. The question should have been
asked sooner. You have compromised Miss Ransome by your meaningless
assiduities. You have compromised me; for I ought to have taken better
care of her than to allow an acquaintance of so ambiguous a character.
But I am very glad that I have spoken, and that you have replied
plainly. From to-day your visits must cease. We shall go to the south
of Italy in a few days. Let me beg that you will not happen to be
travelling in the same direction.”
Mildred was deeply indignant. She had cheapened her husband’s
niece—Randolph Ransome’s co-heiress—a girl whom half the young men in
London would have considered a prize in the matrimonial market: and
this man, who had haunted her at home and abroad for the last seven or
eight weeks, dared now to tell her that his attentions were motiveless
so far as her niece was concerned.
“O, Mildred, do not banish me!” he cried passionately. “You must have
understood. You must know that it is you, and you only, for whom I
care; you whose presence makes life lovely for me, in whose absence
I am lost and wretched. You have wrung my secret from me. I did not
mean to offend. I would have respected your strange widowhood. I would
have waited half a lifetime. Only to see you, to be near you—your
slave, your proud, too happy slave. That was all I would have asked.
Why may that not be? Why may I not come and go, like the summer
wind that breathes round you, like the flowers that look in at your
window—faithful as your dog, patient as old Time? Why may it not be,
Mildred?”
She stood up suddenly before him, white to the lips, and with cold
contempt in those eyes which he had seen so lovely with the light
of affection when they had looked at her husband. She looked at him
unfalteringly, as she might have looked at a worm. Anger had made her
pale, but that was all.
“You must have had a strange experience of women before you would dare
to talk to any honest woman in such a strain as this, Mr. Castellani,”
she said. “I will not lower myself so far as to tell you what I think
of your conduct. Miss Ransome shall know the kind of person whose
society she has endured. I must beg that you will consider yourself as
much a stranger to her as to me from to-day.”
She moved towards the bell, but he intercepted her.
“You are very cruel,” he said; “but the day will come when you will be
sorry that you rejected the most devoted love that was ever offered to
woman, in order to be true to broken bonds.”
“They are not broken. They will hold me to my dying hour.”
“Yes, to a madman and a murderer.”