Nearly a year had gone by.
The strange suicide of an Italian at the Hotel Victoria had been
regarded merely as a tragic incident by readers of newspapers, for no
word of the motive which led Nenci to take his life had been allowed to
leak out.
To the public, the death of Vittorina still remains one of London's many
mysteries.
In the few brief months that had elapsed, peace, calm and complete, had
come to Gemma and to Charles Armytage; for one morning, in the dimly lit
old Church of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, and afterwards at the
Office of the British Consul-General in the Via Tornabuoni, they had
been made man and wife. Then, for nearly six months, they had travelled
in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, subsequently spending the winter
in a furnished villa high up on the olive-clad hill behind Cimiez, where
they were visited by Captain Tristram and Carmenilla, who, too, had
married, and were spending their honeymoon on the Riviera. At last,
when Carnival had come and gone, the season waned, and Nice and Cannes
were emptying, they, too, left and returned to the great old Palazza
Funaro in Florence.
They had dined _tete-a-tete_ one evening, had strolled arm in arm
through these great silent chambers which seemed to speak mutely of the
gorgeous pageantry in the days when the Medici had ruled Florence, and
entered the room furnished in modern style--the same in which he had a
year ago pledged his belief in her.
After the man resplendent in the Funaro livery had brought their coffee,
Gemma seated herself upon the settee beside her husband, and, taking up
her mandolino, commenced to sing that sweet old Tuscan song he loved so
well, which has for its chorus--
"O bello mio adorabile
Svenire in se mi par
Vorrei fuggirti rapida,
Non so come mi far!"
When she had finished, she was silent, as if in hesitation; then, with
her clear eyes fixed upon his, exclaimed, in very good English--
"You have trusted me blindly, completely, Nino. You married me in face
of all the vile libels which spread from mouth to mouth; yet only
to-night am I free to tell you the truth. My story is a strange--a very
strange one. Would you like to hear it?"
"Of course, dearest," he cried eagerly. "You know for months I have
longed to know the truth."
"Then you shall know. I will tell you everything," she answered. "When
I returned here fresh from the convent-school, with unformed girlish
ideas, I fancied that the King had slighted my family, one of the oldest
in Tuscany, and, finding myself possessor of this place and my father's
fortune, became imbued with a deep, implacable hatred of the monarchy.
I lived here with a maiden aunt, took sides with the Republicans, and
was induced to secretly join a league of desperate malefactors who had
in view the establishment of the long-dreamed-of republic in Italy. In
my youthful ignorance, I knew nothing of the means by which they
intended to accomplish their object, for their action seemed confined in
daubing in black paint upon the walls and pavements of the principal
cities such as `Down with the royal robbers! Long live the Republic!'
In every town where elections took place the ominous writing on the wall
appeared, but the authorities were never able to detect its mysterious
authors. With old Lady Marshfield, whose eccentric support of all sorts
of wild schemes is well known, and who lived in Florence at that time, I
joined this secret league at a meeting held in a house on the Passeggio
in Livorno, only a few doors from where I lived when we spent so many
sunny hours together. A month later, however, at a reception one night
at the British Embassy at Rome, I found myself chatting with the Marquis
Montelupo, His Majesty's Minister for Foreign Affairs. Having obtained
my sanction, he next day called upon me; but his attitude had changed,
for he accused me of being one of the ringleaders of this mysterious
gang, and declared that he would order my arrest if I did not consent to
become a spy in the service of the Ministry. He saw, I suppose, that I
was young, attractive, and could possibly obtain knowledge of certain
secrets which would be of use to him. In vain I pleaded, even upon my
knees, but he was obdurate. He intended, he said, to stamp anarchism
out of Italy, and told me that to avoid imprisonment and disgrace I must
furnish complete reports of the intentions and doings of my associates.
At last--well, at last I was forced to consent."
"You became a spy?"
"Yes," she answered hoarsely. "I became a mean, despicable traitor, a
wretched, soul-tortured woman, whose denunciations caused the arrest and
imprisonment of the more dangerous members of the gang, while at the
same time, moving in the diplomatic circle in Rome, I furnished constant
reports to Montelupo of the feeling existing towards Italy. Friendless
and helpless, I became that man's catspaw. He held me for life or
death. He spread reports about me, vile scandals which caused
respectable people to shun me, but increased my popularity among the
faster set in Rome and Florence, to whom I became known as the Contessa
Funaro although I was unmarried. When I protested, he merely laughed in
my face, saying that he had done so for political reasons, because it
had got abroad that I was in the pay of the Ministry, and if I showed
myself to be a gay, heartless woman, instead of a patrician diplomatist,
this rumour might be refuted.
"So, compelled to suffer this indignity in silence, and maintain the
ignominious part he had allotted to me, I went to Livorno under the
assumed name of Fanetti, and attended the constant meetings of the
league which were taking place there. Was it any wonder that I should,
under such circumstances, actually become an Anarchist? Among the
members of this band of secret assassins--an offshoot of the dreaded
Mafia--was a girl named Vittorina Rinaldo, who, having ascertained by
some means that Nenci and Malvano, then in England, had misappropriated
the greater part of the funds of the league, resolved to travel to
London and denounce them. This she did, being accompanied thither by
Captain Tristram, who had been induced to join us by Lady Marshfield,
and, I suppose, with some vague hope that the knowledge thus acquired
might be of service to the British Foreign Office. Vittorina and myself
had taken the oath at the same meeting of the league, and had on that
night received from Nenci, the leader, rings of exactly similar
pattern--`marriage rings,' he laughingly termed them. Well, you are
aware of that scoundrel's devilish ingenuity. It was he who had made
those rings so that by a mere pressure of his hand upon the ring the
poison was injected, and the girl's life taken. You know how cleverly
circumstantial evidence was fastened upon her friend. From recent
inquiries, I have discovered that Vittorina's relations on her mother's
side were English, and had a villa up at Como, and that Major Maitland,
having a couple of years before appropriated a large sum of money
belonging to her, was no doubt an accessory to her death, for he has
never been heard of since the night of the crime. Remember that his
photograph was found among her possessions, and that he was no doubt
with Nenci awaiting her arrival that night at Charing Cross."
"There seems to be little doubt, from the fact that Nenci gave you a
similar ring, that he intended you should share the same fate as
Vittorina," her husband observed, marvelling at her story.
"Certainly he did," she answered. "Time after time I strove to free
myself, from the fetters ever galling me and driving me to desperation,
but Montelupo was always inexorable. He loved Vittorina, I afterwards
discovered, for it was he who had written that mysterious letter signed
`Egisto,' and he was determined to avenge her murderer. Like ourselves
he was utterly unaware of the identity of the assassin. Now, however,
that you have supplied the information wanting, and the culprit has paid
the penalty; now that Malvano, the man who so cleverly acted as secret
agent of the Embassy in London, while the same moment he was plotting
against the State, and his cunning companion, Romanelli, have been
arrested, tried at Rome, and will spend the remainder of their lives in
imprisonment on Elba, my master has given me my freedom. I am free to
love you, Nino."
"But the little marble image?" he said. "Why was that deadly thing so
ingeniously contrived?"
"In order to strike a blow which was intended should paralyse the
monarchy and cause a revolution in Italy," she answered quickly. "In
the blue boudoir in the Quirinal, on a sideboard behind the Queen's
private writing-table, there stands a tiny but exactly similar bust. In
collusion with one of the royal servants, it was proposed to exchange
this image for one invented by Nenci and Malvano, so that when His
Majesty joined the Queen one night after dinner, both would be blown
into eternity."
"Then, by your efforts, and by the imminent risks you ran among that
desperate gang, you averted the terrible catastrophe--you, indeed, saved
Italy."
"I suppose I did," she said. "At that time political feeling ran high,
and such a blow at the monarchy would have undoubtedly given the
Republicans and Anarchists the upper hand. But I do not now regret,"
she added, a look of supreme happiness lighting up her beautiful
countenance--"I do not regret, Nino, because I have secured your true
honest love."
"I believe in your honesty, darling, for I know how terribly you have
suffered," he exclaimed, drawing her closer to him, until her head fell
upon his shoulder. "Those who now seek to besmirch your good name shall
answer to me."
Their hands clasped, their eyes exchanged a love-look long, deep, and
intense. Then her eager lips met his in one fierce passionate kiss.
"The years of my bondage are like some half-remembered hideous
nightmare, Nino," she murmured, still gazing full into his eyes. "But
it is all finished, for you, my husband, true, patient, and forbearing
placed in my hand a weapon against my enemies; you brought back to me a
renewed desire for life and its pleasures; and you gave me deliverance
from the evil that encompassed me. Truly a perfect peace is ours, for
the dark Day of Temptation has waned, and has given place to a bright
and blissful dawn."
The End.