A Man from the Dark
"Desperate, proud, fond, sick, . . . rejected by men."
--WALT WHITMAN.
As we drank our _café double_, tap, tap, came at the door; a message
from the Contessa di Ravello asking if we would not take coffee with
her and her friends in their private sitting-room.
I would have preferred to finish my talk with the Little Pal, which
had reached an entertaining point in the announcement that he seemed
to know me less well since he had heard my name--that names, and past
histories, and circumstances were barriers between lives. But the Boy,
reluctant a short time ago to be drawn into the Contessa's society,
was now apparently willing to give up the tête-à-tête.
We left our coffee, and went to drink the Contessa's, which reached
our lips chilled by the silent enmity of her friends. But, whether
because their example had been a warning, or because he had suffered a
"change, into something new and strange," the Boy was no longer a wet
blanket. He did not show the self which I had learned to know in some
of its phases, but he was shyly conciliatory with the Contessa, the
blue eyes hinting that, if she were persistent, his admiration might
be won. Still, he often answered in monosyllables or briefly, when she
spoke to him, a smile curving his short upper lip. I could not
understand what his manner meant, nor, I am sure, could she; but she
was evidently bent on solving the puzzle.
"Do you play tennis?" she asked him.
"Yes."
"Ah, so do I, and well, too, though I'm not English. Lord Lane will
tell you that. And you dance, I know."
"Yes."
"You love it? I do."
"I used to."
"That sounds as if you were a hundred, instead of--nineteen, is it
not?"
"I'm not quite ninety-nine."
"I should like to dance with you. We are the right size for each other
in the dance, are we not?"
"I'd try not to disappoint you."
"Oh, we must have a dance. You love music, I know. One sees it by your
eyes. Once, when I asked Lord Lane if he sang or played, he said that
he 'had no drawing-room tricks.' Rude of him, _n'est-ce pas_? But you?
Is it that you play?"
"The violin will talk for me, if I coax it."
"Ah, I was sure. We are going to be congenial. But the singing? I see
by your face that you sing, though you won't say so. Here is a piano.
I will accompany you, if you like, and if we know the same things.
Perhaps our voices would be well together."
I was surprised to see the Boy get up and go to the piano. "I will
sing if you like; but I accompany myself, always," he said. "I don't
sing things that many people know."
For a moment he sat at the piano, as if thinking. Then he, who had
never told me that he sang, never even spoken of singing, turned into
a young angel, and gripped my heart with a voice as strangely
haunting as his eyes and his little brown face. Had he been a girl, I
suppose his voice would have been called a deep contralto. As he was a
boy--I do not know how to classify it.
I can say only that, while the mellow music rippled from his parted
lips, it seemed as if the gates of Paradise had fallen ajar. He sang
an old ballad that I had never heard. It was all about "Douglas
Gordon," whose story flowed with the tide of a plaintive accompaniment
which I think he must have arranged himself: for somehow, it was like
him. All the sadness, all the sweetness in this sweet, sad, old world
seemed concentrated in the Boy's angel voice, and listening, I was
Douglas Gordon, and he was putting my life-sorrow into words. He took
my heart and broke it, yet I would not have had him stop. Then,
suddenly, he did stop, and the Contessa was in tears. "Bravo! bravo!"
she cried, diamonds raining over two spasmodic dimples. "Again;
something else."
He sang Christina Rossetti's "Perchance you may remember, perchance
you may forget," and the thrill of it was in the marrow of my bones. I
had scarcely known before what music could do with me, and the voice
of the little Gaetà, following the song, jarred on my ears as she
praised the Boy, and pleaded for more.
"I can't sing again to-night," said he. "I'm sorry, but I can sing
only when I feel in the mood."
"But you will come with Lord Lane, and stay at my villa, which I have
taken at Aix--yes, if only for a few days? The Baron and Baronessa
will be with me, too. You are going that way. Lord Lane has told me.
Will you come?"
"Is he coming?"
"Lord Lane, tell him that you are."
"You are very good, Contessa----"
"There! You hear, it is settled."
"If--Lord Lane makes you a visit, I will also, as you are kind enough
to want me."
Afterwards, when we had bidden the Contessa and her guardian dragons
good-night, and it was arranged that we were to stay over to-morrow,
on account of the lost bag, I said to the Boy on the way upstairs,
"You've made a conquest of the Contessa."
He blushed furiously, looked angry, and then burst out laughing. "Are
you jealous?" he asked.
"I ought to be."
"But are you?"
"I haven't had time to analyse my emotions. Why did you never tell me
you sang?"
"I wasn't ready--till to-night. Now--I sang for you."
"I thought it was for the Contessa."
"Did you? Well"--with sudden crossness--"you may go on thinking so, if
you like. Can she sing?"
"Rather well."
"As--better than I can?"
"You must judge for yourself when you hear her."
"You might tell me. But no! I don't want you to, now. It's spoiled.
Good-night."
"Good-night. Dream of your conquest."
"Probably she's only trying to--to bring you to the point, by being
nice to me. I wonder if you care?"
I would not give the little wretch any satisfaction. I merely
laughed, and an odd blue light flashed in his eyes. He was making up
his mind to something, for the life of me I could not tell what.
The Contessa and her satellites should have gone on to Chamounix next
day, but Gaetà frankly announced her intention of waiting, so that we
might make the journey together. They were driving over the Tête
Noire, and we would go afoot, to be sure; still, said she, we could
keep more or less together, exchanging impressions from time to time,
and lunching at the same place. She made me promise, as a reward to
her for this delay, that the Boy and I would not take the way of the
Col de Balme, by which no carriage could pass. If we did this, our
party and hers must part company early in the day, and she would be
left to the tender mercies of the Baron and Baronessa for many a
_triste_ hour.
"But why should you be imposed upon by them, if they don't amuse you?"
I ventured to ask; for Gaetà was so frank about her affairs that one
was sometimes led inadvertently to take liberties.
"Oh, it was the brother who amused me, and he amuses me still,"
replied she, with a _moue_, and a shrug of her pretty shoulders. "At
least, I don't _think_ I shall be tired of him, when I see him again.
He is a whirlwind; he carries a woman off her feet, before she knows
what is happening, and we like that in a man, we Italians. We adore
temperament. I was nice to the Baron and Baronessa for Paolo's sake.
He had to go away from Milan, which is my real home, you know--(if I
have a home anywhere)--to have a medal for his air-ship, and many
honours and dinners given him in Paris; so, without stopping to think,
I invited the Baron and Baronessa to visit me in Aix. Then they
suggested that we should have a little tour first; and we are having
it--_Dio mio_, so much the worse for me, till I met you! And now they
make me feel like a naughty child."
"Will Paolo come also to the villa?" I asked, smiling.
"He has engagements to last a fortnight still. Perhaps afterwards he
may run out to Aix."
The Boy's face fell when I told him that I had promised the Contessa
to walk along the highroad, over the Tête Noire.
"Innocentina and I----" he began. Then his eyes wandered to Gaetà, who
stood with her friends at the other end of the hail. She was looking
extremely pretty, and chose that instant to throw a quick glance at
me, demanding sympathy for some _ennui_ or other caused by the
Baronessa. "Oh, very well," he finished, "it doesn't matter."
He was in suspense all day about his mysteriously important bag.
Though handbills had been hastily printed and scattered over the
country, there was no certainty as to when we should hear or whether
we should hear at all. Late in the evening, however, as we were
finishing dinner in the _salle-à-manger_, at the same table with Gaetà
and her friends, a message came that a man desired to see the young
monsieur who had advertised for a lost bag.
The Boy excused himself, and jumped up. I should have liked to go with
him, but courtesy to the ladies forbade, and I sat still, feeling
guilty of disloyalty somehow, nevertheless, because of a look he threw
me. It seemed to say, "We were such friends, but a woman has come
between. My affairs are nothing to you now."
I had thought that he would be back in time for coffee, but he did
not appear, and the curiosity of Gaetà, who had been restless since
the Boy's departure, could no longer be kept within bounds. "Do go and
see if he has got that wonderful bag," she said. "He might come to
tell us!"
I obeyed, nothing loth, but only to learn from the concierge that the
young gentleman had gone away with the man who had called.
"Did he leave no message?" I asked.
"No, Monsieur. He talked with the man here in the hall for a few
minutes; then he ran upstairs and soon came down again with a cap and
coat. Immediately after, he and the man went out together."
"What sort of man was he?"
"An Italian, Monsieur; a very rough-looking peasant-fellow of middle
age, poorly dressed in his working clothes. I have never seen him
before."
I did not like this description, nor the news the concierge had given.
It was nine o'clock, and very dark, for it had begun to rain towards
evening, and a monotonous drip, drip mingled with the plash of the
fountain in the garden. Grim fancies came knocking at the door of my
brain. It was a mad thing for a boy, little more than a child, to go
out alone in the night with a stranger, a "rough-looking
peasant-fellow," who pretended to know something of the vanished bag;
to go out, leaving no word of his intentions, nor the direction he
would take. As like as not, the man was a villain who scented rich
prey in a tourist offering a reward of five thousand francs for a lost
piece of luggage.
As I thought of the brave, innocent little comrade walking
unsuspectingly into some trap from which I could have saved him had I
been by his side, a sensation of physical sickness came over me.
"How long is it since they went out?" I asked quickly.
"Ten minutes, at most, Monsieur."
I could have shaken the concierge's hand for this good news, for there
was hope of catching them up. I was in dinner jacket and pumps, but I
did not wait to make a dash upstairs for hat or coat. I borrowed the
blue, gold-handed cap of the concierge, not caring two pence for my
comical appearance, which would have sent Gaetà into peals of silver
laughter, and out into the rain I went, turning up the collar of my
jacket.
I had forgotten the Contessa, and my promise to return immediately
with tidings from the front. All I thought of was, which direction
should I take to find the Boy. Ought I to turn towards the town or
away from it?
Before I reached the garden gate, not many metres from the door, I had
decided to try the town way; and lest I should be doing the wrong
thing and have to rectify my mistake later, I ran as a lamplighter is
popularly supposed to run, but doesn't and never did.
The Boy and his companion would be walking, and, if I were on the
right track, I was almost sure to catch them up sooner or later at
this pace, before they could reach the town and turn off into some
side street.
I had not been galloping along through the fresh, grey mud for three
hundred metres when I saw two figures moving slowly a few paces ahead.
One was small and slender, the other of middle height and strongly
built.
"Boy, is that you?" I shouted.
The slim figure turned, and I mumbled a "Thank goodness!"
"Little wretch!" I exclaimed heartily, as I joined the couple ahead.
"How could you go off alone like this with a stranger, perhaps a
ruffian (he looks it), without leaving any word for me? You deserve to
be shaken."
"You wouldn't say he looked a ruffian, if you could see his face. I'm
sure he's honest. And as for sending word, I didn't care to disturb
you and--your Contessa."
"Hang the--no, of course, I don't mean that. Luckily I was in time to
catch you, and----"
"Did the Contessa send you after me, or did----"
"She doesn't know what's become of you. There was no time for
politenesses. You gave me some bad moments, little brute. Now, tell me
what you're about."
He explained that the peasant (who understood no word of English) was
an Italian who had come to Martigny to find work as a road mender,
that he had been taken ill and lost his job; that he had tramped back
over the St. Bernard to Aosta, near which place he had once lived;
that the work he had heard of there was already given to another; and
that, walking back to rejoin his family near Martigny, he had found
the bag on the Pass. He had brought it home, and had only just learned
the address of the owner, as set forth in the handbills.
"Why didn't he bring the bag to you, and claim the reward?" I asked.
"It is at the house of the priest, and the priest has been away all
day, visiting a relative in the country somewhere, who is ill, so this
man, Andriolo Stefani, couldn't get the bag. But he came to tell me
that it was found, and where it was."
"And he pretends to be guiding you to the house of the priest now?"
"No. I'm going to his house--or rather, the room where he and his wife
and children live."
"For goodness' sake, why?"
"Because he's refused to accept the reward for finding the bag."
"By Jove, he must have some deep game. What reason did he give, and
what excuse did he make, for dragging you off to his lair? It sounds
as if he meant to try and kidnap you for a ransom--(these things do
happen, you know)--and there are probably others in it besides
himself. I don't believe in the priest, nor the wife and children, nor
even in his having found the bag."
"He didn't ask me to go to his house. When I spoke of the reward, he
said that he couldn't take it, and though I questioned him, would not
tell me why, but was evidently distressed and unhappy. Finally he
admitted that it was his wife who would not allow him to accept a
reward. She had made him promise that he wouldn't. Then I said that
I'd like to talk to her, and might I go with him to his house. He
tried to make excuses; he had no house, only one room, not fit for me
to visit; and the place was a long way off, outside Martigny Bourg;
but I insisted, so at last he gave in. Now, do you still think he's
the leader of a band of kidnappers?"
"I don't know what to think. There's evidently something queer. I'll
talk to him."
During our hurried conversation, the man had walked on a few steps in
advance. I called him back, speaking in Italian. He came at once, and
now that we were in the town, where here and there a blur of light
made darkness visible, I could see his face distinctly. I had to
confess to myself at first glance that it was not the face of a
cunning villain,--this worn, weather-beaten countenance, with its
hollowed cheeks, and the sad dark eyes, out of which seemed to look
all the sorrows of the world.
He had found the bag night before last, he said, between the Cantine
de Proz and Bourg St. Pierre. It had been lying in the road, in the
_rücksack_, and he judged by the strap that it had been attached to
the back of a man, or a mule. While I questioned him further, trying
to get some details of description not given in the handbills, he
paused. "There is the priest's house," he said. "There is a light in
the window now. Perhaps he has come back."
"We will stop and ask for the bag," said I, watching the face of the
man. It did not blench, and I began to wonder if, after all, he might
not be honest.
The priest, a delightful, white-haired old fellow, himself of the
peasant class, had returned, and from a locked cupboard in his bare
little dining-room study produced the much talked of bag, in its
_rücksack_.
The Boy sprang at it eagerly. So secure had he believed it to be on
the grey donkey's back, that he had not been in the habit of taking
out the key. It was still in the lock, and, the bag standing on the
priest's dinner table, the Boy opened it with visible excitement. Then
he dived down into the contents, without bringing them into sight, and
a bright colour flamed in his cheeks. "Everything is safe," he said,
with a long sigh of relief. "I'm thankful."
He turned to the priest, speaking in French--and his French was very
good. "I have offered a large reward to the finder of this bag. But
the man will not have it. Can you tell me why, _mon père_?"
"I cannot tell you, Monsieur. Doubtless he has a reason which seems to
him good," answered the priest, who evidently knew that reason, but
was pledged not to tell. "He and his family have not been in my parish
long, but I believe them to be worthy people. I have been trying to
get work for Andriolo, since he has been well again, and able to
undertake it, but so far I have not been fortunate."
The Boy took a handful of gold from his pocket. "For the poor of your
parish, _mon père_, if you will be good enough to accept it for them,"
said he, with great charm and simplicity of manner. The old priest
flushed with pleasure, saying that he had many poor, and was
constantly distressed because he could do so little. This would be a
Godsend. I glanced at the Italian, and saw that his weary, dark eyes
were fixed with a passionate wistfulness upon the gold. This look, his
whole appearance, bespoke poverty, yet he had deliberately refused
five thousand francs, a fortune to most men of his condition. Now that
he was vouched for by the priest, extreme curiosity took the place of
suspicion in my mind.
I hid the blue cap of the concierge behind my back, in the priest's
house, but the Boy saw it, and saw that I was drenched with rain. I
must have been a figure for laughter, but he did not laugh. "You see,
I was in a hurry," I excused myself, under a long, comprehending gaze
of his. "It's your fault if I look an ass."
"You didn't stop even to go and get a hat," he said. "You came out in
the rain just as you were, and you ran--I heard you running, behind
me. But--but of course it's because you're kind-hearted. You would
have done just the same for anybody. For--the Contessa----"
"Not for the Baronessa, anyhow," said I. "I should have stopped for a
mackintosh and even goloshes, had her safety been hanging in the
balance."
Then we both laughed, and Stefani, who by this time was showing us
the way through the rain to his own home, looked over his shoulder,
surprised and self-conscious, as if he feared that we were laughing at
him.
On the outskirts of straggling Martigny Bourg, he stopped before a
gloomy, grey stone house with four rows of closed wooden shutters,
which meant four floors of packed humanity. Even Martigny has its
tenements for poor workers, or those who would be workers if they
could, and this was one of them.
We followed Andriolo Stefani up four flights of narrow stone stairs,
picking our way by testing each step with a cautious foot, since light
there was none. Arrived at the top floor, we groped along a passage to
the back of the house, and our guide opened a door. There was a yellow
haze, which meant one candle-flame fighting for its life in the dark,
and we waited outside, while the Italian spoke for a moment to someone
we could not see. There came a note of protest in a woman's voice, but
the man's beat it down with some argument, and then Stefani returned
to ask us in.
Two women sat in a room almost bare of furniture, and both tried to
rise on our entrance; but one, who was young as years go, had her lap
full of little worn shoes, and the other, who looked older than the
allotted span, was nursing a wailing baby, half undressed.
I found myself strangely embarrassed with the coarse guilt of
intrusion. I was suddenly oppressed with self-conscious awkwardness,
wishing myself anywhere else, and not knowing what to do or say. In
all probability I looked haughty and disagreeable, though I felt
humble as a worm. How the Boy felt I have no means of knowing; I can
only tell how he acted. One would have thought that he had known these
poor people all his life. I lingered near the door, taking notes of
the sad picture; the two rough wooden boxes, in which slept three
little dark children, all apparently of exactly the same size; the
mattress on the floor near by for the parents; the open door leading
into a dark garret, where, no doubt, the grandmother crept to sleep;
the shelves on the wall, bare save for a few dishes of peasant-made
pottery; the pile of dried mud on the tiled floor, which the young
mother had been carefully scraping with a knife from the little worn
boots in her lap; the rickety, uncovered table, with a bunch of
endives on a plate, and a candle guttering in a bottle. This was the
picture, redeemed from squalor only by the lithograph of the Virgin on
the wall, draped with fresh wild flowers, and its perfect cleanliness;
this was the home of the supposed "kidnapper," the man who had refused
to accept five thousand francs as a reward.
While I stood, stiff and uncomfortable, the Boy went forward quickly,
begging the two women not to rise. "Poor, dear little baby!" he said
in Italian, looking down at the dark scrap of humanity in the
grandmother's arms. "She is ill, isn't she?"
Now, how did he know that the creature was a "she"? If it were a
guess, it was a lucky one, for both women replied together that the
little girl had been ailing since yesterday. They could not tell what
was the matter. They had hoped that she would be better to-day, but
instead, she seemed worse; and with this, a glittering film which had
been overspreading the mother's eyes, suddenly dissolved into silently
falling rain. There were no sobs, no gaspings from this tired woman,
too used to sorrow to rail against it, yet it was plain to see that
her heart was breaking. Still, life must go on: and so, while she
grieved for a little one she feared to lose, she cleaned the boots of
those she hoped to keep.
"Have you called a doctor for her?" asked the Boy.
"The good priest is half a doctor. He came to see the _bambina_."
"What did he say?"
"Oh, Signor, we cannot give her all the things he said she should
have, nor can he help us to them, for he has much to do for others,
and little to do it with."
"Yet you would not let your husband take the reward I offered for
finding my bag. He is out of work, and you are poor; you have four
children to feed, and one of them is ill. Why will you not have the
money? I have come to ask you that. You see, I _want_ you to have it,
for the bag is worth all I've offered and even more to me."
"Ah, Signor, how can I tell you? It was to save my baby I refused."
"Please tell. You need not mind saying anything to me--or to my
friend. We are interested and want to help you."
Now the young woman's tears were falling fast, but silently still, as
if she knew that her heart-break was unimportant in the great scheme
of things, and she wished to make no noise about it. Her lips moved,
but no words came.
"She will not speak against me," Stefani said suddenly, "nor will my
poor mother. But I will tell you the story. I meant to steal your bag,
and sell the gold things and all the valuables that were in it. It was
a great temptation, for we had scarce a penny left, and there was no
work anywhere. I was tired, tired all through to my heart, Signor,
that night on the Pass, and then I found the bag. I brought it home,
and charged Emilia and my mother to say nothing to anyone outside. The
children were at school, so they did not see, or they might have
lisped out something, and set people talking. The two women begged me
to give up the bag, and try for a reward in case one should be
offered, but I was desperate. I said that the gold was worth more than
anything that would be offered--the gold, and some jewelry in a little
box. I knew a man who would buy of me, and I had gone out to find him
yesterday, when, as if Heaven had sent a curse upon us for my sin, the
_bambina_ was struck down with this illness--a terrible aching of her
little head, and a fever. When I came home to take away the things out
of the bag, my wife begged me on her knees, for the child's sake, to
change my mind; and at last I did, for who can hold out against the
prayers of those he loves?
"Quickly, lest I should repent, I carried the bag to our priest, and
told him all. He thought as a penance for the sin which had been in my
heart, I should take no reward if it were offered, though he did not
lay this upon me as a command. Emilia was with him, for, said she, Our
Lady will save the baby if we make this great sacrifice. Now you know
all the truth."
"And I know that you are good people--better than I would have been in
your places--better than anyone I know. There's no credit in keeping
straight if one's not tempted to go wrong, is there? I won't offend
you by begging that you'll take the reward. I offer you no reward, but
I am going to give your children a present, and you are to use it for
the comfort of your family. I have enough with me, because, you see, I
had to get something ready to-day, in case the reward had to be paid.
Now, it isn't needed for that, so I can use it in this other way. And
you have done all that is right, and you would hurt me very much if
you refused to let me do what I wish. It is always wrong to hurt
people, you know. And you must send me word early to-morrow morning
before I go, whether the baby is better. I feel sure, somehow, that
she will be."
Then a roll of notes was thrust into one of the little boots, still
caked with mud, which the mother kept mechanically in her hand. There
was a pat on the shoulder, too, and an instant later the Boy's arm was
hooked into mine; I was whisked away with him in as rapid a flight as
if he had been a thief, and not a benefactor.
"How much did you give them, young Santa Claus?" I asked, when he had
me out in the rain again.
"About one thousand three hundred dollars. I can't stop to calculate
it for you in pounds or francs. I'm too excited. Oh, how wet you are,
poor Man! And all for me! But wasn't it splendid! And I just know that
baby'll be better to-morrow. You see if she isn't."
She was. The news was brought to us early in the morning by a poor man
half out of his wits with joy and gratitude.
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