BOOK I

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The Devourers

By

A. Vivanti Chartres

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1910

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY

A. VIVANTI CHARTRES.

TO MY WONDERCHILD

VIVIEN

TO READ WHEN SHE HAS WONDERCHILDREN OF HER OWN

PREFACE

There was a man, and he had a canary. He said, "What a dear little

canary! I wish it were an eagle." God said to him: "If you give your

heart to it to feed on, it will become an eagle." So the man gave his

heart to it to feed on. And it became an eagle, and plucked his eyes

out.

There was a woman, and she had a kitten. She said: "What a dear little

kitten! I wish it were a tiger." God said to her: "If you give your

life's blood to it to drink, it will become a tiger." So the woman gave

her life's blood to it to drink. And it became a tiger, and tore her to

pieces.

There was a man and a woman, and they had a child. They said: "What a

dear little child! We wish it were a genius."...

BOOK I

I

The baby opened its eyes and said: "I am hungry."

Nothing moved in the silent, shadowy room, and the baby repeated its

brief inarticulate cry. There were hurrying footsteps; light arms raised

it, and a laughing voice soothed it with senseless, sweet-sounding

words. Then its cheek was laid on a cool young breast, and all was tepid

tenderness and mild delight. Soon, on the wave of a light-swinging

breath, it drooped into sleep again.

* * * * *

Edith Avory had hurried home across the meadow from the children's party

at the vicarage, her pendant plaits flying, her straw hat aslant, and

now she entered the dining-room of the Grey House fluttered and

breathless.

"Have they come?" she asked of Florence, who was laying the cloth for

tea.

"Yes, dear," answered the maid.

"Where are they? Where is the baby?" and, without waiting for an answer,

the child ran out of the room and helter-skeltered upstairs.

In front of the nursery she stopped. It was her own room, but through

the closed door she had heard a weak, shrill cry that plucked at her

heart. Slowly she opened the door, then paused on the threshold,

startled and disappointed.

Near the window, gazing out across the verdant Hertfordshire fields, sat

a large, square-faced woman in pink print, and on her lap, face

downward, wrapped in flannel, lay a baby. The nurse was slapping it on

the back with quick, regular pats. Edith saw the soles of two little red

feet, and at the other end a small, oblong head, covered with soft black

hair.

"Oh dear!" said Edith. "Is _that_ the baby?"

"Please shut the door, miss," said the nurse.

"I thought babies had yellow hair, with long muslin dresses and blue

bows," faltered Edith.

The square-faced nurse did not answer, but continued pat--pat--pat with

her large hand on the small round back.

Edith stepped a little nearer. "Why do you do that?" she asked.

The woman looked the little girl up and down before she answered. Then

she said, "Wind," and went on patting.

Edith wondered what that meant. Did it refer to the weather? or was it,

perhaps, a slangy servant's way of saying, "Leave me alone" or "Hold

your tongue"?

"Has the baby's mother come too?" she asked.

"Yes," said the nurse; "and when you go out, will you please shut the

door behind you?"

Edith did so.

She heard voices in her mother's room, and looked in. Sitting near her

mother on the sofa was a girl dressed in black, with black hair, like

the baby's. She was crying bitterly into a small black-edged

handkerchief.

"Oh, Edith dear," said her mother, "that's right! Come here. This is

your sister Valeria. Kiss her, and tell her not to cry."

"But where is the baby's mother?" said Edith, glad to gain time before

kissing the wet, unknown face.

The girl in mourning lifted her eyes, dark and swimming, from the

handkerchief. "It is me," she said, with a swift, shining smile, and one

of her tears rolled into a dimple and stopped there. "What a dear little

girl for my baby to play with!" she added, and kissed Edith on both

cheeks.

"That size baby cannot play," said Edith, drying her face with the back

of her hand. "And the woman was hitting it!"

"Hitting it!" cried the girl in black, jumping up.

"Hitting it!" cried Edith's mother.

And they both hurried out.

Edith, left alone, looked round the familiar room. On her mother's bed

lay a little flannel blanket like the one the baby was wearing, and a

baby's cap, and some knitted socks, and a rubber rattle. On a chair was

a black jacket and a hat trimmed with crape and dull black cherries.

Edith squeezed one of the cherries, which broke stickily. Then she went

to the looking-glass and tried the hat on. Her long small face looked

back at her gravely under the caliginous head-dress, as she shook her

head from side to side, to make it totter and tilt. "When I am a widow I

shall wear a thing like this," she said to herself, and then dropped it

from her head upon the chair. She quickly squeezed another cherry, and

went out to look at the baby.

It was in the nursery in its grandmother's arms, being danced up and

down; its fist was in its mouth, and its large eyes stared at nothing.

Its mother, the girl in black, was on her knees before it, clapping her

hands and saying: "Cara! Cara! Cara! Bella! Bella! Bella!" Wilson, the

nurse, with her back to them, was emptying Edith's chest of drawers, and

putting all Edith's things neatly folded upon the table, ready to be

taken to a little room upstairs that was henceforth to be hers. For the

baby needed Edith's room.

The little girl soon tired of looking, and went down to the garden.

Passing the verandah, she could hear the gardener laughing and talking

with Florence. He was saying:

"Now, of course, Miss Edith's nose is quite put out of joint."

Florence said: "I'm afraid so, poor lamb!"

Edith ran to the shrubbery, and put her hand to her nose. It did not

hurt her; it felt much the same as usual. Still, she was anxious and

vaguely disturbed. "I must tell the Brown boy," she said, and went to

the kitchen-garden to look for him.

There he was, on his knees, patting mould round the strawberry-plants; a

good deal of earth was on his face and in his rusty hair.

"Good-evening," said Edith, stopping near him, with her hands behind

her.

"Hullo!" said the gardener's boy, looking up.

"They've come," said Edith.

"Have they?" and Jim Brown sat back on his heels and cleaned his fingers

on his trousers.

"The baby is black," said Edith.

"Sakes alive!" said Jim, opening large light eyes that seemed to have

dropped into his face by mistake.

"It has got black hair," continued Edith, "and a red face."

"Oh, Miss Edith, you are a goose!" said the Brown boy. "That's all

right. I thought you meant it was all black, because of its mother being

a foreigner."

Edith shook her head. "It's not all right. Babies should have golden

hair."

"What is the mother like?" asked Jim.

"She's black, too; and the nurse is horrid. And what is the matter with

my nose?"

"Eh?" said Jim Brown.

"Yes. Look at my nose. What's wrong with it?"

The Brown boy looked at it. Then he looked closer. Little by little an

expression of horror came over his face. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Oh my!

Just think of it!"

"What? What is it?" cried Edith. "It was all right just now." And as the

boy kept staring at her nose with growing amazement, she screamed: "Tell

me what it is! Tell me, or I'll hit you!"

Then the Brown boy got up and danced round her in a frenzy of horror at

what was the matter with her nose; so she took a small stone and threw

it at him. Whereupon he went back to his strawberry-plants, and declined

to speak to her any more.

When he saw her walking forlornly away with her hand to her nose, and

her two plaits dangling despondently behind, he felt sorry, and called

her back.

"I was only larking, Miss Edith. Your nose is all right." So she was

comforted, and sat down on the grass to talk to him.

"Valeria speaks Italian to the baby, and they have come to stay always,"

she said. "The baby is going to have my room, and I am going to be

upstairs near Florence. We are all going to dress in black, because of

my brother Tom having died. And mamma has been crying about it for the

last four days. And that baby is my niece."

"Your brother, Master Tom, was the favourite with them all, wasn't he?"

said Jim.

"Oh, yes," said Edith. "There were so many of us that, of course, the

middle ones were liked best."

"I don't quite see that," said Jim.

"Oh, well," explained Edith, "I suppose they were tired of the old ones,

and did not want the new ones, so that's why. Anyhow," she added, "it

doesn't matter. They're all dead now."

Then she helped him with the strawberry-plants until it was time for

tea.

Her grandfather came to call her in--a tall, stately figure, shuffling

slowly down the gravel path. Edith ran to meet him, and put her warm

fingers into his cool, shrivelled hand. Together they walked towards the

house.

"Have you seen them, grandpapa?" she asked, curvetting round him, as he

proceeded at gentle pace across the lawn.

"Seen whom, my dear?" asked the old gentleman.

"Valeria and the baby."

"What baby?" said the grandfather, stopping to rest and listen.

"Why, Tom's baby, grandpapa," said Edith. "You know--the baby of Tom who

is dead. It has come to stay here with its mother and nurse. Her name is

Wilson."

"Dear me!" said the grandfather, and walked on a few steps.

Then he paused again. "So Tom is dead."

"Oh, you knew that long ago. I told you so."

"So you did," said the old gentleman. He took off his skullcap, and

passed his hand over his soft white hair. "Which Tom is that--my son Tom

or his son Tom?"

"Both Toms," said Edith. "They're both dead. One died four days ago, and

the other died six years ago, and you oughtn't to mix them up like that.

One was my papa and your son, and the other was his son and the baby's

papa. Now don't forget that again."

"No, my dear," said the grandfather. Then, after a while: "And you say

his name is Wilson?"

"Whose name?" exclaimed Edith.

"Why, my dear, how should I know?" said the grandfather.

Then Edith laughed, and the old gentleman laughed with her.

"Never mind," said Edith. "Come in and see the baby--your son Tom's

son's baby."

"Your son's Tom's sons," murmured the grandfather, stopping again to

think. "Tom's sons your son's Tom's sons ... Where do I put in the

baby?"

Edith awoke in the middle of the night, listening and alert. "What is

that?" she said, sitting up in bed.

Florence's voice came from the adjoining room: "Go to sleep, my lamb.

It's only the baby."

"Why does it scream like that?"

"It must have got turned round like," explained Florence sleepily.

"Then why don't they turn it straight again?" asked Edith.

"Oh, Miss Edith," replied Florence impatiently, "do go to sleep. When a

baby gets 'turned round,' it means that it sleeps all day and screams

all night."

And so it did.

II

A gentle blue February was slipping out when March tore in with

screaming winds and rushing rains. He pushed the diffident greenness

back, and went whistling rudely across the lands. The chilly drenched

season stood still. One morning Spring peeped round the corner and

dropped a crocus or two and a primrose or two. She whisked off again,

with the wind after her, but looked in later between two showers. And

suddenly, one day, there she was, enthroned and garlanded.

Frost-spangles melted at her feet, and the larks rose.

Valeria borrowed Edith's garden-hat, tied it under her chin with a black

ribbon, and went out into the young sunshine across the fields. Around

her was the gloss of recent green, pushing upwards to the immature blue

of the sky. And Tom, her husband, was dead.

Tom lay in the dark, away from it all, under it all, in the distant

little cemetery of Nervi, where the sea that he loved shone and danced

within a stone's-throw of his folded hands.

Tom's folded hands! That was all she could see of him when she closed

her eyes and tried to recall him. She could not remember his face. Try

as she would, shutting her eyes with concentrated will, the well-known

features wavered and slipped away; and nothing remained before her but

those dull white hands as she had seen them last--terrible,

unapproachable hands!

Were those the hands Tom was so particular about and rather vain of--the

hands she had patted and laid her cheek against? Were those

hands--fixed, cessated, all-relinquishing--the hands that had painted

the Italian landscapes she loved, and the other pictures she hated,

because in them all stood Carlotta of Trastevere, rippling-haired, bare,

and deliberate? Were those the hands that had rowed her and Uncle

Giacomo in the little boat _Luisa_ on the Lake Maggiore?--the hands that

had grasped hers suddenly at the Madonna del Monte the day she had put

on her light blue dress, with the sailor collar and scarlet tie? She

seemed to hear him say, with his droll English accent: "Volete essere

sposina mia?" And she had laughed and answered him in the only two

English words she knew, and which he himself had taught her across the

table d'hote: "Please! Thank you!" Then they had both laughed, until Zio

Giacomo had said that the Madonna would punish them.

The Madonna had punished them. She had struck him down in his

twenty-sixth year, a few months after they were married, shattering his

youth like a bubble of glass. Valeria had heard him, day after day,

night after night, coughing his life away in little hard coughs and

clearings of his throat; then in racking paroxysms that left him

breathless and spent; then in a loose, easy cough that he scarcely

noticed. They had gone from Florence, where it was too windy, to Nervi,

where it was too hot; from Nice, where it was too noisy, to Airolo,

where it was too dull; then, with a rush of hope, with hurried packing

of coats and shawls, of paintbrushes and colours, of skates and

snowshoes, they had journeyed up to Davos. And there the sun shone, and

the baby was born; and Tom Avory went skating and bob-sleighing, and

gained six pounds in eight weeks.

Then one day an American woman, whose son was dying, said to Valeria:

"It is bad for your baby to stay up here. Send her away, or when she is

fifteen she will start coughing too."

"Send her away!" Yes, the baby must be sent away. The deadly swarm of

germs from all the stricken lungs seemed to Valeria to envelope her and

her child like a cloud--the cloud of death. She could feel it, see it,

taste it. The smell of it was on her pillow at night; the sheets and

blankets exhaled it; her food was impregnated with it. She herself was

full-grown, and strong and sound; but her baby--her fragile, rose-bud

baby--was Tom's child, too! All Tom's brothers and sisters, except one

little girl called Edith, who was in England, had died in their

adolescence--one in Bournemouth; one in Torquay; one in Cannes; one,

Tom's favourite sister, Sally, in Nervi--all fleeing from the death they

carried within them. Now Davos had saved Tom. But the baby must be sent

away.

They consulted three doctors. One said there was no hurry; another said

there was no danger; the third said there was no knowing.

Valeria and Tom determined that they would not take risks. One snowy day

they travelled down to Landquart. There Tom was to leave them and return

to Davos. But the baby was crying, and Valeria was crying; so Tom jumped

into the train after them, and said he would see them as far as Zuerich,

where Uncle Giacomo would be waiting to take them to Italy.

"Then you will be all right, helpless ones," he said, putting his arm

round them both, as the little train carried them down towards the

mists. And he gave his baby-girl a finger to clutch.

But Tom never reached Zuerich. What reached Zuerich was stern and awful,

with limp, falling limbs and blood-stained mouth. The baby cried, and

Valeria cried, and crowds and officials gathered round them. But Tom

could help his helpless ones no more.

His will was found in his breast-pocket. "Sposina mia, with all my

worldly goods I thee endow. Take our baby to England. Bury me in Nervi,

near Sally. I have been very happy.--TOM."

These things Valeria Avory remembered as she walked in the soft English

sunshine, crying under Edith's garden-hat. When she reached a little

bridge across an angry stream, she leaned over the parapet to look at

the water, and the borrowed hat fell off and floated away.

Valeria ran down the bank after it, but it was in midstream, resting

lightly against a protruding stone. She threw sticks and pebbles at it,

and it moved off and sailed on, with one black ribbon, like a thin arm,

stretched behind it. Valeria ran along the sloping bank, sliding on

slippery grass and wet stones; and the hat quivered and curtseyed away

buoyantly on the miniature waves. When the stream elbowed off towards

the wood, the hat bobbed along with it, and so did Valeria. As she and

the stream and the hat turned the corner, she heard an exclamation of

surprise, and, raising her flushed face, she saw a young man, in grey

tweeds, fishing on the other side of the water.

The young man said: "Hang it all! Good-bye, trout!" And Valeria said:

"Can you catch my hat?"

He caught it with great difficulty, holding it with the thick end of his

rod, and flattering it towards him with patient man[oe]uvres.

"My trout!" he murmured. "I had been after that fat fellow for three

days." Then he dragged the large splashing hat out of the water and held

it up. "Here's your hat." It had never been a beautiful hat; it was a

dreary-looking thing that Edith had had much wear out of. It had not the

appearance of a hat worth fishing three days for.

"Oh, thank you so much! How shall I reach it?" said Valeria, extending a

small muddy hand from her side of the stream.

"I suppose I must bring it across," said the young man, still holding

the dripping adornment at arm's length.

"Oh no!" said Valeria. "Throw it."

The young man laughed, and said: "Don't try to catch! It will give you a

cold." He flung the hat across, and it fell flat and sodden at Valeria's

feet.

"Oh dear!" she said, picking it up, with puckered brows, while the black

tulle ruffles fell from it, soft and soaking. "What shall I do with it

now? I can't put it on. And I don't think I can carry it, walking along

these slippery banks."

"Well, throw it back again," said the young man, "and I'll carry it for

you."

So she threw the heavy melancholy thing at him, and they walked along,

with the water between them, smiling at each other. On the bridge they

met, and shook hands.

"I am sorry about your fishes," she said.

"My fishes?" He laughed. "Oh, never mind them. I am sorry about your

hat." Then, noting the damp ringlets on her forehead and the dimple in

her cheek, he added: "What will you put on when you come to-morrow?"

"To-morrow?" she asked, raising simple eyes.

"Yes; will you?" he said, blushing a little, for he was very young. "At

this time"--he looked at his watch--"about eleven o'clock?"

Valeria blushed, too--a sudden crimson flush that left her face white

and waxen. "Is it eleven o'clock?" she exclaimed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes; what is the matter?"

"The baby!" gasped Valeria. "I had forgotten the baby!" And she turned

and ran down the bridge and across the fields, her black gown flying,

the wet hat flapping at her side.

She reached home breathless. The nurse was on the verandah, waiting. "Am

I late, Wilson?" she panted.

"Yes, madam," said the nurse, with tight and acid lips.

"How is baby?" gasped Valeria.

"The baby," said the woman, gazing at her, sphinx-like and severe, "is

hungry."

III

The young man went to fish in the little stream every day, but he only

caught his fat trout. The dimpled girl in mourning did not come again.

His holiday was ended, and he returned to his rooms in London, but he

left a love-letter for Valeria on the bank, pinned to the crumpled black

ruffle that had fallen off her hat, and with a stone on it to keep it

down.

Valeria found the love-letter. She had stayed indoors a week, repenting.

Then Spring and her youth joined hands, and drew her out of doors and

across the fields again. She went, blushing and faltering, with a bunch

of violets pinned at her belt. No one saw her but a tail-flicking,

windy-haired pony in a meadow, who frisked suddenly after her and made

her shiver.

Close to the stream her eye caught the tattered black ruffle and the

note pinned to it. The young man wrote that his name was Frederick

Allen; that he was reading for the Bar and writing for newspapers. He

said that she had haunting eyes, and that they would probably never meet

again. He wondered whether she had found the baby, and where she had

forgotten it, and what baby it was. And she _might_ have turned round

just once to wave him farewell! He hoped she would not be displeased if

he said that he loved her, and would never forget her. Would she tell

him her name? Only her name! Please, please! He was hers in utter

devotion, FREDERICK.

Valeria went back in a dream and looked up the word "haunting" in her

English-Italian Dictionary. She did not remember his eyes: they were

blue, she thought, or perhaps brown. But his face was clear and

sunburnt, and his smooth-parted hair was bright when he took off his hat

on the bridge.

She thought she would simply return his letter. Then she decided that

she would add a few words of rebuke. Finally one rainy day, when

everybody had seemed cross, and Edith had answered rudely, and the baby

had screamed for Wilson who was not there, Valeria, with qualms and

twinges, took a sheet of paper and wrote her name on it. The paper had a

black border. Valeria suddenly fell on her knees and kissed the black

border, and prayed that Tom might forgive her. Then she burned it, and

went to her baby, who was quarrelling with everything and trying to kill

an India-rubber sheep.

Yet one day in April--an April swooning with soft suggestions, urging

its own evanescence and the fleeting sweetness of life--Mr. Frederick

Allen, in his London lodgings, received two letters instead of one.

Hannah, the pert maid who brought them to his room, lingered while he

opened them. In the first was a cheque for six guineas from a

periodical; in the other was a visiting-card:

VALERIA NINA AVORY.

"Who the dickens...?" he said, turning the card over. "Here!" and he

threw it across to Hannah. "Here's a French modiste, or something, if

you want falals!"

Then, as he had received six guineas when he had only expected four, he

shut up his law-book, pinched Hannah's cheek _en passant_, and went out

for a day up the river with the man next door.

The card was thrown into the coal-box, and the kitchen-maid burnt it.

And that is all.

* * * * *

April brought the baby a tooth.

May brought it another tooth, and gave a wave to its hair. June took

away its bibs, and gave it a smile with a dimple copied from Valeria's.

July brought it short lace frocks and a word or two. August stood it

upright and exultant, with its back to the wall; and September sent it

tottering and trilling into its mother's arms.

Its name was Giovanna Desiderata Felicita.

"I cannot remember that," said the grandfather. "Call him Tom."

"But, grandpapa, it is a girl," said Edith.

"I know, my dear. You have told me so before," said the old gentleman

testily. He had become very irritable since there had been so much noise

in the house.

"Well, what girl's name can you remember?" asked Mrs. Avory, patting her

old father's hand, and frowning at her daughter, Edith.

"None--none at all," said the old man.

"Come now, come now, dear!" said Mrs. Avory. "Can you remember Annie, or

Mary?"

"No, I cannot," said her father.

Then Edith suggested "Jane," and Valeria "Camilla." And Florence, who

was laying the cloth, said: "Try him with 'Nellie' or 'Katy.'" But the

old gentleman peevishly refused to remember any of those names.

And for months he called the baby Tom.

* * * * *

One day at dinner he said: "Where is Nancy?"

Mrs. Avory and Edith glanced at each other, and Valeria looked up in

surprise.

"Where is Nancy?" repeated the grandfather impatiently.

Mrs. Avory coughed. Then she laid her hand gently on his sleeve. "Nancy

is in heaven," she said softly.

_"What!"_ cried the old gentleman, throwing down his table-napkin and

glaring round the table.

"Your dear little daughter Nancy died many, many years ago," said Mrs.

Avory.

The old gentleman rose. "It is not true!" he said with shaking voice.

"She was here this morning. I saw her." Then his lips trembled, and he

began to cry.

Valeria suddenly started up and ran from the room. In a moment she was

back again, with her baby in its pink nightdress, kicking and crowing in

her arms.

"Here's Nancy!" she said, with a little break in her voice.

"Why, of course!" cried Edith, clapping her hands. "Don't cry,

grandpapa. Here's Nancy."

"Yes," said Mrs. Avory. "See, father dear, here's Nancy!"

The old man looked up, and his dim blue eyes met and held the sparkling

eyes of the child. Long and deeply he looked into the limpid depths that

returned his unwavering gaze.

"Yes, here's Nancy," said the old man.

So the baby was Nancy ever after.

IV

When Nancy had three candles round her birthday-cake, and was pulling

crackers with her eyes shut, and her mother's hands pressed tightly over

her ears, Edith put her elbows on the table, and said:

"What is Nancy going to be?"

"Good," answered Nancy quickly--"veddy good. Another cwacker."

So she got another cracker, and Edith repeated her question.

Mrs. Avory said: "What do you mean?"

"Well," said Edith, whose two plaits had melted into one, with a large

black bow fastened irrelevantly to the wrong end of it, "you don't want

her to be just a girl, do you?"

Valeria blushed, and said: "I have often thought I should like her to be

a genius."

Edith nodded approval, and Mrs. Avory looked dubiously at the little

figure, now discreetly dragging the tablecloth down in an attempt to

reach the crackers. Nancy noted the soft look, and sidled round to her

grandmother.

"Hold my ears," she said, "and give me a cwacker."

Mrs. Avory patted the small head, and smoothed out the blue ribbon that

tied up the tuft of black curls.

"Why do you want me to hold your ears?"

"Because I am afwaid of the cwackers."

"Then why do you want the crackers?"

"Because I like them."

"But why do you like them?"

"Because I am afwaid of them!" and Nancy smiled bewitchingly.

Everybody found this an astonishingly profound reply, and the question

of Nancy's genius recurred constantly in the conversation.

Edith said: "Of course, it will be painting. Her father, poor dear Tom,

was such a wonderful landscape-painter. And I believe he did some

splendid figures, too."

Mrs. Avory concurred; but Valeria shook her head and changed colour.

"Oh, I hope not!" she said, instant tears gathering in her eyes.

Mrs. Avory looked hurt. "Why not, Valeria?" she said.

"Oh, the smell," sobbed Valeria; "and the models ... and I could not

bear it. Oh, my Tom--my dear Tom!" And she sobbed convulsively, with her

head on Mrs. Avory's shoulder, and with Edith's arm round her.

Nancy screamed loud, and had to be taken away to the nursery, where

Fraeulein Mueller, the German successor of Wilson, shook her.

"Could it not be music?" said Valeria, after a while, drying her eyes

dejectedly. "My mother was a great musician; she played the harp, and

composed lovely songs. When she died, and I went to live in Milan with

Uncle Giacomo, I used to play all Chopin's mazurkas and impromptus to

him, although he said he hated music if anyone else played.... And,

then, when I married ..."--Valeria's sobs burst forth again--"dear

Tom ... said ..."

Edith intervened quickly. "I certainly think it ought to be music;" and

she kissed Valeria's hot face. "The kiddy sings 'Onward, Christian

Soldiers,' and 'Schlaf, Kindchen' in perfect tune. Fraeulein was telling

me so, and said how remarkable it was."

So Nancy was sent for again, and was brought in by Fraeulein, who had a

scratch on her cheek.

Nancy was told to sing, "Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf, da draussen steht ein

Schaf," and she did so with very bad grace and not much voice. But loud

and servile applause from everyone, including Fraeulein, gratified her,

and she volunteered her entire repertoire, comprising "There'll be

razors a-flyin' in the air," which she had learned incidentally from the

attractive and supercilious gardener's boy, Jim Brown.

So it was decided that Nancy should be a great musician, and a piano

with a small keyboard was obtained for her at once. A number of books on

theory and harmony were bought, and Edith said Valeria was to read them

carefully, and to teach Nancy without letting her notice it. But Nancy

noticed it. And at last she used to cry and stamp her feet as soon as

she saw her mother come into the room.

Fraeulein, with much diplomacy, and according to a German book on

education, taught her her notes and her alphabet at the same time; but

the result was confusion. Nancy insisted on spelling words at the piano,

and could find no "o" for dog, and no "t" for cat, and no anything;

while the Italian Valeria added obscurity and bewilderment by calling

"d" _re_, and "g" _sol_, and "b" _c_. Nancy became sour and suspicious.

In everything that was said to her she scented a trap for the conveying

of musical knowledge, and she trusted no one, and would speak to no one

but Jim Brown and the grandfather.

At last she lit upon a device that afflicted and horrified her

tormentors. One day, when her mother was drawing little men, that turned

out to be semibreves, Nancy, speechless with anger, put her hand to her

soft hair, and dragged out a handful of it. Valeria gave a cry; she

opened the little fist, and saw the soft black fluff lying there.

"Oh, baby, baby! how could you!" she cried. "What a dreadful thing! How

can you grieve your poor mother so!"

That ended the musical education. Every time that a note lifted its

black head over Nancy's horizon, up went her hand, and she pulled out a

tuft of her hair. Then she opened her fist and showed it. Books on

harmony were put away; the piano was locked. No more Beethoven or

Schumann was sung to her in the guise of lullabies by Fraeulein at night;

but her old friend, "Baby Bunting," returned, and accompanied her, as of

old, when she sailed down the stream of sleep, afloat on the darkness.

"Bye, Baby Bunting,

Father's gone a-hunting,

To shoot a rabbit for its skin,

To wrap little Baby Bunting in."

* * * * *

... Nancy sat on the grass, nursing her doll, and watching three small

rampant feathers on Fraeulein Mueller's hat, nodding, like little plumes

on a hearse, in time with something she was reading.

"What are you reading?" asked Nancy.

Fraeulein Mueller went on nodding, and read aloud: "'Shine out, little

het, sunning over with gurls.'"

_"What?"_ said Nancy.

"'Shine out, little het, sunning over with gurls,'" repeated Fraeulein

Mueller.

"What does mean 'sunning over with girls'?" cried Nancy, frowning.

"Gurls, gurls--hair-gurls!" explained Fraeulein.

"_Curls!_ Are you sure it is curls?" said Nancy, dropping her doll in

the grass, and folding her hands. "Read it again. Slowly."

"'Shine out, little het,'" repeated Fraeulein. And Nancy said it after

her. "'Shine out, little head, shine out, little head ... sunning over

with curls.'"

Then she said to her governess: "Say that over and over and over again,

until I tell you not to;" and she shut her eyes.

"Aber warum?" asked Fraeulein Mueller.

Nancy did not open her eyes nor answer.

"Komische Kleine," said Fraeulein; and added, in order to practise her

English, "Comic small!" Then she did as she was told.

That night Nancy quarrelled with "Baby Bunting." She sat up in bed with

flushed cheeks and small, tight fists, and said to Fraeulein Mueller: "Do

not tell me that any more."

Fraeulein, who had been droning on in the dusk over her knitting, and

thinking that at this hour in Duesseldorf her sister and mother were

eating _belegte Broedchen_, looked up in surprise.

"What it is, mein Liebchen?"

"Do not tell me any more about that rabbit. I cannot hear about him any

more. You keep on--you keep on till I am ill."

Fraeulein Mueller was much troubled in suggesting other songs. She tried

one or two with scant success.

Nancy sat up again. "All those silly words tease me. Sing without saying

them."

So Fraeulein hummed uncertain tunes with her lips closed, and she was

just drifting into Beethoven, when Nancy sat up once more:

"Oh, don't do that!" she said. "Say words without those silly noises.

Say pretty words until I go to sleep."

So Fraeulein, after she had tried all the words she could think of, took

Lenau's poems from her own bookshelf, and read Nancy to sleep. On the

following evenings she read the "Waldlieder," and then "Mischka," until

it was finished. Then she started Uhland; and after Uhland, Koerner, and

Freiligrath, and Lessing.

Who knows what Nancy heard? Who knows what visions and fancies she took

with her to her dreams? In the little sleep-boat where Baby Bunting used

to be with her, now sat a row of German poets, long of hair, wild of

eye, fulgent of epithet. Night after night, for months and years, little

Nancy drifted off to her slumber with lyric and lay, with ode and epic,

lulled by cadenced rhythm and resonant rhyme. On one of these nights the

poets cast a spell over her. They rowed her little boat out so far that

it never quite touched shore again.

And Nancy never quite awoke from her dreams.

V

In Milan the cross-grained old architect, Giacomo Tirindelli, Valeria's

"Zio Giacomo," stout of figure and short of leg, got up in the middle of

the night and went to his son Antonio's room.

The room was empty. He had expected this, but he was none the less

incensed. He went to the window and threw the shutters open. Milan

slept. Silent and deserted, Via Principe Amedeo lay at his feet. Every

alternate lamp already extinguished showed that it was past twelve

o'clock; and a dreary cat wandered across the road, making the street

emptier for its presence.

Zio Giacomo closed the window, and walked angrily up and down his son's

room. On the walls, on the mantelpiece, on the desk, were

photographs--Nunziata Villari as Theodora, in stiff regal robes;

Nunziata Villari as Cleopatra, clad in jewels; Nunziata Villari as

Marguerite Gautier, in her nightdress, or so it appeared to Zio

Giacomo's angry eyes; Villari as Norah; Villari as Sappho; Villari as

Francesca. Then, in a corner, in an old frame, the portrait of a little

girl: _"My Cousin Valeria, twelve years old."_ Zio Giacomo stopped with

a short angry sigh before the picture of his favourite niece, whom he

had hoped one day to call his daughter. "Foolish girl," he grumbled, "to

marry that idiotic Englishman instead of my stupid, disobedient son----"

Then another profile of Nunziata Villari caught his eye, and then again

Nunziata Villari, all hair and smile.... Zio Giacomo had time to learn

the strange, strong face by heart before he heard the street-door fall

to, and his son's footsteps on the stairs.

Antonio, who from the street had seen the light in his room, entered

with a cheerful smile. "Well, father," he said, "why are you not

asleep?" He received the inevitable counter-question with a little Latin

gesture of both hands (the gesture that Theodora specially liked!).

"Well, father dear, I am twenty-three, and you are--you are not;" and he

patted his father's small shoulder and laughed (his best laugh--the

laugh that Cleopatra could not resist).

"Jeune homme qui veille, vieillard qui dort, sont tous deux pres de la

mort," quoted his father, in deep stern tones.

"Eh! father mine, if life is to be short, let it be pleasant," said

Antonio, lighting a cigarette.

Giacomo sat very straight; his dressing-gown was tight, and his feet

were chilly. His good-looking, good-tempered son irritated him.

"Are you not ashamed?" he said, pointing a dramatic forefinger at the

row of portraits. "She is an old woman of fifty!"

"Thirty-eight," said Antonio, seating himself in the armchair.

"An actress! a masquerading mountebank, whom every porter with a franc

in his pocket can see when he will; a creature whose husband has run

away from her to the ends of the earth----"

"To South America," interpolated Antonio.

--"With the cook." And Zio Giacomo snorted with indignation.

"I am afraid her cooking _is_ bad," said Antonio; and he blew rings of

smoke and puckered up his young red mouth in the way that made Phaedra

flutter and droop her passion-shaded lids.

"I have enough of it," said his father, "and we leave for England

to-morrow."

"For England? To-morrow?" Antonio started up. "You don't mean it! You

can't mean it, father! Why to England?"

"I telegraphed yesterday to Hertfordshire. I told your cousin Valeria we

should come to see them; and she has answered that she is delighted, and

her mother is delighted, and everybody is delighted." Zio Giacomo nodded

a stubborn head. "We shall stay in England three months, six months,

until you have recovered from your folly."

"Ah! because of Cousin Valeria. I see!" and Antonio laughed. "Oh,

father, father! you dear old dreamer! Are you at the old dream again? It

cannot be, believe me; it was a foolish idea of yours years ago. Valeria

was all eyes for her Englishman then, and is probably all tears for him

now. Stay here and be comfortable, father!"

But his father would not stay there, and he would not be comfortable. He

went away shaking his head, and losing his slipper on the way, and

dropping candle-grease all over the carpet in stooping to pick it up. A

sore and angry Zio Giacomo got into bed, and tried to read the _Secolo_,

and listened to hear if the street-door banged again.

It banged again.

One o'clock struck as Antonio turned down Via Monte Napoleone, and when

he rang the bell at No. 36, the _portinaio_ kept him waiting ten

minutes. Then Marietta, the maid, kept him waiting fifteen minutes on

the landing before she opened the door; and then the Signora kept him

waiting fifteen eternities until she appeared, white-faced and

frightened, draped in white satin, with her hair bundled up anyhow--or

nearly anyhow--on the top of her head.

Antonio took both her hands and kissed them, and pressed them to his

eyes, and told her he was leaving to-morrow--no, to-day--to-day! In a

few hours! For ever! For England! And what would she do? She would be

false! She would betray him! She was infamous! He knew it! And would she

die with him now?

She gave the little Tosca scream, and turned from him with the second

act "Dame aux Camelias" shiver, and stepped back like Fedora, and

finally flung herself, like Francesca, upon his breast. Then she

whispered five words to him, and sent him home.

She called Marietta, who loosened her hair again, and plaited it, and

put away what was not wanted, and gave her the lanoline; and she greased

her face and went to bed like Nunziata Villari, aged thirty-eight.

But Antonio went through the nocturnal streets, repeating the five

words: "London. In May. Twelve performances." And this was March.

Enough! He would live through it somehow. "Aber fragt mich nur nicht

wie," he said to himself, for he knew enough German to quote Heine's

"Buch der Lieder," and he had read "Die Jungfrau von Orleans" in the

original, in order to discuss it with La Villari.

La Villari liked to discuss her roles with him. She also practised her

attitudes and tried her gestures on him without his knowing it. He

always responded, as a violin that one holds in one's hand thrills and

responds when another violin is played. When she was studying Giovanna

d'Arco, he felt that he was le Chevalier Bayard, and he dreamed of an

heroic life and an epic death. When she was preparing herself for the

role of Clelia, and practising the attitudes of that famous adventuress,

he became a sceptic and a _noceur_, and gave Zio Giacomo qualms for

three weeks by keeping late hours and gambling all night at the

Patriottica. When she took up the role of Messalina, and for purposes of

practice assumed Messalina attitudes and expounded Messalina views, he

drifted into a period of extreme demoralization, and became perverted

and blasphemous. But during the six weeks in which she arrayed her mind

in the candid lines of La Samaritana, he became once more spiritual and

pure: he gave up the Patriottica and the Cafe Biffi, and went to early

Mass every morning.

"You funny boy!" said Villari to him one day. "You will do foolish

things in your life. Why don't you work?"

"I don't know," said Antonio. "I am in the wrong set, I suppose. And,

besides, there is no time. After a canter on the Bastioni in the

morning, it is lunch-time; and after luncheon one reads or goes out; and

then it is visiting-time--the Marchesa Adda expects one every Monday,

and the Della Rocca every Tuesday, and somebody else every Wednesday....

Then it is dinner-time and theatre-time and bed-time. And there you

are!"

"It is a pity," said La Villari, kindly maternal, forgetting to be

Messalina, or Giovanna, or anyone else. "You have no character. You are

nice; you are good to look at; you are not stupid. But your nose is, as

one would say, a nose of putty--yes, of putty! And anyone can twist it

here and there. Take care! You will suffer much, or you will make other

people suffer. Noses of putty," she added thoughtfully, "are fountains

of grief."

Zio Giacomo was one whose nose was not of putty. Much as he hated

journeys, many as were the things that he always lost on them, sorely as

his presence was needed in his office, where the drawings for a new town

hall were lying in expectant heaps on his desk, he had made up his mind

to start for England, and start they should. He packed off his

motherless daughter, the tall and flippant Clarissa, to a convent school

in Paris, bade good-bye to his sister Carlotta and to his niece Adele,

and scrambled wrathfully into the train for Chiasso, followed by the

unruffled Antonio.

Antonio seemed to enjoy the trip; and soon Zio Giacomo found himself

wondering why they had taken it. Was the tale that his niece Adele had

told him about Antonio's infatuation for the actress all foolish

nonsense? Adele was always exaggerating.

Zio Giacomo watched his son with growing anger. Antonio was cheerful and

debonair. Antonio slept when his father was awake; Antonio ate when his

father was sick. By the time they reached Dover Giacomo, who knew no

word of English but _rosbif_ and the _Times_, was utterly broken. But

Antonio twisted up his young moustache, and ran his fingers through his

tight black curls, and made long eyes at the English girls, who smiled,

and then passed hurriedly, pretending they had not seen him.

VI

At Charing Cross to meet them were Valeria and Edith--both charming,

small-waisted, and self-conscious. Valeria flung herself with Latin

demonstrativeness into her old uncle's arms, while Edith tried not to be

ashamed of the noise the Italian new-comers made and of the attention

they attracted. When, later, they were all four in the train on their

way to Wareside, she gave herself up entirely to the rapture of watching

Uncle Giacomo's gestures and Cousin Antonio's eyes. Cousin Antonio, whom

Valeria addressed as Nino, spoke to her in what he called

"banana-English," and was so amusing that she laughed until she coughed,

and coughed until she cried; and then they all said they would not laugh

any more. And altogether it was a delightful journey.

When they alighted at the peaceful country station, there was Mrs. Avory

and little Nancy and the grandfather awaiting them; and there were more

greetings and more noise. And when the carriage reached the Grey House,

Fraeulein stood at the door step, all blushes and confusion, with a

little talcum-powder sketchily distributed over her face, and her

newly-refreshed Italian vocabulary issuing jerkily from her.

They were a very cheerful party at tea; everybody spoke at once, even

the old grandfather, who kept on inquiring, "Who are they--who are

they?"--addressing himself chiefly to Zio Giacomo--at intervals during

the entire afternoon. Towards evening Nancy became excited and

unmanageable, and Mrs. Avory went to bed with a headache. But Fraeulein

entertained Zio Giacomo, and Nino sat at the piano and sang Neapolitan

songs to Valeria and Edith, who listened, sitting on one stool, with

arms interlaced.

Then followed days of tennis and croquet, of picnics and teas with the

Vicar's pretty daughters and the Squire's awkward sons. Mrs. Avory had

only brief glimpses of Valeria and Edith darting indoors and out again;

running up to their rooms to change their skirts; calling through the

house for their racquets. Zio Giacomo walked about the garden, giving

advice to Fraeulein about the cultivation of tomatoes, and wondering why

English people never ate macaroni.

"Nor _Knodel_," said Fraeulein.

"Nor _risotto_," said Zio Giacomo.

"Nor _Leberwurst_," said Fraeulein.

"Nor _cappelletti al sugo_," said Zio Giacomo.

"It is so as with the etucation," said Fraeulein. "The etucation is again

already quite wrong; not only the eating and the cooking of the

foot...." And so they rambled along. And Zio Giacomo was homesick.

Suddenly Valeria was homesick too. It began on the first day of the

tennis tournament--a resplendent light-blue day. Nino said that the sky

matched Edith's dress and also her eyes, which reminded him of Lake

Como. Their partnership was very successful; Edith, airy and swift,

darted and flashed across the court, playing almost impossible balls. In

the evening, as she lay back in the rocking-chair, pale and sweet, with

her shimmering hair about her, Nino called her a tired butterfly, and

sang "La Farfalla" to her. Valeria was miserable. She said it was

homesickness. She felt that she was homesick for the sun of Italy and

the language of Italy; homesick for people with loud voices and easy

gesticulations and excitable temperaments; homesick for people with dark

eyes and dark hair.

On the second day of the tournament, at tea on the Vicar's lawn, she

became still more homesick. Her partner was offering her

cress-sandwiches, and telling her that it was very warm for April, and

that last year in April it had been much colder. Meanwhile, she could

see Nino at the other side of the lawn tuning a guitar that had been

brought to him; he was laughing and playing chords on it with his

teaspoon. Edith and two other girls stood near him; their three fair

heads shone in the sunlight. Suddenly Valeria felt as if she could not

breathe in England any more. She said to herself that it must be the

well-bred voices, the conversation about the weather, the trimness, the

tidiness, the tea, the tennis, that were insufferable to her chagrined

heart. Meanwhile her dark eyes rested upon Nino and upon the three

blonde heads, inclined towards him, and glistening in different sheens

of gold. She felt hot tears pricking her eyes.

That evening in her room, as they were preparing for bed, Edith talked

to her sister-in-law through the open door. "What fun everything is,

Val, isn't it?" she said, shaking out her light locks, and brushing them

until they crackled and flew, and stood out like pale fire round her

face. "Life is a delightful institution!"

As no answer came from Valeria's room, Edith looked in. Valeria was

lying on her bed, still in her pink evening dress, with her face hidden

in the pillow.

"Why? What has happened, dear?" asked Edith, bending over the dark bowed

head.

"Oh, I hate everything!" murmured Valeria. "That horrid tennis, and

those horrid girls, always laughing, always laughing, always laughing."

Edith sat down beside her. "But we laughed, too--at least, I know _I_

did! And as for Nino, he laughed all the time."

"That is it," cried Valeria, sitting up, tearful and indignant. "In

Italy Nino never laughed. In Italy we do not laugh for nothing, just to

show our teeth and pretend we are vivacious."

Edith was astonished. She sat for a long while looking at Valeria's

disconsolate figure, and thinking matters over. Quite suddenly she bent

down and kissed Valeria, and said: "Don't cry." So Valeria, who had left

off crying, began to cry again. And still more she cried when she raised

her head and saw Edith's shower of scintillant hair, and the two little

Lakes of Como brimming over with limpid tears. They kissed each other,

and called themselves silly and goose-like; and then they laughed and

kissed each other again, and went to bed.

Valeria fell asleep.

But Edith lay thinking in the dark.

She got up quite early, and took little Nancy primrosing in the woods;

so Nino and Valeria went to the tennis tournament alone. A fat, torpid

girl took Edith's place, and Valeria laughed all the morning.

Edith and Nancy came in from the woods late for luncheon. When they

appeared, Nino looked up at Edith in surprise. Mrs. Avory said: "Edith,

my dear, what have you done? You look a sight!"

"Do I?" said Edith. "Why, this is the famous North-German coiffure

Fraeulein has made me."

Valeria's face had flushed. "You ought not to have let her drag your

hair back so tight," she said. And Mrs. Avory added: "I thought you had

given that ugly brown dress away long ago."

Then Nancy spoke of the primroses and Nino of the tennis; and Edith kept

and adopted the North-German coiffure. She dropped out of the tournament

because it gave her a pain in her shoulders, and she went for long walks

with Nancy.

Nancy was good company. Edith grew to look forward to the walks and to

the warm clasp of Nancy's little hand in hers, and the sound of Nancy's

treble voice beside her. Nancy asked few questions. She preferred not to

know what things were. She had never liked fireworks after she had seen

them in the day-time packed in a box. What! they were not baby stars?

All Fraeulein's definitions of things and of phenomena were painful to

her mind as to her ear. But the seventeen years of Edith and the eight

springtimes of the child kept step harmoniously. Nancy's dawning spirit,

urged by a presaging flame, pressed forward to its morning; while

Edith's early day, chilled by an unseen blight, turned back, and stopped

before its noon. Her springtide faded before its flowering.

Thus the two girl-souls met, and their love bloomed upwards in concord

like two flames.

On Easter Sunday Fraeulein entered late for luncheon, and Nancy did not

come at all. Fraeulein apologized for her: "Nancy is in the summer-house

writing a poetry. She says she will not have any lunch."

Mrs. Avory laughed, and Nino said: "What is the poetry about?"

"I think," replied Fraeulein, shaking out her table-napkin, and tucking

it carefully into her collar, "it is about her broken doll and her dead

canary."

"Is the canary dead?" exclaimed Valeria. "Why did you not tell me?"

"She shall have a new doll," said Mrs. Avory, "at once."

"But it isn't--she hasn't--they are not!" explained Fraeulein, much

confused. "Only she says she cannot write a poetry about things that are

not broken and dead."

The old grandfather, who now rarely spoke, raised his head, and said

mournfully, "Broken and dead--broken and dead," and went on repeating

the words all through lunch, until he was coaxed and scolded into

silence.

There was much excitement over Nancy's poem that afternoon. It was read

aloud by Edith, and then by Valeria, and then by Fraeulein, and then

again by Edith. Valeria improvised a translation of it into Italian for

Zio Giacomo and Nino; and then it was read aloud once more by Edith.

Everybody laughed and wept; and then Valeria kissed everybody. Nancy was

a genius! They had always known it. Zio Giacomo said that it was in his

brother's family; whereupon Mrs. Avory said, "Indeed?" and raised her

eyebrows and felt hurt. But how--said Valeria--had it come into Nancy's

head to write a poem? And what if she were never to be able to write

another? Such things had happened. Could she try again and write

something else? Just now! Oh, anything!... Saying how she wrote this

poem, for instance!

So little Nancy, all flushed and wild and charming, extemporized in

Fraeulein's note-book:

"This morning in the orchard

I chased the fluttering birds:

The winging, singing things I caught--

Were words!

"This morning in the garden

Where the red creeper climbs,

The vagrant, fragrant things I plucked--

Were rhymes!

"This morning in the...."

Nancy looked up and bit her lip. "This morning--in the what?"

"In the garden," suggested Valeria.

"I have already said that," frowned Nancy.

Zio Giacomo suggested "kitchen," and was told to keep quiet. Edith said

"woodlands," and that was adopted. Then Nancy found out that she wanted

something quite different, and could they give her a rhyme for "verse"?

"Curse," said Nino.

"Disburse," said Fraeulein.

"Oh, that is not poetic, but rather the reverse!" cried Nancy.

"Terse," said Edith.

"Purse," said Nino.

"Hearse," said the old grandfather gloomily.

Nancy laughed. "We go from bad to worse," she exclaimed, dimpling and

blushing. "Wait a minute."

"And if I cage the birdlings...."

"What birdlings?" said Fraeulein.

"Why, the words that I caught in the orchard," said Nancy hurriedly.

Everybody looked vague. "Why do you want to cage them?" asked Fraeulein,

who had a tidy mind.

"Because," said Nancy excitedly, making her reasons while she spoke,

"words must not be allowed to fly about anyhow as they like--they must

be caught, and shut in lines; they must be caged by the--by the----"

"The rhythm," suggested Edith.

"What is that?" said Nancy.

"The measure, the time, as in music."

"Yes, that's it!" said Nancy.

"And if the flowers I nurse...."

"The flowers are the rhymes, of course," explained Nancy, flourishing

her pencil triumphantly.

"And if the flowers I nurse,

The rambling, scrambling things I write--

Are verse!"

"Beautiful! wonderful!" cried everybody; and Uncle Giacomo and Nino

clapped their hands a long time, as if they were at the theatre.

When they left off, Mrs. Avory said: "I do not quite like those last

lines. They are not clear. But, of course, they are quite good enough

for poetry!" she added. And everyone agreed. Mrs. Avory said she thought

they ought to have somebody, some poet, down from London at once to

teach the child seriously. And Fraeulein went into long details about

publishers in Berlin, and how careful one must be if one prints a volume

of poems not to let them cheat you.

From that day onward the spirit of Nancy's inspiration ruled the house.

Everybody was silent when she came into the room, lest her ideas should

be disturbed; meals must wait until Nancy had finished thinking. When

Nancy frowned and passed her hand across her forehead in a little quick

gesture she often used, Edith would quietly shut the windows and the

doors, so that nothing should disturb the little poetess, and no

butterfly-thought of hers should fly away. Valeria hovered round,

usually followed by Nino; and Fraeulein, in the library, read long

chapters of Dante to Zio Giacomo, whether he slept or not, in order, as

she put it in her diary: "(_a_) To practise my Italian; (_b_) to keep in

the house the atmosphere of the Spirit of Poetry."

But the grandfather, who could not understand the silence and the

irregular meals, thought that somebody had died, and wandered drearily

about, opening doors to see if he could find out who it was. And he

frequently made Mrs. Avory turn sick and chilly by asking her suddenly,

when she sat at her work, "Who is dead in the house?"

VII

Meanwhile Nunziata Villari in Milan was flustering the maid Marietta

over the packing of her trunks, and getting ready to leave for her

twelve performances in England.

Nino had written to her twice a day during the first week of his

absence; every two days during the second week; only once in the third

week; and in this, the fourth week, not at all. "Some stupid English

girl has turned his nose of putty from me," mused La Villari, and

scolded Marietta for what she had packed, and for what she had not

packed, and for how she had packed it. But La Villari was mistaken. No

stupid English girl had turned Nino's nose of putty from her. Edith, who

might have done so had she willed, had chosen to stab his nascent

passion with the hairpins that fixed the North-German coiffure at its

most unbecoming angle half-way up her head. She had left him to himself,

and gone off primrosing with Nancy, whose love--the blind, far-seeing

love of a child--depended not on a tendril of hair, or the tint of a

cheek, or the glance of an eye.

Nino, standing alone, looking vaguely round for adoration, met Valeria's

deep eyes fixed on him; and, suddenly remembering that this little

cousin of his had been destined to his arms since both their childhood,

he let his heart respond to her timid call. As she bent her head over a

letter to her cousin Adele, Nino watched her with narrowing eyes. Had

Fate not sent Tom Avory, the tall and leisurely Englishman, bronzed and

fair, sauntering into her life and his years ago, painting pictures,

quoting poets, rowing her and Zio Giacomo about the lake, this dark,

graceful head, thought Nino would have found its resting-place against

his own breast; the little dimpled hand, the slender shoulders--all

would belong to him. Had he not always loved her? He asked himself the

question in all sincerity, quite forgetting his brief and violent fancy

for Cousin Adele, and his longer and more violent passion for Nunziata

Villari. True, he would never have noticed Adele had she not sighed at

him first. And he would certainly never have loved La Villari had she

not looked at him first. But now--Adele was nowhere; and La Villari was

in Milan packing her trunks; and here was Valeria, with her dark head

and her dimples.

"Valerietta!" he said; and she raised her eyes. "It is May-day. Come out

into the fields."

So Valeria put away her letter, and went to look for her hat. As she

passed the schoolroom she heard voices, and peeped in. There was her

little Nancy, pen in hand, wild-eyed and happy, and Edith bending over

her, reading half-aloud what the inspired child-poet had just written.

"I am going into the fields with Nino," said Valeria. "Edith dear, won't

you come, too?"

"Oh no! It is too windy," said her sister-in-law. "The wind takes my

breath away and makes me cough. Besides, Nancy could not spare me."

"No!" said Nancy, laying her pink cheek against Edith's arm and smiling,

"I could not spare her!"

Valeria laughed, and blew a kiss to them both. Then she ran upstairs for

her hat, and went out across the fields with Nino.

Adjoining the schoolroom was the drawing-room where Mrs. Avory and the

grandfather were sitting together in silence. "Sally's cough is worse,"

said the grandfather suddenly.

(The Fates were spinning. _"Here is a black thread,"_ said One. _"Weave

it in,"_ said the Other. And the Third sharpened her scissors.)

"Sally's cough is worse," said the grandfather again.

Mrs. Avory looked up from her crocheting. "Hush, father dear!" she said.

"I said Sally's cough is worse," repeated the old man. "I hear it every

night."

"No, dear; no, dear," said Mrs. Avory. "Not poor Sally. Sally has been

at rest many years. Perhaps you mean Edith. She has a little cold."

"I know Sally's cough," said the old man.

Mrs. Avory put her work down and folded her hands. A slow, icy shiver

crept over her and enveloped her like a wet sheet.

"Sally is my favourite grandchild," continued her father, shaking his

white head. "Poor little Sally--poor little Sally!"

Mrs. Avory sat still. Terror, heavy and cold, crawled like a snake into

her heart. "Edith! It is Edith!" she said.

_"It is Sally!"_ cried the old man, rising to his feet. "I remember

Sally's cough, and in the night I hear it."

There was a moment's silence. Then in the schoolroom Edith coughed. The

grandfather came close to his daughter. "There," he whispered, "that is

Sally. And you told me she was dead."

Mrs. Avory rose tremblingly to her feet. In her eyes was the vision of

her tragic children, all torn to death by the shuddering and insidious

Ill that crouched in their breasts and clutched at their throats, and

sprang upon them and strangled them when they reached the threshold of

their youth. And now Edith, too? Edith, her last-born!

She raised her eyes of Madre Dolorosa to her father's face. Then she

fell fainting before him, her grey head at his feet.

* * * * *

Out in the fields, that were alight with daisies, Nino took Valeria's

hand and drew her arm through his. "Little cousin," he said, "do you

remember how I loved you when you were twelve years old, and scorned

me?"

"Yes," laughed Valeria; "and how I loved you when you were sixteen, and

had forgotten me."

"But, again," said Nino, "how I loved you when you were eighteen, and

refused me."

Valeria looked at him with timorous eyes. "And now I am twenty-seven and

a half, and you are only twenty-three."

"True," said Nino. "How young you are! The woman I love is thirty-eight

years old."

Valeria's face paled; then it flushed rose-pink, and she laughed.

"Thirty-eight! Nearly forty? I don't believe it!" All her pretty teeth

shone, and the dimple dipped in her cheek.

"I hardly believe it myself," said Nino, laughing.

"Perhaps it is not true, after all."

Did Zio Giacomo in the library hear with his astral ear his son's

gratifying assertion? Fraeulein certainly thought that she saw him smile

in his sleep, while through her careful lips "Conte Ukolino," in the

thirty-third canto of the "Inferno," gnawed noisomely at the

Archbishop's ravaged skull.

"Are you sure that she is not seventeen?" asked Valeria, biting a blade

of grass, and glancing up sideways at her cousin's face.

Nino stopped. "'She?' Who? Why? Who is seventeen?" he asked.

"Edith," breathed Valeria.

Nino shook his head. "No, not Edith, poor little thing!" Then he bent

forward and kissed Valeria decisively and authoritatively long before

she expected it.

"Why did you call Edith a poor little thing?" asked Valeria, when she

had forgiven him, and been kissed again.

Nino looked grave, and tapped his chest with his finger. _"E tisica!"_

he said.

Valeria started back, and dragged her hands from his. "Tisica!" Her

heart stopped beating, and then galloped off like a bolting horse.

"Tisica!" In the terrible half-forgotten word the memory of Tom and the

tragic past flamed up again. Yes; Edith had a cough. But everybody in

England coughed. Edith--Edith, with her fair hair and pink cheeks! It

was not true! It could not be true. Sweet, darling Edith, with the

hideous North-German coiffure that she had made for Valeria's sake!

Edith, little Nancy's best friend! Ah, _Nancy!_... Valeria's thought,

like some maddened quarry, darted off in another direction. Nancy!

Nancy! She was with Edith now! She was always with Edith, laughing,

talking, bending over the same book, kissing her good-night and

good-morning.

"I must go back," said Valeria suddenly, with a face grown pinched and

small. Nino held her tight.

"What is it, love of mine?" he said.

"The baby!" gasped Valeria, with a sob. Nancy was the baby again. The

baby that had to be taken away from danger--from Tom first, and now from

Edith. It was the baby for whom she had run across these fields one

morning years ago, tripping and stumbling in her haste, leaving what

perhaps was love behind her, lest the baby should be hungry, lest the

baby should cry. And now again she ran, tripping and stumbling in her

haste, leaving what perhaps was love behind her. Nancy must be saved.

What if it were too late! What if Nancy had already breathed the blight?

If Nancy, too, were soon to begin to cough ... to cough, and clear her

throat, and perspire in the night, and have her temperature taken twice

a day, and then one day--one day her eyes frightened, her fists

clenched, and her mouth full of blood.... Valeria held her hands to her

cheeks, crying aloud, as she tottered and ran across the flowering

fields.

When she reached the garden there was Nancy, standing on the swing,

alone--swinging and singing, with her curls all ablow.

"Fraeulein came out and called Edith away," said the child, with a little

pout. "She said I was not to come. Perhaps somebody has arrived. Could

it be the poet from London?"

"Not yet, dear," said Valeria, voiceless, and with hammering heart. She

embraced the little black legs standing on the swing, and laid her

throbbing temple against the child's pinafore. "Ave Maria, Mater Dei,

Ora pro nobis," she murmured.

"Go out of the way, mother dear, and see how high I swing," said Nancy.

Valeria stepped aside; then she saw Fraeulein's face appear at the

drawing-room window and Fraeulein's hand beckoning to her to come in.

"I must go indoors for a moment. Don't swing too high, darling," cried

Valeria, and hurried into the house.

When she entered the drawing-room her heart stood still. Mrs. Avory was

on the sofa, with grey lips and trembling hands. Fraeulein stood by her,

holding smelling-salts and a saucer of vinegar; while Edith, kneeling

beside her, was crying: "Mother darling! mother darling! are you

better?" In a corner stood the grandfather and Zio Giacomo, looking

bewildered and alarmed.

"What has happened?" cried Valeria.

"She fainted," whispered Edith, with a sob, as she kissed and chafed the

cold hands. Then her mother's arm went round her neck, and her mother's

tears rained on her.

"Edith, my little girl, my own little girl!" she cried.

Valeria wept with her, and Edith wept too, little knowing the reason of

her mother's tears.

... Out in the garden Nancy was alone, swinging and singing, with her

curls all ablow, when the German poet's spell came over her.

"Die linden Luefte sind erwacht,

Sie saeuseln und wehen Tag und Nacht,

Sie kommen von allen Enden...."

The poets murmured it in her ear. Through the darkening trees beyond the

lawn she could see a gilt line where the sunset struck its light in the

sky.

"Die Welt wird schoener mit jeden Tag,

Man weiss nicht was noch werden mag,

Das Bluehen will nicht enden!"

Nancy slipped from the swing. The poets were whispering and urging. Had

not Fraeulein in yesterday's lessons taught her the wonderful fact that

the world was a round star, swinging in the blue, with other stars

above it and below it? If one walked to the edge of the world, just to

where it curves downward into roundness, and if one bent

forward--holding to a tree, perhaps, so as not to fall--surely one would

be able to look down into the sky and see the stars circling beneath

one's feet! Nancy felt that she must go to the edge of the world and

look down. The edge of the world! She could see it! It was behind the

trees beyond Millpond Farm, where the sun had dipped down and left the

horizon ablaze. So Nancy went out of her garden to go to the edge of the

world.

When Mrs. Avory had been tenderly helped to a seat in the garden, and

had had a footstool and a pillow, and some eau de Cologne, Edith said:

"Where is Nancy?"

"Where is Nancy?" said Valeria.

Fraeulein called through the garden and through the house. Then Valeria

called through the house and through the garden, and Edith ran upstairs,

and through all the rooms and into the attics, and down again into the

garden and to the summer-house and the shrubbery. Nino came in, and was

sent to the village to see if Nancy was there. But Nancy was not there,

nor had anyone seen her. Zio Giacomo and the stable-boy set out in one

direction, and Jim Brown in another. Nino went across the fields towards

the station--you could hear his call and his whistle for miles--and

Florence went out and past the chapel along the road to Fern Glen.

Valeria, wringing her hands, ran out after Florence, telling Edith to

stay in, and mind and take care of Mrs. Avory and the grandfather.

But Edith put on her hat, and said to Mrs. Avory: "I shall be back

directly. Stay here quite quietly, mother dear, and mind you get

Fraeulein to look after you and grandfather."

But her mother would not let her go alone. No, no; she would go, too! So

they both started out towards Baker's End, telling Fraeulein to mind and

stay indoors, and look after grandfather.

But Fraeulein, who had recently read "Misunderstood," was suddenly seized

by a horrible thought regarding the water-lilies on Castlebury Pond, and

she went out quickly, just stopping to tell the cook to prepare dinner

and to mind and look after the grandfather. But the cook ran across to

Smith's Farm, and the scullery-maid went with her.

The grandfather remained alone in the silent house.

(The Fates were spinning. _"Here is a black thread. Weave it in."_)

The grandfather was alone in the silent house. He called his daughter;

he called Valeria, and Edith, and Nancy. Then he remembered that Nancy

was lost. He called Sally; he called Tom; he rang the bells. Nobody

came; nobody answered. Then again he remembered that Nancy was lost, and

that everyone had gone to look for her. He opened the front-door and

walked down the avenue; he opened the gate and looked up and down the

deserted road. Then he stepped out and turned to the left, away from the

village, and went towards the cross-roads at Heather's Farm; but before

he reached them he crossed the field to the left, and went past

Wakeley's Ditch towards the heath.

The sun had dropped out of sight, and night, soft-footed and grey, was

stealing like a cat across the meadows; and Jim Brown had found Nancy on

Three Cedars Hill when the old grandfather left the heath and turned

his slow footsteps into the dark and silent fields. He saw something

waving and moving against the sky.

"That is Nancy," he said, and called her. But it was a

threshing-machine, covered with black cloths that moved in the wind. And

the grandfather hurried a little when he passed it. He said aloud: "I am

eighty-seven years old." He felt that nothing would hurt him that knew

this, and the threshing-machine let him pass, and did not follow with

its waving rags, as he had feared. Then some sheep penned in a fold

startled him, running towards him with soft hoofs, bleating and standing

still suddenly, with black faces turned towards him. As he tottered on

something started up and ran away from him, and then it ran after him

and darted past him. He was chilled with fear.

"I am eighty-seven years old. It is not right that I should be alone in

the night," he said; and he began to cry whiningly like a little child.

But nobody heard him, and he was afraid of the noises he made.

He turned to go home, and passed the shrouded machine again, and then in

a field to the right he saw someone standing and moving.

"Have you seen Nancy?" he cried. "Hullo! Good-evening! Is Nancy there?"

The figure in the field beckoned to him, and he went stumbling in the

ruts. When he got near, he said: "I am eighty-seven years old."

The figure waved both arms, greatly impressed; and the grandfather sat

down on the ground, for he was tired.

Nancy had reached home, and the lights were lit and voices rang through

the house; but the grandfather sat on the hill-side in the dark, and

talked to the scarecrow.

"When you go home, sir, I shall go with you," said the grandfather, and

the scarecrow made no objection. "You will tell me when you are

ready to go."

But as the figure waved to him to wait, the grandfather tried not to be

cross. "All right, all right," he said. "I am in no hurry." But it was

very cold.

Suddenly across the hill, with long light steps, came Tom, and Tom's son

Tom; and all his dead grandchildren came down the hill with long, light

steps and sat around him. And the darker it grew the closer they sat.

Sally, who was the favourite, laid her head against his arm, and he

could touch her cool face with his hand.

He asked if they had seen Nancy, but they had not; and he asked Sally

how her cough was. But they all laughed softly, and did not answer. The

threshing-machine passed, waving its wings, and his dead children sat

with him through the night. Before dawn they rose up and left him,

crossing the hill again with light, long steps.

But the scarecrow stayed with him till he slept.

(_"Cut the thread,"_ said Fate.)

VIII

A fortnight after the funeral Nino twisted up his moustache and went to

London. His father had made no objection; indeed, Zio Giacomo himself

found everything exaggeratedly doleful, and Valeria, in her black dress,

going about the house with the expression of a hunted cat, annoyed him

exceedingly. She was always jumping up in the midst of any

conversation, and running out to look for Nancy.

What if Fraeulein happened to be busy with Mrs. Avory or with the

servants? said her uncle angrily. Surely there was Edith always with the

child, petting her and spoiling her. Valeria need not worry so! But

Valeria worried. She paid no attention to Zio Giacomo, never even gave

him the promised _minestrone freddo_ on his birthday, and Nino might

have ceased to exist so far as she was concerned. She seemed to be

always looking at Nancy or looking at Edith. When the two sat happily

together, reading or talking, she would call Nancy with a rough strained

voice, hurriedly sending the child on some useless errand, or keeping

her by her side and making long foolish talk with her. Edith sometimes

looked up in surprise when Valeria called the child away from her so

suddenly and so sternly; but seeing Valeria's pale and anxious face,

then glancing over to Nino, who usually looked bored and absent-minded,

Edith thought of lovers' quarrels, and asked no questions.

But there was no lovers' quarrel between Nino and Valeria. In Valeria's

terror-stricken heart maternal love had pushed all else aside, and only

one thought possessed her--the thought of keeping Nancy out of danger,

out of reach of Edith's light breath, out of reach of Edith's tender

kisses; while Nino, seeing her with little Nancy on her lap or at her

side all day, gradually grew to look upon her in the light of Valeria

the mother, and lost sight of her as Valeria the betrothed. A child on

its mother's breast forbids and restrains passion.

One evening he took up a paper and improved his English by reading the

news. The news interested him. It was on the following day that he

twisted up his moustache and went to London. He had dinner at Pagani's.

There he met Carlo Fioretti, an old fellow-student of his at Pavia, who

was dining with a golden-haired Englishwoman at a table near to his.

They invited him to drink coffee and _pousse-cafe_ with them, and

Fioretti told Nino that he was doctor to the Italian colony in London,

and getting on splendidly. And would he join them at the comedy later

on? Nino was sorry--he was really desolated!--but he could not. He was

going to the Garrick.

"Oh," cried the fair lady, "to be sure! La Villari is playing there

to-night, isn't she? Wonderful creature!" Then she shook an arch

forefinger at Fioretti. "Why did you not think of taking me to hear

her?"

Fioretti promised to take her the next day, and the day after, and every

day, and for ever! Then Nino took his leave with much bowing and

hand-kissing, and Fioretti accompanied him as far as the door.

"Who is she?" said Nino.

"A lady of title," said Fioretti. "Divorced."

_"Deliziosa,"_ said Nino.

_"Milionaria,"_ said Fioretti. And having quickly shaken hands with

Nino, he hurried back to her.

* * * * *

The seven mourning women in Cossa's tragedy were already chanting their

woes when Nino entered the theatre and took his seat in the fourth row

of the stalls. His heart opened to the swing and cadence of the Italian

words, to the loud sweetness of the Italian voices, to the graceful

violence of the Italian gestures. His Latin blood thrilled in

understanding and response.

Suddenly Villari was on the stage, and no one else existed. Fervid and

lovely, keen and lithe, soon she held in her small, hot hands the hearts

of the cool English audience, tightening their nerves, swaying and

drawing them into paths of unaccustomed passion. Nino sat still with

quick heart-beats, wondering if she would see him.

He remembered the first time that her eyes had met his at the Manzoni in

Milan four years ago. She was playing Sappho. He was with his cousin

Adele and Aunt Carlotta in one of the front rows, and they were laughing

at the vehemence of the love-scene in the second act, when suddenly he

saw that Villari was looking at him. Yes, at him! She gazed at him long

and deliberately, while Jean was sobbing at her feet, and she said

Daudet's famous words, "Toi tu ne marchais pas encore, que moi deja je

roulais dans les bras des hommes," with her deep and steadfast eyes

fixed on Nino's face. She had said the words in French in the midst of

the Italian play, for she was whimsical and wilful, and did as she

pleased. Then she had turned away, and gone on with her part without

noticing him any more. Cousin Adele had been acid and sarcastic all the

evening. The next day--how well he remembered it all!--he had sent

Villari flowers, as she intended that he should, and a week after that

he had sent her a bracelet, having sold Aunt Carlotta and Adele's piano

during their absence in order to do so.

Now she was before him once more, fervid and lovely, keen and lithe, and

Nino sat motionless, with quick heart-beats, wondering if she would see

him.

Suddenly she looked straight at him, with long and deliberate gaze--so

long, indeed, that he thought everyone must notice it, and he could

hardly breathe for the violence of his rushing veins. When the curtain

fell he sent his card to her dressing-room, but she did not receive him,

nor did she do so at the end of the play. The next day he sent her

flowers, as she had intended that he should, but when he called at her

hotel she was out. He sat through nine of her twelve performances, and

still she would not see him, for she was thirty-eight and wily, and knew

men's hearts. She also knew her own, and had more than once thought that

she detected symptoms of what she called a _grande passion_, a

_toquade_, for this curly-headed, vehement young Nino with the light

laugh and the violent eyes. Nunziata Villari dreaded her grand passions.

She knew of old how disastrous they were, how unbecoming to her

complexion, how ruinous to her affairs, how gnawing during their

process, how painful at their end. And she especially dreaded a grand

passion for Nino, remembering that he was one who had a nose of putty,

and would probably be a fountain of grief. So night after night Nino sat

in his stall and watched her, and counted the days that remained before

she would go away again. Every night she was different--she was Sappho

and Magdalen; she was Norah and Fedora; she was Phaedra and Desdemona.

Every night she was before him, laughing or weeping, loving or hating,

dying delicate deaths. She was terrible and sweet, fierce and alluring;

she embraced and she killed; she was resplendent Purity, she was

emblazoned Sin; she was _das Ewig Weibliche_, the immortal mistress of

all lovers, the ever-desiring and the ever-desired.

When, after her tenth performance, he was allowed to see her in her

dressing-room, he could not speak. Without a word of greeting, without

responding to her smile, he dropped into a chair and hid his face in his

hands, to the great amusement of Marietta the maid.

But Nunziata Villari was not amused. She suddenly realized that she had

been acting for this Nino every night, that especially for him she had

sobbed and raved, she had laughed and languished; and as she saw him

sitting there with his face in his hands, she felt in her heart the

intermittent throb that she recognized and dreaded. It was the _grande

passion;_ it was the _toquade._ "Ca y est!" she said. "Now I am in love

again."

And she was.

IX

In Wareside Fraeulein still read Dante to the unwitting Uncle Giacomo.

The apple-blossoms fluttered and the sun shone. Butterflies, like

blow-away flowers, flitted past Edith as she lay on a couch in the

sunshine, too lazy to move, and too peaceful to read; while little Nancy

ruffled up her hair and puckered her brow, frightened and gladdened at

once by the luxuriance of words and ideas that sang in her brain, that

romped out in lines and paired off in rhymes, like children dancing.

And the two mothers sat in the shade and watched.

When Edith called Nancy, and the child ran to her, Valeria's lips

tightened, and soon she would call the little girl to her side and keep

her. Then Mrs. Avory's face grew hard, and her heart was bitter with

grief. She would rise quickly and go to Edith, trying to divert her

thoughts by some futile question about her crochet, or a book, or the

colour of the sky. Edith would answer, wondering a little, and shut her

eyes, too lazy to think.

Over their children's heads the two mothers' glances met, hostile and

hard, each shielding her own, each defending and each accusing.

"Edith is ill," said Valeria's eyes. "Nancy must not be near her."

"Edith is ill," said Mrs. Avory's eyes, "but she must not know it."

"Nancy must not be endangered."

"Edith must not be hurt."

"Mother," pipes up Nancy's treble voice suddenly, "do you think May is a

girl?"

"Who is May, dear?"

"Why, the month of May. Do you think it is a girl with roses in her

arms, dancing across the lands, and touching the hedges into flower?"

"Yes, dear; I think so."

"Or do you think it is a boy, with curls falling over his eyes, wilful

and naughty, who drags the little leaves out from the trees, and tosses

the birds across the sky, whirling and piping?"

"Yes, I think so, dear."

"Oh, mother, you are not listening!" cries Nancy, and scampers off,

improvising as she goes:

"Says May: 'I am a girl!

May is short for Margaret,

Margaret or Daisy.

The petals of a jessamine

No boy's hand could unfurl!'

Says May: 'I am a girl.'

"Says May: 'I am a boy!

May is short for...'"

"For what?" thinks Nancy, frowning impatiently at the word that will not

come. Then she skips gaily on across the grass:

"Says May: 'I am a boy!

May is short for Marmaduke,

As all the world should know!

I taught the birds their trills and shakes,

No girl could whistle so!'

"So May the girl, and May the boy, they quarrel all day long;

While the flowers stop their budding, and the birds forget their

song.

And God says: 'Now, to punish you, I'll hang out the new moon

And take and bundle both of you into the month of June.'"

"Of course, May is _not_ short for Marmaduke," muses Nancy, "but that

cannot be helped."

... On her couch on the lawn Edith opened her eyes and said: "Nancy?

Where is Nancy?"

Valeria sprang up. "Is there anything you want, Edith dear?"

"No; I should like Nancy. I love to see her, and I am too lazy to run

after her."

"I will call her," said Valeria.

At this unexpected reply Mrs. Avory raised eyes shining with gratitude

to her daughter-in-law's face.

Valeria found her little girl declaiming verses to the trees in the

orchard. She knelt down on the grass to fasten the small button-shoe,

and said, without raising her face: "Nancy, you are to go to Edith; but,

Nancy, _you are not to kiss her_."

"Oh, mother! has she been naughty?"

"No." Valeria remained on her knees, and put her arm round the child.

"Edith is ill," she said slowly.

"Then I will kiss her double," cried Nancy, flushing.

"Nancy, Nancy, try to understand," said Valeria. "Edith is ill, as your

father was, and he died; and as her sisters were, and they died. And if

you kiss her, you may get ill, too, and die. And every time you kiss

her--oh, Nancy, Nancy, child of mine, it is a sword struck into your

mother's heart!"

There was a long pause. "And if I refuse to kiss her, will that not be a

sword struck into her heart?" asked Nancy.

"Yes," said Valeria.

"And if a sword is in Edith's heart, there will be a sword in

grandmother's heart, too?"

"Yes," said Valeria.

A long pause; then Nancy said: "There is a sword for every heart.... I

could make a beautiful poetry about that." Her eyes were large, and saw

nothing--not her mother, not Edith who was ill--but the bleeding heart

of the world, sword-struck and gigantic, and in her ears the lines began

to swing and flow.

"Mother of God, help us!" sighed Valeria, shaking her head. "Go to

Edith."

Nancy went; and she kissed Edith, because she had forgotten all that her

mother had said.

Presently Zio Giacomo came out to them with an open letter in his hand.

It was a letter from Nino, and Zio Giacomo's wrath knew no bounds. He

called Nino a perfidious traitor and a foolish viper, and an imbecile

and the son of an imbecile. He called Valeria a blundering and insensate

one, who might have stopped Nino, and kept Nino, and married Nino, and

made him behave himself; and Nino was an angel, and no husband would

ever be such an angel as Nino would have been as a husband to Valeria.

And now the triple extract of insensate imbecility had gone off with an

actress, a perfidious, senile snake, who had followed him to England,

and it was all Valeria's fault, and Fraeulein's fault. Yes, Fraeulein was

an absurd, moon-struck, German creature, who had turned him, Zio

Giacomo, into a preposterous, doddering idiot by reading preposterous,

senseless, twaddling Dante's "Inferno" to him all day long.

Fraeulein wept, and Valeria wept; but that did not help Zio Giacomo. Nor

did it bring back Nino from San Remo, where he was strolling under

palm-trees with La Villari; and La Villari was smiling and sighing and

melting in the throes of her new _toquade_.

X

Nino, before leaving London, had borrowed some money from Fioretti, who

had borrowed it from the lady of title; then he had written to Nunziata

Villari's impresario, and cancelled all her engagements; then he wrote

to his father, and said he was sorry, and to Valeria, and said he was a

miserable hound. After that he started for the Riviera with Nunziata,

who was meek and docile and lovely in her incredible hats and

unverisimilar gowns.

They were happy in San Remo; but as May was ended, and the weather was

hot, Nino suggested spending June in Switzerland; so they went to

Lucerne and up to Buergenstock.

The large hotel was already filled with English-speaking people, and the

striking Italian couple was much looked at and discussed. At luncheon

their table was set next to a family of Americans--father, mother, and

three lovely daughters with no manners. The three girls shook their

curls, and laughed in their handkerchiefs, and made inaudible remarks to

each other about the new arrivals. In the evening they all three

appeared in rose-silk dresses, low-necked and tight-waisted--even the

youngest, who looked scarcely fourteen. They carried three Teddy-bears

to table with them, and were noisy and giggling and ill-mannered; but

their beauty was indescribable. The two eldest wore their red-gold curls

pinned on the top of their heads with immense black bows, whereas the

youngest had her flowing hair parted in the middle, and it fell like a

sheet of gilt water to her waist.

Nino, who sat facing them, twisted up his moustache, and forgot to offer

sweets to Nunziata; and Nunziata laughed and talked, and was charming,

biting her red lips until they were scarlet, and turning her rings round

and round on her delicate fingers.

Then she said--oh, quite casually!--that she had received a letter from

Count Jerace that afternoon. Count Jerace? The name of the handsome

Neapolitan _viveur_ always grated upon Nino, and he became angry, and

made many stinging remarks; whereupon Nunziata, still sweet and patient,

biting her red lips until they were scarlet, and turning her rings round

and round on her delicate fingers, said that Jerace thought of coming to

Buergenstock towards the end of the week.

Nino pushed his plate aside, and said he would leave the place

to-morrow. Then Nunziata laughed and said: "So will I!" and Nino called

her an angel, and finished his dinner peacefully.

They left the next day.

They went to Engelberg. In Engelberg there were golf-links and

tennis-courts, and English girls in shirt-waists and sailor

hats--laughing girls, blushing girls, twittering girls. Engelberg was

full of them. Nunziata soon got a letter to say that the Count was

thinking of coming to Engelberg, and Nino took her on to Interlaken.

But all Switzerland was a-flower with girlhood. Everybody in the world

seemed to be seventeen or eighteen years old. Nunziata would say

nervously a hundred times a day:

"What a lovely girl!"

And Nino would ask: "What girl?"

"Why, the girl that just passed us."

Nino had not seen her.

"But you must have seen her," insisted Nunziata.

No; Nino had not seen anybody. He never did. But Nunziata saw everyone.

Every uptilted profile, every golden head, every flower-like figure,

every curve of every young cheek, struck thorns and splinters into her

hurting heart. She wore her incredible gowns and her unverisimilar hats,

but they seemed strange and out of place in Switzerland; and the

brief-skirted, tennis-playing girls, passing in twos and threes in the

cruel June sunshine, with their arms round each other's waists, would

turn and look after her and smile.

Soon Nunziata felt that what had been a caprice for four years, while

she had had her roles and her audiences, her impresarios and her

critics, her adorers and her enemies to distract her, was a caprice no

longer. What had been merely a _toquade_, to laugh at and to talk about,

was no more a _toquade_. The fire had flamed up, and was a

conflagration; it was, indeed, _la grande passion_. And Nino was alone

in her world. Nino was not Nino to her any more. He was youth itself, he

was love, he was life, he was all that she had had in the fulness of her

past, all that would soon slip from her for ever. And her heart grew

bitter, as does the heart of every woman who is older than the man she

loves. Her thirty-eight years were to her as a wound of shame.

Sometimes, when he looked at her, she would bend forward and put her

hands over his eyes. "Don't look at me! don't look at me!" And when he

laughed and drew her hands aside, she murmured: "Your eyes are my

enemies. I dread them." For she knew that his eyes would gaze upon and

desire all the beauty and the youngness of the world.

Late one afternoon they sat on their balcony, while an Italian orchestra

in the gardens beneath them played some Sicilian music that they loved.

Nunziata spoke her thought. "Are you not tiring of me, Nino? Oh, Nino!

are you sure you are not tiring of me yet?"

"Yet?" exclaimed Nino. "I shall never tire of you--never!"

"Ils faisaient d'eternels serments!..." murmured Nunziata, with a bitter

smile.

Nino grasped her white helpless hands. "Why will you not be happy?" he

said; for he knew her heart.

"I do not know," said Nunziata.

"You are unhappy. I feel it--I feel it all through the day, even when

you laugh," said Nino. "Would you be happier without me?"

"Neither with you nor without you can I live," said Nunziata.

The orchestra was playing Lola's song, and her soul was filled with the

hunger of the unattainable and the thirst of death; then, as it was

late, she got up with a little sigh, and having powdered her face and

patted her hair, and said a little prayer to the Madonna, she slipped

her arm through his, and they went down to dinner together.

"I promise I shall not be so foolish again!" she said. "It is absurd; it

is morbid!"

But after dinner a girl from Budapest was asked if she would dance. The

girl laughed and hesitated; then she vanished for a few minutes, during

which time Nunziata turned faint and sick. The girl reappeared,

barefooted and lightly draped; then she danced. She danced like the

incarnation of spring, and she looked like a blossom blown from the

almond-tree. And Nunziata was morbid again.

Nino was in despair. He looked gloomy, and sighed, and quoted Verlaine:

"Mourons ensemble, voulez-vous?"

She laughed a little broken laugh, and quoted the succeeding line:

"Oh! la folle idee!"

And she did not quite mean her laugh, as he did not quite mean his sigh.

Thus the two lovers toyed lightly with thoughts of the grave, while far

away, at the Grey House, Death had uncovered his face, and was knocking

at the door.

* * * * *

Mrs. Avory had awakened one morning to find the last of her daughters

pale, with blood-stained lips, fighting for breath. A doctor, summoned

in haste, had said: "Davos!" A knighted specialist from London had

repeated: "Davos!"

In less than a week the house was dismantled, the trunks packed, the

servants dismissed. Fraeulein, all tears, had migrated into an American

family staying in the neighbourhood; Valeria, pale and trembling, and

little Nancy, sobbing, and clinging to Edith's neck, had said "Good-bye,

good-bye!" and had left for Italy with Uncle Giacomo. The tragic mother

and daughter turned their steps to the mountains alone.

XI