boys had at last carried off Griff by force to their camp; Griff was
willing enough to go, the "force" applied to the intellectual effort
necessary on the boys' part to detach him from a lady who wished to keep
him by her side. They had all been strolling up and down in the shade of
the so-called Basilica, amid the fern and acanthus. Left alone with her
son and Mrs. Graham, Mrs. Ash, after remaining with them a few moments,
turned aside, and entering the temple, sat down there. She was out of
hearing, but still near.
"Ride with me to-morrow, Pauline," Ash said, immediately. "I have not
had a chance to speak to you before. Don't refuse."
"I am afraid I must. I have an engagement."
"With Carew?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I am very good-natured to tell you. I am going to Naples with him for
the day."
"You are going-- Damnation!"
"You forget yourself," said Pauline. Then, when she saw the look on his
face--the face of this man with whom she had played--she was startled.
"Forget myself! I wish I could. You shall not go to Naples."
"And how can you prevent it?"
"Are you daring me?"
"By no means," answered Pauline; and this time she really tried to speak
gently. "I was calling to your remembrance the fact that there is no tie
between us, Mr. Ash; you have no shadow of authority over my actions; I
am free to do as I please."
"I know you are; that is the worst of it," he said, almost with a groan.
"Pauline, don't play with me now. I have given up hoping for anything
for myself--if I ever really did hope; I am not worthy of you. Whether
you could make me worthy I don't know; but I don't ask you that; I don't
ask you to try; it would be too much. I only ask you to be as you have
been; as you were, I mean, during all those many weeks, not as you have
been lately. Only a few days are left when I can see you freely; be kind
to me, then, during those few days, and then I will take myself off."
"I mean to be kind; I am kind."
"Then ride with me to-morrow; just this once more."
"But I told you it was impossible; I told you I was going to Naples."
The pleading vanished from Ash's face and voice. "_I_ never asked you to
do that--to go off with me for a whole day."
Pauline did not answer; she was arranging the flowers which Mrs. Ash had
industriously gathered.
"So much the greater fool I!--is that what you are thinking?" Ash went
on, laughing discordantly.
For the moment Pauline forgot to be angry in the vague feeling,
something like fear, which took possession of her. All fear is
uncomfortable, and she hated discomfort; she gave herself a little
inward shake as if to shake it off. "I shall ask Cousin Oc to go back to
Paris next week," was her thought. "I have had enough of Italy for the
present--Italy and madmen!"
"You won't go?" asked Ash, bending forward eagerly, as though he had
gained hope from her silence.
"To Paris?"
"Are we speaking of Paris? To Naples--to-morrow."
"Oh, I must go to Naples," she answered, gayly. In spite of her gayety
she turned towards the Basilica; Mrs. Ash was the nearest person.
"You are going to my mother? She, at least, is a good woman; she would
never have tarnished herself with such an expedition as you are
planning!" cried Ash, in a fury.
Pauline turned white. "I am well paid for ever having endured you, ever
having liked you," she said, in a low voice, as she hastened on. "I
might have known--I might have known."
There was not much to choose now between the expression of the two
faces, for the woman's sweet countenance showed in its pallor an anger
as vivid as that which had flushed the face of the man beside her, with
a red so dark that his blue eyes looked unnaturally light by contrast,
as though they had been set in the face of an Indian.
Mrs. Ash had come hurriedly out to meet them. Her son paid no attention
to her; all his powers were evidently concentrated upon holding himself
in check. "I shouldn't have said it, even if it were the plain brutal
truth," he said. "But you madden me, Pauline. I mean what I say--you
really do drive me into a kind of madness."
"I have no desire to drive you into anything; I have no desire to talk
with you further," she answered.
"No, no, dearie, don't say that; talk ter him a little longer," said
Mrs. Ash, coming forward, her face set in a tremulous smile. "I'm sure
it's very pleasant here--beside these buildings. And John thinks so much
of you; he means no harm."
"Poor mother!" said Ash, his voice softening. "She does not dare to say
to you what she longs to say; she would whisper it if she could; and
that is, 'Don't provoke him!' She has some pretty bad memories--haven't
you, mother?--of times when I've--when I've gone a-hunting, as one may
say. She'll tell you about them if you like."
"I don't want to hear about them; I don't want to hear about anything,"
answered Mrs. Graham, troubled out of all her composure, troubled even
out of her anger by the strangeness of this strange pair. She looked
about for some one, and, seeing Carew coming from the tents of the camp,
she waved her hand to attract his attention and beckoned to him; then
she went forward to meet him as he hastened towards her.
Ash disengaged himself from his mother, who, however, had only touched
his arm entreatingly, for she had learned to be very cautious where her
son was concerned; he strode forward to Pauline's side.
"I should rather see you dead before me than go with that man
to-morrow."
"Pray don't kill me, at least till the day is over," Pauline answered,
her courage, and her unconquerable carelessness too, returning in the
approach of Carew. "It would be quite too great a disappointment to lose
my day."
"You _shall_ lose it!" said Ash, with a loud coarse oath.
"Oh!" said the woman, all her lovely delicate person shrinking away from
him.
Her intonation had been one of disgust. She held the skirt of her habit
closer, as if to avoid all contact.
V
At five o'clock of the same afternoon Freemantle, Gates, and Beckett,
with Arthur Abercrombie, came running along the narrow streets of a
village some miles from Paestum.
The stone houses of which this village was composed stood like two solid
walls facing each other, rising directly from the stone-paved road,
which was barely ten feet wide; down this conduit water was pouring like
a brook. The houses were about forty in number, twenty on each side, and
this one short street was all there was of the town.
It was raining, not in drops, but in torrents, with great pats of water
coming over, almost like stones, and striking upon the heads of those
who were passing below; every two or three minutes there came a glare of
blindingly white lightning, followed immediately by the crash of
thunder, which seemed to be rolling on the very roofs of the houses
themselves. The four boys must have been out in the storm for some time,
for they paid no attention to it. Their faces were set, excited. Every
thread of their clothing was wet through.
"This is the house," said Arthur.
They looked up, sheltering their eyes with their arms from the blows of
the rain-balls. From the closed windows above, the faces of Isabella
Holland and the three Abercrombie girls looked down at them, pressed
flatly against the small panes, in order to see; for the storm had made
the air so dark that the street lay in gloom.
The next moment the boys entered.
"No, we haven't found him," said Arthur, in answer to his white sisters'
look. "But we're going to."
"Yes, we're going to," said the others. And then, walking on tiptoe in
their soaked shoes, they went softly into an inner room.
Here on a couch lay Griffith Carew, dying.
An Italian doctor was still trying to do something for the unconscious
man. He had an assistant, and the two were at work together. Near by,
old Mrs. Preston sat waiting, her hands folded upon the knob of a cane
which stood on the floor before her, her chin resting upon her hands. In
this bent position, with her disordered white hair and great black eyes,
she looked witch-like. Three candles burned on a table at the head of
the bed, illumining Carew and the two doctors and the waiting old woman.
The room was long, and its far end was in shadow. Was there another
person present--sitting there silent and motionless? Yes--Pauline. The
boys came to the foot of the bed and gazed with full hearts at Griff.
Griff had been shot by John Ash two hours before. The deed had been done
just as they had reached the shelter of this village, swept into it
almost by a tornado, which, preceding the darker storm, had driven them
far from their rightful road. The darker storm had broken upon them
immediately afterwards with a terrible sound and fury; but the boys had
barely heard the crash in the sky above them as they carried Griff
through the stony little street. They had found a doctor--two of them;
they had done everything possible. Then they had been told that Griff
must die, and they had gone out to look for the murderer.
He could not be far, for the village was small, and he could not have
quitted the village, because the half-broken young horses that had
brought him from Salerno, frightened by the incessant glare of the
lightning, had become unmanageable, dragged their fastenings loose, and
disappeared. In any case the plain was impassable; the roar of the sea,
with the night coming on, indicated that the floods were out; they had
covered the shore, and would soon be creeping inland; the road would be
drowned and lost. Ash, therefore, could not be far.
Yet they had been unable to find him, though they had searched every
house. And they had found no trace of his mother.
During these long hours four times the boys had sallied forth and hunted
the street up and down. The Italians, crowded into their narrow dark
dwellings from fear of the storm, had allowed them to pass freely in and
out, to go from floor to floor; some of the men had even lighted their
little oil lamps and gone down with them to search the shallow cellars.
But the women did not look up; they were telling their beads or
kneeling before their little in-door shrines, the frightened children
clinging to their skirts and crying. For both the street and the dark
houses were lighted every minute or two by that unearthly blinding
glare.
The village version of the story was that the two _forestieri_ had
sprung at each other's throats, maddened by jealousy; poniards had been
drawn, and one of them had fallen. One had fallen, indeed, but only one
had attacked. And there had been no poniards: it was a well-aimed bullet
from an American revolver that had struck down Griffith Carew.
The four boys, brought back each time from their search by a sudden hope
that perhaps Griff might have rallied, and forced each time to yield up
their hope at the sight of his death-like face, were animated in their
grief by one burning determination: they would bring the murderer to
justice. It was a foreign land and a remote shore; they were boys; and
he was a bold, bad man with a wonderful brain--for they had always
appreciated Ash's cleverness, though they had never liked him. In spite
of all this he should not escape; they would hunt him like
hounds--blood-hounds; and though it should take months, even years, of
their lives, they would bring him to justice at the last.
This hot vow kept the poor lads from crying. They were very young, and
their heads were throbbing with their unshed tears; there were big lumps
in their throats when poor Griff, opening his dull eyes for a moment,
knew them, and tried to smile in his cheery old way. But he relapsed
into unconsciousness immediately. And the watch went on.
The gloomy day drew to its close; by the clocks, evening had come.
There was more breathing-space now between the lightning flashes and the
following thunder; the wind was no longer violent; the rain still fell
heavily; its torrent, striking the pavement below, sent up a loud hollow
sound. One of the doctors left the house, and came back with a fresh
supply of candles and various things, vaguely frightful, because hidden,
concealed in a sheet. Then the other doctor went out to get something to
eat. Finally they were both on guard again. And the real night began.
Then, to the waiting group in the lighted silent room, there entered a
tall figure--Azubah Ash; drenched, without bonnet or shawl, she stood
there before them. Her frightened look was gone forever: she faced them
with unconscious majesty. "My son is dead"--this was her announcement.
She walked forward to the bed, and gazed at the man lying there.
"Perhaps he will not die," she said, turning her head to glance at the
others. "God is kind--sometimes; perhaps he will not die." She bent over
and stroked his hair tenderly with her large hand. "Dear heart, live!
Try ter live!" she said; "we want yer to, so much!"
Then she left him, and faced them again. "I thought of warning you," she
began; "you"--and she looked at Mrs. Preston; "and you"--she turned
towards the figure at the end of the room. "My son was not himself when
he was in a passion--I have known it ever sence he was born. Even when
he was a little fellow of two and three I used ter try ter guard him;
but I couldn't do much--his will was stronger than mine. And he was
always very clever, my son was--much cleverer than me. Twice before,
three times before, I've ben afraid he'd take some one's life. You
see, he didn't care about life so much as some people do; and now he has
taken his own."
[Illustration: THE OLD WATCH-TOWER]
There was an involuntary stir among the boys.
Mrs. Ash turned her eyes towards them. "Would you like ter see him, so's
ter be sure? In one moment."
She went towards the bed again, and clasped her hands; then she knelt
down, and began to pray beside the unconscious man in hushed tones. "O
God, O our Father, give us back this life: do, Lord--O do. It's so dear
ter these poor boys, and it's so dear ter many; and perhaps there's a
mother too. O Lord, give it back to us! And when he's well again, help
him ter be all that my poor son was not. For Christ's sake."
She rose and crossed to where the boys were standing. "Will you come
now?" she said. "I'm taking him away at dawn." Then, very simply, she
offered her hand to Mrs. Preston. "He was a great deal at your house; he
told me that. I thank you for having ben so kind ter him. Good-bye."
"But I too will go with you," answered Mrs. Preston, in her deep tones.
She rose, leaning on her cane. Mrs. Ash was already crossing the room
towards the door.
The boys followed her; then came Mrs. Preston, looking bent and old. The
figure of Pauline in her dark corner rose as they approached.
"No," said Mrs. Ash, seeing the movement. She paused. "Don't come, my
dear; I really can't let you; you'd think of it all the rest of your
life if you was ter see him now, and 'twould make you feel so bad. I
know you didn't mean no harm. But you mustn't come."
And Pauline, shrinking back into the shadow, was held there by the
compassion of this mother--this mother whose nobler nature, and large
glance quiet in the majesty of sorrow, made her, made all the women
present, fade into nothingness beside her. In the outer room Isabella
and the excited, peering Abercrombies were like four unimportant,
unnoticed ghosts, as the little procession went by them in silence, and
descended the stairs. Then it passed out into the storm.
Mrs. Ash walked first, leading the way, the rain falling on her hair;
the three boys followed; behind them came Mrs. Preston, leaning on her
nephew's arm and helping herself with her cane. They passed down the
narrow street, and the people brought their small lamps to the doorways
to aid them in the darkness. The street ended, but the mother went on:
apparently she was going out on the broad waste. They all followed, Mrs.
Preston merely shaking her head when Arthur proposed that she should
turn back.
At some distance beyond the town there was a grove of oaks; they went
round an angle of this grove, stumbling in the darkness, and came to a
mound behind it; on the summit of the mound there was something--a
square structure of stone. Mrs. Ash went up, and entered a low door.
Within there was but one room, empty save for a small lighted lamp
standing on the dirt floor; a stairway, or rather a flight of stone
steps, ascended to a room above. Mrs. Ash took the lamp and led the way
up; Mrs. Preston's cane sounded on the stones as she followed.
[Illustration: "THE CART WAS GOING SLOWLY ACROSS THE FIELDS, FOR THE
ROAD WAS OVERFLOWED."]
The room above was square, like the one below; it was the whole interior
of the ancient house, or rather the ancient watch-tower; its roof of
beams was broken; the rain came through in several places and dropped
upon the floor. There was a second small lamp in the room besides the
one which Mrs. Ash had brought; the two shed a dim ray over a peasant's
rude bed, where something long and dark and straight was stretched out.
Mrs. Ash went up to the bed, and motioning away the old peasant who was
keeping watch there, she took both lamps and held them high above the
still face. The others drew near. And then they saw that it was John
Ash--dead!
There were no signs of the horror of it; his mother had removed them
all; he lay as if asleep.
The mother held the lights up steadily for a long moment. Then she
placed them on a table, and coming back, took her son's lifeless hand in
hers.
"Now that you've seen him, seen that he's really gone, will you leave me
alone with him?" she said. "I think there's nothing more."
There was a dignity in her face as she stood there beside her child
which made the others feel suddenly conscious of the wantonness of
further intrusion. As they looked at her, too, they perceived that she
no longer thought of them, no longer even saw them: her task was ended.
Without a word they went out. Mrs. Preston's cane sounded on the
stairway again; then there was silence.
At dawn they saw her drive away. Griff might live, the doctors had said.
But for the moment the gazing group of Americans forgot even that. She
was in a cart, with a man walking beside the horse; the cart was going
slowly across the fields, for the road was over-flowed. The storm had
ceased; the sky was blue; the sun, rising, shed his fresh golden light
on the tall, lonely figure with its dark hair uncovered, and on the
long rough box at its feet.
Looking the other way, one could see in the south the beautiful temples
of Paestum, that have gazed over that plain for more than two thousand
years.
A PINK VILLA
I
"Yes, of the three, I liked Pierre best," said Mrs. Churchill. "Yet it
was hard to choose. I have lived so long in Italy that I confess it
would have been a pleasure to see Eva at court; it's a very pretty
little court they have now at Rome, I assure you, with that lovely Queen
Margherita at the head. The old Marchese is to resign his post this
month, and the King has already signified his intention of giving it to
Gino. Eva, as the Marchesa Lamberti, living in that ideal old Lamberti
palace, you know--Eva, I flatter myself, would have shone in her small
way as brightly as Queen Margherita in hers. You may think I am assuming
a good deal, Philip. But you have no idea how much pain has been taken
with that child; she literally is fitted for a court or for any other
high position. Yet at the same time she is very childlike. I have kept
her so purposely; she has almost never been out of my sight. The
Lambertis are one of the best among the old Roman families, and there
could not be a more striking proof of Gino's devotion than his having
persuaded his father to say (as he did to me two months ago) that he
should be proud to welcome Eva 'as she is,' which meant that her very
small dowry would not be considered an objection. As to Eva herself, of
course the Lambertis, or any other family, would be proud to receive
her," pursued Mrs. Churchill, with the quiet pride which in its
unruffled serenity became her well. "But not to hesitate over her mere
pittance of a portion, that is very remarkable; for the marriage-portion
is considered a sacred point by all Italians; they are brought up to
respect it--as we respect the Constitution."
"It's a very pretty picture," answered Philip Dallas--"the court and
Queen Margherita, the handsome Gino and the old Lamberti palace. But I'm
a little bewildered, Fanny; you speak of it all so appreciatively, yet
Gino was certainly not the name you mentioned; Pierre, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Pierre," answered Mrs. Churchill, laughing and sighing with the
same breath. "I've strayed far. But the truth is, I did like Gino, and I
wanted to tell you about him. No, Eva will not be the Marchesa Lamberti,
and live in the old palace; I have declined that offer. Well, then, the
next was Thornton Stanley."
"Thornton Stanley? Has he turned up here? I used to know him very well."
"I thought perhaps you might."
"He is a capital fellow--when he can forget his first editions."
Mrs. Churchill folded her arms, placing one hand on each elbow, and
slightly hugging herself. "He has forgotten them more than once in
_this_ house," she said, triumphantly.
"He is not only a capital fellow, but he has a large fortune--ten times
as large, I venture to say, as your Lambertis have."
"I know that. But--"
"But you prefer an old palace. I am afraid Stanley could not build Eva
an old castle. Couldn't you manage to jog on with half a dozen new
ones?"
"The trouble with Thornton Stanley was his own uncertainty," said Fanny;
"he was not in the least firm about staying over here, though he
pretended he was. I could see that he would be always going home. More
than that, I should not be at all surprised if at the end of five
years--three even--he should have bought or built a house in New York,
and settled down there forever."
"And you don't want that for your American daughter, renegade?"
Mrs. Churchill unfolded her arms. "No one can be a warmer American than
I am, Philip--no one. During the war I nearly cried my eyes out; have
you forgotten that? I scraped lint; I wanted to go to the front as
nurse--everything. What days they were! We _lived_ then. I sometimes
think we have never lived since."
Dallas felt a little bored. He was of the same age as Fanny Churchill;
but the school-girl, whose feelings were already those of a woman, had
had her nature stirred to its depths by events which the lad had been
too young to take seriously to heart. His heart had never caught up with
them, though, of course, his reason had.
"Yes, I know you are flamingly patriotic," he said. "All the same, you
don't want Eva to live in Fiftieth Street."
"In Fiftieth Street?"
"I chose the name at random. In New York."
"I don't see why you should be sarcastic," said Fanny. "Of course I
expect to go back myself some time; I could not be content without that.
But Eva--Eva is different; she has been brought up over here entirely;
she was only three when I came abroad. It seems such a pity that all
that should be wasted."
"And why should it be wasted in Fiftieth Street?"
"The very qualities that are admired here would be a drawback to her
there," replied Mrs. Churchill. "A shy girl who cannot laugh and talk
with everybody, who has never been out alone a step in her life, where
would she be in New York?--I ask you that. While here, as you see,
before she is eighteen--"
"Isn't the poor child eighteen yet? Why in the world do you want to
marry her to any one for five years more at least?"
Mrs. Churchill threw up her pretty hands. "How little you have learned
about some things, Philip, in spite of your winters on the Nile and your
Scotch shooting-box! I suppose it is because you have had no daughters
to consider."
"Daughters?--I should think not!" was Dallas's mental exclamation.
Fanny, then, with all her sense, was going to make that same old mistake
of supposing that a bachelor of thirty-seven and a mother of
thirty-seven were of the same age.