TO LIVE FORGOTTEN AND LOVE FORLORN.
Vansittart had made up his mind. Were that which he accounted but a
dark suspicion to be made absolute certainty he meant still to cleave
to the girl whom he had chosen for his wife, and who had given him her
whole heart. He would marry her, even although his hand had shed her
brother’s blood, that brother whom of all her kindred she loved best,
with the romantic affection which clings round the image of a friend
lost in childhood, when the feelings are warmest, and when love asks no
questions.
Once, in the little room in Bruton Street, between two stolen kisses,
he said to her, “You pretend to be very fond of me, Eve. I wonder whom
you love next best?”
“Harold,” she answered quickly. “I used to think I should never give
any one his place in my heart. But you have stolen the first place. He
is only second now, poor dear--dead or living, only second.”
The tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke of him. A brother is not
often loved so fondly; hardly ever, unless he is a scamp.
And would she marry him, Jack Vansittart, if she knew that he had
killed her brother? Alas, no! That dark story would make an impassable
gulf between them. Loving him with all her heart, dependent upon him
for all the happiness and prosperity of her future life, she would
sacrifice herself and him to the manes of that worthless youth, slain
by the man his brutality had provoked to responsive violence.
“There was not much to choose between us,” Vansittart told himself;
“ruffians both. And are two lives to be blighted because of those few
moments of fury, in which the brute got the upper hand of the man? No,
a thousand times no. I will marry her, and let Fate do the worst to
us both. Fate can but part us. Why should I anticipate evil by taking
the initiative? A man who has happiness in his hand and lets it go,
for any question of conscience, may be a fine moral character, but he
is not the less a fool. Life is not long enough for scruples that part
faithful lovers.”
He looked the situation full in the face. He told himself that it was
for Eve’s welfare as well as for his own that he should keep from her
the knowledge of his wrong-doing. Would she be happier, would mankind
be any the better off for his self-abnegation, if he should tell her
the truth, and accept his dismissal? Knowing what he knew she could
scarcely lay her hand in his and take him for her husband; but once the
vow spoken, once his wife, he thought that she might forgive him even
her brother’s blood.
She must never know! He had blustered and raged in that troubled scene
with Sefton; but sober reflection taught him that if he were to be safe
in the future he must conciliate the man he hated. A word from Sefton
could spoil his happiness; and he could not afford to be ill friends
with the man who had power to speak that word; nor could he afford to
arouse that man’s suspicions by any eccentricity of conduct. He had
refused to hear the story of Harold Marchant’s life from the courier’s
lips, as Sefton suggested, had refused with scornful vehemence. But
reflection told him that he ought to examine the courier’s chain of
evidence, and to discover for himself if the links were strong enough
to make Harold Marchant’s identity with Fiordelisa’s lover an absolute
certainty. He wanted to know the worst, not to be deluded by the
illogical imaginings of an amateur detective. Again, it was natural
that a man in his position should look closely into this story, testing
its accuracy by the severest scrutiny; and he wanted to act naturally,
to act as Sefton would expect him to act.
Influenced by these considerations, he called in Tite Street on Monday
afternoon, and found Sefton at home, in a room which occupied the
entire first floor of a small house, but which could be made into two
rooms by drawing a curtain.
It was the most luxurious room that Vansittart had seen for a long
time, but there was a studied sobriety in its luxury which marked the
man of sense as well as the sybarite. The colouring was subdued--dull
olive--without relief save from a few pieces of old Italian ebony and
ivory work, a writing-table, a coffer, a book-case. Every inch of the
floor was carpeted with dark-brown velvet pile. No slippery parquetry
or sham oak here, no gaudy variety of Oriental prayer-rugs or furry
trophies of the chase. Capacious armchairs tempted to idleness; a
choice selection of the newest and oldest books invited to study;
two large windows looking east and west flooded the room with light;
and a fireplace wide enough for a baronial hall promised heat and
cheerfulness when frosts and fogs combine to make London odious.
“You like my den,” said Sefton, when Vansittart murmured his surprise
at finding so good a room in so small a house. “Comfortable, ain’t it?
The house is small, but I’ve reduced the number of rooms to three.
Below I have only a dining-room; above, only my bedroom. There is a
rabbit-hutch at the back of the landing for my valet, and a garret in
the roof for the women. Living in a colony of artists, I have taken
pains to keep clear of everything artistic. I have neither stained
glass nor tapestry, neither Raffaelle ware nor bronze idols; but I can
offer my friends a comfortable chair and a decently cooked dinner. I
hope you’ll put my professions to the test some evening, when I can get
one or two of my clever neighbours to meet you.”
Vansittart professed himself ready to dine with Mr. Sefton on any
occasion, and straightway proceeded to the business of his visit.
“You were good enough to suggest that I should see the courier,
Ferrari,” he said, “and I was impolite enough to refuse--rather
roughly, I fear.”
“You were certainly a little rough,” answered Sefton, with his suave
smile, “but I could make allowances for a man in your position. I
honour the warmth of your feelings; and I admire the chivalry which
makes you indifferent to the belongings of the woman you love.”
“That which you are pleased to call chivalry, I take to be the natural
conduct of any man in such circumstances. Honestly, now, Mr. Sefton,
would you give up the girl you love if you found her brother had been
the--the chief actor in such a scene as that row in the Venetian caffè?”
“Well, I suppose not; if I were tremendously in love. But life would
be considerably embittered, to my mind, by the apprehension of such a
brother-in-law’s reappearance, or by any unlooked-for concatenation
which might bring his personality into the foreground.”
“I am willing to risk such a concatenation. In the mean time it has
occurred to me that I ought to see Ferrari, and look into his story
dispassionately. If you will kindly give me his address I will write
and ask him to call upon me.”
“You will find him a very good fellow--a splendid animal, with a fair
intelligence,” said Sefton, writing an address. “And now I hope you
have forgiven me for bringing an unpleasant train of circumstances
under your notice. You must remember that the facts in question came
to my knowledge solely from my wish to oblige Miss Marchant. It would
not have been fair to you to leave you in ignorance of what so nearly
concerned your future wife.”
“Certainly not; but it would have been kinder, or wiser, on your part
to have kept this knowledge from my mother.”
“Mrs. Vansittart had won my warmest regard by her kindness to the son
of an old friend. I felt my first duty was to her.”
“That was unwise; and your unwisdom has caused much pain. However, I
thank you for having spared Miss Marchant the knowledge that would make
her miserable. I may rely upon you to keep the secret always--may I
not?” asked Vansittart, earnestly.
“Always. You have my promise.”
“Thank you. That sets my mind at rest. I know how to deal with my
mother’s prejudices; and I know that her affection for Eve will
overcome those prejudices--in good time.”
* * * * *
Ferrari called at Charles Street at eleven o’clock next morning, in
accordance with Vansittart’s request. As the clock struck the hour a
tall, good-looking man, with reddish-brown hair, reddish-brown eyes,
and a cheerful, self-satisfied smile, was ushered into Vansittart’s
study.
“You are punctual, Signor Ferrari. Sit down, please, and come
to business at once. Mr. Sefton tells me that you are the most
business-like of men, as well as the best of fellows.”
“Mr. Sefton have know me many years, sir. I have had the honour to
nurse the of him father in his last illness. Ten years ago we was at
Venice, at the Grand Hotel--Mr. Sefton’s father threw himself out of
the window in a paroxis of pain--I pick him out of the canal at risk of
to drown. The son does not forget what Ferrari did for the father.”
Those who knew Ferrari intimately discovered that this rescuing of
would-be suicides from the Grand Canal was an idiosyncrasy of his. He
affected to have saved half the distinguished travellers of Europe in
this manner.
“Now, Signor Ferrari, you have no doubt considered that the charge you
have brought against Mr. Harold Marchant is a very serious one----”
“Scusatemi, illustrissimo gentleman, I bring no charge,” protested
Ferrari, in his curious English, which he spoke with an American
accent, having improved his knowledge of the language in the society
of American travellers, few of whom condescended to Italian or even
French. “I bring no charge. Mr. Sefton tell me, trace for me the
movements of a young man called ’Arol Marchant. Find him for me. He
was last heard of with a party of explorers in Mashonaland. He good
shot. Kill big game. With these bare facts I set to work. I am one who
never stop. I am like the devil in Job, always going to and fro over
the earth. I know men in all parts; couriers, interpreters, servants of
every class, money-changers, shipping agents. From among these I get my
information, and here it is tabulated. It is for the illustrissimo to
judge for herself, having seen my facts.”
He opened a neat little book, where, upon ruled paper, appeared a
record of the movements of Harold Marchant from the hour of his
appearing at the diamond fields to his return from New York with a
party of Americans, in whose company he put up at the Hotel di Roma,
Pension Suisse, on the Grand Canal.
When he was at the Hotel di Roma he was known as Marchant. His
signature was in the visitors’ book at the hotel. Ferrari had seen
it, and had recorded the date, which was in the September preceding
that February in which Vansittart had shared in the gaieties of the
Carnival at Venice. A fortnight later Mr. Marchant took a second floor
in the Campo Goldoni, under the name of Smith. There was no doubt in
the courier’s mind as to the identity of the man in the Campo Goldoni
with the man at the Hotel di Roma. He had talked with a New Yorker who
had known Marchant under both names, and who knew of his relations with
the pretty lace-maker. But there was nothing in Ferrari’s statement
which could be called proof positive of this identity. The facts rested
on information obtained at second hand. It was open to Vansittart
to doubt--since error was not impossible--error as complete as that
mistake which had put the man who was killed in the place of the man
who killed him.
Ferrari tracked the fugitive on his voyage to Alexandria: recorded the
name of Smith given to the captain of the P. and O. After Alexandria
there was nothing.
“Do you think he came back to Europe by another steamer?” asked
Vansittart, testing the all-knowing Venetian.
“Not he, Altissimo. Having once set his foot upon the soil of Africa
he would be too wise to return to Europe. He might go to India, to
America--north or south--but he would not come to England, to answer
for the English life which he had taken. You Englishmen set great store
upon life.”
Vansittart dismissed the man with a present, but before he went Ferrari
laid his card upon the table, and begged that if ever the illustrissimo
required a travelling servant, he, Ferrari, might be remembered.
When he was gone Vansittart took up his pen and wrote hastily to Sefton.
“DEAR MR. SEFTON,
“Your excellent Ferrari has been here, and I have gone carefully
through his statement. It is plausible, but by no means convincing;
and I see ample room for error in a chain of facts which rest upon
hearsay. Under these conditions I am more than ever desirous that no
hint of Ferrari’s story should reach Miss Marchant. Forgive me for
reminding you of your promise. It would be a deplorable business if
this dear girl were made unhappy about a chimera.
“I go to Redwold to-morrow, and shall stay over Whitsuntide. We are to
be married before the end of June, very quietly, at Fernhurst Church.
“Yours sincerely,
“J. VANSITTART.”
He rather despised himself for writing in this friendly strain to a man
for whom he had an instinctive dislike; but he tried to believe that
his dislike was mere prejudice, and that Sefton’s manner with Eve, to
which he had taken such violent objection, was only Sefton’s manner to
young women in general; a bad manner, but without any sinister feeling
underlying it--only a bad manner.
To-morrow he was to go to Redwold, to be his sister’s guest till after
Whitsuntide, or until the wedding, if he pleased. And before June was
pushed aside by her sultrier sister July, he was to be Eve Marchant’s
husband. Every day of his life brought that union a day nearer. It had
come now to the counting of days. It seemed to him as if time and the
calendar were no more--as if he and his love were being swept along
on the strong current of their happiness. He could think of nothing,
care for nothing but Eve. His bailiff’s letters, his lawyer’s letters,
remained unanswered. He could not bring himself even to consider his
mother’s suggestions as to this or that improvement at Merewood,
whither Mrs. Vansittart was going at Whitsuntide, to prepare all things
for the coming of the bride, and to arrange for her own removal.
“Do as much or as little as you like, mother,” Vansittart said. “You
need alter nothing. Eve will be pleased with things as they are.”
“It will be a great change from a cottage,” sighed Mrs. Vansittart.
“I’m afraid she will be bewildered and overpowered by a large
household. She can have no idea of managing servants.”
“The servants can manage themselves, mother. I don’t want a managing
wife. Yet from what I have seen of Eve in her own home I take her to
be well up in domestic matters. Everything at the Homestead seemed the
essence of comfort.”
He remembered his wintry tea-drinking, the tea and toast, the cake and
jam-pots, and Eve’s radiant face; the firelight on Eve’s hair; the
sense of quiet happiness which pervaded the place where his love was
queen. It seemed to him that there could not have been one inharmonious
note in that picture. Order and beauty and domestic peace were there.
Should Fate reduce him to poverty he could be utterly happy with his
love in just such a home. He wanted neither splendid surroundings nor
brilliant society.
Having heard all that Ferrari could tell him, he felt easier in his
mind than he had felt since that unpleasant hour with his mother and
Sefton on Saturday evening. The more he thought of the courier’s chain
of evidence, the weaker it seemed to him. No, he could not think that
the man he had killed was the brother of the woman he was going to
marry. He tried to recall the man’s face; but the suddenness and fury
of that deadly encounter had afforded no time for minute observation.
The man’s face had flashed upon him out of the crowd--fair-haired,
fair-skinned, amidst all those olive complexions--a face and figure
that bore down upon him with the impression of physical power; handsome
only as the typical gladiator is handsome. What more could he remember?
Irregular features, strongly marked; a low forehead; and light blue
eyes. The Marchants were a blue-eyed race; but that went for little in
a country where the majority of eyes are blue or grey.
Vansittart remembered his promise to visit Fiordelisa and her aunt; and
as this was his last day in London, perhaps, for some time, he gave
up his afternoon to the performance of that promise. Tuesday was one
of the Professor’s days; and he had promised to hear the Professor’s
opinion of Signora Vivanti’s progress.
Since that painful hour on Saturday he had thought seriously of the
impulsive Venetian, and of his relations with her--relations which
he felt to be full of peril. It had occurred to him that there was
only one way to secure Fiordelisa’s future welfare, while strictly
maintaining his own incognito, and that was by the purchase of an
annuity. It would cost him some thousands to capitalize that income
of two hundred a year, which he had resolved to allow Lisa; but he
had reserves which he could afford to draw upon, the accumulations of
his minority, invested in railway stock. Any lesser sacrifice would
appear to him too poor an atonement; for after all, it was possible
that, but for him, Fiordelisa’s Englishman might have kept his promise
and married her. No, Vansittart did not think he would be doing too
much in securing these two women against poverty for the rest of
their lives--and the annuity once bought he would be justified in
disappearing out of Fiordelisa’s life, and leaving her in ignorance of
his name and belongings.
He spent an hour with his lawyer before going to Chelsea, and from that
gentleman obtained all needful information as to the proper manner of
purchasing an annuity, and the best people with whom to invest his
money.
* * * * *
This done, he walked across the Park, and arrived at Saltero’s Mansion
on the stroke of four. Lisa had told him that her lesson lasted from
three to four, so he had timed himself to meet the maestro.
The ripe round notes of Lisa’s mezzo soprano rose full and strong in
one of Conconi’s exercises as la Zia opened the door. She attacked a
florid passage with force and precision, ran rapidly up the scale to A
sharp, and held the high note long and clear as the call of a bird.
“Brava, brava!” cried Signor Zinco, banging down a chord and rising
from the piano as Vansittart entered.
Lisa flew to meet him. She was in her black frock, with a bit of
scarlet ribbon tied round her throat, and another bit of scarlet tying
up her great untidy knot of blue-black hair. The rusty black gown, the
scarlet ribbons, the olive face, with its carnation flush and star-like
eyes, made a brilliant picture after the school of Murillo. Vansittart
could but see that she was strikingly handsome--just the kind of woman
to take the town by storm, if she were once seen and heard in opera
bouffe.
Zinco was a little old man, with no more figure than an eighteen-gallon
cask. He had a large bald head, and benevolent eyes. He was very
shabby. His coat, which might once have been black, was now a dull
green--his old grey trousers were kneed and frayed, his old fat hands
were dirty.
“Ah, I thought you had forgotten me again,” said Lisa. “But you are
here at last; and now ask the master if he is pleased with me.”
“I am more than pleased,” began Zinco, bowing and smiling at Vansittart
as one who would fain have prostrated himself at the feet of so exalted
a patron.
“Stay,” cried Lisa. “You shall not talk of me before my face. I will go
and make the tea--and then Zinco will tell you the truth, Si’or mio,
the very truth about me. He will not be obliged to praise.”
She dashed out of the room, as if blown out on a strong wind, so
impetuous were her movements. La Zia began to clear a table for tea, a
table heaped with sheets of music and play-books. Fiordelisa had been
learning English out of Gilbert’s librettos, which were harder work for
her than Metastasio for an English student.
“Well, Signor Zinco, what do you think of your pupil?” asked Vansittart.
“Sir, she is of a marvellous natural. She has an enormous talent, and
with that talent an enormous energy. She is destined to a prodigious
success upon the English scene.”
“I am delighted to hear it.”
“She has all the qualities which succeed with your English people--a
fine voice, a fine person, and--that that may not displease you--a
vulgarity which will command applause. Were I more diplomatist I should
say genius--where I say vulgarity--but this divine creature is adorably
vulgar. She has no nerves. I say to her sing, and she sings. ‘Attack me
the A sharp,’ and she attacks, and the note rings out like a bell. She
is without nerves, and she is without self-consciousness, and she has
the courage of a lion. She has worked as no pupil of mine ever worked
before. She is mastering your difficult language in as many months as
it cost me years. She has laboured at the theory of music, and though
she is in most things of a surprising ignorance, she has made no mean
progress in that difficult science. She has worked as Garcia’s gifted
daughter worked; and were this age worthy of a second Malibran, she has
in her the stuff to make a Malibran.”
The fat little maestro stopped for breath, not for words. He stood
mopping his forehead and smiling at Vansittart, who was inclined to
believe in his sincerity, for that _roulade_ he had heard at the door
just now displayed a voice of brilliant quality.
“You are enthusiastic, Signor Zinco,” he said quietly. “And pray when
you have trained this fine voice to the uttermost what do you intend to
do with it?”
“I hope to place the Signora in the way of making her fortune. Were
you English a nation of music-lovers, I should say to this dear lady,
give yourself up to hard study of classical opera for the next three
years, before you allow yourself to be heard in public; but pardon
me if I say, Signor, you English are not connoisseurs. You are taken
with show and brilliancy. You think more of youth and beauty in the
_prima donna_ than of finish or science. Before your winter season of
opera bouffe shall begin the Signora will have learnt enough to ensure
her a _succes fou_. I count upon getting her engaged at the Apollo in
November. There is a new opera being written for the Apollo--an opera
in which I am told there are several female characters, and there will
be a chance for a new singer. I have already spoken to the manager, and
he has promised to hear the Signora sing before concluding his autumn
engagements.”
“Festina lente, Signor Zinco. You are going at railroad pace. Do not
spoil the Signora’s future by a hasty _début_.”
“Have no fear, sir. She will have all the summer for practice, and for
further progress in English. A foreign accent will be no disadvantage.
It takes with an English audience. You have had so many sham Italians
in opera that it will be well to have a real one.”
The maestro bowed himself out, as Fiordelisa came in with the tea-tray,
beaming with smiles, happy and important. She placed a chair for
Vansittart by the open window. She arranged the light bamboo table
in front of him, and began to pour out the tea, while la Zia seated
herself at a little distance.
“I have learnt to make tea in your English fashion,” Lisa said gaily,
as she handed the teacups. “Strong, oh, so strong. No xe vero? Our
neighbour on the upper floor taught me. She laughed at my tea one day
when she came to see me. And now, what did little Zinco say? He always
pretends to be satisfied with me.”
“He praised you to the skies. He says you will make your fortune in
opera.”
“And do you like operas?” Lisa asked, after a thoughtful pause.
“I adore music of all kinds, except hurdy-gurdies and banjos.”
“And will you come sometimes to hear me sing?”
“Assuredly! With the greatest pleasure.”
“I shall owe fame and fortune to you, if ever I am famous or rich,”
said Lisa, seating herself on a low stool by the window, in the full
afternoon sunlight, basking in the brightness and warmth.
“What has become of Paolo?” asked Vansittart, looking round the room,
where some scattered toys reminded him of the child’s existence.
“Paolo has gone to tea with the lady on the top floor. She has three
little girls and a boy, and they all love _el puttelo_. They let him
play with their toys and pull their hair. Hark! there they go.”
A wild gallop of little feet across the ceiling testified to the
animation of the party.
“He has been there all the afternoon. He is a bold, bad boy, and so
full of mischief,” said Lisa, with evident pride. “He is very big for
his age, people say, and as active as a monkey. You must go and fetch
him directly you have had your tea, Carina mia,” she added to her aunt.
“He has been with those children nearly two hours. He will be awake all
night with excitement.”
“Is he excitable?” asked Vansittart, who felt a new and painful
interest in this child of a nameless parent.
“Oh, he is terrible. He is ready to jump out of the window when he is
happy. He throws himself down on the floor, and kicks and screams till
he is black in the face, when he is not allowed to do what he likes. He
is only a baby, and yet he is our master. That is because he is a man,
I suppose. We were created to be your slaves, were we not, Si’or mio?
La Zia spoils him.”
La Zia protested that the boy was a cherub, an angel. He wanted nothing
in life but his own way. And he was so strong, so big, and so beautiful
that people turned in the streets to look at him.
“Among all the children in Battersea Park I have never seen his equal.
And he is not yet three years old. He fought with a boy of six, and
sent him away howling. He is a marvel.”
“When he is old enough I shall send him to a gymnasium,” said Lisa.
“I want him to be an athlete, like his father. He told me once that
he won cups and prizes at the University by his strength. Oh, how
white you have turned!” she cried, distressed at the ghastly change
in Vansittart’s face. “I forgot. I forgot. I ought not to have spoken
of him. I never will speak of him again. We will forget that he ever
existed.”
She hung over his chair. She took up his hand and kissed it.
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” she murmured, with tears.
Unmoved by this little scene, la Zia emptied her teacup, rose, and left
the room; and they two--Vansittart and Fiordelisa--were alone.
“You know that I would not pain you for the world,” she sighed. “You
have been so good to me, my true and only friend.”
“No, no, Si’ora; I know that you would not willingly recall that memory
which is branded upon my heart and brain. I can never forget. Do not
believe even that I wish to forget. I sinned; and I must suffer for my
sin. My friendship for you and for your good aunt arose out of that
sin. I want to atone to you as far as I can for that fatal act. You
understand that, I am sure.”
“Yes, yes; I understand. But you like us, don’t you?” she pleaded. “You
are really our friend?”
“I am really your friend. And I want to prove my friendship by settling
an income upon you, in such a manner that you will not be dependent
upon my forethought for the payment of that income. It will be paid to
you as regularly as the quarter-day comes round. I am going to buy you
an annuity, Lisa; that is to say, an income which will be paid to you
till the end of your life; so that whether you make your fortune as a
singer or not, you can never know extreme poverty.”
“But who will give me the money when quarter-day comes?”
“It will be sent to you from an office. You will have no trouble about
it.”
“I should hate that. I would rather have the money from your hand. It
is you who give it me--not the man at the office. I want to kiss my
benefactor’s hand. You are my benefactor. That was one of the first
words I taught myself after I came to this house. Bén-é-factor!” she
repeated, with her Italian accent; “it is easier than most of your
English words.”
“Cara Si’ora, I may be far away. It would be a bad thing for you to
depend on my memory for the means of living. Let us be reasonable and
business-like. I shall see to this matter to-morrow. And now, good-bye.”
He rose, and took up his hat. Lisa hung about him, very pale, and with
her full lower lip quivering like the lip of a child that is trying not
to cry.
“Why are you doing this? why are you changing to me?” she asked
piteously.
“I am not changing, Lisa. There is no thought of change in me. Only you
must be reasonable. There is a dark secret between us--the memory of
that fatal night in Venice. It is not well that we should meet often.
We cannot see each other without remembering----”
“I remember nothing when I am with you--gnente, gnente!” she cried
passionately. “Nothing except that I love you--love you with all my
heart and soul.”
She tried to throw herself upon his breast, but as he recoiled,
astonished and infinitely pained, she fell on her knees at his feet,
and clasped his hand in both of hers, and kissed and cried over it.
“I love you,” she repeated; “and you--you have loved me--you must have
loved me--a little. No man was ever so kind as you have been, except
for love’s sake. You must have cared for me. You cared for me that day
in Venice--the happiest day in my life. Your heart turned to me as my
heart turned to you, in the sunshine on the lagune, in the evening at
the theatre. Every day that I have lived since then has strengthened my
love. For God’s sake, don’t tell me that I am nothing to you.”
“You are very much to me, Lisa. You are a friend for whom I desire all
good things that this world and the world that comes after death can
give. Get off your knees, child. This is childish folly; no wiser than
Paolo’s anger when you won’t let him have all his own way. Come, Si’ora
mia, let us laugh and be friends.”
He tried to make light of her feelings; but she gave him a look that
frightened him, a look of unmitigated despair.
“I thought you loved me; that by-and-by, when I was a famous singer,
you would marry me. I should be good enough then to be your wife. You
would forget that I was once a poor working girl at Burano. But I was
foolish; yes, foolish. I could never be good enough to be your wife--I,
the mother of Paolo. Let me go on loving you. Only come to see me
sometimes--once a week, perhaps! The weeks are so long when you don’t
come. Only care for me a little, just a little, and I shall be happy.
See how little I am asking. Don’t forsake me, don’t abandon me.”
“There is nothing further from my thoughts than to forsake you; but
if you make scenes of this kind I can never trust myself to come here
again,” he answered sternly.
“You will never come here again!” she cried, looking at him with wild
eyes. “Then I will not live without you; I cannot, I will not.”
The window stood open with its balcony and flowers, and the sunlit
river, and the sunlit park and dim blue horizon of house-tops and
chimneys stretching away to the hills of Sydenham. The girl looked at
him for a moment, clenched her teeth, clenched her hands, and made a
rush for the balcony. Happily he was quick enough and strong enough
to stop her with one outstretched arm. He took her by the shoulder,
savagely almost, with something of the brutal roughness of her old
lover it might be, but with no love. Beautiful as she was in her
passionate self-abandonment, he felt nothing for her in that moment but
an angry contempt, which he was at little pains to conceal.
The revulsion of feeling upon that wild impulse towards self-destruction
came quickly enough. The tears rolled down her flushed cheeks, she sank
into the chair towards which Vansittart led her, and sat, helpless and
unresisting, with her hands hanging loose across the arms of the chair,
her head drooping on her breast, the picture of helpless grief.
He could but pity her, seeing her so childlike, so unreasoning, swayed
by passion as a lily is bent by the wind. He shut the window, and
bolted it, against any second outbreak; and then he seated himself at
Lisa’s side and took one of those listless hands in his.
“Let us be reasonable, Si’ora,” he said, “and let us be good friends
always. If I were not in love with a young English lady whom I hope
very shortly to make my wife I might have fallen in love with you.”
She gave a melancholy smile, and then a deep sigh.
“No, no, impossible! You would never have cared. I am too low--the
mother of Paolo--only fit to be your servant.”
“Love pardons much, Lisa; and if my heart had not been given to another
your beauty and your generous nature might have won me. Only my heart
was gone before that night at Covent Garden. It belonged for ever and
for ever to my dear English love.”
“Your English love! I should like to see her”--with a moody look. “Is
she handsome, much handsomer than I?”
“There are some people who would think you the lovelier. Beauty is not
all in all, Lisa. We love because we love.”
“‘We love because we love,’” she repeated slowly. “Ah, that is what
makes it so hard. We cannot help ourselves. Love is destiny.”
“Your destiny was in the past, Lisa. It came to you at Burano.”
“No, no, no. I never cared for him as I have cared for you. I was
happier in that one day on the Lido, and that one evening in Venice,
than in all my life with him. There was more music in your voice when
you spoke to me, ever so lightly, than in all he ever said to me of
love. You are my destiny.”
“You will think the same about some one else by-and-by, Si’ora--some
one whose heart will be free to love you as you deserve to be loved.
You are so young and so pretty and so clever that you must needs win a
love worth the winning by-and-by, if you will only be reasonable and
live a tranquil, self-respecting life in the meanwhile.”
She shook her head hopelessly.
“I shall never care for any one again,” she said. “No other voice would
ever sound sweet in my ears. Don’t despise me; don’t think of me as a
shameless creature. I was mad just now. I should never have spoken as I
did; but I thought you cared for me. You were so kind; you did so much
for us.”
“I have tried to do my duty, that was all.”
“Only duty! Well, it was a dream, a lovely dream--and it is over.”
“Let it go with a smile, Lisa. You have so much to make life
pleasant--a face that will charm every one; a voice that may make your
fortune.”
“I don’t care about fortune.”
“Ah, but you will find it very pleasant when it comes--carriages and
horses, a fine house, jewels, laurel wreaths, applause, all that is
most intoxicating in life. It is for that you have been working so
hard.”
“No, it is not for that. I have been working only to please you; so
that you should say by-and-by, ‘This poor little Lisa, for whom I have
taken so much trouble, is something more than a common lace-worker,
after all.’”
“This poor little Lisa is a genius, I believe, and will have the world
at her feet, by-and-by. And now, Si’ora, I must say good-bye. I am
going into the country to-morrow.”
“For long?”
“Till after my marriage, perhaps.”
“Till after your marriage! And when you are married will you ever come
and see me?”
“Perhaps; if you will promise never again to talk as foolishly as you
have talked to-day.”
“I promise. I promise anything in this world rather than not see you.”
“If I come, be sure I shall come as your true and loyal friend. Ah,
here is your son,” as a babyish prattle made itself heard in the little
vestibule.
First came a rattling of the handle, and then the door was burst open,
and Paolo rushed in--a sturdy block of a boy, with flaxen hair and
great black eyes--a curious compromise between the Saxon father and the
Venetian mother; square-shouldered, sturdy, stolid, yet with flashes
of southern impetuousness. He was big for his age, very big, standing
straight and strong upon the legs of an infant Hercules. He excelled in
everything but speech.
Vansittart lifted him in his arms, and looked long and earnestly into
the cherubic countenance, which first smiled and then frowned at him.
He was trying, in this living picture of the dead, to see whether he
could discover any trace of the Marchant lineaments.
It might be that a foregone conclusion prompted the fancy--that the
fear of seeing made him see--but in the turn of the eyebrow and the
contour of cheek and chin he thought he recognized lines which were
familiar to him in the faces of Eve and her sisters--lines which were
not in Fiordelisa’s face.
He set the boy down with a sigh.
“Don’t spoil him, Signora,” he said to la Zia. “He looks like a boy
with a good disposition, but a strong temper. He will want judicious
training by-and-by.”
Lisa followed him to the vestibule, and opened the door for him.
“Tell me that you are not angry before you go,” she said imploringly.
“Angry? No, no; how could I be angry? I am only sorry that you should
waste so much warmth of feeling on a man whose heart belongs to some
one else.”
“What is she like--that some one else? Tell me that--I want to know.”
“Very lovely, very good, very gentle and tender and dear. How can I
describe her? She is the only woman in the world for me.”
“Shall I ever see her?”
“I think not, Si’ora. It would do no good. There is that sad secret
which you and I know, but which she does not know. I could not tell her
about you without making her wonder how you and I had come to be such
friends; and then----”
“You do not think that I would tell her?” exclaimed Lisa, with a
wounded air.
“No, no; I know you would not. Only secrets come to light, sometimes,
unawares. Let the future take care of itself. Once more, good-bye.”
“Once more, good-bye,” she echoed, in tones of deepest melancholy.