Wyant had any number of plans for coming to Miss Lombard’s aid: he was
elaborating the twentieth when, on the same afternoon, he stepped into
the express train for Florence. By the time the train reached Certaldo
he was convinced that, in thus hastening his departure, he had followed
the only reasonable course; at Empoli, he began to reflect that the
priest and the Levite had probably justified themselves in much the same
manner.
A month later, after his return to England, he was unexpectedly relieved
from these alternatives of extenuation and approval. A paragraph in
the morning paper announced the sudden death of Doctor Lombard, the
distinguished English dilettante who had long resided in Siena. Wyant’s
justification was complete. Our blindest impulses become evidence of
perspicacity when they fall in with the course of events.
Wyant could now comfortably speculate on the particular complications
from which his foresight had probably saved him. The climax was
unexpectedly dramatic. Miss Lombard, on the brink of a step which,
whatever its issue, would have burdened her with retrospective
compunction, had been set free before her suitor’s ardor could have had
time to cool, and was now doubtless planning a life of domestic felicity
on the proceeds of the Leonardo. One thing, however, struck Wyant as
odd--he saw no mention of the sale of the picture. He had scanned the
papers for an immediate announcement of its transfer to one of the
great museums; but presently concluding that Miss Lombard, out of
filial piety, had wished to avoid an appearance of unseemly haste in the
disposal of her treasure, he dismissed the matter from his mind. Other
affairs happened to engage him; the months slipped by, and gradually the
lady and the picture dwelt less vividly in his mind.
It was not till five or six years later, when chance took him again to
Siena, that the recollection started from some inner fold of memory. He
found himself, as it happened, at the head of Doctor Lombard’s street,
and glancing down that grim thoroughfare, caught an oblique glimpse
of the doctor’s house front, with the Dead Hand projecting above its
threshold. The sight revived his interest, and that evening, over an
admirable frittata, he questioned his landlady about Miss Lombard’s
marriage.
“The daughter of the English doctor? But she has never married,
signore.”
“Never married? What, then, became of Count Ottaviano?”
“For a long time he waited; but last year he married a noble lady of the
Maremma.”
“But what happened--why was the marriage broken?”
The landlady enacted a pantomime of baffled interrogation.
“And Miss Lombard still lives in her father’s house?”
“Yes, signore; she is still there.”
“And the Leonardo--”
“The Leonardo, also, is still there.”
The next day, as Wyant entered the House of the Dead Hand, he remembered
Count Ottaviano’s injunction to ring twice, and smiled mournfully to
think that so much subtlety had been vain. But what could have prevented
the marriage? If Doctor Lombard’s death had been long delayed, time
might have acted as a dissolvent, or the young lady’s resolve have
failed; but it seemed impossible that the white heat of ardor in which
Wyant had left the lovers should have cooled in a few short weeks.
As he ascended the vaulted stairway the atmosphere of the place seemed
a reply to his conjectures. The same numbing air fell on him, like
an emanation from some persistent will-power, a something fierce and
imminent which might reduce to impotence every impulse within its range.
Wyant could almost fancy a hand on his shoulder, guiding him upward with
the ironical intent of confronting him with the evidence of its work.
A strange servant opened the door, and he was presently introduced to
the tapestried room, where, from their usual seats in the window, Mrs.
Lombard and her daughter advanced to welcome him with faint ejaculations
of surprise.
Both had grown oddly old, but in a dry, smooth way, as fruits might
shrivel on a shelf instead of ripening on the tree. Mrs. Lombard was
still knitting, and pausing now and then to warm her swollen hands above
the brazier; and Miss Lombard, in rising, had laid aside a strip of
needle-work which might have been the same on which Wyant had first seen
her engaged.
Their visitor inquired discreetly how they had fared in the interval,
and learned that they had thought of returning to England, but had
somehow never done so.
“I am sorry not to see my aunts again,” Mrs. Lombard said resignedly;
“but Sybilla thinks it best that we should not go this year.”
“Next year, perhaps,” murmured Miss Lombard, in a voice which seemed to
suggest that they had a great waste of time to fill.
She had returned to her seat, and sat bending over her work. Her hair
enveloped her head in the same thick braids, but the rose color of her
cheeks had turned to blotches of dull red, like some pigment which has
darkened in drying.
“And Professor Clyde--is he well?” Mrs. Lombard asked affably;
continuing, as her daughter raised a startled eye: “Surely, Sybilla,
Mr. Wyant was the gentleman who was sent by Professor Clyde to see the
Leonardo?”
Miss Lombard was silent, but Wyant hastened to assure the elder lady of
his friend’s well-being.
“Ah--perhaps, then, he will come back some day to Siena,” she said,
sighing. Wyant declared that it was more than likely; and there ensued
a pause, which he presently broke by saying to Miss Lombard: “And you
still have the picture?”
She raised her eyes and looked at him. “Should you like to see it?” she
asked.
On his assenting, she rose, and extracting the same key from the same
secret drawer, unlocked the door beneath the tapestry. They walked down
the passage in silence, and she stood aside with a grave gesture, making
Wyant pass before her into the room. Then she crossed over and drew the
curtain back from the picture.
The light of the early afternoon poured full on it: its surface appeared
to ripple and heave with a fluid splendor. The colors had lost none of
their warmth, the outlines none of their pure precision; it seemed to
Wyant like some magical flower which had burst suddenly from the mould
of darkness and oblivion.
He turned to Miss Lombard with a movement of comprehension.
“Ah, I understand--you couldn’t part with it, after all!” he cried.
“No--I couldn’t part with it,” she answered.
“It’s too beautiful,--too beautiful,”--he assented.
“Too beautiful?” She turned on him with a curious stare. “I have never
thought it beautiful, you know.”
He gave back the stare. “You have never--”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. I hate it; I’ve always hated it. But
he wouldn’t let me--he will never let me now.”
Wyant was startled by her use of the present tense. Her look surprised
him, too: there was a strange fixity of resentment in her innocuous eye.
Was it possible that she was laboring under some delusion? Or did the
pronoun not refer to her father?
“You mean that Doctor Lombard did not wish you to part with the
picture?”
“No--he prevented me; he will always prevent me.”
There was another pause. “You promised him, then, before his death--”
“No; I promised nothing. He died too suddenly to make me.” Her voice
sank to a whisper. “I was free--perfectly free--or I thought I was till
I tried.”
“Till you tried?”
“To disobey him--to sell the picture. Then I found it was impossible. I
tried again and again; but he was always in the room with me.”
She glanced over her shoulder as though she had heard a step; and to
Wyant, too, for a moment, the room seemed full of a third presence.
“And you can’t”--he faltered, unconsciously dropping his voice to the
pitch of hers.
She shook her head, gazing at him mystically. “I can’t lock him out;
I can never lock him out now. I told you I should never have another
chance.”
Wyant felt the chill of her words like a cold breath in his hair.
“Oh”--he groaned; but she cut him off with a grave gesture.
“It is too late,” she said; “but you ought to have helped me that day.”