Loe raamatut: «The Day of Temptation», lehekülg 8

Chapter Fifteen
The Shadow

In an old and easy dressing-gown, Gemma was idling over her tea and toast in her room on the morning after her lover had been shooting down in Berkshire, when one of the precocious messenger-lads delivered a note to her.

At first she believed it to be from Armytage, but, on opening it, found scribbled in pencil on a piece of paper, the address, “73, St. James’s Street, second floor;” while enclosed were a few words in Italian inviting her to call at that address on the first opportunity she could do so secretly, without the knowledge of her lover. The note was from Tristram.

With a cry of anger that he should have already discovered her presence in London, she cast the letter from her and stamped her tiny foot, crying, in her own tongue —

“Diavolo! Then ill luck has followed me – even here!” For a long time she sat, stirring her tea thoughtfully, and gazing blankly at her rings.

“No,” she murmured aloud in a harsh, broken voice; “I won’t see this man. Let him act as he thinks fit. He cannot wreck my happiness more completely than it is already. Major Maitland is a friend of the man I love. Is not that fact in itself sufficient to show me that happiness can never be mine; that it is sheer madness to anticipate a calm, peaceful life with Charles Armytage, as my husband? But Dio! Was it not always so?” she sighed, as hot tears rose in her clear blue eyes, and slowly coursed down her cheeks. “I have sinned; and this, alas! is my punishment.” Again she was silent. Her breast heaved and fell convulsively, and with hair disordered and unbound she presented an utterly forlorn appearance. Her small white hands were clenched, her lips tightly compressed and in her eyes was an intense expression as if before her had arisen some scene so terrible that it froze her senses.

At last the striking of the clock aroused her, and she slowly commenced to dress. She looked at herself long and earnestly in the mirror, and saw how deathly pale she had become, and how red were her eyes.

Presently, as she crossed the room, she noticed the letter, and, snatching it up, slipped the paper with the address into her purse, tearing up the note into tiny fragments.

It was past eleven when she descended to the great hall, and there found her lover seated on one of the lounges, smoking and patiently awaiting her.

They sat together in the hall for a few minutes, then took a taxi and drove about the West End. Armytage did not fail to observe how Gemma’s beauty and foreign chic were everywhere remarked. In the streets men stared at her admiringly, and women scanned her handsome dresses with envious eyes; while in the hotel there were many low whisperings of admiration. Yet he could not conceal from himself the fact that she was as mysterious as she was beautiful.

While passing across Grosvenor Square, she had been suddenly seized with excitement, for her quick eyes caught sight of a red, white, and green flag, hanging limp and motionless from a flagstaff upon one of the largest houses.

“Look! There’s our Italian flag! Why is it there?” she cried, thrilled at sight of her own national colours.

“That’s the Embassy,” he replied. “I suppose to-day is some anniversary or other in Italy.”

“The Embassy!” she repeated, turning again to look at it. “Is that where Count Castellani lives?”

“Yes. He’s your Ambassador. Do you know him?”

“I met him once in Florence. He was at a ball at the Strossi Palace.”

“Then you know Prince Strossi?” he exclaimed.

“Quite well,” she answered. “The Strossis and my family have long been acquainted.”

Her prompt reply made it apparent to him that she had moved in the most exclusive set in Florence. She had never before mentioned that she was acquainted with people of note. But next instant he recollected the strange story which the Florentine Doctor had told him on the previous afternoon. Had not Malvano declared that her family was an undesirable one to know? What, he wondered, was the reason of this curious denunciation?

Again she fixed her eyes upon the Embassy, and seemed as though she were taking careful observation of its appearance and position.

“Did you go much into society in Florence?” he inquired presently.

“Only when I was forced to,” she answered ambiguously. “I do not care for it.”

“Then you will not fret even if, after our marriage, you know only a few people?”

The word “marriage” caused her to start. It brought back to her the hideous truth that even now, after he had brought her to England, their union was impossible.

“No,” she answered, glancing at him with eyes full of love and tenderness. “I should always be happy with you alone, Nino. I should want no other companion.”

“You would soon grow dull, I fear,” he said, taking her hand in his.

“No, never – never,” she declared. “You know well how I love you, Nino.”

“And I adore you, darling,” he answered. Then, after looking at her in hesitation for a moment, he added. “But you speak as though you still fear that we shall not marry. Why is that?” He had not failed to notice her sudden change of manner when he had spoken of marriage.

“I really don’t know,” she answered, with a forced laugh. “I suppose it is but a foolish fancy, yet sometimes I think that this happiness is too complete to be lasting.”

“What causes you to fear this?” he asked earnestly.

“When I reflect upon the unhappiness of the past,” she said with a sigh – “when I remember how bitter was my life, how utterly blank and hopeless was the world prior to our meeting, I cannot rid myself of the apprehension that my plans, like all my others, will be thwarted by the one great secret of my past; that all my castles are merely air-built; that your love for me, Nino, will soon wane, and we shall part.”

“No, no, piccina,” he cried, placing his arm tenderly around her waist, beneath the warm cape she wore. “It is foolish – very foolish to speak like that. You surely have no reason to doubt me?”

“I do not doubt your love, Nino. I doubt, however, whether you have sufficient confidence in me to await the elucidation of the strange mystery which envelops me – a mystery which even I myself cannot penetrate.”

“Have I not already shown myself patient?” he asked with a reproachful look.

“Yes, yes, mio adorato,” she hastened to reassure him. “You are good and kind and generous, and I love you. Only – only I fear the future. I fear you – I fear myself.”

“Why do you fear me, little one?” he asked. “Surely I’m not so monstrous – eh?”

The hand he held trembled.

“I distrust the future – because I know the fate cruel and terrible – which, sooner or later, must befall me,” she exclaimed, with heart-sinking.

“You steadily decline to tell me anything,” he said. “If you would only confide in me, we might together find some means to combat this mysterious catastrophe.”

“I cannot! I dare not!”

“But you must!” he cried. “You shall!”

“I refuse?” she answered fiercely.

“You shall not suffer this constant terror merely because of a foolish determination to preserve your secret. After all, I suppose it is only some curious and unfounded dread which holds you awe-stricken, when you could afford to laugh it all to scorn.”

“You will never wring confession from me, Nino – never!”

Her eyes met his fixedly, determinedly. On her countenance was an expression as if she were haunted by a shadow of evil, as if even then she saw before her the dire disaster which she had declared must ere long wreck her life, and extinguish all hope of happiness. No further word passed her lips, and a silence fell between them until the cab drew up at the hotel.

The afternoon being bright and sunny, they went down to the Crystal Palace.

To Gemma, all was fresh and full of interest; she even found in the plaster imitations of well-known statues something to criticise and admire, although she admitted that, living within a stone’s throw of the world-famed Uffizi Gallery, she had never entered the Tribuna there, nor seen the Satyr, the Wrestlers, or the Medici Venus.

After spending an hour in the Palace, they emerged into the grounds, and, descending the many flights of steps, passed the great fountains, and strolled down the long, broad walk towards Penge, it being their intention to return to town from that station. The sun was going down, a grey mist was rising, and the chill wind of evening whisked the dead leaves in their path. The spacious grounds were silent, deserted, cheerless.

She had taken his arm, and they were walking in silence beneath the fast-baring branches through the half-light of the fading day, when suddenly he turned to her, saying – “I’ve been thinking, Gemma – thinking very deeply upon all you told me this morning. I must tell you the truth – the truth that it is impossible for me to have complete confidence in you if you have none in me. The more I reflect upon this strange secret, the more am I filled with suspicion. I cannot help it. I have struggled against all my doubts and fears – but – ”

“You do not trust me?” she cried hoarsely. “Did I not express fear only this morning that you would be impatient, and grow tired of the steady refusals I am compelled to give you when you demand the truth?”

“Having carefully considered all the facts, I can see no reason – absolutely none – why you should not explain the whole truth,” he said rather brusquely.

“The facts you have considered are those only within your own knowledge,” she observed. “There are others which you can never know. If you could only understand the situation aright, you would at once see plainly the reason that I am prepared for any sacrifice – even to lose your love, the most precious gift that Heaven has accorded me – in order to preserve my secret.”

“Then you are ready to wish me farewell if I still press for the truth?” he cried, dismayed; for the earnestness of her words impressed him forcibly.

“I am,” she answered in a low, intense voice.

They had halted in the broad, gravelled walk, and were alone.

“Listen!” he cried fiercely, as a sudden resolve seized him. “This cannot go on longer, Gemma. I have brought you here to London because I love you, because I hoped to make you my you wife. But you seem determined to keep all the story of your past from me.” Then, recollecting Malvano’s words when they had been shooting together, he added, “If you still refuse to tell me anything, then, much as it grieves me, we must part.”

“Part!” she echoed wildly. “Ah yes, Nino! I knew you would say that. Did I not tell you long, long ago, that it would be impossible for us to marry in the present circumstances? You doubt me? Well, I am scarcely surprised!” and she shuddered pale as death.

“I doubt you because you are never frank with me.”

“I love you, Nino,” she protested with all the ardour of her hot Italian blood as she caught his hand suddenly and raised it to her fevered lips. “You are my very life, for I have no other friend in the world. Surely you have been convinced that my affection is genuine, but I have not deceived you in this!”

“I believe you love me,” he answered coldly, in a half-dubious tone nevertheless.

“Ah no, caro!” she lisped softly, reproachfully, in her soft Tuscan. “Do not speak like that. I cannot bear it. If you can trust me no longer, then let us part. I – I will go back to Italy again.” And she burst into a torrent of hot tears.

“You’ll go back and face the mysterious charge against you?” he asked, with a twinge of sarcasm in his voice, as he drew his hand firmly from hers.

His words caused her to start. She looked him fiercely in the face for an instant, a strange light in her beautiful, tearful eyes, then cried huskily —

“Yes, if you cast me from you, Nino, I care no longer to live. I cannot live without your love.”

Chapter Sixteen
“Traitors Die Slowly.”

They had returned to the hotel, and Armytage had dined with her, but the meal had been a very dismal one. Gemma, with woman’s instinct, knew that she looked horribly untidy, and that her eyes betrayed unmistakable signs of recent tears, therefore she was glad when the meal concluded, and she could escape from the staring crowd of diners.

From her lover’s manner, it was also plain that, notwithstanding his protestations of blind affection in Leghorn, he had suddenly awakened to the fact that some deep mystery lay behind her, and that he was disinclined to carry their acquaintance much further without some explanation. Time after time, as she sat opposite him at the table, she had watched him narrowly, looking into his dark, serious eyes in silence, and trying to divine his thoughts. She wondered whether, if he left her, his love for her would be sufficient to cause him to return to her side. Or had he met, as she once feared he would, some other woman – a woman of his own people; a woman, perhaps, that he had loved long ago? This thought sank deeply into her mind. As she watched him and listened to his low, jerky speech, it seemed plain to her that she had guessed the truth. He had grown tired of her, and was making her enforced silence an excuse for parting. When this thought crossed her mind, her bright, clear eyes grew luminous with unshed tears.

He told her that to meet next morning was impossible, as he had business to transact. This she knew to be a shallow excuse, as only that morning he had told her that his time was completely at her disposal. Yes, there was no disguising the truth that he had grown weary of her, and now meant to discard her. Yet she loved him.

When an Italian woman loves, it is with a fierce, uncontrollable passion, not with that too often sickly admiration for a man’s good looks which is so characteristic of love among the more northern nations. In no country is love so ardent, so passionate, so enduring, as in the sunny garden of Europe. The Italian woman is slow to develop affection, or even to flirt with the sterner sex; but when she loves, it is with all the strength of her being; she is the devoted slave of her lover, and is his for life, for death. Neither the strength of Italian affection nor the bitterness of Italian jealousy can be understood in England, unless by those who have lived among the hot-blooded Tuscans in that country where the sparkle of dark eyes electrify, and where the knives are cheap, and do their work swiftly and well.

They passed out of the table d’hôte room into the hall. Then he stretched forth his hand.

“You are not coming to see me to-morrow, Nino?” she asked in a low, despondent voice.

“No,” he replied. “I have an appointment.”

“But you can surely dine here?”

“I am not quite certain,” he answered. “If I can, I will send you a telegram.”

“You are impatient – you who promised me to wait until I could give you some satisfactory explanation. It is cruel of you – very cruel, Nino,” she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

“You are never straightforward,” he replied quickly. “If you confessed to me, all this anxiety would at once cease.”

“I cannot.”

“No,” he said meaningly; “you will not. You dare not, because your past has not been what it should have been! Buona sera!” and with this parting allegation he lifted his hat and bowed stiffly.

“Felicissima notte, Nino,” she answered so low as to be almost inaudible.

Then he turned and passed out of the great glass doors which the porters held open for him.

Gemma went to her room, and, bursting into tears, sat for a long time alone, despairing, plunged in grief. She knew by her lover’s manner that he had forsaken her, and she felt herself alone in gigantic London, where the language, the people, the streets, all were strange to her. As she sat in her low easy chair, a slim, graceful figure in her pale-blue dinner-dress, she clenched her tiny hands till the nails embedded themselves in the palms, as she uttered with wild abandon the name of the man she so fondly loved.

“Ah!” she cried aloud. “You, Nino, who have treated me with this suspicion and contempt – you who have brought me here among your people and deserted me – can never know how much I have sacrificed for your sake. Nor can you ever know how fondly I love you. Why have I acted with all this secrecy must for ever remain a mystery. You have left me,” she added in a hoarse, strained voice, half inaudible on account of her sobs – “you have left me now; but some day when I am free – when I can show you things in their true light – you will regret that to-night you have broken a woman’s heart.” And she bent forward and gave way to a flood of hot, passionate tears.

Fully half an hour she sat plunged in a deep melancholy, but at last she rose and crossed the room unsteadily. Her fair brow bore a look of determination, her face was hard set, and in her tear-stained eyes was an expression of strength of will.

“Yes,” she murmured, “I’ll risk all. My life cannot be rendered more hopeless, more wretched, than it now is in this atmosphere of doubt and suspicion.” Then she bathed her face in eau-de-Cologne, sniffed her smelling-salts, rubbed her cheeks with a towel to take away their ghastly pallor, and assuming her travelling coat, with its wide fur collar and cuffs, which, being long, hid her dress, she put on her hat and went out.

She went up to one of the porters in the hall hastily, and said —

“Prendetimi una vettura.”

The man looked at her in surprise, unable to understand her. She pointed outside to where several hansoms were passing.

“Oh! a cab you want, miss!” he cried, the fact suddenly dawning upon him; and as he touched the electric bell which calls cabs from the rank, she handed him the slip of paper she had that morning received.

The porter read it, descended the steps with her, handed her into the cab, and, having shouted the address to the man, she was driven rapidly away to St. James’s Street, where she ascended to the second floor, and found upon a door a brass plate bearing Captain Tristram’s name.

She rang the bell, and in response the smart, soldier-servant Smayle appeared, and looked at her in surprise.

“The Signor Capitano Tristram?” she inquired.

“Yes, miss,” the man answered; and she entered the hall, and glanced around her while he closed the door.

At that moment Tristram’s voice, from one of the rooms beyond, cried —

“Show the lady in, Smayle.”

She followed the servant into the cosy sitting-room redolent of cigars. She was gazing round the apartment, noting how comfortable it was, when suddenly the door reopened and Tristram entered. He had evidently been dining out, or to a theatre, and had now discarded his dress-coat for an easy velvet lounge-jacket. When he had closed the door, he stood for a moment regarding her in silence.

“Well,” he said at length in Italian. “So you have come, eh?” His welcome was certainly the reverse of cordial.

“Yes,” she faltered; “I have come. How did you know I was in London?”

Certain furrows on Tristram’s brow revealed profound thought.

“A woman who is wanted by the police always has some difficulty in concealing her whereabouts,” he answered meaningly. His countenance was hard and vengeful; his features expressed so much disdain and cruelty at that moment that one would scarcely believe they could ever be susceptible of any gentle emotion.

“Why do you throw that in my face?” she asked angrily.

“My dear signorina,” he answered, crossing the room, “come here to this chair and sit down. I want to talk to you very seriously, if you’ll allow me.”

She moved slowly across, and, sinking into the armchair near the fire, unbuttoned her long coat.

“No,” he said; “it’s hot in this room: take it off, or you won’t find the benefit of it when you leave. See how solicitous I am after your health;” and he laughed.

In silence she rose and allowed him to help her divest herself of the heavy garment.

“How charming you look!” he said. “I really don’t wonder that you captivate the hearts of men – those who don’t know you.”

“It seems that you’ve invited me here for the purpose of raking up all my past,” she cried, darting at him a fierce look. “I have accepted your invitation because you and I are old friends, because our interests are identical.”

“How?” he asked, puzzled.

“There is a certain episode in my career that must for ever remain a profound secret,” she said in a low but distinct tone. “And there is one in yours which, if revealed, would bring you to disgrace, to ruin – nay, to death.”

He started, and his dark face paled beneath its bronze of travel.

“What do you mean?” he cried, standing astride before her, his back to the fire, his arms folded resolutely.

“What I have said!”

“And you are foolish enough to think that I fear you?” he cried with biting sarcasm.

“I think nothing, caro,” she answered in a voice of the same intense disdain. “The truth is quite obvious. We fear each other.”

“I fear you?” And he laughed, as if the absurdity of the idea were humorous.

“Yes,” she said fiercely. “I am no longer powerless in your hands. You know well my character, signore – you know what kind of woman I am.”

“Yes, I do, unfortunately,” he answered. “And what, pray, does all this extraordinary exhibition of bitterness imply?” he asked.

“You force me to speak plainly,” she said, her eyes flashing angrily. “Well, then, reflect upon the strange death of Vittorina, and bear in mind by whom was her death so ingeniously compassed.”

He sprang towards her suddenly in a fierce ebullition of indignation, his hand uplifted as if he intended to strike her.

“Enough! Curse you!” he muttered.

“Take care,” she said calmly, without stirring from her seat. “If you touch me, it is at your own peril.”

“Threats?”

“Threats! And to prove to you that they are not in vain,” she said, “learn in the first place, that the police have discovered the identity of the Major, and that a warrant is already issued for his arrest.”

“I don’t believe it,” he cried. “You have no proof.”

“Inquire of your friends at the Embassy,” she replied ambiguously. “You will there learn the truth.”

“Listen!” he cried wildly, grasping her roughly by the wrist. “What allegation do you make against me? Come, speak!”

“You have shown yourself at enmity with me, therefore it will remain for you to discover that afterwards,” she answered, shaking him off. “One does not show one’s hand to one’s adversaries.”

“You mentioned the death of your friend Vittorina – well?”

“Well?” she repeated, still coldly and calmly. “It is of no use to further refer to that tragic circumstance, except to say that I am aware of the truth.”

“The truth!” he cried blankly. “Then who killed her?”

“You know well enough with what devilish ingenuity her young life was taken; how at the moment when she least expected danger she was cut off by a means so curious and with such swiftness as to baffle even the cleverest doctors in London. You know the truth, Signor Capitano – so do I.”

“You would explain how her life was taken; you would tell the world the strange secret by which she was held in bondage. But you shan’t,” he cried, standing before her with clenched fists. “By Heaven, you shan’t!”

“Traitors die slowly in London, but they do die,” she said slowly, with deep meaning.

“Curse you!” he cried. “What do you intend to do?”

“Listen!” she answered, rising slowly from her chair and standing before him resolute, desperate, and defiant. “I came here to-night for one purpose – to make a proposal to you.”

“A proposal! To marry me, eh?” he laughed.

“This is no time for weak jokes, signore,” she answered angrily. “Silence is best in the interests of us both, is it not?”

He paused, his eyes fixed on the hearthrug.

“I suppose it is,” he admitted at last.

“Think,” she urged, “what would be the result were the whole of those strange facts exposed. Who would suffer?”

He nodded, but no word passed his hard lips. She noticed that what she uttered now impressed him.

“Our acquaintance,” she went on in a more sympathetic tone, “was formed in curious circumstances, and it has only been fraught with unhappiness, sorrow, and despair. I come to you to-night, Frank,” she added in a low despondent voice, “to ask you to help me to regain my freedom.”

He laughed aloud a harsh, cruel laugh, saying – “You have already your freedom. I hope you are enjoying it. No doubt Armytage loves you, and London is a change after Tuscany.”

His laugh aroused within her a veritable tumult of hatred.

“You speak as if I were not an honest woman,” she cried, her eyes glistening. “Even you shall not brand me as an adventuress.”

“Well, I think your adventures in Florence and in Milan were curious enough,” he said, “even if we do not mention that night in Livorno when Vittorina – ”

“Ah no!” she exclaimed, interrupting him. “Why should you cast that into my face? Now that we are friends no longer, you seek to heap disgrace upon me by recalling all that has gone by. In this conversation I have not sought to bring back to your memory any of the many recollections which must be painful. My object in coming to you is plain enough. I am perfectly straightforward – ”

“For the first time in your life.”

She took no heed of his interruption, but went on saying —

“Charles Armytage has promised me marriage.”

“He’s a fool!” was the abrupt rejoinder. “When he knows the truth, he’ll hate you just as much as I do.”

“You certainly pay me delicate compliments,” she said, drawing herself up haughtily. “Your hatred is reciprocated, I assure you. But surely this is not a matter of either love or hatred between us. It is a mere arrangement for our mutual protection and benefit.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, leaning back upon the mantelshelf in affected laziness – “you want my silence?”

“Yes,” she answered eagerly, looking straight into his dark countenance.

“You’re afraid that if you marry Charlie Armytage I may expose you – eh?”

She nodded, with downcast eyes.

He was silent for a few moments.

“Then,” he answered at last in a deep, determined voice, “understand once and for all that Armytage is a friend of mine. He shall never marry you.”

She knit her brows, and her pale lips twitched nervously. “Then you are still bent upon wrecking my life?” she said slowly and distinctly as she faced him. “I offer you silence in exchange for my freedom, for it is you alone who can give me that. Yet you refuse.”

“Yes,” he said. “I refuse absolutely.”

“Then you would debar me from happiness with the man I love?” she said in a low, deep whisper. “You, the man to whose machinations I owe my present wretchedness, refuse to free me from the trammels you yourself have cast about me – you refuse to tell the truth in exchange for my silence.”

He looked at her calmly with withering contempt.

“I have no desire for the silence of such as you,” he answered quickly. “I fear nothing that you may say. Threats from you are mere empty words, cara.”

“Then listen!” she cried, her brilliant eyes again flashing in desperation. “To-morrow I shall call upon Castellani at the Embassy, and tell him the truth.”

“You dare not!” he gasped fiercely. His face had blanched instantly as, advancing a couple of steps towards her with clenched hands, he gazed threateningly into her eyes.

“I have given you an alternative which you have rejected, Signor Capitano,” she said, taking up her fur-trimmed coat. “You defy me; and I wish you good-night.”

“You intend to expose the whole of the facts?” he cried in dismay. “You will incriminate yourself!”

“I care nothing for that. My happiness is now at an end. For the future I have no thought, no care, now that you and I are enemies. As I have already said, traitors die slowly in London, but they do die.”

“You shall not go to Castellani,” the Captain muttered between his set teeth; and with a cry of uncurbed, uncontrollable rage he sprang upon her before she could defend herself or raise an alarm, and seizing her, he compressed his strong, sinewy fingers upon her slim white throat. “You shan’t go!” he cried. “No further word shall pass your pretty lips – curse you! I’ll – I’ll kill you!”