Shadows of Flames Part 52

"I've heard that there's splendid sailing and fishing around Naples,"

Sophy went on, nervously garrulous. "Cecil won't be coming for another month, I suppose; but I could go and look up a villa and--and get things ready."

"And what will you do with _this_ villa, my dear? You've four months yet to run. You should sublet it."

And the Marchesa, always practical, began to discuss with Sophy the possibilities of subletting Villa Bianca.

It was six o'clock when they left Isola Bella. The train from Milan did not reach Laveno until half-past seven. Amaldi spoke of this as they went toward the landing.

"What shall we do with our extra hour?" asked the Marchesa. "What would you like to do, my dear?" she said, turning to Sophy, who was gazing at the Palazzo on the Isola Madre.

Sophy started, as she often did these days when some one spoke suddenly to her. She had been immersed in a sad, prescient feeling, as though this afternoon were one of long farewells. Now as the Marchesa spoke, she yielded to a wish that she had often had, and that came to her in this moment very strongly. They had never visited the Isola Madre. There had been so many other things of more obvious interest to see; but Sophy had always felt drawn to that tranquil, tree-clad spot, with its rosy Palace in which no one lived.

"Do you think--would there be time, for us to go to Isola Madre?" she asked hesitatingly.

The Marchesa said briskly that it was the very thing--and on their way, too.

The evening came stealing on as with a gracious modesty. There was no flare of gorgeous colour--not a cloud. Very delicately, very slowly, sky and water became suffused with soft, dim saffron. The Isola Madre lay against it like an island of dark-green smoke, sent up to the lake's clear surface by some submerged volcano.

They found another boat at the landing. No sooner had they reached the upper terrace than the Marchesa was approached by a lively French lady who had brought some friends to see the island. There was a flutter of introductions all round. Sophy was much disappointed. This vivacious lady seemed so jarringly out of key with the lovely hour, and the wistful beauty of the island. Amaldi was standing near her.

"Shall we walk on?" he said, in a low voice. "I know the island well...."

She turned away with him, feeling that perhaps she should not, feeling also that whether it were wrong or right she would have this last, beautiful hour with him.

They went in silence across the lawns to the flagged walk behind the Palazzo, which leads, broad and stately, set with shallow steps, beneath an avenue of ilex trees. The dark, pointed leaves made a gothic fret-work against the saffron of the sky.

"Ladies in Genoa velvets and silk gowns embroidered with golden castles, like the gown of poor Isabella," murmured Sophy. "I see them moving on before me--with white peac.o.c.ks mincing after.... There.... Don't you see them, too? This walk is haunted...."

"It will be haunted ... when I return to it ... alone...." said Amaldi.

She tried to think of some answer. She could not. Yet the silence must be broken. Silence had such a terrible eloquence of its own.

"I ... I shall come back some day," she said at last. It was as if the words sprang of their own volition. Yet as she uttered them a feeling leaped also within her. She felt sure, sure that she would come back some day--that he and she would be walking here together--that all would be different--that they would say to each other: "Do you remember that other evening when we walked here?"

"So you feel that, too?" he said, in that same low voice. And now he was looking into her eyes steadily, and there was exultation in this look.

Here the Marchesa called them. She was walking briskly towards them, holding up her little watch on its jewelled chain, stopping where she was.

"Time to go!" she called. As they joined her, she said vexedly: "That _oca_ of a woman kept me standing there till a moment since--I'm glad Marco thought of taking you on, my dear. You wouldn't have had time for even a peep, otherwise."

It was quite dusk when they reached the Villa Bianca. Amaldi helped Sophy out and went up to the villa with her. As they mounted the last step, and came out upon the terrace, they saw that some one was standing there--the figure of a man, looking almost gigantic in the thick twilight. He walked towards them with a long, swinging step that brought him near in a few paces.

"_Cecil_...?" Amaldi heard her whisper.

"Is that you, Sophy?" came Chesney's voice. "This is the most confoundedly tricky light." He was close now.

"Ah, yes!... I see it's you," he ended, with a note of vibrant satisfaction in his voice. "How d'ye do?" he added, peering at Amaldi.

"The Marchese Amaldi----" murmured Sophy, as once before.

"How d'ye do?" said Chesney again.

"How d'ye do?" said Amaldi. The men bowed without shaking hands. The three stood a little awkwardly for a second in the dusk. Luigi came pattering down the third flight of steps that led to the upper terrace on which the house stood. Amaldi yielded Sophy's cloak to him.

"Excuse my haste," he then said, "but my mother's waiting for me below.

We've a train to meet. Good evening, Mrs. Chesney. Good evening...."

He was gone.

Chesney stood immovable till he heard the descending footsteps die away.

Then he said:

"Sophy!" His voice was thick with feeling. Sophy felt giddy--the twilight seemed closing in on her in waves. She breathed it like a stifling vapour.

"Sophy!" said Chesney again. He caught her to him--felt for her mouth with his in the blinding dusk--crushed kisses down upon it until she winced with physical pain. That London smell of his coat was strong in her nostrils. The past two months shrivelled like a wisp of paper in a flame. There was no Italy ... no dream ... only this great man holding her, bruising her with his lips and body. In the utter quiet of the evening, she could hear distinctly the throbbing of the _Fretta_'s engine as it sped away towards Laveno.

x.x.xVI

Sophy felt very anxious when she learned that Cecil had not brought either Gaynor or Anne Harding with him. The letter that she received next morning from Anne did not rea.s.sure her: "Mr. Chesney has certainly done wonderfully for such a short time," it said; "but _he's not out of the woods yet_, by any _manner_ of means! I don't mean that he hasn't stopped taking all drugs, but that he hasn't _stopped long enough to go it alone_." (Anne was a great underscorer--her letters reminded Sophy of her vehement, italicised speech.) "He should have me with him this minute. He won't be _entirely_ safe for _two years_. But we could do nothing. His const.i.tution is _amazing_. He really _is_ well--in _a way_--but he isn't near as strong yet a while as he _thinks_ he is--either mentally or physically. Dr. Carfew was _much_ displeased by his leaving so abruptly; but, as I said--we could do _nothing_. This is a free country--worse luck for it in some ways!"

And yet Cecil certainly seemed normal in all respects. His good temper over inconveniences was astonishing in so fastidious and pampered a man.

Never since he was twenty had he been without a skilled valet. Now he put up with Luigi's amateurish ministrations, as though it were a sort of lark to have his boots treed rights on lefts, and his ties, socks, and handkerchiefs mingled confusedly. Luigi himself was fully aware of his shortcomings. He was a finished butler, but had never valeted any one. Still he was intelligent. "Direct me ... direct me, milor'," he would plead. "I shall improve with time, like wine."

So, far from being irritated by the lake, Chesney seemed to feel its charm strongly. He questioned Sophy about her life of the past two months; expressed himself much touched by the kindness shown her by the Marchesa.

"You must take me there," he said. "We'll hire a steam-launch of our own for the rest of the time we're here--from what's-his-name--the man at Stresa.... What did you call him?"

"Taroni," said Sophy.

It was the day after his arrival. She still felt rather stunned, as though a bolt had struck the quiet house of her content. She felt blasted by his renewed, torrential pa.s.sion and the quintessential strength of his personality. Fortunately for her, she could be merely the leaf in the storm--had only to let it sweep her along without effort on her part. The storm does not take account of the leaves it whirls in its imperious grasp. Chesney, in his present volcanic gusto of renewed health, would as soon have thought of pausing to ask whether the partner in his feast of love shared his transports as an eagle would think of inquiring of a lamb whether it enjoys being devoured. He was fond of calling her "Diana." He was sure that even with Endymion, the G.o.ddess had been veiled and reticent. And Sophy had been "in love" with him once. He took it for granted, in his lordly way--that, after all, had something grandiose in it--that she was still in love with him. He had been an "ill man" when he offended her--(sometimes it made him wince that he must have offended even more terribly than he could recall). It was, as Heine had said of _le Bon Dieu_, a woman's _metier_ to forgive.

And he rushed exuberantly to and fro, ordering a fast steam-launch from Taroni; sweeping Sophy off in it to Intra to choose a piano--it vexed him that she had no piano, had not been singing at all during her stay in Italy; spending hours in trying to find a small sailing yacht to his liking.

"That's a ripper your friend Amaldi's got," he said to Sophy. "_The Wind-Flower_. Jolly name, by the way. Perhaps he'd help me find a good 'un. Let's go over to their place this afternoon. I want to thank the old lady for being so decent to you and the little chap."

So they went tearing through the autumn-coloured water to Le Vigne, at a rate that would have made the little _Fretta_ look like a water-snail.

And this new, powerful, highly-polished mahogany launch, glittering with a sort of defiant grin of shining metal, hissing through the quiet lake like an Express, seemed symbolical to Sophy of the ruthless power which had suddenly seized her life and was hurling it blindly to some unknown goal. As she sat quiet in the new launch, so she sat quiet in the grasp of Chesney's will. So, she told herself, it was her duty to sit quiet.

Where she was now, her own act had placed her--besides, she still felt affection for her husband, though love in its highest, divinest form was gone forever. If only he would not stun her with those fiery crashes of unshared pa.s.sion! She felt like some sentient lyre, on which a giant without sense of music strums with a mighty plectrum. The fine chords of her nature snapped with the clashing shocks. She felt as though she had been through some wild fever of which the delirium left her brain dazed and numb.

What she now dreaded most was to see Amaldi. Not because of any feeling that she had or might have had for him, but because he was so vividly a part of something that was gone forever, and that had been so beautiful.

Yes, that tranquil dream of which he had been a part was as utterly dispelled as the reflection in a quiet pool shattered by the crash of a boulder. She felt that numbness, that lack of acute pain which it is said a soldier experiences when in the heat of battle a limb is suddenly shot away. She was maimed for life, she felt, and she regretted it--but it was as if her mind rather than her heart suffered from this regret.

They found the Marchesa alone at Le Vigne. She was sorry, she said, that her son should miss the pleasure of seeing them. He had gone to Milan for a few days. The relief of hearing this was so great that Sophy paled with it. The elder woman thought she looked exhausted and oddly listless. She firmly believed in the "Vampirising" qualities of some people; taking in Chesney with her shrewd, l.u.s.trous eyes, she decided that he was probably a most "Vampirising" person. By this, the Marchesa did not mean that one actively plays the part of Vampire towards another, but that, whether or no, some natures suck the vitality from those with whom they are in contact. Yet Chesney attracted her in a way, while at the same time he repelled her. She was too completely the woman not to feel the force of his extraordinary vitality and superb physique, but she was herself of too imperious and dominating a temperament not to resist tacitly the stress of his somewhat overpowering personality. She made herself perfectly charming, however.

"What a gorgeous old lady!" exclaimed Chesney, as they rushed home again. "Amaldi must be a decent sort with a mater like that. Wish he'd come back from his d.a.m.ned Milan. I want that yacht."