The Gadfly Part 42

"Mme. Reni? Has she come back, then, sir?"

"What do you mean?" he asked with a frown, stopping short on the mat.

"She went away quite suddenly, just after you did, and left all her things behind her. She never so much as said she was going."

"Just after I did? What, a f-fortnight ago?"

"Yes, sir, the same day; and her things are lying about higgledy-piggledy. All the neighbours are talking about it."

He turned away from the door-step without speaking, and went hastily down the lane to the house where Zita had been lodging. In her rooms nothing had been touched; all the presents that he had given her were in their usual places; there was no letter or sc.r.a.p of writing anywhere.

"If you please, sir," said Bianca, putting her head in at the door, "there's an old woman----"

He turned round fiercely.

"What do you want here--following me about?"

"An old woman wishes to see you."

"What does she want? Tell her I c-can't see her; I'm busy."

"She has been coming nearly every evening since you went away, sir, always asking when you would come back."

"Ask her w-what her business is. No; never mind; I suppose I must go myself."

The old woman was waiting at his hall door. She was very poorly dressed, with a face as brown and wrinkled as a medlar, and a bright-coloured scarf twisted round her head. As he came in she rose and looked at him with keen black eyes.

"You are the lame gentleman," she said, inspecting him critically from head to foot. "I have brought you a message from Zita Reni."

He opened the study door, and held it for her to pa.s.s in; then followed her and shut the door, that Bianca might not hear.

"Sit down, please. N-now, tell me who you are."

"It's no business of yours who I am. I have come to tell you that Zita Reni has gone away with my son."

"With--your--son?"

"Yes, sir; if you don't know how to keep your mistress when you've got her, you can't complain if other men take her. My son has blood in his veins, not milk and water; he comes of the Romany folk."

"Ah, you are a gipsy! Zita has gone back to her own people, then?"

She looked at him in amazed contempt. Apparently, these Christians had not even manhood enough to be angry when they were insulted.

"What sort of stuff are you made of, that she should stay with you? Our women may lend themselves to you a bit for a girl's fancy, or if you pay them well; but the Romany blood comes back to the Romany folk."

The Gadfly's face remained as cold and steady as before.

"Has she gone away with a gipsy camp, or merely to live with your son?"

The woman burst out laughing.

"Do you think of following her and trying to win her back? It's too late, sir; you should have thought of that before!"

"No; I only want to know the truth, if you will tell it to me."

She shrugged her shoulders; it was hardly worth while to abuse a person who took it so meekly.

"The truth, then, is that she met my son in the road the day you left her, and spoke to him in the Romany tongue; and when he saw she was one of our folk, in spite of her fine clothes, he fell in love with her bonny face, as OUR men fall in love, and took her to our camp. She told us all her trouble, and sat crying and sobbing, poor la.s.sie, till our hearts were sore for her. We comforted her as best we could; and at last she took off her fine clothes and put on the things our la.s.ses wear, and gave herself to my son, to be his woman and to have him for her man. He won't say to her: 'I don't love you,' and: 'I've other things to do.'

When a woman is young, she wants a man; and what sort of man are you, that you can't even kiss a handsome girl when she puts her arms round your neck?"

"You said," he interrupted, "that you had brought me a message from her."

"Yes; I stopped behind when the camp went on, so as to give it. She told me to say that she has had enough of your folk and their hair-splitting and their sluggish blood; and that she wants to get back to her own people and be free. 'Tell him,' she said, 'that I am a woman, and that I loved him; and that is why I would not be his harlot any longer.' The la.s.sie was right to come away. There's no harm in a girl getting a bit of money out of her good looks if she can--that's what good looks are for; but a Romany la.s.s has nothing to do with LOVING a man of your race."

The Gadfly stood up.

"Is that all the message?" he said. "Then tell her, please, that I think she has done right, and that I hope she will be happy. That is all I have to say. Good-night!"

He stood perfectly still until the garden gate closed behind her; then he sat down and covered his face with both hands.

Another blow on the cheek! Was no rag of pride to be left him--no shred of self-respect? Surely he had suffered everything that man can endure; his very heart had been dragged in the mud and trampled under the feet of the pa.s.sers-by; there was no spot in his soul where someone's contempt was not branded in, where someone's mockery had not left its iron trace. And now this gipsy girl, whom he had picked up by the wayside--even she had the whip in her hand.

Shaitan whined at the door, and the Gadfly rose to let him in. The dog rushed up to his master with his usual frantic manifestations of delight, but soon, understanding that something was wrong, lay down on the rug beside him, and thrust a cold nose into the listless hand.

An hour later Gemma came up to the front door. No one appeared in answer to her knock; Bianca, finding that the Gadfly did not want any dinner, had slipped out to visit a neighbour's cook. She had left the door open, and a light burning in the hall. Gemma, after waiting for some time, decided to enter and try if she could find the Gadfly, as she wished to speak to him about an important message which had come from Bailey. She knocked at the study door, and the Gadfly's voice answered from within: "You can go away, Bianca. I don't want anything."

She softly opened the door. The room was quite dark, but the pa.s.sage lamp threw a long stream of light across it as she entered, and she saw the Gadfly sitting alone, his head sunk on his breast, and the dog asleep at his feet.

"It is I," she said.

He started up. "Gemma,---- Gemma! Oh, I have wanted you so!"

Before she could speak he was kneeling on the floor at her feet and hiding his face in the folds of her dress. His whole body was shaken with a convulsive tremor that was worse to see than tears.

She stood still. There was nothing she could do to help him--nothing.

This was the bitterest thing of all. She must stand by and look on pa.s.sively--she who would have died to spare him pain. Could she but dare to stoop and clasp her arms about him, to hold him close against her heart and shield him, were it with her own body, from all further harm or wrong; surely then he would be Arthur to her again; surely then the day would break and the shadows flee away.

Ah, no, no! How could he ever forget? Was it not she who had cast him into h.e.l.l--she, with her own right hand?

She had let the moment slip by. He rose hastily and sat down by the table, covering his eyes with one hand and biting his lip as if he would bite it through.

Presently he looked up and said quietly:

"I am afraid I startled you."

She held out both her hands to him. "Dear," she said, "are we not friends enough by now for you to trust me a little bit? What is it?"

"Only a private trouble of my own. I don't see why you should be worried over it."