The Man with the Double Heart Part 41

"I could make one myself for thirty shillings--I know I could. And it isn't much. I haven't had a new dress this year..." Her grey eyes were wistful.

"It can't be done." At this fresh attack Mrs. Uniacke's mouth tightened--"there's Roddy to think of beside yourself..."

"To say nothing of Stephen's expenses?"

The words escaped Jill against her will. Little she guessed their significance, but Mrs. Uniacke flushed crimson. For a moment she could have boxed Jill's ears.

"That will do." She turned away and, with hands that shook, took up her work, leaning over the torn skirt, her back turned to her daughter.

Jill closed the door behind her. She stood for a moment on the stairs, her dark brows drawn together, her mouth a narrow scarlet line.

"Oh!" she said--"I'd like ... I'd like----" she stamped her foot--"to _murder_ Stephen!"

PART III

"Flower o' the peach Death for us all and his own life for each."

CHAPTER XIX

McTaggart lay on the golden sands of Viareggio, warming himself, lazily, like a lizard, in the sun.

Before him stretched the broad, unbroken curve of the bay, a dazzling sheet of sapphire blue, save where the white "Molo," like a slender finger pointed from the basin of the docks, where the shipping yards lay, and masts and spars went up in a cl.u.s.ter of spear points, dark against the sky.

His eyes followed the line of the pier to the lighthouse at the end and wandered off through the haze to the distant sh.o.r.e, where a group of cypresses cl.u.s.tered, sombre and grim, like sentinels stationed, guarding the land. The dark, tapering trees in the brilliance of the sunshine held a hint of sadness like the presence of a grave; appropriate to the scene where that spirit of fire and air, the poet Sh.e.l.ley, had been sacrificed to the waves.

McTaggart rolled over, the sun too hot on his face, and, digging his elbows into the sand, his chin propped on his hands, felt the warm rays play on his bare, brown shoulders, above his scanty bathing dress.

Now he could see the other point of the silver crescent of sh.o.r.e. Here were n.o.ble heights as well as the sense of s.p.a.ce. For the Carrara mountains rose against the sky, white and peaked and holy, with soft, curded wings like Delia Robbia angels against a blue font.

Below them came slopes in delicate silver point: olive trees quivering in the dazzling light, and, in the foreground, a low belt of pines, straggling out like a fringe round the sandy race course.

McTaggart's own bathing shed was one of the last of the hundreds that had sprung up, like mushrooms, on the beach; for, in the summer months, Viareggio was packed with a gay and fashionable Italian crowd.

Close to him, hand in hand, a circle of merry bathers, in brightly striped dresses of every shape and hue, were revelling in the water, with shrill bursts of laughter, splashing up and down, like children at play.

The men with their dark hair and wet olive skins, the women in bathing caps of gay knotted silk, with bare arms and necks and that flashing smile which seems the heritage of the white-toothed Southern race, suggested a frieze of laughing fauns and nymphs, gathered from the dusty walls of far Pompeii.

McTaggart himself was burnt the color of bronze. He looked the picture of health with his sinewy, well built frame and clean-cut face in which his blue eyes struck a curious Northern note, vivid and arresting.

He loved this out-door life, with the hot, dry days and the clear nights, pine scented, cooled by the breeze that blew across the mountains but lately cleared from snow.

It was more than a year now since the memorable day when he had bidden his aunt farewell in the villa at Fiesole, mistrustful of the web of intrigue drawing round his feet and Bianca, that dark-eyed, demure convent maiden.

For the memory of Cydonia had stood him in good stead. Although little by little his bitterness had waned, it left him mistrustful both of himself and others, tinged with the easy cynicism of youth.

He had spent the whole winter at his apartment in Rome, finding a warm welcome in that gay city, as he quickly mastered his mother's tongue and took his place in the social world that opened wide its doors to him.

With the navete of his years he clung to the theory that his heart still lay broken at Cydonia's feet, but this did not prevent him, as the days pa.s.sed on, from various flirtations in the gay Roman crowd.

He avoided, however, a serious liaison.

The touch of Scottish puritanism in his nature guarded him from the advances of married women; certain high born ladies of easy morals, charmed by his manner and striking face.

He learned quickly, too, the perils of such a tie: that in Rome an erring husband is frequently forgiven, but an unfaithful lover placed beyond the pale. There seemed to be a curious reverence shown to these love affairs, illegally cemented, whereas mere marriage was lightly shelved as an arrangement made by parents in the interests of property and to ensure a lawful heir.

Altogether, Rome was amusing and instructive, especially in his own favoured case. With a fine old t.i.tle and certain wealth, young, handsome and popular, the new Marquis threw himself into the social whirl with a cool head, a guarded heart and the flair of an ardent explorer.

England, that island in the North, foggy and grey, inhabited by "Cadells," seemed a dream of another world as he lay on the sunny Italian sands.

And yet...

He stirred, drawing up his knees, his hands clasped round them, his eyes far away. For there stung through his complacency a sudden shaft of desire--that haunting love of home which grips a man unawares, with a sense of exile in a foreign land.

The mountains, where the marble lay in cool jagged quarries, vanished from his sight and in their place came a picture of London: her busy, grimy streets with the ceaseless throb of her beating heart, as the fight went on, obstinate, merciless, the struggle for success--for money and power...

And that other London: the crowded Park, Hurlingham, Ascot--he drew a deep breath!

And London by night with the cries of the newsboys--the block of taxis in the long line theatreward, the lights of that Circus where the Criterion leers at his gaily lit neighbour, the Pavilion.

A sudden nostalgia seized McTaggart. The shrill laughter of the merry bathing group, the cloudless glare of sea and sky grew wearisome. He rose quickly to his feet.

"Mario!" He called to his man who was seated in the shade thrown by the osier fence, studying tips for the coming races.

"Mario--I shall dress now." The olive face flashed into a smile as the man sprang nimbly to his feet. For Mario adored his young master, a welcome change from the elderly Marquis with his fads and fancies and uncertain temper.

"Sissignore--at once! signore." Still he lingered, deferential.

"A thousand excuses, but does he remember the Princess Doria lunches with us to-day? The Signore has but his grey suit in the shed. It would be better to dress at the villa."

"Va bene--I had forgotten her! _And_ the new Poet----" he added, aside, "I can't stand that effeminate a.s.s, but she never goes two steps without him!"

He slipped on a long bath towel garment, screening his scanty bathing gown, and drew the hood down over his head while Mario produced slippers with soles of twisted hemp, and tied them on to his master's feet.

Now, not unlike a Dominican friar, in this primitive costume, he crossed the beach and turned along the country road until he came to the first pines, Mario in the rear, carrying his clothes.

Here they took a sandy foot path where scanty patches of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and cl.u.s.ters of wild pansy marked the borders of the straggling wood.

It led to a clearing in the trees and a villa, painted strawberry pink, with a tiled terrace and veranda, wreathed about with Bourgainvillia.

McTaggart paused on the threshold and rang a bell, answered quickly by a servant.

"Bring me a vermouth--di Torino--and the time-table." He sat down in a wicker chair, his face thoughtful--"and--Stefano!--" he called him back--"Asti for the Principessa. Lunch at twelve-thirty to-day--we shall be five instead of three--you can add an 'omelette au surprise.'