The Marriage of William Ashe Part 60

Kitty recovered herself first.

"It's not my fault that we've met," she said, panting a little. "Don't look at me so--so unkindly. I know you don't want to see me. Why--why should we speak at all? I'm going away." And she turned with a gesture of farewell.

Alice Wensleydale laid a detaining hand on Kitty's arm.

"No! stay a moment. You are in black. You look ill."

Kitty turned towards her. They had moved on instinctively into the shelter of one of the narrow streets.

"My boy died--two months ago," she said, holding herself proudly aloof.

Lady Alice started.

"I hadn't heard. I'm very sorry for you. How old was he?"

"Three years old."

"Poor baby!" The words were very low and soft. "My boy--was fourteen.

But you have other children?"

"No--and I don't want them. They might die, too."

Lady Alice paused. She still held her half-sister by the arm, towering above her. She was quite as thin as Kitty, but much taller and more largely built; and, beside the elaborate elegance of Kitty's mourning, Alice's black veil and dress had a severe, conventual air. They were almost the dress of a religious.

"How are you?" she said, gently. "I often think of you. Are you happy in your marriage?"

Kitty laughed.

"We're such a happy lot, aren't we? We understand it so well. Oh, don't trouble about me. You know you said you couldn't have anything to do with me. Are you staying in Venice?"

"I came in from Treviso for a day or two, to see a friend--"

"You had better not stay," said Kitty, hastily. "Maman is here. At least, if you don't want to run across her."

Lady Alice let go her hold.

"I shall go home to-morrow morning."

They moved on a few steps in silence, then Alice paused. Kitty's delicate face and cloud of hair made a pale, luminous spot in the darkness of the _calle_. Alice looked at her with emotion.

"I want to say something to you."

"Yes?"

"If you are ever in trouble--if you ever want me, send for me. Address Treviso, and it will always find me."

Kitty made no reply. They had reached a bridge over a side ca.n.a.l, and she stopped, leaning on the parapet.

"Did you hear what I said?" asked her companion.

"Yes. I'll remember. I suppose you think it your duty. What do you do with yourself?"

"I have two orphan children I bring up. And there is my lace-school. It doesn't get on much; but it occupies me."

"Are you a Catholic?"

"Yes."

"Wish I was!" said Kitty. She hung over the marble bal.u.s.trade in silence, looking at the crescent moon that was just peering over the eastern palaces of the ca.n.a.l. "My husband is in politics, you know. He's Home Secretary."

"Yes, I heard. Do you help him?"

"No--just the other thing."

Kitty lifted up a pebble and let it drop into the water.

"I don't know what you mean by that," said Alice Wensleydale, coldly.

"If you don't help him you'll be sorry--when it's too late to be sorry."

"Oh, I know!" said Kitty. Then she moved restlessly. "I must go in.

Good-night." She held out her hand.

Lady Alice took it.

"Good-night. And remember!"

"I sha'n't want anybody," said Kitty. "_Addio!_" She waved her hand, and Alice Wensleydale, whose way lay towards the Piazza, saw her disappear, a small tripping shadow, between the high, close-piled houses.

Kitty was in so much excitement after this conversation that when she reached the Campo San Maurizio, where she should have turned abruptly to the left, she wandered awhile up and down the campo, looking at the gondolas on the Traghetto between it and the Accademia, at the Church of San Maurizio, at the rising moon, and the bright lights in some of the shop windows of the small streets to the north. The sea-wind was still warm and gusty, and the waves in the Grand Ca.n.a.l beat against the marble feet of its palaces.

At last she found her way through narrow pa.s.sages, past hidden and historic buildings, to the back of the palace on the Grand Ca.n.a.l in which their rooms were. A door in a small court opened to her ring. She found herself in a dark ground-floor--empty except for the _felze_ or black top of a gondola--of which the farther doors opened on the ca.n.a.l.

A cheerful Italian servant brought lights, and on the marble stairs was her maid waiting for her. In a few minutes she was on her sofa by a bright wood fire, while Blanche hovered round her with many small attentions.

"Have you seen your letters, my lady?" and Blanche handed her a pile.

Upon a parcel lying uppermost Kitty pounced at once with avidity. She tore it open--pausing once, with scarlet cheeks, to look round her at the door, as though she were afraid of being seen.

A book--fresh and new--emerged. _Politics and the Country Houses_; so ran the t.i.tle on the back. Kitty looked at it frowning. "He might have found a better name!" Then she opened it--looked at a page here and a page there--laughed, shivered--and at last bethought her to read the note from the publisher which accompanied it.

"'Much pleasure--the first printed copy--three more to follow--sure to make a sensation'--hateful wretch!--'if your ladyship will let us know how many presentation copies--' Goodness!--not _one_!

Oh--well!--Madeleine, perhaps--and, of course, Mr. Darrell."

She opened a little despatch-box in which she kept her letters, and slipped the book in.

"I won't show it to William to-night--not--not till next week." The book was to be out on the 20th, a week ahead--three months from the day when she had given the MS. into Darrell's hands. She had been spared all the trouble of correcting proofs, which had been done for her by the publisher's reader, on the plea of her illness. She had received and destroyed various letters from him--almost without reading them--during a short absence of William's in the north.

Suddenly a start of terror ran through her. "No, no!" she said, wrestling with herself--"he'll scold me, perhaps--at first; of course I know he'll do that. And then, I'll make him laugh! He can't--he can't help laughing. I _know_ it'll amuse him. He'll see how I meant it, too.

And n.o.body need ever find out."