The Marriage of William Ashe Part 64

"There was a good deal of talk," said Mary.

"A rum fellow, that Cliffe! A man at the club told me last week it is believed he has been fighting for these Bosnian rebels for months.

Shocking bad form I call it. If the Turks catch him, they'll string him up. And quite right, too. What's he got to do with other people's quarrels?"

"If the Turks will be such brutes--"

"Nonsense, my dear! Don't you believe any of this radical stuff. The Turks are awfully fine fellows--fight like bull-dogs. And as for the 'atrocities,' they make them up in London. Oh, of course, what Cliffe wants is notoriety--we all know that. Well, I'm going out to see if I can find another English paper. Beastly climate!"

But as Sir Richard turned again to the window, he was met by a burst of sunshine, which hit him gayly in the face like a child's impertinence.

He grumbled something unintelligible as Mary put him into his Inverness cape, took hat and stick, and departed.

Mary sat still beside the writing-table, her hands crossed on her lap, her eyes absently bent upon them.

She was thinking of the serenata. She had followed it with an acquaintance from the hotel, and she had seen not only Kitty and Madame d'Estrees, but also--the solitary man in the heavy cloak. She knew quite well that Cliffe was in Venice; though, true to her secretive temper, she had not mentioned the fact to her father.

Of course he was in Venice on Kitty's account. It would be too absurd to suppose that he was here by mere coincidence. Mary believed that nothing but the intervention of Cliffe's mighty kinsman from the north had saved the situation the year before. Kitty would certainly have betrayed her husband but for the _force majeure_ arrayed against her. And now the magnate who had played Providence slumbered in the family vault. He had pa.s.sed away in the spring, full of years and honors, leaving Cliffe some money. The path was clear. As for the escapade in the Balkans, Geoffrey was, of course, tired of it. A sensational book, hurried out to meet the public appet.i.te for horrors--and the pursuance of his intrigue with Lady Kitty Ashe--Mary was calmly certain that these were now his objects. He was, no doubt, writing his book and meeting Kitty where he could. Ashe would soon have to go home. And then! As if that girl Margaret French could stop it!

Well, William had only got his deserts! But as her thoughts pa.s.sed from Kitty or Cliffe to William Ashe, their quality changed. Hatred and bitterness, scorn or wounded vanity, pa.s.sed into something gentler. She fell into recollections of Ashe as he had appeared on that bygone afternoon in May when he came back triumphant from his election, with the world before him. If he had never seen Kitty Bristol!--

"I should have made him a good wife," she said to herself. "_I_ should have known how to be proud of him."

And there emerged also the tragic consciousness that if the fates had given him to her she might have been another woman--taught by happiness, by love, by motherhood.

It was that little, heartless creature who had s.n.a.t.c.hed them both from her--William and Geoffrey Cliffe--the higher and the lower--the man who might have enn.o.bled her--and the man, half charlatan, half genius, whom she might have served and raised, by her fortune and her abilities. Her life might have been so full, so interesting! And it was Kitty that had made it flat, and cold, and futureless.

Poor William! Had he really liked her, in those boy-and-girl days? She dreamed over their old cousinly relations--over the presents he had sometimes given her.

Then a thought, like a burning arrow, pierced her. Her hands locked, straining one against the other. If this intrigue were indeed renewed--if Geoffrey succeeded in tempting Kitty from her husband--why then--then--

She shivered before the images that were pa.s.sing through her mind, and, rising, she put away her letters and rang for the waiter, to order dinner.

"Where shall we go?" said Kitty, languidly, putting down the French novel she was reading.

"Mr. Ashe suggested San Lazzaro." Margaret looked up from her writing as Kitty moved towards her. "The rain seems to have all cleared off."

"Well, I'm sure it doesn't matter where," said Kitty, and was turning away; but Margaret caught her hand and caressed it.

"Naughty Kitty! why this sea air can't put some more color into your cheeks I don't understand."

"I'm _not_ pale!" cried Kitty, pouting. "Margaret, you do croak about me so! If you say any more I'll go and rouge till you'll be ashamed to go out with me--there! Where's William?"

William opened the door as she spoke, the _Gazetta di Venezia_ in one hand and a telegram in the other.

"Something for you, darling," he said, holding it out to Kitty. "Shall I open it?"

"Oh no!" said Kitty, hastily. "Give it me. It's from my Paris woman."

"Ah--ha!" laughed Ashe. "Some extravagance you want to keep to yourself, I'll be bound. I've a good mind to see!"

And he teasingly held it up above her head. But she gave a little jump, caught it, and ran off with it to her room.

"Much regret impossible stop publication. Fifty copies distributed already. Writing."

She dropped speechless on the edge of her bed, the crumpled telegram in her hand. The minutes pa.s.sed.

"When will you be ready?" said Ashe, tapping at the door.

"Is the gondola there?"

"Waiting at the steps."

"Five minutes!" Ashe departed. She rose, tore the telegram into little bits, and began with deliberation to put on her mantle and hat.

"You've got to go through with it," she said to the white face in the gla.s.s, and she straightened her small shoulders defiantly.

They were bound for the Armenian convent. It was a misty day, with shafts of light on the lagoon. The storm had pa.s.sed, but the water was still rough, and the clouds seemed to be withdrawing their forces only to marshal them again with the darkness. A day of sudden bursts of watery light, of bands of purple distance struck into enchanting beauty by the red or orange of a sail, of a wild salt breath in air that seemed to be still suffused with spray. The Alps were hidden; but what sun there was played faintly on the Euganean hills.

"I say, Margaret, at last she does us some credit!" said Ashe, pointing to his wife.

Margaret started. Was it rouge?--or was it the strong air? Kitty's languor had entirely disappeared; she was more cheerful and more talkative than she had been at any time since their arrival. She chattered about the current scandals of Venice--the mysterious contessa who lived in the palace opposite their own, and only went out, in deep mourning, at night, because she had been the love of a Russian grand-duke, and the grand-duke was dead; of the Carlist pretender and his wife, who had been very popular in Venice until they took it into their heads to require royal honors, and Venice, taking time to think, had lazily decided the game was not worth the candle--so now the sulky pair went about alone in a fine gondola, turning gla.s.sy eyes on their former acquaintance; of the needy marchese who had sold a t.i.tian to the Louvre, and had then found himself boycotted by all his kinsfolk in Venice who were not needy and had no t.i.tians to sell--all these tales Kitty reeled out at length till the handsome gondoliers marvelled at the little lady's vivacity and the queer brightness of her eyes.

"Gracious, Kitty, where do you get all these stories from?" cried Ashe, when the chatter paused for a moment.

He looked at her with delight, rejoicing in her gayety, the slight touches of white which to-day for the first time relieved the sombreness of her dress, the return of her color. And Margaret wondered again how much of it was rouge.

At the Armenian convent a handsome young monk took charge of them. As George Sand and Lamennais had done before them, they looked at the printing-press, the garden, the cloister, the church; they marvelled lazily at the cleanliness and brightness of the place; and finally they climbed to the library and museum, and the room close by where Byron played at grammar-making. In this room Ashe fell suddenly into a political talk with the young monk, who was an ardent and patriotic son of the most unfortunate of nations, and they pa.s.sed out and down the stairs, followed by Margaret French, not noticing that Kitty had lingered behind.

Kitty stood idly by the window of Byron's room, thinking restlessly of verses that were not Byron's, though there was in them, clothed in forms of the new age, the spirit of Byronic pa.s.sion, and more than a touch of Byronic affectation--thinking also of the morning's telegram. Supposing Darrell's prophecy, which had seemed to her so absurd, came true, that the book did William harm, not good--that he ceased to love her--that he cast her off?...

... A plash of water outside, and a voice giving directions. From the lagoon towards Malamocco a gondola approached. A gentleman and lady were seated in it. The lady--a very handsome Italian, with a loud laugh and brilliant eyes--carried a scarlet parasol. Kitty gave a stifled cry as she drew back. She fled out of the room and overtook the other two.

"May we go back into the garden a little?" she said, hurriedly, to the monk who was talking to William. "I should like to see the view towards Venice."

William held up a watch, to show that there was but just time to get back to the Piazza, for lunch. Kitty persisted, and the monk, understanding what the impetuous young lady wished, good-naturedly turned to obey her.

"We must be _very_ quick!" said Kitty. "Take us please, to the edge, beyond the trees."

And she herself hurried through the garden to its farther side, where it was bounded by the lagoon.

The others followed her, rather puzzled by her caprice.

"Not much to be seen, darling!" said Ashe, as they reached the water--"and I think this good man wants to get rid of us!"

And, indeed, the monk was looking backward across the intervening trees at a party which had just entered the garden.