If only the fates would give them another child!--a child brilliant and lovely like herself, then surely this melancholy which overshadowed her would disperse. That look--that tragic look--she had given him on the day of the _fete_, when she spoke of "separation"! The wild adventure with the lamp had been her revenge--her despair. He shuddered as he thought of it.
He fell asleep, still pondering restlessly over her future and his own.
Amid all his anxieties he never stooped to recollect the man who had endangered her name and peace. His optimism, his pride, the sanguine perfunctoriness of much of his character were all shown in the omission.
Kitty, however, was not asleep while Ashe was beside her. And she slept but little through the hours that followed. Between three and four she was finally roused by the sounds of storm in the ca.n.a.l. It was as though a fleet of gigantic steamers--in days when Venice knew but the gondola--were pa.s.sing outside, sending a mountainous "wash" against the walls of the old palace in which they lodged. In this languid autumnal Venice the sudden noise and crash were startling. Kitty sprang softly out of bed, flung on a dressing-gown and fur cloak, and slipped through the open window to the balcony.
A strange sight! Beneath, livid waves, lashing the marble walls; above, a pale moonlight, obscured by scudding clouds. Not a sign of life on the water or in the dark palaces opposite. Venice looked precisely as she might have looked on some wild sixteenth-century night in the years of her glorious decay, when her palaces were still building and her state tottering. Opposite, at the Traghetto of the Accademia, there were lamps, and a few lights in the gondolas; and through the storm-noises one could hear the tossed boats grinding on their posts.
The riot of the air was not cold; there was still a recollection of summer in the gusts that beat on Kitty"s fair hair and wrestled with her cloak. As she clung to the balcony she pictured to herself the tumbling waves on the Lido; the piled storm-clouds parting like a curtain above a dead Venice; and behind, the gleaming eternal Alps, sending their challenge to the sea--the forces that make the land, to the forces that engulf it.
Her wild fancy went out to meet the tumult of blast and wave. She felt herself, as it were, anch.o.r.ed a moment at sea, in the midst of a war of elements, physical and moral.
Yes, yes!--it was Geoffrey. Once, under the skipping light, she had seen the face distinctly. Paler than of old--gaunt, unhappy, absent. It was the face of one who had suffered--in body and mind. But--she trembled through all her slight frame!--the old harsh power was there unchanged.
Had he seen and recognized her--slipping away afterwards into the mouth of a side ca.n.a.l, or dropping behind in the darkness? Was he ashamed to face her--or angered by the reminder of her existence? No doubt it seemed to him now a monstrous absurdity that he should ever have said he loved her! He despised her--thought her a base and coward soul. Very likely he would make it up with Mary Lyster now, accept her nursing and her money.
Her lip curled in scorn. No, _that_ she didn"t believe! Well, then, what would be his future? His name had been but little in the newspapers during the preceding year; the big public seemed to have forgotten him.
A cloud had hung for months over the struggle of races and of faiths now pa.s.sing in the Balkans. Obscure fighting in obscure mountains; ma.s.sacre here, revolt there; and for some months now hardly an accredited voice from Turk or Christian to tell the world what was going on.
But Geoffrey had now emerged--and at a moment when Europe was beginning perforce to take notice of what she had so far wilfully ignored. _a lui la parole!_ No doubt he was preparing it, the b.l.o.o.d.y, exciting story which would bring him before the foot-lights again, and make him once more the lion of a day. More social flatteries, more doubtful love-affairs! Fools like herself would feel his spell, would cherish and caress him, only to be stung and scathed as she had been. The bitter lines of his "portrait" rung in her ears--blackening and discrowning her in her own eyes.
She abhorred him!--but the thought that he was in Venice burned deep into senses and imagination. Should she tell William she had seen him?
No, no! She would stand by herself, protect herself!
So she stole back to bed, and lay there wakeful, starting guiltily at William"s every movement. If he knew what had happened!--what she was thinking of! Why on earth should he? It would be monstrous to hara.s.s him on his holiday--with all these political affairs on his mind.
Then suddenly--by an a.s.sociation of ideas--she sat up shivering, her hands pressed to her breast. The telegram--the book! Oh, but _of course_ she had been in time!--_of course_! Why, she had offered the man two hundred pounds! She lay down laughing at herself--forcing herself to try and sleep.
XIX
Sir Richard Lyster unfolded his _Times_ with a jerk.
"A beastly rheumatic hole I call this," he said, looking angrily at the window of his hotel sitting-room, which showed drops from a light shower then pa.s.sing across the lagoon. "And the dilatoriness of these Italian posts is, upon my soul, beyond bearing! This _Times_ is _three_ days old."
Mary Lyster looked up from the letter she was writing.
"Why don"t you read the French papers, papa? I saw a _Figaro_ of yesterday in the Piazza this morning."
"Because I can"t!" was the indignant reply. "There wasn"t the same amount of money squandered on _my_ education, my dear, that there has been on yours."
Mary smiled a little, unseen. Her father had been, of course, at Eton.
She had been educated by a succession of small and hunted governesses, mostly Swiss, whose remuneration had certainly counted among the frugalities rather than the extravagances of the family budget.
Sir Richard read his _Times_ for a while. Mary continued to write checks for the board wages of the servants left at home, and to give directions for the beating of carpets and cleaning of curtains. It was dull work, and she detested it.
Presently Sir Richard rose, with a stretch. He was a tall old man, with a shock of white hair and very black eyes. A victim to certain obscure forms of gout, he was in character neither stupid nor inhuman, but he suffered from the usual drawbacks of his cla.s.s--too much money and too few ideas. He came abroad every year, reluctantly. He did not choose to be left behind by county neighbors whose wives talked nonsense about Botticelli. And Mary would have it. But Sir Richard"s tours were generally one prolonged course of battle between himself and all foreign inst.i.tutions; and if it was Mary who drove him forth, it was Mary also who generally hurried him home.
"Who was it you saw last night in that ridiculous singing affair?" he asked, as he put the fire together.
"Kitty Ashe--and her mother," said Mary--after a moment--still writing.
"Her mother!--what, that disreputable woman?"
"They weren"t in the same gondola."
"Ashe will be a great fool if he lets his wife see much of that woman!
By all accounts Lady Kitty is quite enough of a handful already.
By-the-way, have you found out where they are?"
"On the Grand Ca.n.a.l. Shall we call this afternoon?"
"I don"t mind. Of course, I think Ashe is doing an immense amount of harm."
"Well, you can tell him so," said Mary.
Sir Richard frowned. His daughter"s manners seemed to him at times abrupt.
"Why do you see so little now of Elizabeth Tranmore?" he asked her, with a sharp look. "You used to be always there. And I don"t believe you even write to her much now."
"Does she see much of anybody?"
"Because, you mean, of Tranmore"s condition? What good can she be to him now? He knows n.o.body."
"She doesn"t seem to ask the question," said Mary, dryly.
A queer, soft look came over Sir Richard"s old face.
"No, the women don"t," he said, half to himself, and fell into a little reverie. He emerged from it with the remark--accompanied by a smile, a little sly but not unkind:
"I always used to hope, Polly, that you and Ashe would have made it up!"
"I"m sure I don"t know why," said Mary, fastening up her envelopes. As she did so it crossed her father"s mind that she was still very good-looking. Her dress of dark-blue cloth, the plain fashion of her brown hair, her oval face and well-marked features, her plump and pretty hands, were all pleasant to look upon. She had rather a hard way with her, though, at times. The servants were always giving warning. And, personally, he was much fonder of his younger daughter, whom Mary considered foolish and improvident. But he was well aware that Mary made his life easy.
"Well, you were always on excellent terms," he said, in answer to her last remark. "I remember his saying to me once that you were very good company. The Bishop, too, used to notice how he liked to talk to you."
When Mary and her father were together, "the Bishop" was Sir Richard"s property. He only fell to Mary"s share in the old man"s absence.
Mary colored slightly.
"Oh yes, we got on," she said, counting her letters the while with a quick hand.
"Well, I hope that young woman whom he _did_ marry is now behaving herself. It was that fellow Cliffe with whom the scandal was last year, wasn"t it?"