a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter is half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about our ears, plotting and intriguing, and poisoning off everybody they can’t bribe.”
“That’s likely enough.”
“Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly sending in petitions, till Lambruschini and his pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us bodily under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian hussars to patrol the streets and keep us in order; or shall we forestall them and take advantage of their momentary discomfiture to strike the first blow?”
“Tell us first what blow you propose?”
“I would suggest that we start an organized propaganda and agitation against the Jesuits.”
“A pamphleteering declaration of war, in fact?”
“Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out their secrets, and calling upon the people to make common cause against them.”
“But there are no Jesuits here to expose.”
“Aren’t there? Wait three months and see how many we shall have. It’ll be too late to keep them out then.”
“But really to rouse the town against the Jesuits one must speak plainly; and if you do that how will you evade the censorship?”
“I wouldn’t evade it; I would defy it.”
“You would print the pamphlets anonymously? That’s all very well, but the fact is, we have all seen enough of the clandestine press to know—-”
“I did not mean that. I would print the pamphlets openly, with our names and addresses, and let them prosecute us if they dare.”
“The project is a perfectly mad one,” Grassini exclaimed. “It is simply putting one’s head into the lion’s mouth out of sheer wantonness.”
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid!” Galli cut in sharply; “we shouldn’t ask you to go to prison for our pamphlets.”
“Hold your tongue, Galli!” said Riccardo. “It’s not a question of being afraid; we’re all as ready as you are to go to prison if there’s any good to be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger for nothing. For my part, I have an amendment to the proposal to suggest.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I think we might contrive, with care, to fight the Jesuits without coming into collision with the censorship.”
“I don’t see how you are going to manage it.”
“I think that it is possible to clothe what one has to say in so roundabout a form that—-”
“That the censorship won’t understand it? And then you’ll expect every poor artisan and labourer to find out the meaning by the light of the ignorance and stupidity that are in him! That doesn’t sound very practicable.”
“Martini, what do you think?” asked the professor, turning to a broad-shouldered man with
a great brown beard, who was sitting beside him.
“I think that I will reserve my opinion till I have more facts to go upon. It’s a question of trying experiments and seeing what comes of them.”
“And you, Sacconi?”
“I should like to hear what Signora Bolla has to say. Her suggestions are always valuable.”
Everyone turned to the only woman in the room, who had been sitting on the sofa, resting her chin on one hand and listening in silence to the discussion. She had deep, serious black eyes, but as she raised them now there was an unmistakable gleam of amusement in them.
“I am afraid,” she said; “that I disagree with everybody.”
“You always do, and the worst of it is that you are always right,” Riccardo put in.
“I think it is quite true that we must fight the Jesuits somehow; and if we can’t do it with one weapon we must with another. But mere defiance is a feeble weapon and evasion a cumbersome one. As for petitioning, that is a child’s toy.”
“I hope, signora,” Grassini interposed, with a solemn face; “that you are not suggesting such methods as–assassination?”
Martini tugged at his big moustache and Galli sniggered outright. Even the grave young woman could not repress a smile.
“Believe me,” she said, “that if I were ferocious enough to think of such things I should not be childish enough to talk about them. But the deadliest weapon I know is ridicule. If you can once succeed in rendering the Jesuits ludicrous, in making people laugh at them and their claims, you have conquered them without bloodshed.”
“I believe you are right, as far as that goes,” Fabrizi said; “but I don’t see how you are going to carry the thing through.”
“Why should we not be able to carry it through?” asked Martini. “A satirical thing has a better chance of getting over the censorship difficulty than a serious one; and, if it must be cloaked, the average reader is more likely to find out the double meaning of an apparently silly joke than of a scientific or economic treatise.”
“Then is your suggestion, signora, that we should issue satirical pamphlets, or attempt to run a comic paper? That last, I am sure, the censorship would never allow.”
“I don’t mean exactly either. I believe a series of small satirical leaflets, in verse or prose, to be sold cheap or distributed free about the streets, would be very useful. If we could find a clever artist who would enter into the spirit of the thing, we might have them illustrated.”
“It’s a capital idea, if only one could carry it out; but if the thing is to be done at all it must be well done. We should want a first-class satirist; and where are we to get him?”
“You see,” added Lega, “most of us are serious writers; and, with all respect to the company, I am afraid that a general attempt to be humorous would present the spectacle of an elephant trying to dance the tarantella.”
“I never suggested that we should all rush into work for which we are unfitted. My idea was that we should try to find a really gifted satirist– there must be one to be got somewhere in Italy, surely–and offer to provide the necessary funds. Of course we should have to know something of the man and make sure that he would work on lines with which we could agree.”
“But where are you going to find him? I can count up the satirists of any real talent on the fingers of one hand; and none of them are available. Giusti wouldn’t accept; he is fully occupied as it is. There are one or two good men in Lombardy, but they write only in the Milanese dialect—-”
“And moreover,” said Grassini, “the Tuscan people can be influenced in better ways than this. I am sure that it would be felt as, to say the least, a want of political savoir faire if we were to treat this solemn question of civil and religious liberty as a subject for trifling. Florence is not a mere wilderness of factories and money-getting like London, nor a haunt of idle luxury like Paris. It is a city with a great history——”
“So was Athens,” she interrupted, smiling; “but it was ‘rather sluggish from its size and needed a gadfly to rouse it’—-”
Riccardo struck his hand upon the table. “Why, we never thought of the Gadfly! The very man!”
“Who is that?”
“The Gadfly–Felice Rivarez. Don’t you remember him? One of Muratori’s band that came
down from the Apennines three years ago?”
“Oh, you knew that set, didn’t you? I remember your travelling with them when they went on to Paris.”
“Yes; I went as far as Leghorn to see Rivarez off for Marseilles. He wouldn’t stop in Tuscany; he said there was nothing left to do but laugh, once the insurrection had failed, and so he had better go to Paris. No doubt he agreed with Signor Grassini that Tuscany is the wrong place to laugh in. But I am nearly sure he would come back if we asked him, now that there is a chance of doing something in Italy.”
“What name did you say?”
“Rivarez. He’s a Brazilian, I think. At any rate, I know he has lived out there. He is one of the wittiest men I ever came across. Heaven knows we had nothing to be merry over, that week in Leghorn; it was enough to break one’s heart to look at poor Lambertini; but there was no keeping one’s countenance when Rivarez was in the room; it was one perpetual fire of absurdities. He had a nasty sabre-cut across the face, too; I remember sewing it up. He’s an odd creature; but I believe he and his nonsense kept some of those poor lads from breaking down altogether.”
“Is that the man who writes political skits in the French papers under the name of ‘Le Taon’?”
“Yes; short paragraphs mostly, and comic feuilletons. The smugglers up in the Apennines called him ‘the Gadfly’ because of his tongue; and he took the nickname to sign his work with.”
“I know something about this gentleman,” said Grassini, breaking in upon the conversation in his slow and stately manner; “and I cannot say that what I have heard is much to his credit. He undoubtedly possesses a certain showy, superficial cleverness, though I think his abilities have been exaggerated; and possibly he is not lacking in physical courage; but his reputation in Paris and Vienna is, I believe, very far from spotless. He appears to be a gentleman of–a–a–many adventures and unknown antecedents. It is said that he was picked up out of charity by Duprez’s expedition somewhere in the wilds of tropical South America, in a state of inconceivable savagery and degradation. I believe he has never satisfactorily explained how he came to be in such a condition. As for the rising in the Apennines, I fear it is no
101
secret that persons of all characters took part in that unfortunate affair. The men who were executed in Bologna are known to have been nothing but common malefactors; and the character of many who escaped will hardly bear description. Without doubt, SOME of the participators were men of high character—-”
“Some of them were the intimate friends of several persons in this room!” Riccardo interrupted, with an angry ring in his voice. “It’s all very well to be particular and exclusive, Grassini; but these ‘common malefactors’ died for their belief, which is more than you or I have done as yet.”
“And another time when people tell you the stale gossip of Paris,” added Galli, “you can tell them from me that they are mistaken about the Duprez expedition. I know Duprez’s adjutant, Martel, personally, and have heard the whole story from him. It’s true that they found Rivarez stranded out there. He had been taken prisoner in the war, fighting for the Argentine Republic, and had escaped. He was wandering about the country in various disguises, trying to get back to Buenos Ayres. But the story of their taking him on out of charity is a pure fabrication. Their interpreter had fallen ill and been obliged to turn back; and not one of the Frenchmen could speak the native languages; so they offered him the post, and he spent the whole three years with them, exploring the tributaries of the Amazon. Martel told me he believed they never would have got through the expedition at all if it had not been for Rivarez.”
“Whatever he may be,” said Fabrizi; “there must be something remarkable about a man who could lay his ‘come hither’ on two old campaigners like Martel and Duprez as he seems to have done. What do you think, signora?”
“I know nothing about the matter; I was in England when the fugitives passed through Tuscany. But I should think that if the companions who were with a man on a three years’ expedition in savage countries, and the comrades who were with him through an insurrection, think well of him, that is recommendation enough to counterbalance a good deal of boulevard gossip.”
“There is no question about the opinion his comrades had of him,” said Riccardo. “From Muratori and Zambeccari down to the roughest mountaineers they were all devoted to him. Moreover, he is a personal friend of Orsini. It’s quite true, on the other hand, that there are endless cock-and-bull stories of a not very pleasant kind going about concerning him in Paris; but if a man doesn’t want to make enemies he shouldn’t become a political satirist.”
“I’m not quite sure,” interposed Lega; “but it seems to me that I saw him once when
the refugees were here. Was he not hunchbacked, or crooked, or something of that kind?”
The professor had opened a drawer in his writing-table and was turning over a heap of papers.
“I think I have his police description somewhere here,” he said. “You remember when they escaped and hid in the mountain passes their personal appearance was posted up everywhere, and that Cardinal–what’s the scoundrel’s name?– Spinola, offered a reward for their heads.”
“There was a splendid story about Rivarez and that police paper, by the way. He put on a soldier’s old uniform and tramped across country as a carabineer wounded in the discharge of his duty and trying to find his company. He actually got Spinola’s search-party to give him a lift, and rode the whole day in one of their waggons, telling them harrowing stories of how he had been taken captive by the rebels and dragged off into their haunts in the mountains, and of the fearful tortures that he had suffered at their hands. They showed him the description paper, and he told them all the rubbish he could think of about ‘the fiend they call the Gadfly.’ Then at night, when they were asleep, he poured a bucketful of water into their powder and decamped, with his pockets full of provisions and ammunition——”
“Ah, here’s the paper,” Fabrizi broke in: “‘Felice Rivarez, called: The Gadfly. Age, about 30; birthplace and parentage, unknown, probably South American; profession, journalist. Short; black hair; black beard; dark skin; eyes, blue; forehead, broad and square; nose, mouth, chin——‘ Yes, here it is: ‘Special marks: right foot lame; left arm twisted; two ringers missing on left hand; recent sabre-cut across face; stammers.’ Then there’s a note put: ‘Very expert shot; care should be taken in arresting.'”
“It’s an extraordinary thing that he can have managed to deceive the search-party with such a formidable list of identification marks.”
“It was nothing but sheer audacity that carried him through, of course. If it had once occurred to them to suspect him he would have been lost. But the air of confiding innocence that he can put on when he chooses would bring a man through anything. Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the proposal? Rivarez seems to be pretty well known to several of the company. Shall we suggest to him that we should be glad of his help here or not?”
“I think,” said Fabrizi, “that he might be sounded upon the subject, just to find out whether he would be inclined to think of the plan.”
“Oh, he’ll be inclined, you may be sure, once it’s a case of fighting the Jesuits; he is the most savage anti-clerical I ever met; in fact, he’s rather rabid on the point.”
“Then will you write, Riccardo?”
“Certainly. Let me see, where is he now? In Switzerland, I think. He’s the most restless being; always flitting about. But as for the pamphlet question—-”
They plunged into a long and animated discussion. When at last the company began to disperse Martini went up to the quiet young woman.
“I will see you home, Gemma.”
“Thanks; I want to have a business talk with you.”
“Anything wrong with the addresses?” he asked softly.
“Nothing serious; but I think it is time to make a few alterations. Two letters have been stopped in the post this week. They were both quite unimportant, and it may have been accidental; but
we cannot afford to have any risks. If once the police have begun to suspect any of our addresses, they must be changed immediately.”
“I will come in about that to-morrow. I am not going to talk business with you to-night; you look tired.”
“I am not tired.”
“Then you are depressed again.”
“Oh, no; not particularly.”
CHAPTER II.
“Is the mistress in, Katie?”
“Yes, sir; she is dressing. If you’ll just step into the parlour she will be down in a few minutes.”
Katie ushered the visitor in with the cheerful friendliness of a true Devonshire girl. Martini was a special favourite of hers. He spoke English, like a foreigner, of course, but still quite respectably; and he never sat discussing politics at the top of his voice till one in the morning, when the mistress was tired, as some visitors had a way of doing. Moreover, he had come to Devonshire to help the mistress in her trouble, when her baby was dead and her husband dying there; and ever since that time the big, awkward, silent man had been to Katie as much “one of the family” as was the lazy black cat which now ensconced itself upon his knee. Pasht, for his part, regarded Martini as a useful piece of household furniture. This visitor never trod upon his tail, or puffed tobacco smoke into his eyes, or in any way obtruded upon his consciousness an aggressive biped personality. He behaved as a mere man should: provided a comfortable knee to lie upon and purr, and at table never forgot that to look on while human beings eat fish is not interesting for a cat. The friendship between them was of old date. Once, when Pasht was a kitten and his mistress too ill to think about him, he had come from England under Martini’s care, tucked away in a basket. Since then, long experience had convinced him that this clumsy human bear was no fair-weather friend.
“How snug you look, you two!” said Gemma, coming into the room. “One would think you had settled yourselves for the evening.”
Martini carefully lifted the cat off his knee. “I came early,” he said, “in the hope that you will give me some tea before we start. There will probably be a frightful crush, and Grassini won’t give us any sensible supper–they never do in those fashionable houses.”
“Come now!” she said, laughing; “that’s as bad as Galli! Poor Grassini has quite enough sins of his own to answer for without having his wife’s imperfect housekeeping visited upon his head. As for the tea, it will be ready in a minute. Katie has been making some Devonshire cakes specially for you.”
“Katie is a good soul, isn’t she, Pasht? By the way, so are you to have put on that pretty dress. I was afraid you would forget.”
“I promised you I would wear it, though it is rather warm for a hot evening like this.”
“It will be much cooler up at Fiesole; and nothing else ever suits you so well as white cashmere. I have brought you some flowers to wear with it.”
“Oh, those lovely cluster roses; I am so fond of them! But they had much better go into water. I hate to wear flowers.”
“Now that’s one of your superstitious fancies.”
“No, it isn’t; only I think they must get so bored, spending all the evening pinned to such a dull companion.”
“I am afraid we shall all be bored to-night. The conversazione will be dull beyond endurance.”
“Why?”
“Partly because everything Grassini touches becomes as dull as himself.”
“Now don’t be spiteful. It is not fair when we are going to be a man’s guests.”
“You are always right, Madonna. Well then, it will be dull because half the interesting people are not coming.”
“How is that?”
“I don’t know. Out of town, or ill, or something. Anyway, there will be two or three ambassadors and some learned Germans, and the usual
nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian princes and literary club people, and a few French officers; nobody else that I know of–except, of course, the new satirist, who is to be the attraction of the evening.”
“The new satirist? What, Rivarez? But I thought Grassini disapproved of him so strongly.”
“Yes; but once the man is here and is sure to be talked about, of course Grassini wants his house to be the first place where the new lion will be on show. You may be sure Rivarez has heard nothing of Grassini’s disapproval. He may have guessed it, though; he’s sharp enough.”
“I did not even know he had come.”
“He only arrived yesterday. Here comes the tea. No, don’t get up; let me fetch the kettle.”
He was never so happy as in this little study. Gemma’s friendship, her grave unconsciousness of the charm she exercised over him, her frank and simple comradeship were the brightest things for him in a life that was none too bright; and whenever he began to feel more than usually depressed he would come in here after business hours and sit with her, generally in silence, watching her as she bent over her needlework or poured out tea. She never questioned him about his troubles or expressed any sympathy in words; but he always went away stronger and calmer, feeling, as he put it to himself, that he could “trudge through another fortnight quite respectably.” She possessed, without knowing it, the rare gift of consolation; and when, two years ago, his dearest
friends had been betrayed in Calabria and shot down like wolves, her steady faith had been perhaps the thing which had saved him from despair.
On Sunday mornings he sometimes came in to “talk business,” that expression standing for anything connected with the practical work of the Mazzinian party, of which they both were active and devoted members. She was quite a different creature then; keen, cool, and logical, perfectly accurate and perfectly neutral. Those who saw her only at her political work regarded her as a trained and disciplined conspirator, trustworthy, courageous, in every way a valuable member of the party, but somehow lacking in life and individuality. “She’s a born conspirator, worth any
dozen of us; and she is nothing more,” Galli had said of her. The “Madonna Gemma” whom
Martini knew was very difficult to get at.
“Well, and what is your ‘new satirist’ like?” she asked, glancing back over her shoulder as she opened the sideboard. “There, Cesare, there are barley-sugar and candied angelica for you. I wonder, by the way, why revolutionary men are always so fond of sweets.”
“Other men are, too, only they think it beneath their dignity to confess it. The new satirist? Oh, the kind of man that ordinary women will rave over and you will dislike. A sort of professional dealer in sharp speeches, that goes about the world with a lackadaisical manner and a handsome ballet-girl dangling on to his coat-tails.”
“Do you mean that there is really a ballet-girl, or simply that you feel cross and want to imitate the sharp speeches?”
“The Lord defend me! No; the ballet-girl is real enough and handsome enough, too, for those who like shrewish beauty. Personally, I don’t. She’s a Hungarian gipsy, or something of that kind, so Riccardo says; from some provincial theatre in Galicia. He seems to be rather a cool hand; he has been introducing the girl to people just as if she were his maiden aunt.”
“Well, that’s only fair if he has taken her away from her home.”
“You may look at things that way, dear Madonna, but society won’t. I think most people
will very much resent being introduced to a woman whom they know to be his mistress.”
“How can they know it unless he tells them so?”
“It’s plain enough; you’ll see if you meet her. But I should think even he would not have the audacity to bring her to the Grassinis’.”
“They wouldn’t receive her. Signora Grassini is not the woman to do unconventional things of that kind. But I wanted to hear about Signor Rivarez as a satirist, not as a man. Fabrizi told me he had been written to and had consented to come and take up the campaign against the Jesuits; and that is the last I have heard. There has been such a rush of work this week.”
“I don’t know that I can tell you much more. There doesn’t seem to have been any difficulty over the money question, as we feared there would be. He’s well off, it appears, and willing to work for nothing.”
“Has he a private fortune, then?”
“Apparently he has; though it seems rather odd–you heard that night at Fabrizi’s about the state the Duprez expedition found him in. But he has got shares in mines somewhere out in Brazil; and then he has been immensely successful as a feuilleton writer in Paris and Vienna and London. He seems to have half a dozen languages at his finger-tips; and there’s nothing to prevent his keeping up his newspaper connections from here. Slanging the Jesuits won’t take all his time.”
“That’s true, of course. It’s time to start, Cesare. Yes, I will wear the roses. Wait just a minute.”
She ran upstairs, and came back with the roses in the bosom of her dress, and a long scarf of black Spanish lace thrown over her head. Martini surveyed her with artistic approval.
“You look like a queen, Madonna mia; like the great and wise Queen of Sheba.”
“What an unkind speech!” she retorted, laughing; “when you know how hard I’ve been trying to mould myself into the image of the typical society lady! Who wants a conspirator to look like the Queen of Sheba? That’s not the way to keep clear of spies.”
“You’ll never be able to personate the stupid society woman if you try for ever. But it doesn’t matter, after all; you’re too fair to look upon for spies to guess your opinions, even though you can’t simper and hide behind your fan like Signora Grassini.”
“Now Cesare, let that poor woman alone! There, take some more barley-sugar to sweeten your temper. Are you ready? Then we had
better start.”
Martini had been quite right in saying that the conversazione would be both crowded and dull. The literary men talked polite small-talk and looked hopelessly bored, while the “nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian princes” fluttered up and down the rooms, asking each other who were the various celebrities and trying to carry on intellectual conversation. Grassini was receiving his guests with a manner as carefully polished as his boots; but his cold face lighted up at the sight of Gemma. He did not really like her and indeed was secretly a little afraid of her; but he realized that without her his drawing room would lack a great attraction. He had risen high in his profession, and now that he was rich and well known
his chief ambition was to make of his house a centre of liberal and intellectual society. He was painfully conscious that the insignificant, overdressed little woman whom in his youth he had
made the mistake of marrying was not fit, with her vapid talk and faded prettiness, to be the mistress of a great literary salon. When he could prevail upon Gemma to come he always felt that the evening would be a success. Her quiet graciousness of manner set the guests at their ease, and her very presence seemed to lay the spectre of vulgarity which always, in his imagination, haunted the house.
Signora Grassini greeted Gemma affectionately, exclaiming in a loud whisper: “How charming you look to-night!” and examining the white cashmere with viciously critical eyes. She hated her visitor rancourously, for the very things for which Martini loved her; for her quiet strength of character; for her grave, sincere directness; for the steady balance of her mind; for the very expression of her face. And when Signora Grassini hated a woman, she showed it by effusive tenderness. Gemma took the compliments and
endearments for what they were worth, and troubled her head no more about them. What is called “going into society” was in her eyes one of the wearisome and rather unpleasant tasks which a conspirator who wishes not to attract the notice of spies must conscientiously fulfil. She classed it together with the laborious work of writing in cipher; and, knowing how valuable a practical safeguard against suspicion is the reputation of being a well-dressed woman, studied the fashion-plates as carefully as she did the keys of her ciphers.
The bored and melancholy literary lions brightened up a little at the sound of Gemma’s name; she was very popular among them; and the radical journalists, especially, gravitated at once to her end of the long room. But she was far too practised a conspirator to let them monopolize her. Radicals could be had any day; and now, when they came crowding round her, she gently sent them about their business, reminding them with a smile that they need not waste their time on converting her when there were so many tourists in
need of instruction. For her part, she devoted herself to an English M. P. whose sympathies the republican party was anxious to gain; and, knowing him to be a specialist on finance, she first won his attention by asking his opinion on a technical point concerning the Austrian currency, and then deftly turned the conversation to the condition of the Lombardo-Venetian revenue. The Englishman, who had expected to be bored with small-talk, looked askance at her, evidently fearing that he had fallen into the clutches of a blue-stocking; but finding that she was both pleasant to look at and interesting to talk to, surrendered completely and plunged into as grave a discussion of Italian finance as if she had been Metternich. When Grassini brought up a Frenchman “who wishes to ask Signora Bolla something about the history of Young Italy,” the M. P. rose with a bewildered sense that perhaps there was more ground for Italian discontent than he had supposed.
Later in the evening Gemma slipped out on to the terrace under the drawing-room windows to sit alone for a few moments among the great camellias and oleanders. The close air and continually shifting crowd in the rooms were beginning to give her a headache. At the further end of the terrace stood a row of palms and tree-ferns, planted in large tubs which were hidden by a bank of lilies and other flowering plants. The whole formed a complete screen, behind which was a little nook commanding a beautiful view out across the valley. The branches of a pomegranate tree, clustered with late blossoms, hung beside the narrow opening between the plants.
In this nook Gemma took refuge, hoping that no one would guess her whereabouts until she had secured herself against the threatening headache by a little rest and silence. The night was warm and beautifully still; but coming out from the hot, close rooms she felt it cool, and drew her lace scarf about her head.
Presently the sounds of voices and footsteps approaching along the terrace roused her from the dreamy state into which she had fallen. She drew back into the shadow, hoping to escape notice and get a few more precious minutes of silence before again having to rack her tired brain for conversation. To her great annoyance the footsteps
paused near to the screen; then Signora Grassini’s thin, piping little voice broke off for a moment in its stream of chatter.
The other voice, a man’s, was remarkably soft and musical; but its sweetness of tone was marred by a peculiar, purring drawl, perhaps mere affectation, more probably the result of a habitual
effort to conquer some impediment of speech, but in any case very unpleasant.
“English, did you say?” it asked. “But surely the name is quite Italian. What was it– Bolla?”
“Yes; she is the widow of poor Giovanni Bolla, who died in England about four years ago,– don’t you remember? Ah, I forgot–you lead such a wandering life; we can’t expect you to know of all our unhappy country’s martyrs–they are so many!”
Signora Grassini sighed. She always talked in this style to strangers; the role of a patriotic mourner for the sorrows of Italy formed an effective combination with her boarding-school manner and pretty infantine pout.
“Died in England!” repeated the other voice. “Was he a refugee, then? I seem to recognize the name, somehow; was he not connected with Young Italy in its early days?”
“Yes; he was one of the unfortunate young men who were arrested in ’33–you remember that sad affair? He was released in a few months; then, two or three years later, when there was a warrant out against him again, he escaped to England. The next we heard was that he was married there. It was a most romantic affair altogether, but poor Bolla always was romantic.”
“And then he died in England, you say?”
“Yes, of consumption; he could not stand that terrible English climate. And she lost her only child just before his death; it caught scarlet fever. Very sad, is it not? And we are all so fond of dear Gemma! She is a little stiff, poor thing; the English always are, you know; but I think her troubles have made her melancholy, and—-”
Gemma stood up and pushed back the boughs of the pomegranate tree. This retailing of her private sorrows for purposes of small-talk was almost unbearable to her, and there was visible annoyance in her face as she stepped into the light.
“Ah! here she is!” exclaimed the hostess, with admirable coolness. “Gemma, dear, I was wondering where you could have disappeared to.
Signor Felice Rivarez wishes to make your acquaintance.”
“So it’s the Gadfly,” thought Gemma, looking at him with some curiosity. He bowed to her decorously enough, but his eyes glanced over her face and figure with a look which seemed to her insolently keen and inquisitorial.
“You have found a d-d-delightful little nook here,” he remarked, looking at the thick screen; “and w-w-what a charming view!”
“Yes; it’s a pretty corner. I came out here to get some air.”
“It seems almost ungrateful to the good God to stay indoors on such a lovely night,” said the hostess, raising her eyes to the stars. (She had good eyelashes and liked to show them.) “Look, signore! Would not our sweet Italy be heaven on earth if only she were free? To think that she should be a bond-slave, with such flowers and such skies!”
“And such patriotic women!” the Gadfly murmured in his soft, languid drawl.
Gemma glanced round at him in some trepidation; his impudence was too glaring, surely, to deceive anyone. But she had underrated Signora Grassini’s appetite for compliments; the poor woman cast down her lashes with a sigh.
“Ah, signore, it is so little that a woman can do! Perhaps some day I may prove my right to the name of an Italian–who knows? And now I must go back to my social duties; the French ambassador has begged me to introduce his ward to all the notabilities; you must come in presently and see her. She is a most charming girl. Gemma, dear, I brought Signor Rivarez out to show him our beautiful view; I must leave him under your care. I know you will look after him and introduce him to everyone. Ah! there is that delightful Russian prince! Have you met him? They say he is a great favourite of the Emperor Nicholas. He is military commander of some Polish town with a name that nobody can pronounce. Quelle nuit magnifique! N’est-ce-pas, mon prince?”
She fluttered away, chattering volubly to a bull-necked man with a heavy jaw and a coat glittering with orders; and her plaintive dirges for “notre malheureuse patrie,” interpolated with “charmant” and “mon prince,” died away along the terrace.
Gemma stood quite still beside the pomegranate tree. She was sorry for the poor, silly
little woman, and annoyed at the Gadfly’s languid insolence. He was watching the retreating figures with an expression of face that angered her; it seemed ungenerous to mock at such pitiable creatures.
“There go Italian and–Russian patriotism,” he said, turning to her with a smile; “arm in arm and mightily pleased with each other’s company. Which do you prefer?”
She frowned slightly and made no answer.
“Of c-course,” he went on; “it’s all a question of p-personal taste; but I think, of the two, I like the Russian variety best–it’s so thorough. If Russia had to depend on flowers and skies for her supremacy instead of on powder and shot, how long do you think ‘mon prince’ would k-keep that Polish fortress?”
“I think,” she answered coldly, “that we can hold our personal opinions without ridiculing a woman whose guests we are.”
“Ah, yes! I f-forgot the obligations of hospitality here in Italy; they are a wonderfully hospitable people, these Italians. I’m sure the
Austrians find them so. Won’t you sit down?”
He limped across the terrace to fetch a chair for her, and placed himself opposite to her, leaning against the balustrade. The light from a window was shining full on his face; and she was able to study it at her leisure.
She was disappointed. She had expected to see a striking and powerful, if not pleasant face; but the most salient points of his appearance were a tendency to foppishness in dress and rather more than a tendency to a certain veiled insolence of expression and manner. For the rest, he was as swarthy as a mulatto, and, notwithstanding his lameness, as agile as a cat. His whole personality was oddly suggestive of a black jaguar. The forehead and left cheek were terribly disfigured by the long crooked scar of the old sabre-cut; and she had already noticed that, when he began to stammer in speaking, that side of his face was affected with a nervous twitch. But for these defects he would have been, in a certain restless and uncomfortable way, rather handsome; but it was not an attractive face.
Presently he began again in his soft, murmuring purr (“Just the voice a jaguar would talk in, if it could speak and were in a good humour,” Gemma said to herself with rising irritation).
“I hear,” he said, “that you are interested in the radical press, and write for the papers.”
“I write a little; I have not time to do much.”
“Ah, of course! I understood from Signora Grassini that you undertake other important work as well.”
Gemma raised her eyebrows slightly. Signora Grassini, like the silly little woman she was, had evidently been chattering imprudently to this slippery creature, whom Gemma, for her part, was beginning actually to dislike.
“My time is a good deal taken up,” she said rather stiffly; “but Signora Grassini overrates the importance of my occupations. They are mostly of a very trivial character.”
“Well, the world would be in a bad way if we ALL of us spent our time in chanting dirges for Italy. I should think the neighbourhood of our host of this evening and his wife would make anybody frivolous, in self-defence. Oh, yes, I know what you’re going to say; you are perfectly right, but they are both so deliciously funny with their patriotism.–Are you going in already? It is so nice out here!”
“I think I will go in now. Is that my scarf? Thank you.”
He had picked it up, and now stood looking at her with wide eyes as blue and innocent as forget-me-nots in a brook.
“I know you are offended with me,” he said penitently, “for fooling that painted-up wax doll; but what can a fellow do?”
“Since you ask me, I do think it an ungenerous and–well–cowardly thing to hold one’s intellectual inferiors up to ridicule in that way; it is like laughing at a cripple, or——”
He caught his breath suddenly, painfully; and shrank back, glancing at his lame foot and mutilated hand. In another instant he recovered his self-possession and burst out laughing.
“That’s hardly a fair comparison, signora; we cripples don’t flaunt our deformities in people’s faces as she does her stupidity. At least give us credit for recognizing that crooked backs are no pleasanter than crooked ways. There is a step here; will you take my arm?”
She re-entered the house in embarrassed silence; his unexpected sensitiveness had completely disconcerted her.
Directly he opened the door of the great reception room she realized that something unusual had happened in her absence. Most of the gentlemen looked both angry and uncomfortable;
the ladies, with hot cheeks and carefully feigned unconsciousness, were all collected at one end of the room; the host was fingering his eye-glasses with suppressed but unmistakable fury, and a little group of tourists stood in a corner casting amused glances at the further end of the room. Evidently something was going on there which appeared to them in the light of a joke, and to most of the guests in that of an insult. Signora Grassini alone did not appear to have noticed anything; she was fluttering her fan coquettishly
and chattering to the secretary of the Dutch embassy, who listened with a broad grin on his face.
Gemma paused an instant in the doorway, turning to see if the Gadfly, too, had noticed the disturbed appearance of the company. There was
no mistaking the malicious triumph in his eyes as he glanced from the face of the blissfully unconscious hostess to a sofa at the end of the room. She understood at once; he had brought his mistress here under some false colour, which had
deceived no one but Signora Grassini.
The gipsy-girl was leaning back on the sofa, surrounded by a group of simpering dandies and blandly ironical cavalry officers. She was gorgeously dressed in amber and scarlet, with an
Oriental brilliancy of tint and profusion of ornament as startling in a Florentine literary salon as if she had been some tropical bird among sparrows and starlings. She herself seemed to feel out of place, and looked at the offended ladies with a fiercely contemptuous scowl. Catching sight of the Gadfly as he crossed the room with Gemma, she sprang up and came towards him, with a voluble flood of painfully incorrect French.
“M. Rivarez, I have been looking for you everywhere! Count Saltykov wants to know whether
you can go to his villa to-morrow night. There will be dancing.”
“I am sorry I can’t go; but then I couldn’t dance if I did. Signora Bolla, allow me to introduce to you Mme. Zita Reni.”
The gipsy glanced round at Gemma with a half defiant air and bowed stiffly. She was certainly handsome enough, as Martini had said, with a vivid, animal, unintelligent beauty; and the perfect harmony and freedom of her movements were delightful to see; but her forehead was low and narrow, and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic, almost cruel. The sense of oppression which Gemma had felt in the Gadfly’s society was intensified by the gypsy’s presence; and when, a moment later, the host came up to beg Signora Bolla to help him entertain some tourists in the other room, she consented with an odd feeling of relief.
. . . . .
“Well, Madonna, and what do you think of the Gadfly?” Martini asked as they drove back to Florence late at night. “Did you ever see anything quite so shameless as the way he fooled that poor little Grassini woman?”
“About the ballet-girl, you mean?”
“Yes, he persuaded her the girl was going to be the lion of the season. Signora Grassini would do anything for a celebrity.”
“I thought it an unfair and unkind thing to do; it put the Grassinis into a false position; and it was nothing less than cruel to the girl herself. I am sure she felt ill at ease.”
“You had a talk with him, didn’t you? What did you think of him?”
“Oh, Cesare, I didn’t think anything except how glad I was to see the last of him. I never met anyone so fearfully tiring. He gave me a headache in ten minutes. He is like an incarnate demon of unrest.”
“I thought you wouldn’t like him; and, to tell the truth, no more do I. The man’s as slippery as an eel; I don’t trust him.”
CHAPTER III.
THE Gadfly took lodgings outside the Roman gate, near to which Zita was boarding. He was evidently somewhat of a sybarite; and, though nothing in the rooms showed any serious extravagance, there was a tendency to luxuriousness in trifles and to a certain fastidious daintiness in the arrangement of everything which surprised Galli and Riccardo. They had expected to find a man who had lived among the wildernesses of the Amazon more simple in his tastes, and wondered at his spotless ties and rows of boots, and at the masses of flowers which always stood upon his writing table. On the whole they got on very well with him. He was hospitable and friendly to everyone, especially to the local members of the Mazzinian party. To this rule Gemma, apparently, formed an exception; he seemed to have taken a dislike to her from the time of their first meeting, and in every way avoided her company. On two or three occasions he was actually rude to her, thus bringing upon himself Martini’s most cordial detestation. There had been no love lost between the
two men from the beginning; their temperaments appeared to be too incompatible for them to feel anything but repugnance for each other. On Martini’s part this was fast developing into hostility.
“I don’t care about his not liking me,” he said one day to Gemma with an aggrieved air. “I don’t like him, for that matter; so there’s no harm done. But I can’t stand the way he behaves to you. If it weren’t for the scandal it would make in the party first to beg a man to come and then to quarrel with him, I should call him to account for it.”
“Let him alone, Cesare; it isn’t of any consequence, and after all, it’s as much my fault as his.”
“What is your fault?”
“That he dislikes me so. I said a brutal thing to him when we first met, that night at the Grassinis’.”
“YOU said a brutal thing? That’s hard to believe, Madonna.”
“It was unintentional, of course, and I was very sorry. I said something about people laughing at cripples, and he took it personally. It had never occurred to me to think of him as a cripple; he is not so badly deformed.”
“Of course not. He has one shoulder higher than the other, and his left arm is pretty badly disabled, but he’s neither hunchbacked nor clubfooted. As for his lameness, it isn’t worth talking about.”
“Anyway, he shivered all over and changed colour. Of course it was horribly tactless of me, but it’s odd he should be so sensitive. I wonder if he has ever suffered from any cruel jokes of that kind.”
“Much more likely to have perpetrated them, I should think. There’s a sort of internal brutality about that man, under all his fine manners, that is perfectly sickening to me.”
“Now, Cesare, that’s downright unfair. I don’t like him any more than you do, but what is the use of making him out worse than he is? His manner is a little affected and irritating–I expect he has been too much lionized–and the everlasting smart speeches are dreadfully tiring; but I don’t believe he means any harm.”
“I don’t know what he means, but there’s something not clean about a man who sneers at everything. It fairly disgusted me the other day at
Fabrizi’s debate to hear the way he cried down the reforms in Rome, just as if he wanted to find a foul motive for everything.”
Gemma sighed. “I am afraid I agreed better with him than with you on that point,” she said. “All you good people are so full of the most delightful hopes and expectations; you are always ready to think that if one well-meaning middle-aged gentleman happens to get elected Pope,
everything else will come right of itself. He has only got to throw open the prison doors and give his blessing to everybody all round, and we may expect the millennium within three months. You never seem able to see that he can’t set things right even if he would. It’s the principle of the thing that’s wrong, not the behaviour of this man or that.”
“What principle? The temporal power of the Pope?”
“Why that in particular? That’s merely a part of the general wrong. The bad principle is that any man should hold over another the power to bind and loose. It’s a false relationship to stand in towards one’s fellows.”
Martini held up his hands. “That will do, Madonna,” he said, laughing. “I am not going to
discuss with you, once you begin talking rank Antinomianism in that fashion. I’m sure your ancestors must have been English Levellers in the seventeenth century. Besides, what I came round about is this MS.”
He pulled it out of his pocket.
“Another new pamphlet?”
“A stupid thing this wretched man Rivarez sent in to yesterday’s committee. I knew we should come to loggerheads with him before long.”
“What is the matter with it? Honestly, Cesare, I think you are a little prejudiced. Rivarez may be unpleasant, but he’s not stupid.”
“Oh, I don’t deny that this is clever enough in its way; but you had better read the thing yourself.”
The pamphlet was a skit on the wild enthusiasm over the new Pope with which Italy was still ringing. Like all the Gadfly’s writing, it was bitter and vindictive; but, notwithstanding her irritation at the style, Gemma could not help recognizing in her heart the justice of the criticism.
“I quite agree with you that it is detestably malicious,” she said, laying down the manuscript. “But the worst thing about it is that it’s all true.”
“Gemma!”
“Yes, but it is. The man’s a cold-blooded eel, if you like; but he’s got the truth on his side. There is no use in our trying to persuade ourselves that this doesn’t hit the mark–it does!”
“Then do you suggest that we should print it?”
“Ah! that’s quite another matter. I certainly don’t think we ought to print it as it stands; it would hurt and alienate everybody and do no good. But if he would rewrite it and cut out the personal attacks, I think it might be made into a really valuable piece of work. As political criticism it is very fine. I had no idea he could write so well. He says things which need saying and which none of us have had the courage to say. This passage, where he compares Italy to a tipsy man weeping with tenderness on the neck of the thief who is picking his pocket, is splendidly written.”
“Gemma! The very worst bit in the whole thing! I hate that ill-natured yelping at everything and everybody!”
“So do I; but that’s not the point. Rivarez has a very disagreeable style, and as a human being he is not attractive; but when he says that we have made ourselves drunk with processions and embracing and shouting about love and reconciliation, and that the Jesuits and Sanfedists are the people who will profit by it all, he’s right a thousand times. I wish I could have been at the committee yesterday. What decision did you finally arrive at?”
“What I have come here about: to ask you to go and talk it over with him and persuade him to soften the thing.”
“Me? But I hardly know the man; and besides that, he detests me. Why should I go, of all people?”
“Simply because there’s no one else to do it to-day. Besides, you are more reasonable than the rest of us, and won’t get into useless arguments and quarrel with him, as we should.”
“I shan’t do that, certainly. Well, I will go if you like, though I have not much hope of success.”
“I am sure you will be able to manage him if you try. Yes, and tell him that the committee all admired the thing from a literary point of view. That will put him into a good humour, and it’s perfectly true, too.”
. . . . .
The Gadfly was sitting beside a table covered with flowers and ferns, staring absently at the floor, with an open letter on his knee. A shaggy collie dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as Gemma knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed in a stiff, ceremonious way. His face had suddenly grown hard and expressionless.
“You are too kind,” he said in his most chilling manner. “If you had let me know that you wanted to speak to me I would have called on you.”
Seeing that he evidently wished her at the end of the earth, Gemma hastened to state her business. He bowed again and placed a chair for her.
“The committee wished me to call upon you,” she began, “because there has been a certain difference of opinion about your pamphlet.”
“So I expected.” He smiled and sat down opposite to her, drawing a large vase of chrysanthemums between his face and the light.
“Most of the members agreed that, however much they may admire the pamphlet as a literary composition, they do not think that in its present form it is quite suitable for publication. They fear that the vehemence of its tone may give offence, and alienate persons whose help and support are valuable to the party.”
He pulled a chrysanthemum from the vase and began slowly plucking off one white petal after another. As her eyes happened to catch the movement of the slim right hand dropping the petals, one by one, an uncomfortable sensation came over Gemma, as though she had somewhere seen that gesture before.
“As a literary composition,” he remarked in his soft, cold voice, “it is utterly worthless, and could be admired only by persons who know nothing about literature. As for its giving offence, that is the very thing I intended it to do.”
“That I quite understand. The question is whether you may not succeed in giving offence to the wrong people.”
He shrugged his shoulders and put a torn-off petal between his teeth. “I think you are mistaken,” he said. “The question is: For what purpose did your committee invite me to come here? I understood, to expose and ridicule the Jesuits. I fulfil my obligation to the best of my ability.”
“And I can assure you that no one has any doubt as to either the ability or the good-will. What the committee fears is that the liberal party may take offence, and also that the town workmen may withdraw their moral support. You may have meant the pamphlet for an attack upon the Sanfedists: but many readers will construe it as an
attack upon the Church and the new Pope; and this, as a matter of political tactics, the committee does not consider desirable.”
“I begin to understand. So long as I keep to the particular set of clerical gentlemen with whom the party is just now on bad terms, I may speak sooth if the fancy takes me; but directly I touch upon the committee’s own pet priests–‘truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when the–Holy Father may stand by the fire and—–‘ Yes, the fool was right; I’d rather be any kind of a thing than a fool. Of course I must bow to the committee’s decision, but I continue to think that it has pared its wit o’ both sides and left–M-mon-signor M-m-montan-n-nelli in the middle.”
“Montanelli?” Gemma repeated. “I don’t understand you. Do you mean the Bishop of Brisighella?”
“Yes; the new Pope has just created him a Cardinal, you know. I have a letter about him here. Would you care to hear it? The writer is a friend of mine on the other side of the frontier.”
“The Papal frontier?”
“Yes. This is what he writes—-” He took up the letter which had been in his hand when she entered, and read aloud, suddenly beginning to stammer violently:
“‘Y-o-you will s-s-s-soon have the p-pleasure of m-m-meeting one of our w-w-worst enemies, C-cardinal Lorenzo M-montan-n-nelli, the B-b-bishop of Brisig-g-hella. He int-t—-‘”
He broke off, paused a moment, and began again, very slowly and drawling insufferably, but no longer stammering:
“‘He intends to visit Tuscany during the coming month on a mission of reconciliation. He will preach first in Florence, where he will stay for about three weeks; then will go on to Siena and Pisa, and return to the Romagna by Pistoja. He ostensibly belongs to the liberal party in the Church, and is a personal friend of the Pope and Cardinal Feretti. Under Gregory he was out of favour, and was kept out of sight in a little hole in the Apennines. Now he has come suddenly to the front. Really, of course, he is as much pulled by Jesuit wires as any Sanfedist in the country. This mission was suggested by some of the Jesuit fathers. He is one of the most brilliant preachers in the Church, and as mischievous in his way as Lambruschini himself. His business is to keep the popular enthusiasm over the Pope from subsiding, and to occupy the public attention until the Grand Duke has signed a project which the agents of the Jesuits are preparing to lay before him. What this project is I have been unable to discover.’ Then, further on, it says: ‘Whether Montanelli understands for what purpose he is being sent to Tuscany, or whether the Jesuits are playing on him, I cannot make out. He is either an uncommonly clever knave, or the biggest ass that was ever foaled. The odd thing is that, so far as I can discover, he neither takes bribes nor keeps mistresses–the first time I ever came across such a thing.'”
He laid down the letter and sat looking at her with half-shut eyes, waiting, apparently, for her to speak.
“Are you satisfied that your informant is correct in his facts?” she asked after a moment.
“As to the irreproachable character of Monsignor M-mon-t-tan-nelli’s private life? No; but neither is he. As you will observe, he puts in the s-s-saving clause: ‘So far as I c-can discover—-
“I was not speaking of that,” she interposed coldly, “but of the part about this mission.”
“I can fully trust the writer. He is an old friend of mine–one of my comrades of ’43, and he is in a position which gives him exceptional opportunities for finding out things of that kind.”
“Some official at the Vatican,” thought Gemma quickly. “So that’s the kind of connections you have? I guessed there was something of that sort.”
“This letter is, of course, a private one,” the Gadfly went on; “and you understand that the information is to be kept strictly to the members of your committee.”
“That hardly needs saying. Then about the pamphlet: may I tell the committee that you consent to make a few alterations and soften it a little, or that—-”
“Don’t you think the alterations may succeed in spoiling the beauty of the ‘literary composition,’ signora, as well as in reducing the vehemence of the tone?”
“You are asking my personal opinion. What I have come here to express is that of the committee as a whole.”
“Does that imply that y-y-you disagree with the committee as a whole?” He had put the letter into his pocket and was now leaning forward and looking at her with an eager, concentrated expression which quite changed the character of his face. “You think—-”
“If you care to know what I personally think –I disagree with the majority on both points. I do not at all admire the pamphlet from a literary point of view, and I do think it true as a presentation of facts and wise as a matter of tactics.”
“That is——”
“I quite agree with you that Italy is being led away by a will-o’-the-wisp and that all this enthusiasm and rejoicing will probably land her in a terrible bog; and I should be most heartily glad to have that openly and boldly said, even at the cost of offending or alienating some of our present supporters. But as a member of a body the large majority of which holds the opposite view, I cannot insist upon my personal opinion; and I certainly think that if things of that kind are to be said at all, they should be said temperately and quietly; not in the tone adopted in this pamphlet.”
“Will you wait a minute while I look through the manuscript?”
He took it up and glanced down the pages. A dissatisfied frown settled on his face.
“Yes, of course, you are perfectly right. The thing’s written like a cafe chantant skit, not a political satire. But what’s a man to do? If I write decently the public won’t understand it; they will say it’s dull if it isn’t spiteful enough.”
“Don’t you think spitefulness manages to be dull when we get too much of it?”
He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst out laughing.
“Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful category of people who are always right! Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful, I may come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini? Heavens, what a fate! No, you needn’t
frown. I know you don’t like me, and I am going to keep to business. What it comes to, then, is practically this: if I cut out the personalities and leave the essential part of the thing as it is, the committee will very much regret that they can’t take the responsibility of printing it. If I cut out the political truth and make all the hard names apply to no one but the party’s enemies, the committee will praise the thing up to the skies, and you and I will know it’s not worth printing. Rather a nice point of metaphysics: Which is the more desirable condition, to be printed and not be worth it, or to be worth it and not be printed? Well, signora?”
“I do not think you are tied to any such alternative. I believe that if you were to cut out the personalities the committee would consent to print the pamphlet, though the majority would, of course, not agree with it; and I am convinced that it would be very useful. But you would have to lay aside the spitefulness. If you are going to say a thing the substance of which is a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening them at the beginning by the form.”
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders resignedly. “I submit, signora; but on one condition. If you rob me of my laugh now, I must have it out next time. When His Eminence, the irreproachable Cardinal, turns up in Florence, neither
you nor your committee must object to my being as spiteful as I like. It’s my due!”
He spoke in his lightest, coldest manner, pulling the chrysanthemums out of their vase and holding them up to watch the light through the translucent petals. “What an unsteady hand he has,” she thought, seeing how the flowers shook and quivered. “Surely he doesn’t drink!”
“You had better discuss the matter with the other members of the committee,” she said, rising. “I cannot form any opinion as to what they will think about it.”
“And you?” He had risen too, and was leaning against the table, pressing the flowers to his face
She hesitated. The question distressed her, bringing up old and miserable associations. “I –hardly know,” she said at last. “Many years ago I used to know something about Monsignor Montanelli. He was only a canon at that time, and Director of the theological seminary in the province where I lived as a girl. I heard a great deal about him from–someone who knew him very intimately; and I never heard anything of him that was not good. I believe that, in those days at least, he was really a most remarkable man. But that was long ago, and he may have changed. Irresponsible power corrupts so many people.”
The Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and looked at her with a steady face.
“At any rate,” he said, “if Monsignor Montanelli is not himself a scoundrel, he is a tool in scoundrelly hands. It is all one to me which he is–and to my friends across the frontier. A stone in the path may have the best intentions, but it must be kicked out of the path, for all that. Allow me, signora!” He rang the bell, and, limping to the door, opened it for her to pass out.
“It was very kind of you to call, signora. May I send for a vettura? No? Good-afternoon, then! Bianca, open the hall-door, please.”
Gemma went out into the street, pondering anxiously. “My friends across the frontier”– who were they? And how was the stone to be kicked out of the path? If with satire only, why had he said it with such dangerous eyes?
CHAPTER IV.
MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence in the first week of October. His visit caused a little flutter of excitement throughout the town. He was a famous preacher and a representative of the reformed Papacy; and people looked eagerly to him for an exposition of the “new doctrine,” the gospel of love and reconciliation which was to cure the sorrows of Italy. The nomination of Cardinal Gizzi to the Roman State Secretaryship in place of the universally detested Lambruschini had raised the public enthusiasm to its highest pitch; and Montanelli was just the man who could most easily sustain it. The irreproachable strictness of his life was a phenomenon sufficiently rare among the high dignitaries of the Roman Church to attract the attention of people accustomed to regard blackmailing, peculation, and disreputable intrigues as almost invariable adjuncts to the career of a prelate. Moreover, his talent as a preacher was really great; and with his beautiful voice and magnetic personality, he would in any time and place have made his mark.
Grassini, as usual, strained every nerve to get the newly arrived celebrity to his house; but Montanelli was no easy game to catch. To all invitations he replied with the same courteous but positive refusal, saying that his health was bad and his time fully occupied, and that he had neither strength nor leisure for going into society.
“What omnivorous creatures those Grassinis are!” Martini said contemptuously to Gemma as they crossed the Signoria square one bright, cold Sunday morning. “Did you notice the way
Grassini bowed when the Cardinal’s carriage drove up? It’s all one to them who a man is, so long as he’s talked about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only last August it was the Gadfly; now it’s Montanelli. I hope His Eminence feels flattered at the attention; a precious lot of adventurers have shared it with him.”
They had been hearing Montanelli preach in the Cathedral; and the great building had been so thronged with eager listeners that Martini, fearing a return of Gemma’s troublesome headaches, had persuaded her to come away before the Mass was over. The sunny morning, the first after a week of rain, offered him an excuse for suggesting a walk among the garden slopes by San Niccolo.
“No,” she answered; “I should like a walk if you have time; but not to the hills. Let us keep along the Lung’Arno; Montanelli will pass on his way back from church and I am like Grassini– I want to see the notability.”
“But you have just seen him.”
“Not close. There was such a crush in the Cathedral, and his back was turned to us when the carriage passed. If we keep near to the bridge we shall be sure to see him well–he is staying on the Lung’Arno, you know.”
“But what has given you such a sudden fancy to see Montanelli? You never used to care about famous preachers.”
“It is not famous preachers; it is the man himself; I want to see how much he has changed since I saw him last.”
“When was that?”
“Two days after Arthur’s death.”
Martini glanced at her anxiously. They had come out on to the Lung’Arno, and she was staring absently across the water, with a look on her face that he hated to see.
“Gemma, dear,” he said after a moment; “are you going to let that miserable business haunt you all your life? We have all made mistakes when we were seventeen.”
“We have not all killed our dearest friend when we were seventeen,” she answered wearily; and, leaning her arm on the stone balustrade of the bridge, looked down into the river. Martini held his tongue; he was almost afraid to speak to her when this mood was on her.
“I never look down at water without remembering,” she said, slowly raising her eyes to his; then with a nervous little shiver: “Let us walk on a bit, Cesare; it is chilly for standing.”
They crossed the bridge in silence and walked on along the river-side. After a few minutes she spoke again.
“What a beautiful voice that man has! There is something about it that I have never heard in any other human voice. I believe it is the secret of half his influence.”
“It is a wonderful voice,” Martini assented, catching at a subject of conversation which might lead her away from the dreadful memory called up by the river, “and he is, apart from his voice, about the finest preacher I have ever heard. But I believe the secret of his influence lies deeper than that. It is the way his life stands out from that of almost all the other prelates. I don’t know whether you could lay your hand on one other high dignitary in all the Italian Church–except the Pope himself–whose reputation is so utterly spotless. I remember, when I was in the Romagna last year, passing through his diocese and seeing those fierce mountaineers waiting in the rain to get a glimpse of him or touch his dress. He is venerated there almost as a saint; and that means a good deal among the Romagnols, who generally hate everything that wears a cassock. I remarked to one of the old peasants,–as typical a smuggler as ever I saw in my life,–that the people seemed very much devoted to their bishop, and he said: ‘We don’t love bishops, they are liars; we love Monsignor Montanelli. Nobody has ever known him to tell a lie or do an unjust thing.'”
“I wonder,” Gemma said, half to herself, “if he knows the people think that about him.”
“Why shouldn’t he know it? Do you think it is not true?”
“I know it is not true.”
“How do you know it?”
“Because he told me so.”
“HE told you? Montanelli? Gemma, what do you mean?”
She pushed the hair back from her forehead and turned towards him. They were standing still again, he leaning on the balustrade and she slowly drawing lines on the pavement with the point of her umbrella.
“Cesare, you and I have been friends for all these years, and I have never told you what really happened about Arthur.”
“There is no need to tell me, dear,” he broke in hastily; “I know all about it already.”
“Giovanni told you?”
“Yes, when he was dying. He told me about it one night when I was sitting up with him. He said—- Gemma, dear, I had better tell you the truth, now we have begun talking about it–he said that you were always brooding over that wretched story, and he begged me to be as good a friend to you as I could and try to keep you from thinking of it. And I have tried to, dear, though I may not have succeeded–I have, indeed.”
“I know you have,” she answered softly, raising her eyes for a moment; “I should have been badly off without your friendship. But–Giovanni did not tell you about Monsignor Montanelli, then?”
“No, I didn’t know that he had anything to do with it. What he told me was about–all that affair with the spy, and about—-”
“About my striking Arthur and his drowning himself. Well, I will tell you about Montanelli.”
They turned back towards the bridge over which the Cardinal’s carriage would have to pass. Gemma looked out steadily across the water as she spoke.
“In those days Montanelli was a canon; he was Director of the Theological Seminary at Pisa, and used to give Arthur lessons in philosophy and read with him after he went up to the Sapienza. They were perfectly devoted to each other; more like two lovers than teacher and pupil. Arthur almost worshipped the ground that Montanelli walked on, and I remember his once telling me that if he lost his ‘Padre’–he always used to call Montanelli so –he should go and drown himself. Well, then you know what happened about the spy. The next day, my father and the Burtons–Arthur’s step-brothers, most detestable people–spent the whole day dragging the Darsena basin for the body; and I sat in my room alone and thought of what I had done—-”
She paused a moment, and went on again:
“Late in the evening my father came into my room and said: ‘Gemma, child, come downstairs; there’s a man I want you to see.’ And when we went down there was one of the students belonging to the group sitting in the consulting room, all white and shaking; and he told us about Giovanni’s second letter coming from the prison to
say that they had heard from the jailer about Cardi, and that Arthur had been tricked in the confessional. I remember the student saying to me: ‘It is at least some consolation that we know he was innocent’ My father held my hands and tried to comfort me; he did not know then about the blow. Then I went back to my room and sat there all night alone. In the morning my father went out again with the Burtons to see the harbour dragged. They had some hope of finding the body there.”
“It was never found, was it?”
“No; it must have got washed out to sea; but they thought there was a chance. I was alone in my room and the servant came up to say that a ‘reverendissimo padre’ had called and she had told him my father was at the docks and he had gone away. I knew it must be Montanelli; so I ran out at the back door and caught him up at the garden gate. When I said: ‘Canon Montanelli, I want to speak to you,’ he just stopped and waited silently for me to speak. Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face–it haunted me for months afterwards! I said: ‘I am Dr. Warren’s daughter, and I have come to tell you that it is I who have killed Arthur.’ I told him everything, and he stood and listened, like a figure cut in stone, till I had finished; then he said: ‘Set your heart at rest, my child; it is I that am a murderer, not you. I deceived him and he found it out.’ And with that he turned and went out at the gate without another word.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening that he had fallen down in the street in a kind of fit and had been carried into a house near the docks; but that is all I know. My father did everything he could for me; when I told him about it he threw up his practice and took me away to England at once, so that I should never hear anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the water, too; and indeed I believe I was near it at one time. But then, you know, when we found out that my father had cancer I was obliged to come to myself–there was no one else to nurse him. And after he died I was left with the little ones on my hands until my elder brother was able to give them a home. Then there was Giovanni. Do you know, when he came to England we were almost afraid to meet each other with that frightful memory between us. He was so bitterly
remorseful for his share in it all–that unhappy letter he wrote from prison. But I believe, really, it was our common trouble that drew us together.”
Martini smiled and shook his head.
“It may have been so on your side,” he said; “but Giovanni had made up his mind from the first time he ever saw you. I remember his coming back to Milan after that first visit to Leghorn and raving about you to me till I was perfectly sick of hearing of the English Gemma. I thought I should hate you. Ah! there it comes!”
The carriage crossed the bridge and drove up to a large house on the Lung’Arno. Montanelli was leaning back on the cushions as if too tired to care any longer for the enthusiastic crowd which had collected round the door to catch a glimpse of him. The inspired look that his face had worn in the Cathedral had faded quite away and the sunlight showed the lines of care and fatigue. When he had alighted and passed, with the heavy, spiritless tread of weary and heart-sick old age, into the house, Gemma turned away and walked slowly to the bridge. Her face seemed for a moment to reflect the withered, hopeless look of his. Martini walked beside her in silence.
“I have so often wondered,” she began again after a little pause; “what he meant about the deception. It has sometimes occurred to me—-”
“Yes?”
“Well, it is very strange; there was the most extraordinary personal resemblance between them.”
“Between whom?”
“Arthur and Montanelli. It was not only I who noticed it. And there was something mysterious in the relationship between the members
of that household. Mrs. Burton, Arthur’s mother, was one of the sweetest women I ever knew. Her face had the same spiritual look as Arthur’s, and I believe they were alike in character, too. But