CHAPTER III
There was a jumble of old streets and buildings in Turin, flourishing out of sight behind the Palazzo Reale—like a scrap of wild thicket overlooked in the reclamation of a waste—which, to the many enamoured of orderliness and respectability, was a scandal, and to the few, having an eye for haphazard picturesqueness, the solitary oasis in a desert of uniformity. This irregular quarter, called “L’Anonimo,” possessed the qualities of its heterodoxy, and was consistent in nothing but its moral unconformableness. It was not so much a rookery as a hive, whence gold-ringed donnaccias flew to gather their honey, and, having collected, came back to store it, against a winter’s day, in their unconventual little cells. It was always very vivid and very busy—a never-ending fair, full of life and frivolity. Its stalls displayed a characteristic opulence of cheap Parisian hosiery and Genoese jewellery. White ankles twinkled for ever in its doorways. Its stones were dinted with the clatter of little gilded heels. It had its own cafés, and its lottery-office, of course, and its Government shops for the sale of salt and tobacco; for even nonconformity had to subscribe to the relentless gabelle. Finally, it had its drones; but they for the most part loafed at home.
It was not so very bad, this quarter, even at its heart, and rippled into less and less expression of itself the further one got from it, like the concentric rings extending from a splash in water. At quite a little distance it began to merge into a compromise with order—became a sort of sedate St John’s Wood—until, down by the Dora, it lapped itself away in an unimpeachable colony of washerwomen.
In the meanwhile, flowing down by many outlets, it threaded none prettier than that which was called the Lane of Chestnuts. And of all the whitewashed maisonnettes in that same fragrant alley, the Signorina Brambello’s was assuredly the whitest and most sweet.
It, this little house, was called the Capanna Sermollino (which means Wild-thyme Cottage), and it looked and smelt up to its name. Its walls were the shrine to a candid heart; its jalousies were of the green of Nature; and its mistress, whose beauty and perfume had come straight out of an English village, was Molly Bramble Bona roba—nothing worse and nothing better.
Poor Molly! once a rustic toast, queen of a single May, and then, alas! stolen—to what? She stood no further from honour now than by the thickness of a screen of convention. Loyalty, faith, honesty—these were all hers unimpaired; you could not look in her eyes and doubt it. Her shame was one man’s possession—near enough to the virtue of wifehood to be forgotten by her, except, perhaps, in the presence of children. Cartouche was to answer for it all.
She was lovely, of course. Her face, like a human face sketched by some amorous Puck, was a little out of drawing—a dear imperfection of prettiness. But the artist had rubbed its cheeks with real conserve of roses, and painted in its eyes with blue succory petals, and scented its rich brown hair with fragrance from the oakwoods. L’Anonimo, even in its purlieus, could hardly have justified a claim to Molly Bramble.
“I never hear your name spoken, Molly mia,” said Cartouche, “but it seems to bring a whiff of blackberries across the footlights.”
She was dressed in a clean lilac-sprigged muslin, with a fichu, soft as “milkmaids,” half-sheathing the white budding of her womanhood. A mob cap sat at grace on her pretty curls. A pity that her atmosphere was all of Spring, which perishes so soon. Molly had no arts to reap love’s winter.
Cartouche spoke, took a pride in speaking, English like a native. Molly’s “Frenchings” were as sweet an imperfection as her lips.
She laughed, busy at the table preparing his breakfast, coffee and chocolate mixed in a little glass and garnished with a number of tiny rolls like pipe-stems.
“And I never hear yours,” she said, “without thinking of a silly fellow.”
She took a chair by him while he ate and drank. He did it all daintily; but she would have watched him with as much delight if he had guzzled like a hog. It is all one to a woman whether her baby is nice or gluttonous. But I have known a man turn disgusted from a ravenous infant.
Cartouche sat preoccupied a long time, nibbling his rusks. Suddenly he looked up, dark and troubled.
“Why have you such a sweet face, ma mie?” he said. “I wish I had never brought a blush to it.”
She started up, and went to the table again, affecting business there. Then she turned, and her lashes were winking.
“Let that flea stick in the wall,” she said. “I’d rather you had its blushes than its frowns.”
Her under lip was trembling a little, as she came again and knelt at his feet.
“What is it, Cherry?” she said, looking wistfully into his face. “There’s something, I know—something different, since you—since you—. Is it anything to do with that fellow you brought here last night?”
“No—yes—” he answered. “Perhaps—I can’t say.”
“Well, I mustn’t ask, I suppose,” she said. “You’ve taught me not to, though its made me cry my eyes out sometimes. If you’re bad, dear, I don’t want you anything else—it’s like a man. He—he doesn’t want to take you from me, does he?”
She nestled her face, willy-nilly, between his unresisting hands.
“To take you?” he said distressfully. “His code isn’t mine, Molly. I daresay he’d like to. Like a man, quotha! It’s like a blockish boy, rather, to make a toy of love—a doll out of a goddess. He wouldn’t have done it.”
She uttered a faint cry.
“Then he does want to separate us!”
“How can he, little fool? He doesn’t know you, even.”
“O, you frightened me so! Love your Molly, Cherry!”
He had taught her early to call him “Chéri,” which, on her sweet fruitful lips, had become Cherry; and so her love had christened him. Kent was her county.
“I have shown my reverence for love,” he said sadly, “by desecrating its Host. I have broken open its tabernacle and eaten the sacred bread because it was forbidden. A greedy, blockish boy, Molly.”
She wrung her hands to him.
“What is it? Everything seems wrong. I saw it in your face last night, the moment you and he came in—and me near crazed with joy to hear you at the door again—O, Cherry! after all these months!”
He smoothed the hair from her temples.
“That’s it, dear heart,” he whispered, “after all these months. Well, rest satisfied; I’d not been in Turin twelve hours before I came to you.”
She pouted; gave a little tearful laugh.
“O, a fine coming! to charge me with a tipsy gentleman.”
“Poor Louis-Marie!”
“Is that his name?”
“Saint-Péray to you, Madam, if you please. I’ll tell you of him in a moment. He’d lost his head, but not his legs.”
“La, now! he won’t bless its finding, I’m thinking. I warrant it aches this morning.”
“You shall ask him. He’ll be down anon to greet his landlady.”
“Let him lie on, for me. It’s only you I want; and a tongue to say ten thousand things at once. Where have you come from?”
“Le Prieuré.”
“That takes—let me see—how long?”
“It took me a month.”
“A month!”
“I came on foot; I loitered by the road; I had ten thousand things, not to say, but ponder.”
“Cherry!”
She looked at him amazed. A shadow of some sick foreboding would not leave her heart. She had never yet known him, her “gentleman,” her fond heart’s tyrant, in this strangely sober mood.
“Go on,” she whispered. “Won’t you tell me?”
“What?” he said. “Of my adventures by the way? I had one or two. Once a thunderstorm overtook me near a village. Some children, hurrying for the church, bade me come and help them ring the bells to keep the lightning off. I smiled the poor rogues away—cried, ‘I should attract it rather,’ and went on. The bells were already clapping behind me, when there came a flash and crash. The tower had been struck and every mother’s infant of them killed. The devil fends his own; or perhaps he is as blind as justice. Well, I stayed to see them put in the ground, and—I cried a little, Molly.”
“Cry now with me, darling. O, Cherry! the poor dears!”
“Another time I passed some peasants preparing to fill in an old well. A little whimper came out of its depths while I watched. ‘Only a cur, Monsieur, that has fallen in,’ they said. They were going to shovel the earth atop of him without a care. I asked them to lower me, and they did, and presently up we came together. He set his teeth in my hand, the little weasel; and I called him Belette for it. See the mark here. It was only because his leg was broken, and I hurt it. There was a bone-setter in the village, an old toothless Hecuba—a lady you’ve not heard of. She could mend bone, if she couldn’t graft it on her withered gums. Belette was made whole by her, and I waited out his cure. When he was done with, the rascal came along with me, eager to show that he had adopted me for ever. He’s thy rival for my love, Mollinda.”
“And I’ll kiss him for it, if that’s all.”
He did not answer immediately.
“Is it not all?” she urged; and, staring at him, sank away, sitting on her heels.
“No, it’s not all,” she whispered, gulping. “There’s more you’ve got to say. Don’t I understand. It’s the old lord has got a match for you, and I’m to go. Speak out, and be a man. Is he here? Did he come with you?”
“He’s dead.”
Cartouche rose, and went hurriedly up and down, a dozen times in silence, before he stopped and spoke to her again where she crouched upon the floor.
“He’s dead, and so my wages end.”
She put out groping hands to find his feet. He heard her sobbing and whispering:—
“I’ll work for you.”
Then he knelt, and touched her, and spoke to her very tenderly.
“Not so bad as that. You shall work for me, indeed; but not with these soft hands. Listen, while I tell you how he died; and why God killed him; and what is the moral of it all to me.”
She turned her ear to him, one arm, like the rustic Griselda she was, bent across her weeping face. But his first words seemed to catch her breath back, and fill out her bosom, holding her dumb from speech and tears alike.
“There was a lady in Le Prieuré called the lily, because she was so sweet and pure of heart. She was of an ancient family, but poor—the child of a proud, cold man. She had pledged her love, unknown to her father, to a stranger of modest means, a soul as good and pious as she. But the man was weak of purpose, and delayed to confess himself to the parent. Then came di Rocco, doating, and asked her hand of her father; and she was given to him on condition that he settled everything he possessed on her, and that the marriage was to be one in form only for the space of a year. And the poor child was forced in a moment into complying, and she became di Rocco’s wife, and a broken-hearted woman. She sought refuge, defying her father, now that it was done, in a little auberge on the hills; and thither her husband, scorning his vow, followed her secretly one stormy night in order to force her to his will. But Heaven intervened before he could accomplish his vile purpose, and he went astray on the ice, and fell into a crevasse and was killed.”
He paused. The girl did not speak for a minute. Her mind was still loitering on the road to that tragic conclusion. Di Rocco’s death was only of relative interest to her. Her first word showed it.
“Is she—prettier—than I am?”
Cartouche smiled.
“She is only an angel, ma mie; but eligible—eligible! Have you forgotten her lover?”
She clasped her hands, looking for the first time breathlessly into his face.
“I know now. It’s him there—upstairs.”
“Yes,” he said: “It’s him.”
“Why doesn’t he go and claim her, then? She’s better worth the winning than she was.”
“Soberly, my girl! It’s early yet to rake over the weeds. Besides, there are broken faiths to mend. He took his jilting hardly. An angel himself, she’d been his goddess. He’s down in the mud at present. These sanctities are always for extremes. There’s no middle course for them. The devil’s the gentleman for moderation; that’s why he’s so convincing. We must nurse up this friend of mine between us—restore him to reason. She’s better worth his winning, says you. No doubt: but, by the token, miles further removed from a poor suitor.”
“That’s nothing, if they love.”
She spoke it impulsively; and stopped.
“Poor!” she whispered suddenly. “What’s his ruin to that she’s brought upon my sweetheart! So the old man’s gone and left you nothing.”
“No fault of hers, child. Don’t breathe or think it. Yes, he had to put his house in order; settle old scores before he asked new grace. He parted with me the day before his death. He’d already sent Bonito packing—you know him, the old hungry dog. He got his master’s curse for wages: I, at least, got a handful of jewels. Why should I love his memory? Yet, though he died justly, it was not good that anyone should kill my father.”
Even then, she hardly seemed to listen. But she saw her lover moved beyond her knowledge of him, and put her arms about his neck, and entreated him passionately:—
“Don’t throw me over, Cherry—not altogether. Give me enough to live on, and keep good—for her sake—there, I’ll say it—if she’s shown you what a woman ought to be.”
He sat on the floor beside her, and took her in his arms, pressing her wet cheek against his own.
“You shall understand,” he said, much moved. “This lady’s for my friend—we’ll bring him round to see it by-and-by, we two. But the lesson of her whiteness is for all. Am I Cartouche to own it? I only know she’s taught me to respect something I never respected before. To pay to keep you good, my darling? With a fortune, if I had it. That’s it. Shall we be good together, sweetest—never, never, never sin again? You’ve loved me one way: will you love me better this—own the wrong and renounce it? show—”
“Not her. I’ve been wicked. I’ll pray to God to forgive me. He’s a man.”
His face twinkled.
“Hush!” he said. “Our act of grace shall be to mend this tragedy with love. That’s why I brought him here. You shall teach him the way. Don’t you see, Molly—can’t you see all that that means?”
She clung to him with a burst of tears.
“O, I’ll be good, Cherry! And perhaps—perhaps, some day, you’ll want to learn from me.”
He heard a sound overhead, and, rising, lifted her to her feet.
“Dry your eyes,” he whispered; “he’s coming. He mustn’t find a wet-blanketing hostess.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll get his coffee. Let me go—O, let me go! I shall be right in a minute”—and she went hurriedly from the room.
A minute later Louis-Marie came down, his haggard face bright-eyed out of fever. But there was an expression on it such as one might imagine in the face of a convicted felon summoned to hear his reprieve.
“Such dreams, Gaston,” he said, crossing the room eagerly: “but the dream of all was the dream that went to bed and woke with me. I thought I had saved a life, Gaston.”
“That was no dream, my friend.”
Louis-Marie came and fondled him, smiling all the while. His actions were marked by a curious haste and agitation, as if in everything he were restless to hurry conclusions, to spurn the passing moment, to urge on the hands of time.
“Wasn’t it?” he said. “What a meeting, dear Gaston, my brother! Who would have dreamt of that! And the occasion! We are always saving lives between us, it seems—you more than I, I expect. Isn’t it strange? I know so little about you, and you my blood-brother. Do you always lodge here when you come to Turin?”
“Generally.”
“Your life, your habits, your story are all a shadow to me. I—”
Cartouche interrupted him.
“My story is told in a word, Louis-Marie. Would you like to hear it?”
“Indeed I should.”
“Very well. It won’t edify you, I’m afraid; but it’s quite right you should know the truth about me. Innocent souls like you are apt to take too much on trust—to judge all men by their pure self-standards. It’s time, perhaps, you grew up, Louis-Marie.”
“Nay, Gaston,” muttered his friend. “If to be grown up is to be wicked, I’m a giant already. Prove yourself what you like—the worse, the nearer to me.”
Trix laughed.
“Listen to this, then,” he said. “I was born in Mayfair, in London—during the absence of my mother. That was why she would never acknowledge me. My father always believed that I was her son by him; but, as he was not her husband, she had no difficulty in proving an alibi. He may have been mistaken, for he had many irons in the fire; but the upshot of it for me was that, as no one would claim me, I was pronounced a changeling and put out to nurse. From that state di Rocco rescued me—for reasons of his own. I was very like him, for one—an extraordinary coincidence. He brought me up, and treated me as if I were his son. Paternity always came easy to him. I grew up under his tutelage. The result is what you see; but, in case its expression lacks eloquence, I may tell you that I am a very accomplished person—a scholar, a wit, a capital swordsman, a rakehell and a star-gazer. There is no folly of which I am incapable but love; no hypocrisy but self-sacrifice. I owe the world nothing but myself: and that is a debt I pay back, with interest, on each occasion of its demand. Enfin, I am your very faithful servant, M. Louis.”
He rose and bowed, with a grace of mockery. His feeling towards this blood-brother of his was always mixed of devotion and contempt. He could resist one no more than the other. But he loved the poor fool: that sentiment predominated.
Saint-Péray looked down and away from him, his jaw a little fallen. At that moment his hostess entered, carrying his bread and coffee. He raised his head and saw her, uttered an exclamation, and then, like a lost child who recognises a friend in a crowd, suddenly burst into tears.
No, it was certain that Louis-Marie would never ascend Mont Blanc.