Chapter Six.
Cartouche Interrupts.
When Ibbetson had left her, Bice hastened to that part of the wall where was the niche to which she was carrying the flowers. A little terrace ran along by means of which she could reach and open the grating, and take out the vase with its withered blossoms. She carried it to a small fountain close by, filled it with clear water, and put in her flaming lilies. Then she took it back to the niche, closed the grating, came down from the terrace, and after a moment’s consideration walked slowly towards the place where she had heard the voices.
Kitty and Mr Trent were standing under a large acacia tree, and turned quickly round to greet her. Kitty poured out her questions—Where had she been? what had she been doing? did she know they had been looking for her?
“Mamma told me,” said Bice carelessly; “surely you two might have amused each other for an hour. And it would not have required any superhuman sagacity, Kitty, to guess that I had gone for the flowers.”
“If you are cross, I shall go to the terrace and leave Oliver to his fate,” said Kitty, laughing and escaping.
The two who were left looked at each other as she ran off—he with open admiration, she with a tremulous quiver of her lips not lost upon him. Oliver Trent was a man of about five and thirty, tall and thin, with dead, dusty-coloured hair; his features were not ill-looking, but, as Bice had remarked, hard in their lines, and he spoke with a slow sweetness curiously out of keeping with his face. He now slowly repeated—
“To my fate. I wonder if Kitty quite understood what happy prognostications lay in her words? Yes, this is the fate I have been looking forward to all these weary weeks; and I began to think, Bice, that you delighted in cruelty, or else had learned the woman’s art of tantalising. Come and sit here in the shade.”
She followed him more readily than he, perhaps, expected, for he half-suspected that she was bent upon avoiding a tête-à-tête; but in actual truth she had scarcely heard his words, or at any rate had not taken in their meaning. Another thought possessed her. As they sat down she turned and looked steadily into his face.
“What is Clive’s exact position?” she said sharply.
He hesitated. She repeated the question.
“You had better not ask for particulars, for they can only give you pain.”
“I can bear pain.”
“Yes,” he said, glancing at her hand, “such pain as that; but there are other and worse pangs, and from those, Bice, I shall always endeavour to shield you. Clive has been doing his utmost to ruin himself and make you all miserable; I am trying to save him. It is a hard task, and unless you trust me and follow my directions, I tell you honestly that I have no chance of success.”
“You threaten us with shadows,” said the girl moodily.
“Oh, Bice,” he said—and his voice became yet softer and more slow—“you are not yourself to-day. What has changed you? I have often found you hasty, wilful, unreasonable, but never before ungenerous. Is it I that threaten? Is it not rather I that at any cost am trying to keep the danger a shadow? Once let me remove my hand, and it will be real and tangible enough—”
She could not endure such a reproach; it seemed horrible to her, and also true. She stretched out her hand to him with a quick gesture of kindness.
“You have been our very good friend, I know, Oliver,” she said, looking at him gratefully, “and I ought to be content and not tease you. Only tell me, is it absolutely necessary there should be this secrecy?”
“Absolutely. I am obliged to use the greatest caution.”
“Out here, how would it be possible for us to interfere with any plans?”
He began to be vexed with her unusual importunity, but allowed no trace of his vexation to appear in his face or voice. On the contrary, he said with a smile, “Excuse me; if there were no other way, I should feel by no means certain what you and Kitty might not write to Clive. No. Complete ignorance is the safest state of things for you; for of one thing I am sure, nature never intended either of you for a conspirator.”
Bice turned and looked at him thoughtfully. He felt uneasy, for her eyes seemed to be asking whether it was for that he was intended. He said more abruptly than he had yet spoken—
“Do you not care any longer that Clive should be saved?”
“Do I not care!”
The sudden fire which leapt into her eyes answered him. He had at last touched the right string.
“You have considered it thoroughly?” he said, speaking deliberately again. “I particularly desire that you should do so. If this act of Clive’s is brought home to him, it means dishonour and disgrace; I cannot hide it from you. Your mother is very fond of Clive, she will never hold up her head again. As for Kitty, you know best whether she will care or not. It may not be so bad for you, it is true, because you bear another name.”
Bice interrupted him in a low passionate voice. “You shall not say that!”
“You refuse to separate yourself from them? Well, then, for you too the shame and the disgrace. And poor Clive, so young, so foolish, not wicked, but led away. He writes to you all, I know, as if nothing had happened, but if you could see him as I do, you would long to save him!”
“You must save him.”
The girl’s voice was choked. Oliver leant forward and looked at her.
“At all costs?”
“At all costs.”
“And by all means, whether right or wrong?”
“Whether right or wrong.”
He leant forward still further and forced her to look at him.
“I will,” he said slowly. “For you.”
They were silent after that for a time. He felt that he had won a victory, but her moods were so changeful that he was afraid of endangering it by trying to push his advantage further. And yet he wanted more. More than ever since this other man, of whom he felt insanely jealous, had appeared on the scene. At this moment, when her feelings were all stirred and thrilled, he knew that skilfully led she would be capable of any self-sacrifice, that it would even have an attraction for her. Once get her to make a definite promise, and he felt certain the generosity of her nature would keep her to it. And once his—he looked at her beautiful face, grew pale, and set his teeth—he would make her love him: his work should not be left half done.
Now, if ever, was his time.
He said presently, in a pained and gloomy tone—“I could almost envy Clive.”
“Why?” she said, looking round quickly.
“Clive, and Kitty, and your mother. Do you ever think of anyone else? Would you care if I—we—the rest of the world were swept away in a common deluge? Would it matter to you in the least, supposing you four were safe?”
“You are very unjust, Oliver,” she said in a low tone, and he saw tears shining in her eyes.
“I think not,” he said gently. “So long as I can save Clive you are quite willing for me to run any risk—and the risk is great, remember. I am a chancery barrister, working upwards with quite my share of difficulties. Suppose my attempt fails—yes, it is always necessary to look what one undertakes in the face.”
“Clive would be ruined,” she said as he paused. Then, as he did not speak, she looked at him again and saw him smiling. “What do you mean?” she said half angrily.
“What did I tell you?” he answered. “It was not of Clive that I was speaking at that moment but of myself. I should be ruined as effectually as Clive, but that, of course, is not worth mentioning.” She started from her seat as if she had been stung, but he laid his hand on her arm and drew her down again beside him. “Wait a moment, Bice,” he said in a changed voice, “wait and listen; I have a right at least to ask so much from you. I am not saying this to you because I have any dream of retracting my promise; it is given, and there is an end of scruple. It is dangerous, perhaps wrong; I shall have to use means that I detest, and mix myself up with scoundrels who will be on the look-out to catch me tripping—never mind. I have promised. Only understand what it is you ask me to do, and understand also that I do it for you—solely and entirely for you. What is Clive to me? Nothing. Do you suppose that one’s cousins are so dear that one would risk reputation and honour for them. But what are you to me? Everything. Everything in the whole world, and you know it, you know it. Have you no word for me? Am I to sacrifice everything and to have nothing in return? Bice, Bice, can’t you give anything for Clive?”
She was looking straight before her, the colour had faded out of her face; his voice, dangerously low and sweet, sounded in her ears. All her life long she never forgot that moment. Long afterwards, if she shut her eyes, she could see the great leaves of the trees of Paradise swaying backwards and forwards against the deep blue sky; a vine, golden in the sunshine; a pumpkin with its odd parti-coloured gourds flinging itself down a steep bank; a clump of lilac crocuses breaking through the grass—her eyes wandered over them all while he waited for her answer. She knew quite well what it must be; her poor little generous untaught heart had felt all the time he was speaking that he had a right so to speak, that it was not for her to hold back. Never before had it seemed to her so terrible—Oliver would have been bitterly disappointed had he known—but not for that could she hesitate. She hated herself because the sacrifice seemed so unendurable. Why did she not speak? What years were dragging slowly by while he waited, holding her hand in his—waited, waited!
There was a rush, a swoop. A great black dog came tearing through the bushes, springing upon Bice. Old Andrea followed, breathless and panting.
“He is a demon, that dog of the English signore,” he cried, “and he has lost his master. Signorina, for pity’s sake take him where he is, or he will knock the house down. He has been in my kitchen and gobbled up a heap of amoretti, and broken half the eggs, and upset the milk, and before that he had frightened the padrona out of her senses. Che, che, che, we cannot have such doings! Signorina, where is his master?”
“He is gone,” said Bice, jumping up; “he has been gone a long time. What shall we do, Andrea? Can one of the men take him into Florence?”
“Would he go?—the signorina should rather ask that question. Otherwise the cart from the podere is here, going in with a couple of pigs that have been sold. But the creature would not follow.”
“Then we must tie him to the back.”
“Già, già, that is it, the signorina has always got her ideas.” Old Andrea, who had recovered his good humour, stood shaking his broad shoulders and pointing at Cartouche, who kept close to Beatrice. “And he really is clever, too, he knows he has found a friend. Come along, come along, signorina mia.”
“You will not go?” said Oliver, holding her back. He was furious with the dog, with the old cook, and with the knowledge that Ibbetson had already been there that morning. One other moment and the girl would have been his, he had known it, and now—
It seemed to Bice as if a weight had fallen from her, she caught her hand from his and stood breathing quickly.
“Yes, I must go,” she said, almost angrily. “Don’t you see they cannot manage him by themselves. Come, Cartouche; come, Andrea.”
She ran towards the house, the dog followed her, leaping and barking. Oliver turned sharply away and went to the Virgin’s niche. He wanted to see if she had really taken fresh flowers there. Had Ibbetson helped her; was she playing a double game? He stood for some time thinking, his head bent and a frown on his face; and while he was there, a cart came jolting down the white and stony road. Behind it, and dragged unwillingly along, was poor Cartouche on his way to his home. Bice was walking by his side to console him for a little part of the road by encouraging words. She did not see Oliver Trent, nor hear his exclamation of rage, but she looked like a creature who had escaped to freedom, and had thrown off a burden. He was half disposed to follow her, but something seemed to warn him that the spell was broken, and must be re-woven before he could succeed.
Perhaps people do not very often—except, indeed, in books—lay those elaborate schemes, those widely-spread toils of villainy, which are supposed to belong to a bad man’s career. It is probable that they open out to them almost as unexpectedly as to us, time and opportunity seeming to throw themselves on their side. Certainly Trent, who was growing more involved week by week, had laid no such plans when he took his first step; nay, more, he was made very uneasy by a clear perception of the dangers to which he was exposing himself as he went on. He would gladly have pulled himself up before, and looked forward almost feverishly to laying down the net which he told himself he was forced to weave, with the full intention of never again engaging in such rash work. He had no dislike of Clive to make it easier to do him a mischief, though he salved his conscience in the curious short-sighted way in which that work is often done, telling himself that the means he was obliged to use would not really injure the young man, although they might seem to cloud his prospects for a time:—nay, he sometimes almost succeeded in assuring himself that they were likely to work for Clive’s advantage, giving him just the lesson he needed, and putting him through a wholesome time of trial. But as this view of himself as a kind of abstract justice was one which no effort could keep always in the position where he would have liked to find it, he was subject to fits of impatience, wishing very heartily that he could reach his end and wash his hands of all this miserable business, which both irritated and annoyed him. When he had reached the villa he had confidently looked forward to being free in a week. And already he was feeling as if his acts were turning into scourges. Yet he had no thought of giving up Bice; the more he saw her, the more determined he grew to make her his wife, and when he was in her company all compunctions for Clive and fears for himself vanished in reckless resolution.