Chapter Twenty Five.
Father Tiber.
The carnival had ended and Lent begun with days of heavy and unusual rain. People who were bent upon sight-seeing were obliged to fall back upon the galleries and studios, and these were so dark that the general gloom seemed to have also affected them. One day, five or six people were wandering through Vertunni’s beautiful rooms. There are hangings of strange colours, damasks, tapestries, draperies over the doors, priceless bits of glass or bronze, out of the midst of which rich and soft surroundings the pictures glow. Sometimes it is Italy—the gloom of the Pontine marshes, the light of Paestum. Sometimes you lose yourself in a sea-mist were a boat floats between sky and earth; sometimes meet with Egypt’s dusky radiance, or the sweep of the sand on the desert...
Mrs Leyton was in her element, she went on from room to room, dragging her husband and the Peningtons after her. She wished Phillis to marry Mr Penington, but it would have annoyed her very much if she had absorbed him, which was quite another thing. And Phillis preferred to linger behind with Bice, who wandered restlessly from picture to picture. She touched one of the broad and deeply carved black frames with a slender finger, and went on with what she had been saying:—
“Did you ever know what it was to have a ton-weight lifted off you? But you needn’t answer. To get my sort of ton you must pull it on yourself, and you couldn’t do that. You would never have more than a pound at most. Only now the feeling is so delightful that it is almost worth all the past unhappiness to have got it. Everything seems different, even you!”
Phillis was looking at her curiously. Was not some hope added to this feeling of relief? The girl, who had told Phillis all her story, went on:—
“But do you know that I have been afraid to ask questions. How has it all been managed? Who can have set us free? Poor mamma never could raise the money, that I know, and therefore somebody has done it, and I dare not make her tell me. What do you think?”
What could Phillis say? No doubt rested in her own mind as to who it was had paid the debt, and set the girl free from the last links of that miserable bondage.
Jack had told her something of the scene which had taken place at the Palazzo Capponi, and had found it impossible to restrain a certain satisfaction and triumph over its conclusion. Phillis held her own opinion that it was he to whom the finishing touch was due, but it was not an opinion which she would have suggested to Bice for worlds. She turned her back to look at some Indian hanging of wonderful texture, hoping that she might not be asked that question again. But Bice intended to have an answer.
“Why don’t you speak?” she said quickly. “What are you thinking about? Not?”
She paused as if expecting some continuation of this “not.” Phillis, however, took no notice. If Bice guessed she could not help it, but she would not suggest the name which seemed to her ridiculously palpable. There was a little pause in which they could hear Mrs Leyton’s laugh in the next room. When Bice began to speak again it was in a slow strained voice.
“Did you really suppose it was Mr Ibbetson?” she demanded, “and did you really think that I should take it from him? I tell you I know as well as if he stood before us, and swore it, that he would not have dared to offer me such an insult, and sooner than accept it I would—I would almost marry Oliver Trent.”
Phillis was astonished. Perhaps she had not credited the girl with so much delicacy of feeling, perhaps she thought that of all men, Jack was the one from whom Bice would have been the most ready to accept an obligation.
“I beg your pardon,” she said with great meekness. “It really was Mr Ibbetson of whom I had thought, because he had already shown great interest—”
She stopped. Bice finished the sentence very calmly.
“In Clive, yes. He was very good to Clive. Very good indeed.”
Phillis was staring at her. “Clive! He didn’t know Clive when he went to England. Don’t you know that he went on purpose to see him? Has he never so much as told you? He went to see him, but he went on your account.”
While she spoke the girl’s face had flushed a soft and delicate colour, but she still kept her eyes fixed upon Phillis. And when Phillis had ended she said:—“No, I don’t know it, and I don’t believe it. If Mr Ibbetson went on our account, it was because you asked him. Did you not ask him?”
“I told him,” Phillis said, a little bewildered at this view of the matter which had never before presented itself to her. Bice looked at her wistfully and smiled.
“Yes, you told him. Are you blind, Phillis? Don’t you see that the one thing which Mr Ibbetson cares about is to do something to please you?”
It was Phillis’s turn to colour, and she would have attempted some disclaimer, but that the rest of the party came back to the room, and Mrs Leyton made a prompt attack upon them.
“You are disgracefully idle, you two! Come, acknowledge that I am the most consistent sight-seer of our party. However much I protest beforehand, when I am dragged to anything I do it.”
“I did not imagine that you were ever dragged anywhere, Mrs Leyton,” said Mr Penington, smiling. “I should have called you a very cheerful conductor. However, I agree with you that it would be a pity for Miss Grey to miss those Egyptian pictures. Won’t you come and see them?” he said, addressing her.
“Not now, thank you,” said Phillis hurriedly. He looked disappointed, and she was sorry; but Bice’s words were in her ears, she could scarcely think of anything else. Vague doubts had haunted her since her last interview with Jack; she had been really ashamed to own their presence to herself, but now to have them put into words by another brought a delicious thrill of happiness.
“Well, good people,” said Mrs Leyton, “if this is finished, will you be kind enough to inform me what we are to do with ourselves? It is so early in the day that hours upon hours remain on my conscience. Make a suggestion, everybody, please, and then we can choose.”
“I must go home,” said Bice. “Suppose you come with me?”
“Suppose we go and look at the Tiber?” suggested Mr Penington. “Do you know that there are serious fears of an inundation? At any rate I can assure you that it is worth seeing. The old stream swings along with a force absolutely amazing, and if you are not afraid of the rain, it would not take long to get as far as the Ripetta. There you would get a first-rate view.”
He addressed Mrs Leyton, but he looked at Phillis. Captain Leyton, who was peering into a picture, turned round briskly.
“That’s the thing to do, of course. Why didn’t we think of it? Come along.”
“Well, perhaps it is nice,” said his wife doubtfully. “But we must call at the hotel and get waterproofs.”
“Nothing easier.”
“And I won’t be led into any danger, mind.”
Bice still persisted that she must go back, indeed she was sufficiently Italian to think with horror of walking in the rain. At the foot of the stairs young Moroni was waiting, rather to everybody’s astonishment; but he only said simply that he had heard the Signorina Capponi was here, and had come to see if he could be of any use.
“What does he expect to do?” Bice whispered to Phillis. But she was smiling.
The four ladies drove to the Alemagna, while the gentlemen walked, and then Bice went home alone, and the others fitted themselves out for their little expedition. Just as they came down, ready to start, Jack Ibbetson, with Cartouche at his heels, turned into the entrance passage.
“The Tiber is rising,” he said eagerly. “West tells me the sight out by the Ponte Molle is very striking. It struck me some of you might like to go there.”
“Well, yes,” said Captain Leyton, pulling his whiskers. “We were going to the Ripetta, but I don’t know—suppose we make a bolder push. What do you say, Miss Penington?”
“I think it would be much nicer,” she said with great emphasis.
“Then we’ll do it.”
“You’ll come?” said Jack, turning quickly to Phillis.
It seemed to her afterwards as if she had been swept away by some impetuous force in his voice or manner. Was it the vibration of those words which she still heard, “Are you so blind? Don’t you see that the one thing he cares for is to please you?” Was it true—at last?
But the arrangement did not at all please Mrs Leyton. She said in an injured tone:—
“I think you are excessively disagreeable. You know I can’t walk all that way.”
“We can drive some distance.”
“Oh, I daresay! I should have miles to tramp. And I had made up my mind to go to the Ripetta. Mr Penington, do you intend to desert me, also?” What could he say? He said “No,” with a good deal of disappointment in the word. For the last few days it had seemed impossible to get any special sight or hearing of Phillis, and he had made this opportunity with the hope of speaking some words on which it seemed to him that the happiness of his life depended. It was hard to lose it. But Mrs Leyton had no intention of letting him go with them.
“No, I thought not,” she said cheerfully. “And I’m not sure that it isn’t a good plan to separate. One can see things better. We’ll meet by and by, and tell our experiences, if there is anything left of you, after this mad proceeding. But I predict we shall have the best of it.”
“That’s all right, then,” said Captain Leyton cheerfully. “Penington will take you, wife, and we four will start at once. Are you ready, good people?—thick boots, wraps, umbrellas?”
They would not consent so much as to be driven to the Porta del Popolo, and, indeed, the rain was no longer falling with the persistent force of the last few days. The sky was still heavy with leaden-looking clouds, but they were thinner, and in some places so far rent asunder that a glimmering brightness showed behind them. Coming along the Babuino was a picturesque file of donkeys of various ages, led by bronzed men in long blue cloaks; a contadina, also in a blue dress, and a little child, walked by their side. Presently they met other processions; goats, ox-carts piled high with household goods; the poor oxen came stumbling and sliding along over the slippery stones, the people looked dejected, they were straggling in from the campagna, escaping from the threatened inundation. Jack spoke to one woman and asked a question. “Mariaccia, che tempo!” she exclaimed, holding up her hands. “Already much has been swept away. If it goes on, we shall be ruined.” The Via Flaminia was full of these fugitives, but they could not tell them much.
And as yet they saw nothing of the river.
Ordinarily, indeed, they must have reached the Ponte Molle itself before they would catch a glimpse of the yellow waters, and the tears sprang into Phillis’s eyes as she remembered how about a month before she had driven out there with Miss Cartwright, and had stopped on the bridge to look at the loveliness of the view. Then, under a blue sky, even Tiber himself had caught all sorts of fair and delicate reflections; that indescribable golden brown which takes the place of green in a Roman landscape, lay on the banks and on the stretching campagna; a little watch-tower rose on a low hill above the river, and all along the line of distance ran a line of mountains flushed with tender lights of rosy lilac, and crowned with snow. It was very unlike that day. For now the mountains were blotted out by the darkness of grey mist, and if for a moment this was lifted up, it was only a shadowy gloom which grew out of the greyness; and before they reached the bridge, they could see the angry and tawny waters rolling towards them, at the very top of the confining banks—nay, here and there they had already forced a gap and spread themselves in a turbid sheet over the short grass. People were standing on the bridge, pointing; but not many, the greater number had something to do, some danger to avert. For those who looked, the sight could hardly be forgotten. A fierce purpose seemed to possess the dark mass of rushing water which rolled with incredible swiftness beneath the bridge, and every now and then there swirled past a scarcely distinguishable heap of something which the old river had already seized upon for his prey—branches of trees, bundles of maize, a struggling sheep, the spoil of some little farm, the torn ribs of a boat. Something in the vagueness of these objects, in the suddenness with which they were swept into and out of sight, in the triumphant might of the swollen river, had a horrible fascination for the lookers-on. What might not meet their eye next? They bent over the parapet and looked down; Cartouche sprang upon it and whined uneasily.
“Some houses must have been washed away, fry the last thing was a chair,” said Miss Penington.
“I can’t stand this,” said Jack, straightening himself. “Whatever came down, we couldn’t possibly do any good here. I shall go further down the river. There are one or two places where if anything living were swept, it might be caught and held. At any rate it won’t look quite so desperate as it does from the bridge. Leyton, you will see them home.”
“No, no,” said Phillis with great eagerness. “That is quite impossible. Do you suppose that we should let you go alone? Of course we will all go. I shall be giddy if I look at this much longer.”
And though she was generally the most considerate of companions, she did not once ask Miss Penington her wishes in the matter. Captain Leyton looked doubtful.
“I don’t know what sort of a path there may be,” he said.
“But I do,” said Jack with a happy smile. “If you’ll really come, I can take you quite safely; the rain has stopped. Will you and Miss Penington go in front and I’ll direct you.”
“I should have thought the shortest plan would have been for you to go in front yourself,” said Captain Leyton; but he fell into Jack’s arrangement, being the most good-natured of men.
“You have thick shoes, I hope?” said Jack to Phillis, as they followed.
“Look!” And she held up a pretty foot well protected. Phillis’s spirits were rising every moment, in spite of the wild scene all about them. The path was very wet and rough; once or twice he put out his hand to help her. Perhaps the little action brought back to her mind another rough road when he had helped, not her, but Bice, for she said suddenly, “I want to ask you a question; but you needn’t answer it unless you like.”
“That is very considerate,” said he smiling.
“Do you know the end of Mrs Masters’s debts?”
“Yes, I do. That is, I know they’ve been paid. Do you expect this to be the end?”
“Oh, well, for the present. But who paid them?” He hesitated. “I don’t believe it’s a secret,” he said presently, “but of course it’s not a thing to be talked about.” Then he suddenly turned and looked down into her face. “Did you really suppose it was I?”
“Why not?” she persisted. “Why not you as well as another?”
“I think I shall avail myself of your means of escape, and refuse to answer the question,” said Jack with gravity. “I can’t afford to lose my one opportunity of being considered a preux chevalier.”
“But, Jack!”
“But, Phillis!”
“Was it really not you?”
He did not answer her for a moment. Their path led them so close to the sweeping current of the river, already brimming over and tearing at the canes which bordered it, that he was seized with a fear that he had been mistaken in the strength of the banks, and had, perhaps, brought his companions into danger. But a short recollection assured him that they were safe. He pointed out an oozy bog to Phillis that she might avoid it, and then said:—
“I don’t think that Miss Capponi shares your misconception.”
“No, she does not,” said Phillis frankly. “But she doesn’t know where the money came from.”
“Does she not?” Jack lifted his eyebrows with a little incredulity. “Then I really think I ought to give you a hint to be used for her special benefit. But it seems to me that the blindness of the world is one of its chief wonders. Why, Phillis, can’t you see that young Moroni would think all he had well thrown away if he could get her?”
“Young Moroni! I fancied that was quite a hopeless devotion.”
“Not so hopeless now, I imagine. He had hard work to bring his father to his way of thinking, then he came here and found Trent to the fore; but now—”
“When did he make you this confidant?” asked Phillis quickly.
“On the day of the great blow up: I acted as interpreter, and then had to hear all his hopes and fears. And I wish him full success.”
Jack had leapt across a little running stream, and held out his hand to Phillis, looking into her eyes as he did so. What did he read there? What new happiness trembled in their brown depths, what deep and tender faithfulness did he discover? Was this the moment at last for which he had longed and hoped?
“Ibbetson! Ibbetson, for Heaven’s sake, what’s that?”
The cry came from Captain Leyton, who was running back and pointing eagerly towards the river. “Where?” shouted Jack, eager in his turn.
“There! Caught by that great tree.”
There is a point where the higher part of the bank juts out a little towards the river. Ordinarily this does not reach or interfere with the course of the water, only breaking into the line of pebbly reaches and of almost a thicket of bushes between them. But now the rage and fulness of the river swept high above bushes and reaches, and rushed along the inner bank which yet formed a barricade to its force, so that this little outpost was exposed to the full fury of the stream. Already it had been so battered and weakened, that more than half had been washed away, but still it formed a little natural breakwater, and, as the current apparently set in its direction, it followed that some of those things, which Tiber had relentlessly wrenched from the land, now and then caught on its point and lingered for perhaps a minute or two before they were again whirled away to their doom. But now a larger object had been driven against it, and was making a more obstinate resistance. A great uprooted tree, tossed wildly along by the turbulent stream, had probably been swept against this barrier with such force as to become partially embedded in it. For the moment it remained there, and its long network of boughs, broken and battered as they were, stretched themselves out across the waters with what looked like despairing efforts against its destroyer. They could not last. The tawny river leapt and foamed, seizing branch and twig, and tearing them off with a violence which was rapidly undermining the little promontory itself, and would soon sweep it and all that clung to it away. Meanwhile the branches caught at other spoil, wisps of poor drowned hay wrapped themselves round them, a contadino’s hat with the gay ribbons all dank and draggled was tossed on to a splintered bough; and Captain Leyton and his companion, watching the strange medley and the signs of ruined homestead which the flood was sweeping down, had seen another object which struck them with horror, and made them cry out to Jack.
For caught in its narrow end by the branches into which it had been jammed, with the other end swung violently from side to side by the yellow surging waves which claimed their prey, was a wooden cradle; and although they could not be sure—owing to the tossing unrest of the waters—whether it was or was not empty, it seemed to them, every now and then, as though they caught sight of a little dark head, a darker shadow under the shadow of the cover. Jack was on the alert in a moment.
“We must get hold of it somehow.”
“If we can,” said Captain Leyton doubtfully. “But think of the force of that current!”
Jack nodded, but by this time was already standing without coat or boots on the spot where the little promontory curved out from the bank.
They all knew something of the danger. At his quietest Tiber is no ordinary river, very rarely do you see a boat upon his surface, and the ferries have ropes stretched across, by which to bear up against the slow but mighty force of the old river.
And now he had done all this mischief higher up, and was within an ace of flooding Rome. What could live in those sweeping and turbulent eddies?
“For Heaven’s sake don’t be so mad, Ibbetson!” said Captain Leyton, laying a hand on his arm. “It’s hopeless to attempt to save the poor little beggar—utterly hopeless! If anything could be done, I wouldn’t say a word, but this is only throwing away life. Don’t, my dear fellow, don’t!”
Miss Penington broke into terrified appeals. Phillis, pale as death, was standing by Jack’s side, looking into his face, but not attempting to dissuade him. Perhaps he did not hear Captain Leyton; he was looking coolly and thoughtfully at the river as if to take in all the chances. A wave dashed up over their feet. Then he suddenly stooped down and kissed Phillis, held her, and gazed into her eyes for a moment. “God bless you, Phillis,” he said. Afterwards he did not look back.
For a few steps he walked along the top of the bank, sinking each instant into its yielding surface, until, as the water swept over it more and more, he let himself down by its inner side, and half swimming, half clinging, gained a little ground, though slowly. This was the easiest part of all, but one danger at least was as great here as elsewhere. Every instant added to the insecurity of the bank. Every moment it seemed almost a miracle that it should be left. So terrific, indeed, was the force of the current that it swept Ibbetson backwards and forwards against it like a battering ram, and these very blows were an additional peril. Still he was able to battle on, those on the bank watching with agonising anxiety; Cartouche running backwards and forwards, whining uneasily, looking in their faces, looking at the water.
“He has reached the tree,” Captain Leyton said in a breathless whisper.
It was the second stage. With it began the worst dangers of all, those of the undercurrents which naturally the bank had checked. He was obliged now to trust altogether to swimming, using the boughs as a support. Without them he must inevitably have been swept away, but their help was of the most frail and treacherous nature—tossed by the waters, swayed to and fro, twisted off and whirled into the centre of the flood, at any moment liable to be altogether detached from the bank, or with it to share a common destruction. Jack did not know it, but his face was bleeding from the twigs which whipped continually against it. Still the cradle was there, so near that it almost seemed to those on shore that he could have reached it, ignorant as they were of the terrible forces against which he was battling, or worst of all, of the feeling each moment that he must be sucked under in a resistless eddy.
Were they moments or hours that passed? Phillis, on the shore, fell down on her knees and held up her hands, but never for an instant did her eyes let go that spot in the yellow waters where he was fighting for life. Presently Captain Leyton drew a long breath, and spoke again.
“He has got the cradle. He is pushing it back.”
Then there was silence, that strained, intense silence, which is almost awful in its weight. Inch by inch, as it were, and only inch by inch, he came towards them, bruised, bleeding, hampered with the cradle. Once or twice it seemed as if he had disappeared. And, at last, just as he reached the point where the bank—by this time yet feebler—began, they heard—with an agony which to Phillis in her helpnessness was like that of death—his cry for help.
That moment Captain Leyton was in the water. How he got there he never knew, but before him there was another friend at least as faithful. Cartouche, at his master’s cry, had plunged in, and, swimming bravely, had seized the cradle and turned back to land. With a tremendous struggle he managed to bring it to the spot where Phillis was standing, disregarding the water which washed up round her, and when she had lifted it out, the brave dog turned round and fought his way again to his master.
Help was indeed needed, for Jack’s failure did not altogether arise from exhaustion, but from, if possible, a more serious cause. His foot had become entangled in some of the small submerged branches, and not having sufficient strength to extricate himself, he could only manage to keep himself afloat by clutching at a bough. But the support was too slender to avail him long, against the dreadful power of the undercurrents, even if the tree itself were not—as would surely be the case in a few minutes—swept down the stream. Captain Leyton, although he had bravely plunged in, was too inexperienced a swimmer to give any help, indeed his own situation was full of danger before he had so much as reached the tree, and only by clutching at some projection in the bank with the despair of a drowning man could he keep his head above water.
But Cartouche? Through the tossing waters the dog, with a faithfulness which never faltered, struggled slowly back to his master. Beaten by the waves, with safety close behind within his reach, he needed no call to keep him resolute to his purpose. To Jack, with the river hissing in his ears, with the angry dash of foam blinding his eyes, the sight of that black and curly head coming steadily towards him seemed to give hope and power once more. As the dog reached him he bent his head down, and Cartouche by a great effort licked his face. Then Jack called all his failing strength together; the tree itself swayed violently, he felt that he was free. Free, but could he reach the shore? The horror of that frightful imprisonment was so strong, that he dared not trust to the help of the branches, and the struggle was almost superhuman. Cartouche swam close to him, swam round him, more than once when he thought he must give up, the gaze of those faithful eyes, the touch of the dog’s body, brought back the hope which had all but deserted him—and now, he had just cleared the roots of the tree, was just venturing in towards the bank, when, caught in some tremendous eddy, the tree swung completely round, and with its bare branches tossing wildly upwards, the old river whirled away its prey in triumph.
A few moments sooner and Jack must have been drawn into the whirlpool. He had just escaped it, was just able to reach Captain Leyton, to give him help, to let the river, more merciful at the last, fling him where even a woman’s hands could succour. The two men were saved; when Jack opened his eyes, the woman he loved was bending over him, her eyes looked into his with an unutterable gladness. God had given him back, and with his life had given him Phillis.
But Cartouche?
He had been a little behind his master; a bough had struck him down as it swept round, a fierce current drew him under, a moment did it all. The faithfulness which never once had failed him, had not failed him now; Jack was safe, but Cartouche had died in the saving.