Chapter Twenty Three.
Too Late.
“And my poor painting,” said Armstrong, smiling, as Valentina, cloaked and ready to go once more, still clung to him—“not a step farther;” and he unlocked the door.
“No,” she whispered softly, “not a step farther,” and she looked up through her thick veil in his saddened face. “Let fate be kind to us and the work go on for years and years.”
“Until I am old and grey.”
“And I a bent, withered creature,” she whispered. “No; you will never be old and grey in my eyes, but always the same as now. Can you say that to me?”
She laid her hands upon his shoulders, and forced him back, so that she could gaze searchingly in his eyes.
“Yes!” he cried passionately. “You know only too well.”
“Yes, I know it well,” she murmured. “And it shall go on and on. What is the praise of a fickle public worth? It is your masterpiece, but what of that? It might bring you fame and fortune, but it has already brought us love that can know no change.”
“That can know no change, dearest. Now you must go, or you will be breaking faith with me again to-morrow, and you have made me so that I cannot live without you now.”
“Yes, once more,” she sighed, “I must go—back to my gilded prison.”
She clung to him fondly again, and her voice was very soft and tender, as she rested her brow upon his breast.
“When will you say to me—‘Stay; go back no more?’ Armstrong, this life is killing me. End all the miserable trickery and subterfuge. That woman is planning and plotting to take my place. Once it roused up all my pride and hatred; now all that is past. Let him sue for his divorce if Lady Grayson wishes, and then I shall have my revenge: for he will laugh in her false, deceitful face. Marry her?—Not he.—What is it, dearest?”
He had started back, and as she raised her eyes, she saw that he was looking angrily at something behind her.
She turned slowly, calling upon herself for readiness to meet the face of her husband, as she believed, but it was Cornel standing just within the doorway, flushed, proud, and stern, and she uttered a sigh of relief.
“A domani, signore,” she said quietly to Armstrong, and then turned and took a step toward the door, but Cornel raised her hand, and the proud, haughty-looking figure shrank back a step or two in surprise.
“Stop!” said Cornel firmly; and she closed the door behind. “I wish to speak to you both.”
“Cornel!” cried Armstrong, in a low and excited voice, “this is madness. For Heaven’s sake, go. Have you no delicacy—no shame?”
“You ask me that!” she cried scornfully; and he shrank from her indignant eyes. “Man, where is your own delicacy?—woman, where is your shame? I claim the right—in the name of truth and honour—to come and upbraid you both.”
Valentina made a gesture with her hands, and turned to Armstrong to say in French—
“What does the strange lady mean?”
Cornel took a step forward, with her eyes flashing.
“Mean, Lady Dellatoria!” she cried loudly; and her rival started and drew herself up.
“Cornel! Silence, for Heaven’s sake.”
“You invoke Heaven?” she cried; and she turned from him with a look of disgust and scorn. “It means,” she cried, “that this is no scene in amateur theatricals played by your set, but real life. You are face to face with me—the woman whose love you have outraged, whose life you have wrecked as well as his. And for what? Your pastime for a few weeks.”
“No!” said Valentina, throwing back her head and seizing Armstrong’s hand, to hold it tightly between her own. “He is mine—my love for ever. I told you, when you came and defied me, that I could laugh at your girlish efforts to separate us—for it was fate. There, you have tracked me down and seen; now go.”
“Yes, I have tracked you down and seen, and you throw off your contemptible disguise—this paltry cloaking and veiling. Armstrong, is this the type of the boasted British woman—an example to the world?”
“Cornel, silence! Pray go!”
“Not yet. I have a right here in the home of my affianced husband. I find him being dragged to ruin and despair by a heartless creature, devoid of love as she is of shame.”
“You lie!” cried Valentina fiercely, as she made a quick movement toward Cornel, but Armstrong held her back. “Yes,” she said, calming as quickly as she had flashed into rage; “poor child, she is half mad with misery and disappointment. I will not speak—but pity.”
Cornel held out her hands to Armstrong as Lady Dellatoria half turned away and linked her fingers upon his arm.
“Before it is too late, Armstrong,” said Cornel softly. “No word of reproach shall ever come from those who love you.”
He shook his head.
“Listen, dear,” she whispered, but her voice thrilled both. “I come to you a weak woman, but strong in my armour of love and truth. They tell me it is lowering, weak, and contemptible—that I am utterly lost to a woman’s sense of dignity and shame. But they do not know my love for you—yes, my love for you, I say it even before this creature, who cannot know the depth and truth of a true woman’s love—I come, I say, once again to plead, to beg of you to come. Let her go back to her own people; come you to yours, before it is too late.”
“It is too late, girl,” said Valentina gently. “I forgive you all you have said in ignorance that my love is stronger, more womanly, than yours. In Heaven’s sight this is my husband now. We sorrow for you, and can pity. But go now, and leave us in peace. I tell you again—it is too late.”
“Yes,” said Cornel, with a piteous sigh. “God forgive you, Armstrong! I am beaten.” Then, as if inspired, her eyes flashed, and the colour left her cheeks, and she cried wildly, “Yes, it is too late.” There were voices on the stairs coming plainly to them, for Cornel had in ignorance left the door unlatched, so that the sounds were uninterrupted.
“He’s got a lady with him.”
“I know, girl. Stand aside. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, sir; Count Delly-tory, sir.”
“Yes!” cried Cornel, with a wail of horror; “her husband. Then it is indeed too late.”
“No!” cried Valentina fiercely; “your opportunity for revenge.”
She drew back, and stood there erect and proud, with defiance flashing through her thick veil as the Conte entered, quickly followed by Lady Grayson. A heavy, gold-topped, ebony stick was in his hand, his lips were compressed, and it was plain to see in his pallid face and dilated nostrils that he was struggling with suppressed passion.
He was making straight for Armstrong when his eyes fell upon Cornel, who stood now white and calm, as if ready to interpose. Then he looked sharply at the cloaked and veiled figure just on the artist’s right.
He stopped in astonishment, confused, and as if the supply of vital force which had urged him on had suddenly been checked.
It was Armstrong’s opportunity. A few carelessly spoken, contemptuous utterances as to the meaning of this intrusion and the like would have sufficed to send the Conte back, mortified, and in utter ignorance, to vent his rage upon Lady Grayson, who, in her malignant desire to cast down her dearest confidante and friend from her throne, had brought him on there to be a witness of one of his wife’s secret meetings with her lover, such as she had vowed to him were taking place. But Armstrong, in utter scorn of all subterfuge, stood there manly and ready to meet the man in full defiance, come what might.
A terrible silence followed, of moments that felt to all like hours, while each waited for others to speak.
It was Cornel’s opportunity too, to bring her rival to her knees and sweep her for ever from her path, and Valentina felt it as she stood there with her teeth clenched and face convulsed behind the thick veil. For, after all, in spite of her bravery and readiness to defy the man whose name she bore, she was a woman still, and instinctively shrank from the dénouement, knowing as she did that a terrible scene must follow; and another later, in spite of English laws, for it was an Italian pitted against a man who would dare all.
But Cornel remained silent, and Lady Grayson scanned all in turn, ending by fixing her eyes upon the great canvas whose back was toward them where they stood.
“I—I beg pardon—some mistake,” stammered the Conte. “I did not know that—Curse you,” he whispered to Lady Grayson, and relapsing in his excitement into broken English, “You make me with you silly cock-bull tale a fool.”
Armstrong still made no movement, said no word, but Lady Grayson read him as if he were an open page laid before her, and her eyes twinkled and flashed.
The keen-witted American girl saw it too, and with all her gentleness and love, she possessed the quick perception and readiness of a people born in a clearer air and warmer clime. In those moments, with all her hatred and scorn for the woman who was the blight upon her life, she shrank in all the tenderness of her nature from seeing her humbled to the very dust. More; she grasped the horror of the situation; how that, beneath the weak flippancy of the man of fashion, there smouldered the hot passions of his countrymen—passions which, once roused, are as hot and destructive as the lava of their great volcano. She saw in imagination, blows, and Armstrong injuring or injured, either being too horrible to be borne. Lastly, she grasped Lady Grayson’s plan.
“It is for his sake,” she said to herself, “not for hers;” and as, apparently prompted by a whisper from Lady Grayson, the blood flushed into the Conte’s face again and he fixed his eyes on his wife, Cornel stepped forward and held out her hand.
“Good-bye, Mr Dale,” she said gently; “you have business with this lady and gentleman; we shall see you another time. Come, signora.”
She turned and held out her hand to Valentina, proving herself a better actress, for there was a smile upon her lip, and she bent forward as if whispering something through the veil, the only utterances being the words—
“Don’t hesitate. Quick!”
Valentina stared at her—half stunned. Then, as if moved by a stronger will than her own, she laid one white hand on Cornel’s arm, and, just bending her head to Armstrong, they moved slowly toward the door.
It was the left hand, and ungloved.
Cornel saw it, and could not restrain a start.
The hand was ungloved, and upon it sparkled several rings—for there had been no need of late to keep up the disguise so closely—and one of those rings was of plain gold.
They were nearly at the door, the Conte drawing back on one side to let them pass, Lady Grayson on the other, Armstrong still motionless, and feeling as if a hand were compressing his throat, while Cornel, as she went on with the set smile upon her lip, felt that the hand upon her arm trembled, and fancied she heard a sob.
“It is for his sake,” she said to herself, “for his sake;” and the next minute they would have been outside the door, when, with one quick movement, Lady Grayson reached out her hand, and snatched the veil from Valentina’s face.
The Conte uttered a cry of rage, and made a dash at her, but she avoided him, and sprang toward Armstrong, who caught her to his breast, but so as to have his right hand at liberty.
But it was not free in time, for the Conte, with a cry of rage, swung round, and brought down the heavy ebony stick with a sickening crash upon the artist’s head, then caught Valentina from him as he fell inert and senseless upon the floor.
“Well, am I such a simple idiot and fool?” said Lady Grayson in a quick whisper.
“Yes; to talk now,” was the fierce reply. “Help me; get her away, or I shall kill him.”
Without another word she went to Valentina’s side, and between them they dragged her, sick at heart, trembling, and half fainting, out of the studio and down the stairs to Lady Grayson’s carriage, which was waiting at the door.
“Is anything the matter, miss? Can I do anything?” said a voice.
Cornel looked up from where she was kneeling on one of the rugs with Armstrong’s head in her lap, and saw that the grimy little face of Keren-Happuch was peering in at the door.
Cornel looked at her wildly for a few moments, and then, in a low hoarse voice, whispered—
“Yes: quick, water!” Then, with a piteous sigh, “Oh, the blood—the blood! Help!—quick, quick! He is dying. Oh, my love, my love, that it should come to this!”