Chapter Thirteen.
A Discovery in Ebury Street.
The soft, musical Tuscan tongue, the language which Gemma spoke always with her lover, is full of quaint sayings and wise proverbs. The assertion that “L’amore della donna è come il vino di Champagni; se non si beve subito, ricade in fondo al calice” is a daily maxim of those light-hearted, happy, indolent dwellers north and south of Arno’s Valley, from grey old Lucca, with her crumbling city gates and ponderous walls, across the mountains, and plains to where the high towers of Siena stand out clear-cut like porcelain against the fiery blaze of sunset. Nearly every language has an almost similar proverb—a proverb which is true indeed, but, like many another equally wise, is little heeded.
When Armytage and Gemma had arrived in London, he had not been a little surprised at the address where she stated some friends of hers resided. While still in the train, before she reached London, she took from her purse a soiled and carefully treasured piece of paper, whereon was written, “76, Bridge Avenue, Hammersmith”; and to this house they drove, after depositing their heavy baggage in the cloakroom. They found it a poor, wretched thoroughfare off King Street, and in the wet evening it looked grey, depressing, and unutterably miserable after the brightness of Italy. Suddenly the cab pulled up before the house indicated—a small two-storied one—but it was evident that the person they sought no longer lived there, for a board was up announcing that the house was to let. Armytage, after knocking at the door and obtaining no response, rapped at the neighbouring house, and inquired whether they were aware of the address of Mr Nenci, who had left. From the good woman who answered his inquiries he obtained the interesting fact that, owing to non-payment of the weekly rent, the landlord had a month ago seized the goods, and the foreigner, who had resided there some six months, had disappeared, and, being deeply in debt among the neighbouring small shops, had conveniently forgotten to leave his address.
“Was Mr Nenci married?” asked Charlie Armytage, determined to obtain all the information he could.
“Yes, sir,” the woman answered. “His wife was a black-faced, scowling Italian, who each time she passed me looked as though she’d like to stick a knife into me. And all because I one day complained of ’em throwing a lot of rubbish over into my garden. My husban’, ’e says ’e’d go in and talk to ’em, but I persuaded him not to. Them foreigners don’t have any manners. And you should just have seen the state they left the ’ouse in! Somethin’ awful, the lan’lord says.”
“Then you haven’t the slightest idea where they’ve gone?”
“No, sir. Back to their own country, I hope, for London’s better off without such rubbish.”