Part 64 (1/2)
”There was a good deal of talk,” said Mary.
”A rum fellow, that Cliffe! A man at the club told me last week it is believed he has been fighting for these Bosnian rebels for months.
Shocking bad form I call it. If the Turks catch him, they'll string him up. And quite right, too. What's he got to do with other people's quarrels?”
”If the Turks will be such brutes--”
”Nonsense, my dear! Don't you believe any of this radical stuff. The Turks are awfully fine fellows--fight like bull-dogs. And as for the 'atrocities,' they make them up in London. Oh, of course, what Cliffe wants is notoriety--we all know that. Well, I'm going out to see if I can find another English paper. Beastly climate!”
But as Sir Richard turned again to the window, he was met by a burst of suns.h.i.+ne, which hit him gayly in the face like a child's impertinence.
He grumbled something unintelligible as Mary put him into his Inverness cape, took hat and stick, and departed.
Mary sat still beside the writing-table, her hands crossed on her lap, her eyes absently bent upon them.
She was thinking of the serenata. She had followed it with an acquaintance from the hotel, and she had seen not only Kitty and Madame d'Estrees, but also--the solitary man in the heavy cloak. She knew quite well that Cliffe was in Venice; though, true to her secretive temper, she had not mentioned the fact to her father.
Of course he was in Venice on Kitty's account. It would be too absurd to suppose that he was here by mere coincidence. Mary believed that nothing but the intervention of Cliffe's mighty kinsman from the north had saved the situation the year before. Kitty would certainly have betrayed her husband but for the _force majeure_ arrayed against her. And now the magnate who had played Providence slumbered in the family vault. He had pa.s.sed away in the spring, full of years and honors, leaving Cliffe some money. The path was clear. As for the escapade in the Balkans, Geoffrey was, of course, tired of it. A sensational book, hurried out to meet the public appet.i.te for horrors--and the pursuance of his intrigue with Lady Kitty Ashe--Mary was calmly certain that these were now his objects. He was, no doubt, writing his book and meeting Kitty where he could. Ashe would soon have to go home. And then! As if that girl Margaret French could stop it!
Well, William had only got his deserts! But as her thoughts pa.s.sed from Kitty or Cliffe to William Ashe, their quality changed. Hatred and bitterness, scorn or wounded vanity, pa.s.sed into something gentler. She fell into recollections of Ashe as he had appeared on that bygone afternoon in May when he came back triumphant from his election, with the world before him. If he had never seen Kitty Bristol!--
”I should have made him a good wife,” she said to herself. ”_I_ should have known how to be proud of him.”
And there emerged also the tragic consciousness that if the fates had given him to her she might have been another woman--taught by happiness, by love, by motherhood.
It was that little, heartless creature who had s.n.a.t.c.hed them both from her--William and Geoffrey Cliffe--the higher and the lower--the man who might have enn.o.bled her--and the man, half charlatan, half genius, whom she might have served and raised, by her fortune and her abilities. Her life might have been so full, so interesting! And it was Kitty that had made it flat, and cold, and futureless.
Poor William! Had he really liked her, in those boy-and-girl days? She dreamed over their old cousinly relations--over the presents he had sometimes given her.
Then a thought, like a burning arrow, pierced her. Her hands locked, straining one against the other. If this intrigue were indeed renewed--if Geoffrey succeeded in tempting Kitty from her husband--why then--then--
She s.h.i.+vered before the images that were pa.s.sing through her mind, and, rising, she put away her letters and rang for the waiter, to order dinner.
”Where shall we go?” said Kitty, languidly, putting down the French novel she was reading.
”Mr. Ashe suggested San Lazzaro.” Margaret looked up from her writing as Kitty moved towards her. ”The rain seems to have all cleared off.”
”Well, I'm sure it doesn't matter where,” said Kitty, and was turning away; but Margaret caught her hand and caressed it.
”Naughty Kitty! why this sea air can't put some more color into your cheeks I don't understand.”
”I'm _not_ pale!” cried Kitty, pouting. ”Margaret, you do croak about me so! If you say any more I'll go and rouge till you'll be ashamed to go out with me--there! Where's William?”
William opened the door as she spoke, the _Gazetta di Venezia_ in one hand and a telegram in the other.
”Something for you, darling,” he said, holding it out to Kitty. ”Shall I open it?”
”Oh no!” said Kitty, hastily. ”Give it me. It's from my Paris woman.”