Part 23 (1/2)

'Some rough boys threw stones at her, and her arm is badly cut. Edward will take her on to Genzano, find a doctor and then bring her home.--We'll go on first, and send back another carriage for them. You angel, Reggie, to think of that horse!'

'But I thought of it for you, Eleanor,' said the young man, looking in distress at the delicate woman for whom he had so frank and constant an affection. 'Miss Foster's as strong as Samson!--or ought to be. What follies has she been up to?'

'_Please_, Reggie--hold your tongue! You shall talk as much nonsense as you please when once we have started the poor child off.'

And Eleanor too ran forward. Manisty had just put together a rough mounting block from some timber in the farm-building. Meanwhile the other two ladies had been helpful and kind. Mrs. Elliott had wrapped a white Chudda shawl round Lucy's s.h.i.+vering frame. A flask containing some brandy had been extracted from Mr. Neal's pocket, more handkerchiefs and a better sling found for the arm. Finally Lucy, all her New England pride outraged by the fuss that was being made about her, must needs submit to be almost lifted on the horse by Manisty and Mr. Brooklyn. When she found herself in the saddle, she looked round bewildered. 'But this must have been meant for Mrs. Burgoyne! Oh how tired she will be!'

'Don't trouble yourself about me! I am as fresh as paint,' said Eleanor's laughing voice beside her.

'Eleanor! will you take them all on ahead?' said Manisty impatiently; 'we shall have to lead her carefully to avoid rough places.'

Eleanor carried off the rest of the party. Manisty established himself at Lucy's side. The man from Genzano led the horse.

After a quarter of an hour's walking, mixed with the give and take of explanations on both sides as to the confusion of the afternoon, Eleanor paused to recover breath an instant on a rising ground. Looking back, she saw through the blue hazes of the evening the two distant figures--the white form on the horse, the protecting nearness of the man.

She stifled a moan, drawn deep from founts of covetous and pa.s.sionate agony. Then she turned and hurried up the stony path with an energy, a useless haste that evoked loud protests from Reggie Brooklyn. Eleanor did not answer him. There was beating within her veins a violence that appalled herself. Whither was she going? What change had already pa.s.sed on all the gentle tendernesses and humanities of her being?

Meanwhile Lucy was reviving in the cool freshness of the evening air. She seemed to be travelling through a world of opal colour, arched by skies of pale green, melting into rose above, and daffodil gold below. All about her, blue and purple shadows were rising, like waves interfused with moonlight, flooding over the land. Where did the lake end and the sh.o.r.e begin? All was drowned in the same dim wash of blue--the olives and figs, the reddish earth, the white of the cherries, the pale pink of the almonds.

In front the lights of Genzano gleamed upon the tall cliff. But in this lonely path all was silence and woody fragrance; the honeysuckles threw breaths across their path; tall orchises, white and stately, broke here and there from the darkness of the banks. In spite of pain and weakness her senses seemed to be flooded with beauty. A strange peace and docility overcame her.

'You are better?' said Manisty's voice beside her. The tones of it were grave and musical; they expressed an enwrapping kindness, a 'human softness' that still further moved her.

'So much better! The bleeding has almost stopped. I--I suppose it would have been better, if I had waited for you?--if I had not ventured on those paths alone?'

There was in her scrupulous mind a great penitence about the whole matter.

How much trouble she was giving!--how her imprudence had spoilt the little festa! And poor Mrs. Burgoyne!--forced to walk up this long, long way.

'Yes--perhaps it would have been better'--said Manisty. 'One never quite knows about this population. After all, for an Italian lady to walk about some English country lanes alone, might not be quite safe--and one ruffian is enough. But the point is--we should not have left you.'

She was too feeble to protest. Manisty spoke to the man leading the horse, bidding him draw on one side, so as to avoid a stony bit of path. Then the reins fell from her stiff right hand, which seemed to be still trembling with cold. Instantly Manisty gathered them up, and replaced them in the chill fingers. As he did so he realised with a curious pleasure that the hand and wrist, though not small, were still beautiful, with a fine shapely strength.

Presently, as they mounted the steep ascent towards the Sforza Cesarini woods, he made her rest half way.

'How those stones must have jarred you!'--he said frowning, as he turned the horse, so that she sat easily, without strain.

'No! It was nothing. Oh--glorious!'

For she found herself looking towards the woods of the south-eastern ridge of the lake, over which the moon had now fully risen. The lake was half shade, half light; the fleecy forests on the breast of Monte Cavo rose soft as a cloud into the infinite blue of the night-heaven. Below, a silver shaft struck the fisherman's hut beside the sh.o.r.e, where, deep in the water's breast, lie the wrecked s.h.i.+ps of Caligula,--the treasure s.h.i.+ps--whereof for seventy generations the peasants of Nemi have gone dreaming.

As they pa.s.sed the hut,--half an hour before--Manisty had drawn her attention, in the dim light, to the great beams from the side of the nearer s.h.i.+p, which had been recently recovered by the divers, and were lying at the water's edge. And he had told her,--with a kindling eye--how he himself, within the last few months, had seen fresh trophies recovered from the water,--a bronze Medusa above all, fiercely lovely, the work of a most n.o.ble and most pa.s.sionate art, not Greek though taught by Greece, fresh, full-blooded, and strong, the art of the Empire in its eagle-youth.

'Who destroyed the s.h.i.+ps, and why?' he said, as they paused, looking down upon the lake. 'There is not a shred of evidence. One can only dream. They were a madman's whim; incredibly rich in marble, and metal, and terra-cotta, paid for, no doubt, from the sweat and blood of this country-side. Then the young monster who built and furnished them was murdered on the Palatine. Can't you see the rush of an avenging mob down this steep lane?--the havoc and the blows--the peasants hacking at the statues and the bronzes--loading their ox-carts perhaps with the plunder--and finally letting in the lake upon the wreck! Well!--somehow like that it must have happened. The lake swallowed them; and, in spite of all the efforts of the Renaissance people, who sent down divers, the lake has kept them, substantially, till now. Not a line about them in any known doc.u.ment! History knows nothing. But the peasants handed down the story from father to son. Not a fisherman on this lake, for eighteen hundred years, but has tried to reach the s.h.i.+ps. They all believed--they still believe--that they hold incredible treasures. But the lake is jealous--they lie deep!'

Lucy bent forward, peering into the blue darkness of the lake, trying to see with his eyes, to catch the same ghostly signals from the past. The romance of the story and the moment, Manisty's low, rus.h.i.+ng speech, the sparkle of his poet's look--the girl's fancy yielded to the spell of them; her breath came quick and soft. Through all their outer difference, Manisty suddenly felt the response of her temperament to his. It was delightful to be there with her--delightful to be talking to her.

'I was on the sh.o.r.e,' he continued, 'watching the divers at work, on the day they drew up the Medusa. I helped the man who drew her up to clean the slime and mud from them, and the vixen glared at me all the time, as though she thirsted to take vengeance upon us all. She had had time to think about it,--for she sank perhaps ten years after the Crucifixion,--while Mary still lived in the house of John!'

His voice dropped to the note of reverie, and a thrill pa.s.sed through Lucy. He turned the horse's head towards Genzano, and they journeyed on in silence. She indeed was too weak for many words; but enwrapped as it were by the influences around her,--of the place, the evening beauty, the personality of the man beside her,--she seemed to be pa.s.sing through a many-coloured dream, of which the interest and the pleasure never ceased.